September 9, 2020 • 9:03 am Comments Off on Tippet Rise at Home: Escher String Quartet
On Thursday, 10 September, at 6pm MT, Tippet Rise continues its monthly streaming series, Tippet Rise & Friends at Home, with a concert featuring the Escher String Quartet.
Their program includes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet in F major, K. 590 and the Adagio from Samuel Barber’s Quartet, Op. 11 (otherwise known as the “Adagio for Strings”).
You can access the stream here.
Here are the last two months’ streams:
Filed under: chamber music, string quartet, Tippet Rise
September 7, 2020 • 12:44 pm Comments Off on A New Era at Wiener Staatsoper
From the Wiener Zeitung:
“For director Bogdan Roščić’s inaugural season at the Vienna State Opera [he just took over the reins from Dominique Meyer in July], the audience is being greeted by a photorealistic still life that critiques colonialism — even before the curtain is raised. On Monday, ahead of the season’s first premiere, the new safety curtain was presented. It is the work of US artist Carrie Mae Weems.
For her model, she turned to R&B icon Mary J. Blige. Titled ‘Queen B (Mary J. Blige),’ the figure looks at herself in a mirror amid a Baroque-style setting — clad in a blend of contemporary clothing and set pieces alluding to the trappings of erstwhile symbols of power from the West. Here, a visual indictment of the Eurocentric gaze goes hand in hand with a celebration of Black beauty and prosperity. ‘What actually interests me is the idea of representation itself,’ says Weems …”
Filed under: music news
September 6, 2020 • 5:29 am Comments Off on 400th Anniversary of Isabella Leonarda
Today marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of the extraordinary Isabella Leonarda, a versatile and prolific composer whose long life unfolded against a backdrop of dramatic transformation in the history of music.
She left behind a vast output of compositions, a musical treasure that defied the strictures of the patriarchy. Working within the confines of the Ursuline convent where she spent her life, Leonarda also became the first woman to publish instrumental sonatas.
PacificMusicWorks celebrates this fiercely creative woman with a concert hosted by Henry Lebedinsky and featuring special guest countertenor Reginald L. Mobley. Linked above, the concert will remain available through September.
Filed under: Isabella Leonarda, music news
September 2, 2020 • 11:51 am Comments Off on Music for Beirut: A Relief Effort Campaign
In solidarity with those suffering from last month’s catastrophic explosion in Beirut, the New York-based violinist and composer Layale Chaker has created a pop-up store on her website as a relief campaign. She is donating proceeds from the sale of Inner Rhyme, her debut album with her ensemble Sarafand from now until 15 September.
100% of the sales will go to these efforts, which will be divided 50%-50% between Children’s Cancer Center in Lebanon and Beit el Baraka, which provides “housing, nutrition, medical support, sustainable agricultural initiatives, and different community engagement activities to respond to the multi-dimensional challenges faced by deprived communities.”
Of Inner Rhyme Chaker remarks: “I always thought of [the album] as a true labor of love. It is now time for it to pay it forward. I look forward to this direct interaction, to folding your packages and sending out my music in the world to find you, and to transmitting the outcome back to Lebanon. If so you choose, you will be updated with your donation every step of the way.”
Filed under: music news
September 1, 2020 • 10:54 am Comments Off on The Artist and State: Political Art in Mexico and the US
UPDATE:
Excerpts from the Zoom chat:
The latest installment in the PostClassical Ensemble’s (PCE) More than Music series takes up the issue of political art, with a focus on the landmark 1936 film Redes — and its powerful score by Silvestre Revueltas.
Some of the questions to be explored in PCE’s Zoom discussion on 2 September at 6.30pm EST: How did the Mexican Revolution galvanize political muralists and composers? Why was Mexico more hospitable to political art than the US? What’s the pertinence of political art today?
The Zoom-chat will feature Gregorio Luke’s presentations on Diego Rivera and the Mexican muralists, plus commentary by composer Ana Lara and by historians Roberto Kolb, John Tutino, and Lorenzo Candelaria, and Ix-Nic Iruegas Peon of the Mexican Cultural Institute. Registration is free: simply sign up here.
From Joseph Horowitz’s blog post “’Redes’ Lives! — The Iconic Film of the Mexican Revolution and What It Says to Us Today”:
“It’s a pity that Silvestre Revueltas is not at least as well known as Rivera. I would unhesitatingly call him the supreme political composer of concert and film music produced in the Americas. His music combines ideology with personal understanding…Revueltas’s peak achievements include his singularly arresting score for the film Redes (1936), in which impoverished Mexican fisherman unite to storm the bastions of power.”
More from Joe Horowitz:
On “The Artist and the State” in Mexico (where political art has greatly mattered) and the U.S. (where the artist remains an outsider):
Filed under: PostClassical Ensemble
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 