Today's Birthdays

François Devienne (1759-1803)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Caroline Miolan‑Carvalho (1827-1895)
James Huneker (1857-1921)
Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950)
Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940)
Nathan Milstein (1904-1992)
Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973)
Alan Lomax (1915-2002)
Jaap Schröder (1925-2020)
Odetta (1930-2008)
Philip Glass (1937)
Stephen Cleobury (1948)
Donna Summer (1948-2012)
George Benjamin (1960)
Jennifer Higdon (1962)

and

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Zane Grey (1872-1939)
John O'Hara (1905-1970)
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Preview of PBO's Dinner with Handel published in Early Music America

 

One of the coolest things coming up this year is Portland Baroque's presentation of the pasticcio "Dinner with Handel. I wrote a fun preview of this unique operatic event for Early Music America here.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773)
Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935)
Walter Damrosch (1862-1950)
Mitch Leigh (1928-2014)
Lynn Harrell (1944-2020)
Silvia Marcovici (1952)
Gerald Finley (1960)

and

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989)
Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016)
Richard Brautigan (1935-1984)

Preview of Michelle Cann's recital for Portland Piano International - in The Oregonian

My preview of Michelle Cann's upcoming PPI recital that highlights works by composers of Chicago's Black Renaissance is now published online in The Oregonian here. It will be in the print edition this Friday.

 

Review: Telegraph Quartet signals impeccable concert in Portland

Playing with superb dynamics, technique, and emotion, the Telegraph Quartet excelled in a demanding program Tuesday evening (January 23) at Lincoln Performance Hall. The ensemble scaled the heights and plumbed the depths of works by Beethoven, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, and Alban Berg, impressing a nearly fullhouse as part of the Friends of Chamber Music’s Classic Series.

Now in their 10th season, the Telegraph Quartet (violinists Erin Chin and Joseph Maile, violist Pei-Ling Lin, and cellist Jeremiah Shaw) is the Quartet-in-Residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Winners of the of the 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, the Telegraph Quartet, whose name perhaps was inspired by San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, made a terrific impression in Portland a few years ago (just before the pandemic), and this return engagement was flat-out terrific.

Beethoven’s “Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major” received a marvelous performance by the ensemble with outstandingly sculpted phrases from beginning to end. Crisp attacks and pinpoint exchanges added to the intensity of the performance. The third movement – with its sudden eruptions, followed by the first violin (Maile) blithely skipping around and then the entire ensemble digging in – was absolutely mesmerizing. The fourth movement switched between extreme melancholy, spiked with pensive outbursts, and playfully light sections – as if Beethoven couldn’t make up his mind – until he wrapped it up with a prestissimo finale.

In 1834, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel wrote “Quartet in E-flat Major,” which is the first string quartet ever written by a woman. The Telegraph Quartet, with Chin taking over the first violin position, gave it an outstanding performance. After an elegant and poignant first movement, things shifted into a higher gear in which all of the musicians showing fleet fingerwork. In the third fashioned a beguilingly slow build up that release a flowing cascade of sound, and Chin creating a sweet sound in the upper register – kind of like walking on a tight rope suspended very high above the ground. The final movement offered a fast dance-like sequence before launching into a furious section that culminated in a barnburner ending. The audience responded with an enthusiastic standing ovation.

The Telegraph Quartet gave an incisive interpretation of Alban Berg’s “Lyric Suite,” delving into the with fervent passion that reflected the enhanced emotional intensity of the piece, which was inspired by a long affair that Berg had with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. Because of its 12-tone style, the “Lyric Suite” is not easily to grasp. Divided into six movements, it suggests a variety of moods that take listeners from the first moments of two people falling in love to the bittersweet ending in which their love cannot be realized in the way that they desire (Berg and Fuchs-Robettin were married to other people). The Telegraph Quartet played the piece with total commitment and the final Largo desolato conveyed a sense of emptiness and closed up with a note of resignation.

Not willing to leave listeners on a downer, the ensemble delivered an lovely encore, the second movement (Waltz) from Britten’s “Three Divertimenti for String Quartet.”

One of the unique aspects about the Telegraph Quartet, is its seating arrangement. All other quartets that I’ve seen seat the violins next to each other and the violist opposite the first violinist. The Telegraph Quartet places the violist next to the first violinist, and the second violinist seats opposite the first. From what I heard with the Telegraphers, their arrangement works just fine.

Bottomline, be on the lookout for the Telegraph Quartet. It’s a top-tier ensemble with a big future

Today's Birthdays

Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777)
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871)
Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935)
Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
Havergal Brian (1876-1972)
Blanche Selva (1884-1942)
Luigi Nono (1924-1990)
Myer Fredman (1932-2014)
Malcolm Binns (1936)
Cho-Liang Lin (1960)

and

W. C. Fields (1880-1946
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1826 was the premiere of Schubert's String Quartet in D minor, "Death and the Maiden," as a unrehearsed reading at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, two amateur musicians. Schubert, who usually played viola on such occasions, could not perform since he was busy copying out the parts and making last-minute corrections.
and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1845 that Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” was published in the New York Evening Mirror. It was a huge sensation: Abraham Lincoln memorized it and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a fan letter to Poe. He was paid $9 for “The Raven,” and it was extensively reprinted without his permission, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had written an unsigned article for the Mirror before about copyright law saying, “Without an international copyright law, American authors may as well cut their throats,” but there was no such law until 1891. His income in 1844 was $424; in 1845, he made $549.

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni (1757-1821)
Ferdinand Herold (1791-1833)
Alexander Mackenzie (1822-1892)
Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994)
Michael Head (1900-1976)
Ronnie Scott (1927-1996)
Acker Bilk (1929-2014)
Sir John Tavener (1944-2013)
Richard Danielpour (1956)

and

Colette (1873-1954)
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022)
David Lodge (1935)

Today's Birthdays

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Juan Crisostomo Arriage (1806-1826)
Edouard Lalo (1823-1892)
Jerome Kern (1885-1945)
Jack Brymer (1915-2003)
Skitch Henderson (1918-2005)
Helmut Zacharias (1920-2002)
Fritz Spiegl (1926-2003)
John Ogdon (1937-1989)
Jean-Philippe Collard (1948)
Emanuel Pahud (1970)
James Ehnes (1976)

and

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Dmitry Mandeleyev (1834-1907)
Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795)
Maria Augusta von Trapp (1905-1987)
Stéphane Grappelli (1908-1997)
Jimmy Van Heusen (1913-1990)
Warren Benson (1924-2005)
Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987)
Frédéric Lodéon (1952)
Mikel Rouse (1957)
Ēriks Ešenvalds (1977)
Gustavo Dudamel (1981)

and

Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905)
Seán MacBride (1904-1988)
Jules Feiffer (1929)
Christopher Hampton (1946)
Ellen DeGeneres (1958)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1790, Mozart's opera, "Così fan tutte," was premiered in Vienna at the Burgtheater.

Review of Fear No Music concert in Oregon ArtsWatch

 Fear No Music presented a very interesting concert on Monday evening. My review is now published on Oregon ArtsWatch here. 

Today's Birthdays

Jan Blockx (1851-1912)
Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954)
Julia Smith (1905-1989)
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994)
Alfred Reed (1921-2005)
Etta James (1938-2012)
Russell Peck (1945-2009)

and

Robert Burns (1759-1796)
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Review: Conrad Tao and the Oregon Symphony and really bad weather

It was a double whammy of sorts. The snowy and icy weather over the weekend of January 12 through 14 brought everything to a halt in Portland. The Oregon Symphony lost most of its concert engagements that featured pianist-composer Conrad Tao. But Monday night, January 15, things had improved enough for the orchestra to perform with Tao, and at least half of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall was filled with patrons desperate to hear some great live music. They were treated to robust music with works by Tao, Haydn, and Rachmaninoff. Perhaps the musicians needed to release some pent-up feelings. Music Director David Danzmayr looked especially happy to be on stage. He briefly mentioned that his home had lost power for 50 hours because of the weather. He was just happy to be warm!

The inclement weather was the first whammy. The second had to do with my writing instruments. I almost always bring two pens with me when I attend concerts, just in case one of them has run dry or malfunctions (last summer one of my pens gushed ink all over my hand while I was trying to interview Leo Eguchi and Sasha Callahan at Reed College). On Monday night the first pen I tried was at the end of its life, and I inexplicably lost the other pen. I did my best to etch some words in my notebook – muttering to myself all the while – and afterwards it was like reading invisible ink.

So that means a short review, starting with the first piece on the program, Tao’s “Over” as in, perhaps, the idea of an overture. The ten-minute work had three brief movements, and it kicked off with several impressively sharp attacks from the keyboard and the orchestra. The first movement had a disjointed, herky-jerky feel (and this is when my pen ran dry). The music seemed to gather steam and then became more fragmented. According to Tao, the third movement was supposed to be dance-like, but it didn’t strike me that way, but it was spirited and uplifting at the end.

Somewhere in “Over” concertmaster Sarah Kwak created a series of extremely high sounds that were squeaky and birdlike. I could figure out how she created those sounds, so I asked her via email. She replied, stating “He wrote it 2 octaves above the written notes, which put me in nosebleed territory. I had to play above the fingerboard where the bow plays - basically there are no pitches there

Following “Over,” Tao teamed up with the orchestra for a thoroughly delightful rendition of Haydn’s “Concerto for Piano in D Major.” Tao and Danzmayr had done the piece with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra (Columbus, Ohio) back in 2017 with “Over.” Tao and the orchestra brought out the witty and lighthearted nature of the Haydn, showing lots of fleet runs up and down the keyboard. The balance between all the performers was excellent, and considering that they pulled it off with – most likely – one rehearsal is amazing.

As an encore, Tao played his arrangement of Harold Arlen’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with a nod to influences from Art Tatum. Tao superb artistry made the piece glisten.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Rachmaninoff’s “Symphony No. 2 in E minor.” The orchestra and Danzmayr gave it everything they had, and it flowed very well, oozing with lots of lyricism and rich, warm sounds that sent the audience home in a good mood.

Tao was scheduled to talk about his music at an Open Music event the following night, but freezing rain returned to Portland, and that show was cancelled. Well, let’s hope that Tao will be re-engaged with the orchestra in the near future. Maybe in the summer.

In the meantime, I’ve got to buy a package of pens!

Today's Birthdays

Farinelli (Carlo Maria Broschi) (1705-1782)
Frederick II the Great (1712-1786)
Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822)
Evelyn Barbirolli (1911-2008)
Norman Dello Joio (1913-2008)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940)
Gottfried von Einem (1918-1996)
Leon Kirchner (1919-2009)
Neil Diamond (1941)
Yuri Bashmet (1953)
Warren Zevon (1947-2003)

and

William Congreve (1670-1729)
Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
Desmond Morris (1928)

Young artists shine with Vancouver Symphony

Maestro Salvador Brotons shook his head, marveling at the three young musicians seated next to him on the stage at Skyview Concert Hall during a Q&A session that followed the Vancouver Symphony concert Saturday evening (January 21). Brotons could only gush with superlatives to describe the talents of violinist Esme Arias-Kim, saxophonist Diego Chapela-Perez, and Xinran Shi – the three gold medal winners of VSO’s young artist competition. I whole-heartedly agree with him. The teenagers blew away the audience with their musicality and poise, delivering top-notch performances of pieces that would challenge veteran professional artists. They and orchestra achieved wonderful results despite losing at least one rehearsal because of snow and ice, which put the kibosh on travel throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The nationwide search by the VSO to find the best of the ultra-talented teenage musicians really pays off when you hear them live in concert. Esme Arias-Kim (age 18) led things off with an outstanding rendition of Ernest Chausson’s “Poéme for Violin and Orchestra.” Her passionate and assured playing heightened the lush and lyrical qualities of the piece, making it sing with beauty. Her playing balanced extremely well with the orchestra so that I could always hear her violin, even when the surrounding forces, urged by the emotive Broton, swelled with forte crescendos. Near the end of the piece, Arias-Kim created beguiling, bird-like trills that could have melted some of the ice outside that auditorium.

When was the last time that any of us have ever heard a concerto for saxophone and orchestra? I don’t think that I have ever heard such a piece. So everyone in hall got a super-duper experience, because Diego Chapela-Perez (age 17) delivered a mesmerizing performance of Alexander Glazunov’s “Concerto in e-flat Major for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra.” Chapela-Perez demonstrated a comprehensive command of his instrument, creating a myriad of technically difficult sounds, but making it all look natural and easy peasy. His cadenzas were terrifically executed, and along the way he released several lightning-fast runs that had his fingers flying over all over the keys. Chapela-Perez also produced the smoothest of tones and surged with authority to high notes. He even began one passage with an extremely high note that was perfectly placed – a jaw-dropping level of artistry.

Xinran Shi (age 14) astounded patrons with a brilliant and moving performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Variations on a Theme by Paganini.” Shi’s impeccable technique and musicianship conveyed the many moods and styles of this delightful and incredibly tricky work. She made each of the 24 variations on the distinct and natural – that is, not mannered or mechanical. Whether the delicate minuet of Variation 12, the demonstrative and robust sound of Variation 13, the vocative cantabile of Variation 18, or any of the other variations, Shi conveyed each one superbly, and the result was an immediate, vociferous standing ovation.

It is an unenviable task to follow such exceptional performances by the trio of gifted youngsters, but Brotons and the VSO came up with a terrific piece, Carl Nielsen’s “Symphony No. 3, aka “Sinfonia expansiva.” This symphony by Denmark’s greatest composer began with several forte blasts that grabbed everyone’s attention. They were followed by a driving waltz and passages that surged and subsided before ascending to a powerful ending that wrapped up the first movement. The second began in quiet and contemplative way, but with an insistent undercurrent that later gave way to aggressive horns. There were moments that sounded almost Wagnerian, but things settled down and closed out calmly. The third movement offered some lovely melodies and the fourth reveled in a fugue before concluding the piece with a stately, and uplifting finale.

After the concert during the Q&A, moderated by All Classical Radio’s Warren Black, listeners learned that the young artists put a lot of thought into their performances with an emphasis on “telling a story” through their musicmaking. That kind of approach definitely helped to make the music resonate with listeners, and the connection created between the young performers and much-older patrons was genuine, giving commentators like me a hope for the future – not just the future of music but the future in general.

Today's Birthdays

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
Rutland Boughton (1878-1960)
Django Reinhardt (1910-1953)
Milton Adolphus (1913-1988)
Eli Goren (1923-2000)
Chita Rivera (1933) Cécile Ousset (1936)
Teresa Zylis-Gara (1936)
John Luther Adams (1953)
Mason Bates (1977)

and

Stendhal (1783-1842)
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Derek Walcott (1930-2017)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1894, Czech composer Antonin Dvorák presents a concert of African-American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in New York, using an all-black choir, comprised chiefly of members of the St. Philip's Colored Choir. On the program was the premiere performance of Dvorák's own arrangement of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which featured vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh.

Today's Birthdays

Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727-1799)
Charles Tournemire (1870-1939)
Hans Erich Apostel (1901-1972)
Robin Milford (1903-1959)
Rosa Ponselle (1897-1981)
Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)
William Warfield (1920-2002)
Leslie Bassett (1923-2016)
James Louis ("J.J.") Johnson (1924-2001)
Aurèle Nicolet (1926-2016)
Uto Ughi (1944)
Myung-whun Chung (1953)

and

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781)
Lord Byron (1788-1824)
August Strindberg (1849-1912)
Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)
Howard Moss (1922-1987)
Joseph Wambaugh (1937)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day, in 1907, the Metropolitan Opera production of Richard Strauss' opera "Salome," with soprano Olive Fremstad in the title role, creates a scandal. The opera is dropped after a single performance, and not staged at the Met again until the 1930s.

Today's Birthdays

Henri Duparc (1848-1933)
Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977)
Webster Booth (1902-1984)
Placido Domingo (1941)
Richie Havens (1941-2013)
Edwin Starr (1942-2003)
Suzanne Mentzer (1957)
Frank Ticheli (1958)

and

Louis Menand (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630)
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
Julius Conus (1869-1942)
Józef Hofmann (1876-1957)
Huddie William Ledbetter (Lead Belly) (1889-1949)
Walter Piston (1894-1976)
Eva Jessye (1895-1992)
Yvonne Loriod (1924-2010)
David Tudor (1926-1996)
Antonio de Almeida (1928-1997)
Iván Fischer (1951)

and

George Burns (1896-1996)
Alexandra Danilova (1903-1997)
Federico Fellini (1920-1993)
Edward Hirsch (1950)
Tami Hoag (1959)

Profile of Michael Liu - MD and pianist of the Vancouver Symphony - in The Columbian newspaper

 I wrote a profile of Michael Liu, MD and pianist for the Vancouver Symphony. He is an amazingly talented fellow, and I think that you will enjoy reading about him in The Columbian here.

Today's Birthdays

Louis‑Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749)
George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898)
Fritz Reiner (1888-1963)
Paul Dessau (1894-1979)
Edith Piaf (1915-1963)
Dalton Baldwin (1931-2019)
Phil Ochs (1940-1976)
William Christie (1944)
Marianne Faithfull (1946)
Olaf Bär (1957)
Steven Esserlis (1958)
Rebecca Saunders (1967)

and

Italo Svevo (1861-1928)
Constance Garnett (1861-1946)

Rest in Peace - Peter Schickele - aka P.D.Q. Bach

The composer and musical comedian, Peter Schickele, passed away Tuesday at the age of 88. I had the pleasure of singing with him in 2008 when I was a member of the Portland Symphonic Choir. We did "Oedipus Tex" and several of his P.D.Q. Bach concoctions, and I have to admit that was one of the most fun concerts I have ever done. We violated all sorts of choir decorum, including falling asleep on stage in the middle of one of his pieces. Hey, they turned off all the lights; so what else are you gonna do! 

To read the interview that I did with Schickele back in 2008, click here.

One of the best obituaries of this ultra-talented artist is in the New York Times here.

Young Artist winners to headline Vancouver Symphony concert

Xinran Shi, Diego Chapela-Perez, and Esme Arias-Kim 

The gold medal winners of the Vancouver Symphony’s Young Artists Competition will be in the spotlight this weekend, taking center stage to show their amazing talents with the orchestra. The annual competition, now in its 29th year, attracts applicants from the entire nation. The bronze medalists received $1,000. Silver medalists were awarded $3,000, and gold medalists took home $5,000 plus the opportunity to solo with the orchestra.

A top-tier panel of judges decided on the winners at the competition that was held in October. The adjudicators consisted of founding and former member of the twice Grammy-nominated woodwind quintet Imani Winds, Mariam Adam, Grammy-award winning cellist, Zuill Bailey, the artistic director of the Kaufman Music Center International Piano Competition and pianist, Dr. Igal Kesselman, virtuoso pianist and President of the Concert Artists Guild, Tanya Bannister, and VSO Associate Concertmaster, Dr. Stephen Shepherd.

The panel selected the first-prize winners for the following categories: piano, strings, and wind/brass. On January 20 and 21 at Skyview Concert Hall, concertgoers will hear pianist Xinran Shi of California perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” violinist Esme Arias-Kim of Illinois perform Ernest Chausson’s “Poeme,” and saxophonist Diego Chapela-Perez of Texas play Alexander Glazunov’s “Concerto in E flat Major for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra.”

Xinran Shi, a 14-year old from San Jose, California, is freshman at Stanford Online High School. Winner of multiple awards, Shi started playing piano at four and a half, but it wasn’t love at first sight.

“My mom took me to a piano recital where all of the students received chocolate,” said Shi via Zoom. “So I asked if I could start studying piano because I really wanted the chocolate. Early on I didn’t enjoy practicing and wanted to quit, but my mom wouldn’t allow that. Then I gradually grew to love playing and practicing.”

Shi studies with Hans Boepple and learned the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini last March. Her appearance with the Vancouver Symphony will be the first time for her to play it with an orchestra.

“The Rachmaninoff is technically very difficult,” noted Shi, “but after I learned all of the notes and got it up to tempo, I’ve found that it is very manageable. Then the hard part becomes making the piece sound natural and not technical or mechanical, especially variation 18, which is the most passionate but also has some of the Russian winter in it.

Violinist Esme Arias-Kim (age 18) grew up in Chicago and is a high school senior at the music academy program for pre-college-age students at The Colburn School in Los Angeles where her teacher is Robert Lipsett. Playing the violin runs deeply in her family because her parents are professional violinists, and she has an older sibling who plays the violin.

Winner of many awards, Arias-Kim has a special love for Chausson’s “Poeme,” and has played it with an orchestra a couple of times last year.

“I love the way it tells a story in an emotional way,” said Arias-Kim in a Zoom call. “It doesn’t have a clear plot or a particular setting. It is more of an internal dialogue within oneself. I love to explore how to bring that out that is respectful of the music and the composer and remain true to myself. That’s really rewarding.”

Arias-Kim has a special affinity for Beethoven and composers from the Romantic era. She is aiming for a career as a soloist or as a chamber musician.

Diego Chapela-Perez (age 17) lives a little north of Houston, Texas, where he is a senior at Dekaney High School and plays in multiple ensembles. He has been playing saxophone for the past seven years.

“I started on the saxophone because my teacher said that my fingers were too big for clarinet, which was my first choice,” said Chapela-Perez. “I am so glad that he put me on the saxophone.”

Comfortable playing jazz and classical music, Chapela-Perez has won the state competition in jazz and will go to a convention for classical music in February. His appearance with the Vancouver Symphony will be his debut with an orchestra.

“The Glazunov Concerto for Alto Saxophone and String is the most well-known concerto for my instrument,” said Chapela-Perez. “I started learning it a month be deadline to record for the competition. It’s a difficult piece that tests your musicality. I had to dig into the piece and decide how I wanted to express and phrase the sound and make it interesting.”

He wants to pursue music and eventually become a saxophone professor and performing artist.

“My favorite thing is chamber music,” remarked Chapela-Perez. “My school’s saxophone quartet won the bronze medal winner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition last year. We lost a member to graduation, but we’ll try again this year as a trio.”

Also on the Vancouver Symphony program is Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3. (Sinfonia Espansiva). It is known for its sunny character, including a second movement that features wordless solos for soprano and baritone.

So by pairing the young artists with the “Sinfonia Expansiva,” audience members will get a healthy dose of optimism. That will be a great way to start out the year.
- - - -
For tickets (for online or in person options), go to the Vancouver Symphony website.

Today's Birthdays

César Cui (1835-1918)
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894)
John Laurence Seymour (1893-1986)
Berthold Goldschmidt (1903-1996)
Anthony Galla-Rini (1904-2006)
John O'Conor (1947)
Anthony Pople (1955-2003)
Christoph Prégardien (1956)

and

Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869)
Rubén Darío (1867-1916)
A. A. Milne (1882-1956)
Oliver Hardy (1892-1957)

FYI: Roget's "Thesaurus" has never been out of print since it was first published in 1852.

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1958, "What Does Music Mean?", broadcast, the first of a series of televised New York Philharmonic "Young People's Concerts" on CBS-TV hosted by Leonard Bernstein. The series continued until 1972, with 53 different programs hosted by Bernstein.

Review of Camerata PYP concert in Oregon ArtsWatch

 

The Camerata PYP gave a fine concert with a lot of new music last weekend. My review is in Oregon Arts Watch here. 

Rachel Hadiashar took a photo while I was talking with Bruce Stark. Apparently, I was making an important point!  Thanks Rachel!

Today's Birthdays

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
John Stanley (1712-1786)
Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788)
François‑Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)
Henk Badings (1907-1987)
Oscar Morawetz (1917-2007)
Annie Delorie (1925-2009)
Donald Erb (1927-2008)
Jean Barraqué (1928-1973)
Sydney Hodkinson (1934-2021)
Dame Gillian Weir (1941)
Anne Queffélec (1948)
Augustin Dumay (1949)
Nancy Argenta (1957)
Gérard Pesson (1958)

and

Anne Brontë (1820-1849)
William Stafford (1914-1993)
Luis López Nieves (1950)
Sebastian Junger (1962)

Today's Birthdays

Niccoló Piccinni (1728-1800)
Henri Büsser (1872-1973)
Daisy Kennedy (1893-1981)
Ernesto Halffter (1905-1989)
Roger Wagner (1914-1992)
Ernesto Bonino (1922-2008)
Pilar Lorengar (1928-1996)
Marilyn Horne (1934)
Richard Wernick (1934)
Gavin Bryars (1943)
Brian Ferneyhough (1943)
Katia Ricciarelli (1946)

and

Robert Service (1874-1958)
Anthony Hecht (1923-2004)
William Kennedy (1928)
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
Mary Karr (1955)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980)

Preview of unique Rachmaninoff Vespers and dance published in The Oregonian

 I wrote a article about the upcoming concert featuring the Portland Symphonic Choir and push/FOLD dance company. You can read all about it here in Oregonlive. It will be in the print edition this Friday.

Today's Birthdays

Ivor Novello (1893-1951)
Elie Siegmeister (1909-1991)
Malcolm Frager (1935-1991)
Don "Captain Beefheart" Van Vliet (1941-2010)
Aaron Jay Kernis (1960)

and

Molière (1622-1673)
Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872)
Andreas William Heinesen (1900-1991)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Frank Conroy (1936-2005)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1941 Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" was premiered at Stalag VIII-A, a German prisoner of war camp in Görlitz (Silesia), with the composer at the piano and fellow-prisoners Jean Le Boulaure (violin), Henri Akoka (clarinet), and Etienne Pasquier (cello).

Todays Birthdays

Ludwig von Köchel (1800-1877)
Jean de Reszke (1850-1925)
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
Louis Quilico (1925-2000)
Zuzana Ruzickova (1927-2017)
Siegmund Nimsgern (1940)
Mariss Jansons (1943-2019)
Kees Bakels (1945)
Nicholas McGegan (1950)
Ben Heppner (1956)
Andrew Manze (1965)

and

John Dos Passos (1896-1970)
Emily Hahn (1905-1997)
John Oliver Killens (1916-1987)
Maureen Dowd (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Christoph Graupner (1683-1760)
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749)
Vassili Kalinnikov (1866-1901)
Richard Addinsell (1904-1977)
Daniil Shafran (1923-1997)
Renato Bruson (1936)
Paavo Heininen (1938)
William Duckworth (1943-2012)
Richard Blackford (1954)
Wayne Marshall (1961)
Juan Diego Flórez (1973)

and

Horatio Alger (1832-1899)
Lorrie Moore (1957)

Today's Birthdays

Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739)
Jacques Duphly (1715-1789)
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948)
Pierre Bernac (1899-1979)
William Pleeth (1916-1999)
Leo Smit (1921-1999)
Morton Feldman (1926-1987)
Salvatore Martirano (1927-1995)
Anne Howells (1941)
Viktoria Postnikova (1944)
Lori Laitman (1955)

and

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
Jack London (1876-1916)
Haruki Murakami (1949)

January Music Bites on Oregon Arts Watch

 I've got a short piece about Portland Opera and the Oregon Symphony in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Catching up with pianist and composer Conrad Tao

This weekend, weather permitting, you can hear the superb American pianist and composer Conrad Tao with the Oregon Symphony. Tao, who was born in Urbana, Illinois, but has been based in New York City since he was nine years old, will play Haydn’s “Concerto For Piano in D Major” and one of his own pieces, entitled “Over.”

I heard Tao when he appeared in a Portland Piano International recital in January of 2009 when he was fourteen years old. He delivered a superb concert that just blew everyone away. I wrote a review of that performance, which you can read here. Tao was so mind-boggling impressive, that I have never forgotten that performance, and I have always wondered when he might return to P-town. I missed a concert in which he played with a trio, but now, with the hometown band under David Danzmayr, Tao is back.

To get ready for his concert, I was able to talk with him via Zoom. Here is an edited version of our conversation.

Have you played the Haydn before?

I have only played the Haydn Piano Concerto once in public before – also with David Danzmayr in 2017 in Columbus, Ohio with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. The Haydn was the first piano concerto that I learned, so it is special for me.

I have had a relationship with that orchestra since 2007, if I remember correctly. I wrote some very early pieces with them. So the two pieces that we are doing in Portland are the two pieces that I played with David and his orchestra in 2017.

What do you find inspiring about the Haydn concerto?

The pleasure of playing Haydn is its effervescence. In some ways, it elevates me to perform it.

One of the things that I enjoy about this job is that I can place whatever I am going through into the performance.

Some music has such a strong sense of self and character, that it can lift you up no matter how you are feeling. The outer movements of the Haydn concerto feel that way to me.

Tell us about your piece, “Over.”

It has three short movements. At the time I wrote it, I was thinking about how the music would sound alongside the Haydn. The premise of the piece is super simple. I wanted to start the piece with an ending; so that is where the title “Over” emerged. The music became three little episodes on the word “over.” The piece begins with a bunch of endings – exclamation point chords – they start to accrete and then collapse. The second movement emerges from the wreckage and starts to reach upwards and above. The final movement is playful and manic, messy, and unkempt. Maybe like an organism constantly growing and losing limbs. Over as in overflowing or over the top.

It has a fun part for the percussion section, using a gym whistle and brake drum.

Are you a composer who wakes up and bolts three cups of espresso and starts writing?

I am a little more of a morning composer than a late-night composer. But realistically speaking, I’m a whenever I an composer. I am composing a lot of the road these days.

You are also appearing on January 16th in an Open Music event hosted by Issac Thompson, OSO’s new president and CEO. Tell us what you have in store for listeners.

It has a program of music that I thought would sound good together and articulates some themes of focus and time that run throughout all of the pieces. We’ll begin the program with the “Abyss of the Birds” from Messiaen’s “Quartet from the End of Time,” which has a bewitching clarinet solo. We’ll also have Ben Nobuto’s “Tell me again” for piano, video, and handbells. It takes as its theme the challenges of reaching focus. Ben has talked about how the usefulness that meditation but the realities of being in your mid-twenties right now – there’s so much that clamors for your attention – the information overload.

You’ll also hear Morton Feldman’s “The King of Denmark” and Linda Catlin Smith’s “Light and Water.” Both pieces reveal their pleasures to the listener after one can reach a state of focus under the immediate surface of sound.

My piece on the program is “Keyed In” for solo piano. It is a piece in which I was trying to write – following a melody that you will hear in the harmonics of the sound. As a pianist, I’ve been interested to find out if I can play up and down in the timbre of the piano in the harmonic series of the instrument – in the harmonic series of each note and each key – if I can access the inner sound world from the keyboard. I want to draw the listener in – to hear the sound inside the sound. It’s a heightened listening to what is already there. We all have to sit in the music for a while to really hear what is happening.

That sounds vey intriguing. Thanks for giving us a glimpse into your sonic world.

Thank you!

Today's Birthdays

Christian Sinding (1856-1941)
Reihold Glière (1875-1956)
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Mark DeVoto (1940)
York Höller (1944)
Drew Minter (1955)
Alex Shapiro (1962)

and

William James (1842-1910)
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
Alan Paton (1903-1988)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1925, Copland's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was premiered at Aeolian Hall in New York City by the New York Symphony conducted by Walter Damrosch, with Nadia Boulanger the soloist.

Today's Birthdays

Jean Martinon (1910-1976)
Sidney Griller (1911-1993)
Dean Dixon (1915-1976)
Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)
Max Roach (1924-2007)
Sherrill Milnes (1935)
Rod Stewart (1945)
James Morris (1947)
Mischa Maisky (1948)
Rockwell Blake (1951)
Charles Norman Mason (1955)
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (1961)

and

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)
Philip Levine (1928-2015)
Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002)

Today's Birthdays

John Knowles Paine (1839-1906)
Rudolf Bing (1902-1997)
Herva Nelli (1909-1994)
Henriette Puig‑Roget (1910-1992)
Pierre Pierlot (1921-2007)
Joan Baez (1941)
Scott Walker (1944)
Jimmy Page (1944)
Waltraud Meier (1956)
Hillevi Martinpelto (1958)
Nicholas Daniel (1962)

and

Karel Čapek (1890-1938
Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935)
Richard Halliburton (1901-1939)
Brian Friel (1929-2015)
Michiko Kakutani (1955)

Profile of Coty Raven Morris in Oregon Arts Watch

Coty Raven Morris is a force of nature. She has an electrifying amount of energy in whatever she undertakes and a personality that can light up a room! You've got to read this article that I wrote about her for Oregon ArtsWatch. We need more people like her in this world. I hope she gets the educator award from the Grammy foundation. Toi Toi Toi Coty!

CD Review: Cotik brings Bach's Cello Suites to the violin

It is uncommonly refreshing to hear Bach’s Six Cello Suites played on the violin rather than the cello. In his latest album Tomás Cotik makes a strong case for such an interpretation. Released on the Centaur label, Cotik uses a Baroque bow and synthetic strings to elicit a wonderfully nuanced performances of Bach’s timeless Suites. His sound is supple and clear with a minimum of vibrato but always shaped with warmth and feathered, as needed, with a hint of softness. Bach’s music simply glows under his fingers.

Cotik is an award-winning teacher and violinist who is on the faculty in the music department of Portland State University. Last year, the his recording of Telemann Fantasias for Solo Violin received critical acclaim, and over the past year, he did postdoctoral research in Spain after receiving a Fulbright Scholar Award.

In his excellent program notes to the Bach Suites, Cotik explains that he transposed the first five Suites up a fifth from the original key so that the relations between the strings would be the same as on the cello. By playing on the violin rather than the cello, you just have to get accustomed to hearing this famous piece at a higher register. Cotik’s terrific musicianship and thoughtful approach to each movement in all six Suites make the recording (2 CDs) a terrific addition for the collection of anyone who loves Bach’s music.

Today's Birthdays

Jean Gilles (1668-1705)
Lowell Mason (1792-1872)
Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871)
Hans von Bülow (1830-1894)
Jaromir Weinberger (1896-1967)
Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988)
Giorgio Tozzi (1923-2011)
Robert Starer (1924-2001)
Benjamin Lees (1924-2010)
Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
Zdeněk Mácal (1936-2023)
Robert Moran (1937)
Evgeny Nesterenko (1938)
Elijah Moshinsky (1946)
Paul Dresher (1951)
Vladimir Feltsman (1952)

and

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972)
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1923, the first broadcast in England of an opera direct from a concert hall took place, Mozart's "The Magic Flute" via the BBC from London.

Today's Birthdays

Clara Haskil (1895-1960)
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
John Brownlee (1900-1969)
Nicanor Zabaleta (1907-1993)
Günter Wand (1912-2002)
Ulysses Kay (1917-1995)
John Lanigan (1921-1996)
Jean-Pierre Rampal (1922-2000)
Tommy Johnson (1935-2006)
Iona Brown (1941-2004)
Richard Armstrong (1943)

and

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Hugh Kenner (1923-2003)
Nicholson Baker (1957)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1955, Marian Anderson made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Ulrica in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Mascera" (A Masked Ball). She was the first African-American singer to perform as an opera soloist on the Met stage. Subsequent distinguished African-American singers who performed as members of the Met company included Robert McFerrin, Sr. (Bobby McFerrin Jr.’s father), Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Kahtleen Battle and Jessye Norman.

Review: Portland Chamber Orchestra rings in a Viennese new year

Camilla Ortiz singing with Nicholas Fox leading the PCO

Waltzing dancers swirled about the lobby of the Patricia Reser Performing Arts Center as part of the pre-concert festivities for Portland Chamber Orchestra’s “New Year’s in Old Vienna” concert (December 30). The warm Gemütlichkeit spilled into the hall for an evening of music from the ensemble and soprano Camille Ortiz under the direction of Nicholas Fox, and the audience, which filled almost every seat, was treated to a delightful evening of musical bon bons.

Although the program was packed with waltzes, polkas, and a couple of overtures from Johan Strauss Jr’s operas, the selections that featured Ortiz, who has sung internationally and teaches voice at the University of Oregon, provided the best moments. Her pure, lyrical voice excelled in “Ruhe sanft” from Mozart’s opera “Zaide” and in “Il Bacio” (The Kiss), a popular song in the style of a waltz written by Italian composer Luigi Arditi. Ortiz’s radiant tone highlighted “Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiss” from Franz Lehar’s “Giuditta” and “Vilja’s Lied” from Lehar’s “The Merry Widow,” but the orchestra was just a tad too loud when the music hit the climatic points.

The purely instrumental numbers by Strauss Jr. flowed fairly smoothly for the most part. The “Emperor Waltz” put a refined style on display versus the rambunctious “Peasant’s Polka” with the musicians joyfully chiming in with “la, las.” The “Pleasure Train Polka” whirled by with Fox adding a blustery noisemaker and the “Pizzicato Polka” put the strings on point with Fox eliciting beguiling plucking from beginning to end. But “Voices of Spring” and “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” suffered from glitches that would have been solved with one more rehearsal. The Overture to “Die Fledermaus” and “Der Zigeunerbaron” went without a hitch as did Dvořák “Slavonic Dance” No. 4. The “Ohne Sorgen Polka” by Strauss Sr. included a humorous sound from the timpani (played by Caryn Corbin) that provided a brief diversion.

Concertgoers loved every minute of the program and cheered with great gust after each piece. That brought Fox back to center stage, and the orchestra kicked up the ever-popular encore, the “Radetsky March” (by Strauss Sr.) and everyone had a fun time clapping along – urged on enthusiastically by Fox. That sent listeners home with a big smile and in good spirits – a great way to usher in the new year.

Judging from the full house, it seems that the PCO might consider presenting two of these year-end concerts in the future. That will double the fun for its patrons.

Today's Birthdays

Max Bruch (1838-1920)
Georges Martin Witkowski (1867-1943)
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Karl Straube (1873-1950)
Earl Kim (1920-1998)
Alexander Baillie (1956)

and

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)
E.L. Doctorow (1931)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1733, this notice appears in the Leipzig newspaper Nachtricht auch Frag u. Anzeiger: "Tonight at 8 o'clock there will be a Bach Concert at the Zimmermann Coffeehouse on Catharine Street". This presumably featured secular vocal works, chamber music and concertos performed by the Leipzig Collegium, an ensemble directed by J.S. Bach.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755)
Constanza Mozart (1762-1842)
Peter Wolle (1792-1871)
Frederick Converse (1871-1940)
Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951)
Nicolai Roslavets (1881-1944)
Reginald Smith-Brindle (1917-2003)
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)
Laszlo Heltay (1930-2019)
Alfred Brendel (1931)
Maurizio Pollini (1942)

and

Stella Gibbons(1902-1989)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990)
W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009)
Umberto Eco (1932-2016)
Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1938)
Charlie Rose (1942)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-1736)
Johann Friedrich Agricola (1720-1774)
Josef Suk (1874-1935)
Frank Wess (1922-2013)
Grace Bumbry (1937-2023)
Joseph Turrin (1947)
Margaret Marshall (1949)
Ronald Corp (1951)
Peter Seiffert (1954)
Boris Berezovsky (1969)

and

Sir Issac Newton (1642-1727)
Jacob Grimm (1785-1863)
Louis Braille (1809-1852)
Augustus John (1878-1961)
Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1950, RCA announces it will produce long play records as Columbia did two years earlier (RCA had unsuccessfully attempted to compete with Columbia's new 33.3-rpm LPs by issuing some of their classical catalog as multiple disc 45-rpm sets).

Today's Birthdays

Victor Borge (1909-2000)
Ronald Smith (1922-2004)
Sir George Martin (1926-2016)
H. K. Gruber (1943)
David Atherton (1944)

and

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

and from the Composers Datebook

On this date in the year 1843 in Paris, the comic opera “Don Pasquale” by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti received its first performance.
also:

On this day in 1925, German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwängler made his American debut, conducting the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.

Review of PYP's Concert-At-Christmas in Oregon ArtsWatch

 

My report on the Portland Youth Philharminic's annual holiday concert is now posted on Oregon ArtWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Frantisek Xaver Brixi (1732-1771)
Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)
Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
Barbara Pentland (1912-2000)
Gardner Read (1913-2005)
Irina Arkhipova (1925-2010)
Alberto Zedda (1928-2017)
Peter Eötvös (1944)
Janet Hilton (1945)
Vladimir Ovchinnikov (1958)
Tzimon Barto (1963)
Robert Fertitta (1970)
Eric Whitacre (1970)

and

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
Christopher Durang (1949)
Lynda Barry (1956)

Today's Birthdays - Happy New Year!

Charles Racquet (1598-1664)
Frederick William Gaisberg (1873-1951)
Edwin Franko Goldman (1878-1956)
Artur Rodzinski (1892-1958)
Erich Schmid (1907-2001)
Trude Rittmann (1908-2005)
Milt Jackson (1923-1999)
Richard Verreau (1926-2005)
Maurice Béjart (1927-2007)
Bernard Greenhouse (1916-2011)
Alberto Portugheis (1941)

And

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1585, composer Giovanni Gabrieli became the second organist at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. His uncle, the composer Andrea Gabrieli, was the first organist.

On this day in 1908, Gustav Mahler made his conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, leading a performance of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde."