Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Kyle Rivera – moving boldly with sound

Photo by Shawnte Sims

One of the rising stars among the constellation of young American composers is Kyle Rivera, whose "Grimoire I, Laplace’s Demon" received its world premiere by Chamber Music Northwest at The Old Church (July 17). And as part of CMNW’s Summer Festival, Rivera gave a masterclass at Portland State University (July 18) to a select group of nascent composers from Fear No Music’s Young Composers Project. I also saw him in the audience at The Reser for the Preeminent Piano concert (July 18), which featured works by Stewart Goodyear, György Ligeti, and Beethoven. So he kept a busy schedule while in Portland.

Born in Boston (1996), Rivera and his family lived in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. They moved to Houston, where Rivera began viola lessons and became interested in the symphony. While in high school, he began composing, matriculating to the University of Houston for his bachelors and then to the Yale School of Music for his masters, which he received this year. In the meantime, Rivera’s works have been performed at many classical music festivals across the nation as well as Russia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China. His music has also been played by the Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Yale Philharmonia, Albany Symphony, Musiqa Houston and other orchestras.

Rivera likes to make bold moves in music, including esoteric ideas like the casual determinism of Laplace’s Demon, chaos theory, and a grimoire, which is a book of magical spells. Those concepts collided in a fanciful way in Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon, which was featured in CMNW’s New@Night series. It should be noted that according to determinism (from Wikipedia) “if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics.” So, if I understood Rivera’s opening remarks correctly, in the music, the randomness of chaos theory dukes it out with the calculating demon so that demon is finally banished. Along the way, words would be spoken in a jumbled way that would make sense at the end.

Played by members of Opus13 (violinist Edvard Erdal, violist Albin Uusijärvi, and cellist Daniel Thorell), pianists and electric keyboardist Stewart Goodyear, and percussionist Ji Hye Jung, "Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon" generated sounds that ricocheted all over the hall. The first movement, “Phase Space,” began with a wham on a large gong and featured extended pizzicato-ing strings. In the second movement, “Traveling an Infinite Curve in a Finite Space” the violist stood up, perhaps symbolizing the top of a hierarchy, and led the strings in motifs that were angular and wild glissandos while the percussionist tapped an assortment of wood blocks and other items. The third movement, “Fractals, Free Will, and the Future,” offered a lot of fragmentary sounds and coordinating yelling of “deliver” and “us up.” With the fourth movement, “The Demon Knows, The Butterfly Dreams,” came repeated exclamations of “Ah” followed by sustained notes, then percussive sounds from all instruments, including crumpled paper bags, and finally feathery tones from the strings. In the final movement, “Weird Densities of Ancient Orbits.” I noticed that Goodyear had one hand on the piano keyboard and the other on the electronic keyboard. Ji Hye Jung rang everything in her arsenal. The strings went bananas. Then came a sequence of quiet sounds. It may have been in this movement that the phrase “deliver us up from evil” jelled. At any rate, the demon was banished and the audience responded with a standing ovation.

Somewhere during the piece, the violist and the violinist switched places, and that might have been part of the hierarchy that Rivera mentioned earlier. It may be that chaos and randomness entered into the equation; so that you would never hear the piece played the same way. In any case, a bit of trimming to tighten things up a bit might make "Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon" more relatable.

Kyle River and James Lee | Photo by James Bash

Rivera began the masterclass - held in Room 225 in Lincoln Hall on the Portland State University campus - with a bit of information about himself and how he came to compose music.

“When I was really young, I liked to imagine myself writing music and doing other creative things like doing visual art and writing” Rivera said. “It took me a while to realize that composers were real thing because you always associate composers with the dead guys like Beethoven and Brahms. In high school, I started writing music after my school borrowed a harp from another school, I want to sit down and play it, and after messing around with it, I decided that I should write something so that I can learn how to play this instrument. Then my orchestra instructor suggested that I should just start simply writing music.”

“I’ve had a snaking journey writing composing,” he continued, “because I have a lot of interests. I left music and for a while was working in therapy for a few years. Then I got drawn back into this world and realized how meaningful it is to explore ideas in music. I kept going with it and got a lot of opportunities with groups that trusted me and were okay with my abstract and experimental ideas.”

For the masterclass (shepherded by Fear No Music’s Jeff Payne), Rivera and the audience heard four pieces from four participants in the Young Composers Project. As the recording of each piece was played, its score was projected onto a very large screen. I only was able to stay for the first number, “Time Out” by James Lee, who will be a junior at Wilsonville High School. I was extremely impressed by how Rivera encouraged Lee to talk about his music, and how Rivera deftly pointed out things that could be changed or improved upon without sounding intimidating or condescending. He has a natural talent for teaching with the Socratic method and genuine enthusiasm that is infectious.

I have to admit that that I learned a lot during the first hour and wanted to stay to hear Rivera’s comments on the other pieces by Elishiya Crain-Keddie, Charles A. Martin, and Alejandro Belgique, but I had other commitments. Suffice it to say, any young composer would benefit greatly from a class with Rivera. Even a jaded music critic like yours truly would benefit greatly. He is that terrific!

Today's Birthdays

Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739)
Robert Planquette (1848-1903)
Ada Clement (1878-1952)
Norman Del Mar (1919-1994)
Walter Arlen (1920-1924)
Steuart Bedford (1939-2021)
Reinhard Goebel (1952)
Randall Davidson (1953)

and

Mary Harris Jones, or "Mother Jones" (1837-1930)
Primo Levi (1919-1987)
Kim Addonizio (1954)
J. K. Rowling (1965)

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Preview of OrpheusPDX season in The Oregonian

 


My preview of this summer's opera productions from OrpheusPDX is now available in Oregonlive here.  It will be in the print edition this Friday.

Vancouver Arts and Music Festival ready to celebrate its second year


Expectations are high for another weekend of record-breaking crowds at the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival this coming weekend (August 2-5). It’s the second year for Vancouver’s unique cultural celebration at Esther Short Park, and it promises to be just as spectacular as the first year. The extravaganza will offer a wide variety of food and entertainment that is sure to appeal to those who enjoy pretzels and popcorn to others who want to survey the latest in acrylic paintings and fashionable artware.

Of course, headlining the musical side of the ledger will be the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, whose CEO, Igor Shakhman, teamed up with the City of Vancouver, The Murdock Foundation, and other foundations and granting organizations to make this extravaganza a reality. And this year’s schedule will bring another stellar lineup of stars from the classical music world to downtown Vancouver.

Leading off on Friday (August 2) is cellist Zuill Bailey, who will perform Tchaikovsky “Variations on a Rococo Theme” and John Williams “Schindler’s List” with the VSO under Music Director Salvador Brotons. In 2016 Bailey received a Grammy award for his recording of Michael Daugherty's cello concerto “Tales of Hemingway.” Also on the program are three Tchaikovsky numbers, concluding with the rousing “1812 Overture.”

Saturday’s concert (August 3) features pianist Olga Kern playing Beethoven’s “Fifth Piano Concerto,” aka the “Emperor Concerto,” with the VSO under conductor Gerard Schwarz, the former Music Director of the Seattle Symphony. In 2001, Kern won the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She is the only woman in the last 50 years to do so. The orchestra will also deliver Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with its dramatic opening statement.

On Sunday afternoon (August), Schwarz and the VSO return to the main stage at Esther Short Park with three Bernstein pieces, including his “Suite No. 1” from “West Side Story” with soprano Cecilia Violetta López and tenor Ben Gulley. A movement from Mahler’s Second Symphony will kick off the program.

To get more insight into the featured works, I contacted the performers. Here’s an edited transcript of what they said.

Zuill Bailey

“I’ve been on the road the last four or five months,” said Bailey over the phone. “I am now in New York City were my cello is getting cleaned up. You have make sure that the seams are together. It’s the Matteo Gofriller Cello that was built in 1693. These instruments were built to fall apart so that they don’t crack. Humidity and temperature cause the wood to expand and contract. So they must be flexible, but they need maintenance.”

“Tchaikovsky’s ‘Variations on a Rococo Theme’ and John Williams ‘Schindler’s List’ are two of my most favorite pieces,” remarked Bailey. “Tchaikovsky was inspired to write the variations because of Mozart, who was his hero. Mozart didn’t write a concerto for the cello; so Tchaikovsky uncorked this virtuosic, romantic and passionate piece. It brings out the cello which evolved a lot as an instrument throughout the Nineteenth century.”

“The piece was dedicated to the great cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, who gave its premiere,” continued Bailed. “He added more octane to the piece; so that over the course of its seven variations, it builds to the finale. This was an early piece that I learned, and I received mentoring from Rostropovich. I played it for him in my mid teens while he was in Washington D. C., as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra. He was a force of pure nature and told me of the secrets behind playing the ‘Variations.’

“’Schindler's List’ was written for the violin and performed by Itzak Perlman in the Stephen Spielberg movie,” said Bailey. “During COVID, I thought about the piece over and over. It haunted me. So I learned how to play it in the range of the cello, which emulates the human voice. I tinkered with the octaves a bit to show off the cello, but otherwise, it is exactly the same.”

“It’s wonderful to play music by a living composer and the great Tchaikovsky piece,” added Bailey. “I’m thrilled to perform both at the festival.”

Olga Kern

“I have played all of Beethoven’s concertos often,” said Kern. “The fifth concerto is a monumental piece. I always loved how Beethoven gave the piano soloist a part right at the beginning of the whole the piece. It’s a wonderful beginning with the big rolling chords in E-flat major. They are just so grand and majestic. The orchestra plays just one chord, and then Beethoven gave the piano soloist a chance to shine right away. Usually the concertos up to this point started with a long orchestral introduction and the soloist has to wait before entering. But here it is wonderfully different.”

“The whole first movement is the biggest movement of the concerto,” continued Kern, “and so many things happen. The scenes change, and the pianist has to make a huge big line from one theme to next theme theme and to the third theme and the development. You have to make sure that it doesn’t sound separate. You need to bring all of the parts together in line.”

“Beethoven always loved to put a cadenza in the first movement,” added Kern, “but here, we don’t have it. We have a very short solo after the recapitulation, and it doesn’t sound like a cadenza. He wants to have a competition between the piano and the orchestra. But the piano rules the movement and must be in charge.”

“Of course, I love the second movement,” noted Kern. “Everyone is just waiting for it to arrive. It has gorgeous music from heaven. Every time I play it, I just feel like it could be just a little bit longer. It is so beautiful. He gives the main theme to the piano and then to the orchestra, then the piano accompanies a gorgeous melody in the strings. It’s just incredibly beautiful.”

“The third movement is a majestic dance with a happy ending,” noted Kern. “It gives you those good vibes! I tell my friend and fans to listen to everything. You can relax and enjoy it. “

Cecilia Violetta López

“I just returned home in Albuquerque from singing in an outdoor festival for Opera Idaho,” said López via Zoom. “It was 106 degrees, but we still made it a fun experience.”

I asked her to give us a little bit of her background.

“I went to the University of Nevada Las Vegas,” said López. “I was a music education major at first. I didn’t grow up on classical and opera music. I saw ‘La Boheme’ for the first time in college and was moved to tears. So I switched to a vocal performance degree and had to audition three times to be accepted. I auditioned for Opera San Jose in 2011 on a whim, and they gave me my first contract. I had just graduated from the university, and I’ve been singing professionally ever since.”

“I’ve done the entire role of Maria before,” continued López. “I grew up thinking that ‘West Side Story’ was more of a musical theater piece. When I saw the score and the thick orchestration, I understood how Bernstein wanted opera singers to do the music. Maria is really high. But it is such yummy music. I love it. The Latina identity resonates with me, because I am Mexican-American.”

Ben Gulley

“The Bernstein suites for ‘West Side Story’ allow you to hit fast forward – you get all the greatest hits,” said Gulley. “It’s got the great numbers like ‘Tonight,’ ‘One Hand, One Heart,’ and ‘Maria.’”

I’ve worked with Cecilia for about seven years,” added Gulley. “ We are dear colleagues. There’s not a show where the characters we sing haven’t fallen in love: ‘La Boheme,’ ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ but in this concert version we get to stay alive.”

“I am an operatic tenor, but I come from singing in church and musical theater, which is the style you need for ‘West Side Story,’” noted Gulley. “I’ve never let go of that side of me. I recently did the role of Quasimodo in Dennis DeYoung’s ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame,’ which won 53 out of 56 Broadway World Awards. So I am comfortable with everything from Pops to opera.”

Last year, Gulley rescued the Portland Opera production of Rusalka by jumping in with 36 hours’ notice to sing the role of the Prince.

“I hadn’t sung it in four years,” said Gulley. “There’s only about ten of us in the world who can sing that role in Czech. I had just returned home from vacation when I got the call. My agent said that I had to get on a plane in the morning. The dress rehearsal is tomorrow morning for 1500 people. I’m a big guy. I played nose guard on the high school football scene. The only seat available was the middle seat in the last role of the economy section. I was going over my part, whispering in Czech. You have to do what you have to do and it all worked out.”

Today's Birthdays

Gerald Moore (1899-1987)
Meredith Davies (1922-2005)
Moshe Atzmon (1931)
Buddy Guy (1936)
Paul Anka (1941)
Teresa Cahill (1944)
Alexina Louie (1949)
Christopher Warren-Green (1955)

and

Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929)
Henry Moore (1898-1986)
William Gass (1924-2017)

Monday, July 29, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951)
Frank Loesser (1910-1969)
Charles Farncombe (1919-2006)
Avet Terterian (1929-1994)
Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021)
Peter Schreier (1935-2019)
Bernd Weikl (1942)
Olga Borodina (1963)

and

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Don Marquis (1878-1937)
Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)
Paul Taylor (1930-2018)
T.J. Stiles (1964)

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Leonora Duarte (1610–1678)
Rued Langgaard (1893-1952)
Rudy Vallée (1901-1986)
Kenneth Alwyn (1925-2020)
Riccardo Muti (1941)

and

Ludwig A Feuerbach (1804-1872)
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Beatrix Potter (1866-1843)
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957)
John Ashbery (1927-2017)

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829)
Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Ernő Dohnanyi (1877-1960)
Harl McDonald (1899-1955)
Igor Markevitch (1912-1983)
Mario del Monaco (1915-1982)
Leonard Rose (1918-1984)
Carol Vaness (1952)

and

Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996)
Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007)
Norman Lear (1922-2023)
Bharati Mukherjee (1940)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1966, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Torn Curtain" opens in New York — without the film score that Bernard Herrmann had composed for it. The famous director fired Herrmann during the score's first recording sessions when Hitchcock discovered Herrmann had composed a "symphonic" score and not the "pop" score that Hitchcock had specifically requested.

Friday, July 26, 2024

Today's Birthdays

John Field (1782-1837)
Franz Xaver Mozart (1791-1844)
Francesco Cilea (1866-1950)
Serge Koussevitsky (1874-1951)
Ernest Schelling (1876-1939)
Georges Favre (1905-1993)
Tadeusz Baird (1928-1981)
Alexis Weissenberg (1929-2012)
Anthony Gilbert (1934-2023)
Roger Smalley (1943-2015)
Mick Jagger (1943)
Kevin Volans (1949)
Angela Hewitt (1958)

and

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
Jean Shepherd (1921-1999)
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Alfredo Casella (1883-1947)
Adolph "Bud" Herseth (1921-2013)
Maureen Forrester (1930-2010)

and

Eric Hoffer (1898-1983)
Elias Canetti (1905-1994)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1788 that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart entered into his catalog the completion of one of his most beloved works, Symphony Number 40 in G Minor (sometimes called “The Great G Minor Symphony”). It was written in the final years of Mozart’s life, when things were not going well. An infant daughter had died a few weeks earlier, he had moved into a cheaper apartment, and he was begging friends and acquaintances for loans. But in the summer of 1788, he wrote his last three symphonies: Symphony Number 39 in E-Flat, Symphony in G Minor, and the Jupiter symphony. It is not known for sure whether Mozart ever heard any of these symphonies performed.

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Rest in Peace: pianist Janet Coleman

I am very sad to relay this news about Janet Coleman, one of our very best pianists and wonderful human being. With condolences to her husband, Adam LaMotte.

Reprinted from YourOregonNews.com.

January 26, 1968 – July 6, 2024 - Janet Marie Coleman was born in Medford, Oregon, on January 26, 1968, the first child of John and Donna Coleman. She attended schools in Hillsboro, Linwood (KS), and Newberg, graduating from Newberg High school in 1986.

In her youth, with her family, Janet sang for seven years with the Coleman Family Singers, performing and ministering in prisons, churches, banquets, summer camps, and the Oregon State Fair,

High School activities included choir accompanist, cheerleader, and May Day Queen. She won many honors, awards, and competitions with her talent at the piano, including first place in the State of Oregon high school piano competition.

Janet earned her B.A. degree from Willamette University and an M.A. in piano performance from the University of Oregon where she was named Outstanding Chamber Musician.

She traveled in Europe, Central America, and across the U.S. both in solo performances and as accompanist. Her talents contributed to top awards in accompanying the well-known and the unknown.

Janet was employed by the music departments of Linfield and Pacific Universities; Portland State Opera Workshop; The Portland Opera; Eugene Opera; Miss America 2002 (Katie Harmon); Astoria Music Festival; and occasional pianist in the Oregon Symphony. She was known in music circles for her amazing sight-reading ability.

Janet’s beauty was both inside and out. She had a compassion for the less-fortunate, and a beautiful ability to know just what to do or say in every social situation.

Her father, John Coleman, preceded her in death. She is survived by her husband Adam LaMotte; her mother, Donna Coleman Comfort; two sisters, Donelle (Dean) Clark, and Julie Coleman; several aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, and cousins.

Memorial service will be held at Zion Lutheran Church (301 S. River Street) in Newberg, Oregon, on Saturday, August 17, 2024, at 2:00 p.m.

Today's Birthdays

Adolphe Charles Adam (1803-1856)
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)
Robert Farnon (1917-2005)
Ruggiero Ricci (1918-2012)
Guiseppe de Stefano (1921-2008)
Wilfred Josephs (1927-1997)
Peter Serkin (1947)
Philippe Hurel (1955)

and

Jonathan Newton (1725-1807)
Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?)
Frank Wedekind (1864-1918)
Robert Graves (1895-1985)
John D. McDonald (1916-1986)

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Franz Berwald (1796-1868)
Johann Vesque von Püttlingen (1803-1883)
Edouard Colonne (1838-1910)
Francesco Cilea (1866-1950)
Ben Weber (1916-1979)
Leon Fleisher (1928-2020)
Bernard Roberts (1933-2013)
Maria João Pires (1944)
Susan Graham (1960)

and

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Vikram Chandra (1961)

and from the former Writer's Almana:

It was on this day in 1829 that William Burt received a patent for the "typographer." It was a typewriter that looked more like a record player. It had a swinging arm that picked up ink and then printed a letter, and then the paper was manually adjusted to make space for the next letter.

Monday, July 22, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Luigi Arditti (1822-1903)
Hans Rosbaud (1895-1962)
Licia Albanese (1913-2014)
George Dreyfus (1928)
Ann Howard Jones (1936)
Alan Menken (1949)
Nigel Hess (1953)
Eve Beglarian (1958)

and

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
Edward Hopper (1882-1967)
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Tom Robbins (1936)
S. E. Hinton (1948)

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Jean Rivier (1896-1987)
Isaac Stern (1920-2001)
Anton Kuerti (1938)
Cat Stevens (1948)
Margaret Ahrens (1950)

and

Hart Crane (1899-1932)
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Tess Gallagher (1943)
Garry Trudeau (1948)

Saturday, July 20, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Gaston Carraud (1864-1920)
Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921)
Gunnar de Frumerie (1908-1987)
Vilém Tauský (1910-2004)
Michael Gielen (1927-2019)
Nam June Paik (1932-2006)
Hukwe Zawose (1938-2003)
Carlos Santana (1947)
Bob Priest (1951)

and
Pavel Kohout
Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)
Pavel Kohout (1928)
Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023)

Friday, July 19, 2024

Memoir of James DePreist - written by Ginette DePreist - published


 Ginette DePreist's memoir of her live with James DePreist, longtime music director of the Oregon Symphony, has been published (Luminare Press) and is available on Amazon. It's a lively account of a life story that has plenty of drama. I helped Ginette write the first draft, and she kindly mentioned it in the acknowledgment section. There's a fine interview with Ginette that you can read here.

Today's Birthdays

Boyd Neel (1905-1981)
Louis Kentner (1905-1987)
Klaus Egge (1906-1979)
Peggy Stuart-Coolidge (1913-1981)
Robert Mann (1920-2018)
Gerd Albrecht (1935-2014)
Nicholas Danby (1935-1937)
Dominic Muldowney (1952)
David Robertson (1958)
Carlo Rizzi (1960)
Mark Wigglesworth (1964)
Evelyn Glennie (1965)
Russell Braun (1965)

and

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930)

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747)
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910)
Julius Fučík (1872-1916)
Kurt Masur (1927-2015)
Screamin' Jay Hawkins (1929-2000)
R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021)
Ricky Skaggs (1954)
Tobias Picker (1954)
Jonathan Dove (1959)

and

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
Harry Levin (1912-1994)
Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017)
Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)
Elizabeth Gilbert (1969)

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Sir Donald F. Tovey (1875-1940)
Eleanor Steber (1914-1990)
Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976)
Peter Schickele (1935-2024)
Michael Roll (1946)
Dawn Upshaw (1960)

and

Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888-1970)
Ernest Percival Rhys (1859–1946)
Erle Stanley Gardner (1899-1970)

Today's Birthdays

Antoine François Marmontel (1816-1898)
Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931)
Fritz Mahler (1901-1973)
Goffredo Petrassi (1904-2003)
Bella Davidovich (1928)
Bryden Thomson (1928-1991)
Pinchas Zukerman (1948)
Richard Margison (1954)
Joanna MacGregor (1959)
James MacMillan (1959)
Helmut Oehring (1961)

and

Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
Roald Amundsen (1872-1928)
Ginger Rogers (1911-1995)
Tony Kushner (1956)

Monday, July 15, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Ronald Binge (1910-1979)
Jack Beeson (1921-2010)
Julian Bream (1933-2020)
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022)
Geoffrey Burgon (1941-2010)
Linda Ronstadt (1946)
John Casken (1949)
Deborah Borda (1949)
Gérard Lesne (1956)

and

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)
Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867)
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
Arianna Huffington (1950)

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Article and reviews about CMNW's Young Artist Institute in Oregon ArtsWatch

My latest story for Oregon ArtsWatch tells about Chamber Music Northwest's impressive Young Artists Institute and gives brief reviews of their concerts. You can find the article here.

Today's Birthdays

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)
Piero Bellugi (1924-2012)
Eric Stokes (1930-1999)
Unsuk Chin (1961)

and

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Owen Wister (1860-1938)
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Frank Raymond Leavis (1895-1978)
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991)
Irving Stone (1903-1989)
Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991)
Arthur Laurents (1917-2011)

Saturday, July 13, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Sir Reginald Goodall (1905-1990)
Carlo Bergonzi (1924-2014)
Jeanne Loriod (1928-2001)
Per Nørgård (1932)
Albert Ayler (1936-1970)
Jennifer Smith (1945)

and

John Clare (1793-1864)
Isaak Babel (1894-1941)

Friday, July 12, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Anton Arensky (1861-1906)
George Butterworth (1885-1916)
Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962)
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960)
Van Cliburn (1934-2013)
Richard Stolzman (1942)
Roger Vignoles (1943)

and

Julius Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
George Eastman (1854-1932)
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920)
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896)
Liza Lehmann (1862-1918)
Nicolai Gedda (1925-2017)
Herbert Blomstedt (1927)
Hermann Prey (1929-1998)
Francis Bayer (1938-2004)
Liona Boyd (1949)
Suzanne Vega (1960)
Aisslinn Nosky (1978)

and

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
E. B. White (1899-1985)
Harold Bloom (1930-2019)
Jhumpa Lahiri (1967)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1798, in the nation's capital of Philadelphia, President John Adams signed an Act of Congress establishing the United States Marine Band. (The original "32 drummers and fifers" assisted in recruiting and entertained residents.)

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Review of CMNW concert published in Oregon ArtsWatch

Chamber Music Northwest's Summer Festival is underway. Oregon ArtsWatch has posted my take on a concert from last week. I hope that you enjoy reading it.

 

Today's Birthdays

Henri Weiniawski (1835-1880)
Carl Orff (1895-1982)
Ljuba Welitsch (193-1996)
Ian Wallace (1919-2009)
Josephine Veasey (1930-2022)
Jerry Herman (1931-2019)
Arlo Guthrie (1947)
Graham Johnson (1950)
Béla Fleck (1958)

and

John Calvin (1509-1564)
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)
Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
Alice Munro (1931-2024)

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Dame Elizabeth Lutyens (1906-1983)
David Diamond (1915-2005)
David Zinman (1936)
Paul Chihara (1938)
John Mark Ainsley (1963)

and

Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)
Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961)
Oliver Sacks (1933-2015)
David Hockney (1937)
Dean Koontz (1945)

Monday, July 8, 2024

Talking with Janina Fialkowska about her upcoming recital in Portland



Legendary Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska will appear this Saturday (July 13) at the PCC Performing Arts Center – Sylvania Campus in a recital that is jointly sponsored jointly by Portland Piano International and the Oregon Music Teachers Association as part of their annual conference. Fialkowska’s 50-year career has encompassed concert halls around the world, thirty albums, and numerous awards, including BBC Music Magazine’s 2013 “Instrumental CD of the Year" award, Canada’s "Juno Award" in 2018, and the “Governor General’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award in Classical Music.”

Originally from Montreal, Fialkowska has resided near Augsburg, Germany since 2001. She played in Portland a few ago and performed here many times in the 1980s and 90s, appearing several times with the Oregon Symphony under James DePreist.

Fialkowska’s remarkable life, which includes a remarkable comeback from radiation and surgery in 2001, is covered in her memoir, “A Note in Time,” (Novum Publishing, 2021), which received excellent reviews, including this one in Classical Voice North America.

For her Portland recital, Fialkowski will perform works by Carl Maria von Weber, Edvard Grieg, Robert Schumann, and Frédéric Chopin. To find out more, I talked with her via a Zoom call from her home near Augsburg.

James Bash: Tell us how you put this recital program together.

Janina Fialkowska: My old mentor Arthur Rubinstein said that you have to create a recital program like you create a menu. You start off with the hors d'oeuvre. So that’s Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance,” which is a sparkling and wonderful appetizer. Then for a little sorbet between courses, I will play a few delightful selections from Grieg. I always love playing Grieg on my programs because he is not appreciated enough. The main course, meat and potatoes so to speak, is Schumann’s “Fantasiestücke.” That’s one of my very favorite Schumann pieces ever. I love to play it. The second half features Chopin. I always include Chopin in my programs.

Now that I’m in my extraordinarily advanced years, I can choose what I want to play. These are pieces that I love. I’m older, so my repertoire is somewhat reduced. I don’t play the super-flashy things that I used to play. What the audience will get is beautiful melodies and lots of excitement. I’ve done this program here in Germany, and it works really well.

JB: Was Grieg influenced by Schumann?

JF: Yes, Grieg was extremely devoted to Schumann. Schumann was a big influence.

One of the incredible things about Grieg is that you play a few bars of his music, and you immediately feel as if you’ve been to Norway, even if you have never travelled there. It’s not necessarily the folk melodies that he might use. It is something else. Like when you hear Ravel, you immediately think of Paris.

JB: Did Schumann and Chopin know each other?

JF: Yes, they did. One of the very first people outside of Poland who recognized Chopin’s genius was Schumann. Schumann wrote about Chopin in his music magazine: “Hat’s off gentlemen; a genius!” He admired Chopin greatly and dedicated some pieces to him. Chopin dedicated his Second Ballad, which is on the program, to Schumann

Chopin was less enthusiastic about Schumann. Even though Chopin’s music was part of the Romantic movement. He was a very reserved gentleman. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve in his compositions. That was unlike Schumann. Everything Schumann wrote had something to do with himself, his mental condition, and his love for his wife. Chopin’s music is Romantic but distant. Chopin’s favorite composers were Mozart and Bach rather than his contemporaries.

JB: How does a talented young pianist make a career these days?

JF: The piano world has changed. Nowadays it is almost impossible to make a career big enough to support yourself. You want to see young people succeed but there is only five or six who make it big time, and they are almost like pop stars. There are those that win a competition but they have to find a jab at university or a conservatory.

Angela Hewett and I are two of the few who have made careers just by playing concerts. Of course, I teach master classes and such, but mainly I play concerts. I think that it was Bartók who said competitions are a race, but I am not a racehorse. I agree with him, but how else will young people be heard. In competitions there’s a jury made up of distinguished and influential people. So there’s a chance that even if a pianist doesn’t win the competition, one of these people will be impressed with their playing and will help them. I strongly believe that when we believe in a young talent, we should help them because they will not be able to make their way otherwise

Right now, there are more wonderful young pianists than ever. When I was young and in competitions, there were never more than three Russian candidates, because they weren’t allowed to travel outside the USSR. And an Asian pianist was somewhat of a rarity. Now Asian candidates dominate competitions, which is wonderful. The more the merrier!

JB: I watched an interview with you that was posted on YouTube. At one point in your life, you did eighteen different piano concertos in one year. That must have been nuts!

JL: It was madness. Never again!

JB: Best wishes to you for your upcoming recital!

JL: Thanks, it will be my pleasure to play these wonderful works!

Today's Birthdays

Percy Grainger (1882-1961)
George Antheil (1900-1959)
Billy Eckstine (1914-1993)
Susan Chilcott (1963-2003)
Raffi Cavoukian (1948)
Zhou Long (1953)

and

Philip Johnson (1906-2005)
J. F. Powers (1917-1999)
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004)
Janet Malcolm (1934)
Anna Quindlen (1953)

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007)
Cor de Groot (1914-1993)
Doc Severinsen (1927)
Joe Zawinul (1932-2007)
Ringo Starr (1940)
Michaela Petri (1958)

and

Lion Feuchtwanger (1884-1958)
Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
Robert Heinlein (1907-1988)
David McCullough (1933)

And from The Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Gustav Mahler (1860), born in Kalischt, Bohemia, in what is now the Czech Republic. His father was an Austrian Jewish tavern-keeper, and Mahler experienced racial tensions from his birth: he was a minority both as a Jew and as a German-speaking Austrian among Czechs, and later, when he moved to Germany, he was a minority as a Bohemian. His father was a self-made man, very fiery, and he abused Mahler’s mother, who was rather delicate and from a higher social class. Mahler was a tense and nervous child, traits he retained into adulthood. He had heart trouble, which he had inherited from his mother, but he also had a fair measure of his father’s vitality and determination, and was active and athletic.

Mahler began his musical career at the age of four, first playing by ear the military marches and folk music he heard around his hometown, and soon composing pieces of his own on piano and accordion. He made his public piano debut at 10, and was accepted to the Vienna Conservatory at 15. When he left school, he became a conductor, and then artistic director of the Vienna Court Opera. He became famous throughout Europe as a conductor, but he was fanatical in his work habits, and expected his artists to be, as well. This didn’t win him any friends, and there were always factions calling for his dismissal. He spent his summers in the Austrian Alps, composing.

1907 was a difficult year for Mahler: he was forced to resign from the Vienna Opera; his three-year-old daughter, Maria, died; and he was diagnosed with fatal heart disease. Superstitious, he believed that he had had a premonition of these events when composing his Tragic Symphony, No. 6 (1906), which ends with three climactic hammer blows representing “the three blows of fate which fall on a hero, the last one felling him as a tree is felled.” When he composed his ninth symphony, he refused to call it “Symphony No. 9” because he believed that, like Beethoven and Bruckner before him, his ninth symphony would be his last. He called it A Symphony for Tenor, Baritone, and Orchestra instead, and he appeared to have fooled fate, because he went on to compose another symphony. This one he called Symphony No. 9 (1910); he joked that he was safe, since it was really his 10th symphony, but No. 9 proved to be his last symphony after all, and he died in 1911. Most of his work was misunderstood during his lifetime, and his music was largely ignored — and sometimes banned — for more than 30 years after his death. A new generation of listeners discovered him after World War II, and today he is one of the most recorded and performed composers in classical music.

Saturday, July 6, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920)
Hans Eisler (1898-1962)
Dame Elizabeth Lutyens (1906-1983)
Dorothy Kirsten (1910-1992)
Ernst Haefliger (1919-2007)
Bill Haley (1925-1981)
Maurice Hasson (1934)
Vladimir Ashkenazy (1937)
Stephen Hartke (1952)

and

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
Eleanor Clark (1913-1996)
Hilary Mantel (1952)

Friday, July 5, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Josef Holbrooke (1878-1958)
Wanda Landowska (1879-1958)
Jan Kubelík (1880-1940)
Gordon Jacob (1895-1984)
Paul Ben-Haim (1897-1984)
George Rochberg (1918-2005)
János Starker (1924-2013)
Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993)
Matthias Bamert (1942)
Alexander Lazarev (1945)
Paul Daniel (1958)
Isabelle Poulenard (1961)

and

A. E. Douglass (1867-1962)
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
Barbara Frischmuth (1941)
Craig Nova (1945)

Thursday, July 4, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)
Stephen Foster (1826-1864)
Roy Henderson (1899-2000)
Flor Peeters (1903-1986)
Mitch Miller (1911-2010)
Tibor Varga (1921-2003)
Cathy Berberian (1925-1983)

and

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Lionel Trilling (1905-1975)
Neil Simon (1927-2018)
Tracy Letts (1965)

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Article about Chamber Music Northwest and review of the opener in Classical Voice North America

It's summertime and CMNW is underway. You can read my story about the festival and a review of the first concert in Classical Voice North America here.

Today's Birthdays

Theodore Presser (1848-1925)
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
George M. Cohan (1878-1942)
Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953)
Meyer Kupferman (1926-2003)
Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004)
Brigitte Fassbaender (1939)

and

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
M.F.K. Fisher (1908-1992)
Sir Tom Stoppard (1937)
Dave Berry (1947)

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Christoph W. Gluck (1714-1787)
Marcel Tabuteau (1887-1966)
Earl Hawley Robinson (1910-1991)
Frederick Fennell (1914-2004)

and

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803)
Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)
Tyrone Guthrie (1900-1971)
Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)

Monday, July 1, 2024

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Andrew Dorsey (1899-1993)
Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012)
Andrae Crouch (1942-2015)
Philip Brunelle (1943)
Mario Venzago (1948)
Sioned Williams (1953)
Nikolai Demidenko (1955)

and

George Sand (1804-1876)
Jean Stafford (1915-1979)
William Strunk Jr. (1969-1946)
Twyla Tharp (1941)