Interview with Jack Allen of All Classical FM

I interviewed Jack Allen, the head honcho at KQAC, and published our conversation in Oregon Music News.

I've been out of town and will be catching up with events in Portland soon.

Today's Birthdays

Carl Loewe (1796-1869)
Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)
Ray Henderson (1896-1970)
Gunther Herbig (1931)
Walter Weller (1939)
Radu Lupu (1945)
Semyon Bychkov (1952)

and

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Jacques Barzun (1907)
David Mamet (1947)

Portland Symphonic Choir's Wintersong concert coming up

Wintersong is the Portland Symphonic Choir's annual multi-cultural holiday concert with something for everyone. This year's version will offer music for choirs, brass, percussion, plus narration by Gretchen Corbett, singalongs, and guest choir Rex Putnam High School.

Here's some more information from the press release:

The highlight of the concert is Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols” arranged for all four voices, with harp accompaniment. Based on Renaissance-era songs, the movements alternate between haunting, lilting, and vigorous singing with challenging tempos and harmonies. Britten sets a mood of worship and anticipation that makes you imagine crystalline Christmas nights of long ago. Gabrieli’s fabulous “Hodie Christus Natus Est” tosses peals of joyful cries between multiple choirs. The King’s Singers made “A Little Christmas Music” famous, with its warm and familiar carols such as the Wassailing song, “Little Drummer Boy,” and more. A Swahili song of praise with percussion, “Mungu ni pendo,” adds a bright bounce. In contrast, Shaw’s arrangement of Vittoria’s “O Magnum Mysterium” is achingly hushed.

Representing Hanukkah, the Choir sings an exciting new arrangement of the traditional hymn to the Rock of Ages, “Maoz Tsur.” And Epstein’s arrangement of “Ozi ve Zimrat Yah (My Strength),” is an exotically rhythmic setting of Psalm 118. To honor another ancient tradition, “A Winter Solstice Ritual” combines calm chanting with an organ accompaniment trilling sounds of nature to hearken back to primeval ceremonies of the sun.

Joining us this year with their youthful energy will be Rex Putnam High School choir, directed by John Baker. This outstanding group has placed in the top four choirs 16 years out of 22 in the OSAA State Choir Championship, and has earned three state titles. They will lift their voices in several inspiring songs of the season.

The concert takes place on December 12th at 7:30 pm and Sunday, December 13th at 2:30 pm at St. Mary’s Cathedral (NW 18th & Davis in Portland).

Tickets : $25 for open seating/ $35 for reserved seating. Students 1/2 price, accompanied children under 12 free. Contact Box Office Tickets at www.boxofficetickets.com, call 503-205-0715 or toll free at 1-800-494-8497; or go on the Choir web site at www.pschoir.org.

Today's Birthdays

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967)
John Brecknock (1937)
Chuck Mangione (1940)
Louise Winter (1959)

and

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007)

Today's Birthdays

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838)
Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894)
Pamela Harrison (1915-1990)
Randy Newman (1943)
Diedre Murray (1951)

and

John Bunyan (1628-1688)
William Blake (1757-1827)

Today's Birhdays

Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1678)
Sir Julian Benedict (1804-1885)
Charles Koechlin (1867-1950)
Leon Barzin (1900-1999)
Walter Klien (1928-1991)
Helmut Lachenmann (1935)
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
David Felder (1953)
Victoria Mullova (1959)
Hilary Hahn (1979)

and

James Agee (1909-1955)
Bill Nye (1955)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful for all of the terrific musicians who are willing to share their talents. Portland, in particular, is blessed with people who love to make music. Music helps to define our culture, and our lives are improved through music.

I'm thankful for all of you who have stopped by to read this blog. Some of you may have missed an earlier posting regarding my writing for Oregon Music News. Yes, you'll now find more of my writings over there than here at Northwest Reverb, but I intend to keep Northwest Reverb going, and my colleague, Lorin, will be sharing his thoughts from time to time as well.

Today's Birthdays

Earl Wild (1915)
Eugene Istomin (1925-2003)
John Sanders (1933-2003)
Craig Sheppard (1947)
Vivian Tierney (1957)
Spencer Topel (1979)

and

Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994)
Marilynne Robinson (1943)

Today's Birthdays

Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991)
Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)
Sir John Drummond (1934-2006)
Jean-Claude Malgoire (1940)
Håkan Hagegård (1945)
Yvonne Kenny (1950)
Gilles Cachemaille (1951)

Today's Birthdays

Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
Norman Walker (1907-1963)
Erik Bergman (1911)
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
Maria Chiara (1939)
Chinary Ung (1942)
Tod Machover (1953)
Jouni Kaipainen (1956)
Edgar Meyer (1960)
Angelika Kirchschlager (1965)

and

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)
Arundhati Roy (1961)

Interview with Ken Selden

My interview with conductor Ken Selden about the collaboration between the PSU Symphony and Portland Ballet is in Oregon Music News here.

Review of Oregon Symphony's concert - Mendelssohn, Mozart, Dutilleux, and Berlioz

Oregon Music News has my review of the Oregon Symphony's concert this weekend. This is a terrific concert that shows off its principal members, and the orchestra is doing it again this evening.

Review of Columbia Symphony's Shakespeare concert

My review of the Columbia Symphony's Shakepeare concert is in Oregon Music News here.

Today's Birthdays

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
Jerry Bock (1928)
Vigen Derderian (1929-2003)
Krzysztof Penderecki (1933)
Ludovico Einaudi (1955)
Thomas Zehetmair (1961)
Ed Harsh (1962)

and

Paul Celan (1920-1950)
Jennifer Michael Hecht (1965)

Rattle rollercoaster with the Berlin Philharmonic again on the upside

According to this article by Mark Swed in the LA Times, Sir Simon is riding a new wave of popularity after years of pushing the orchestra too far afield.

Today's Birthdays

St. Cecilia
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
Hoagy Carmichael (1899-1981)
Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999)
Lord Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Gunther Schuller (1925)
Jimmy Knepper (1927-2003)
Hans Zender (1936)
Kent Nagano (1951)
Stephen Hough (1961)
Sumi Jo (1962)

and

George Eliot (1819-1880)
André Gide (1869-1951)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969)
Bernard Lagacé (1930)
Malcolm Williamson (1931-2003)
James DePreist (1936)
Idil Biret (1941)
Vinson Cole (1950)
Kyle Gann (1955)
Stewart Wallace (1960)
Björk (1965)

and

Voltare (1694-1778)
René Magritte (1898-1967)
Marilyn French (1929-2009)

Today's Birthdays

René Kolo (1937)
Gary Karr (1941)
Meredith Monk (1942)
Phillip Kent Bimstein (1947)
Barbara Hendricks (1948)

and

Nadine Gordimer (1923)
Maya Plisetskaya (1925)
Don DeLillo, (1936)

Mei-Ann Chen on Baltimore Symphony staff

Mei-Ann Chen, former music director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic, is currently on the conducting roster at the Baltimore Symphony (Marin Alsop's band). Click here for a link to Chen's bio on the BSO website.

According to the bio, Chen has a busy year ahead:

During the 2009-2010 season, Ms. Chen will make debuts with the Alabama Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, Fort Worth Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Memphis Symphony and Toronto Symphony, as well as return engagements with the Atlanta Symphony and Taiwan National Symphony.

Götterdämmerung finale with Solti, Nilsson, and the Vienna Philharmonic

Sir George is on fire! Nilsson is incredible - as is the VPO!



Thanks to Bob Priest for finding this gem.