Blogcritics: Cellist Julian Schwarz on Joachim Stutschewsky and 20th-Century Jewish Music

Blogcritics
Jon Sobel

Julian Schwarz is an award-winning cellist, an active soloist and chamber musician and a champion of new and unheralded music. Together with pianist Marika Bournaki, violinist Avi Nagin, and clarinetist Alec Manasse, he will present on Tuesday May 22 a concert sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, part of its Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series series and co-sponsored by American Society for Jewish Music. The program features compositions by Joachim Stutschewsky (1891-1982) and other 20th-century Jewish composers, much of whose music is today obscure, along with a new work written for the occasion by Israeli composer Ofer Ben-Amots. Neil W. Levin, YIVO’s Anne E. Leibowitz Visiting Professor-in-Residence in Music, will give a pre-concert lecture on the life, work, and artistic milieu of Stutschewsky, a composer whose influences ranged from Schoenberg to klezmer.

Julian Schwarz spoke with us about his approach to playing Stutschewsky and other 20th-century music, the preparation for this unique concert program, and his interest in “music of Jewish connection.”

Click here to read the exclusive interview.

Strings: Anne Akiko Meyers Reminisces on a Childhood Spent in Los Angeles

Strings
Anne Akiko Meyers

Anne Akiko Meyers as a child and onstage at the Emmy Awards Show

To quote Randy Newman, “I love L.A.!” I feel very fortunate to again call Los Angeles my home base. The year-round warm climate, beautiful ocean and mountain views, thriving music scene, world-class restaurants, and friendly people make it a wonderful place to live.

I was born in San Diego, moved to the middle of the Mojave Desert for a few years (my mother drove three hours each way for violin lessons in Los Angeles), and then grew up in L.A. until I was a teenager. It was the perfect place for an aspiring violinist to learn and grow.

When I was seven years old, I began studies with Alice Schoenfeld and had chamber-music coachings with her sister Eleonore. I had bi-weekly lessons, chamber-music studies, and classes at the Community School of Performing Arts (now the Colburn School) on the weekends. When driving around we listened to—and today still listen to—KUSC, with the comforting and friendly voice of Jim Svejda in the car.

To read the full article, click here.

The New York Times: Grand Teton Music Festival Named One of Top 15 Classical Music Festivals

The New York Times
David Allen

From Bernstein centennials at Tanglewood to Mahler in the desert, concerts across the county you don’t want to miss this season.

Grand Teton Music Festival

TETON VILLAGE, WYO., JULY 3-AUG. 18 Donald Runnicles is the music director in this picturesque town opposite Jackson Hole, which is just south of Grand Teton National Park and an hour’s drive from Yellowstone. With an orchestra whose players are drawn from major symphonies across the country, Mr. Runnicles conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, Bernstein’s “West Side Story” and much else. Visiting soloists include Daniil Trifonov, Leila Josefowicz and Kirill Gerstein. gtmf.org

For the full list of top 15 classical music festivals, click here.

WQXR: The Shanghai Quartet Celebrates Its 35th Anniversary

WQXR

Join us on Facebook Live for Midday Masterpieces, featuring the Shanghai Quartet. The chamber ensemble is marking its 35th anniversary by performing on four valuable instruments loaned to the group for the occasion by J.A. Beare: the 1714 “Kneisel, Grün” Stradivari violin, the 1729 “Stretton” Guarneri violin, a 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola, and 1690 Stradivari cello. On Wednesday, the Shanghai will play chamber music by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, as well as some traditional Chinese folk music specially arranged to suit the quartet’s western instrumentation.

Join the Shanghai Quartet live in our studio! They're performing Beethoven and Mendelssohn, as well as traditional Chinese folk music on some really old wood and varnish - they've been loaned...

Chicago Tribune: A selective guide to U.S. summer classical music festivals

Chicago Tribune
John von Rhein

Grand Teton Music Festival: July 3-Aug. 18; Jackson Hole, Wyo.: This year’s festival at the foothills of the Teton Mountains celebrates American music. Music director Donald Runnicles leads the orchestra, which comprises players from several top U.S. orchestras. The 2018 roster includes Daniil Trifonov, Julian Rachlin, Johannes Moser and Kirill Gerstein. Repertory includes Mahler’s gigantic Third Symphony and world premieres by Kareem Roustom and Sean Shepherd. 307-733-1128; www.gtmf.org

Click here to see the full guide.

KDFC: Anderson & Roe's Album, Mother, Named Album of the Week

KDFC

Album of the Week – Week of April 30

Anderson & Roe
Mother – A Musical Tribute

Mother’s Day is coming up on May 13. Celebrate with queens and saints, homemakers and lawmakers, scientists and artists, goddesses and mortals: the rich complexity of motherhood inspires this musical tribute from the piano duo of Anderson & Roe. The collection includes music by a diverse group of composers from Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, and Grieg, to Freddie Mercury, John Lennon, Paul Simon!

KUSC: Championing American Music with Conductor Gerard Schwarz

KUSC
Alan Chapman

Gerard Schwarz was the second-ever conductor of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra before spending 26 years on the podium with the Seattle Symphony. KUSC’s Alan Chapman caught up with him while Schwarz was in town to help celebrate LACO’s 50th anniversary. Here’s their conversation about the unique logistics of Schwarz’s first concert with LACO and how he (secretly) became a champion of American music in Seattle.

KUSC: Behind the Festival Uniting Classical and Electronic Music

KUSC
Brian Lauritzen

The worlds of classical and electronic music come together this weekend in Little Tokyo. It’s all part of a concert and community arts festival hosted by the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Chamber Orchestra and dreamed up by YMF music director Yuga Cohler and composer Stefan Cwik. The event will combine the music of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, and LA-based DJ and electronic musician Flying Lotus in a unique concert experience. Yuga Cohler tells me it’s an outgrowth of how young people consume music today.

Yuga Cohler: I grew up studying and playing classical music. But I also grew up with the internet: I had Napster when it came out and I’ve been exposed to a lot of different types of music just because it’s so available. My thought is that any art form sort of has to have both value and relevance to the current age. It’s important that people who consume the art are able to derive something of value from it. So for me, what that means in a classical music context is two things: first of all, I do believe that classical music has a lot to offer in terms of depth of emotion, complexity of structure, the subtleties involved with it, the amount of passion and commitment that it demands. I also believe that there’s a lot that all sorts of other types of music have to offer in those areas and also in terms of relevance, in terms of reflecting our current society’s thoughts and values. I think it provides a useful mirror into what our society is today. So, finding the intersection point between those two—of the values that classical music has to offer and the values that other types of music have to offer seems to me a very natural thing to do.

Read the full interview here.

Quarterfinalists Announced for the 2nd Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition

The Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition (SISIVC) has announced the 36 quarterfinalists invited to participate in the live competition rounds in Shanghai beginning August 10, 2018. The candidates were chosen from a total of 174 applicants and hail from ten countries.

The chosen candidates will compete in three rounds over the course of three weeks for a grand prize of $100,000 – the largest monetary prize of any international music competition – with a second and third prize of $50,000 and $25,000, respectively. Additionally, a prize of $10,000 will be awarded for the best performance of the Chinese work – Qigang Chen’s La joie de la souffrance. Furthermore, in honor of Isaac Stern, $10,000 will be awarded as an Isaac Stern Prize to an individual – in any field and from any part of the world – who is deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to the understanding of humanity through music.

The fifteen-member jury of the Competition comprises esteemed violinists and pedagogues including co-chair David Stern ­(son of Isaac Stern), Maxim Vengerov, Daniel Heifetz, and Vera Tsu Weiling.

The candidates are as follows:

Yurina Arai, Japan
Marie Bégin, Canada
Jiayi Chen, China
Yige Chen, China
Ellinor D’Melon, Jamaica
Hiu Sing Fan, Hong Kong, China
Mone Hattori, Japan
Shucong He, China
Valerie Kim, United States
Alina Kobialka, United States
Miyeon Lee, South Korea
William Lee, Taiwan, China
Quanshuai Li, China
Po-Yu Lin, Taiwan, China
Ruifeng Lin, China
Zhen Liu, China
Petr Lundstrem, Russia
Ashley Park, United States
Diana Pasko, Russia
Eva Rabchevska, Ukraine
Arsenis Selalmazidis, Greece
Dmitry Smirnov, Russia
Ji Won Song, South Korea
Olga Šroubková, Czech
Sophia Su, United States
Anna Tanaka, Japan
Yun Tang, China
Chang Yuan Ting, Canada
Diana Tishchenko, Ukraine
Chieri Tomii, Japan
Jacqueline Tso, United States
Jiazhi Wang, China
Runyin Zhang, China
Alex Zhou, United States
Jin Zhou, China
Nancy Zhou, United States

About the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition

Founded in 2015, Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition (SISIVC) is Shanghai’s first world-class violin competition. The Competition takes its name from Isaac Stern to commemorate the musical spirit of Maestro Stern by which a young generation of musicians can be inspired and motivated.

Along with a grand prize of $100,000 USD ­– the highest monetary award of any international music competition, a jury of renowned artists and a unique performance process, the Competition leverages the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra platform with extensive resources around the world ­– including close cooperation with famous orchestras, such as China Philharmonic Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The Competition also provides promising contestants with great opportunities including arranging concert tours, album recording and introductions to world-class music agencies, enabling prosperous careers and encouraging winners to embrace their artistic dreams.

For more information on #SISIVC2018, please visit: www.shcompetition.com. Please follow SISIVC on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WeChat, Weibo and YouTube.

Playbill: Shanghai Quartet Performs in Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society's Winter Festival

Playbill
Gail Wein

Finckel is especially excited about the Shanghai Quartet, which performs in the final concert of the festival, the program originally played on March 26, 1827 (March 27). “The Shanghai really is as fine a string quartet as one can hear. I’m very gratified that they’re coming to do this,” he says. There’s another notable aspect of this particular program: Beethoven died the same day.

The last piece on the program is Beethoven’s Piano Trio in G major, Op. 1, No. 2. “This was one of the works that Beethoven officially introduced himself to Vienna, his first published work,” says Finckel. “He decided to make a go of chamber music as his way to put his foot forward.”

Read more here.