Classical Music

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    About.com: Classical Music

  • Chopin - Celebrating 200 Years

    7 Feb 2010 | 1:50 pm
    On March 1st 1810, Frederic Chopin was born. (Learn more about Frederic Chopin in this Chopin Profile.) Now, 200 years later, his music is thoroughly studied and widely enjoyed. Concert and recital halls around the world will, no doubt, perform the works of Chopin in celebration of his birth. On March 1st, Carnegie Hall is presenting a piano recital featuring Chopin's music performed by Aglaia Koras (for more information, visit Carnegie Hall). If you know of Chopin concerts in your area, leave a comment and let us know! Chopin - Celebrating 200 Years originally appeared on About.com Classical…

  • 2010 Academy Award Nominees for Best Original Score

    7 Feb 2010 | 1:21 pm
    Not long after the Golden Globes are awarded, the Academy Award nominees are announced to the public. This year, of the five films nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Film Score, two were also nominated for the Academy Award - Michael Giacchino's Up and James Horner's Avatar. See the remaining three 2010 Academy Award Nominees for Best Original Score.2010 Academy Award Nominees for Best Original Score originally appeared on About.com Classical Music on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 21:21:16.Permalink | Comment | Email this

  • 2010 Classical Music Grammy Award Winners

    31 Jan 2010 | 3:08 pm
    The clear winner this year? Picking up three awards for best engineered classical album, best classical album, and best choral performance is Mahler: Symphony No. 8; Adagio From Symphony No. 10, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. Read on for the full list of the 2010 classical music Grammy Award winners. 2010 Classical Music Grammy Award Winners originally appeared on About.com Classical Music on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 23:08:14.Permalink | Comment | Email this

  • Learn about Bizet's Carmen

    24 Jan 2010 | 8:06 am
    This past week, I've been working late in the office. And after most of the office staff go home, I've been turning on Bizet's famous opera, Carmen, rather loudly. Believe it or not, I remember when I first time I heard the Habanera. It was sung by an orange with gerbera daisy eyelashes and mop-top hair on Sesame Street. I have to say, that was one of my favorite short videos from the show. (See the YouTube video clip.) If you're not familiar with Carmen, read the Carmen synopsis. It will fill you in on the story of the opera as well as give you links to YouTube videos of some of its famous…

  • 2010 Golden Globe Winner for Best Original Score

    16 Jan 2010 | 6:57 pm
    The 2010 winner of the Golden Globe for Best Original Score in a Motion Picture is Michael Giacchino's Up. Of the five original film scores nominated, Up was the only soundtrack to tell a coherent story from start to finish. Not only did Up win for Best Original Film Score, it also won Best Animated Feature Film. 2010 Golden Globe Winner for Best Original Score originally appeared on About.com Classical Music on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 02:57:22.Permalink | Comment | Email this
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    NPR: Classical

  • Unearthing Prokofiev: Rare Works Get NYC Debut

    8 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    When it comes to Prokofiev's music, pianist and Yale University professor Boris Berman is the go-to guy. Along with faculty and student musicians, Berman will present newly discovered pieces by the Soviet composer at New York's Zankel Hall on Tuesday night.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Antics And Anguish: Puccini's 'La Boheme'

    4 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    Passion turns into lasting love, but ends with desperate tragedy, in Puccini's beloved La Boheme — maybe the greatest "date opera" in history — in a racy new production from the Washington National Opera.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • The Story of 'La Boheme'

    3 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    New love takes a tragic turn in Puccini's beloved La Boheme.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • 'Cheek To Cheek': The Melody Lingers On

    2 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am
    Top Hat, from 1935, featured Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. But commentator Rob Kapilow says the real star of the movie is Irving Berlin's classic song, "Cheek to Cheek."» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Quartet San Francisco: Brubeck On Strings

    30 Jan 2010 | 11:02 am
    The chamber ensemble earned two Grammy nominations for its 2009 album, which rearranged classic tunes by the jazz composer Dave Brubeck. On the eve of the Grammy Awards, the string quartet visited NPR to play songs like "Blue Rondo a la Turk."» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us
 
 
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    Artsjournal.com: Greg Sandow

  • Help!

    Sandow
    8 Feb 2010 | 1:22 pm
    I love where the solutions idea is taking us. And I'm serious about collecting the responses in a sidebar to the blog, in the "Resources" section on the right. But I'm a little overwhelmed by the work involved. No need to get into a list right now of my many projects, but I'm reaching the limit of what I can reasonably handle. Even though maintaining the "Solutions" page is nothing but simple grunt work. I just don't know if I have time for it.So I'd love to find a volunteer. Would someone like to help, collect the things for the page, maintain the page, and maybe later on collate what's on…

  • Dismaying

    Sandow
    8 Feb 2010 | 7:05 am
    On Saturday afternoon I went to see the Met's streaming Simon Boccanegra in a multiplex in Rockaway, NJ. The audience was old -- dismayingly old. I know I've written quite a bit about the aging audience, but this time I was shocked. This wasn't an audience like the one that shows up in the Knight Foundation's survey of attendance at concerts by an assortment of orchestras -- where there's a mix of ages, even if more than 60% of the people are 55 and over. No, this audience, to judge from appearances, was almost entirely over 60. The theater the opera showed in held nearly 300 people,…

  • Solutions III

    Sandow
    5 Feb 2010 | 10:16 am
    Here's another success story, about new ways to promote what otherwise was a standard (though evidently quite wonderful) classical performance. This was a semi-staged production of Gluck's opera Armide, done by Opera Lafayette in Washington and New York, and reviewed by my wife Anne Midgette in the Washington Post:Opera Lafayette celebrated its 15th anniversary on Monday night with a gesture that, before the fact, seemed almost quixotic. The company, which usually performs in the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater -- seating about 500 -- rented out the Concert Hall, which holds more than 2,000…

  • Solutions II

    Sandow
    5 Feb 2010 | 9:22 am
    I love the reactions to my "Solutions" post. Just as I'd hoped -- people posting comments, telling us about their own solutions, their own new ways of presenting classical music. In Britain, the Netherlands, and the US. Keep them coming!I'll try to feature as many as I can, not just in the sidebar I'll create, but on the blog. Unless/until there are too many, of course, in which case we'll have to figure out another way of getting them attention. Not that too many solutions would be a bad thing!So here's something from Matt Huber, who took my course on the future of classical music at…

  • Solutions

    Sandow
    4 Feb 2010 | 10:03 am
    I think it's time to emphasize solutions on my blog. I've made so many criticisms of the classical music world -- justified criticisms, I don't hesitate to say. And I love the theoretical discussions we get into, which I'm often (but, wonderfully, not at all always) the one to start. But still it's time to move forward, which doesn't mean scrapping the critiques -- which are needed; how else will classical music institutions ever change? -- or the discussions. Alongside these things, though, we need solutions, things people are doing to change the ways that classical music functions. These…
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    ArtsJournal: Slipped Disc

  • Last composer standing - more shocks and spills

    Slipped disc
    5 Feb 2010 | 4:21 am
    Two more publishers, Faber Music and Universal Edition, have just submitted their most performed works of the century's first decade, and you won't believe what they are. UE, the benchmark label of modernism, has lost many of its big names - Boulez, Berio, Birtwistle, Stockhausen - to silence, mortality or other labels. The company is, as they say, under reconstruction. Only four names appear in its top ten below. Its biggest performer over the decade was Arvo Pärt's Lamentate (2002), a homage for piano and orchestra to Anish Kapoor and his sculpture 'Marsyas'. The work has…

  • So who took an axe to your piano?

    Slipped disc
    5 Feb 2010 | 2:17 am
    A friend who is writing a play about a parent who resents his child's musical talent wonders if there is any known instance of an adult actually destroying an instrument because he or she cannot bear the child moving in an uncontrollable direction. I've racked my brain and can't think of one. There are instances of self-harm among musicians who feel technically inadequate - Schumann, the most famous - but can anyone call to mind an enraged parent smashing a violin against a wall, or taking a sledgehammer to the piano? I got pretty close to the edge when one of my daughters transcribed…

  • Promises, promises... and a prospect of Bliss

    Slipped disc
    4 Feb 2010 | 8:43 am
    Three publishers in London and New York are working day and night to supply me with audited figures of their most performed 21st century works in response to yesterday's post. Or so they swear. I will pass the information on as soon as it hits my mailbox. Meanwhile, I see that Brett Dean's opera of Peter Carey's novel Bliss is going to hit the boards next month in Sydney and Melbourne, and in Hamburg at the end of September. Bliss the novel is an ad-man's view of the afterlife, glimpsed during a near-fatal heart attack. How this makes an opera for the big stage…

  • Barenboim jumps down and bows out

    Slipped disc
    3 Feb 2010 | 9:50 am
    In the final act of his London Beethoven-Schoenberg cycle, Daniel Barenboim took applause on stage with the orchestra for his Strauss polka encore and then bounded downstairs to the Clore Ballroom where hundreds of people had watched the concert free on a large screen. After four nights of intensive music making to a sell-out crowd, Barenboim could not wait apparently to get to the invisible audience, the non-payers, the future potential. Not many conductors can be bothered to do more than conduct. Barenboim, in his late 60s, has realised that a concert no longer has to…

  • Last composer standing - who is really the most performed?

    Slipped disc
    3 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    Three months ago I kicked off a public conversation here as to which living composers are most likely to last the test of time. You can read the results here. The discussion, which spread into several languages, prompted soul searching and stock-taking at music publishers. One of the leaders, Boosey & Hawkes, has just sent me a list of works of the past decade that achieved the greatest number of performances. The top ten are not what I expected. To avoid giving you a quick fix, I'll start from the foot up. At number 10 is Karl Jenkins' Stabat Mater with 57 performances. I once…
 
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    ArtsJournal.com: PostClassic

  • Internalizing Absurdity

    PostClassic
    8 Feb 2010 | 4:06 pm
    My CD of The Planets has arrived. One friend has already received the copy he ordered directly from Meyer Media. You can hear some excerpts there, and I've left two movements up on my web site as teasers: Venus and Uranus. And I thought I'd brag a little about what I did in Uranus, one of my favorite movements.Uranus, in astrology, is the planet of individuality and unexpected events. When Uranus hits your chart, strange and unpredicted things happen to you, indicating that your life has become so mired in habit that it no longer reflects who you are, and - uncomfortable as it may be -…

  • Erasing the Timeline

    PostClassic
    7 Feb 2010 | 8:30 am
    Thus spake Bob Ashley:  We have recently - about fifty years ago - come upon a new idea in thinking about music, but I think it is not even approached in theory. This new idea does not use the timeline score.... By timeline music I mean music having any number of parts, a piano score or an orchestra score, that are coordinated by bar lines. This music must, by definition, be "linear."... Curiously, the most famous proponents - for Europeans and Asians as well as Americans - of a new kind of music among American composers, John Cage and Morton Feldman, could not escape from the timeline…

  • How to Read

    PostClassic
    6 Feb 2010 | 6:40 am
    Being of an age, and begging the indulgence of my seniors among my readers, I'm going to step into professorial mode for a moment and give a little lecture on reading comprehension. I suppressed a few negative responses I received to the recent excerpt I posted from Bob Ashley's new book, both out of respect for Ashley and because they didn't really engage what he said. Perhaps the fact that it was his writing being reacted to and not my own gave me an opportunity for a little more objective view into the reflexes of blog reading. Two major things struck me about Ashley's passage that I…

  • Saturn, Bringer of Delay

    PostClassic
    4 Feb 2010 | 6:59 pm
    About a year ago I wrote that my suite The Planets would receive its full world premiere with the Relache ensemble in May of 2009. By May I was announcing that it would be September, and the performance was postponed to October and then November, and finally to February 6, 2010. Today, due to a threat of a huge two-day blizzard hitting Philadelphia tomorrow, the premiere was once again postponed, to February 20, at the Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia, 22nd and Spruce Streets, 8 PM. I am told this time the piece will be performed no matter what the conditions. The good news is…

  • The Curse of the Recital

    PostClassic
    3 Feb 2010 | 8:23 am
    The immediate future of my blog may well be excerpts from MusikTexte's new volume of Robert Ashley's writings, Outside of Time: Ideas about Music. Damn, he's a great writer. This one's about the conservative reaction that followed the demise of the ONCE festivals in 1968:Recitals are a curse. Forget for the moment the history of how they came into being. Recitals are a curse. They make the musician into an entertainer, rated, say, on a scale of ten: Ashley = 1; Michael Jackson = 10. They make the audience into a consumer, requiring the equivalent of a restaurant guide: should I go to hear…
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    Chamber Music Today

  • Quatuor Ebène Play as Though They Were a Fifth Person, or an Entire World

    DSM
    30 Jan 2010 | 4:39 am
    S    ie spielen, als ob sie eine fünfte Person wurden.” [The quartet plays as though they were a fifth person.]  —  Ensemble—Magazin für Kammermusik, JUN-2007.O r, alternatively, when I listen to Quatuor Ebène perform Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor, it makes me think that they play as though the quartet were not a human person at all but instead were Nature herself.    [50-sec clip, Quatuor Ebène, Debussy, String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, III, ‘Andantino’, mm. 16-27, 1.6MB MP3]T he quartet’s love of jazz and…

  • Tallis Scholars, Notes on Remembrances, Riding

    DSM
    11 Dec 2009 | 2:39 am
    T    he oxymoron ‘aural image’ highlights the special nature of musical ‘exemplarity’ and notational representation. Notated music examples are doubly distant from the aural phenomena that they represent: the notation stands for sound, but, excised and framed as example, points back to a presumed whole that it represents (synechdoche) and also forward from the new discourse of which it becomes a part... In moving from an analogical mode to an iconic one, the example itself becomes exemplar—inducing an imitative realization on the part of the…

  • Berliner Philharmoniker: Schoenberg’s ‘Accompaniment’, Op. 34

    DSM
    14 Nov 2009 | 1:52 am
    Schoenberg discursively plays ‘chamber pingpong’ in 1930H    ow words are understood is not told by words alone. How music is understood is not told by music alone. [How films are understood is not told by film alone.]”  —  Arnold Schoenberg quote.T    hough originality is inseparable from personality, there exists also a kind of originality which does not derive from profound personality. Products of such artists are often distinguished by uniqueness that resembles true originality… Certainly there was inventiveness at work when the striking…

  • Rational Exuberance: The Joyous Athleticism of St. Lawrence String Quartet

    DSM
    8 Nov 2009 | 4:57 am
    P    lay every concert like it’s your last; every phrase like it’s the most important thing you’ve ever said... Remember that the only reason you’re there is to make people cry and sweat and shiver, and give them that incredible sense of creation happening before your eyes [ears]. That’s the [only] reason to play. Otherwise there’s no point.”  —  Geoff Nuttall, violinist, SLSQ.T  he St Lawrence String Quartet performance in Kansas City’s Folly Theater last night, as part of the Friends of Chamber Music’s 2009-10 season, was superb.Haydn:…

  • Perfect Halloween Music: The Aesthetic Realism of Josquin Desprez’s ‘Mille regretz’

    DSM
    30 Oct 2009 | 2:20 am
    S ingers in brown or black, in an austere chamber, cold beyond the capacity of their clothing to keep them warm. F aded Renaissance landscape with fields now harvested and frost well on the pumpkin...    [50-sec clip, Paul Hillier & Hilliard Ensemble, Josquin Desprez, ‘Mille regretz’, 1.6MB MP3]T he singers’ gestures are Brueghel-like—some threading their way in the foreground and others in the distance. Denuded woods; hunting; dogs; countertenor; pensive magpies. V alley of ponds, river meandering through it abjectly. Steeply-roofed houses and…
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    Adaptistration

  • Adaptistration: In Reverse

    Drew McManus
    9 Feb 2010 | 3:30 am
    Kim Witman of the Wolf Trap Opera Company has organized a cross-blog event for today’s announcement of the WTOC 2010 season by doing guest blog posts and interviews in a few places across the blogosphere. Kim contributed a wonderful opera oriented essay during the 2007 Take A Friend To the Orchestra Opera initiative and her guest post today is a wonderful evolution of that idea… Kim Pensinger Witman Director, Wolf Trap Opera & Classical Programming Thanks to Drew for the guest post opportunity! In the spirit of his wonderful blog, I write today about how Wolf Trap Opera bucks some…

  • Things That Make You Go Buh!?! Honolulu

    Drew McManus
    8 Feb 2010 | 3:30 am
    On Friday, 2/5/2010 Hawaii Public Radio aired an interview conducted by Noe Tanigawa to catch up on the current status of the bankrupt Honolulu Symphony Orchestra (HSO). The 29:35 segment featured excerpts from separate conversations with HSO Executive Director Majken Mechling and HSO tympanist and musicians’ representative Steve Dinion. Tanigawa did an excellent job at not only bringing out new details since the HSO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 12/18/2009 (more) but she managed to uncover two items of interest supporting why the HSO might be better off filing Chapter 7… Point…

  • “It Is Time To Stop Being The Victim”

    Drew McManus
    5 Feb 2010 | 3:30 am
    Today’s headline is a line from Ron Spigelman’s 1/18/2010 blog post titled Adjusting the Seasonings in Salt Lake! – Time to Make a Play! In the article, Spigelman asserts that orchestras need to move past the self perception that the business must rely exclusively on handouts dictated solely by economic conditions. This is a particularly useful concept in today’s economic downturn as it is far too easy for nonprofit arts managers to forget just how much impact (real and/or potential) they have throughout their respective community… Orchestras are an important cog in a…

  • A Sneak Peek At TAFTO 2010 Contributors

    Drew McManus
    4 Feb 2010 | 3:30 am
    Take A Friend To The Orchestra (TAFTO) 2010 is only two months away and in order to give orchestras interested in putting together a TAFTO oriented event something to work with, I wanted to announce the first round of confirmed contributors. Lynn Harrell; renowned cellist and author of the weblog There’s Always Room For Cello. Christopher O’Riley; artist, pianist, media personality, and host of From The Top. Elizabeth Lunday; freelance writer, journalist, and author of Secret Lives of Great Composers Brian Wise; WNYC producer and freelance music journalist. Marc van Bree;…

  • 20 Hours Per Week

    Drew McManus
    3 Feb 2010 | 3:30 am
    One of the points that came up throughout last week’s American Orchestras Summit was the “musicians only have to work 20 hours per week” comment leveraged by Cleveland Orchestra’s management during their recent labor strife. By and large, the response among participants was it only served a self defeating purpose and it is high time to put the old rhetoric out to pasture. Frankly, it’s a ridiculous statement, right on par with “all nonprofit managers are just hacks who couldn’t make it in the for profit world”… Thankfully, Cleveland Orchestra…
 
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    Classical Convert

  • Trivial composer facts

    Me
    9 Feb 2010 | 6:27 am
    I mean trivial composer-facts, not trivial-composer facts. As I’ve been updating the beginner’s pages I’ve found all kinds of (fairly) interesting little pieces of trivia. For example: Haydn had his head stolen for 150 years Mozart’s full name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart Mendelssohn’s symphonies were composed in the order: 1, 2, 5, 4 ,3 Dvorak’s opus numberings are even more confusing Mahler only composed about 20 pieces.

  • Listening Post

    Me
    3 Feb 2010 | 8:48 pm
    Recently I’ve been listening to Copland and Bocolm, both on a bet that I’d (against my will) enjoy modern American composers. Well that’s not entirely true, since I already enjoy John Adams. Really it was about not liking Copland. Until very recently I stereotyped all of Copland’s music as part of one big circus and/or Western soundtrack. Well it turns out that isn’t true (somewhat expected revelation thanks to this CD). I’m going to write more about this soon, but in the last few days I got sidetracked by accidentally discovering a rather different piece…

  • Losing your head

    Me
    1 Feb 2010 | 8:10 pm
    Oh wow. This last year of graduate school is running me into the ground! Weekends have become just like every other day, except I don’t go in until noon. I have found some time to work on updating all of the “beginners guide” stuff on this site — which is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I’m not doing it incrementally though, it’s all gonna change at once. While doing this I’ve discovered all kinds of little tidbits. For example, do you know the one about Haydn’s head? Apparently he was the victim of head-robbery (a dangerous…

  • Things I learned from the Cleveland Orchestra strike

    Me
    20 Jan 2010 | 7:53 pm
    As you might have heard, if you’re the highbrow type who pays attention to the Arts column (or if you just live in Cleveland — that’s not to say you couldn’t be both) the Cleveland orchestra was on strike for about ten hours this week. The two most striking (haha) things I’m getting from this episode are: The median pay for members of the orchestra is over $140,000. They get several times more paid vacation a year (10 weeks) than I do. I’m not saying they shouldn’t get pissy over a pay cut. In fact, I’d love to redistribute some less deserving…

  • One of the first CD player reviews

    Me
    17 Jan 2010 | 9:20 pm
    Audiophile wank has spewed from the mouths of reviewers for many years (I’d love to see just how far back this goes — did the press ever talk about the luscious high-end on the first wax cylinders?). For my first exhibit I present this review of the first Sony CD player, from 1983. IN DIGITAL! Featuring all of your favorite vague adjectives: … the sound was so opulently gorgeous it almost defied belief! It was a total incarnation of the perfectionist’s wildest dreams: rich, velvety, airy, awesome, liquid, yet incredibly detailed. There were none of the analog…
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  • Double Bar

    Steve Hicken
    8 Feb 2010 | 4:19 pm
    I finished the first draft of my Percussion Concerto today. I'll let it stew for a couple of weeks or so, then run through it once or twice to touch things up. I anticipate delivering it to John Parks in early April, in anticipation of a fall premiere.More regular blogging and reveiewing should resume soon.

  • David Rakowski, Études, Vol. 3

    Steve Hicken
    20 Jan 2010 | 3:25 pm
    CD review, Sequenza21.

  • John Cage: Late Works

    Steve Hicken
    12 Jan 2010 | 5:38 pm
    Audio DVD review, Sequenza21.

  • EC101

    Steve Hicken
    11 Dec 2009 | 7:18 am
    Today is Elliott Carter's 101st birthday. To commemorate this day and what this composer's music has meant to me, here's a link back to a series of posts I wrote last year on the occasion of the composer's 100th.

  • In the long run,

    Steve Hicken
    15 Nov 2009 | 12:15 pm
    we're all dead. (John Maynard Keynes)But for some of us, our music will live on. Norman Lebrecht wants to know whose music (of composers living today) will be played 50 years from now. There have been responses at Mr. Lebreacht's blog and from other bloggers. If you are surprised that the leading vote getters are of a more-or-less minimalist/not-Modern bent, you haven't been reading about concert
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    NewMusicBox

  • Sounds Heard: Phyllis Chen—UnCaged Toy Piano

    8 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    By Frank J. OteriPhyllis Chen's debut CD, Uncaged Toy Piano, mixes old and new solo pieces and works featuring toy piano in combination with a CD player, a toy boombox (cute), a music box, a frying pan, and bowls; not quite the kitchen sink, but close enough.

  • Kitten on the Keys

    4 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    By Dan Visconti A cat on your lap, or better on your keyboard, is one of the best things that a composer could ask for!

  • Charting the Future: Is It the End of the Top Ten?

    3 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    By Colin HolterAre classical music listeners ready to cut loose from the tyranny of the compact disc?

  • Sounds Heard: Tyshawn Sorey—Koan

    2 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    By Trevor Hunter As a drummer, Tyshawn Sorey is beguiling to an extreme: in his work with Iyer, Lehman, and others, his tight, complex, shuffling beats are accomplished not only at hypersonic speeds, but with an incredible musicality as well. Compositionally, however, Sorey's own music seems to exist on a whole other planet from what he plays as a sideman.

  • Stamp of Approval

    2 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    By Frank J. OteriLast week a postal clerk asked me if I was interested in purchasing an Ella Fitzgerald CD which was issued by the USPS as part of a promotion around their Great Singers series of stamps.
 
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    Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise

  • Listen To This

    Alex Ross
    31 Jan 2010 | 7:57 am
    I have a habit of finishing books in hotels. I sent off The Rest Is Noise from the Omni in downtown Los Angeles; Listen To This, which Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish at the end of September, was dispatched last week from a Marriott in Park City, Utah. The new book offers a panoramic view of the musical scene, taking in Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Brahms, Marian Anderson, Frank Sinatra, Cecil Taylor, Led Zeppelin, Björk, Radiohead, Mitsuko Uchida, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Luther Adams, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Bob Dylan, and the Malcolm X Shabazz High School Marching Band. In the…

  • Noise everywhere

    Alex Ross
    8 Jan 2010 | 6:30 am
    The phrase "The rest is noise" keeps showing up in unexpected places. Earlier I noted the opening of the club The Rest Is Noise in Brixton, London: The Armed Forces, a Nashville-based gutter-pop band, has released its debut album: And don't miss this mix tape by Bodega Bamz:   Korova, an Alabama hardcore band that has listed John Cage and Philip Glass among its influences, has a song called "The Rest Is Noise," which ends thus:     The tragic sovereignty of adult life    Has fought us tooth and nail    These verses are bleak   …

  • Happy New Year

    Alex Ross
    31 Dec 2009 | 5:20 pm
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    Sequenza21/

  • Seattle Chamber Players | On the Boards

    James Holt
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:42 am
    Those of you who are familiar with the contemporary arts scene in Seattle know that there are two organizations which have been dedicated to presenting new and interesting works from around the world for over 20-years: On the Boards and the Seattle Chamber Players.  And those of you who are familiar with me know that I have a special love for Seattle and all the interesting musical and artistic projects that are embraced there.  So, if you are in Seattle I would encourage you to check-out some upcoming SPC performances at OtB (especially since I can’t be there!). February 26-28: SCP…

  • Faking It on 54th

    Jerry Bowles
    3 Feb 2010 | 3:13 pm
    Met lots of really nice people at my little social media presentation for the Chamber Music America folks at St. Peter’s yesterday.   As promised, here’s the slide deck I used.  If there is anything you’d like more information about, send me an email and I’ll try to answer.  My thanks to the extraordinarily well-organized CMA program director Susan Dadian for inviting me and for being the kind of gal who will quietly tell you that your fly is unzipped before you begin your talk.

  • Pick a tone, any tone

    Steve Layton
    3 Feb 2010 | 10:18 am
    The American Music Center’s NewMusicBox-meister Frank J. Oteri dropped by, with word of an upcoming gig of his own this Saturday: “Just wanted to alert you folks that Tonally Perplexed, my trio devoted to improvisation with just noticeable differences (featuring moi on the custom built 6-octave ‘tonal plexus’ tuned to 205-tone equal temperament) will be performing on Saturday night at 7PM in Harlem for an art opening featuring new paintings by the wonderful Lisa Taliano(Chashama 461 Gallery 461 West 126th St, between Amsterdam and Morningside). Since our last outing at…

  • Seeing what was coming right from the start

    Steve Layton
    3 Feb 2010 | 7:25 am
    Composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900, of Gilbert & Sullivan fame) happened to be one of the earliest voices captured, in 1888, by Thomas Edison’s then-new wax-cylinder recording machine. Invited to dinner at Edison’s London outpost, Little Menlo, Sullivan recorded this small but prescient speech (which you can hear thanks to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park): ” . . . For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening’s experiment — astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and…

  • BSO’s Rowe gives American Premiere of Carter Flute Concerto Feb 4-9

    Rob Deemer
    1 Feb 2010 | 11:20 am
    Ah, ’tis a small world…years ago during my film music studies at USC I remember chatting several times with a flutist who had made the finals for a position with the LA Phil – while she was still an undergrad. Fast forward 15 years and it turns out Elizabeth Rowe is not only playing principal flute with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, she’s giving the American premiere of Elliott Carter’s Flute Concerto this next week on Feb. 4, 5 and 9 (see  www.bso.org for times and ticket prices). Here’s what Elliott had to say about the work: For many years flutists…
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    WGBH Classical Performance Podcast

  • A Far Cry plays Tchaikovsky

    WGBH Educational Foundation
    4 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    The Fraser Performance Studio rings to the sound of A Far Cry in this performance of Tchaikovsky's Sextet, "Souvenir de Florence".  A Far Cry is a Boston string ensemble that performs without a conductor, standing up.  Read more about the group on its website:  http://www.afarcry.org/. Tchaikovsky:  String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70, "Souvenir de Florence". A Far Cry (string ensemble) More info:  http://www.afarcry.org/   Recorded at WGBH's Fraser Performance Studio on January 22nd, 2010. ©2010 WGBH Educational Foundation.

  • Nikolaj Znaider plays Kreisler

    WGBH Educational Foundation
    22 Jan 2010 | 9:00 pm
    Fritz Kreisler was known as one of the most expressive violinists of his generation, and also for the sweet sound of his violin.  The young Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider plays on Kreisler's violin, a Guarnerius "del Gesu" 1741 and makes it sing beautifully again, in this performance of a few of Kreisler's miniatures. Kreisler:  LIebesleid; Tempo di minuetto in the style of Pugnani; Andantino in the style of Martini; Schön Rosmarin. Nikolaj Znaider, violin; Deborah DeWolf Emery, piano More information at http://www.znaider.com/   Recorded at WGBH's Fraser…

  • Lise de la Salle plays Mozart and Chopin

    WGBH Educational Foundation
    7 Jan 2010 | 9:00 pm
    21-year-old French pianist Lise de la Salle’s playing is so inspiring that The Washington Post wrote, “For much of the concert, the audience had to remember to breathe...the exhilaration didn’t let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard.”  She played Mozart and Chopin for us in the Fraser Performance Studio. Mozart:  Fantasy in D minor, K.397; Chopin:  Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. Lise de la Salle, piano More info about Lise de la Salle:  http://www.lisedelasalle.com/   Recorded in a live broadcast at WGBH's Fraser…

  • Irina Muresanu and the New England String Ensemble play Hubay and Sarasate

    WGBH Educational Foundation
    30 Dec 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Remembering our orchestral debut!  Here's the first live performance from our new Fraser Performance Studio, back in September 2007, featuring the New England String Ensemble and violinist Irina Muresanu playing Hubay and Sarasate.  Until then, we had been unable to feature a string orchestra because we just didn't  have the space, but now we do! *** Hubay:  Czardas Scene No. 2 and Sarasate:  Zigeunerweisen Irina Muresanu, violin; New England String Ensemble, Federico Cortese conducting +++ Recorded in a live broadcast at WGBH's Fraser Performance Studio on September…

  • Ina Zdorovetchi plays Scarlatti and Bach

    WGBH Educational Foundation
    17 Dec 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Ina Zdorovetchi was a prizewinner in the Israel Harp Competition last summer, and to celebrate her achievement, we invited her to perform for the radio audience from the Fraser Performance Studio. Scarlatti, Domenico:  Andante, K.380 in E major and Allegro, K.198 in E minor. Bach, J.S.:  from Suite in C minor, BWV.997:  Prelude, Sarabande, Gigue. Ina Zdorovetchi, harp. More information:  http://www.inazdorovetchi.com/ Recorded in a live broadcast at WGBH's Fraser Performance Studio on December 17th, 2009. ©2009 WGBH Educational Foundation.
 
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    Jessica Duchen

  • Meet Huseyin Sermet

    9 Feb 2010 | 3:10 am
    My latest interviewee for International Piano Magazine makes his South Bank recital debut tonight. He's one of Turkey's top musicians, composer as well as pianist - though, he says, not composer-pianist - and we should have heard much more about him much sooner. Come and hear him at the QEH later! Meanwhile, a taster of the interview and some film of him playing Mussorgsky: http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2676

  • Enescu & Lipatti...

    6 Feb 2010 | 1:18 am
    ...in Enescu's Sonata No.3. Amazing recording - enjoy. And a few words in praise of Enescu and the ICR's Enescu Society. http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2668

  • V&A Musical Instrument Collection to close

    4 Feb 2010 | 3:37 am
    Some thoughts on the projected closure of the V&A's world famous collection of musical instruments, and what great violins should really be doing... http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2664

  • POLL: PLEASE VOTE!

    3 Feb 2010 | 3:42 am
    Should audiences be allowed to take drinks into classical concerts? Please vote in the poll at the top of the sidebar to the left. You can only vote once and polling closes at 1am on 11 February. Thanks for your feedback, and I look forward to the results with interest!

  • Happy Birthday, Jascha and Fritz!

    2 Feb 2010 | 1:14 am
    Today is Kreisler's birthday & Heifetz's too. Spooky. Don't miss this totally incredible film of Heifetz: http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2654
 
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    Dial

  • Hope for the Weary

    Jonathan Bellman
    30 Jan 2010 | 7:59 am
    Reprinted, with permission, is an E-Mail I received yesterday from a graduate student:  -------------------- ATTN: ABIGAIL VAN BUREN

 Dear Abby,

 The fall semester ended in early December and it has been approximately seven weeks since I was last academically bitch slapped.  Life on the outside is supposed to be normal, but I already miss him—his glares of disapproval, the profanity, the constant questioning of my knowledge base.  Others seem to enjoy their freedom and seem to do fine without being subjected to intellectual thrashings.  However, in my case,…

  • By Request

    Jonathan Bellman
    11 Jan 2010 | 7:01 am
    On this palindromic date we begin the news semester, which promises to be an eventful and pressure-filled one for me (trip to Poland, concerto, etc.).  Friend Lisa requests that I put the cover of my Chopin book up and announce its appearance.  So here it is:       And yes, the book has appeared (at the end of September, actually).  Seems like ancient history!  Friends tell me they like it; reviews will take much longer to appear (if they do), meanwhile I’m working on/getting worked on by other projects, needing to practice (as always), etc. …

  • Oswalt on teaching

    Phil Ford
    4 Jan 2010 | 10:25 am
    I spent the end of last semester in a frenzy of activity punctuated by moments of pure unmotivated idleness. While procrastinating one day I discovered the comedian Patton Oswalt, who is smart and funny and whose standup is viewable on bunch of Youtube clips that Mr. Oswalt will never make a dime from and which I am duly propagating. That's one of the clean ones. Usually there are more swear words, which I like because I think swear words are funny. Of course, they're only funny when they're funny, so you have to be careful. What else? Christmas book swag: Logicomix: An Epic…

  • In Praise of Musical Obsessions

    Jonathan Bellman
    27 Dec 2009 | 5:22 pm
    Perhaps I have mentioned this before, but among what I consider to be Universal Musical Experiences is the obsession.  The obsession can be a single piece, often a short one, or perhaps a popular song, that simply takes over your very being.  I remember several from my student and early professional years: Chopin’s Ballade No. 1, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Brahms’s songs “Sonntag” and “Von Ewiger Liebe,” the F Major Pastorale Sonata of Domenico Scarlatti (“Allegrissimo”).  You listen to them so much that you don’t need to listen any more; they are in your…

  • Boy, Drummer, Little

    Jonathan Bellman
    25 Dec 2009 | 4:15 pm
    Friend Eric sends a link to this Lewis W. Thompson articleabout “The Little Drummer Boy,” originally from the Los Angeles Times and reprinted on Christmas Eve by the New York Times.  Thompson characterizes the little tune as one of the most loathed songs in history; its incessant Yoda-like syntax and pa-rum-pa-pum-pums apparently symbolize all that is awful about the holidays.  To him, or to other people, or something.  Anyway, the point of the article is that more than one principal involved (the composer, a foundational arranger) have willed their substantial royalties…
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    Ionarts

  • Jean Nouvel's Philharmonie de Paris

    8 Feb 2010 | 3:30 pm
    The financial disaster continues to claim cultural victims, with opera companies and orchestras cutting back their seasons or closing down completely. The plans of the French government for a new concert hall, the Philharmonie de Paris to be built to a design by Jean Nouvel, have also hit a major bump. Where could one possibly build a major structure like this dans l'enceinte de Paris? In a

  • In Brief: Snowpocalypse 2010 Edition

    7 Feb 2010 | 7:15 am
    Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.The official measurement is still being worked out, but with this historic snowfall at around 22 inches by Ionarts Central and over 30 inches in other places out in the suburbs, at the very least that Washington has had two of its Top 10 Snowfalls Ever in one winter this year! [DCist]Snowstorms a lot smaller

  • Egarr and the Charm of Handel

    6 Feb 2010 | 12:44 pm
    Handel, Organ Concertos, op. 7, R. Egarr, Academy of Ancient Music(released on August 11, 2009)Harmonia Mundi HMU 807447.48127'35"Op. 4Online scores:Opp. 4 and 7Just in time for the Handel Anniversary Year, Richard Egarr's tenure as director of the Academy of Ancient Music quickly became known for the beginning of a completist's traversal of the works of that composer. Discs have been appearing,

  • Reviewed, Not Necessarily Recommended: Karłowicz, Symphonic Poems

    5 Feb 2010 | 2:26 pm
    Mieczysław Karłowicz, Symphonic Poems, Salwarowski / Silesian PSDUX.com .co.uk .de .frFor his op.9 tone poem, Powracająe fale (“Recurring Waves”), Mieczysław Karłowicz (born in 1876) sipped generously from the Wagner goblet. Tannhäuser, specifically, and a few segments are so reminiscent of that overture—others of music from Das Rheingold—as to border the comical. That said, it’s also all very

  • The Colorful Diana Damrau

    5 Feb 2010 | 7:43 am
    COLORaturaS, D. Damrau, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, D. Ettinger(released on January 12, 2010)Virgin Classics 509995 19313 2 273'59"The opera on Washington National Opera's current season that most appealed to me was the company's first-ever production of Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, coming up this spring (May 19 to June 4). Sure, the staging by Thaddeus Strassberger, brought from Lyric Opera of
 
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    The Rambler

  • 10 for ‘10: Timothy McCormack

    Tim Rutherford-Johnson
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:33 am
    Timothy McCormack (b. 1984) writes high resolution music. Music of razor sharp detail, printed on aluminium. No: not that. It is music magnified too far, so that the spaces between every RGB pixel on the screen are visible. Still no: it is both these, both micro and macro. Timothy McCormack writes music that occupies a fractal world of multiple, conflicting geometries. It has a monolithic quality, certainly, there is no narrative pull, but it nevertheless inhabits and participates in the passage of time. The monolith is neither static in space, nor within itself. Like a body whose cells…

  • Concert review: Borealis Festival Launch

    Tim Rutherford-Johnson
    5 Feb 2010 | 2:47 am
    Borealis Festival Launch Mark Knoop, piano Rolf Borch, clarinet Baltazar/Habbestad, flute and electronics MoHa!, guitar, drums, keyboard Simon Katan and members of Trinity College of Music, escalators, video King’s Place, 25 January 2010 A sort of new-music variety show, this. As a concert, it was a little bitty (although I found some of the juxtapositions very revealing), but as a taster for the Borealis Festival, taking place in Bergen next month, it was tantalising. It was also a showcase for the technical expertise and flexibility that they have at King’s Place. Five different…

  • Plug: Metapraxis at The Space, 19 February

    Tim Rutherford-Johnson
    5 Feb 2010 | 1:22 am
    Two weeks today: get yourself down to The Space (a performing arts and community centre that is fast becoming an excellent addition to London’s new music scene). The Metapraxis Ensemble will be playing works by Yannis Kyriakides, Gregory Emfietzis, George Holloway and Scott McLaughlin in a programme that is built around John Dowland’s ‘Flow my tears’ and Kyriakides’s ‘Satellites’ and is ‘concerned with the contemporary world’s current state of affairs, the consequences of selfishness and personal insensitivity’. As well as music, the…

  • Rambler Roundtables: ELISION ensemble concluded

    Tim Rutherford-Johnson
    4 Feb 2010 | 7:52 am
    The third and final installment of these roundtable conversations takes the music of Klaus K. Hübler as a springboard to a discussion of the possibilities and implications of ‘radical instrumentalism’. The previous two parts, on the subjects of interpretation and the limits of the musical, may be found here and here. And don’t forget that this Monday, 8th February, all the composers and performers featured in these roundtables will be involved as ELISION make their first visit to King’s Place of 2010. Hübler casts only a light shadow in the corners of recent music…

  • Rambler Roundtables: ELISION ensemble continued

    Tim Rutherford-Johnson
    2 Feb 2010 | 9:18 am
    One of the things that intrigues me about complex music, the sort of music that stretches performers, listeners and notational practice to their limits, is its frequent contextualisation within systems of thought, constructional models and terms of reference that might be considered by many to fall outside the purview of ‘the musical’. Such contextualisations might work in two, opposite directions on a particular piece: as (one of) the means by which the composer arrived at or nurtured this musical idea; or as a possible way in for the listener, an interpretive toolkit. One thing…
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    Soho the Dog

  • Collective bargaining

    8 Feb 2010 | 5:50 am
    Reviewing the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet.Boston Globe, February 8, 2010.

  • I've been through the mill of love

    20 Jan 2010 | 6:34 pm
    Reviewing Randall Scarlata and Jeremy Denk.Boston Globe, January 20, 2010.

  • Great Moments in Parody

    15 Jan 2010 | 10:14 am
    Edward M. Favor: "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs, Murphy's Chowder?" (1901, Edison Concert Cylinder #7697)Harry "The Hipster" Gibson: "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?" (1944, Musicraft Records #346)

  • Tokay Computer

    12 Jan 2010 | 7:22 am
    Reviewing the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.Boston Globe, January 12, 2010.

  • The Victorian Tongue

    30 Dec 2009 | 8:16 am
    We may live without poetry, music, and art:We may live without conscience, and live without heart;We may live without friends; we may live without books;But civilized man cannot live without cooks.He may live without books,—what is knowledge but grieving?He may live without hope,—what is hope but deceiving?He may live without love,—what is passion but pining?But where is the man that can live without dining?—Owen Meredith, Lucile (1860)Owen Meredith was the pen name of Edward Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton; as Viceroy of India, Lytton counted on his résumé the Great Indian Famine of…
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    Wolf Trap Opera

  • WTOC Announces its 2010 Season across the Blogosphere!

    Kim
    8 Feb 2010 | 8:03 pm
    Tickets go on sale to the general public on March 13.For advance sales and priority handling, become a Wolf Trap member.For show dates, casts, and other performance info, start here.In celebration of the announcement of WTOC’s 2010 season, I am doing guest posts and interviews in various locations across the blogosphere. Find out more about us that you ever wanted to know by clicking through!Participating blogs are listed below - links will become active throughout the day on February 9.Overview is at Technology in the Arts. Where and How We Do What We DoThe Barns at Wolf Trap via Clef…

  • A Highly Subjective and Unapologetically Random Look Back at the GRAMMYs

    Kim
    3 Feb 2010 | 11:28 am
    Thanks to our Best Opera Recording nomination for Volpone, we were in the slightly surreal and truly wonderful position of being able to attend last Sunday's GRAMMY festivities in LA, and I'd be remiss if I didn't file some sort of report.  So...Wolfie Goes to LA! 80% of Success...Yes, the classical music industry is marginalized, along with over 90% of the rest of the GRAMMY categories.  We joined our colleagues in jazz, R&B, country, world music and many other genres at the pre-telecast ceremony on Sunday afternoon.  Some of the bigger pop music names who were prepping…

  • Congratulations!

    Kim
    31 Jan 2010 | 2:58 pm
    Quick post from my phone to congratulate the LSO and our Billy Budd colleagues on the Grammy win. We were and are honored to be in such amazing company!Now, on to the big evening ceremony. Let the fun begin!

  • An Honor to be Nominated. No, Really.

    Kim
    27 Jan 2010 | 5:29 pm
    We have the great privilege of going to LA for the GRAMMYs this weekend!  The Volpone recording nomination (one of 5 in the category of Best Opera Recording) meant that Wolf Trap, as the record label, was able to get a few tickets for the ceremonies.  (GRAMMYs are for artists on the recording, and even though we commissioned and premiered this work, then produced and distributed it on our label, we're sort of just hangers-on:))  So we're going to go and celebrate.  We're not particularly good at strutting our stuff (we tend to fly under the radar and plug along), but we…

  • "Special"

    Kim
    25 Jan 2010 | 6:10 am
    Special (Merriam-Webster): distinguished by some unusual quality.Life's a Pitch just finished a week hosting a virtual panel on when and how artists, managers, journalists, presenters and publicists single out musicians for being "special" in their promotion and career-building efforts.  Amanda's summary of the posts by her 4 guest bloggers is here.I hesitate to spend most of an entire blog post regurgitating other writers' material, but this is worth it.  Great food for thought for musicians, presenters, and music lovers of all stripes.  If you need more motivation to click…
 
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    Yankeediva

  • Those details wherein lies the devil!

    Yankeediva
    3 Feb 2010 | 7:37 pm
    One thing I've always told myself, is that if the payoff moment in a performance doesn't happen, none of this is worth it. (By "this" I mean the schedule, the travel, the absence, the luggage, the pressure, the stress, etc.) Let me clarify a bit: there will most certainly be "off-nights", and there will be rough patches to trod through, but in the grand scheme of things, if the opening of the

  • Karma!!!

    Yankeediva
    2 Feb 2010 | 8:22 pm

  • Loving it

    Yankeediva
    1 Feb 2010 | 8:37 pm
    Home sweet home! I'm sitting in my very favorite spot, music playing, Christmas lights glowing (that's right: they're still up! I was only able to enjoy them for 3 days in December, so I fully plan on enjoying them for a few more nights while I can!), and a full day of productive errand-running behind me. Life is good. Those of you who have a home that you occupy most nights of the year,

  • Good planning!

    Yankeediva
    23 Jan 2010 | 2:00 pm
    Note to self: touring in Spain in the middle of January = brilliant idea!(Ditto for that whole "December in Los Angeles" thing!)Yes, I've officially kicked off my Tour D'Amore and so far so good. We began in Madrid, which is always such a lovely place to spend some time. The people are so warm and welcoming, the food unbelievably wonderful ("Mas jamon, por favor!"), and the richness of that

  • Music heals

    Yankeediva
    22 Jan 2010 | 5:19 pm
    I'm currently watching a streaming video from the United States (and London) of a telethon raising money for Haiti. They have shown clips of the beautiful people of Haiti gathering in streets and singing. Singing.How humbling and uplifting.I'm pretty sure that every Dollar/Euro/Pound will make a difference.Let's do what we can - which is usually more than we tend to believe.Click here to donate
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    Opera Today

  • Lucia di Lammermoor at the Coliseum

    gary@operatoday.com
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:59 pm
    http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article7016711.ece

  • MARTIN: Der Sturm

    gary@operatoday.com
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:09 am
    Der Sturm: Opera in three acts

  • Donizetti revealed: Lucia di Lammermoor, ENO, London

    gary@operatoday.com
    7 Feb 2010 | 4:29 am
    Donizetti’s original concept of Lucia di Lammermoor is revealed in its true glory in this ground breaking production by the English National Opera, first heard in 2008. The opera is loved in its familiar form, but the new critical edition reveals the depth of Donizetti’s musical creation.

  • Manon Lescaut in Lyon

    gary@operatoday.com
    7 Feb 2010 | 12:30 am
    If you want Italian opera go to Italy and hope for the best — like conductor Daniel Oren’s Manon Lescaut two years ago in Genoa.

  • Heidelberg’s Stumbling Spartaco at Schwetzingen Castle

    gary@operatoday.com
    4 Feb 2010 | 10:30 am
    For those who might be seeking a representational tale of the legendary Roman slave Spartacus, well, Gladiator this ain’t.
 
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    Opera Today News Headlines

  • Lucia di Lammermoor at the Coliseum

    Gary
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:59 pm
    Geoff Brown [Times Online, 8 February 2010] So, once more we plunge into that melodramatic cauldron, that brooding nonsense, that is Lucia di Lammermoor. On its first outing in 2008 David Alden’s grimly stylised, psychopathological take on the opera that Donizetti squeezed from a capacious Sir Walter Scott novel gathered assorted praise. This time round, the director’s shock treatment of life in Lucia’s Scottish manse — think Grand Guignol reimagined by Ibsen — shocks and impresses rather less.

  • Opera music part of junk hauler's treasure trove

    Gary
    3 Feb 2010 | 1:52 pm
    By John Kelly [Washington Post, 3 February 2010] The junk hauler figured they had to be worth something, these 15,000 black discs that filled an entire room in a Silver Spring house.

  • Wozzeck, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre, San Francisco

    Gary
    2 Feb 2010 | 1:57 pm
    By Allan Ulrich [Financial Times, 2 February 2010] Every enlightened artistic community needs an organisation like Ensemble Parallèle, pledged to staging significant 20th-century operas in relatively intimate spaces. Considering that the San Francisco Opera has not produced Berg’s still shattering expressionist masterpiece in a decade - and is not likely to under the current management - Nicole Paiement’s valiant band struck a blow last weekend for intelligent music theatre in which dedication triumphs over dollars.

  • Bass-baritone eager to sing at home, in English

    Gary
    30 Jan 2010 | 9:59 pm
    By Anne Midgette [Washington Post, 31 January 2010] Eric Owens enjoys singing in English. “I always get so jealous of Italians and native Germans,” says the opera singer. As an American singing opera, “even if you get really fluent, there’s always a certain amount of disconnect, because you didn’t grow up with the language,” Owens says. “When I sing American music, it’s really satisfying to identify and connect so well with the text.”

  • In perfect harmony

    Gary
    30 Jan 2010 | 7:16 am
    By Allan Moses R. [The Hindu, 30 January 2010] French soprano soloist Marion Baglan and pianist François-Marie Juskowiak evoked a thunderous response from a packed audience at The Alliance Française in a concert recently.
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    Aworks: New American Classical Music

  • Uranus (2007). Kyle Gann

    Robert Gable
    8 Feb 2010 | 8:44 pm
    Planet image via Wikipedia Coincidentally, I listened to Booker Ervin's Uranus this evening and now I see that Kyle Gann has posted the Uranus movement from his composition, The Planets. Uranus - Booker Ervin

  • aworks ordered list :: top five of the day /not out of kilter/

    Robert Gable
    6 Feb 2010 | 9:59 pm
    Lenin image by Getty Images via Daylife Bemusha Swing. Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane. Psychedelic (Психоделика). Sergey Kuryokhin Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. Radiohead Linus and Lucy. Vince Guaraldi Kilter. Mary Ellen Childs Taylor/Coltrane: This is so inferior to any version of Bemsha Swing by Monk but an interesting oddity nonetheless. I don't think you could say Taylor swings on the piano but he clearly his own peculiar aesthetic, evident even in this recording from his earlier days. Kuryokhin: Russian artist and composer who among other claims to fame, "proved" on Russian TV…

  • aworks ordered list :: top five of the week /suitable for non-obsessives?/

    Robert Gable
    5 Feb 2010 | 8:51 pm
    Liz image via Wikipedia Music in Twelve Parts, Part 2. Philip Glass Divorce Song. Liz Phair Spem In Alium. Thomas Tallis 4 Cast: Unpredictable. Trimpin and Kronos Quartet. Pharoah's Dance. Miles Davis Glass: And Part 2 isn't even my favorite part. Phair: This song is even better than I remembered. Creative, honest, vulnerable and it rocks albeit in a remedial way. I need to listen to the entire album again to remember why I was so disappointed with her work after this recording. Tallis: From the Kronos Quartet album that also has George Crumb. Trimpin: It's been a long week and I can't…

  • A Concord Symphony (1958..1994). Charles Ives/Henry Brant /fyi mtt sfs/

    Robert Gable
    3 Feb 2010 | 6:51 pm
    Michael Tilson Thomas via last.fmSFist interviews Michael Tilson Thomas: He [Henry Brant] actually knew Ives. He passed out very recently in his late nineties, so he had a connection back to Ives himself. Henry Brant was a great orchestrator. He made his living by orchestrating shows and movies and various things. In a way, he was like a colleague of his who was a also fan of Charles Ives, Bernard Herman, who wrote all the great Hitchcock movie scores.There were the kind of guys who were on Ives' side, along with Lou Harrison, John Kirkpatrick. In the days Ives was considered a kind of…

  • aworks ordered list :: top five for the day /traveller/

    Robert Gable
    2 Feb 2010 | 8:28 pm
    Cover of Mysterious Traveller Mysterious Traveller. Weather Report Lyric Quartet. William Grant Still Prince and the Mermaid Suite. William Grant Still Blues (from Lennox Avenue). William Grant Still Ukom. William Chapman Nyaho Wayne Shorter/Weather Report: Today I was listening to works in reverse order of composer name so these all start with "w." Mysterious Traveller is an old favorite although this appears to the the only work from today's the list available on lala. Still: Born in 1895, William Grant Still was an African-American composer. Probably the most traditional music I've…
 
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    Sounds & Fury

  • How To Deal With An Earworm

    A.C. Douglas
    8 Feb 2010 | 3:55 am
    For the past couple days or so, our constant companion has been an earworm of various extended snatches from the Bach keyboard partitas. Not too...

  • Funny, Didn't Feel Like A Marathon

    A.C. Douglas
    10 Jan 2010 | 10:25 am
    While debating with ourself as we did in this decade-late encomium for the TV series The West Wing as to whether to buy the boxed...

  • Making A Case For Interpretive Freedom

    A.C. Douglas
    7 Jan 2010 | 10:35 am
    In an unfortunately titled piece for yesterday's Wall Street Journal ("In Praise of Infidelity"), concert pianist Byron Janis makes the case for the taking of...

  • When Either-Or Is Neither-Nor

    A.C. Douglas
    5 Jan 2010 | 7:15 am
    [Note: This post has been updated (2) as of 8:55 AM Eastern on 6 Jan. See below.] On reading this rant on arts funding by...

  • Snow

    A.C. Douglas
    3 Jan 2010 | 6:54 am
    We've had occasion before on S&F to remark on author-defined "poems" that on clear-eyed inspection reveal themselves as nothing but garden-variety prose broken into (seemingly)...
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    Deceptively Simple

  • You can get there from here

    admin
    1 Feb 2010 | 8:44 pm
    “Bird had a knack for getting from one note to another like nobody else.” That’s how Dizzy Gillespie summarized what made Charlie Parker stand out from everyone around him. Parker had the technique to run circles around people, and the harmonic ingenuity to upend jazz harmony as we knew it, but what made his playing so distinctive was the articulation and what happened in the tiny transitions between notes – regardless of tempo. That quotation came to mind two weeks ago when Pierre Boulez was conducting Bartok’s one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle.

  • My Pierre Project

    admin
    23 Jan 2010 | 3:10 pm
    When I started working at the Chicago Symphony, managing the various details of its record label CSO Resound, one of the most appealing aspects of it was that there would eventually be an album with Pierre Boulez. He’d already made many outstanding recordings with the orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon – a detailed survey of Bartok’s works, including the concertos and Bluebeard’s Castle – and various Stravinsky works. But the most recent albums with DG had been taped in the late ’90s, and given his longstanding relationship with the orchestra, I assumed that…

  • Anything Goes

    admin
    12 Jan 2010 | 8:25 pm
    New files were made publicly available yesterday from the Nixon Presidential Materials by the Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California. If there aren’t any smoking guns, or crass examples of Nixon behaving badly, there are documents that can help fill in some gaps, and connect some dots. For one, there are several memos between Nixon aides H.R. (Bob) Haldeman (Chief of Staff), Charles Colson, Gordon Strachan, and Dwight Chapin about Frank Sinatra. Could Sinatra, who by this time is releasing Greatest Hits collections, be seduced to endorse Nixon in time for the 1972 election?

  • New blog

    admin
    10 Jan 2010 | 4:51 pm
    Let’s give a warm welcome to Seated Ovation, a Chicago blog by “Billy” who’s already writing analyses of Chicago’s classical community worth one’s reading.

  • We interrupt our regularly scheduled reporting…

    admin
    10 Jan 2010 | 4:40 pm
    In Louis Menand’s New Yorker article (in the January 11 issue, and not available online) about the life and reception of Andy Warhol, there’s this intriguing fact: “[Tony] Scherman and [David] Dalton report that a profile of Warhol, by David Bourdon, had been scheduled for the cover of Life, but that after [Robert] Kennedy’s death the story was killed.” Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968, and Kennedy was assassinated two days following Warhol’s attempted murder. The magnitude of Kennedy’s death understandably required a few headlines to be…
 
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    grecchinois

  • A Little Improvisation

    nick
    6 Feb 2010 | 8:49 pm
    So, my thirty day project has sort of fallen flat on its face since I got back to the States. I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised, as I always find it difficult to keep writing when I back home in the States. There is something about being in Europe – perhaps it's foreignness and the isolation that entails – that makes writing easier. Part of it has also been as issue of time. I've found it hard to carve out the time for the blog with these past two weeks' intense schedule. One special treat about this tour has been that I have been travelling with friends – something very…

  • Marlboro Tour, Part I and II

    nick
    2 Feb 2010 | 9:50 pm
    On Saturday, the weather in New York took a nose dive into frigid temperatures, inducing me to set roots into my couch as I channel surfed all day on Saturday. By the time pre-concert-prep time rolled around, I found myself unwilling to uproot myself and brave the cold to journey down to Union Square for the first concert of our tour. It took me a while to get warmed up and energized, but once I saw the other, string-playing half of our touring company, I found myself both warmed and charged by our happy reunion. Assuming that the rest of New York City felt as I had all day, I was pleasantly…

  • Blissful Routine

    nick
    29 Jan 2010 | 2:03 pm
    Since I moved back to New York a few years ago, it's been hard to find my rhythm here. In the city that never sleeps, it is easy to feel pulled in numerous different directions. The constant hum and bustle here can make it difficult to relax and recharge – what I used to associate with coming home. Sometimes, I almost feel more at home on the road than I am at my own apartment.What has been so lovely about this week is that I have felt myself settling into a comfortable routine here, almost blissfully monotonous – something I've never experienced here. Every day, I've woken up in my…

  • Views

    nick
    28 Jan 2010 | 6:07 pm
    The view leaving Dusseldorf on Monday morningThe view greeting me as I arrived in New York on Monday evening.

  • Revisiting Marlboro

    nick
    26 Jan 2010 | 3:07 pm
    Waking up in my own bed this morning was heaven. At the end of yesterday's delayed, excruciatingly long (14 and half hours door to door) and turbulent journey, I was rewarded with the best night's sleep I have had in a while. After a breakfast at the local diner and a morning spent unpacking, I ran off to my first rehearsal for the Marlboro tour.We started with warm hugs and some catching up, and then dove right into Haydn. We set off into the world of Nisa and Tirsi, a world that we only briefly explored two summers ago, opting to focus on Schumann's duets instead. We reminded ourselves of…
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    Bass Blog

  • Question time

    16 Jan 2010 | 12:20 pm
    Every once in a while I get a question from a reader. Clive sent me the following, which I thought worthy of a post.During the rehearsals I have watched, the orchestra plays through the work, apparently mostly to the conductors satisfaction. The conductor stops a occasionally, explains some points to the players, who seem to get it and make notes on their music, and then they move on.I have been wondering how the orchestra gets to this point of near perfection (at least from the point of view of the conductor). Is the open rehearsal that we see the end result of several earlier rehearsals?

  • Meet the Gunnelpumpers

    31 Dec 2009 | 1:45 pm
    A group I have played with for the past seven years, one I can actually name, has a few performances of note coming up. In fact, it seems as if the '09 ' - '10 season might mark the beginning of a 'golden age' for the Gunnelpumpers with more performances than we have done in quite a while. Brainchild of bassist Doug Johnson, the Gunnelpumers are best described by the subtitle on the band's myspace page: music by accident. Other band members include bassist Mathew Golombisky, percussionists Randy Farr, Douglas Brush and Quin Kirchner, along with Guitarist John Meyer. The group has also…

  • From Russia With Love

    21 Dec 2009 | 9:17 am
    TCHAIKOVSKY The Storm [L'Orage], Op. 76TCHAIKOVSKY Selections from The Snow Maiden, Op. 12Alex Balestrieri, Narrator----INTERMISSION----TCHAIKOVSKY Selections from Swan Lake, Op. 20Alexander Polianichko, ConductorRedmoon TheaterFrank Maugeri, Artistic DirectorAlex Balestrieri, NarratorAll of the concerts I've played since the week of Thanksgiving have been in the dark (sometimes both literally and figuratively) with stand lights and visual aids. I had the week conducted by Nicholas Kramer off, so I have no idea if they had pole dancers and a laser light show for those performances. It…

  • The Never Ending Story

    18 Dec 2009 | 4:31 am
    An orchestra member sent me an email regarding the appointment of Yo Yo Ma as some sort of creative consultant with our organization. Originally I was speechless, not necessarily with delight, and thought to let the matter slide until it occurred to me that Bass Blog readers might benefit from this insightful and passionate email. Certain words and initials have been redacted to conform with Bass Blog standards.With the author's permission:HubrisWhat’s the deal? Is it necessary to believe that you possess godlike power to be appointed {redacted} Music Director? Back in the late 80s, Sir…

  • The man who knew too much

    6 Dec 2009 | 6:35 pm
    December 3 - 6MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto----INTERMISSION----MAHLER Symphony No. 4Markus Stenz, ConductorViviane Hagner, ViolinNicole Cabell, SopranoGerard McBurney, NarratorWilliam Brown, ActorLaura T. Fisher, ActressElizabeth Buccheri, PianoThe Friday and Sunday matinees are Beyond the Score performances devoted to the Mahler. I have to confess to finding these concerts uncomfortable to play. Sitting in the dark listening to lengthy dialog tends to make the mind wander, and then, before you know it, you are called upon to play some touchy little snippet taken out of context. Some further…
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    The Collaborative Piano Blog

  • Douglas Finch Improvises on Happy Birthday

    Chris Foley
    8 Feb 2010 | 7:33 pm
    One of my favorite profs at the University of British Columbia in the late 80's was Douglas Finch, who has since moved on to a busy teaching, performing, and composing career in the UK. Finch's legendary encores often started with a request to the audience for well-known tunes, which he would then improvise upon. Here he is improvising on Happy Birthday with much Scriabinesque/Ivesian awesomeness: (Thanks, Suzy!)

  • Schweitzer Fernsehen's La Bohème im Hochhaus

    Chris Foley
    7 Feb 2010 | 1:00 pm
    Schweitzer Fernsehen's recent television production of Puccini's La Bohème in Bern, Switzerland has been turning heads for both its high ratings and effortless setting of the original story in the present time. Here are the opera's final minutes, with Maija Boog as Mimi and Saimir Pirgu as Rodolfo (it's worth watching right to the end): Take a look at Matthew Gurewitsch's NY Times article for more info about the production. (Via Sound Mind)

  • Maron Khoury and Hugh Sung Play Jolivet's Chant de Linos

    Chris Foley
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:57 am
    One of the ultimate challenges in the flute and piano repertoire is André Jolivet's Chant de Linos. Here are flutist Maron Khoury and pianist Hugh Sung (with AirTurn-equipped laptop) performing it last year at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia: (Via People for the Ethical Treatment of Accompanists)

  • [Ask the Readers] Best Practices for Collaborative Piano Program Auditions

    Chris Foley
    7 Feb 2010 | 4:33 am
    A reader sent the following story about a recent audition for a graduate degree in collaborative piano: I recently auditioned for a MM. in Collaborative Piano at a well-known American conservatory and had a somewhat surprising experience. For the audition, I was to prepare a solo work, a set of 4 songs or arias, and an instrumental sonata of my choosing. I brought my own violinist since I knew a grad student studying at the school, but requested that the school provide a singer for my audition (which they offer to do). When the singer showed up to my warm-up room…

  • Greetings to Trinity Western Students

    Chris Foley
    5 Feb 2010 | 7:20 am
    Welcome to all the students in Suzanne Klukas' new collaborative piano class at Trinity Western University! I'm looking forward to talking to you via Skype this afternoon (still morning in BC). In case you haven't yet found your way around, you might want to check out the Monster List of 100+ Resources on the Collaborative Piano Blog for an introduction. And be sure to either become a fan on Facebook or subscribe via RSS reader or email.
 
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    parterre box presents La Cieca

  • Mommy track

    La Cieca
    8 Feb 2010 | 9:48 am
    UPDATE: A spokesman for Anna Netrebko just has informed La Cieca “Anna is not pregnant.” An Austrian website thie morning reported  the rumor that Anna Netrebko is expecting again. [OE24.at]

  • The People’s Courtesan

    Critic of the Future
    8 Feb 2010 | 9:45 am
    Like Liza Minnelli at the Palace or Nomi Malone in Goddess, Renée Fleming’s Thaïs is better understood as diva event than Gesamtkunstwerk. It’s an opportunity to watch a star lady do her voodoo in a work that exists largely to showcase her glamour and appeal. The raison d‘être of this particular showcase is undoubtedly the most polarizing contemporary opera singer, and whether you love her or hate her, a new Metropolitan Opera DVD of Thaïs is likely to reinforce your opinion. Acclaimed tenor/baritone/conductor/Live in HD host Plácido Domingo sets the scene on the…

  • Make ‘em laugh!

    La Cieca
    8 Feb 2010 | 5:00 am
    “A German, a Peruvian and a Kiwi walk into an American theater and start speaking French: that sounds like the premise of a joke, right?” Our Own JJ reviews La fille du régiment at the Met.

  • Regie Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

    La Cieca
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:51 am
    Congratulations LogeLizard for so adeptly pinpointing Manon Lescaut as the solution to our most recent Regie quiz. The production was by Graham Vick for the Teatro la Fenice, and we have a glimpse of this regie in action after the jump. Now, to work. Can someone please explain the following Panic at the Disco?

  • “What do I look like, an ATM?”

    La Cieca
    6 Feb 2010 | 1:36 pm
    The 1990s never ended, it seems. Joe Volpe back at the Met, and his one-time sidekick Alberto Vilar back in the news. The Felonious Philanthropist, donor of abut $12 million to the Met during Volpe’s tenure, was sentenced yesterday to nine years in prison for such charges as securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. [NYT]
 
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    Naxos: AudioBook New Releases

  • TOLSTOY, L.: Cossacks (The) (Unabridged) (NA613112)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    Dissolute, disenchanted Dmitri Olénin decides to join the Army as a cadet and is despatched to the Caucasus. There, he is transformed by seeing how the indigenous people live in harmony with nature, how their lives have more meaning than those of the superficial social elite in Moscow, and he finds a new sense of self and purpose. But nothing is ever quite that simple. Love and loyalty are tested to the very limits in this semi-autobiographical novella, which is one of Tolstoy’s best-loved works.

  • TOLSTOY, L.: Cossacks (The) (Unabridged) (NA613112)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    Dissolute, disenchanted Dmitri Olénin decides to join the Army as a cadet and is despatched to the Caucasus. There, he is transformed by seeing how the indigenous people live in harmony with nature, how their lives have more meaning than those of the superficial social elite in Moscow, and he finds a new sense of self and purpose. But nothing is ever quite that simple. Love and loyalty are tested to the very limits in this semi-autobiographical novella, which is one of Tolstoy’s best-loved works.

  • FORD, F.M.: Good Soldier (The) (Unabridged) (NA713212)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    Two couples, two marriages; both seemingly perfect, both falling apart. Beneath the surface gentility of the American John Dowell with his wife Florence and the landed grace of Edward and Leonora lie fictions and deceit. There are secret desires, hidden power-games, suicides and madness. Everyone is hiding something; even the narrator can’t be trusted. Brilliantly inventive, tragic and ironic, The Good Soldier is one of the great novels of the 20th century.

  • FITZGERALD, F.S.: Tender is the Night (Unabridged) (NA945712)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    It is 1925, and Richard Diver is the high priest of the good life on the white sands of the French Riviera. The Beautiful People—film stars, socialites, aristocrats—gather eagerly and bitchily around him and his wife Nicole. Beneath the breathtaking glamour, however, is a world of pain, and there is at the core of their lives a brittle hollowness. Beautiful, powerful and tragic, Tender is the Night is one of the great works of American fiction.

  • FORD, F.M.: Good Soldier (The) (Unabridged) (NA713212)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    Two couples, two marriages; both seemingly perfect, both falling apart. Beneath the surface gentility of the American John Dowell with his wife Florence and the landed grace of Edward and Leonora lie fictions and deceit. There are secret desires, hidden power-games, suicides and madness. Everyone is hiding something; even the narrator can’t be trusted. Brilliantly inventive, tragic and ironic, The Good Soldier is one of the great novels of the 20th century.
 
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    Naxos: Historical New Releases

  • SCHUBERT, F.: Symphonies Nos. 8, `Unfinished` and 9, `Great` (Furtwangler) (1950-1951) (8.111344)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    This disc couples two of the finest recordings of Schubert’s two best-known symphonies. In Furtwängler’s hands the Unfinished is etched with aching intensity as he conjures sadness, resignation, rage and, finally, solace. In the Great C Major Furtwängler exploits to the full Schubert’s emotionally explosive music. In the slow movement, the heart of the symphony and of this performance, he opens up vistas of power, passion and communicative expressiveness that other accounts come nowhere near.The Finale is a tour de force of sustained momentum.

  • MICHELANGELI, Arturo Benedetti: Early Recordings, Vol. 2 (1939-1951) (8.112052)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    These works, all recorded in Milan by Michelangeli between the ages of 19 and 31, show a man at the beginning of his career as an already finished artist. One can only echo what a critic wrote in 1948, ‘What a pianist! Technically, the playing is astonishing: interpretatively, here is a very great musician’. Volume 1 (1939–1948) is available on 8.111351: ‘These early Michelangeli recordings enshrine pianism that marries technically impeccable command with a refined aristocracy that never precludes warmth.’ (MusicWeb International)

  • MICHELANGELI, Arturo Benedetti: Early Recordings, Vol. 2 (1939-1951) (8.112052)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    These works, all recorded in Milan by Michelangeli between the ages of 19 and 31, show a man at the beginning of his career as an already finished artist. One can only echo what a critic wrote in 1948, ‘What a pianist! Technically, the playing is astonishing: interpretatively, here is a very great musician’. Volume 1 (1939–1948) is available on 8.111351: ‘These early Michelangeli recordings enshrine pianism that marries technically impeccable command with a refined aristocracy that never precludes warmth.’ (MusicWeb International)

  • SCHUBERT, F.: Symphonies Nos. 8, `Unfinished` and 9, `Great` (Furtwangler) (1950-1951) (8.111344)

    31 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm
    This disc couples two of the finest recordings of Schubert’s two best-known symphonies. In Furtwängler’s hands the Unfinished is etched with aching intensity as he conjures sadness, resignation, rage and, finally, solace. In the Great C Major Furtwängler exploits to the full Schubert’s emotionally explosive music. In the slow movement, the heart of the symphony and of this performance, he opens up vistas of power, passion and communicative expressiveness that other accounts come nowhere near.The Finale is a tour de force of sustained momentum.

  • BARTOK, B.: Contrasts / Rhapsody No. 1 / Mikrokosmos (excerpts) (Bartok, Szigeti, Goodman) (Bartok Plays Bartok) (1940) (8.111343)

    31 Dec 2009 | 4:00 pm
    This disc presents Béla Bartók’s complete published American Columbia recordings, made in a series of sessions in New York in April and May 1940. Although this was a time of great difficulty for the émigré composer, with the upheaval of migration, the strain of illness and several career challenges, one can only be compelled by the fire and dynamism of his playing and rewarded by his interaction with legendary violinist Joseph Szigeti and clarinetist Benny Goodman. These authoritative interpretations of his music rank among the musical treasures of the…
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    Kenneth Woods: A View from the Podium

  • More on KW and Orchestra of the Swan from Classical Music Mag

    Kenneth Woods
    8 Feb 2010 | 7:11 pm
    The latest on Orchestra of the Swan from Classical Music Magazine-

  • Performer’s Perspective- Mahler 3, a shout-out

    Kenneth Woods
    8 Feb 2010 | 5:24 pm
    The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester Mahler in Manchester continues on February 12, 2010 at The Bridgewater Hall. The BBC Philharmonc and Vassily Sinaisky perform Mahler’s Symphony no. 3 in D minor and the premiere of Cerha’s “Like a Tragicomedy.” On its most basic level, what most musicians, musicologists and listeners call “interpretation” is, when done right, basically a 3 step process. 1-       Observation. What is there in the score? 2-       Examination. Why is it there? 3-       Application. What do we do with knowledge we’ve gained…

  • Performer’s Perspective- Let’s Dance

    Kenneth Woods
    29 Jan 2010 | 6:54 am
    Tomorrow I am conducting a Viennafest concert with the Surrey Mozart Players. It’s been several years since I did a proper Viennafest show- the last time was in 2005. I programmed that event partly as a warm up for our first Mahler symphony (the 2nd) which we did at the end of that season with my former orchestra, the Oregon East Symphony. It was interesting that almost nobody in the orchestra or the audience twigged to my hidden purpose- of course, these concerts can and should always be wonderful musical occasions in their own right, but I also think that understanding the language of…

  • Performer’s Perspective- Mahler 2, a roadmap

    Kenneth Woods
    28 Jan 2010 | 6:03 am
    The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester The Hallé perform Mahler’s 2nd Symhony,’Resurrection ,’ this Thursday, the 28th of January at 7:30 PM in the Bridgewater hall, under the direction of Marcus Stenz. As you are getting ready to hear this week’s performance of  Mahler 2 (live, or on the radio in April), you may wish to read over the essays I wrote on the work in 2006, complete with lots of musical examples. It’s a pretty comprehensive roadmap to Mahler 2, if I say so myself. Click here to start the interactive Mahler 2 Notes

  • Performer’s Perspective- Das Lied von der Erde, a rebirth

    Kenneth Woods
    28 Jan 2010 | 5:08 am
    The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester Saturday the 30th of January is Mahler day at the Bridgewater Hall. Manchester Camerata are performing the exquisite chamber version of Das Lied von der Erde, Beethoven’s 6th Symphony and the premiere of a new work by Bushra El Turk under the baton of their music director, Douglas Boyd. The concert is at 7:30 PM The concert is the culmination of a day of exploration that begins at 1:30 PM with a study day hosted by Peter Davison, Artistic Consultant to the Bridgewater Hall (and a distinguished expert on the music of Mahler) and Professor Julien…
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    Iron Tongue of Midnight

  • Where I've Been

    7 Feb 2010 | 5:07 pm
    Well, I made it to NYC safely, and I did get in to see the world's most multitasking tenor...and then I got sick. I spent last Friday, Thursday, and most of Wednesday at my NYC apartment with a fever and griping stomach, but having to work anyway (groan). My fever came down steadily on Friday, and since then I've been to two concerts, thanks to the excellent Bruce Hodges, and two museums. Full reports eventually!

  • ASO Season Announcement

    7 Feb 2010 | 5:00 pm
    As usual, the American Symphony Orchestra has a great season of works you'll never hear anywhere else. How I wish we had a similarly adventurous group in the Bay Area.Private to LB: program Granville Bantock's Omar Khhayam one of these years and I'm good for a donation. Also, you're going to perform Reyer's Sigurd some day, I bet.Cut & pasted from the season announcement; these concerts are all at Carnegie Hall.James JoyceWednesday, October 6, 2010, 8 p.m.Music played a significant if understated role in the consciousness of James Joyce. Joyce deeply admired some of the composers of his…

  • Make it Easy for People to Buy Tickets

    2 Feb 2010 | 1:28 pm
    Dear Metropolitan Opera:I've complained about this before, and I'm going to complain about it again.I really hate those additional fees over and above the cost of the ticket. And yours are the highest of all.San Francisco Opera dings me for $9 per order. But you seem to have a $7.50 per ticket charge plus a $2.50 "facility service" fee.I just bought a $15 standing room ticket for tonight. I nearly canceled it when I saw the $10 (ten dollars) in additional charges.You want people to come to the opera, true? It's 2010, the economy is in the pits, and revenues are being affected by the economic…

  • Ensemble Parallele's Wozzeck

    31 Jan 2010 | 10:56 am
    I'll try to get a longer commentary up on Emsemble Parallele's reduced-orchestra Wozzeck posted at some point, but, briefly, it's a splendid and gripping production. The second performance is today at 2, and I bet there are a few tickets left. Details are here. Be there or be square.

  • When in New York, II

    29 Jan 2010 | 8:48 am
    I'll be arriving Monday, Feb. 1, in the late afternoon; departing Sunday, Feb. 21, in the afternoon. Thanks to the excellent Bruce Hodges, I'm already booked for the JACK Quartet, AXIOM Ensemble, Orpheus, NYPO, and....um...something else. :) Hoping to catch Ariadne and probably Simon Boccanegra. Debating Sequentia at the Morgan, ICE elsewhere, the Faure Quartet, maybe an organ recital or two (where should I go for that...?). Oh, and the museums, of course.Suggestions welcome, plus, I'm happy to meet up for coffee/cupcakes/dinner/lunch/drinks.
 
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    Musical Assumptions

  • Photos of Edvard Grieg and His Family

    6 Feb 2010 | 5:19 pm
    There are many more photos from the Bergen Public Library. Here's the Grieg Collection, and here's the Ole Bull Collection.

  • How to Build a Better Bow Arm

    6 Feb 2010 | 6:44 am
    PDF files for all five volumes of Otakar Ševčík's School of Bowing Technique are available for free (for both violin and cello). When it comes to building a bow arm, you just can't beat Ševčík!

  • The Road to Success Before They Built the Information Super Highway

    6 Feb 2010 | 6:12 am
    I found this at Strange Maps. It is seriously worth more than a light ponder. I still think the "road to success" is pretty much the same road as this one "built" in the 19th century (notice that there aren't any cars) with pretty much the same obstacles.

  • Fund Raising Fun

    5 Feb 2010 | 9:45 am
    I remember when the Boston Symphony Orchestra held its yearly fund-raising "marathon." Now, in retrospect, I realize that the use of the word "marathon" probably had some relation to the famous yearly running event held in that city, but the BSO marathon had nothing to do with running. It had a little to do with music: our family was featured as one of the "premiums" for a few years: a concert by the "Famous Fine Family of Fiddlers and Flutists." I kid you not. My father, brother, and I played many a Beethoven Serenade for the benefit of the orchestra. Most of the "premiums" were not musical…

  • Bryn Terfel's Wardrobe Woes

    4 Feb 2010 | 10:18 am
    How did I ever miss this back in April?
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    Sieglinde's Diaries

  • Met Futures: Happy Spring Semester Edition

    28 Jan 2010 | 8:19 am
    First of all, I'm issuing a public apology to Brad Wilber, who's been infinitely patient with Sieglinde, who'd been buried in academic bs for a few months and so couldn't churn out roster updates in a more timely manner. I also want to apologize to the half-dozen readers who have hung around.But let's get on with the business, shall we. The following changes have been made to Brad's Met Futures page:For the 2010-2011 season:1. Das Rheingold will see Richard Croft as Loge, joining his brother in the cast.2. The cast of Les Contes d’Hoffmann has been revised. In place of Aleksandra Kurzak,…

  • Fall flurries

    16 Oct 2009 | 7:34 am
    Ladies, I announce lots of juicy additions and changes to Brad's Met Futures page:For the 2010-11 season: Orfeo ed Euridice has been added to the repertory, and will feature David Daniels and Lisette Oropesa (as Amor); the Danish contralto Susanne Resmark will make her Met debut as Ragonde in Le Comte Ory; Marina Poplavskaya takes over Violetta from Anna Netrebko; Kathleen Kim sings Madame Mao in Nixon in China; Anne Sofie von Otter will be Clairon in Capriccio (instead of Susan Graham); Susan Graham will sing Iphigenie; Canadian mezzo Julie Boulianne debuts as Stephano in Romeo et Juliette…

  • She's back

    14 Oct 2009 | 6:19 am
    STRAUSS Der Rosenkavalier, Met 13 October 2009; c. de Waart, Fleming, Graham, Persson, Sigmundsson, White, Ketelsen, Vargas.Curtain up: things have settled enough for Sieglinde to reboot. I'm seeing an equilibrium based on (really) short posts, but it's still being calibrated, so patience please. Last night, the return of Renee Fleming's Feldmarschallin and Susan Graham's Octavian, and a debut of a promising soprano, Miah Persson as Sophie, ethereal in a Judith Blegen hue. I'm dreading the day when I can detect the inevitable pulling back in Renee's voice. My current (conservative) diagnosis:…

  • Latest updates

    26 Aug 2009 | 5:47 am
    I'm transitioning to another appointment (the kind that promises tenure at the end of the tunnel!), which is why I've been absent the past few months. In the next few weeks, I'll have to figure out how to achieve productive homeostasis between work and play, because I don't want Sieglinde to "die" just like that. But the new job is grueling, and the demands for tenure daunting, so no promises. Meanwhile, I have an inch thick of tickets to the Met, for an ambitious list of 20+ operas this season (many for multiple viewings, especially the Armida and the Attila). What was I thinking when I…

  • Met Futures: March Madness edition

    26 Mar 2009 | 12:58 pm
    Sieglinde, in the midst of work-related turmoil, brings you the latest juicy updates to Brad's Met Futures page:For the 2010-11 season: Sondra Radvanovsky has been added to the cast of Tosca; Simon O'Neill will join the cast of Die Walküre as a second Siegmund; for Don Carlo, Simon Keenlyside has been tapped to sing Posa, and Maestro Lorin Maazel has been removed as conductor; In Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Cristina Gallardo-Domas will be Antonia; and in Nixon in China, Janis Kelly will debut as Pat Nixon.For the 2011-12 season: Aida has been added to the roster, with a cast that includes Violeta…
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    Mostly Opera

  • Best tenor of the moment - vote!

    3 Feb 2010 | 6:59 pm
    Now, let us once and for all decide upon who is the greatest tenor of the moment - vote below!The vote will be open for one week. No cheating! One vote per person only!Please note this vote is supposed to reflect the tenors status as of now - ie. Plácido Domingo´s must be judged only on current achievements, same as Rolando Villazón, who is only marginally eligible (your choice), and will have to

  • Berlin: Rienzi

    3 Feb 2010 | 7:13 am
    When do you get to see a great production of Rienzi in a major opera house? Now, perhaps.Read a live report from Stölzl´s (a former video director) new production of Rienzi at the Deutsche Oper Berlin here.

  • Paris: Werther with Jonas Kaufmann and Sophie Koch

    3 Feb 2010 | 5:09 am
    Despite a terribly boring staging, opera can be great if the protagonists are great..Benoit Jacquot´s staging of Werther for the Bastille Opera is proof of this statement: Jonas Kaufmann (role debut) is simply smashing as Werther, equally so is Sophie Koch as Charlotte with Ludovic Tézier an unusually menacing Albert. Apart from the Vilhelm Hammershoi-inspired look of the third act interior, the

  • Record of the year 2009: The Verdi Requiem

    2 Feb 2010 | 4:16 am
    Verdi: Requiem. Orchestra e Coro dell´Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Rome, 2009. Live recording. Cond: Antonio Pappano. Soloists: Anja Harteros, Sonia Ganassi, Rolando Villazón, René Pape. Further information here.As far as I am concerned this is THE release of 2009. And a Verdi Requiem of a quality I have not heard in decades of recording. All the pieces come together for Antonio Pappano,

  • Elisabeth Söderström 1927-2009

    21 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm
    Obituary in The Guardian by Alan Blyth (who died himself in 2007)Television portait of Elisabeth Söderström:
 
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    thirteen ways

  • Call for performers!

    Tim
    29 Jan 2010 | 6:22 am
    The application deadline is fast approaching for the Music10 festival happening in Blonay, Switzerland, June 21-July 2. Performers who are accepted to this program will work intensively and perform new compositions by America’s most talented young composers. Each ensemble will consist of a member of eighth blackbird along with a carefully selected group of young instrumentalists. Concurrently, the instrumentalists will prepare and perform works by the three principal composers, Martin Bresnick, Stephen Hartke and Joel Hoffmann. This repertoire will be performed in a series of concerts…

  • The amazing Tim and Jenn show!

    Tim
    22 Jan 2010 | 10:42 am
    Come see my crazy show with the CSO’s own Jenn Gunn, Trembling Air, at Roosevelt’s Ganz Hall. Here’s the info: Tim Munro (flutist with Grammy-winning ensemble eighth blackbird) and Jennifer Gunn (piccoloist with the Chicago Symphony) present Trembling Air at Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall, February 3, 2010 Flutes sing, speak, growl, wheeze and chirp in this surprising, kaleidoscopic musical patchwork. Ben Broening’s Trembling Air possesses an ethereal, other-worldly beauty that collides dramatically with Grawemeyer-winner Brett Dean’s virtuosic, hellish…

  • 8bb benefit with Mario Batali & Paul Kahan

    Tim
    19 Jan 2010 | 8:19 am
    It’s official – we’re doing a crazy/cool benefit with Mario Batali and Paul Kahan at The Publican on March 15th. For those who attended eighth blackbird’s 2007 benefit with Paul Kahan and Mario Batali at Blackbird, we don’t need to tell you just how special the 2010 event will be. If you are one of our newer fans, or simply couldn’t participate previously, then don’t miss what is sure to be one of the year’s artistic and culinary highlights. eighth blackbird begins the evening with a short concert at the Packer Schopf Gallery, featuring…

  • Maximum Reich

    Tim
    21 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am
    WQXR, New York’s classical music station, recently had a week-long celebration of Steve Reich called Maximum Reich. There are audio, video and written interviews with Reich and many other musicians, plenty of sound samples from works through the decades, a series of perspectives by young musicians (like Nadia Sirota and Nico Muhly), and the station broadcast the world premiere performance of Reich’s new Mallet Quartet. As part of this shebang, I was asked to write a blog entry that dealt with our relationship with Reich, forged during the commissioning of the Pulitzer…

  • Top Ten

    Matt Albert
    19 Dec 2009 | 11:18 pm
    It’s the time of year for top ten lists, so I thought I’d give one a shot. Here are my top ten moments of 2009. Most are 8bb-related (this is our blog, after all!) but not all. But the two that aren’t I couldn’t have done without 8bb granting me those opportunities, so it seems worth including them here. 10) running to the Tiergarten Morning of March 27th. Day before, we’d landed in Berlin, checked into our hotel, and played a concert for the Berlin Festival — a concert which I felt really great about, mostly because of the awesome work that Ryan (sound)…
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    An Unamplified Voice

  • Grand Old Men

    JSU
    5 Feb 2010 | 5:10 am
    Simon Boccanegra -- Metropolitan Opera, 1/25/10Domingo, Pieczonka, Giordani, Morris, Carfizzi / LevineThe last Met revival of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra was an exquisitely-felt enactment, driven as much by Angela Gheorghiu's luminous Amelia -- one of her finest parts at the Met -- as Thomas Hampson's eloquent old rogue of a Boccanegra. This revival is less thoroughly emotive, but a success nonetheless.It is not, this time, particularly about the young lovers who survive the story's civil strife. Adrianne Pieczonka, meltingly warm and winning as Sieglinde last spring, finds less success as…

  • Turandot, briefly

    JSU
    13 Jan 2010 | 12:15 am
    Turandot -- Metropolitan Opera, 01/04/10Guleghina, Kovalevska, Licitra, Tian / NelsonsIt was no surprise to find, in last season's Queen of Spades, Maria Guleghina lacking in delicacy and romantic ardor. But to hear her in this performance having seemingly no high notes left, ducking loud climaxes, and otherwise short-changing the icy violence of the Princess Turandot was just shocking: Guleghina has always been, if nothing else, reliably loud and forceful. There was no illness notice -- did she sound like this in the moviecast?Salvatore Licitra sang a pretty good account of Calaf, except...

  • Regular Ernst

    JSU
    12 Jan 2010 | 11:50 pm
    Les Contes d'Hoffmann -- Metropolitan Opera, 01/02/10Pomeroy, Lindsey, Held, Kim, Netrebko, Gubanova, Oke / LevineIn the end, among the ailing tenors, Roberto Alagna sang New Year's week (as Don Jose in the Carmen prima) but Joseph Calleja didn't (as Hoffmann in the final Hoffmann). Also sick from the bugs sweeping the city: me (resulting in delayed posts and a lag before I see the new Carmen).The audience for January 2nd's run-ending performance was greeted, at the evening's start, by dreaded sign and program-slip: the star tenor was still out (as he had been Wednesday), unknown David…

  • Ave atque vale (again)

    JSU
    8 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am
    If, City Opera's return notwithstanding, the current operatic season has seemed disappointing, it's not least due to the remarkable string of successes (and one awful half-success) that closed 2008-2009. Strong star turns from Angela Gheorghiu, Stephanie Blythe, Karita Mattila, Sondra Radvanovsky, Natalie Dessay, Renee Fleming, and Katarina Dalayman -- and that's only to name the women -- all, but for that one lapse, were given excellent, sometimes revelatory support both by cast and production. And the panoply of stars -- and theatrical styles -- assembled for the Met Opera's 125th…

  • 'Tis the season

    JSU
    31 Dec 2009 | 3:00 am
    A reader emailed some days ago to ask if I had information on Rachele Gilmore, who made her unscheduled Met debut substituting for Kathleen Kim (Olympia) in the pre- and post-Christmas performances of Hoffmann. I've no personal experience, but YouTube does tell the tale:Kim has recovered, but last night found illness knocking out the most important part of the cast: tenor David Pomeroy (who'd actually sung most of the dress rehearsal) made his official Met debut as Hoffmann himself in place of star Joseph Calleja. Pomeroy seems to have done OK, but let's hope Calleja is better by Saturday's…
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    On An Overgrown Path

  • What I envied him was his courage

    30 Jan 2010 | 3:30 am
    Brother Paul saw me off, repeating his assurance that it had been an honour. On the road in the bright sunshine, I found myself envying him. But precisely what was it that I was envying? The warmth of the cocoon that surrounded him? His certainty? The joy that peeped out again as we shook hands? His faith itself? To some extent, of course, all of these, but there was something else: his courage.The truth is that I am unable to believe that when Christ said: 'My Kingdom is not of this world' he meant that it was. Among the fifty monks of Notre Dame d'Aiguebelle, it was possible to see, misty…

  • Back to back Bach

    29 Jan 2010 | 7:21 am
    How does the Arabian Passion According to J.S. Bach featuring Arab musicians, two jazz saxophonists, a string quartet and a Lebanese singer grab you? The Arabian Passion is the brainchild of Vladimir Ivanoff, who is the Bulgarian founder and music director of the culture straddling ensemble Sarband. Ivanoff sees parallels between the story of occupation and persecution in the Middle East in biblical times, as portrayed in Bach’s Saint Matthew and Saint John Passions, and the tensions in the Middle East today. The Arabian Passion is the result, a 're-interpretation' of sections from both…

  • Your bow Sir Edward

    28 Jan 2010 | 8:48 am
    Going through the motions kills the emotions is a mantra that should be repeated by orchestral musicans before every performance. I was reminded of this when I switched on BBC Radio 3 yesterday afternoon a few minutes into the first movement of Elgar's masterly A flat symphony. Within a short time it was clear that something special was going on, inspired and intelligent conducting was matched by fresh and committed orchestral playing. I have heard the work literally hundreds of times, but after a few minutes I was marvelling once again at just how great a masterpiece Elgar created, rather…

  • What price BBC music coverage?

    28 Jan 2010 | 4:07 am
    The National Audit Office (NAO) is due to publish a report looking at how much the BBC spends on covering major sporting and music events. The corporation reportedly spent £1.5m sending 407 reporters and technical staff to cover the Glastonbury music festival last year ... The NAO said the report would look at whether the BBC provides value for money with its coverage - from BBC News website. Do you remember someone asking what price the BBC Proms?My header photo shows a small part of the BBC entourage at a Proms concert. It comes from my July 2006 article Summer in the City and is (c) On An…

  • Music that overflows with optimism

    27 Jan 2010 | 11:37 pm
    Rubbra's output reveals a unity on two levels: the musical, which is readily demonstrable, and the less easily perceived religous/philosophical, which overrides the musical and encompasses almost everything he wrote. It is universal rather than sectarian, an instinctive blend of the most spiritual and mystical elements of Buddhism and Catholicism. It led to a music that overflows with optimism and a sense of well-being, though the, at times, dramatic and conflictual aspects attest to the hard-won nature of that ultimate peace and reassurance. Edmund Rubbra's biographer Ralph Scott Grover…
 
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    rogerbourland.com

  • Top Classical Music Blogs

    Roger Bourland
    8 Feb 2010 | 5:15 pm
    Scott Spiegelberg used to make lists of the Top Classical Music Blogs, but when Invesp.com came along, he left it to them. If you care about such lists, bookmark it; the list is updated daily. They keep track of RSS membership feeds, unique monthly visitors, Yahoo and Google indexing, Google PR, and Alexa and Compete ranks. (If that is confusing, read here.) The number to the right of the blog name is invesp’s score. Top 25 Classical Blogs (Invesp.com) 1st Sequenza21/ 100 2nd Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise 99.72 3rd parterre box presents La Cieca 99.29 4th NewMusicBox 97.83 5th Opera Chic…

  • LACHSA GALA

    Roger Bourland
    7 Feb 2010 | 12:36 pm
    Mark Carlson and I attended a concert given by the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA). My high school days are a very long time ago (1967-71), and I don’t spend any time around high schools these days, so I was prepared for a culture shock. From a school of 579 students in music, art, and dance, we heard a GALA concert (read: everyone plays) with 203 high school musicians. WOW! We heard a jazz band, a gospel choir, an opera excerpt, three piano soloists interspersed, the concert choir, a very large orchestra (!!!), and saw inspired and gifted teachers and leaders. The…

  • Linked out

    Roger Bourland
    7 Feb 2010 | 9:10 am
    Holy Moly! I finally gave in and joined Linked In yesterday. A screen came up asking me whether I wanted to “link” with all the friends in my address book who already have Linked In accounts. I said ’sure, what the hell’ and it told me exactly how many that would be — and it was a large number. “Sure what the hell” I confirmed again. Over the past two days I have received scads of emails from old friends and acquaintances, many from whom I have not heard for many years. This very cool technology has afforded me little “hellos” from all my…

  • The Third Man theme

    Roger Bourland
    4 Feb 2010 | 5:04 pm
    I’m sure many of you have heard this tune, not knowing what it was. I figured it out after watching THE THIRD MAN (1949) directed by Carol Reed, starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. What is amusing to me is how Reed chose to use Anton Karas, the Viennese zither player, to score the entire film. The program notes on YouTube say: Release dates, September 2, 1949 UK 2 January 1950 USA The distinctive musical score was composed and played on the zither by Anton Karas. A single, “The Third Man Theme”, released in 1950 (Decca in UK, London Records in USA) became a best-seller,…

  • Smaller portions

    Roger Bourland
    2 Feb 2010 | 4:46 pm
    I have trouble sitting anywhere in the same place for a long time. That means long flights, plays, operas, movies, and concerts. It has something to do with my long torso. For that reason, and a few others, I find myself preferring smaller portions of everything: food, material possessions, and music. Many times I find half a concert just perfect, especially when new music is involved. Sometimes you just don’t want the tasting menu; you just want to hear the new piece (or whatever you prefer). It’s like being a member of the clean plate club. Sorry, but I never have been. I eat…
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    Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog

  • Chicago Bass Festival Wrap-Up

    Jason
    9 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    The first (but certainly not the last!) Chicago Bass Festival was held this past Sunday (2/7/10), and was by all accounts a resounding success. With 130 registered participants, 6 vendors, 30 clinicians, and another 60 parents and siblings, we packed Ravinia’s beautiful Bennett-Gordon Hall like you wouldn’t believe! We’ll be doing an online survey within the week to see what went well and what could be improved upon for next year. The first year for an event like this is always a stressful and unpredictable affair, but there were suprisingly few bumps in the road, and…

  • Dan Carson plays The Elephant

    Jason
    8 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    The following link is a video of the latest Midwest Young Artists podcast, featuring my double bass student Dan Carson playing The Elephant with the chamber music group I Solisti. Enjoy! Click to Watch

  • Podcasting at the Chicago Bass Festival

    Jason
    5 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    While I always have to be a little careful not to overcommitt and schedule myself so heavily that I have no timeto enjoy the event, there will almost certainly be some podcasting happening at the Chicago Bass Festival this Sunday. At the very least, I’ll be recording the two lecture/Q&A sessions I’m doing (one on how to get into a top music school and one about developing audition chops of steel). If you’re at the event on Sunday, come up and say hi! I’ll have some gear with me and will be perhaps doing some “man on the street” short hellos, so maybe…

  • Daxun Zhang master class 2/7/10

    Jason
    4 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    Here’s a master class from an awesome bassist: former CBC guest Daxun Zhang. Event: Daxun Zhang Master Class Start Time: Sunday, February 7 at 11:30am End Time: Sunday, February 7 at 2:00pm Where: The Cleveland Institute of Music – Mixon Hall It’s being hosted by another former CBC guest: Cleveland Orchestra principal bass Max Dimoff. Check out their respective interviews below: Daxun interview Max interview

  • On Auditioning

    Jason
    3 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    Taking auditions is one of the most challenging yet pivotal aspects of a musicians’s life. Careers and made or broken every day on these small snaphots of a performer’s life. In fact, this is such a critital skill for every musician that I decided to do a clinic at the 2010 Chicago Bass Festival on this very topic. I recently sat on an audition panel (something I’ve done frequently in the past), and I thought it might be instructive to put out the comments I wrote down for the candidates. These are all anonymous and randomized, and I think that they give a good impression of…
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    The Omniscient Mussel

  • Je Voudrais Un Croissant

    Miss Mussel
    5 Feb 2010 | 11:45 am
    Or why the Internet is the best thing ever. Last night Miss Mussel was embroiled in an epic battle with MS Word and its sinister, shape-shifting army of advanced formatting commands. Reaching a wall, she appealed to Twitter for some music to help get her over the hump. @sandramogenson and @hollychickman came to the rescue with some Grieg and Kernis. Sandra’s Youtube channel also contained this delight from The Flight Of The Conchords: which lead to a whole lot of Julie London, Dean Martin and Nelson Riddle. Mood sufficiently lifted and toes tapping away, Miss Mussel exacted her revenge…

  • Choosing Sides

    Miss Mussel
    1 Feb 2010 | 9:56 pm
    Things are heating up a bit in the “are classical music record sales in the toilet” debate. In the blue corner, we have Anne Midgette and Norman Lebrecht on the offensive. Fighting back, in red, with some insider facts is Proper Discord We’ve had the Conan vs Leno debates as well as Macmillan vs Amazon, so why not: Classical Music Records Sales – on life support or merely a flesh wound? Miss Mussel weighed in yesterday but in deference to her colleagues who have done actual research instead of just spouting off, she will say she’s a blue corner supporter rather…

  • Sliver

    Miss Mussel
    1 Feb 2010 | 9:50 am
    The Plain Dealer has a short interview with Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes. The strip ended fifteen years ago (seriously? 15 years?) and Miss Mussel still misses it. “I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can’t explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don’t think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at…

  • Banging Our Heads Against The Wall

    Miss Mussel
    31 Jan 2010 | 10:04 pm
    Anne Midgette brings news of the truly appalling state of classical music record sales in America. Searching for additional adjectives has proved to be rather futile. All that is coming to mind is shock. Miss Mussel knew it was bad, but this is miles beyond any scenario she could possibly have imagined. If, as Anne reports, the top 25 classical music discs sell a combined total of 5,000 copies/week, record companies have a serious problem. It isn’t that classical music is less cool than it was 30 years ago. Sony, Universal, DG et al have loads of money for publicity, so if they…

  • How To Win At Blogging

    Miss Mussel
    29 Jan 2010 | 9:41 pm
    From a new-to-Miss-Mussel webcomic called The Doghouse Diaries:
 
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    time4time

  • Mouth

    9 Feb 2010 | 3:04 am
    Mouth © 2010 by Ralph Lichtensteiger (Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3) Posted via email from lichtconlon's posterous

  • Cigarette Lady

    8 Feb 2010 | 7:12 am
    Cigarette Lady © 2010 by Ralph Lichtensteiger (Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3) Posted via email from lichtconlon's posterous

  • The Accidental Music Lesson - Opinionator Blog

    8 Feb 2010 | 12:58 am
    via opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com By MICHAEL GORDON Posted via web from lichtconlon's posterous

  • Manhattan Colors

    4 Feb 2010 | 8:21 pm
    Manhattan Colors © 2010 by Ralph Lichtensteiger (Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3) Posted via email from lichtconlon's posterous

  • Magnum’s Photo Archives Make Move to University of Texas - NYTimes.com

    2 Feb 2010 | 8:59 pm
    News Photos, on the Move, Make News Sign in to Recommend Twitter Sign In to E-Mail Print Reprints ShareCloseLinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink By RANDY KENNEDY Published: February 1, 2010 In the middle of December two trailer trucks left New York City bound for Austin, Tex., packed with a precious and unusual cargo: the entire collection of pictures amassed over more than half a century by the Magnum photo cooperative, whose members have been among the world’s most distinguished photojournalists. via nytimes.com Posted via web from lichtconlon's posterous
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    Naxos Blog

  • Podcast: Joseph Polisi talks about composer William Schuman

    Raymond
    8 Feb 2010 | 8:00 am
    American composer William Schuman, born 100 years ago, was one of the best-known composers of his day. He was also an arts administrator of great skill who was at various times President of The Julliard School and President of Lincoln Centre. In this podcast, Dr. Joseph Polisi, current President of Julliard and Schuman’s friend and biographer, talks about Schuman and his music. The music featured in this podcast comes from a new CD on the Naxos American Classics series featuring the Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz playing Schuman’s Symphony No. 8, Night Music, and…

  • Grammy Awards Given to Artists on Naxos and LPO Labels

    Kelly
    4 Feb 2010 | 7:07 am
    On January 31, 2010, The Recording Academy® honored artists from the Naxos and LPO (London Philharmonic Orchestra) labels with two Grammy® Awards. American composer Jennifer Higdon took home the Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for her Percussion Concerto (London Philharmonic Orchestra/Marin Alsop). This is Ms. Higdon’s second Grammy®; she won in 2004 for her Concerto for Orchestra/City Scape which featured the Atlanta Symphony. Veteran Producer Steven Epstein took home the award for Producer of the Year, Classical, for his work on Bernstein’s MASS (Marin Alsop,…

  • Podcast: Leonard Slatkin talks about Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2

    Raymond
    1 Feb 2010 | 8:00 am
    Maestro Leonard Slatkin talks about Sergei Rachmaninov’s music, his Symphony No. 2 in E minor, and his new recording of this piece with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where he is now Music Director. In this podcast, Leonard Slatkin talks about what Rachmaninov does that allows this hour-long symphony hold together, and what challenges it presents to the performing orchestra. Album details… Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572458 Subscribe to Podcast: Enhanced* | Regular | iTunes Store Download this Episode: AAC* | MP3 * enhanced version of the podcast contains chapter markers and cover…

  • Podcast: Marin Alsop talks about Roy Harris Symphonies 5 and 6

    Raymond
    25 Jan 2010 | 8:00 am
    Roy Harris, along with colleagues such as Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions, were among the leading American symphonists in the first half of the 20th century. Collectively, they helped to create an “American” symphonic sound. In this podcast, conductor Marin Alsop talks about the music of Roy Harris, and his Symphonies 5 and 6 which are featured on this new recording with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Album details… Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559609 Subscribe to Podcast: Enhanced* | Regular | iTunes Store Download this Episode: AAC* | MP3 * enhanced version of the podcast…

  • Podcast: Eternal Fire – the Choruses of J.S. Bach

    Raymond
    18 Jan 2010 | 8:00 am
    On Christmas Day 1999, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, together with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, embarked on one of the most remarkable musical projects ever undertaken. The began their “Bach Cantata Pilgrimage” in which they performed all 200 Bach Cantatas, each on the feast day for which they were composed, in one year. Out of that project came recordings of every cantata, and a new record label, SDG, to release them. This podcast looks at the project, and Eternal Fire, a collection of choruses from the cantata project. Album details… Catalogue No.:…
 
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    Berkshire Review for the Arts

  • Sitting under the piano…

    Keith Kibler
    6 Feb 2010 | 12:50 pm
    It is a dark object that keeps its softness, a ponderous roof, and a gentle. When you sit under the piano, you must be small. From there the world is a theatre. You watch unobserved, the darkness is a cushion, the piano is a mother. Can you remember being held in its arms and looking out ? Music comes out of it. The music is always played by your mother. Its sounds are too complex to offer a play opportunity to a child. No questions are asked about where the music comes from. All you can see of your mama is her feet on the pedals, and any kid knows that they don't make any music. So where…

  • Boulez and Barenboim conduct the Vienna Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, Wagner and Beethoven

    Michael Miller
    1 Feb 2010 | 1:47 pm
    Schoenberg and his two most famous pupils, Webern and Berg, appear to be everywhere this season, receiving the most polished performances by the most distinguished musicians and ensembles. This is a somewhat absurd understatement when one speaks of the likes of Sir Simon Rattle, Peter Serkin, Alan Gilbert, John Harbison, David Hoose, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, and, soon, James Levine, but polish and musicianly mastery are the bare minimum for this uncompromising music, which is difficult for the players and, at least by reputation, for the audience. It is important to realize, however,…

  • Sir Colin Davis conducts James Macmillan’s St. John Passion with the BSO

    Michael Miller
    28 Jan 2010 | 1:49 pm
    For more details about James MacMillan, his background, and his purposes in writing his St. John Passion, I'll refer the reader to the review of the superb LSO Live recording of the work, which I published as an introduction to this concert, its U.S. premiere. MacMillan wrote the Passion as an 80th birthday tribute to Sir Colin Davis, and it was jointly commissioned by the London and Boston Symphony Orchestras. An Ayrshire Catholic of Irish extraction, James MacMillan became connected to music early, and his experience with the Passion according to St. John goes back to the traditional…

  • James Levine and the Boston Symphony Announce Programs for 2010-11 Carnegie Hall Season

    The Editor
    27 Jan 2010 | 3:59 pm
    olinist Christian Tetzlaff Performing Three Major Concertos, Including A New Work by Harrison Birtwistle, Composed Especially for Tetzlaff and BSO 2010-11 Carnegie Hall Season to Present the BSO Over Three Consecutive Days, March 15, 16, and 17, as part of its Great American Orchestras and Concertos Series

  • Berkshire Bach Society’s New Year’s Brandenburgs 2010 with Kenneth Cooper at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall

    Michael Miller
    27 Jan 2010 | 12:49 pm
    I always look forward to the Berkshire Bach Society's New Year's Bach concerts, this year their classic program of the Brandenburg Concertos straight through. I was especially pleased that they scheduled a third concert at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, allowing us to hear them in their full glory, that is, in a fully satisfactory acoustic, more than that, in fact, since the Music Hall offers a unique bloom all its own. It seemed a bit much at first, as the musicians pulled themselves together after Kenneth Cooper's perfectly clear initial beat in the first concerto. Everyone was quite…
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    Spotify Classical Playlists

  • Spotify Classic Albums For Valentine's Day

    ulyssestone
    9 Feb 2010 | 5:11 am
    Tomorrow I'm going back to my hometown in southern China for Chinese new year, the Spring Festival. So there will probably be no new posts in the next ten days. Here's two albums that might come in handy for your Valentine's Day plans: A Lover's Gift: From Him To Her(Spotify Link) A Lover's Gift: From Her To Him(Spotify Link) Plus a very beautiful compilation album of traditional and classical songs: A Song in my Heart(Spotify Link) by bass-baritone Bryn Terfel. Schumann's "Mein Wagen Rollet Langsam", set on Heine's poem, is probably my favourite Schumann song, the lyrics is kind of sad for…

  • Jazz Goes Classical

    ulyssestone
    7 Feb 2010 | 5:35 pm
    We've done film scores and pop songs, so why not jazz played by classical ensembles and orchestras? This time the playlist consists of Quartet San Francisco Plays Brubeck, Kronos Quartet Plays Music Of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans, Nigel Kennedy Plays Jazz, and Duke Ellington played by City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Besides a lovely wind trio performance of Take Five from Berlin Dreiklang Ensemble, also included are Detroit Symphony Orchestra plays Blue In Green and the Gillespie classic A Night In…

  • Pop Songs Based On Classical Works: An Open Spotify Playlist

    ulyssestone
    5 Feb 2010 | 9:40 pm
    This playlist consists of pop songs and the classical works they borrowed from. To me some of the best examples are Paul Simon's American Tune, one of my favourite songs, which borrowed a tune from Bach's St Matthew Passion(OK Bach got this hymn from someone else and used it multiple times but this is probably the most famous one), The Orb's dance classic Little Fluffy Clouds, which sampled Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint, Elvis' Can't Help Falling Love, which is based on Martaini's aria Plaisir d'amour, and Ella Fitzgerald's My Reverie, which took the tune from Debussy's Rêverie. I have…

  • Classical Music In The Films: An Open Spotify Playlist

    ulyssestone
    3 Feb 2010 | 7:24 pm
    Inspired by Alex Ross' latest blog entry Lo and Behold! I made a Spotify playlist of soundtracks and film scores. It includes the soundtrack from Martin Scorsese’s new film “Shutter Island”. You can read about it on the page linked above. And Bernard Herrmann's classic scores for Hitchcock's Psycho and others, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Of course there are film scores by Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and Nino Rota's fascinating sonic landscapes and circus melodies for the Fellini films. Also included are Piero Piccioni’s score for Francesco Rosi’s…

  • Swan Songs of Great Composers

    ulyssestone
    2 Feb 2010 | 10:34 pm
    Last Sunday morning I enjoyed a rare moment of listening to music through the speakers at maximum volume, as my musically conservative wife, here conservative means music written by dead people are dead, had gone skiing. I played Schubert's last string quintet and piano sonata, and once again they made me speechless. Both are composed in the last months of Schubert's 31 years on earth, by that time his opus number has nearly reached 1000. Sometime the thriving vitality and the outburst of creativity in these last works just makes me sad. What if Schubert lived to Beethoven's age, that's just…
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