MEMETERIA

January 28, 2016 • 10:15 am Comments Off on Collapsing Borders and Boundaries

Collapsing Borders and Boundaries

Kid Koala - Nufonia Must Fall - Noorderzon_Festival_2014_@_Groningen_NL_ Jørn-Mulder-93

My preview of two upcoming events at Stanford Live has now been psoted:

The coming weeks feature two unusual programs in Stanford Live’s ongoing performance season—each featuring a uniquely unclassifiable collaboration with chamber musicians. Singer-songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane joins with the innovative string quartet Brooklyn Rider to bridge the gap between folk-pop songs and instrumental music. And in Nufonia Must Fall, DJ extraordinaire Kid Koala transforms his graphic novel into a one-of-a-kind music theater/film hybrid with the help of the Afiara Quartet, director-designer K. K. Barrett, a team of puppeteers—and a timeless tale of robots in love.

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Filed under: new music, preview, Schubert

January 27, 2016 • 12:00 am Comments Off on Happy Birthday, Wolfgang!

Happy Birthday, Wolfgang!

Filed under: Mozart

January 24, 2016 • 9:58 pm Comments Off on The Miró Quartet’s “Transcendent” Project

The Miró Quartet’s “Transcendent” Project

MEMETERIA

To celebrate its 20th anniversary year, the Miró Quartet has been pursuing some characteristically innovative and ambitious projects. This week the group announced the winner of its Transcendence Education Project: the Fox Chapel Area High School Orchestra in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Entrants had been invited to submit a 30-second video on the topic of ‘musical transcendence’ with prizes including a free masterclass and other chances to interact with the Miró Quartet.

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January 21, 2016 • 10:41 pm Comments Off on Milton Babbitt’s World: A Centennial Celebration

Milton Babbitt’s World: A Centennial Celebration

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Tomorrow Juilliard launches it’s six-concert-long Focus! festival devoted to the work of Milton Babbitt and friends. Organized by Joel Sachs, it will present a fascinating cross-section of the much-misunderstood Babbitt’s creative interests and his wide-ranging circle of associates. I had the pleasure of editing the entire set of programs for this festival. Here’s the opening program, including Sachs’s introductory essay on Milton Babbitt:

This Focus! festival, the 32nd, revisits the world of the distinguished American composer Milton Babbitt in commemoration of his centennial. For me, the event is particularly special: I had known him since the 1970s and retain extremely fond memories of our endless chats. His great sense of humor, his remarkable ability to attend seemingly every new-music concert, his love of schmoozing, and his triple role as artist, intellectual, and Southern Gentleman were always a source of joy. His passion for old popular music often surprised the uninitiated. I shall never forget a Columbia Music Department Christmas party in the 1970s when he sat down at the piano and spun off cocktail music with incredible elegance.

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Filed under: Juilliard, Milton Babbitt

January 19, 2016 • 10:12 pm Comments Off on Liszt on the Brain

Liszt on the Brain

Filed under: Franz Liszt, pianists

January 18, 2016 • 9:23 am Comments Off on Arresting Aristos Make for a Fine Figaro

Arresting Aristos Make for a Fine Figaro

Shenyang (Figaro) and Nuccia Focile (Susanna)
(c) Jacob Lucas

Aidan Lang, head of Seattle Opera, reveals his talents as a stage director in a fresh and engaging interpretation of Mozart’s comic masterpiece.

The buzz around Seattle Opera’s new Figaro is that it offers audiences here their first chance to see company chief Aidan Lang in his guise as stage director. This production originated to much acclaim in 2010 at New Zealand Opera, which Lang helmed until 2013. The current season is his second since succeeding Speight Jenkins as general director at Seattle Opera.

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Filed under: Mozart, review, Seattle Opera

January 17, 2016 • 8:29 am Comments Off on Rekindle your spirits with Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Winter Festival

Rekindle your spirits with Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Winter Festival

2016-Winter1

My preview of this month’s Winter Festival by the Seattle Chamber Music Society for the Seattle Times is now online.

Filed under: James Ehnes, preview, Seattle Chamber Music Society

January 16, 2016 • 9:43 am Comments Off on Ivesian Revelations from Morlot and the Seattle Symphony

Ivesian Revelations from Morlot and the Seattle Symphony

Looking back over last year’s review, now that the SSO and Morlot’s recording of Ives 4 has been released.

MEMETERIA

page from score of Ives/4th Symphony

The last time Ludovic Morlot led the Seattle Symphony in a Charles Ives symphony (the Second), he paired it with Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto (and got pulses running with the Overture to Leonard Bernstein’s musical Candide as a curtain raiser).

I can’t say I get the connections he apparently sees between the conservative Russian and his maverick American contemporary. Maybe the idea is to add still another layer of meta-contrast on top of the already explosively varied mixtures that comprise Ives’ sound world. In any case, this week’s program brings another Rach-Ives pairing.

It was heartening to encounter such an unpredictable interpretation of Rach 3 in last night’s performance (I believe the third time in as many years that Morlot has conducted the work here). Though the previous Rachmaninoff-meets-Ives effort (back in June 2012) had featured the ever-fascinating Stephen Hough as the soloist, the…

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January 14, 2016 • 12:25 pm Comments Off on Mohammed Fairouz: Cello Concerto

Mohammed Fairouz: Cello Concerto

DSO-live A heads-up for the weekend: the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin will broadcast a major new work by the remarkable Arab-American composer Mohammed Fairouz. Titled Desert Sorrows, it’s a cello concerto for soloist Maya Beiser. Also on the program: Dvořák’s Serenade for Winds, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, and Mozart’s Prague Symphony. The webcast is scheduled for 8 pm EST on 16 January.