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)
Claude Vivier (1948-1983)
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)
Stefan Minde (1936-2015)
Herbie Hancock (1940)
Ernst Kovacic (1943)
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.

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 (1927-2025)
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)
Francis Perkins (1880-1965)
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 (1928-2025)
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: Upcoming Project Chamber Music: Willamette Valley concert

In its 10th Anniversary Season, Project Chamber Music: Willamette Valley turns toward intimacy, depth, and human connection with an uplifting spring residency and concert that brings together three artists of international stature: soprano Katharine Dain, violist Caitlin Lynch, and pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute.

This spring residency is part of PCM’s expanded anniversary season, doubling its programming for the first time with a second residency. The April 17 concert, This Love Between Us, explores love not as sentiment, but as a sustaining force that is inherited, tested, remembered, and renewed across generations.

Soprano Katharine Dain brings a searching musical intelligence shaped by a global career spanning the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra of the 18th Century, BBC Symphony Orchestras, and major opera houses and festivals throughout Europe and the U.S. Her acclaimed debut album Regards sur l’Infini received the Edison Klassiek Award and international praise for its emotional clarity and depth. She is joined by GRAMMY Award winner Caitlin Lynch, violist and founding Artistic Director of Project Chamber Music, whose work centers collaboration and mentorship, and Ieva Jokubaviciute, a pianist “riveting in every way” (The Washington Post) and celebrated worldwide for her insight, range, and adventurous musical partnerships. (Full artist biographies are available at pcmwv.org/artists.)

The concert takes its title and guiding philosophy from composer Reena Esmail, who shares: 

“Our love, our human connection, goes back so far in time. It is our very foundation. To recognize ourselves in one another is truly to remember that connection.... I wrote This Love Between Us through some of the darkest times in our country and in our world. But my mind always returns to the last line of this piece, the words of Rumi, which are repeated like a mantra over affirming phrases from each religion, as they wash over one another: ‘Concentrate on the Essence. Concentrate on the Light.’” 

Her work anchors an evening that moves fluidly between centuries, weaving together music by Brahms, Clara and Robert Schumann, Schubert, Frank Bridge, and Leilehua Lanzilotti, alongside Esmail’s own luminous meditation on connection. The program traces different forms of love and connection, offering a sonic portrait of the beauty and essentiality of our shared humanity: motherly tenderness in Brahms’ Sacred Lullaby; longing and loss in Bridge’s Three Songs; the intricate emotional world shared by Clara and Robert Schumann; and the ache of separation in Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock. Shaped by texts from the ancient saint-poet Kabir, Friedrich Rückert, Heinrich Heine, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Wilhelm Müller, these pieces offer an intimate and hopeful meditation on connection, listening, and what binds us together. As Lanzilotti writes, “these moments can reveal love: joyful, enduring, always.”

SPRING MAINSTAGE CONCERT: This Love Between Us

Friday, April 17, 2026 | 7:30 PM  —  LaJoie Theatre, Chehalem Cultural Center, Newberg

Program:

Johannes Brahms, Two Songs for Alto, Viola, and Piano, Op. 91

Reena Esmail, This Love Between Us

Clara Schumann, Six Lieder, Op. 13

Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70

Leilehua Lanzilotti, of moments

Frank Bridge, Three Songs for Voice, Viola, and Piano, H. 76

Franz Schubert, The Shepherd on the Rock, Op. 129, D. 965

Meet the artists at a complimentary reception immediately following the concert! 

TICKETS: available at pcmwv.org

All ticket proceeds directly benefit need-based scholarships to provide music instruction to local kids; this particular concert supports the financial aid fund of Young Musicians & Artists, a local summer camp with a 60-year legacy. 

EDUCATION

The residency includes educational engagement at Willamette University, showcasing PCM’s long- standing belief in meaningful musical experiences through mentorship. These events are open to the public.

• April 17  | 9:30 - 11am: Piano Masterclass with Ieva Jokubaviciute

• April 18  | 10am - 12pm: Vocal Masterclass with Katharine Dain

 

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

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)

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 (1934-2025)

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)
Joseph Küffner (1776-1856) 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)

Review: Conrad Tao elevates Mozart with the Oregon Symphony and two Mendelssohn works evoke the landscape of Scotland

Pianist-composer Conrad Tao returned to play with the Oregon Symphony on March 19, giving a an wonderfully expressive and technically perfect performance of Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 in C major. Tao last played with the orchestra in January of 2024 when an ice storm struck and caused power outages throughout the city and concert cancellations (see my review here). This time around, the weather complemented the sunny disposition of Mozart’s beautiful music, and concertgoers were treated to an outstanding experience.

Under Tao’s fingers, the Mozart flowed organically and with great beauty. Within immaculate technique he expressed the arpeggiated runs flawlessly, accenting some notes so that the lines were always just a tad different. Often the end of phrases deliciously lightened up, tapering off into the distance. Tao superbly contrasted gracefully elegant melodies with dramatically expressive passages, playing everything with great sensitivity but not fussiness. The exuberance of the final movement, Allegro vivace assai, was joyfully and perfectly delivered, a testament to Tao’s deep understanding of Mozart’s style.

The orchestral arrangement for the performance was one that I had not seen before. Music Director David Danzmayr placed the trumpets behind the horns on the left side, and that tutti ensemble took its position behind the violins. It all worked extremely well, creating a balanced sound with the entire orchestra.

Going in an entirely different direction stylistically, Tao followed up the Mozart with Elliott Carter's Caténaires as an encore. With his hand flying all over the keyboard, the encore generated a supercharged scattershot of notes, that ricochetted about the hall like a randomly generate pinballs. The effect also suggested an electrical jolt with sparks flying everywhere. Tao shaped the piece with his superb, lithe touch, and it resulted in a vociferously positive response from the audience.

The majority of the concert was devoted to the landscape and culture of Scotland via the music of Mendelssohn, who toured the highlands in 1829. His Symphony No. 3, “Scottish” received an outstandingly expressive performance, starting with the brooding opening statement, inspired by the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh. The accelerando into an agitated theme suggested a storm-swept landscape in which shimmering strings heightened the mood with fiery jabs and then the cellos, evoking sleek waves and a contrasting woodwind sound that dwindled away. The cheerful dance of the second movement ended with a super-soft touch. Danzmayr and forces lovingly caressed the notes in the third movement. That was followed by an exceptional attack into the fourth movement and the magically forlorn clarinet (Mark Dubec) and bassoon (Carin Miller) duet before breaking into the final robust melody with the horns breaking through the clouds as if to announce triumphant ships sailing into the home port.

The concert began with another Mendelssohn gem, “The Hebridies Overture” (aka “Fingal’s Cave”), which marvelously evoked the seascape and isolated beauty around the remote cave. Under Danzmayr the orchestra unleashed a terrific burst of energy that conveyed crashing waves, which contrasted especially well with the soothing sounds of the clarinets (Dubec and Todd Kuhns). The furious bowing from the strings and especially the basses was exhilarating to watch and hear. That made the one-movement tone poem a perfect set-up for the rest of the evening.

Overall, this was an exceptional concert that should have drawn a full house. It’s a life-enhancing experience to witness such superb music-making.

PS: Apologies for the lateness of this posting. Yours Truly experienced a health scare last week. That caused a delay. Things are much better now and continue to improve.

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.

Oregon musicians in the Hawaii Symphony - Oregon Arts Watch

Aloha! I interviewed three pros from Oregonian who are members of the Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra. The story is now up on Oregon Arts Watch here.

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)
Poul Ruders (1949)
Maria Ewing (1950-2022)
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)
Makoto Ozone (1961)

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 (1937-2024)

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.

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) (note that the new style birthday is the 31st of March)
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.

Deanna Tham named music director of Redlands Symphony

Deanna Tham, former associate conductor of the Oregon Symphony, has a new gig - with the Redlands Symphony Orchestra, which is located on the eastside of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Here's is a link to the annoucement.

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)

Oregon Symphony Review: The Enduring Music of Stravinsky, Ibert, and Shostakovich

Guest review by Thomas Meinzen

Marina Piccinini and conductor Hans Graf | Photo credit: The Oregon Symphony

The Oregon Symphony’s matinee on the Ides of March was a beguiling and dramatic testament to the transcendency of music through time. Under the steady and artful guidance of Austrian conductor Hans Graf, the symphony performed three remarkable works, each written close to a century ago in the period between WWI and WWII. At times dazzling, unsettling, and even sinister, these compositions recall the brutal and tumultuous times of their authors, reflecting and resonating with the conflicts and fears we face today. The show left me wondering if my contemporaries will pen works that capture the sorrows, injustice, and strife of our society in so enduring a manner as Stravinsky and Sostakovich.

Belying its forthcoming dark intensity, the concert began gently, with melodic woodwinds and accenting strings. Igor Stravinsky’s four-movement Divertimento from La Baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss) follows the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Maiden: a young man, kissed by a fairy at his birth, is claimed and taken away by the fairy on his wedding day. Stravinsky draws the ballet’s themes from the piano music and songs of Tchaikovsky. He writes, “The fairy’s kiss on the heel of the child is also the muse marking Tchaikovsky at his birth—though the muse did not claim him at his wedding, as she did the young man in the ballet, but at the height of his powers.” As strings and brass coalesced with rising potency, this sense of music claiming the composer was palpable in the Oregon Symphony’s performance; the muse may even have reached out and pulled in the audience.

Photo credit: The Oregon Symphony

While the darting, playful conversation of The Fairy’s Kiss showcased the deft collaboration of many orchestral sections, the next work spotlighted the superb musicianship of an individual artist. Renowned flautist Marina Piccinini headlined Jacques Ibert’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 37, a work at once silvery-smooth to the ear and devilishly difficult to perform. Hearing Piccinini, one quickly left behind any misconceptions of the flute as timid or peaceful: here was glittering intensity, rapid-fire arpeggios, twisting articulated lines, and swirling cadenzas.

After this bold Allegro introduction, Ibert’s Andante movement gave a brief breather, the strings laying out a subtly shifting tapestry for the flute to shimmer atop. Then the final movement, Allegro Scherzando, came flying in with syncopated accents, screaming horn triplets, and Piccinini gliding and twisting over virtuosic lines. When the flautist’s extended cadenza finally emerged, it recalled a jazz pianist’s solo, smooth held notes melting into modulating licks that spun up and down the register. Mystical and mournful tones transformed suddenly into whimsy. The orchestra rejoined Piccinini with characteristic trios of accents, soon rising to a bright and fiery ending. Piccinini’s effortless control and range of tone brought the audience to their feet.

Where Ibert’s Concerto soared to great heights, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 in F minor delved deeper into the darkness and volatility of Europe’s interwar period. Shostakovich wrote this work—the first of his fifteen symphonies—as an eighteen-year-old, facing poverty, civil war, and malnutrition in the years following the Bolshevik Revolution.

The passion and irreverent genius of young Shostakovich shines through in the symphony, which filled the hall with beautiful brass chords and cheeky piano octaves, swells of energy and flashy high notes from the concertmaster. And yet, the work also seems to capture the anxiety and anguish of the composer’s early life and times. Basses and cellos shift together in low, haunting passages. The second movement’s march-like motif slides chromatically downward, majestic and foreboding—a statement of authority turned ominous. In the Lento movement, one could almost feel the lights dim in the Schnitzer. A great, lugubrious monster rouses itself, languid yet unsettling. The melody fragments into many parts, bringing to mind a nest of wasps or ants slowly stirring as the weather warms. One hundred years later, the piece still captivated, and the fine-tuned Oregon Symphony made no error to break the spell.

A rousing final movement concluded the concert, featuring a panoply of percussion and low brass. As applause filled the hall, I reflected on the symphony’s sense of great anguish, and the staying power of one teenager’s interpretation of the world through music. One hundred years later, the world is a very different place, and yet in both music and society, the past remains intensely relevant.

Thomas Meinzen is a composer, pianist, writer, and ecologist. Thomas studied music composition and orchestration with John David Earnest and Eric Funk. He has worked across the U.S. and Costa Rica as an avian field biologist and currently teaches natural history, ecology, arboriculture, and music through several local nonprofits, in addition to coordinating Portland tree-planting efforts with Friends of Trees. An avid bicyclist, birder, and public transit advocate, you can find his writing at greenbirder.substack.com and music at thomasmeinzen.bandcamp.com.

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)
John Kander (1927)
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 of Hawai'i Symphony concert in Classical Voice North America

 

Last weekend, I travelled to Honolulu to hear this concert, and my review is now available for you to read in CVNA here.

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)

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)
JohaPedro Elías Gutiérrez (1870–1954)
Johann Strauss Sr. (1804-1849)
Lawrance Collingwood (1887-1982)
Witold Rudziński (1913-2004)
Quincy Jones (1933-2024)
Phillip Joll (1954)
Britta Byström (1977)
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 (1952-2024)
Anthony Powers (1953)
Moses Hogan (1957-2003)
Terence Blanchard (1962)

and

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

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Arne (1710-1778)
Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)
Hans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965)
Ralph Shapey (1921-2002)
Norbert Brainin (1923-2005)
Philip Jones (1928-2000)
Helga Pilarczyk (1935-2011)
Liza Minnelli (1946)
James Taylor (1948)

and

George Berkeley (1685-1753)
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916)
Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950)
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
Edward Albee (1928-2016)
Virginia Hamilton (1934-2002)
Naomi Shihab Nye (1952)
Carl Hiaasen (1953)
David Eggers (1970)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Ruggles (1876-1971)
Henry Cowell (1897-1965)
Xavier Montsalvage (1912-2002)
Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
Sarah Walker (1943)
Tristan Murail (1947)
Bobby McFerrin (1950)
Katia Labèque (1950)

and

Torquato Tasso (1544-1495)
Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983)
Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Today's Birthdays

Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838)
Dudley Buck (1839-1909)
Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)
Arthur Honnegger (1892-1955)
Dame Eva Turner (1892-1990)
Bix Biederbecke (1903-1931)
Sir Charles Groves (1915-1992)
William Blezard (1921-2003)
Andrew Parrott (1947)
Stephen Oliver (1950-1992)

and

Henry Watson Fowler (1858-1933)
Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-1948)
Heywood Hale Broun (1918-2001)
David Rabe (1940)

Today's Birthdays

Josef Mysliveczek (1737-1781)
Archie Camden (1888-1979)
Dame Isobel Baillie (1895-1983)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Thomas Schippers (1930-1977)
Ornette Coleman (1930-2015)
David Matthews (1943)
Kalevi Aho (1949)
Howard Shelley (1950)
Anna Clyne (1980)

and

Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512)
Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)
Mickey Spillane (1918-2006)
David Pogue (1963)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1831, Italian violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini makes his Parisian debut a the Opéra. Composers in the audience include Meyerbeer, Cherubini, Halvéy. and Franz Liszt (who transcribes Pagnini's showpiece "La Campanella" for piano). Also in attendance are the many famous novelists and poets, including George Sand, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Mussset and Heinrich Heine.

Today's Birthdays

Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613)
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998)
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)
Dick Hyman (1927)
Christian Wolff (1934)
Robert Tear (1939-2011)
Barthold Kuijken (1949)
Simon Halsey (1958)

and

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)
Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)
Leslie Fiedler (1917-2003)
Neil Postman (1931-2003)
John McPhee (1933)
Leslie A. Fiedler (1948)
Jeffrey Eugenides (1960)

Today's Birthdays

John Wilbye (1574-1638)
Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1663-1745)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Heino Eller (1887-1970)
Christopher Seaman (1942)
Uri Segal (1944)
Townes Van Zandt (1944-1997)
Nicholas Kraemer (1945)
Clive Gillinson (1946)
Okko Kamu (1946)
Montserrat Figueras (1948-2011)
Michael Chance (1955)

and

William York Tindall (1903-1981)
William Boyd (1952)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1897, Johannes Brahms attends his last concerts and hears his Symphony No. 4 conducted by Hans Richter.

Today's Birthdays

Oscar Straus (1870-1954)
Julius Rudel (1921-2014)
Sarah Caldwell (1924-2006)
Wes Montgomery (1923-1968)
Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
Lorin Maazel (1930-2014)
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (1944)
Stephen Schwartz (1948)
Marielle Labèque (1952)
Mark Gresham (1956)
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (1975)

and

Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Ring Lardner (1885-1933)
Gabriel García Márquez (1928-2014)
Willie Mays (1931-2024)
Dick Fosbury (1947-2023)

Today's Birthdays

Alphonse Hasselmans (1845-1912)
Arthur Foote (1853-1937)
Pauline Donalda (1882-1970)
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Anthony Hedges (1931-2019)
Barry Tuckwell (1931-2020)
Sheila Nelson (1936-2020)
Richard Hickox (1948)

and

Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594)
Frank Norris (1870-1902)
Leslie Marmon Silko (1948)

From The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1750 that the first Shakespearean play was presented in America. Richard III was performed by the actors of Walter Murray and William Kean’s troupe from Philadelphia. Theater was still new in the colonies. And though it was popular in Philadelphia, that city still preferred to pride itself on its scientific and literary achievements, so Murray and Kean set out for New York City.

Through the 1700s, New York’s primary form of entertainment was drinking. By the time Murray and Kean arrived in February of 1750, there were 10,000 city residents and over 150 taverns. Murray and Kean set up shop in a two-story wooden structure on Nassau Street, slightly east of Broadway.

Review: Oregon Symphony dances with Vivaldi, Bologne, and Mozart gems

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

 Light, crisp, fun, and insightful – with a new twist on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – that in a nutshell describes the Oregon Symphony concert that I heard Thursday night at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Guest conductor Jeannette Sorrell led the concert, which featured three pieces from the Baroque and Classical periods, and she inspired each piece so that the music danced with elan. That included a wonderful performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the amazing mandolin virtuoso, Avi Avital, as soloist – rather than the usual violinist.

Sorrell made her name as a harpsichordist and has thirty recordings, including many with the Apollo’s Fire, which she founded in 1999. With that ensemble, Sorrell won the 2019 Grammy for "Best Classical Solo Vocal Album" with Songs of Orpheus. She has built an impressive conducting resume, leading orchestras all over the world from the New York Philharmonic to the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (Spain).

Using her storytelling talents, Sorrell, spoke to the audience before each movement of the Vivaldi, painting a picture of each movement with spot-on-descriptions that were briefly demonstrated by members of the orchestra. Introducing the first movement, for example, she highlighted the sound of birds, the brook, lightning, the sleeping shepherd, and the dog barking (perhaps a poodle or a German shepherd), and each mention was supported by a few bars of music.

Since the Four Seasons paints a bucolic picture, Sorrell noted that peasants might played a mandolin, and that served as the segue to introduce Avital. He then delivered an astonishingly moving and technically jaw-dropping performance as the soloist. There were a few moments, such as during the storm, in which the sound of the mandolin could not be heard over the orchestra. But otherwise, Avital’s playing perfectly enhanced all of the seasons – eliciting the joy of spring, hazy, lazy summers, a plentiful harvest, and the cold chill of winter – all of which was complemented superbly by chamber ensemble, which included a theorbo and Sorrell directing from the harpsichord. s

For an encore, Avital torched the hall with an amazing, off-the-cuff rendition of Bucimis, a traditional Bulgarian piece. On this YouTube video, Avital says that the piece has an unusual 15/16 rhythm and that he learned the piece from an accordion player. It started slowly and quietly, but ended in a madcap rush that brought down the house.

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

The second half of the concert kicked off with the Symphony No. 2 of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a renown fencer and composer whose works have languished for a long, long time because of his African heritage. For his Second Symphony, the orchestra added a couple of horns and winds to a contingent of strings, and Sorrell conducted from the podium, encouraging delightful melodic lines to open the piece, transiting to a smooth and slightly slower pace in the middle section, and releasing a spirited, happy-go-lucky mood – with a little humorous pause that suggested Haydn – for the finale.

The concert closed with Sorrell leading the orchestra in a flat-out gorgeous performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 35, “Haffner.” From the outset, the orchestra created excellent dynamic contrasts and the piece danced in a free-spirited way. The exchange between the oboe and bassoon provided a subtle highlight and the vivacious Presto with the rolling sound of the kettledrums added to the thrilling conclusion of the piece.

Sorrell seems to inhibit this music with an extra-special, innate quality that is just contagious to hear. I hope that she can return to the Schnitz; so that listeners can benefit from another concert in the near future. And Avital is a force-of-nature with his extraordinary talent. Hopefully, he will return as well.

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Carlos Surinach (1915-1997)
Cecil Aronowitz (1916-1978)
Samuel Adler (1928)
Bernard Haitink (1929-2021)
Aribert Reimann (1936-2024)
Ralph Kirshbaum (1946)
Leanna Primiani (1968)

and

Khaled Hosseini (1965)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1801,the U.S. Marine Band performed for Thomas Jefferson's inaugural. Jefferson, an avid music lover and amateur violinist, gave the Marine Band the title "The President's Own." Since that time, the band has played for every presidential inaugural.

Today's Birthdays

Henry Wood (1869-1944)
Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982)
Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)
Frank Wigglesworth (1918-1996)
Doc Watson (1923-2012)
Martin Lovett (1927-2020)
Florence Quivar (1944)
Roberta Alexander (1949)

and

James Merrill (1926-1995)
Ira Glass (1959)

From the Writer's Almanac:

Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata was published on this date in 1802. Its real name is the slightly less evocative “Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor, Opus 27, No. 2,” and its Italian subtitle is translated as “almost a fantasy.” In 1832, five years after Beethoven’s death, a German critic compared the sonata to the effect of moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne, and the interpretation became so popular that, by the end of the century, the piece was universally known as the “Moonlight Sonata.” Beethoven himself had attributed the emotion of the piece to sitting at the bedside of a friend who had suffered an untimely death.

It was on this day in 1875 that the opera Carmen appeared on stage for the first time at the Opéra-Comique in France. When it premiered, the audience was shocked by the characters of Carmen, a gypsy girl, and her lover, Don José. The opera ran for 37 performances even though it came out late in the season, and it came back the next season, too.

Nietzsche heard Carmen 20 different times, and thought of it as a musical masterpiece. Tchaikovsky first heard Carmen in 1880. Bizet died of a heart attack just three months after the opera's debut.

It was on this day in 1931 that "The Star-Spangled Banner" became the official national anthem of the United States.

The lyrics come from a poem written by Francis Scott Key more than a century before, "Defence of Fort McHenry." He'd spent a night toward the end of the War of 1812 hearing the British navy bombard Baltimore, Maryland. The bombardment lasted 25 hours — and in the dawn's early light, Francis Scott Key emerged to see the U.S. flag still waving over Fort McHenry. He jotted the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry" on the back of an envelope. Then he went to his hotel and made another copy, which was printed in the Baltimore American a week later.

The tune for the Star-Spangled Banner comes from an old British drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," which was very popular at men's social clubs in London during the 1700s. Francis Scott Key himself did the pairing of the tune to his poem. It was a big hit.

For the next century, a few different anthems were used at official U.S. ceremonies, including "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Hail Columbia." The U.S. Navy adopted "The Star-Spangled Banner" for its officialdom in 1889, and the presidency did in 1916. But it wasn't until this day in 1931 — just 80 years ago — that Congress passed a resolution and Hoover signed into law the decree that "The Star-Spangled Banner" was the official national anthem of the United States of America.

Today's Birthdays

Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836)
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
Tom Burke (1890-1969)
Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
Marc Blitzstein (1905-1965)
John Gardner (1917-2011)
Robert Simpson (1921-1997)
Bernard Rands (1934)
Simon Estes (1938)
Robert Lloyd (1940)
Lou Reed (1942)

and

Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) (1904-1991)
Mikhail S Gorbachev (1931)
Tom Wolfe (1931-2018)
John Irving (1942)

and from the Composers Datebook:

Starting on this day in 1967 and continuing over the next two weeks, Russian cellist Mstsilav Rostropovich performed 26 works for cello and orchestra at 8 concerts with the London Symphony at Carnegie Hall in New York City -- including some world premieres!

Today's Birthdays

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960)
Glenn Miller (1904-1944)
Leo Brouwer (1939)
Moray Welsh (1947)
Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson (1954-2006)
Galina Gorchakova (1962)
Thomas Adès (1971)

and

Oskar Kokoschka (1866-1980)
Ralph Ellison (1913-1994)
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
Richard Wilbur (1921-2017)

Review: Vancouver Symphony celebrates Simon, Copland, and Gershwin in All-American program

 

The Vancouver Symphony celebrated the nation’s 250^th birthday in grand style at Skyview Concert Hall (February 21) with an All-American program that put the spotlight on the orchestra rather than on a soloist. The lineup was bookended with works by Carlos Simon and George Gershwin, drawing from African-American music, which aptly complemented Black History Month. Filling in the center were two beloved works by Aaron Copland, and all of the selections were led energetically by Music Director Salvador Brotons, who noted their challenging musical demands.

Simon, whose album Requiem for the Enslaved, was nominated for a Grammy-award in 2023, has emerged as one of our country’s best composers. His music has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, and many other ensembles.

The VSO opened its concert with Simon’s Four Black American Dances, which was commissioned and premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2023. In the first dance, “Ring Shout,” the percussion section created crispy snaps and dashes. The strings launched into a vigorous motoric sequence. Raspy trumpets and sliding trombones put everything into a groove that went full bore. The strings led the way in an elegant and leisurely second dance, “Waltz,” and the third dance “Tap!” took things up a notch with the snare drum accenting the sound. The final dance, “Holy Dance,” had a delightful mélange with tubular bells, snappy wood stick, and wah-wah-ing trombones that suggested a Hamond-organ sound. The piece wrapped up in big-band-symphonic style that reminded me of Gershwin.

Next on the program came “Four Dances Episodes” from Rodeo, which Copland originally wrote as a ballet for Agnes de Mille. The orchestra kicked things off with a feisty “Buckaroo Holiday,” that conveyed the lively goings-on at a rodeo. The gentle interplay between the bassoon and oboe, the dusky sound from the lower strings, and the soothing trumpets gave the “Corral Nocturne” a poignant quality. The famous melody permeated the “Saturday Night Waltz” with a lovely, relaxed feeling. The “Hoe-Down” charged up the atmosphere with toe tapping energy.

Copland originally wrote Appalachian Spring for thirteen instruments, but his version for full orchestra, which he uncorked a year later (1945) captures the original spirit of the piece perfectly. Brotons paced the orchestra deftly so that the music opened slowly and gracefully like a flower in bloom. The animated sections galloped along well, although the oboist struggled to play some phrases cleanly. The Shaker Hymn “Simple Gifts” sounded carefree and graceful, and the orchestra concluded the piece resolutely and with an air of hopefulness.

Saving the best for last, the orchestra gave an inspired performance of Catfish Row, which is a suite of tunes from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which is considered the greatest and most-well known American opera ever written. Inflected with musical style of Black Americans, including jazz, most of the audience recognized familiar numbers like “Summertime” and “Bess You Is My Woman Now.”  The brass section of the orchestra really got into the swing of the jazzy style from the opening passages, which have a busy, bustling openness and hopefulness. Michael Liu made the piano sing with the strains of honkytonk strains of “Jazzbo Brown’s Piano Blues” and special guest Peter Frajola (former associate concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony) brightened things up with his banjo for the “I Got Plenty of Nuttin” song. The orchestra aptly delivered passages that portray a hurricane, violent fights, and several other dramatic moments of the opera - all of led up to the thrilling finale when Porgy eagerly resolves to go to New York City to pursue Bess. It all made this reviewer wonder if there would be a way for the VSO to present a concert version someday.

Today's Birthdays

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951)
Sergueï Bortkiewicz (1877-1952
Guiomar Novaes (1895-1979)
Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967)
Roman Maciejewski (1910-1998)
George Malcolm (1917-1997)
Joseph Rouleau (1929-2019)
Osmo Vänskä (1953)
Markus Stenz (1965)

and

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
Stephen Spender (1909-1995)
Zero Mostel (1915-1977)
Frank Gehry (1929-2025)
John Fahey (1939-2001)
Stephen Chatman (1950)
Colum McCann (1965)
Daniel Handler (1970)

and from the Composers Datebook

On this date in 1882, the Royal College of Music is founded in London.

Today's Birthdays

Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Lotte Lehmann (1888-1976)
Marian Anderson (1897-1993)
Elizabeth Welch (1904-2003)
Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006)
Mirella Freni (1935-2020)
Morten Lauridsen (1943)
Gidon Kremer (1947)
Frank-Peter Zimmermann (1956)

and

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)
N. Scott Momaday (1934-2024)
Ralph Nadar (1934)

Today's Birthdays

Anton (Antoine) Reicha (1770-1836)
Alfred Bachelet (1864-1944)
Emmy Destinn (1878-1930)
Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
Witold Rowicki (1914-1989)
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino (1928-2017)
Lazar Berman (1930-2005)
Johnny Cash (1932-2005)
Guy Klucevsek (1947)
Emma Kirkby (1949)
Richard Wargo (1957)
Carlos Kalmar (1958)

and

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
John George Nicolay (1832-1901)
Elisabeth George (1949)

Today's Birthdays

Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789)
Antoine Reicha (1770-1836)
Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)
Dame Myra Hess (1890-1965)
Victor Silvester (1900-1978)
Davide Wilde (1935-2025)
Jesús López-Cobos (1940)
George Harrison (1943-2001)
Lucy Shelton (1944)
Denis O'Neill (1948)
Melinda Wagner (1957)

and

Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
Karl Friedrich May (1842–1874)
Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)
John C. Farrar (1896-1974)

And from the New Music Box:

On February 25, 1924, the first issue of the League of Composers Review was published. Under the editorial leadership of Minna Lederman, this publication—which soon thereafter changed its name to Modern Music (in April 1925)—was the leading journalistic voice for contemporary music in America for over 20 years and featured frequent contributions from important composers of the day including Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Marc Blitzstein, Henry Cowell, Lehman Engel, and Marion Bauer. Its final issue appeared in the Fall of 1946.

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1682, Italian composer Alessandro Stradella, age 37, is murdered in Genoa, apparently in retaliation for running off with a Venetian nobleman's mistress.

Today's Birthdays

Antoine Boësset (1587-1643)
Samuel Wesley (1766-1837)
Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858)
Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)
Luigi Denza (1846-1922)
Oskar Böhme (1870-1938)
Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940)
Michel Legrand (1932-2019)
Renato Scotto (1934-2023)
Jiří Bělohlávek (1946)

and

Wilhelm (Carl) Grimm (1786-1859)
Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
George Augustus Moore (1852-1933)
Mary Ellen Chase (1887-1973)
Weldon Kees (1914-1955)
Jane Hirshfield (1953)
Judith Butler (1956)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1955, Carlisle Floyd's opera "Susannah" received its premiere at Florida State University in Tallahassee. According to Opera America, this is one of the most frequently-produced American operas during the past decade.

Today's Birthdays

John Blow (1649-1708)
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Sir Hugh Roberton (1874-1952)
Albert Sammons (1886-1957)
Dave Apollon (1897-1972)
Elinor Remick Warren (1905-1991)
Martindale Sidwell (1916-1998)
Hall Overton (1920-1972)
Régine Crespin (1927-2007)

and

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) - blogger of the 17th Century
W. E B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
William L. Shirer (1904-1993)
John Camp (John Sanford) (1944)

Tidbit from the New York Times obit: In the early 1930s, William Shirer and his wife shared a house with the guitarist Andres Segovia.

From The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1940 that Woody Guthrie wrote the lyrics to “This Land Is Your Land."

The melody is to an old Baptist hymn. Guthrie wrote the song in response to the grandiose “God Bless America,” written by Irving Berlin and sung by Kate Smith. Guthrie didn’t think that the anthem represented his own or many other Americans’ experience with America. So he wrote a folk song as a response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” a song that was often accompanied by an orchestra. At first, Guthrie titled his own song “God Blessed America” — past tense. Later, he changed the title to “This Land Is Your Land,” which is the first line of the song.

Today's Birthdays

Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817-1890)
York Bowen (1884-1961)
Benno Moiseiwitsch (1890-1963)
Joseph Kerman (1924-2014)
George Zukerman (1927-2023)
Steven Lubin (1942)
Lowell Liebermann (1961)
Rolando Villazón (1972)

and

George Washington (1732-1799)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Edward Gorey (1925-2000)
Gerald Stern (1925-2022)
Ishmael Reed (1938)
Terry Eagleton (1943)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Czerny (1791-1857)
Leo Delibes (1836-1891)
Charles Marie Widor (1844-1945)
Kenneth Alford (1881-1945)
Andres Segovia (1893-1987)
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
Elena Duran (1949)
Simon Holt (1948)

and

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977)
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)
Ha Jin (1956)
Chuck Palahniuk (1962)
David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

Alexander Lingas to step down as Music Director of Cappella Romana

 

From the press release:

Cappella Romana announces today that the Board of Directors has accepted the request of Founder and Music Director Alexander Lingas to move into a new role as Music Director Emeritus.

 

Dr. Lingas will conduct the final concerts of Cappella Romana’s current season on March 6 and 7, 2026, featuring Maximilian Steinberg’s extraordinary Passion Week. Following these concerts, the Board will name Dr. Lingas as Music Director Emeritus. He has decided to step down as Music Director in order to concentrate on his academic work in the fields of Eastern Orthodox liturgy and music. Cappella Romana will look forward to inviting Dr. Lingas to take the podium as a guest director in the years to come following the appointment of a new Music Director.

 

Alexander Lingas writes, “I gathered a group of friends under the name ‘Cappella Romana’ to offer a benefit concert in 1991 representing, in embryonic form, a vision of combining passion with scholarship to explore the musical traditions of the Christian East and West. I am deeply grateful to all the artists, staff, board members, volunteers, generous benefactors, and audiences who joined me in cultivating that vision over the last 35 years. It has yielded a bountiful harvest: a world-class ensemble with an international reputation for its broadcasts, commissions and premieres of new works, educational outreach, live performances, recordings, research initiatives, and publications, both pastoral and scholarly.”

 

He continues, “Having discussed with Cappella Romana’s Board the idea of succession over the past few years, I decided that the time had now come for me to relinquish my current role in order to give priority to scholarship and theological education. I will continue to serve the liturgical and musical traditions of the Christian Roman oikouméne through my affiliations with the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge (UK) and the Institute of Sacred Arts at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York.”

 

The Board has appointed John Michael Boyer, currently Associate Music Director of Cappella Romana, as Interim Music Director for the 2026-27 season, the concerts of which will be announced in March. Guided by Cappella Romana’s strategic plan, over the next year the organization will conduct an international search for a new Music Director.

 

Commenting on this change, John Paterakis, President of the Board of Directors, said: “I am so grateful for the work done by Alexander, not only in creating Cappella Romana, but in growing us into the premier artistic organization for the establishment of Byzantine and Orthodox music in the greater canon of global music. From the very beginning Cappella Romana was far more than a modest regional organization and made a national and international impact almost immediately. That impact has now expanded considerably with our recording label Cappella Records and Cappella Romana Publishing. Alexander and I have been friends for many decades, and I have always admired his steady scholarship in this field. He is clearly the leading scholar on Byzantine music in the English-speaking world, and we support his decision to focus now on his important written contributions to the field.”

Cappella Romana will hold two receptions around the March concerts of Steinberg’s Passion Week, celebrating Dr. LIngas and his many achievements while also marking Cappella Romana’s 35th anniversary:

 

Seattle: A pre-concert reception will take place on Friday, March 6, 2026 at 6:30pm prior to the concert at 7:30pm at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church.

 

Portland: A post-concert reception will take place on Saturday, March 7, 2026 at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The concert at St. Mary’s Cathedral in NW Portland begins at 2:00pm and all audience members are welcome to join the reception after the concert, across town at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral (3131 NE Glisan Street), the site of Cappella Romana’s founding in 1991.