This evening in Lucerne (at 6.30 pm local time), the 2021 Summer Festival begins with Riccardo Chailly leading the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in a program of Mozart and Schubert. The concert is being streamed on arte.
The summer’s theme, quite aptly for these times, is “Crazy” — the German word verrückt having especially rich connotations that extend from mental imbalance to the dislocations and ruptures that seed a paradigm shift.
Photo (c) Jorge Gustavo de Araujo Elias. Pictured: Elisabeth Remy Johnson, harp; Mercedes Smith, flute; Zach Boeding, oboe; Marci Gurnow, clarinet; Madeline Sharp, viola
It’s only my first time in these parts, but already I can understand the deep, magnetic sense of connection that draws people back here again and again. Upon passing through the elk antler arch at Jackson Hole Airport (the only U.S. airport located within a national park, incidentally), I soon began to feel the charm of a place that hasn’t been flattened out by plastic predictability. Even with lingering smoke from the latest Western fires imposing a thin pall, the capacity for this landscape to inspire awe was undimmed.
With its marriage of valley and dramatic, looming scarps, it’s obvious how the Jackson Hole area beckoned as an ideal spot to make music. The GrandTetonMusicFestival opened on 2 July, following the all-too-familiar hiatus, and is now into Week 4 of a seven-week season — which also marks the Festival’s 60th anniversary.
Last night I began with the first of the week’s offerings, a chamber music evening at Walk Hall, GTMF’s home performance space. It was decently attended, taking into account the reduced-capacity seating plan and a sudden shift in mask policy. (Just last night, in the wake of the new CDC announcement, the official recommendation switched to suggesting that vaccinated and unvaccinated people both wear masks indoors.)
Part of a series curated — and engagingly introduced by — Adelle Eslinger Runnicles, the concert presented a flavorful sampling of periods and instrumental formations, starting with a transcription by Phil Brink for low brass of J.S. Bach’s D minor Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 for solo violin (Michael Mulcahy, trombone; Jared Rodin, trombone; Craig Mulcahy, trombone; Jay Evans, trombone; JáTtik Clark, tuba). The Baroque fondness for transcription aside, Bach’s masterpiece sounded of a different era — not Romantic exactly, but funereal, ritualistic, the opening to new vistas in the later variations remarkably fluid and gentle.
Unmistakably Romantic phrasing beguiled in Saint-Saëns’s Fantaisie for Violin and Harp, Op. 124, featuring Eunice Keem on violin and Elisabeth Remy Johnson on harp. Exquisitely balanced and fully engaged in playing off each other, the duo cast a spell throughout this late-period piece’s range of moods.
Johnson also performed in Kimberly Osberg’s Just Another Climb,* joined by colleagues Mercedes Smith on flute, Zach Boeding on oboe, Marci Gurnow on clarinet, and Madeline Sharp on viola. If the Saint-Saëns suggested a leisured dreamscape, Just Another Climb packed the punch of an involving musical short story, its impact belying the brevity of the piece’s duration (about four minutes) — and making this a real highlight of the evening.
The young, Portland, Oregon-based Osberg, who was present in the audience, was inspired by the feat of the first “manless” ascent of the Grand Teton made in 1939 by Margaret Bedell, Anne Sharples, Margaret Smith Craighead, and Mary Whittemore — upon which achievement Craighead remarked: ” Craighead wrote: “This may have been of importance to the record of events, but to us it was just another climb.”
This first performance before a live audience emphasized Osberg’s colorfully individualistic writing for each component of the ensemble. The result was an assuredly paced musical storytelling that found freshness in a diatonic idiom, using evocative gestures to hint at but not dictate a plausible narrative. I’m eager to learn more about this composer and hear what she can accomplish with a longer form.
The program’s brass theme sets the stage for the main new work on this week’s orchestral concert, Five Hallucinations for Trombone and Orchestra by Carl Vines. It returned in John Stevens’s Triangles for horn (Josh Phillips), trombone (Jay Evans), and tuba (JáTtik Clark), a piece from 1978 that (not always convincingly) juggles with jazz vernacular.
Concluding the program was a rendition of Beethoven’s C minor String Trio from the Op. 9 set by violinist Louise Morrison, violist Chiara Kingsley Dieguez, and cellist Thomas Carpenter that reveled in the tension between the first movement’s ominous energies and the halcyon release of the Adagio. The long time away from live performance could be sensed in some issues of balance and phrasing, but the richness of this score — Beethoven declared these trios among his finest compositions of the period — came through, most notably in the spidery enigma of the concluding measures.
Originating at a palatial, 17th-century hunting lodge near Madrid, the Zarzuela is a dramatic form of musical storytelling that once dominated the stages of Spanish-speaking counties in worlds both old and new. Opera stage director Emilio Sagi will lead us on a historical survey of an art form rarely appreciated—or even known—in modern-day America
Sunday, July 18, 1 pm: Baroque Opera in the New World
The arrival of Spanish colonists in what they thought was a “new world” forever changed human civilization and its course in history. Laura Prichard will travel with us back in time to the Baroque Era in Latin America, where unique forms of classical music and opera flourished. From boy choirs singing a cappella to the lost operatic works of Mexican composers like Manuel de Zumaya, this lecture will have you yelling Bravo! for all things Mexican Baroque.
Sunday, July 25, 1 pm: Contemporary Latin Stage Works
In today’s operatic landscape, the old classics still reign, and the roster of new works premiered by major companies is dominated by composers of European and American birth. Meanwhile, composers throughout Latin America continue to tell their own stories and heritage through our beloved art form of opera. Multidisciplinary artist Albert Montañez returns to Opera Aficionado to shine a spotlight on new stage works from the contemporary Latinx world.
TICKETS: $5–$40
Students, educators and individuals in need: $5/session.
General admission: $20/session, discount available for multiple-sessions order.
Louis Andriessen has died at the age of 82. His publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, announced the death this morning of the eminent Dutch composer:
Boosey & Hawkes is sad to announce the death of Louis Andriessen, one of the most original and influential composers of the contemporary era. He died this morning (1 July) in De Hogeweyk dementia village in Weesp, near Amsterdam, aged 82. Andriessen leaves behind a corpus of remarkable music including the ensemble work De Staat and the opera Writing to Vermeer. A generation of younger composers were taught by him or were indebted to his unique fusion of jazz and minimalist styles.
Andriessen wrote in a wide range of idioms, including orchestra and chamber works, songs, choral pieces, music for brass band and solo works for piano, bassoon, organ, harpsichord, violin, oboe, percussion and trumpet. Perhaps most visible were his collaborative theatre works and operas, which adapted an eclectic array of texts. For De Materie, a genre-resistant theater work created with Robert Wilson for the Netherlands Opera, Andriessen incorporates documents pertaining to 17th-century shipbuilding, a decree on Dutch independence from Spain, the diary of Marie Curie and the straight-lined art of painter Piet Mondrian. Near the work’s end, as staged in 2016 at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, a flock of 100 sheep joined the cast.
On The only one, the world premiere of which Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted with the LA Philharmonic in May 2019:
Two artistic discoveries influenced Andriessen as he wrote The only one. The first was a collection of poems by the Flemish poet Delphine Lecompte from The animals in me. “These witty, intelligent, experimental, and sometimes scabrous poems immediately fascinated me. My focus turned to faraway America, with its great tradition of songwriting,” he says.
His second discovery was the work of Nora Fischer, an Amsterdam–based singer known for developing dynamic creative projects that fuse classical and pop music. Andriessen says, “The depth of her versatility has strongly influenced the musical language of the piece.” He further explains that “the piece flirts a bit with certain kinds of pop songs and light music, and starts out with a beautiful song.”
“Andriessen used bits of old music, an allusion to the Dies Irae motif and some Minimalism, a jazz riff here and a Mexican brass allusion there, as he often has,” says the Los Angeles Times. “But he always remakes it into a complex and powerfully blatant new thing, and here edge-of-your-seat operatically so.”
Andriessen’s final work was May for choir and orchestra, a tribute to Frans Bruggen setting texts from the Dutch impressionist poem by Herman Gorter and premiered at the Concertgebouw in December 2020:
Tune in on Sunday 27 June 2021 at 8pm EST for a free livestream of 21c Liederabend, Op. Worldwide (digital), a new music project co-directed by Paola Prestini and Beth Morrison (also to be broadcast on WNET’s ALL ARTS).
21c Liederabend is the first program in a six-episode retrospective titled Contemplations from National Sawdust, celebrating the 5th anniversary of Brooklyn-based new music incubator National Sawdust.
The event is a contemporary take on the 19th-century Liederabend tradition and presents collaborative, multimedia vocal and instrumental compositions. Op. Worldwide is the first to be exclusively presented as a broadcast/streaming event,featuring six world premieres that bring together a dozen talents from around the globe, in fields ranging from composition and poetry to fine arts and video. A conversation with soprano Renée Fleming on the future of the art form rounds out the program.
Of particular interest is Prestini’s new work Jarful of Bees, a multimedia, immersive short film created in collaboration with artists Natalie Frank and Erin Pollock, librettist Royce Vavrek, and mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti. The film weaves together Frank and Pollock’s animated painting, drawing, and claymation into a dreamlike visual landscape that elucidates Prestini’s vocal and electronic score and the ethereal voice of Gigliotti.
And it’s now been announced: San Francisco Opera returns to a season of live performances with Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, August 21, inaugurating the tenure of Eun Sun Kim as the company’s new music director. The refurbished War Memorial Opera House will greet audiences with newly installed custom seats and accessibility enhancements.
This is being billed as a “transitional year” and includes three new productions: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio and, continuing the Company’s Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni. The season also includes a revival of Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang’s Dream of the Red Chamber, a free Opera at the Ballpark simulcast, multiple concert programs, and a new livestreaming option for select performances.
From the press release:
Kim’s music directorship begins with Tosca, a masterpiece central to San Francisco Opera since it opened the War Memorial Opera House in 1932. Kim will also lead Live and In Concert: TheHomecoming on September 10 and returns to the podium on October 14 to conduct a bold new production of Beethoven’s ode to freedom Fidelio, along with the annual Adler Fellows concert, The Future Is Now, and a Summer 2022 tribute to the music of Giuseppe Verdi.
Eun Sun Kim said: “When I was appointed Music Director Designate in December 2019, it seemed certain that the time until I officially assumed the position would fly by. And then, of course, the whole world came to a standstill. I’m so proud of the way the entire San Francisco Opera family has worked to remain resilient during this time—we’ve created new ways to make music together and we’ve encouraged each other in strength. Now this steadfast faith will allow us to finally rejoin the audiences who have so patiently waited for our return to the War Memorial Opera House. I hope this is a joyful moment for our whole community, as we open this new chapter together with a sense of renewed hope and optimism.”
After making “a company debut of astonishing vibrancy and assurance” (San Francisco Chronicle) leading Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka in June 2019, Eun Sun Kim was appointed Music Director Designate in December 2019 in a move the New York Times called “pathbreaking.” The Seoul, South Korea-born Kim will help shape San Francisco Opera’s artistic vision as the Company heads into its second century. San Francisco Opera’s first two general directors, Gaetano Merola and Kurt Herbert Adler, both regularly conducted performances during the Company’s first six decades. In 1985, Sir John Pritchard was appointed San Francisco Opera’s first music director (1985–89). He was succeeded by Donald Runnicles (1992–2009) and Nicola Luisotti (2009–18). Kim is the fourth music director in the Company’s 99-year history.
“That all of our productions this season will be new or recently new to our stage is a testament to the local artisans who built them and to the local community which has supported this Company so magnificently during this year. We will return to the social history of the Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy, be welcomed back into the light of liberation with Beethoven’s Fidelio and enter into the great story of imperial China in Dream of the Red Chamber. But first we return to Tosca—the time-honored way that San Francisco Opera reopens, recommits to our community and reemerges with all of the thrilling energy of live grand opera. It is a moment I cannot wait to share.”
SILVER: DALÍ QUARTET, Ari Isaacman-Beck (Violin), Carlos Rubio (Violin), Adriana Linares (Viola), Jesús Morales (Cello) – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
BRONZE: Zagrab Philharmonic Orchestra: QUINTETO EMEDEA, Mathias Naon (Violin), Lysandre Donoso (Bandoneon), Emilie Aridon-Kociołek (Piano), Adrien Merahi (Electric guitar), Lucas Eubel-Frontini (Double bass) – Paris, France
SPECIAL PRIZES
CONCERT: Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra /Quinteto Emedea
CONCERT: Grosseto Symphony Orchestra and Anton Stachev, St. Petersburg
CONCERT: Athens Philharmonia Orchestra and Rose Wollman, Indiana
MASTERCLASS Pablo Ziegler Award: Sonus Piano Trio, California
MASTERCLASSES iClassical Academy Award: Pianoduo LUSTRE, Osaka
MASTERCLASSES iClassical Academy Bonus Award: Gonzalo Esteban Antuña, Río Cuarto, Argentina
MASTERCLASSES iClassical Academy Bonus Award: Nada Brahma Graz, Austria
Proceeds from the competition, totalling $10,000, are being donated to the Playing for Change Foundation to support music and art education in under-resourced communities around the world.
Both sites will have a link to donate to the artists. Performed live on The Royal Room stage, following all Washington State Department of Health guidelines.
The lineup of performers includes:
Members of Seattle Chamber Players Seattle Modern Orchestra Laurie DeLuca Dave Sabee Mikhail Schmidt Byron Schenkman Angelique Poteat Kin of the Moon (Heather Bentley, Leanne Keith, Kaley Eaton) Cristina Valdes Beth Fleenor Chuck Deardorf Wayne Horvitz Jarrad Powell Jovinos Santos Neto Michael Partington Agata Zubel Claire Chase And many more…
The obituary I wrote following Paul’s untimely death on 13 March is here.
Among the commemorations of the Tulsa Race Massacre — the horrible events of 31 May-1 June 1921 that took place in Tulsa’s Greenwood District — here’s a concert scheduled for 19 June/Juneteenth by the Harlem Chamber Players and featuring the world premiere Adolphus Hailstork’s Tulsa 1921 (Pity These Ashes, Pity This Dust), an operatic retelling of the massacre.
The mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges will sing in this digitally streamed concert on Juneteenth at 7pm, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the massacre. She will be joined by the violinist Jessica (Lady Jess) McJunkins, WQXR host and author Terrance McKnight, harpist Ashley Jackson, and conductor Amadi Azikiwe leading the Harlem Chamber Players.
Jessie Montgomery Starburst Alice Coltrane Prema for Harp and Strings arranged by Tom Cunningham of Urban Playground Orchestra Adolphus Hailstork TULSA 1921 (Pity Theses Ashes, Pity This Dust) for Mezzo-Soprano and Chamber Orchestra *World Premiere – libretto by Herbert Woodward Martin Trevor Weston The People Could Fly for Violin Solo, Narrator and Strings (based upon an African-American folktale by Virginia Hamilton; featuring dancers from Harlem School of the Arts)
FEATURING Amadi Azikiwe, Music Director and Conductor Terrance McKnight, Host and Performer J’Nai Bridges, Mezzo-Soprano Lady Jess, Violin Ashley Jackson, Harp With an orchestra comprising members of The Harlem Chamber Players Also featuring dancers from Harlem School of the Arts
And here is J’Nai Bridges in Daniel Bernard Roumain’s aria about the massacre, They Still Want To Kill Us:
MEMETERIA 