August 25, 2023 • 7:15 am Comments Off on Social Harmony: Shinichi Suzuki’s Legacy
For my story on the legacy of the music educator and visionary, which appears in the latest issue of Strings magazine, I spoke to Anne Akiko Meyers, Leila Josefowicz, and Patricia D’Ercole, past chair of the Suzuki Association Board of Directors.
Filed under: education, Strings, violinists
August 17, 2023 • 11:40 pm Comments Off on Music on the Strait: 2023 Edition
This summer’s Music on the Strait summer festival of chamber music (19-27 August) opens on Saturday, 19 August, at the newly opened Field Arts & Events Hall in Port Angeles, WA. The opening night concert in the 500-seat Donna Morris Auditorium begins at 7pm and features Garrick Ohlsson and the Takács Quartet in a program of Brahms and Amy Beach, as well as the world premiere of a new work for violin and viola by 2023 composer-in-residence Lembit Beecher, which was written for Artistic Directors James Garlick and Richard O’Neill. It was inspired in part by the transformation of the Elwha River. This will be one of the first performances at the Field Arts and Events Hall .
The 19 August opening concert will be livestreamed here and on Music on the Strait’s homepage; you can also watch the concerts on 25 August and 27 August (check MotS’ homepage).
On 26 August at 7pm, also at Field Hall, Jeremy Denk performs Bach’s Complete Partitas; the students of the Olympic Strings Workshop will present a showcase at 6.15pm. For the festival finale on 27 August at 2pm, Jeremy Denk & Friends will play music by Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms.
Other events will take place at Maier Hall at Peninsula College in Port Angeles:
On Sunday 20 August at 2pm, Takács plays Haydn, Beethoven, and Bartók, and on Friday 25 August at 7pm, Noah Geller, Seattle Symphony’s concertmaster, makes his Music on the Strait debut together with James Garlick, Richard O’Neill, and Ani Aznavoorian in Grieg’s String Quartet in G minor and shares the stage with percussionist Mari Yoshinaga in Anton Prischepa’s Based on Actual Events for Violin and Marimba. The quartet will also perform Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Pisashi for string quartet.
Filed under: chamber music, music news, Music on the Strait
August 15, 2023 • 6:01 am Comments Off on Seattle Opera Mines a Novel, Futuristic Rheingold
I reviewed Seattle Opera’s new production of Das Rheingold:
Richard Wagner once described his trailblazing brand of opera as “deeds of music made visible.” The new production of “Das Rheingold” that opened Seattle Opera’s 60th season Saturday adds a literal twist to that concept by having the orchestra share the stage with the singers.
Filed under: review, Seattle Opera, Wagner
August 14, 2023 • 10:55 am Comments Off on Mount Green: Monteverdi in Santa Fe
I wrote for Opera Now about Yuval Sharon’s Monteverdi production this summer at Santa Fe Opera:
The rousing fanfare that famously calls the audience to order for Orfeo was preceded by the sound of a modern orchestra tuning up – a preliminary signal of many surprises to come in Santa Fe Opera’s first-ever staging of the epochal work by Claudio Monteverdi.
continue
Filed under: directors, Monteverdi, review, Santa Fe Opera
August 11, 2023 • 11:29 am Comments Off on Orfeo in Santa Fe
The first of my reviews from Santa Fe Opera’s 2023 season is open through the weekend (no paywall) here. I discuss Yuval Sharon’s extraordinary new production of L’Orfeo (or Orfeo, as they’re calling it), which features new orchestrations commissioned from Nico Muhly.
My review of Tosca is here (but behind the paywall). More reviews upcoming in Opera Now.
Filed under: directors, Monteverdi, Musical America, Puccini, reviews, Santa Fe Opera
August 11, 2023 • 8:24 am Comments Off on Mahler 3 Opens Lucerne’s 2023 Summer Festival
Lucerne’s Summer Festival officially starts today with a performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season; Paavo Järvi conducts. This concert launches the 2023 Summer Festival: for the next five weeks, the Festival will explore musical reflections of the theme of “Paradise.” The concert is being streamed live on arte at 19:30 Swiss time.
on the 20th anniversary of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Filed under: Lucerne Festival, Mahler, music news
August 9, 2023 • 8:28 am Comments Off on A New Rheingold at Seattle Opera
Opening Seattle Opera’s 60th season this Saturday is a new production of Das Rheingold — staged here for the first time since 2013. It’s not the start of a new complete Ring but a stand-alone production. My Seattle Times preview:
At McCaw Hall, the gods are preparing once again to enter Valhalla.
Stagings of Richard Wagner’s cycle of four interlinked operas, together known as “The Ring of the Nibelung,” are what put Seattle Opera on the international map almost half a century ago. But a full decade has elapsed since the “Ring” was last produced here. So to open the milestone 60th anniversary season, General Director Christina Scheppelmann decided to pay homage to a central part of the company’s legacy with “Das Rheingold,” the first installment of the “Ring” operas, in a stand-alone new production directed by Brian Staufenbiel. It runs Aug. 12-20.
Filed under: directors, Ring cycle, Seattle Opera, Wagner
August 7, 2023 • 12:43 pm Comments Off on Hankyeol Yoon Wins Karajan Conductors Award
Congratulations to Hankyeol Yoon: the 29-year-old South Korean conductor was just announced as the winner of the 2023 Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award.
Hankyeol Yoon’s bio as of November 2022:
Conductor Hankyeol Yoon was the youngest ever recipient of the Neeme Järvi Prize at the 2019 Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy and subsequently received invitations from Kammerorchester Basel and the Basel and Bern symphony orchestras. Highlights of the 2022/23 season include debuts with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Bern Symphony Orchestra and Busan Philharmonic Orchestra and a return to KBS Symphony Orchestra for concerts in Tokyo. He is currently one of the three finalist of Karajan Young Conductors’ Award and will conduct a concert at the Salzburg Festival in August 2023.
Recent highlights include concerts with Münchner Symphoniker, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Neubrandenburger Philharmonie, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Kammerorchester Basel, Korean National Symphony Orchestra and Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2019 Hankyeol was awarded 3rd prize at CAMPUS Dirigieren in Nuremberg and in 2021 he won the 2nd and audience prizes at the inaugural KSO International Conducting Competition in Seoul. Hankyeol was also a finalist at the 2020 Georg Solti Competition and 2021 Deutscher Dirigentenpreis respectively.
In 2021 Hankyeol stepped down as 2nd Kapellmeister of Theater und Orchester Neubrandenburg Neustrelitz. During his two-year tenure Hankyeol conducted several symphonic concerts as well as performances of Pariser Leben and il Barbiere di Siviglia. He also led a production of V. Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis.
Hankyeol has previously worked as Assistant Conductor with Staatstheater Nürnberg, Grand Théâtre de Genève and Heidenheim Opera Festival, as well as with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Daniel Harding and at Lucerne Festival as a Conducting Fellow under Thomas Adès.
Also a prize-winning composer, Hankyeol has been recognised at the Luciano Berio International Composition Competition Rome in 2020, TonaLi Composition Competition Hamburg in 2018, Vareler Composition Competition in 2016 and Concours de Geneve in 2015. In 2019 Hankyeol was one of two composers mentored by the Peter Eötvös Foundation in Budapest where his compositions were conducted by Peter Eötvös and he received mentorship from Sir George Benjamin. Under Unsuk Chin, Hankyeol made his debut as conductor and composer in South Korea at the Tongyeong International Music Festival. In December 2021 his latest work, Grande Hipab, was premiered by Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt.
Born in Daegu, South Korea but calling Munich his home since 2011, Hankyeol studied conducting, composing, and piano performance at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.
Filed under: conductors, music news
August 3, 2023 • 11:01 am Comments Off on Jimmy López Bellido at BBC Proms
Prom 27 on Friday, 4 August 2023 at 19:30 London Time opens with the UK premiere of Jimmy López Bellido’s Perú negro. Also on the program are Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Yuja Wang and William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast; Klaus Mäkelä conducts. The performance will be broadcast here.
Filed under: music news
August 2, 2023 • 11:15 am Comments Off on Seattle’s Summer of Chamber Music
Here’s my report for Classical Voice North America on Seattle Chamber Music Society’s just-concluded 2023 Summer Festival:
There’s nothing quite like the gentle euphoria triggered by a heavy intake of live chamber music. In the heart of summer, the Emerald City becomes a magnet for chamber-music enthusiasts, lured by the quality and variety of the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s month-long Summer Festival. This bonanza of concerts and related programs fills up the month of July — yet always seems to end too soon.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 