PSU Steinway Piano Series: Pianist Tom Hicks to replace Oxana Yablonskaya in May 2024 Residency

From the Press Release:

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the PSU Steinway Piano Series has reconfigured its Spring 2024 Residency. The Series will no longer be hosting Oxana Yablonskaya this May, but instead, will proceed with events by featuring the “brilliantly evocative” (International Piano) pianist Tom Hicks. The Series’ founder and director, Susan Chan writes, "We will greatly miss our experiences this spring with the legendary pianist Oxana Yablonskaya, but hope to reschedule a visit with her soon. In the meantime, we look forward to welcoming the incredibly impressive Tom Hicks to PSU for what promise to be beautiful and impactful performances and masterclasses.”

Tickets already purchased for the May 10th PSU Steinway Piano Series recital remain valid. Should anyone who has already purchased tickets to the recital wish to relinquish their ticket and receive reimbursement due to this program change, they may make this request by contacting the Box Office at 503-725-3305 or tickets@pdx.edu.

Spring 2024 Residency: Friday - Sunday, May 10 - 12

CONCERT:

Music at Night starring Tom Hicks

This program, inspired by the night, shares works for the piano that are dreamy and atmospheric, and also includes nightmares and fantasies. The concert begins with several of Chopin’s most celebrated nocturnes, before exploring other beloved works of the genre by Scriabin, Debussy, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Clara Schumann. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata concludes what promises to be a popular program with finger-twisting fireworks.

Friday, May 10 at 7pm - PSU Lincoln Recital Hall, Room 75
$25 General Admission; $10 Students, Seniors, PSU Faculty/Staff, OMTA teachers

GUEST ARTIST MASTER CLASS:

With guest pianist Tom Hicks and featuring current and former PSU students

Saturday, May 11, 7 pm - PSU Lincoln Recital Hall, Room 75
FREE and open to the public

FACULTY MASTER CLASS:

With PSU piano faculty Susan Chan and featuring students from the community

Sunday, May 12, 2 pm - PSU Lincoln Recital Hall, Room 75
FREE and open to the public

TICKETS: Available at pdx.edu/music-theater/steinway-piano-series

Today's Birthdays

Carl Philipp Stamitz (1745-1801)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869)
Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981)
Heather Harper (1930-2019)
Carlo Cossutta (1932-2000)
Keith Jarrett (1945)
Felicity Lott (1947)

and

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Edmund Wilson (1895-1972)
Gary Snyder (1930)
Thomas Pynchon (1937)
Roddy Doyle (1958)

All Classical Radio's Recording Inclusivity Initiative to release second album, ELEVATE

 

From the Press Release:

PORTLAND, OR - All Classical Radio announces the release of ELEVATE, the second installment from its award-winning Recording Inclusivity Initiative, GRAMMY® award-winning Navona Records, and PARMA Recordings. ELEVATE will be released digitally on all streaming platforms on May 10. CDs will also be available later in the year.

ELEVATE is a testament to the power of composers and musicians uplifting each other. The recording brings to life the sonatas of Japanese composers Yuko Uébayashi and Nobu Kōda, and a string quartet by Damien Geter, with performances by leading classical performers: pianist María García, All Classical Radio's 2022-2023 Artist in Residence; Yoko Greeney, piano; Jennifer Arnold, viola; Martha Long, flute; Nancy Ives, cello; Emily Cole, violin; Inés Voglar Belgique, violin; and Ruby Chen, violin. All the tracks were recorded in Portland, OR.

To address the inequities in the classical music recording industry, the Recording Inclusivity Initiative is highlighting music from underrepresented communities to build a more diverse and inclusive soundscape around the world. The album follows AMPLIFY, released in 2022.

About the Composers and their Music 
Yuko Uébayashi (b. 1958) – Sonata for Flute and Piano
The music of Japanese-born composer Yuko Uébayashi is described as impressionistic, while also evoking Japanese film music. When creating her pieces, Uébayashi often starts with someone specific in mind, drawing inspiration from the artistry of fellow prominent musicians. She only accepts commissions from people with whom she feels a distinct connection.

Written between 2002-2003, Uébayashi’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, in four movements, is dedicated to flutist Jean Ferrandis and pianist Emile Naoumoff. A highly personalized piece, the sonata offers a challenging, albeit rewarding, opportunity to explore the composer's evocative musical language.

Nobu Kōda (1870-1946) – Sonata in E-Flat Major; Sonata in d minor
Nobu Kōda (1870-1946) is historically significant for composing some of the first works ever written by a Japanese composer in the Western style. After graduating from the Tokyo Music School, Kōda became the first student to receive a government grant to study abroad, first in Boston, then in Vienna. In 1895, she returned home and joined the staff at the Tokyo Music School.

Several of Kōda's known works were written during her tenure there, including her Sonata in E-Flat Major (1895), in three movements, and the single-movement Sonata in d minor (1897) for violin and piano. After nearly 15 years of teaching at the institution, Kōda resigned because of rejection and criticism from her male colleagues. She spent the rest of her career instructing female members of the royal court. Kōda's legacy lies in her role as a musical forerunner.

Damien Geter – String Quartet No. 1, Neo-Soul
Damien Geter is a composer, actor, and bass-baritone. In his compositions, he focuses on social justice, uplifting and also challenging his audiences.  He thoughtfully infuses classical music with styles from the Black diaspora, such as jazz, gospel, and rhythm and blues.

Commissioned by All Classical Radio in 2020, Neo-Soul was the precursor of the Recording Inclusivity Initiative, driven by the need to build a more diverse and inclusive soundscape in America. The quartet is an ode to the genre of music that became popular in the 1990s and put a spin on the classic sound of soul. The piece consists of three movements: I. "Bop"; II. "Feelin' Some Type of Wayz"; and III. "Please Don't Kill My Vibe."

About the Recording Inclusivity Initiative
All Classical Radio’s Recording Inclusivity Initiative is a response to the classical music industry’s longtime need for greater diversity, with the purpose of increasing awareness and opportunities for previously marginalized artistic communities. The Recording Inclusivity Initiative was made possible in part by the generous support of the Oregon Cultural Trust, The Sorel Organization, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and IBEW Local 48. Learn more at recordinginclusivity.allclassical.org.

About All Classical Radio
All Classical Radio is an independent, community-funded radio station and multimedia platform with international reach. It is consistently ranked in the United States' top three classical radio stations. The network is recognized for its bold collaborations and outreach, and for broadcasting 98% locally-produced programming, including innovative music playlists, interviews, and live broadcasts. Home to the award-winning Recording Inclusivity Initiative and the International Children's Arts Network, All Classical Radio is one of the first classical stations in the nation to name artists in residence and to develop robust youth journalism mentorships. Learn more at www.allclassical.org.

Martha Long and María García recording Yuko Uébayashi: Sonata for Flute and Piano

Today's Birthdays

Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Anton Seidl (1850-1898)
Edmond Appia (1894-1961)
Elisabeth Soderstrom (1927-2009)
Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981)
Philip Lane (1950)
Robert Spano (1961)

and

Olympe de Gouge (1748-1793)
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Archibald MacLeish (1892-1962)
Angela Carter (1940-1992)
Peter Carey (1943)

and from The New Music Box:

On May 7, 1946, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering is founded with about 20 employees. The company, later renamed Sony, would eventually invent the home video tape recorder, the Walkman and the Discman, as well as take-over Columbia Records, later CBS Records, which under the leadership of composer Goodard Lieberson (1956-1973) released numerous recordings of music by American composers.
and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1824, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 ("Choral") was premiered at the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna, with the deaf composer on stage beating time, but with the performers instructed to follow the cues of Beethoven's assistant conductor, Michael Umlauf.

Today's Birthdays

William Walker (1809-1875)
Jascha Horenstein (1898-1973)
George Perle (1915-2009)
Godfrey Ridout (1918-1984)
Murry Sidlin (1940)
Ghena Dimitrova (1941-2005)
Nathalie Stutzmann (1965)
Teddy Abrams (1987)

and

Robert Peary (1856-1920)
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Gaston Leroux (1868-1927)
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)
Orson Wells (1915-1985)

Today's Birthdays

Stanislaw Moniuszko (1819-1872)
Hans Pfizner (1869-1947)
Maria Caniglia (1905-1979)
Louis Kaufman (1905-1994)
Kurt Böhme (1908-1989)
Charles Rosen (1927-2012)
Mark Ermler (1932-2002)
Tammy Wynette (1942-1998)
Bunita Marcus (1952)
Cédric Tiberghien (1975)

and

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Nellie Bly (1864-1922)
Christopher Morley (1890-1957)
James Beard (1903-1985)
Kaye Gibbons (1960)

From the New Music Box:

On May 5, 1891, Walter Damrosch led the New York Philharmonic in the very first concert in the large auditorium at Carnegie Hall, now called Stern Auditorium. The program consisted entirely of European repertoire: Beethoven’s "Leonore Overture No. 3," Berlioz’s "Te Deum," Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky "Festival Coronation March" (with the composer making a guest appearance on the podium), the hymn "The Old One Hundred" and "My Country 'Tis of Thee" (then America's unofficial national anthem although the tune is that of the British anthem "God Save The Queen").

This was not actually the first concert in the building, however. On April 1, Liszt-pupil Franz Rummel had already given an all-European solo piano recital in the space that now holds Zankel Hall. The oldest known program for the third of Carnegie's stages, what is now called Weill Recital Hall, a chamber music concert produced by the Society for Ethical Culture, dates back to October 31, 1891 and included the song "At Twilight" by the American composer Ethelbert Nevin.

Review: Oregon Symphony elicits lovely Mendelssohn with Leong and shines with Poska

 

Photo credit: Jason Quigley

Canadian virtuoso Kerson Leong gave a superb performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Oregon Symphony (April 29) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. So did guest conductor Kristiina Poska, who collaborated expertly with Leong and also inspired the orchestra with drive and precision in works by Britten and Beethoven.

Both Leong and Poska made their Oregon Symphony debuts int the concert series over the weekend despite busy schedules. Leong gave master classes in Rome, Italy just a few days before flying to Portland, replacing Baiba Skrida, who withdrew for personal reasons. Before coming to Portland, Poska spent the prior weekend conducting the Minnesota Orchestra.

The artistic resumes of Leong and Poska are impressive. Leong (age 27) won the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition in 2010 and has enjoyed an international career ever since. Estonian-born Poska (age 45) is the Chief Conductor of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, the Principal Guest Conductor of the Latvian National Symphony, and in 2025 will become the Music Director of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes. She is the first female conductor to be named to those positions.

Leong delivered everything you could want in the Mendelssohn. He evoked the grandeur and beautify of each phrase, tailoring his sound down to silvery thread during the most delicate passages and expanding it with elan to the boldest ones. The entire piece was incredible well-shaped with impeccable articulation of quicksilver lines that required the utmost in technical virtuosity.

Listeners eagerly paid attention of all of the nuances of this beloved piece, and rewarded Leong with a standing ovation and many bravos, which brought him back to center stage several times. Leong responded with an encore, Francisco Tárrega’s “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” (‘Memories of the Alhambra”) in an arrangement for violin by Ruggiero Ricci. With the constant wistful tremolo against a countering tic-toc line, it seemed as if two people were playing instead of just one, and all was immaculately rendered by Leong. That caused another round of vociferous applause.

Under Poska, the orchestra created the hauntingly vivid moods of Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” from his opera “Peter Grimes.” The sound of waves crashing into a rocky shoreline while seagulls circled and cried painted an isolated and beautiful, but tragic scene. Sometimes the music pulsated with anticipation, and stormy fourth movement, with its snarly brass and ascendent strings pitching everything into the heavens subsided into a quiet morass before getting whipped up into a tempestuous finale.

Poska also ardently commanded the orchestra, evoking an outstanding performance of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony. Impressively conducting from memory, she deftly sculpted the piece from beginning to end, eliciting terrific dynamics that kept the music fresh – like hearing the double-basses in the first movement. Attacks were sharp, and pauses were precise. The lyrical lines had an wonderful ebb and flow, and the wicked solo that Principal Cellist Nancy Ives executed – with lovely horn accompaniment – in the third movement was a highlight.

One interesting point about Poska is that she is left-handed, but she enjoyed using her right hand very effectively, throwing jabs and punches to elicit crisp attacks from the musicians. She conveyed each piece with judicious tempos so that the Britten and Beethoven never dragged. Amidst loud applause from the audience, she graciously signaled recognition for contributions by individuals and sections of the orchestra.

I hope that we will see Leong and Poska on the stage at the Schnitz in a return engagement in the very near future.

Today's Birthdays

Marianne (Anna Katharina) von Martínez (1744-1812)
Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731)
Emil Nikolaus Von Reznicek (1860-1945)
Mátyás Seiber (1905-1960)
Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993)
Roberta Peters (1930-2017)
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (1931-2018)
Marisa Robles (1937)
Enrique Batiz (1942)
Peter Ware (1951)

and

Horace Mann (1796-1859)
Frederick Church (1826-1900)
Graham Swift (1949)
David Guterson (1956)

Today's Birthdays

Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682)
Richard D'Oyly Carte (1844-1901)
Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
Bing Crosby (1903-1977)
Sir William Glock (1908-2000)
Léopold Simoneau (1916-2006)
Pete Seeger (1919-2014)
John Lewis (1920-2001)
James Brown (1933-2006)
Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012)

and

Niccol Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Jacob Riis (1849-1914)
May Sarton (1912-1995)
William Inge (1913-1973)
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)

From the New Music Box:

On May 3, 1943, William Schumann received the very first Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Secular Cantata No. 2 - A Free Song, a work published by G. Schirmer and premiered by the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Serge Koussevitzky on March 26, 1943.
and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1971, debut broadcast of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" was made with an electronic theme by composer Don Voegeli of the University of Wisconsin (In 1974, Voegeli composed a new electronic ATC theme, the now-familiar signature tune of the program).

Preview of Portland Columbian Symphony's Latin American concert in OAW

 

My preview of this weekend's PSCO concert is now posted on Oregon ArtsWatch here. I hope that you enjoy reading it.

Today's Birthdays

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)
Jean‑Baptiste Barrière (1707-1747)
Ludwig August Lebrun (1752-1790)
Hans Christian Lumbye (1810-1874)
Carl Michael Ziehrer (1843-1922)
Lorenz Hart (1894-1943)
Alan Rawstorne (1905-1971)
Jean‑Marie Auberson (1920-2004)
Arnold Black (1923-2000)
Horst Stein (1928-2008)
Philippe Herreweghe (1947)
Valery Gergiev (1953)
Elliot Goldenthal (1954)

and

Jerome K Jerome (1859-1927)
Dr. Benjamin Spock (1904-1998)

Today's Birthdays

Marco da Gagliano (1582-1643)
William Lawes (1602-1645)
Sophia Dussek (1775-1831)
Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960)
Leo Sowerby (1895-1968)
Jón Leifs (1899-1968)
Walter Susskind (1913-1980)
Gary Bertini (1927-2005)
Judy Collins (1939)

and

Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
Joseph Heller (1923-1999)
Bobbie Ann Mason (1940)

Today's Birthdays

Franz Lehár (1870-1948)
Louise Homer (1871-1947)
Frank Merrick (1886-1981)
Robert Shaw (1916-1999)
Günter Raphael (1903-1960)
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1939)
Garcia Navarro (1940-2002)
Vladimir Tarnopolsky (1955)

and

Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967)
John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974)
Winfield Townley Scott (1910-1968)
Annie Dillard (1945)
Josip Novakovich (1955)

And from the New Music Box:

On April 30, 1932, the very first Yaddo Festival of Contemporary Music began in Saratoga Springs, NY. Works programmed that year included Aaron Copland's Piano Variations as well as piano works by Roger Sessions, Henry Brant, Vivian Fine and Roy Harris, songs by Charles Ives and Paul Bowles, string quartets by Marc Blitzstein and Louis Gruenberg, and a suite for unaccompanied flute by Wallingford Riegger.

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Beecham (1879-1961)
Wallingford Riegger (1885-1961)
Sir Malcom Sargent (1895-1967)
Edward "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974
Harold Shapero (1920-2013)
Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014)
Willie Nelson (1933)
Klaus Voormann (1938)
Leslie Howard (1948)
Eero Hämeenniemi (1951)
Gino Quilico (1955)

and

Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933)
William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951)
Robert Gottlieb (1931-2023)
Yusef Komunyakaa (1947)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1906, Victor Herbert conducts a benefit concert at the Hippodrome in New York City for victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Inon Barnatan to give two recitals for Portland Piano International

From the press release:

Inon Barnatan, a multifaceted artist equally celebrated as

concert pianist, curator, and collaborator, returns to Portland for a pair of solo

recitals presented by Portland Piano International (PPI). For the final concerts

of PPI's 2023 / 2024 Main Recital Series, Barnatan will perform on May 5 at

Portland State University's Lincoln Performance Hall, followed by a recital at

the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton on May 7.

Acclaimed as a pianist of "breathtaking charisma" (Philadelphia Inquirer) and

"a true poet of the keyboard: refined, searching, unfailingly communicative"

(Evening Standard), the Israeli pianist has presented sold-out solo recitals in

many of classical music's leading venues, including London's Wigmore Hall

and New York's Carnegie Hall and The 92nd Street Y. As a concerto soloist, he's

shared the stage with the New York Philharmonic (including three seasons as

the ensemble's inaugural Artist-in-Association), BBC Symphony, LA Phil,

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Chicago,

Cleveland, and Boston.

Equally at home as a curator and chamber musician, Barnatan is Music

Director of La Jolla Music Society Summerfest in California, one of leading

music festivals in the US. He regularly collaborates with world-class partners

such as Renée Fleming and Alisa Weilerstein, and performs with the Chamber

Music Society of Lincoln Center and at the major chamber music festivals of

Seattle, Santa Fe, and Spoleto USA.

Barnatan's extensive discography includes his latest album, Rachmaninoff

Reflections, as well as critically acclaimed albums of the complete Beethoven

piano concertos with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Olivier Messiaen's

Des canyons aux étoiles ("From the Canyons to the Stars"), and Schubert's

late piano sonatas, which BBC Radio 3 hailed as one of the all-time best

recordings of the composer's A Major Sonata, D. 959.

Barnatan's programs for Portland Piano International are as follows.

SUNDAY, MAY 5, AT 4 PM

Lincoln Performance Hall, Portland State University

TUESDAY, MAY 7, AT 7:30 PM

The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, Beaverton

"Rachmaninoff Reflections"

FRANZ SCHUBERT

Moments Musicaux, D. 780

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

Moments Musicaux, Op. 16

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF / INON BARNATAN

Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

Tickets and more information

Tickets for Inon Barnatan's Portland and Beaverton recitals are available now

at portlandpiano.org, where other details may be found — including the

complete Main Recital Series season and program notes.

Today's Birthdays

John Jacob Niles (1892-1980)
Paul Sacher (1906-1999)
Margaret Vardell Sandresky (1921)
Zubin Mehta (1936)
Jeffrey Tate (1943)
Nicola LeFanu (1947)
Elise Ross (1947)
Michael Daugherty (1954)

and

James Monroe (1758-1831)
Karl Kraus (1874-1936)
Erich Salomon (1886-1944)
Robert Anderson (1917-2009)
Harper Lee (1926-2016)
Carolyn Forché (1950)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Adam Reinken (1623-1722)
Friedrich von Flotow (1812-1883)
Serge Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995)
Guido Cantelli (1920-1956)
Igor Oistrakh (1931-2021)
Hamish Milne (1939-2020)
Jon Deak (1943)
Calvin Simmons (1950-1982)
Christian Zacharias (1950)

and

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
Samuel Morse (1791-1872)
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
Ludwig Bemelmans(1898-1962)
C(ecil) Day Lewis (1904-1972)
Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)
August Wilson (1945-2005)

And from the former Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1667, the poet John Milton sold the copyright for his masterpiece, Paradise Lost, for 10 pounds. Milton had championed the cause of Oliver Cromwell and the Parliament over the king during the English Civil War, and published a series of radical pamphlets in support of such things as Puritanism, freedom of the press, divorce on the basis of incompatibility, and the execution of King Charles I. With the overthrow of the monarchy and the creation of the Commonwealth, Milton was named Secretary of Foreign Tongues, and though he eventually lost his eyesight, he was able to carry out his duties with the help of aides like fellow poet Andrew Marvell.

When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Milton was imprisoned as a traitor and stripped of his property. He was soon released, but was now impoverished as well as completely blind, and he spent the rest of his life secluded in a cottage in Buckinghamshire. This is where he dictated Paradise Lost — an epic poem about the Fall of Man, with Satan as a kind of antihero — and its sequel, Paradise Regained, about the temptation of Christ.

Review: Oregon Symphony and Simone Lamsma burnish Bruch's Violin Concerto

From Lamsma's Facebook page

Sounding bolder and louder, the Oregon Symphony unleashed a triple whammy of a concert with superb performances of works by Bruch, Bartok, and Perry at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (April 20). Music Director David Danzmayr seems to be finding his groove with the orchestra, forging a distinct sonic style that is creating exhilarating results – especially when sharing the stage with a virtuosic guest artist like Simone Lamsma.

Lamsma, the phenomenal Dutch violinist who completed her third year and final year as an Artist-in-Residence with the orchestra, delivered a sublime performance of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1. Her impeccable technique elicited a lovely, rich tone throughout the piece. You could hear it right away, when the orchestra opened with deliciously murky fog of chords, and Lamsma’s violin emerged from it with a strong, silken voice. She expressed tender and sweet melodies with great sensitivity yet never overly sentimental, and her articulation in the fleetest of passages was stunningly immaculate. Wrapping it all up with the sweeping crescendo in the finale, the beauty of Lamsma’s playing brought the audience to its feet with loud and sustained applause.

To top everything off, Lamsma gave a jaw-dropping rendition of the last movement of Hindemith’s Sonata for solo violin, op. 11 No. 6. Besides being a devilishly tricky piece, if you were to pay her one dollar for every note that she played, it would empty most people’s bank accounts. Lamsma fearlessly tore into the piece and brought down the house a second time.

Danzmayr’s animated and passionate conducting ignited an outstanding performance of Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” The orchestra responded to his gestures with an impressive dynamic range, expressing each phrase with uncanny articulation. The jokey melodic line that passed through pairs of woodwinds and ended with menacing, muted trumpets while the violins and harps shimmered and swirled highlighted the second movement. The lush string sound in the fourth alternated deliciously with the circus-like passages, and the fifth movement sparkled with the strings generating a perpetual motion, the brass issuing a folksy, barn-dance-like motif, and the brief fugues in which phrases were exchanged.

Each section of the orchestra had multiple moments in the spotlight, and they made the most of it. Danzmayr got so caught up in the music-making that he voiced a couple of really odd groans while urging a couple of the huge crescendos. Nevertheless, this performance of the “Concerto for Orchestra” was a thrilling ride from beginning to end, and capped off the evening in a dramatic fashion.

The concert began with Julia Perry’s “A Short Piece for Orchestra,” which offered a lot of sonic delights in the space of a few minutes. After opening with a fanfare, the piece settled into a sequence of isolated, forlorn sounds that transitioned into an agitated, strident passage before subsiding to quieter mood. From a throbbing line in the double basses, a phrase was passed through the strings and to other sections of the orchestra, gathering steam along the way, until the entire ensemble was going full-blast into a quick finale. That piqued my interest to hear more of Perry’s works in the near future.

After talking with some friends, we all agreed that the orchestra under Danzmayr is playing with more volume. That, in turn, creates more opportunities for larger dynamic contrasts. Ergo, in my opinion, the OSO concerts are becoming even more exciting to hear…

Today's Birthdays

Erland von Koch (1910-2009)
Pierre Pierlot (1921-2007)
Teddy Edwards (1924-2003)
Wilma Lipp (1925-2019)
Ewa Podleś (1952)
Patrizia Kwella (1953)

and

David Hume (1711-1776)
John James Audubon (1785-1851)
Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
Anita Loos (1889-1981
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)
I. M. Pei (1917-2019)

Today's Birthdays

Ella Fitzgerald (1918-1998)
Astrid Varnay (1918-2006)
Siegfried Palm (1927-2005)
Digby Fairweather (1946)
Truls Mørk (1961)
Gottlieb Muffat (1690-1770)

and

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903)
Howard R. Garis (1873-1962)
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)
David Shepherd (1931-2017)
Ted Kooser (1939)
Padgett Powell (1952)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1841, at a fund-raising concert in Paris for the Beethoven monument to be erected in Bonn, Franz Liszt performs Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto with Berlioz conducting. Richard Wagner reviews the concert for the Dresden Abendzeitung. The following day, Chopin gives one of his rare recitals at the Salle Pleyel, and Liszt writes a long and glowing review for the Parisian Gazette Musicale.

Article about Young Musicians and Artists in Oregon ArtsWatch

I've written a long article about a fantastic summer program for youth, Young Musicians and Artists, that you can read on Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Martini (1706-1784)
Charles O'Connell (1900-1962)
Violet Archer (1913-2000)
John Williams (1941) - guitarist
Barbara Streisand (1942)
Norma Burrowes (1944)
Ole Edvard Antonsen (1962)
Augusta Read Thomas (1964)
Zuill Bailey (1972)
Catrin Finch (1980)

and

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)
Willem De Kooning (1904-1997)
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989)
Stanley Kauffmann (1916-2013)
Sue Grafton (1940)
Clare Boylan (1948-2006)
Eric Bogosian (1953)
Judy Budnitz (1973)

From the former Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1800, the Library of Congress was established. In a bill that provided for the transfer of the nation's capital from Philadelphia to Washington, Congress included a provision for a reference library containing "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress — and for putting up a suitable apartment for containing them therein ..." The library was housed in the Capitol building, until British troops burned and pillaged it in 1814. Thomas Jefferson offered as a replacement his own personal library: nearly 6,500 books, the result of 50 years' worth of "putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every science."

First opened to the public in 1897, the Library of Congress is now the largest library in the world. It houses more than 144 million items, including 33 million catalogued books in 460 languages; more than 63 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of films, legal materials, maps, sheet music, and sound recordings.

Today's Birthdays

Robert Fayrfax (1464-1521)
Andrea Luchesi (1741-1801)
Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1857-1919)
Arthur Farwell (1872-1952)
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986)
Artie Shaw (1910-2004)
Jean Françaix (1912-1997)
Alicia de Larrocha (1923-2009)
Robert Moog (1934-2005)
Roy Orbison (1936-1988)
Joel Feigin (1951)

and

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
James Patrick (J. P.) Donleavy (1926-2017)
Coleman Barks (1937)
Barry Hannah (1942-2010)
Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)
Andrey Kurkov (1961)

From the former Writer's Almanac:

Today is the birthday of Roy Orbison (1936), born in Vernon, Texas. One day, during a songwriting session with his partner Bill Dees, Orbison asked his wife, Claudette Frady Orbison, if she needed any money for her upcoming trip to Nashville. Dees remarked, “Pretty woman never needs any money.” Forty minutes later, Orbison’s most famous hit, “Oh, Pretty Woman,” had been written. And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1993, Morten Lauridsen's "Les Chanson des Roses"(five French poems by Rilke) for mixed chorus and piano was premiered by the Choral Cross-Ties ensemble of Portland, Ore., Bruce Browne conducting.

Today's Birthdays

Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709)
Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
Eric Fenby (1906-1997)
Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953)
Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)
Charles Mingus 1922-1979)
Michael Colgrass (1932-2019)
Jaroslav Krcek (1939)
Joshua Rifkin (1944)
Peter Frampton (1950)
Jukka-Pekka Saraste (1956)

and

Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
Louise Glück (1943-2023)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this date in 2001, the Philharmonic Hungarica gives its final concert in Düsseldorf. The orchestra was founded by Hungarian musicians who fled to West Germany after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. For London/Decca Records the Philharmonic Hungarica made the first complete set of all of Haydn's symphonies under the baton of its honorary president, the Hungarian-American conductor Antal Dorati.

Today's Birthdays

Randall Thompson (1899-1984)
Leonard Warren (1911-1960)
Bruno Maderna (1920-1973)
Locksley Wellington 'Slide' Hampton (1932-2021)
Easley Blackwood (1933-2023)
Lionel Rogg (1936)
John McCabe (1939-2015)
Iggy Pop (1947)
Richard Bernas (1950)
Melissa Hui (1966)

and

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)
John Muir (1838-1914)
Elaine May (1932)
Nell Freudenberger (1975)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1937, Copland's play-opera for high school "The Second Hurricane," was premiered at the Grand Street Playhouse in New York City, with soloists from the Professional Children's School, members of the Henry Street Settlement adult chorus, and the Seward High School student chorus, with Lehman Engle conducting and Orson Welles directing the staged production. One professional adult actor, Joseph Cotten, also participated (He was paid $10).

Today's Birthdays

Nikolai Miaskovsky (1881-1950)
Lionel Hampton (1908-2002)
Christopher Robinson (1936)
John Eliot Gardiner (1943)
Robert Kyr (1952)

and

Pietro Aretino (1492-1556)
Harold Lloyd (1893-1971)
Joan Miró (1893-1983)
Sebastian Faulks (1953)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1928, in Paris, the first public demonstration of an electronic instrument invented by Maurice Martenot called the "Ondes musicales" took place. The instrument later came to be called the "Ondes Martenot," and was included in scores by Milhaud, Messiaen, Jolivet, Ibert, Honegger, Florent Schmitt and other 20th century composers.

Today's Birthdays

Alexandre Pierre François Boëly (1785-1858)
Max von Schillings (1868-1933)
Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983)
Ruben Gonzalez (1919-2003)
Dudley Moore (1935-2002)
Bernhard Klee (1936)
Kenneth Riegel (1938)
Jonathan Tunick (1938)
David Fanshawe (1942-2010)
Murray Perahia (1947)
Yan-Pascal Tortelier (1947)
Natalie Dessay (1965)

and

Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)
Etheridge Knight (1931-1991)
Sharon Pollock (1936)
Stanley Fish (1938)

and from the New Music Box:

On April 19, 1775, William Billings and Supply Belcher, two of the earliest American composers who at the time were serving as Minutemen (militia members in the American Revolutionary War who had undertaken to turn out for service at a minute's notice), marched to Cambridge immediately after receiving an alarm from Lexington about an impending armed engagement with the British.

Today's Birthdays

Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674)
Franz von Suppé (1819-1895)
Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977)
Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995)
Sylvia Fisher (1910-1996)
Penelope Thwaites (1944)
Catherine Maltfitano (1948)

and

Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)
Bob Kaufman (1925-1986)
Susan Faludi (1959)

Also this historical tidbit from (the former) Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1906 an earthquake struck San Francisco. The earthquake began at 5:12 a.m. and lasted for a little over a minute. The world-famous tenor Enrico Caruso had performed at San Francisco's Grand Opera House the night before, and he woke up in his bed as the Palace Hotel was falling down around him. He stumbled out into the street, and because he was terrified that that shock might have ruined his voice, he began singing. Nearly 3,000 people died.

Today's Birthdays

Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729)
Jan Václav Tomášek (1774-1850)
Artur Schnabel (1882-1951)
Maggie Teyte (1888-1976)
Harald Saeverud (1897-1992)
Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976)
Pamela Bowden (1925-2003)
James Last (1929-2015)
Anja Silja (1940)
Siegfried Jerusalem (1940)
Cristina Ortiz (1950)

and

Karen Blixen aka Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)
Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)
Brendan Kennelly (1936-2021)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1906 - on tour in San Francisco with the Metropolitan Opera touring company, the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso sings a performance of Bizet's "Carmen" the day before the Great San Francisco Earthquake.

Review: Ravel’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand with Vincent Larderet excels in the Vancouver Symphony concert

 

Vincent Larderet playing the Ravel concerto in Poland

If you close your eyes and listen to the sounds emanating from the keyboard during Ravel’s “Piano Concerto for Left Hand,” you’d swear that there must be ten digits roaming over the keyboard. But in the hands of a virtuosic pianist like Vincent Larderet, listeners become mesmerized by the full array of sound that five fingers can make. That’s what I witnessed at the Vancouver Symphony concert Saturday evening (April 13) at Skyview Concert Hall, when Larderet played Ravel’s unusually compelling concerto.

Ravel completed the piece in 1930 for Paul Wittgenstein, a famous pianist who had lost his right arm as a soldier in WWI. Due to the wealth of his family, Wittgenstein commissioned concertos for the left hand from Ravel and other composers, such as Strauss, Britten, Korngold, Hindemith, and Prokofiev, but Ravel’s is the best of the lot, and has entered to standard repertoire.

In his introductory remarks, Brotons mentioned that he had first worked with Larderet 20 years ago in Barcelona, and with a twinkle in his eye, Brotons added, “Yes, I was younger then too!”

The piece began slowly, out of the depths, with a series of low notes from the double basses and the contra-bassoon before the rest of the orchestra joined in. After resting his right hand on the frame above the keyboard, Larderet entered the fray forcefully with a crunchy and almost defiant opening statement that emerged gradually from the lower portion of the keyboard. He surged ahead and created a fanfare-like statement before settling into a lyrical passage in the piano’s middle register. The piece transitioned into a march with Larderet creating brief, descending lines that were echoed at times by the orchestra. The music then quieted down a bit … only to gather more steam and adding more instruments along the way which reminded me of Ravel’s “Bolero.” Larderet deftly interjected a sparkling filigree of notes with accented droplets. He also executed an outstanding extended cadenza flawlessly, and the piece finished emphatic, sweeping crescendo.

A standing ovation brought Larderet back to center stage, and he responded with terrific encore, Scriabin’s “Prelude and Nocturne for the Left Hand.” The first part had a delicate, yet melancholic sentiment, and the second was more rhapsodic with a lovely melody that made me think of Rachmaninoff. It was all exquisitely played by Larderet, and that generated another standing ovation from the audience.

The concert began with the “Carmen Suite No. 1, in an arrangement by Ernest Giraud of beloved tunes from Bizet’s opera “Carmen.” From the fiery opening to the final robust Toreador theme, Brotons was in his element, conducting from memory, and eliciting fine performances from the entire ensemble. Highlights included the flutes invoking the imagery of swirling gypsies, the flute and harp evoking an innocent pastoral scene, the journey to the smuggler’s mountain hideout, and the bullfighters’ procession. It was all sculpted very well by Brotons, conveying the emotional core of Bizet’s music

Russian music from the Romantic period is one of Broton’s many fortes, and he got the orchestra firing on all cylinders in Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony (“Polish”). The first movement began with a heavy funerial before taking off over hill and dale with lovely melodies and finally concluding with a thrilling finale, which sparked enthusiastic applause from the audience. The emotive waltz in the second movement settled the mood with a refined elegance. In the third movement, the flutes, woodwinds, and horns were augmented by a steady heartbeat in the lower strings, which created a soothing feeling. The fourth offered excellent exchanges of passages between parts of the orchestra, and the fifth movement excelled to give an upbeat ending. One of its fugues moved seamlessly from the second violins to the first violins, then the violas, followed by the cellos and basses. Brotons got so involved in the music that at one point he suddenly jumped and turned at least 90 degrees to signal the first violins.

Sometimes in past performances of Tchaikovsky’s music, the brass would get a little too loud and overwhelm the strings, but this time, the brass and strings created an excellent balance. After the big finale, Brotons waded into the orchestra to acknowledge the contributions of each section. It was a jubilant gesture and a great way to end the concert.

Adding to the upbeat atmosphere, the orchestra announced its summer festival in downtown Vancouver (August 2 - 4) and also the programs for its next season. The VSO has scheduled lot of excellent concerts with superb soloists – a lot to look forward to.

Today's Birthdays

Federico Mompou (1893-1987)
Mischa Mischakov (1895-1981)
Henry Mancini (1924-1994)
Herbie Mann (1930-2003)
Dusty Springfield (1939-1999)
Stephen Pruslin (1940)
Leo Nucci (1942)
Richard Bradshaw (1944-2007)
Dennis Russell Davis (1944)
Peteris Vasks (1946)

and

John Millington Synge (1871-1909)
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
Merce Cunningham (1919-2009)
Sir Kingsley Amis (1922-1995)
Carol Bly (1930-2007)

Preview of BodyVox and Imani Winds show in The Oregonian

 

I had a lot of fun writing about this show. I hope that you enjoy reading it - all the way through. You'll find it here in Oregonlive. It will be in the print edition this Friday.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758)
Karl Alwin (1891-1945)
Bessie Smith (1894-1937)
Sir Neville Marriner (1924-2016)
John Wilbraham (1944-1998)
Michael Kamen (1948-2003)
Lara St. John (1971)

and

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Henry James (1843-1916)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1931, Copland's "A Dance Symphony," was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. This work incorporates material from Copland's 1923 ballet "Grohg," which had not been produced. The symphony was one the winners of the 1929 Victor Talking Machine Company Competition Prize. The judges of the competition decided that none of the submitted works deserved the full $25,000 prize, so they awarded $5000 each to four composers, including Copland, Ernest Bloch, and Louis Gruenberg, and gave $10,000 to Robert Russell Bennett (who had submitted two works).

Today's Birthdays

Jean Fournet (1913-2008)
Paavo Berglund (1929-2012)
Morton Subotnick (1933)
Loretta Lynn (1935-2022)
Claude Vivier (1948-1983)
John Wallace (1949)
Julian Lloyd Webber (1951)
Barbara Bonney (1956)
Mikhail Pletnev (1957)
Jason Lai (1974)

and

Christian Huygens (1629-1695)
Arnold Toynbee (1853-1882)
Anton Wildgans (1881-1932)
Tina Rosenberg (1960)

From the former Writer's Almanac:

It's the legal birthday of the modern printing press, which William Bullock patented on this day in 1863 in Baltimore. His invention was the first rotary printing press to self-feed the paper, print on both sides, and count its own progress — meaning that newspapers, which had until then relied on an operator manually feeding individual sheets of paper into a press, could suddenly increase their publication exponentially.

The Cincinnati Times was likely the very first to use a Bullock press, with the New York Sun installing one soon after. Bullock was installing a press for The Philadelphia Press when he kicked at a mechanism; his foot got caught, his leg was crushed, and he died a few days later during surgery to amputate. His press went on to revolutionize the newspaper business.

Today's Birthdays

Felicien David (1810-1876)
William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875)
Milos Sadlo (1912-2003)
George Barati (1913-1996)
Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021)
Margaret Price (1941-2011)
Della Jones (1946)
Al Green (1946)
Mary Ellen Childs (1959)

and

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)
Eudora Welty (1909-2001)
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1958, American pianist Van Cliburn wins the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the first American to do so.

Today's Birthdays

Pietro Nardini (1722-1793)
Joseph Lanner (1801-1843)
Johnny Dodds (1892-1940)
Lily Pons (1898-1976)
Imogen Holst (1907-1984)
Thomas Hemsley (1927-2013)
Herbert Khaury (aka Tiny Tim) (1932-1996)
Henri Lazarof (1932-2013)
Montserrat Caballé (1933-2018)
Herbie Hancock (1940)
Ernst Kovacic (1943)
Stefan Minde (1936-2015)
Christophe Rousset (1961)

and

Beverly Cleary (1916-2021)
Alan Ayckbourn (1939)
Tom Clancy (1947-2013)
Gary Soto (1952)
Jon Krakauer (1954)

Today's Birthdays

Jean-Joseph Mouret (1682-1738)
Charles Hallé (1819-1895)
Karel Ančerl (1908-1973)
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Gervase de Peyer (1926-2017)
Kurt Moll (1938-2017)
Arthur Davies (1941)

and

Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549)
Christopher Smart (1722-1771)
Mark Strand (1934-2014)
Ellen Goodman (1941)
Dorothy Allison (1949)

From the New Music Box:

On April 11, 1941, Austrian-born composer Arnold Schönberg became an American citizen and officially changed the spelling of his last name to Schoenberg. He would remain in the United States until his death in 1951. Some of his most important compositions, including the Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, and the Fourth String Quartet, were composed during his American years.

Review of Oregon Symphony concert - Darker America - Remnants for Poet and Orchestra - Mozart's Requiem

My review of a timely concert by the Oregon Symphony has been published in Classical Voice North America here. 

Today's Birthdays

Michel Corrette (1707-1795)
Eugen d'Albert (1864-1932)
Victor de Sabata (1892-1967)
Fiddlin' Arthur Smith (1891-1971)
Harry Mortimer (1902-1992)
Luigi Alva (1927)
Claude Bolling (1930-2020)
Jorge Mester (1935)
Sarah Leonard (1953)
Lesley Garrett (1955)
Yefim Bronfman (1958)

and

William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911)
David Halberstam (1934-2007)
Paul Theroux (1941)
Norman Dubie (1945)
Anne Lamott (1954)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1868, Brahms's "A German Requiem," was premiered at a Good Friday concert at Bremen Cathedral conducted by the composer.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Kaspar Kerll (1627-1693)
Georg Matthias Monn (1717-1750)
François Giroust (1737-1799)
Supply Belcher (1751-1836)
Theodor Boehm (1794-1881)
Paolo Tosti (1846-1916)
Florence Price (1888-1953)
Sol Hurok (1888-1974)
Efrem Zimbalist Sr. (1889-1985)
Julius Patzak (1898-1974)
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)
Antal Doráti (1906-1988)
Tom Lehrer (1928)
Aulis Sallinen (1935)
Jerzy Maksymiuk (1936)
Neil Jenkins (1945)

and

Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Gregory Goodwin Pincus (1903-1967)
J. William Fullbright (1905-1995)
Jørn Utzon (1918-2008)

From the former Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1860, the oldest known recording of the human voice was made — someone was singing Au Clair de la Lune. French inventor Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville captured sound waves on glass plates using a funnel, two membranes, and a stylus. He made the recording 17 years before Edison made his, but he didn't invent anything to play the recording back.

When researchers discovered these recordings three years ago, they assumed the voice singing was a woman's, so they played it at that speed. But then they re-checked the inventor's notes, and they realized that the inventor himself had sung the song, very slowly, carefully enunciating, as if to capture the beautiful totality of the human voice.

You can hear the astonishing recording at both speeds at firstsounds.org.

Preview of Cascadia Composers - Filipino concert

If you want to hear something different, this unusual concert might do just the job for you. You can read about it in Oregonlive here. It will be in the print edition this Friday.

 

Today's Birthdays

Claudio Merulo (1533-1604)
Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770)
Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983)
E. Y. (Yip) Harburg (1896-1981)
Josef Krips (1902-1974)
Franco Corelli (1921-2003)
Walter Berry (1929-2000)
Lawrence Leighton Smith (1936-2013)
Meriel Dickinson (1940)
Dame Felicity Lott (1947)
Diana Montague (1953)
Anthony Michaels-Moore (1957)

and

Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857)
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
Harvey Cushing (1869-1939)
Robert Giroux (1914-2008)
Seymour Hersh (1937)
Barbara Kingsolver (1955)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1865, American premiere of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertate in Eb, K. 364(320d) for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra took place in New York, with violinist Theodore Thomas and violist Georg Matzka (A review of this concert in the New York Times said: "On the whole we would prefer death to a repetition of this production. The wearisome scale passages on the little fiddle repeated ad nausea on the bigger one were simply maddening.”).

Today's Birthdays

Charles Burney (1726-1814)
Domenico Dragonetti (1763-1846)
Robert Casadesus (1899-1972)
Billie Holiday (1915-1959)
Ravi Shankar (1920-2012)
Ikuma Dan (1924-2001)

and

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998)
Donald Barthelme (1931-1989)
Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023)
Francis Ford Coppola (1939)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1918, the German conductor of the Boston Symphony, Karl Muck, is arrested and interned as an enemy alien after American enters World War I.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Kuhnau (1660-1772)
André‑Cardinal Destouches (1672-1749)
Friedrich Robert Volkman (1815-1883)
Carlos Salzedo (1885-1961)
Andrew Imbrie (1921-2007)
Edison Denisov (1929-1996)
André Previn (1929-2019)
Merle Haggard (1937-2016)
Felicity Palmer (1944)
Pascal Rogé (1951)
Pascal Devoyon (1953)
Julian Anderson (1967)

and

Raphael (Rafaello Sanzio da Urbino) (1483-1520)
Joseph Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936)

From the New Music Box:

On April 6, 1897, the U.S. government granted Thaddeus Cahill a patent for his Telharmonium, or Dynamophone, the earliest electronic musical instrument. Cahill built a total of three such instruments, which utilized a 36-tone scale and used telephone receivers as amplifiers. The first one, completed in 1906 in Holyoke, Massachusetts was 60 feet long and weighed 200 tons. It was housed in "Telharmonic Hall" on 39th Street and Broadway New York City for 20 years.

Today's Birthdays

Louis Spohr (1784-1859)
Albert Roussel (1869-1937)
Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989)
Goddard Lieberson (1911-1977)
Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)
Richard Yardumian (1917-1985)
Evan Parker (1944)
Julius Drake (1959)

and

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
Arthur Hailey (1920-2004)

Today's Birthdays

Jean-Joseph Mouret (1682-1738)
Charles Hallé (1819-1895)
Karel Ančerl (1908-1973)
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Gervase de Peyer (1926-2017)
Kurt Moll (1938-2017)
Arthur Davies (1941)

and

Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549)
Christopher Smart (1722-1771)
Mark Strand (1934-2014)
Ellen Goodman (1941)
Dorothy Allison (1949)

From the New Music Box:

On April 11, 1941, Austrian-born composer Arnold Schönberg became an American citizen and officially changed the spelling of his last name to Schoenberg. He would remain in the United States until his death in 1951. Some of his most important compositions, including the Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, and the Fourth String Quartet, were composed during his American years.

Today's Birthdays

Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731)
Bettina Brentano von Arnim (1785-1859)
Hans Richter (1843-1916)
Pierre Monteux (1875-1964)
Joe Venuti (1898-1978)
Eugène Bozza (1905-1991)
Muddy Waters (1915-1983)
Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004)
Sergei Leiferkus (1946)
Chen Yi (1953)
Thomas Trotter (1957)
Jane Eaglen (1960)
Vladimir Jurowski (1972)

and

Robert E. Sherwood (1896-1955)
Marguerite Duras (1914-1996)
Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Rest in Peace Mark Wescott

Slippedisc has announced that Portlander Mark Wescott, who won the bronze medal at the 1960 Van Cliburn Competition has died. Click here to read it on Slippedisc.

Today's Birthdays

Jean‑Baptiste‑Antoine Forqueray (1699-1782)
Edward Elzear "Zez" Confrey (1895-1971)
Sir Neville Cardus (1888-1975)
Grigoras Dinicu (1889-1949)
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)
Louis Appelbaum (1918-2000)
Sixten Ehrling (1918-2005)
Kerstin Meyer (1928-2020)
Garrick Ohlsson (1948)
Mikhail Rudy (1953)

and

Washington Irving (1783-1894)
John Burroughs (1837-1921)
Herb Caen (1933-1997)
Dr. Jane Goodall (1934)

Review of Fear No Music's concert of music by Iranian and American women published in OAW

Fear No Music is presenting thought-provoking concerts of contemporary music from all corners of the globe. My review of FNM's most recent program is now available in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Franz Lachner (1803-1890)
Kurt Adler (1905-1988)
April Cantelo (1928)
Marvin Gaye (1939-1984)
Raymond Gubbay (1946)
Richard Taruskin (1945-2022)

and

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)
Émile Zola (1840-1902)
Max Ernst (1891-1976)
Camille Paglia (1947)

Today's Birthdays

Jean‑Henri d'Anglebert (1629-1691)
Ferrucco Busoni (1866-1924)
F Melius Christiansen (1871-1955)
Serge Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Dinu Lipatti (1921-1950)
William Bergsma (1921-1994)

and

Edmond Rostand (1868-1918)
Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011)
Milan Kundera (1929-2023)
Francine Prose (1947)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1888, the eccentric Parisian composer and piano virtuoso Alkan is buried in the Montmatre Cemetery. Isidore Philipp, one of only four mourners who attend Alkan's internment, claimed to have been present when the composer's body was found in his apartment and said the elderly Alkan was pulled from under a heavy bookcase, which apparently fell on him while Alkan was trying to reach for a copy of the Talmud on its top shelf. This story has been discounted by some Alkan scholars

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Durante (1684-1755)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Serge Diaghliev (1872-1929)
Clemens Krauss (1893-1954)
John Mitchinson (1932-2021)
Herb Alpert (1935)
Nelly Miricioiu (1952)
Robert Gambill (1955)
Jake Heggie (1961)

and

René Descartes (1596-1650)
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)
Octavio Paz (1914-1998)
Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
Marge Piercy (1936)

Today's Birthdays

Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779)
Ted Heath (1900-1969)
Sandor Szokolay (1931-2013)
John Eaton (1935-2015)
Gordon Mumma (1935)
Eric Clapton (1945)
Maggie Cole (1952)
Margaret Fingerhut (1955)
Sabine Meyer (1959)

and

Francisco Jose de Goya (1746-1828)
Anna Sewell (1820-1878)
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
Sean O'Casey (1880-1964)

Today's Birthdays

Henri Lutz (1864-1928)
Rosina Lhévinne (1880-1976)
Sir William Walton (1902-1983)
E Power Biggs (1906-1977)
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012)
Guher Pekinel (1953)
Suher Pekinel (1953)

and

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000)
Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005)
Judith Guest (1936)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1871, Royal Albert Hall is formally opened in London by Queen Victoria.

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Weigl (1766-1846)
Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951)
Paul Whiteman (1890-1967)
Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991)
Jacob Avshalomov (1919-2013)
Robert Ashley (1930-2014)
Martin Neary (1940)
Samuel Ramey (1942)
Richard Stilgoe (1942)

and

Raphael (1483-1520)
Nelson Algren (1909-1981)
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936)
Russell Banks (1940-2023)
Iris Chang (1968-2004)
Lauren Weisberger (1977)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1842, the Vienna Philharmonic plays its first concert (as the "Vienna Court Orchestra") in the Redoutensaale under the director of composer Otto Nicolai, the director of the Vienna Court Opera. The program included Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, his concert aria "Ah, Perfido," and the "Leonore" No. 3 and "Consercration of the House" Overtures, along with other vocal selections by Mozart and Cherubini.

Today's Birthdays

Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931)
Patty Smith Hill (1868-1946)
Ferde Grofé (1892-1972)
Anne Ziegler (1910-2003)
Sarah Vaughn (1924-1990)
Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007)
Paul Ruders (1949)
Maria Ewing (1950)
Bernard Labadie (1963)

and

Henri Murger (1822-1861)
Heinrich Mann (1871-1950)
Edward Steichen (1879-1973)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)
Budd Schulberg (1914-2009)
Louis Simpson (1923-2012)
Julia Alvarez (1950)
John O'Farrell (1962)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this date in 1808, Franz Joseph Haydn makes his last public appearance at a performance of his oratorio "The Creation" in Vienna in honor of the composer's approaching 76th birthday. Beethoven and Salieri attend the performance and greet Haydn.

Today's Birthdays

Josef Slavík (1806-1833)
Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969)
André Cluytens (1905-1967)
Harry Rabinowitz (1916-2016)
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)
Kyung Wha Chung (1948)

and

Edward Bellamy (1850-1898)
A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987)
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
Gregory Corso (1930-2001)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783)
Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Haydn Wood (1882-1959)
Magda Olivero (1910-2014)
Julia Perry (1924-1979)
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)
Sir Elton John (1947)

and

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
Gloria Steinem (1934)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1949, Shostakovich (accompanied by KGB "handlers") arrives in New York for his first visit to America, for the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. His anti-Western statements and criticism of Igor Stravinsky embarrassed his American sponsors, including Aaron Copland, and later provided political fodder for the notorious Red-hunter, Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Today's Birthdays

John Antes (1740-1811)
Maria Malibran (1808-1836)
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)
Byron Janis (1928-2024)
Christiane Eda-Pierre (1932-2020)
Benjamin Luxon (1937)

and

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)
Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982)
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021)
Dario Fo (1926-2016)
Ian Hamilton (1938-2001)
Martin Walser (1927-2024)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1721, J.S. Bach dedicates his six "Brandenburg" Concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, whose orchestra apparently never performed them.

Review: Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio - Beethoven Mini-Fest - in Oregon ArtsWatch

 My review of the performance by the Chien-Kim+Watkins Trio of Beethoven's nine piano trios has been published in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Léon Minkus (1826-1917)
Eugène Gigout (1844-1925)
Franz Schreker (1878-1934)
Josef Locke (1917-1999)
Norman Bailey (1933-2021)
Boris Tishchenko (1939-2010)
Michael Nyman (1944)
David Grisman (1945)

and

Roger Martin du Gard (1881-1958)
Louis Adamic (1898-1951)
Erich Fromm (1900-1980)
Kim Stanley Robinson (1952)
Gary Joseph Whitehead (1965)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Rosa (1842-1889)
Hamisch MacCunn (1868-1916)
Joseph Samson (1888-1957)
Martha Mödl (1912-2001)
Fanny Waterman (1920-2020)
Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986)
Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)
Joseph Schwantner (1943)
George Benson (1943)
Alan Opie (1945)
Rivka Golani (1946)
Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948
Edmund Barham (1950-2008)

and

Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988)
Edith Grossman (1936-2023)
James Patterson (1940)
Billy Collins (1941)
James McManus (1951)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1687, Italian-born French composer Jean Baptiste Lully, age 54, in Paris, following an inadvertent self-inflicted injury to his foot (by a staff with which he would beat time for his musicians) which developed gangrene.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Modeste Moussorgsky (1839-1881)
Eddie James "Son" House (1902-1988)
Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949)
Paul Tortelier (1914-1990)
Nigel Rogers (1935-2022)
Owain Arwel Hughes (1942)
Elena Firsova (1950)
Ann MacKay (1956)

and

Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)
Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998)
Ved Mehta (1934-2021)

From the New Music Box:

On March 21, 1771, the Massachusetts Gazette published an announcement for a musical program including "select pieces on the forte piano and guitar." It is the earliest known reference to the piano in America.

Today's Birthdays

Beniamino Gigli (1890-1957)
Lauritz Melchoir (1890-1973)
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997)
Dame Vera Lynn (1917-2020)
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970)
Marian McPartland (1918-2013)
Henry Mollicone (1946-2022)

and

Ovid (43 BC - AD 17)
Ned Buntline (1823-1886)
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
Peter Schjeldahl (1942-2022)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1928, the New York Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Society united to form the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York - now known as simply "The New York Philharmonic."

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Gasparini (1661-1727)
Max Reger (1873-1916)
Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994)
Nancy Evans (1915-2000)
Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950)
Robert Muczynski (1929-2010)
Ornette Coleman (1930-2015)
Myung-Wha Chung (1944)
Carolyn Watkinson (1949)
Mathew Rosenblum (1954)

and

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771)
Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852)
Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)
Philip Roth (1933-2018)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christoph Vogel (1756-1788)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Paul Le Flem (1881-1984)
Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
Willem van Hoogstraten (1884-1965)
John Kirkpatrick (1905-1991)
Nobuko Imai (1943)
James Conlon (1950)
Jan-Hendrik Rootering (1950)
Courtney Pine (1964)

and

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Manly Hall (1901-1990)
George Plimpton (1927-2003)
Christa Wolf (1929-2011)
John Updike (1932-2009)

Today's Birthdays

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
Manuel García II (1805-1906)
Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901)
Giuseppe Borgatti (1871-1950)
Brian Boydell (1917-2000)
Nat "King" Cole (1917-1965)
John LaMontaine (1920-2013)
Stephen Dodgson (1924-2013)
Betty Allen (1927-2009)
Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993)
John Lill (1944)
Michael Finnissy (1946)
Patrick Burgan (1960)

and

Edmund Kean (1787-1833)
Frank B. Gilbreth (1911-2001)
Penelope Lively (1933)

Review: Ehnes, Heyward, and the organ shine with the Oregon Symphony

James Ehnes in rehearsal with the Oregon Symphony under Jonathon Heyward

The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall has benefited a lot from the acoustical upgrade that was done in the fall of 2020 (see my article in The Oregonian), but if there were still some lingering doubts about the improved sound, they were laid to rest when the organ came in at full blast in the final movement of Saint-Saëns’s “Organ Symphony.” WHUMFP! Up until this weekend’s Oregon Symphony concerts, you could hear the organ, but it never had the requisite grandiose power needed to make that piece memorable. This time, at the concert on March 11, the sound was awesome, and that made all the difference. The audience felt it and followed the finale with a roaring standing ovation.

The enthusiasm also recognized guest conductor Jonathon Heyward, who made his debut on the podium with the orchestra. Heyward is the newly appointed Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony and Lincoln Center’s Summer Orchestra. He is also in his fourth year as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. The Oregon Symphony was fortunate to secure Heyward’s services for the concert, which, in addition to the Saint-Saëns, included a terrific Brahms Violin Concerto with Canadian virtoso James Ehnes.

A perennial favorite with Portland audiences, Ehnes conveyed the Brahms marvelously. His immaculate technique made the trickiest passages look effortless, but beyond the technical wizardry, he expressed the bewitching beauty of the slower sections – especially in the long cadenza of the first movement where he threaded the needle with elegant trills. In the brash and rustic third movement, Ehnes produced sounds that delightfully alternated between gliding and skittering, dotted with accented notes.

All in all, it was a masterful performance that generated thunderous applause from all corners of the house. The acclamation brought Ehnes back to center stage several times, and he offered an encore, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 3 ("Ballade"), which he played with such intensity and artistry that it brought down the house again.

Conducting without a baton, Heyward deftly synced up with Ehnes throughout the Saint-Saëns and elicited excellent playing from the orchestra. He eschewed the stick in the Saint-Saëns as well, urging the orchestra with precise gestures that were never overdramatic. The musicians responded with plenty of verve whenever it was required. Douglas Schneider commanded the organ magnificently and the beguiling effect of piano four hands with Sequoia and Chuck Dillard at the keyboard added a crystalline underlayment. The brass choir in the fourth movement helped to amp up the finale, which – with the organ going full tilt – was glorious.

I am guessing that it may be a long time before Heyward returns to the Schnitz, since he is in such high demand, but it should be noted that there is an ongoing connection between Baltimore and Portland. That’s because two former Oregon Symphony musicians are members of the Baltimore Symphony. They are Principal Trombonist Aaron LaVere and Bassist Nina DeCesare

- -

PS. At the concert I sat a couple rows behind Oregon Symphony Creative Chair Gabriel Kahane, his parents, the conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane and Martha Kahane. Also in that row was Chamber Music Northwest’s artistic power couple Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, and super cellist Paul Watkins. Music Director David Danzmayr and his partner, violinist Aromi Park also stopped by. A pretty illustrious group!

Today's Birthdays

Enrico Tamberlik (1820-1889)
Henny Youngman (1906-1998)
Christa Ludwig (1928-2021)
Sir Roger Norrington (1934)
Teresa Berganza (1935-2022)
David Del Tredici (1937-2023)
Claus Peter Flor (1953)

and

James Madison (1751-1836)
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936)
César Vallejo (1892-1938)
Sid Fleischman (1920-2010)
Alice Hoffman (1952)

Deanna Tham advances in La Maestra competition

 According to this posting on Facebook from the La Maestra competition (in Paris). Oregon Symphony Associate Conductor Deanna Tham has made it past the initial round (of 14 candidates) to the semi-finals - seven finalists. Yay!

Today's Birthdays

Charles Dibdin (1745-1814)
Eduard Strauss (1835-1916)
Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935)
Colin McPhee (1900-1964)
Lightnin' Hopkins (1912-1982)
Ben Johnston (1926-2019)
Nicolas Flagello (1928-1994)
Jean Rudolphe Kars (1947)
Isabel Buchanan (1954)
)
and

Richard Ellmann (1918-1987)
Ben Okri (1959)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1985, Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, age 22, makes his operatic debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, singing the lead tenor role in Domenico Morelli's comic opera "L'Amico Francesco."

Today's Birthdays

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (1727-1756)
Pierre-Louis Couperin (1755-1789)
Johann Strauss Sr. (1804-1849)
Lawrance Collingwood (1887-1982)
Witold Rudziński (1913-2004)
Quincy Jones (1933)
Phillip Joll (1954)

and

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Sylvia Beach (1887-1962)
Max Shulman (1919-1988)
Diane Arbus (1923-1971)

Today's Birthdays

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Alec Rowley (1892-1958)
Irène Joachim (1913-2001)
Jane Rhodes (1929-2011)
Alberto Ponce (1935-2019)
Lionel Friend (1945)
Julia Migenes (1949)
Wolfgang Rihm (1952)
Anthony Powers (1953)
Moses Hogan (1957-2003)
Terence Blanchard (1962)

and

Janet Flanner (1892-1978)
George Seferis (1900-1971)

Preview of Portland Opera's The Snowy Day in The Oregonian

 I've written a preview of this inventive opera production of a beloved children's book. You can read it in Oregonlive here. It will appear in print edition of The Oregonian this Friday.