Opera Wire: Neeta Helms on Classical Movements & The Prague Summer Nights Festival

Opera Wire
By Francisco Salazar

Neeta Helms is the founder and owner of Classical Movements, a premiere concert tour company for the world’s great orchestras and choirs, creating meaningful cultural experiences through music in 145 countries.

During her 25 years with Classical Movements, Helms has worked with some of the most prestigious orchestras and concert artists in the world. She has traveled to 80 countries and has worked on some of the most complicated, difficult and pioneering projects in the music world.

After many years focused on touring, Classical Movements founded the Prague Summer Nights Festival to help young artists build their profile and gain exposure in the opera world. Now in its third year, Prague Summer Nights continues to grow, with the festival set to expand to Salzburg this summer. OperaWire had the chance to speak with Neeta about the development of the program and about the major challenges of putting on a festival like this one.

OperaWire: Tell me about your role with Classical Movements and the work you’ve done with classical music and opera?

Neeta Helms: I am the President and founder of Classical Movements, which is now 25 years old. We are the premiere concert touring company for orchestras and choirs, so our focus has primarily been arranging tours and concerts. We work in 145 countries and have worked in the Czech Republic for a very long time. Since we have been business, we have organized four choral festivals; we started our first in the Czech Republic 10 years after the company was founded in 1992, then started festivals in South America, Washington DC and South Africa. We work with professional orchestras, as well as conservatories, youth symphonies and choral ensembles to arrange their tours. We’re uniquely placed in the world of classical music and we have a foothold in the worlds of both choral and orchestral music.Incidentally, our involvement in the opera world began as early as 1998 when we toured with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Andrea Bocelli; we have also arranged tours for Dmitri Hvorostovsky including his 45-day tour and with Renée Fleming.

OW: Why did you start Prague Summer Nights?

NH: It came into being because one of our clients, the University of Kentucky, has a very rich music department and had spoken about collaborating on a summer program, which they would plan. They were going to organize auditions and everything. We would arrange the production and all the housing, travel, sets and costumes, but it was going to be their program, not ours. Something fell through with the university, but we were very close to the conductor John Nardolillo, who dreamed of still doing it. After investing so much into we decided, ‘Why not do it ourselves?’ We felt very well placed because we were financially strong and could invest the necessary time and the source. One has to make sure you have everything you need a year in advance. And then you have to engage faculty and when you engage someone like Sherrill Milnes, who is such a giant in the industry, you have to plan to do everything in the best way possible. I never wanted it to be a small program. There is nothing wrong with that, but if we were going into this with our level experience, I really wanted it to be international and felt that we could do that better than anyone else. We were engaged many years ago to do the YouTube Symphony Orchestra; it was a crazy program and one of the things that attracted them to us was that they knew we were able to get the word out all around. And that is something that we brought to this program, as well. We also wanted high-level faculty; together with John Nadalillo, our artistic director, we made an effort to get fabulous faculty, not just from the United States, but from Europe as well. And that has been a major goal of ours. We also have established distinct opera and orchestra programs.

OW: How has the program evolved?

NH: The first year, we were dominated by our opera program. We engaged very famous people from the opera world. We did “Don Giovanni,” and then added “Suor Angelica;” we had so many women applicants that we didn’t want to turn any away. The second year, we added “Gianni Schicchi” and really started to build up the instrumental program as well. We felt that while the orchestra plays with the opera, we wanted to really build it up on its own. This year we’ve gone from “Suor Angelica” to “Gianni Schicchi” to two major operas, “The Magic Flute” and “Le Nozze di Figaro.” We’ve also added Salzburg to the program.

OW: How did that move to Salzburg come about?

NH: Salzburg came about because of the obvious Mozart connection, but it’s also an opera-loving city and therefore a great addition for the people who are performing, a really valuable experience for our performers and our faculty. Everyone was really attracted by the prospect. We’ll be performing at the famous Mozarteum Hall, where we will do “Magic Flute” and “Le Nozze di Figaro.”

OW: Tell me a little about the program?

NH: We started out 30 days in Prague and then in our second year, we spent 11 days in this lovely town called Tabor in Bohemia before going to Prague for 19 days. It was a very fine balance. The whole town was so interested in our program. We have long hours and long days, between coachings and staging rehearsals; everybody has things going on. We have so much happening and the town is in love with the idea of music being done in the summer. We start there and then we go to Prague. This year, because the Estate Theater is completely under repair, we will be at the second home of the Prague Symphony instead. It’s a beautiful venue, where we will stage all our productions, but we also wanted to perform at a prestigious hall, so that is why Salzburg was important. Where we will go in our fourth year, we shall see – but Salzburg is turning out to be a major attraction. We have also partnered with the Prague Conservatory, which is a legendary institution.

OW: Tell me about the audition process and what is it like?

NH: That process happens both in-person and online. We hold auditions in several cities twice: we have a round of auditions in early November in London, Beijing, Los Angeles, New York, Maryland, Washington and so on. And then we repeat those and add some other locations like Indiana, so we get a lot of people from all over the country. We do these auditions in January and February. We also do online auditions for applicants around the world. Then all the major conductors, faculty and stage directors check them out and based on their consensus, we make offers.

OW: Do any of the participants come back?

NH: Yes, that is actually something I want to highlight. One of our alumni, John Holland, did Masetto the first year and then Leporello the second year. And this year, he is going to sing Figaro. He comes back because he says this program has helped him out so much; he’s got roles and it’s really building his career. Our first year, we also had Marcello Ferrero, who came back in our second year. The chance to work with Sherrill Milnes in Europe, in these productions is obviously a huge draw. We are attracting a very high level of singing and that is helping these musicians’ careers.

OW: Tell me about working with Sherrill Milnes and his work with the festival? 

NH: We’re really blessed to have him with us directing “Le Nozze di Figaro.” You know, he made his stage director debut with the Prague Summer Nights Festival program. It was major news in Europe and the press was all over it.

OW: What kinds of productions are produced?

NH: Very classic, all done the way they were meant to be done. We’re not at all avant-garde. We want to give people a chance to experience opera in the classical sense and really get them ready for these roles in their careers. Our goal is to give productions as close to the original as possible.

OW: How has the audience reacted during the first two years?

NH: Our audience tends to be half tourists and half local opera-lovers. We do a lot of promotion and so far we have had a lot of interest from the press, including coverage from the major opera press. That obviously reaches everybody in Prague and now Tabor. The tourists like to come to the Estate Theater because it’s so important to Prague. They just love the idea of seeing something in this opera house. There is a lot of word of mouth and the reviews have been good as well, so people know that the production is satisfying. We’ve had huge ovations from our audiences and have had packed halls. Our goal is to engage the locals – and if we get tourists, that is great too. But it is really exciting to see people discover opera through our festival.

For more information on Prague Summer Nights, please visit: www.praguesummernights.com.

The New York Times: 10 Spring and Summer Classical Festivals

The conductor Donald Runnicles is in charge of the orchestra at the Grand Teton festival. Credit: Michelle McCarron

The New York Times
By David Allen

Ah, sizzling burgers and a tasty side of the arts. We’ve picked the top festivals in theater, dance, pop and classical that we think you should see this spring and summer around the country.

Grand Teton Music Festival

JACKSON HOLE, WYO., JULY 3-AUG. 20 The setting is everything at this event, located near Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, but with Donald Runnicles in charge of the festival’s orchestra, musical quality is assured, too. Mr. Runnicles sprinkles some recent work — by Aaron Jay Kernis, Marc Neikrug and Luciano Berio — among weighty canonical fare, including Mahler’s Ninth and Beethoven’s Seventh. Guest artists include Yefim Bronfman, Garrick Ohlsson, Augustin Hadelich, Vasily Petrenko and James Ehnes.

gtmf.org

The New York Times: 8 Best Classical Music Moments - Diplomatic Harp

The New York Times
By Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

A Valiant Return to the Met Opera: This Week’s 8 Best Classical Music Moments

Diplomatic Harp

The harp is a diplomatic instrument: There is something about its sound, so clear in its attack and so graceful in its decay, that suggests an openness to other points of view. As such it should be a prized chamber-music companion, a point eloquently made by the harpist Sivan Magen in a sparkling concert of music for mixed ensembles. Some of the most beautiful moments found him at his most self-effacing, like in the gorgeous first Interlude for Harp, Clarinet and Cello by Jacques Ibert, in which Mr. Magen’s pealing chords supported a soaring line in the cello with the clarinet — less heard than felt — adding just a hint of a draft in the melody’s sails. 

21CM: Surviving the First Decade

21CM
By Assaff Weisman

The odds of getting an ensemble off the ground can feel like those of launching a new restaurant. Most groups disband within a few short years for reasons that are often similar: Establishing a name in an already crowded market is tough, and the administrative burdens that come with it can make even the most organized group want to crawl into a hole. As the Israeli Chamber Project prepares to celebrate its tenth anniversary, we look back at what brought us here, at the challenges we faced and the lessons we learned along the way.

1
Work With People You Respect

You’ve formed a group and agreed on what to call yourselves – you may even have a couple of concerts lined up. Everyone is energized and the future looks promising, but the honeymoon doesn’t last forever. Soon, you and your new colleagues will face your first challenges – anything from temperamental differences, conflicting opinions on concert offers or how long to hold that fermata. Most likely, you’ll encounter all of these and more.

Conflicts are a natural part of any group dynamic, but when you work with people you respect, it’s much easier to accept those times when your individual input is overruled. You don’t necessarily have to be best friends with your ensemble mates, but what does matter is that you hold each other’s work in high regard and respect one another as people.

With ICP, we had good fortune in that most of our members grew up together in Israel, getting to know one another as part of the country’s small but very lively musical scene. Several of us met as students, so when it was time to come up with a roster, ICP’s founder and clarinetist, Tibi Cziger, already had some people in mind. At the time, pianist Yael Kareth was the only one of us living in Israel. Cziger, cellist Michal Korman, harpist Sivan Magen, violinist Itamar Zorman and I lived in New York, while violist Guy Ben-Ziony and violinist Daniel Bard were based in Europe. Despite the difficulties of running a group across three continents, our commitment to each other as musicians and people strengthened our commitment to the ensemble.

2
Know Your Identity

Knowing your identity is critical for reasons way beyond marketing. Naturally, you want to stand out from other ensembles, but you also need to know what you stand for. Are you a group that champions neglected composers or focuses on the core repertoire? Do your concerts support a broader mission or are you strictly about the music? It is especially powerful if you can point to an origin story, making it easier for people to grasp what sets you apart and why your voice is needed. 

Back in 2008, seven of our eight founding members were pursuing careers outside of Israel – emblematic of a broader “brain drain” from the country, where lack of government funding, little to no private philanthropy and a small market severely limited the possibilities for a sustainable career in chamber music. But we all felt a strong connection to our cultural heritage and, wanting to give back to the community that had first guided us, we saw an opportunity to foster connections within Israel’s fragmented society while bringing a distinct musical energy to audiences abroad. Of course, we wanted to do this in a sustainable manner, which led to the birth of ICP. 

What started as two annual tours across Israel (including places on the periphery, where live classical music is hard to come by, as well as metropolitan centers), quickly became three, and we were fortunate to bring along such distinguished guest artists as Peter Wiley, Antje Weithaas and Liza Ferschtman. Meanwhile, with five of our members in New York, we established a U.S. base of operations for North American tours. Today, though our founding members are still spread across the globe, we’re able to increase our activities on both sides of the Atlantic through a careful expansion of our roster, long-range planning and intensified fundraising.

3
Have a Clear Idea of Each Member’s Role

There is no one way to run a chamber ensemble. You should feel free to create a structure that suits your particular needs, but it’s very important for everyone to know what they’ve signed up for. Are you the kind of group that reaches decisions by consensus, majority vote or top-down action? Who will handle administrative duties? (And the more success you experience, the more of these you’ll have to deal with.) Establishing roles allows each member to assess whether this ensemble is the right fit. In ICP, only two of our artists take on administrative roles. Tibi Cziger serves as the artistic director. He’s responsible both for programming and the logistics of our Israeli tours. Meanwhile, I serve as executive director and I handle our North American activities. Additionally, our board of directors offers invaluable assistance with the running of the organization, and this allows our artists to focus solely on making music.

4
Flexibility is Key

Things happen. Marital statuses change, people have babies, they move to a different country, they sustain injuries. Any one of these can threaten to derail your hard-earned success. Or, you can choose to turn them into opportunities. ICP has experienced everything mentioned and more (think concertizing through a war zone), and we have always tried to extract the positive from any situation. So a geographical move may wind up strengthening the administrative structure, and an injury provides much needed rest for one member while allowing another to shine. When two of our artists – a couple since pre-ICP days – had their first child, we incorporated feeding stops into our travel schedule. All of us took turns babysitting backstage as the new parents performed, bringing the ensemble closer together. Through all the bumps in the road, what kept ICP going was the connection between our exceptional members and a belief in our core mission – to give back to our home country while showcasing Israeli culture abroad. We have faith in our audience to be moved by a wide range of musical styles if we present them with integrity and humility, and we are continually reminded of music’s power to reach across divides of culture, politics and socioeconomics.

No doubt, there are still many opportunities for growth. But here we are, about to celebrate a decade of meaningful music-making, and we’re looking forward to many more. If our experiences can help launch or sustain your ensemble, we would consider that among our successes as well. 

To learn more about the Israeli Chamber Project, visit israelichamberproject.org

The Guardian: Facing the music - Long Yu

The Guardian

The Chinese conductor – music director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of Beijing Music Festival – on his musical inspirations, from Beethoven to Benjamin, and Karajan to Qigang Chen

‘If I were not a musician, I would still want to connect people’ - conductor Long Yu. Photograph: PR

What was the first record or cd you bought? 

My childhood coincided with the Cultural Revolution. During this period there was a ban on Western music, and I learned music theory through Chinese music. My generation was one of the first to study abroad, and after attending the Shanghai Conservatory, I studied at the Hochschule in Berlin, where a new world of recordings and music opened up to me. I don’t remember the first record I bought, but these times in Berlin were a time of deep exploration for me. I studied great conductors such as Karajan. To this day, I look back on my time in Germany and the recordings I studied with great affection.

... and the most recent?

Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach Trios with Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

I am interested in learning more about many genres – pop, rock, and jazz. Exploring outside of classical music sometimes informs my approach to traditional repertoire.

Vinyl or digital?

Digital.

If you had time learn a new instrument, what would it be?

Before I was a conductor, I was a pianist and percussionist. My grandfather, a gifted composer and pianist, taught me to play the piano from an early age. He also guided me to become a conductor. He said the baton can lead you to a magical world, which is much more interesting because conductors experience different kinds of music including operas, concertos, and symphonic works. Having the faculty of an entire orchestra’s instruments now seems imperative to me.

Did you ever consider a career outside of music? Doing what?

I am lucky to conduct orchestras all over the world, and music offers a common language in which to communicate. This is probably what I enjoy most about my job; if I were not a musician, I would still want to connect people, perhaps through diplomacy.

hat single thing would improve the format of the classical concert?

I want young people to love music. If I could change one thing, I would make the classical concert accessible to as many people as possible.

What or where is the most unusual place/venue you’ve performed?

Last year, I had the great pleasure of touring in China with Yo-Yo Ma. We performed at some incredible places including an outdoor concert at the Old City Wall in Xi’an in Central China, and in Dunhang, at the edge of the Gobi Desert. We worked with young people in these places and encouraged them to continue their musical life. It was a very special experience for both of us.

What’s been your most memorable live music experience as an audience member?

I remember my formative years in Berlin watching Karajanand many of the last generation’s legendary artists. I will carry these concerts with me my entire life. In 1979, I was in the audience as Isaac Stern made his first appearances in China. I was 15 years old and I hadn’t ever heard violin playing like his. Years later, I was honoured to invite Maestro Stern to the Beijing Music Festival. Last year, the Stern family and I started the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition to honour the importance and the impact of Maestro Stern’s visits to China. He brought many Chinese musicians to the world stage.

We’re giving you a time machine: what period, or moment in musical history, would you travel to and why?

I would love to travel to Vienna 7 May 1824 for the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Can you imagine what it what have been like to be in the audience for that final movement when the chorus comes in? Or, to have seen Beethoven’s face when, not able to hear the audience, he finally turned around at the podium to see their wildly enthusiastic reaction? An incredible moment.

What is the best new piece written in the past 50 years?

In the last 50 years, there have been so many important composers such as Messiaen, George Benjamin, and Qigang Chen, who all all use their creative voice to move music a big step forward.

Imagine you’re a festival director with unlimited resources. What would you programme - or commission - for your opening event?

This October we’re celebrating 20 years of the Beijing Music Festival where, since founding it two decade ago I have been lucky to realise many of my musical dreams. This celebratory year, we are presenting co-productions with the Salzburg Easter festival and the Aix-en-Provence festival, and a Beethoven symphony cycle with Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. The festival is such an important part of Chinese cultural life and has planted many classical music seeds in China. 

Long Yu conducts the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in two concerts as part of its first UK tour: 14 May at Cadogan Hall, London and 16 May at Birmingham Symphony Hall.

The Spectator: Mao's Music

The Spectator
By Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

Smog is making me cough and I feel my eyelids smart and redden. High-rises are swaddled in a soupy haze and locals scuttle about their day, huddled against the cold, faces down. Has Beijing done nothing to improve pollution since I last lived there three years ago? This is a city that changes fast. There are the same old scruffy nail bars and lamb hot pot restaurants, the windows smudged with steam from boiling vats of oil and meat. But in the ancient hutongs or alleyways there is also a smattering of Scandinavian-style design stores. Hidden around the back of one is a tranquil café, at odds with the dirt and dust outside, classical music wafting into chilly air. Here are the locals you never see on the street: men in elegant cashmere coats, scarfs slung around their necks; women propping Louis Vuitton bags against long, poised legs. I stop for a hot chocolate and avocado cheese cake; it costs nearly twenty dollars.

‘There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake,’ Mao Zedong said. Under the ‘Great Leader’, during the tumultuous tragic years of the Cultural Revolution, classical Western music was particularly despised as ‘bourgeois’. Instruments were smashed, concertos ripped up, and conductors punished, sometimes with death. When facing execution for tearing up Mao’s Little Red Book, Lu Hongen, conductor of the Shanghai Symphony, said to his cellmate. ‘Visit Austria, home of music. Go to Beethoven’s tomb and lay a bouquet of flowers. Tell him his disciple is in China.’ Would Lu laugh or cry if he went to Guangzhou now? I’ve taken the long train ride south to see the very first Youth Music Culture Guangdong (YMCG) in action, the pet project of Chinese-American superstar Yo-Yo Ma and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. It’s early in the year but there is unseasonal heat as hundreds of earnest young musicians gather to learn from artists of the Silk Road Ensemble. Among the educators is symphony conductor Michael Stern. When his father, violinist Isaac Stern, made history by touring China in 1979, just three years after Mao’s death, he found not one playable piano left in Shanghai. His son has arrived in a new era: China is now the largest piano producer in the world, and the largest consumer too with some forty million students learning to play. Beethoven, it seems, is not short of disciples.

Yo-Yo Ma, a believer in art for art’s sake, relishes the redemptive qualities of creation. I ask him why here, why now? Why China? ‘When the flood gates open there’s this moment of receptivity. There’s a small window in this society where you can do so much,’ he says. He looks down at his hands, adjusts his shirtsleeves rolled half way up his arms. ‘I think if that window closes it’s going to be harder to start things, to create habits, cultural habits. For me, it’s planting seeds that we may not see the resultsof for twenty, thirty years.’

‘I want you to have enough courage to stand up,’ Yo-Yo Ma later tells a room of shy young musicians, bent over their instruments, anxious to do well and to please. ‘Who’ll be the first victim?’

Fostering innovation in China, a country hindered by an educational system that encourages rote learning and discourages asking questions, is not always easy. Some classical musicians have broken through: concert pianist and child prodigy Lang Lang is a celebrity here, commanding sell-out concerts and legions of fans. But Long Yu, the man who has helped spearhead China’s classical music renaissance (he is artistic director and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra and music director of the Shanghai Symphony) wants more. ‘Asian parents, they force the kids to learn instruments not to introduce arts to them but they want to train them to become a star, the next Lang Lang, or to add some points when they apply to university. But this is totally wrong,’ he insists. ‘We don’t need only one or two champions. We need a new generation to understand creativity.’ Some are rising to the challenge. Back in an improvisation workshop, under the cold glare of classroom lamps, a plump girl in a yellow frilly dress shakes her hips, forgetting the glasses that fall down her nose, while a percussionist taps out an addictive beat. Yo-Yo Ma is happy. His charges are starting to stand up, no longer victims. As he confides with a grin, there is a little known secret: ‘You can practise imagination’.

Dallas News: Competitors Named for 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition

Dallas News
By Scott Cantrell

The 30 competitors have been named for this year's Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, to be held May 25 through June 10 at Fort Worth's Bass Performance Hall. They were selected from 290 pianists who applied for the contest, one of the most prominent  music competitions in the world. Among the applicants, 140 were selected to perform in screening auditions in January and February in London; Hannover, Germany; Budapest, Hungary; Moscow; Seoul, South Korea; New York; and Fort Worth. 

The 2017 competitors represent 16 nations, with one competitor, who holds dual Algerian/Canadian citizenship, counted twice: Russia (6), South Korea (5), the United States (4), Canada (3), Italy (2), and one each from Algeria, Austria, China, Croatia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, Romania, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. There are 21 men and nine women, the competitors ranging from 18 to 30 — the actual age range for eligibility.

The 2017 competitors (with their ages as of the last day of the competition):

Martin James Bartlett, United Kingdom, 20
Sergey Belyavskiy, Russia, 23
Alina Bercu, Romania, 27
Kenneth Broberg, United States, 23
Luigi Carroccia, Italy, 25
Han Chen, Taiwan, 25
Rachel Cheung, Hong Kong, 25
Yury Favorin, Russia, 30
Madoka Fukami, Japan, 28
Mehdi Ghazi, Algeria/Canada, 28
Caterina Grewe, Germany, 29
Daniel Hsu, United States, 19
Alyosha Jurinic, Croatia, 28
Nikolay Khozyainov, Russia, 24
Dasol Kim, South Korea, 28
Honggi Kim, South Korea, 25
Su Yeon Kim, South Korea, 23
Julia Kociuban, Poland, 25
Rachel Kudo, United States, 30
EunAe Lee, South Korea, 29
Ilya Maximov, Russia, 30
Sun-A Park, United States, 29
Leonardo Pierdomenico, Italy, 24
Philipp Scheucher, Austria, 24
Ilya Shmukler, Russia, 22
Yutong Sun, China, 21
Yekwon Sunwoo, South Korea, 28
Georgy Tchaidze, Russia, 29
Tristan Teo, Canada, 20
Tony Yike Yang, Canada, 18

The competition, held every four years, has been reorganized into four rounds:

Preliminary (May 25-28): All contestants play 45-minute solo recitals.

Quarterfinal (May 29-30): Twenty quarterfinalists play 45-minute solo recitals

Semifinal (June 1-5): Twelve semifinalists play 60-minute solo recitals, and a Mozart piano concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, led by Nicholas McGegan.

Final (June 7-10): Six finalists perform a piano quintet with the Brentano String Quartet and a piano concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony, led by Leonard Slatkin.

The entire competition will be webcast live on cliburn.org. In addition, the final round will be broadcast in cinemas around the United States.

Blogcritics: Anne Akiko Meyers 92nd Street Y Concert Review

Blogcritics
By Jon Sobel

“Fantasy” was the theme but versatility and diversity the watchwords the other night at the 92nd Street Y‘s Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York. Celebrated violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and pianist Akira Eguchi‘s program ranged from the 28-year-old Beethoven’s teemingly imaginative first violin sonata to an evocative work for violin and electronics, “Wreck of the Umbria,” written in 2009 by the then also 28-year-old Jakub Ciupinski and accompanied by video footage of the sunken Italian ship that, together with Meyers’s commission, inspired the piece. In between, we heard familiar pieces by Arvo Pärt and Morten Lauridsen outside their usual settings, Ravel’s rousing “Tzigane,” and one of the last compositions by Einojuhani Rautavaara, who died only last year.

Anne Akiko Meyers, photo by Vanessa Briceño-Scherzer

Meyers attacked the flashy “Tzigane” with percussive, almost schizophrenic force, her 1741 Guarneri violin’s dark, room-filling lower register resonating like the skin of a drum. Inspired by Hungarian gypsy tunes, the piece netted the most enthusiastic response and a curtain call of its own.

The program’s most substantive selections, though, were the Beethoven and the Rautavaara. The first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in D major, Op. 12 No. 1, was sunny and straightforward but also richly resonant. In the theme and variations of the second movement, the duo displayed exquisite sensitivity to the music’s spaciousness; Eguchi established a delicate rhythmic feel that left plenty of room for shock when the third variation’s minor-key triplets arrived with all the requisite heat. They then leaned into the final variation’s rocking off-beats with a jousting spirit that I suspect would have pleased the composer. And after the laughing finale I felt I could hardly imagine this sonata played any better.

Meyers commissioned Rautavaara’s “Fantasia” and has recorded it in its original violin and orchestra version. Here she presented it in an arrangement for violin and piano for the first time. The piece treads the border between romanticism and modernism and presents the composer in a thoughtful mood. Wandering melodies over gently flowing piano accompaniment evolved into watery complexities, with Meyers conveying supreme confidence and Eguchi showing a fine dynamic sense on the exposed piano passages. A lyrical triplet section near the end combined Mendelssohnian flow with Nordic cool.

It was a relatively lengthy piece to which one could surrender one’s sense of time, and ebb and flow with the music’s pure emotion as Meyers and Eguchi swayed with its strains like a pair of synchronized swimmers.

I’d heard Pärt’s “Fratres” only in its original orchestral version. A violin-and-piano iteration proved transporting, beautiful and ruminative. Meyers’s technique on the arpeggio passages and whistling tone on the high harmonics were marvels. Yet somehow Pärt’s writing rubs out any sense of showiness, instead wrapping the listener in a low-key tension that Meyers and Eguchi sustained masterfully.

At the easy-listening end of the spectrum were a transcription of Lauridsen’s popular choral work “O Magnum Mysterium” and an encore of John Corigliano’s “Lullaby for Natalie,” written for Meyers’s daughter. With its commissions and personal dedications, the concert felt like a family affair as well as a musical celebration. Both musicians are at the tops of their games.

The Guardian: Haochen Zhang's CD review – An Intimate, Artful Piano Recital

A self-confessed introvert … Haochen Zhang.

The Guardian
By Erica Jeal

Haochen Zhang is both a prodigiously award-winning pianist and a self-confessed introvert, and the wide-ranging choice of repertoire on his first studio disc reflects this. He captures the childish, quickly dissipating seriousness of Schumann’s Kinderszenen, and plays it with the kind of artistry that sounds sincerely artless.

Liszt’s Ballade No 2 has Zhang creating great rumbling waves in the left hand, then closing in an atmosphere of hard-won peace. In this, and in Janáček’s Sonata 1 X 1905, he excels in conveying the larger shape of the piece, knitting the phrases together into long paragraphs, yet he doesn’t short-change the showier passages. Brahms’s Three Intermezzos, Op 117, make for an understated close to an intimate, inward-looking disc, and their feeling of slow rise and fall evokes the breathing of a huge creature asleep. Rarely on this recording does his playing make a forceful bid for the attention, but it certainly rewards close listening.

The New York Times: Anne Akiko Meyers at 92nd Street Y

The violinist Anne Akiko Meyers at Carnegie Hall in 2014. Credit Kevin Hagen for The New York Times

The New York Times
By Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Classical Music in NYC This Week

ANNE AKIKO MEYERS at the 92nd Street Y (April 20, 7:30 p.m.). Armed with one of the most coveted instruments in the field, this violinist has built her reputation on a polished sound and brilliant technique. For this recital, at which she will be accompanied by the pianist Akira Eguchi, Ms. Meyers will put her Guarneri through its paces with new and recent compositions by Jakub Ciupinski, Morten Lauridsen and Einojuhani Rautavaara, alongside well-loved classics by Beethoven and Ravel.
212-415-5500, 92y.org