Today's Birthdays

Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998)
Rolando Panerai (1924-2019)
Reiner Goldberg (1939-2023)
Stephen Kovacevich (1940)

and

Georg Büchner (1813-1837)
Nathanael West (1903-1940)
George Polk (1913-1948)
Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1978, President Jimmy Carter presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to singer Marian Anderson.

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1933 that Albert Einstein officially moved to the United States to teach at Princeton University. He had been in California working as a visiting professor when Hitler took over as chancellor of Germany. Einstein’s apartment in Berlin and his summer cottage in the country were raided, his papers confiscated, and his bank accounts closed. He returned to Europe and handed in his German passport, renouncing his citizenship. He considered offers from all over the world, including Paris, Turkey, and Oxford. Einstein eventually decided on Princeton, which offered him an attractive package teaching at its Institute for Advanced Study — but he had his hesitations about the university. For one thing, it had a clandestine quota system in place that only allowed a small percentage of the incoming class to be Jewish. The Institute’s director, Abraham Flexner, was worried that Einstein would be too directly involved in Jewish refugee causes, so he micromanaged Einstein’s public appearances, keeping him out of the public eye when possible. He even declined an invitation for Einstein to see President Roosevelt at the White House without telling the scientist. When Einstein found out, he personally called Eleanor Roosevelt and arranged for a visit anyway, and then complained about the incident in a letter to a rabbi friend of his, giving the return address as “Concentration Camp, Princeton.” In 1938, incoming freshmen at Princeton ranked Einstein as the second-greatest living person; first place went to Adolf Hitler.

Today's Birthdays

Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745)
Franz [Ferenc] Doppler (1821-1883)
James Lockhart (1930-2025)
Derek Bourgeois (1941-2017)
Marin Alsop (1956)
Erkki-Sven Tüür (1959)
Dmitri Hvorostovsky (1962-2017)

and

Noah Webster (1758-1843)
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
Günter Grass (1927-2015)
Thomas Lynch (1948)

And from the Writer's Almanac:

In 1882, during a tour across the US, Oscar Wilde lectured to coal miners in Leadville, Colorado, where he saw a sign on a saloon that said, "Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best," and called it "the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across."

Today's Birthdays

Bernhard Crusell (1775-1838)
Zdeněk Fibich (1850-1900)
Dag Wirén (1905-1985)
Harold Blumenfeld (1923-2014)
Karl Richter (1926-1981)
Barry McGuire (1935)
Suzanne Murphy (1941)
Peter Phillips (1953)

and

Virgil (70 B.C.E.- 19 B.C.E.)
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
Friedrich Nietzsche, (1844-1900
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975)
Varian Fry (1907-1967)
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007)
Italo Calvino (1923-1985)
Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Today's Birthdays

Alexander Zimlinsky (1871-1942)
Gary Graffman (1928)
Rafael Puyana (1931-2013)
Enrico di Giuseppe (1932-2005)
La Monte (Thorton) Young (1935)
Sir Cliff Richard (1940)
Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

and

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
Katha Pollitt (1949)

Review: Oregon Symphony gala concert with Joshua Bell attracts near-capacity crowd

It was great to see a very full house at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall for the opening gala (September 16) of the Oregon Symphony’s 2025-2026 season. It was a very positive sign that the Portland Arts scene is reemerging from the pandemic. Superstar violinist Joshua Bell was the main attraction of the evening, and the orchestra, under Music Director David Danzmayr, sounded better than ever in a program of gems by Saint-Saëns, Bizet, and Stravinsky.

Bell opened the concert with a magnificent performance of Camille Saint-Saëns Third Violin Concerto. It was an over-the-top effort in which Bell mined the piece for every nuance possible. Each line was shaped with an artistic incisiveness that gave the music a fresh vitality. Bell’s jaw-dropping virtuosity lit up the fireworks of the first movement and still illuminated its beauty. The lyrical second movement reset the mood, evoking images of a boat gently rocking on a lake. For the third, Bell generated a sparkling finish that was noble and elegant.

Overall, it was an inspired performance by Bell, supported by outstanding contributions from the orchestra. In particular, Principal Clarinetist Mark Dubec and the orchestra’s new Principal Oboist Harrison Linsey added graceful tones in their duets with Bell, who enjoyed turning toward the orchestra whenever he had a break to hear the ensemble play.

The audience showered Bell and the orchestra with an immediate standing ovation. After Bell returned to the stage for the third time, he told concertgoers that the first time he played with the Oregon Symphony was in 1988 when it was helmed by James DePriest. He wondered if there were any members who were still with the symphony from that time. It turned out that violinist Lynne Finch and her husband, cellist Kenneth Finch were the only ones. Bell then followed with an encore, the meditation from Jules Massenet's opera "Thaïs", which Bell played as a duet with Principal harpist, Matthew Tutsky. Their sound was very emotive, but not sentimental, and the result was heavenly.

The Suite No. 1 from “L’Arlésienne,” which was incidental music that Bizet wrote for a play of the same name. The Prelude movement, which borrowed from the French Christmas carol "The March of the Kings" offered a lot of dynamic contrast that was fascinating to hear. The second movement, Minuetto, calmed things down – highlighted by an alto saxophone. Exquisite phrasing allowed the third movement, Adagietto, to reach and exquisitely divine moment, and that contrasted extremely well with the brilliant and robust Carillon to wrap up the piece.

The Suite (1919 revision) from Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” closed out the evening with an outstanding performance by the orchestra. Danzmayr had all of his forces playing at an optimal level – vividly retelling the story of the prince who pursues the Firebird (part woman/part bird) into a garden that belongs to the evil wizard Katschei. She gives the prince a magic feather that he later uses to free the men who have been turned to stone by Katchei. The prince also smashes an egg that controls Katschei’s power and his life. Afterwards, the prince marries a princess in a happy ending.

The basses and cellos wonderfully established the ominous magical garden. The woodwinds created enticing birdlike sounds, and with balletic lyricism, the orchestra recreated the prince and the enticing Firebird and the magic feather. The low brass had a field day expressing the horrible Katschei. The slow passages were mesmerizing, and the climbing series of tones near the end of the piece break into a joyous finale.

Owing to the near-capacity attendance, the vibe in the lobby was elevated, and that bodes well for the orchestra’s season. More on that as the season progresses.

Today's Birthdays

Art Tatum (1910-1956)
Hugo Weisgall (1912-1997)
Gustav Winckler (1925-1979)
Paul Simon (1941)
Leona Mitchell (1949)
Kristine Ciesinski (1950)
Melvyn Tan (1956)
Mark Applebaum (1967)

and

Conrad Richter (1890-1968)
Arna Bontemps (1902-1973)
Jamal Khashoggi (1958-2018)

Today's Birthdays

Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1686-1750)
Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780)
Arthur Nikisch (1855-1922)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Healey Willan (1880-1968)
Carlos López Buchardo (1881-1948)
Gilda Dalla Rizza (1892-1975)
Erich Gruenberg (1924-2020)
Pilar Lorengar (1938-1996)
Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007)
Daryl Runswick (1946)
Penelope Walker (1956)
Chris Botti (1962)

and

Robert Fitzgerald (1910-1985)
Alice Childress (1916-1994)
Robert Coles (1929)

Today's Birthdays

George Bridgetower (1780-1860)
Fernando De Lucia (1860-1925)
R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943)
Albert Stoessel (1894-1943)
Eugene Weigel (1910-1998)
Art Blakey (1919-1990)
David Rendall (1948)
Rachel Barton Pine (1974)

and

Mason Locke Weems (1759-1825)
Eleanor Roosevelt (1883-1962)
Elmore Leonard (1925-2013)
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022)

Today's Birthdays

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Vernon Duke (1903-1969)
Paul Creston (1906-1985)
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982)
Gloria Coates (1938-2023)
Sir Willard White (1946)
John Prine (1946-2020)
Steve Martland (1959)
Evgeny Kissin (1971)

and

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)
Harold Pinter (1930-2008)

And from The Writer's Almanac:

It’s the birthday of the composer Vernon Duke, born Vladimir Dukelsky, in Parafianovo, Belarus (1903). He was a talented classical musician, educated at an elite conservatory, but his family fled Russia after the revolution and he wound up playing piano in cafés in Constantinople (now Istanbul). From there, his family rode steerage class on a ship to America, went through Ellis Island, and ended up in New York in 1921. There the teenage Dukelsky met George Gershwin, who was only a few years older, and the two became good friends. Dukelsky played Gershwin what he described as “an extremely cerebral piano sonata,” and Gershwin, who was also trained in classical music, suggested this: “There’s no money in that kind of stuff, and no heart in it, either. Try to write some real popular tunes — and don’t be scared about going low-brow. They will open you up.” He also suggested that Dukelsky shorten his name, as he himself had done — Gershowitz to Gershwin. So Vladimir Dukelsky came up with the name Vernon Duke, but he didn’t use it for a while.

First, he went to Paris. There, he met and impressed the great ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Dukelsky wrote later about their first meeting — that Diaghilev had drawled: “‘Ah, a good-looking boy. That in itself is most unusual. Composers are seldom good-looking; neither Stravinsky nor Prokofiev ever won any beauty prizes. How old are you?’ I told him I was 20. ‘That’s encouraging, too. I don’t like young men over 25.’” And so Diaghilev commissioned him to write a ballet, and he wrote Zephire et Flore, with sets by Georges Braque, choreography by Léonide Massine, and costumes by Coco Chanel. It got a great reception, and Dukelsky was taken in by the not-quite-as-good-looking Stravinsky and Prokofiev. For a few years he divided his time between Paris, where he continued to write classical music, and London, where he wrote show tunes and used the name Vernon Duke. Then in 1929, he decided to go back to America, and he wrote some of the biggest hits of the 1930s — “April in Paris” (1932), “Autumn in New York” (1934), “I Can’t Get Started” (1936), and “Taking a Chance on Love” (1940). And he wrote the music for the Broadway show and film Cabin in the Sky (1940). By that time, he had become an American citizen and officially changed his name to Vernon Duke.

Today's Birthdays

Alexander Siloti (1863-1945)
Harry Lawrence Freeman (1869-1954)
Carl Flesch (1873-1944)
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Roger Goeb (1914-1997)
Einojuhani Routavaara (1928-2016)
Alfons Kontarsky (1932-2010)
John Lennon (1940-1980)
Jackson Browne (1948)
Sally Burgess (1953)
Roberto Sierra (1953)

and

Ivo Andrić (1892-1975)
Bruce Catton (1899-1978)
Léopold (Sédar) Senghor (1906-2001)
Belva Plain (1915-2010)
Jill Ker Conway (1934-2018)
James Howe McClure (1939-2006)

Review of Fear No Music's marathon reading of 32 new pieces

My review of FNM's evening-long concert has been published in Oregon Arts Watch here.

Today's Birthdays

Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Will Vodery (1885-1951)
Paul V. Yoder (1908-1990)
James Sample (1910-1995)
Kurt Redel (1918-2013)
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996)
Johnny Ramone (1948-2004)
Robert Saxton (1953)
Carl Vine (1954)
Tabea Zimmermann (1968)
Bruno Mantovani (1974)

and

John Cowper Powys (1872-1963)
Walter Lord (1917-2002)
Philip Booth (1925-2007)
Jesse Jackson (1941)
R.L. Stine (1943)

Today's Birthdays

William Billings (1746-1800)
Joe Hill (1879-1915)
Shura Cherkassky (1911-1995)
Charles Dutoit (1936)
John Mellencamp (1951)
Yo-Yo Ma (1955)
Li Yundi (1982)

and

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
Helen Clark MacInnes (1907-1985)
Desmond Tutu (1931-2021)
Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones) (1934-2014)
Thomas Keneally (1935)
Dianne Ackerman (1948)
Sherman Alexie (1966)

Today's Birthdays

William Bradbury (1816-1868)
Jenny Lind (1820-1887)
Julia Culp (1880-1970)
Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)
Maria Jeritza (1887-1982)
Edwin Fischer (1886-1960)
Paul Badura-Skoda (1927-2019)
Dennis Wicks (1928-2003)
Udo Zimmermann (1943-2021)
Keith Lewis (1950)

and

Le Corbusier (1887-1965)
Caroline Gordon (1895-1981)

From the Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1600 that the opera Euridice was first performed, at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. It is the oldest surviving opera.

Euridice was performed for the wedding celebrations of Henry IV of France and Maria de' Medici. It was written by Jacopo Peri, a beloved composer and singer. He had already written Dafne a few years earlier, which is considered to be the first opera, but that music has been lost.

Euridice is a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which the gifted musician Orpheus falls in love with the beautiful Eurydice, but just after their wedding she is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus is heartbroken, and he journeys to the underworld, to Hades, to try to bring her back. He charms the king of the underworld, also named Hades, and his wife, Persephone, and they agree to return Eurydice to Orpheus on one condition: that he get all the way back to the upper world without looking back to see if Eurydice is following. He almost makes it, but right as he is walking out into the sunlight he turns back, and Eurydice is still in the underworld, so he loses her forever. Peri not only wrote the opera, but he sang the role of Orpheus. The climax of the opera came during "Funeste piagge," or "Funeral shores," when Orpheus begs Hades and Persephone to release his beloved.

Peri wrote a long preface to Euridice, in which he explained the new musical form he was working in, which we now call opera. He said that he was trying to write the way he imagined the Greeks would have, combing music and speech into the ultimate form of drama. One of the people who came to Florence to see Euridice was Vincenzo Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua. And he probably brought his servant, Claudio Monteverdi. A few years later, in 1607, Monteverdi premiered his first opera, L'Orfeo, which was also a retelling of the legend of Orpheus. Monteverdi elevated the opera form to new heights, and L'Orfeo is considered the first truly great opera, with all of the dramatic orchestration and lyrics that are so central to the drama.

Review: VSO starts new season on the upswing with Carmina Burana and sold-out concerts

There’s nothing like a sold-out weekend of concerts for a season opener, and that bodes well for the Vancouver Symphony, which celebrated its 47th season with a very robust “Carmina Burana” and a set of intermezzos by Pietro Mascagni. Perhaps the overwhelming success of the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival a couple of months ago has inspired more people to check out the orchestra. Whatever the reason - the jam-packed crowd at Skyview Concert Hall put VSO Music Director Salvador Brotons and the orchestra into sonic overdrive, resulting a glorious performance on Sunday afternoon (September 28).

With its exotic and declamatory sounds “Carmina Burana” proved to be an excellent choice for revving up the audience. Written by Carl Orff – inspired by miscellaneous medieval texts (Latin and an early German dialect from Bavaria) from a Benedictine monastery – the cantata has been a staple of the symphonic repertoire since it was premiered in 1937. The VSO collaborated with the Portland Symphonic Choir, expertly prepared by David Xiques on behalf of PSC Artistic Director Alissa Deeter, soprano Abigail Krawson, tenor Sam Faustine, and baritone Zachary Lenox to give a thoroughly exciting performance of the hour-long work.

Starting with “O Fortuna”, the chorus generated thunderous sonic waves that expressed the fatalist view of the Middle Ages. That heaviness lightened up a bit in the first set of songs about springtime (Primo Vere). The singers announced a glimmer of hope and Lenox enhanced it, singing of the warmth of the sun. They chorus also wonderfully conveyed the intimate scenes in the Uf dem Anger (On the Green) section where feelings of love emerge. After the explosive “Hei” that closed “Were diu werlt alle min” (Were all the world mine), the audience erupted with “Wow” and vigorous applause.

Lenox kicked off The In Taberna (In the Tavern) set with da visceral tribute to alcohol by a commoner and by the abbot. Faustine flew in from the wings to deliver a superb account of the swan being roasted on a spit, and the men of the chorus topped everything off with a raucous drinking chorus, “In taberna quando sumus” that is rousing can-can number. That elicited “Wows” from concertgoers.

The chorus gave the third section Cours d’Amour (Court of Love), a lusty hue, and Krawson graced the climactic ascent of the “Dulcissime” solo with a lovely high D. The chorus created a vibrant “Blanziflor et Helana” (Blanziflor and Helen), and still had gas in the tank for the final “O Fortuna” chorus and its crushing wheel of fate. That brought listeners to their feet with enthusiastic cheering.

Brotons elicited an excellent orchestral sound – with kudos to flutist Darren Cook for his solos. Brotons conducted the entire piece from memory, impressively signaling the accented words during the uptempo drinking song at the end of the In Taberna segment. At one point, he leaned back on the rail as if a bit worn out.

The first half of the concert featured intermezzos from four different operas by Mascagni. That was an interesting choice since none of them contained a fanfare. Fortunately, Brotons talked to the audience between each piece, giving brief introductions that provided some context. The lush and relaxed intermezzo from “Cavalleria rusticana,” was the most familiar, since it is Mascagni’s most famous opera. That contrasted well with the intermezzo from “L’amico Fritz” which was grander and very passionate. Brotons coaxed sweetness from the orchestra – complete with the soothing sounds from the harp – for the intermezzo from “Gulielmo Ratcliff.” The percussion section got a bit of a workout in the intermezzo from “Isabeau.”

The Portland Symphonic Choir joined forces with the orchestra to produce a magnificent “Inno al Sole” (Hymn to the Sun) from Mascagni’s “Iris.” It opened with a solo from Garrett Jellesma’s double bass and a melodic line that expanded into the orchestra and choir. The result was glorious and resonated with the audience, which responded straight away with a standing ovation.

It was not immediately apparent that the texts for "Carmina Burana" and “Inno al Sole” were available via a QR code on a separate sheet that listed the Portland Symphonic Choir roster. That was cleared up during intermission, but after concertgoers had taken their seats. I'm not sure how much of the audience really knew much about the words being sung, but it didn't seem to matter. The music succeeded anyway.

Post Script: It should be noted that the concert marked the first appearance of concertmaster Aromi Park since her debut in that role at the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival a couple of months ago. She continues a long line of female concertmasters in the orchestra.

Today's Birthdays

Cyril Bradley Rootham (1875-1938)
Jürgen Jürgens (1925-1994)
John Downey (1927-2004)
Iwan Edwards (1937-2022)
Ken Noda (1962)

and

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
Helen Churchill Candee (1858-1949)
Flann O’Brien (1911-1966)
Václav Havel (1936-2011)
Edward P. Jones (1950)
Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958)
Maya Ying Lin (1959)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1930, The New York Philharmonic begins its famous series of weekly Sunday afternoon national broadcasts with a program from Carnegie Hall conducted by Erich Kleiber. The first-ever radio broadcast of the New York Philharmonic had occurred on August 12, 1922, when a summer-time concert from Lewisohn Stadium conducted by Willem van Hoogstraten was relayed locally over WJZ in New York.

My note: Willem van Hoogstraten was the conductor of the Portland Symphony (former name of the Oregon Symphony) from 1925 to 1938.

Today's Birthdays

Fanny Tacchinardi‑Persiani (1812-1867)
Alain Daniélou (1907-1994)
Michael Steinberg (1928-2009) Alain Lombard (1940)
John Aler (1949-2022)
Fransico Araiza (1950)
Marc Minkowski (1962)
David Dzubay (1964)

and

Frederic Remington (1861-1909)
Damon Runyan (1880-1946)
Buster Keaton (1895-1966)
Brenden Gill (1914-1997)
Jackie Collins (1937-2015)
Roy Blount Jr. (1941)
Anne Rice (1941)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1921, the American Academy in Rome awards American composer Leo Sowerby its first two-year composition fellowship. American composer Howard Hanson was awarded the second two-year composition fellowship on November 9, 1921. The third fellowship was awarded to Randall Thompson on June 6, 1922. The fellowship awards continue to this day.

Today's Birthdays

Antoine Dauvergne (1713-1797)
Stanisław Skrowaczewski (1923-2017)
Steve Reich (1936)
Shiela Silver (1946)

and

Emily Post (1873-1960)
Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938)
Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993)
Gore Vidal (1925-2012)

Today's Birthdays

Frantisek Tuma (1704-1774)
Henry Février (1875-1957)
Leroy Shield (1893-1962)
Francis Jackson (1917)
Mary Jeanne van Appledorn (1927-2014)
Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988)
Phill Niblock (1933-2024)
Michel Plasson (1933)
Peter Frankl (1935)
Ton Koopman (1944)
Jonathan Summers (1946)

and

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
Graham Greene (1904-1991)
Jan Morris (1926-2020)

Today's Birthdays

J. Friedrich Eduard Sobolewski (1808-1872)
Henry Clay Work (1832-1884)
Paul Dukas (1865-1935)
Vladimir Horowitz (1904-1989)
Sylvano Bussotti (1931-2021)

and

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)
Tim O'Brien (1946)

and from the Composers Datebook:

This day in 1924 marked the opening of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, funded by a gift of $12.5 million from the American patroness Mary Louise Curtis Bok, who had inherited her fortune from the Curtis Publishing Company. The faculty, providing instruction for 203 students, included Leopold Stokowski and Josef Hofmann heading conducting and piano departments, respectively. Polish-born coloratura Marcella Sembrich. Hungarian violinist Carl Flesch. French-born harpist/composer Carlos Salzedo. and Italian composer Rosario Scalero.