Today would have been the 100th birthday of George Walker. His legacy remains far too little known. In his honor, I’m reposting my story for The New York Times on this extraordinary American composer.
A Composer’s Final Work Contains ‘Visions’ of an American Master
Last fall, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery began to display, among its recent acquisitions, a photograph of the composer George Walker. It shows him close up, his right index finger and thumb bearing down on a pencil with the precision of a surgeon, at work on the manuscript score of his Sinfonia No. 5…
To tee off the 2022 Summer Festival, which starts on 5 July, Seattle Chamber Music Society is introducing the Concert Truck: a mobile concert hall equipped with piano and professional lighting and sound. The Concert Truck will be giving free chamber concerts at stops around the Seattle region in the days leading up to the opening of the Festival.
Etienne Dupuis as Don Giovanni; Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera
I wrote about Michael Cavanagh’s production of Don Giovanni currently being presented by San Francisco Opera.
SAN FRANCISCO — The flames are already flickering as the overture begins in the new production ofDon Giovanni directed by Michael Cavanagh at San Francisco Opera. Set and projection designer Erhard Rom’s accompanying visuals establish a scenario of civilizational destruction as the backstory for what we’re about to see transpire onstage.
Quite looking forward to tonight’s San Francisco Symphony concert, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, which brings John Adams’s most-recent piano concerto to Davies Hall. Vikingur Ólafsson is the soloist, and on the basis of this morning’s open rehearsal, this should be a performance to remember.
We had a good one in January with the Seattle Symphony and Jeremy Denk, Adams himself guest conducting.
The rest of the program includes a beautiful work by the late Steven Stucky, Radical Light (also an SFS premiere), and Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony.
Celebrate the Summer Solstice on Tuesday evening with the musical program Vibe Check at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center (4649 Sunnyside Ave N) from 6 to 10pm.
Anchoring the evening on amplified five-octave marimba, Eric Jorgensen will be joined by Rachel Nesvig (Hardanger fiddle), Leanna Keith (flute), Aaron Michael Butler (sound manipulation), and Steve Peters (field recordings) for an evening of meditative sounds created in real time and shifting to correspond with the changes in natural light for this longest day of the year. The audience is encouraged to bring pillows or blankets for maximum meditation and is can come and go at will.
Donations will be accepted at the door. All ages welcome.
The 76th edition of the Ojai Music Festival begins today and runs through Sunday. I was honored to write the notes for the inspiring, original, “discipline-colliding” program curated this year by AMOC* (the American Modern Opera Company) and featuring its unparalleled team of artists. That a collective is serving in the role of music director/curator is one of the unique features of this summer at Ojai.
There are many fascinating tangents to AMOC*’s program: a focus on the legacy of Julius Eastman, whose music begins and ends the festival; perspectives on Minimalism, especially from Eastman, Hans Otte, and the young generation of composers emerging today; adventurous juxtapositions of music, dance, and theater; and the exciting convergence of early music sensibilities (on the part of today’s performers, that is) and “new music.”
Also in the lineup are several anticipated premieres: AMOC* co-founder Matthew Aucoin’s new cycle of “mini-concertos,” Family Dinner; Bobbi Jene Smith and colleagues’ intriguing latest dance-theater projects, Open Rehearsal and The Cello Player; Carolyn Chen’s music-dance work How to Fall Apart; and Anthony Cheung’s poetry-song cycle, the echoing of tenses. Also part of this cornucopia of premieres was to have been a new staging by AMOC* co-founder Zack Winokur of Olivier Messiaen’s song cycle Harawi (part of his “Tristan trilogy”), but this will not be able to happen because Julia Bullock is unable to travel from her home in Germany due to Covid. Harawi has been a long-in-the-making collaboration between the soprano and Winokur — it’s a major loss not to be able to present it at the festival. But such is the extraordinary team ethic and resilience of this company that member Davóne Tines and colleagues agreed to step in at the last minute to offer an entirely different program for the Friday night slot: Tyshawn Sorey’s For James Primosch and Tines’s own curated program Recital No. 1: MASS.
Former Seattle Symphony music director Ludovic Morlot returned to conduct Messaien’s ‘Des canyons aux étoiles…‘ (Photos by James Holt / Seattle Symphony)
I reviewed an extraordinary (and rare) performance of Messiaen by Ludovic Morlot and Seattle Symphony for Classical Voice America:
SEATTLE — For their recent reunion, Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony put aside the familiar repertoire to offer a program devoted entirely to Olivier Messiaen’s vast, 12-movement work inspired by the landscape of the American West, Des canyons aux étoiles…. The experience was blissfully unique, reminiscent of similarly rare outings during Morlot’s eight-year tenure as music director (2011-19) that have not faded from memory: a riotous Varèse Amériques early on, the collaborations with John Luther Adams, semi-staged Ravel and Stravinsky — and, indeed, other Messiaen performances, including the orchestra’s first encounter with the Turangalîla Symphony….
Friday night at 7.30 pm, Seattle Pro Musica will stream its final concert of the season, The Way Home, which they performed live on 21 and 22 May.
From SPM’s description: “The Way Home honors America’s multicultural heritage with music that seeks to foster respect for all persons and groups, especially immigrants and refugees. Through these performances, we hope to enrich audiences with a greater understanding of and compassion for those who seek shelter from harm.
Music from trailblazing young composers Saunder Choi, Caroline Shaw, Derrick Skye, and Chris Hutchings explore the peril and helplessness faced by many refugees. Songs from the 14th and 15th centuries remind us that the refugee experience resonates across human history. Works by Melissa Dunphy, Reginald Unterseher, and Stephen Paulus express the hope that our hearts will open to welcome those in need of refuge.”
Ludovic Morlot conducts the Seattle Symphony in The Mayors’ Concert for Ukraine and Refugees Worldwide earlier this year. (James Holt / Seattle Symphony)
Tonight Ludovic Morlot rejoins the Seattle Symphony for the first of two performances of one of Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles… I spoke to the conductor about the program for The Seattle Times:
A new chapter in Ludovic Morlot’s relationship with the Seattle Symphony is underway.
Now holding the title of conductor emeritus, Morlot has chosen some unusual fare for his concerts on June 2 and 4: the orchestral epic “Des canyons aux étoiles …” (“From the Canyons to the Stars …”) by Olivier Messiaen, which will be presented in a multimedia presentation accompanied by video projections by Deborah O’Grady.
The news of Ingram Marshall‘s passing hits hard. His music was wonderfully imaginative and rich in personality, and his generosity and warmth as a mentor made an enormous impact well beyond the experimental-music scene. I will be forever grateful for Ingram’s kindness and support in participating in The John Adams Reader. He shared so many evocative stories about the culture he and his friend experienced in the Bay Area in the 1970s and early ’80s.
From Frank J. Oteri has reposted an extensive interview he conducted in July 2001 for NewMusicBox.
And here is a series of linked articles and interviews from Ingram’s own website.
Brett Goldstein is a writer for Ted Lasso and plays Roy Kent, a gruff but lovable retired footballer-turned-coach. He says, "sport is there so men can say 'I love you' without saying 'I love you.' "
Tori and Lokita is the latest gripping moral thriller from Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The story is swift and relentless; it runs barely 90 minutes and never slows down.
Hip-hop musician Pras Michel of Fugees faces criminal trial in Washington, D.C., for allegedly conspiring to violate election law and influence American policymakers on behalf of China.
Police were called to a domestic dispute in an apartment Saturday morning. Majors was charged with assault, strangulation and harassment. A representative for Majors said he "has done nothing wrong."
Xavier López, a Mexican children's comic better known by his stage name "Chabelo," hosted the Sunday variety show En Familia con Chabelo for an astonishing 48 years from 1967 to 2015.
This week, we make our triumphant return to Tucson, and political consultant David Axelrod makes his return to our show. He helped get Obama elected, but what does Axelrod know about Axl Rose?
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 