In my interview for Bachtrack, Colin Currie discusses the large-scale Steve Reich Festival he has organized with The Hallé (running 1-3 February 2024):
Colin Currie vividly recalls the moment he first met Steve Reich in person. The occasion was a concert at London’s Southbank Centre in 2011 featuring Reich’s landmark early work Drumming (1970–71), in a performance by Currie’s own ensemble. Though he had previously received encouragement from Reich, this was the first time that the eminent American composer’s gruelling schedule made it possible for him to hear the Colin Currie Group live….
Quynh Nguyen with the London Symphony in the world premiere recording of Paul Chihara’s Concerto-Fantasy
This year’s edition of the Celebrate Asiaconcert presented by Seattle Symphony marks the 16th season of this annual tradition. Associate Conductor Sunny Xia will helm the orchestra in a program of works by two very special composers with Seattle connections, as well as classics by Beethoven and Grieg. The concert takes place on Sunday 28 January 2024 at 4pm at Benaroya Hall. Tickets are available to purchase here. There will also be a Celebrate Asia Market starting at 3pm before the concert and after the performance, featuring the Seattle International Lion Dance Team (at 3pm) and CHIKIRI and The School of TAIKO (post-concert).
The extraordinarily precocious Korean American composer August Baikis a graduate of the 2022-2023 SSO Young Composers Workshop, where his Chuseok Overture for Orchestra was first introduced. The Young Composers Workshop is a unique program that give students the opportunity to workshop compositions with an experienced local composer and Symphony musicians.
The wonderful Paul Chihara‘s new Piano Concerto-Fantasy will receive its US premiere, with Vietnamese American pianist Quynh Nguyen as the soloist. Chihara was born in 1938 in Seattle (and was forced with his family to live in an internment camp in Minidoka, Idaho, during the Second World War as a result of Executive Order 9066). Chihara wrote Piano Concerto-Fantasy for Quynh Nguyen as part of an intensive recent collaboration involving her recording of his complete piano works on the Naxos label. She gave the world premiere in October 2022 with the Vietnamese National Symphony at the Hanoi Opera House as part of a concert commemorating normalization of US-Vietnam diplomatic relations.
Chihara found inspiration for Piano Concerto-Fantasy “in traditional Vietnamese melodies and modes, as well as his own experiences composing scores for television and film about the Vietnam War,” according to Quynh Nguyen. The music, she adds, “embodies a sense of longing for the peaceful past and for the future and its possibilities. The piece is virtuosic and intensely melodic with French and Eastern harmonies and jazz-tinged sections, and phrases reminiscent of Russian classical works. These elements are juxtaposed within the story, reflecting my personal journey of studying music in Vietnam, Russia, France, and the United States, and how their diverse cultures have shaped my life. The concerto reinforces how music transcends politics, language and culture.”
The program will also include Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite.
Two blissful weekends of intimate music-making are about to start as Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2024 Winter Festival kicks off on Friday, 26 January. Artistic Director James Ehnes will appear in all six programs over the festival’s two weekends. On opening night, he’ll join colleagues Amy Schwartz Moretti, Che-Yen Chen, Cynthia Phelps, Edward Arron, and Efe Baltacıgil for Brahms’s String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18; the program also includes Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in G major and British composer Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio — part of this winter edition’s focus on 20th-century British composers.
Jan. 26-28 and Feb. 2-4; Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; $30-$65; subscriptions and streaming options available; free prelude recital starts an hour before each concert; seattlechambermusic.org
From theArts Empowering Life Foundation in Cape Cod: the latest lecture in the Building Bridges through Music series presents composer, mentor, and mensch Samuel Adler on “95 Years to Speak to Our Time.” The lecture will be streamed starting at 3.30pm ET here.
From the press release:
At age ten, Samuel Adler narrowly escaped Nazi Germany during Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass.” As he and his father collected sheet music in the loft of the synagogue, saving all that they could on that terrifying night, soldiers heard them from down below. It was the sudden collapse of the pipe organ that allowed Adler and his father to run and escape through an underground tunnel. His family took the last train out of Germany with their bags full of sheet music, paving the way for Adler to study and nurture his musical gifts in America.
At age ninety-five, he continues to compose, sharing his prolific musical gifts. Known for building bridges through the international language of music, as well as his optimism and “life-affirming spirit,” he is uniquely positioned TO SPEAK TO OUR TIME.
The risk-taking composer of 400 published works taught for sixty three years at Juilliard, and Eastman, and has given masterclasses and workshops at over 300 universities world-wide. Having studied with Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Randall Thompson, and more, he knows just about everyone on the twentieth-century American music scene and has received numerous awards including ASCAP’s “Aaron Copland Lifetime Achievement Award.” He believes that one should compose in the “energy of his time” and he is without doubt one of the greatest living composers and conductors.
Seattle Opera today announced the lineup for its 2024-25 season. Three of the five mainstage operas are warhorses from the core repertoire: Pagliacci, The Magic Flute, and Tosca. The second part of Berlioz’s magnificent LesTroyens will be presented not in a full staging but in a concert version (though this is the company’s first-time excursion into Berlioz’s epic). And Jubilee, Tazewell Thompson’s opera about The Fisk Jubilee Singers, will be a world premiere. The rest of the season includes two chamber productions and a recital by tenor Frederick Ballentine, along with various additional Opera Center events, from an “Opera 101” series to background presentations on the Berlioz and Mozart operas.
General director Christine Scheppelmann’s tenure ends with the conclusion of the current season. There has been no update yet on the search for her successor.
PostClassical Ensemble begins the new year with Amazing Grace, a program centered around Jeffrey Mumford’s cello of radiances blossoming in expanding air in its Washington, D.C., premiere. The concert, which music director Angel Gil-Ordóñez will conduct on 10 January 2024 at 7.30 pm at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, presents Annie Jacobs-Perkins as the soloist and will also include music by John Newton, George Walker, Margaret Bonds, Gustav Mahler, Gabriel Fauré, and Luciano Berio. Mumford, who also serves as guest curator, will receive PCE’s American Roots Artist Award for his outstanding contributions to American music.
Amazing Grace: In Paradisum
Wednesday, January 10 2024, 7:30pm
Terrace Theater | The Kennedy Center | 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC
Presented without intermission
Jeffrey Mumford, guest curator
Annie Jacobs-Perkins, cello
Katerina Burton, soprano
CAAPA Chorale
Andre Leonard, piano
PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordóñez
PROGRAM:
John Newton: Amazing Grace
George Walker: O Praise the Lord
George Walker: Stars
George Walker: Lyric for Strings
Jeffery Mumford: of radiances blossoming in expanding air (DC premiere)
Gustav Mahler: 4th Symphony. 4th Movement, The Heavenly Life
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 