Andrew Brownell to appear on PSU Steinway Piano Series

From the press release:

The PSU Steinway Piano Series events during the weekend of April 21-23 will feature guest pianist Andrew Brownell.  A native of Portland currently residing in London as a performer and teacher, Mr. Brownell was the 2nd Prize Winner of the 2006 Leeds International Piano Competition and received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the prestigious Guildhall School of Music in London.  He will perform a recital of works by Bach, Chopin, Liszt and Ravel on Saturday evening, April 22, at 7:30 pm in Lincoln Recital Hall (Rm. 75).  Tickets are $25 for general admission. $10 for PSU faculty and staff, students, and seniors with ID.

In this weekend of events, Mr. Brownell will also give a masterclass for PSU students and an outstanding student from the community the evening prior to his recital, on Friday, April 21, at 7 pm at Portland Piano Company.  Susan Chan will give a masterclass for several fine OMTA students on Sunday, April 23, at 2 pm in Lincoln Recital Hall.

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Durante (1684-1755)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Serge Diaghliev (1872-1929)
Clemens Krauss (1893-1954)
John Mitchinson (1932)
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)

From the Writer's Almanac:

Oklahoma! opened on Broadway on this date in 1943. It was based on a play called Green Grow the Lilacs (1930), by Lynn Riggs. Though the play, which was about settlers in the Oklahoma Territory, featured some old folk songs, it wasn’t a musical of the Broadway variety. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein were both admirers of the play, and they had both independently tried to adapt it to the musical format, but their respective songwriting partners — Lorenz Hart and Jerome Kern — weren’t interested. So Rodgers approached Hammerstein about it. Usually musicals were made up of fairly thin and joke-riddled plotlines that only served to string together the most important element: the songs. But Rodgers and Hammerstein were both committed to making the songs fit the story, rather than the other way around. One of Broadway’s most beloved musicals, as well as one of its most successful partnerships, was born of their collaboration.

Nobody expected the show to do very well, but Oklahoma! was an immediate smash hit, and the first big Broadway blockbuster. It ran for over 2,200 performances. One of its stars, Celeste Holm, was not surprised at its success. A gypsy fortuneteller had told her that someone with the initials “R.R.” would change her life. “She said, ‘I see you surrounded by dancing cowboys,’” Holm later recalled. “It was the silliest thing I ever heard. I didn’t think a thing about it — until opening night, when I looked around and realized, Oh my God, there are the dancing cowboys!”

Today's Birthdays

Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779)
Ted Heath (1900-1969)
Sandor Szokolay (1931-2013)
John Eaton (1935-2015)
Gordon Muma (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.

Financial crisis causes Eugene Opera and general director to split

According to this report by OPB, a debt of $200,000 has caused General Director Mark Beudert to leave Eugene Opera - effective at the end of June.

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)
Iris Chang (1968-2004)
Lauren Weisberger (1977)

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

Today's Birthdays

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

and

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


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

From the New Music Box:
On On March 27, 1914, 20 year-old Leo Ornstein shocked audiences and critics at his Steinway Hall recital in London during which he performed his revolutionary Three Moods for solo piano and Danse Sauvage. The critic for the London Daily Mail described the event as a "wild outbreak," while another reviewer wrote, "We have never suffered from such insufferable hideousness, expressed in terms of so-called music." However, based on the attention that concert received, Schott published some of Ornstein's music for the first time. Famous as a wunderkind, Ornstein would compose into his 90s and live until 2002 to become the oldest composer in American music history.

From The Writer's Almanac:
It's the birthday of the woman who wrote "Happy Birthday to You," Patty Smith Hill, born in Anchorage, Kentucky (1868). Most of her life was spent as a kindergarten teacher. She began teaching in Louisville, Kentucky, and it was there, in 1893, that Hill first wrote the lyrics to the song. But it was originally meant as a welcome to start the school day and was first called "Good Morning to All." Hill's sister Mildred, an accomplished musician, provided the melody. Hill was only 25 when she wrote the lyrics to the famous song.

It became popularized with the invention of radio and sound films. The song appeared in the Broadway musical "The Band Wagon" (1931), and was used for Western Union's first singing telegram in 1933. A third sister, Jessica Hill, noticed the similarities between "Happy Birthday to You" and the song her sisters wrote, and she was able to prove it in a court of law. The song was copyrighted in 1935 and remains under copyright to this day. According to Forbes magazine, the song produces about $2 million in licensing revenue each year. "Happy Birthday to You" is still one of the most popular songs in the English language, along with "Auld Lang Syne" and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

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)
Cecil Taylor (1929)
Sir Elton John (1947)

and

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

and from the Composers Datebook:

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

Recommended classical concerts for springtime in today's Oregonian

Today's Oregonian published a list of classical music concerts in its spring guide. I hope that it has a few events that will capture your fancy. The paper published the same article a few days ago online here. I wrote the article and would liked to have included more performances, but the paper has its space requirements.

Today's Birthdays

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

and

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

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.

Oregon Symphony announces recording of Haydn symphonies

From the press release:

The Oregon Symphony today announced that its upcoming CD – the fourth under the musical direction of Carlos Kalmar – is set for a local release today and an official international release on April 7.

                                                                                                                  

This latest CD, entitled Haydn Symphonies, follows Spirit of the American Range (2015) which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance; This England (2012); and Music for a Time of War (2011), which garnered two Grammy Award nominations for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Engineered album. This latest CD, like its three predecessors, was recorded in hybrid multichannel Super Audio CD format for Pentatone. This recording brings the total number of recordings by the Oregon Symphony to 20.

 

The new CD features three symphonies by Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 53 (The Imperial), Symphony No. 64 (Tempora Mutantur), and Symphony No. 96 (The Miracle). It was recorded live at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in 2013 (Symphony No. 64) and 2016 (Symphonies Nos. 53 and 96) by Sound Mirror recording engineers John Newton and Blanton Alspaugh, both of whom engineered the three previous CDs.           

 

Music Director Carlos Kalmar said, “It is my great pleasure to share our newest recording with classical music lovers all over the world. I believe our orchestra is consistently proving it has something important to say musically. We appreciate our relationship with Pentatone and their partners at Sound Mirror who do such a great job of recording us live. We are already at work on our next recording.”

 

“We are very excited about this new release,” Pentatone’s Vice-President for Artist and Repertoire Renaud Loranger said. “It further documents the relationship between the Oregon Symphony and its music director, Carlos Kalmar, in performances beaming with vitality and stylistic acumen, and will no doubt become another milestone of our collaboration.”

Haydn Symphonies will receive its first radio broadcast on Portland’s own 24/7 classical music station, All Classical Portland (89.9 FM and streaming internationally at allclassical.org), at 7 pm today, March 23.

 

The recording was made possible in part through a generous gift from Cliff and Karen Deveney and by the James DePreist Fund for Broadcast and Recording.

 

Following its local release today, Haydn Symphonies will be available for purchase at the Symphony Ticket Office (909 SW Washington) or at the Pentatone website (pentatonemusic.com) until its official international release on April 7, 2017, when it will become available at most music outlets.

 

HAYDN SYMPHONIES

Haydn: Symphony No. 53 in D Major (The Imperial)

Haydn: Symphony No. 64 in A Major (Tempora Mutantur)

Haydn: Symphony No. 96 in D Major (The Miracle)

Today's Birthdays

Léon Minkus (1826-1917)
Eugène Gigout (1844-1925)
Franz Schreker (1878-1934)
Josef Locke (1917-1999)
Norman Bailey (1933)
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)
Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986)
Stephen Sondheim (1930)
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)
James Patterson (1940)
Billy Collins (1941)
James McManus (1951)

and from the Composers Datebook:

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

Today's Birthdays

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

and


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

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

Today's Birthdays

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

and

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

Today's Birthdays

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)

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 (1884-1964)
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) 
Franz Wright (1953-2015)

Arts funding in jeopardy

From the Cultural Advocacy Coalition

It is time for us to rise to the challenge yet again. Today's announcement is just the beginning of the many next steps of the federal budget process. Our Oregon Congressional delegation has voiced bipartisan support for the NEA, both in the past two years of funding proposals, and in public statements made recently. Join me and hundreds of other Oregonians in calling on them today and urging them to fight for arts and culture in our state and nation.

Here's how you can take action right now to respond to President Trump's Budget Outline:

• Contact your House and Senate delegations. Urge them to oppose the President's request and provide full funding for the NEA, NEH, CPB and IMLS. Senator Jeff Merkley serves on the Senate Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. Outreach to Senator Merkley is critical at this time. And, if you are a constituent of Representative Walden's please reach out to him immediately.

Here's what you need to know about the impact of NEA funding in Oregon:

• In its fiscal year 2016, the NEA provided $727,700 in Partnership Agreement funds to the Oregon Arts Commission. These critical funds are used in conjunction with state legislative dollars to support grants and services across the entire state of Oregon.
• NEA and state funds enabled the Oregon Arts Commission to not only award 267 grants totaling $2,121,428 in its fiscal year 2015 but also provide non-grant services to arts organizations, community groups, schools and artists. These grants and services supported access to the arts, employment, arts education, community well-being and the cultural heritage of the entire state.
• Also affected by NEA budget cuts would be direct grants to arts organizations in each state. In its fiscal year 2016, the NEA made 32 direct grants totaling $795,000 in Oregon.

On top of the potential loss of $727,700 in NEA funding, the Oregon Arts Commission (OAC), is proposing cuts to operating support grants for the next biennium of 30% in response to potential budget cuts at the state level of $530,000. That's 30% less art, music, theater, dance, poetry, and more for Oregonians. This is a very real scenario on the table for the OAC in the current budget and the impact of these cuts would be substantial. It's time for us as artists, arts patrons, cultural advocates and Oregonians to take a stand for art and culture in our state and our nation's capitol.

Please join us for Advocacy Day 2017 in Salem on Monday, April 24 to meet and speak with our legislators about the importance of arts and culture to our state and nation.

I know from experience, emails and letters do not have the same effect as speaking with your legislator in person. That's why we love our art LIVE! There's no substitute for face-to-face advocacy for preserving the OAC's budget and its impact on arts and culture throughout our state.

Register today for Advocacy Day 2017 and we will see you in Salem on April 24th!

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)
John Lill (1944)
Michael Finnissy (1946)
Patrick Burgan (1960)

and

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