International Piano: Call for submissions – New Music • New Video
The Anderson & Roe Piano Duo has announced the New Music • New Video composition competition. The duo is seeking new works for piano duo – either for two pianos or for one piano, four-hands – of up to five minutes, to feature in a fully produced Anderson & Roe music video.
International Piano
Lucy Thraves
The Anderson & Roe Piano Duo has announced the New Music • New Video composition competition.
The duo is seeking new works for piano duo – either for two pianos or for one piano, four-hands – of up to five minutes, to feature in a fully produced Anderson & Roe music video.
The deadline for submission is 1 September.
Further details can be found at https://www.andersonroe.com/newmusic
Violinist: Interview with Cellist Johannes Moser: Shostakovich at the Grand Teton Festival
German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser, who studied with the renowned cello teacher David Geringas, was a top prize winner at the 2002 Tchaikovsky Competition and has been involved in commissioning numerous new works for cello, will play this week at the Grand Teton Music Festival, in both a chamber concert Thursday and this weekend as soloist for Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1.
Violinist.com
Laurie Niles
"This may be a very controversial thing to say to a violinist: I started with the violin at age five, and my exit strategy from the violin was the cello."
German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser, now a soloist who has played with top orchestras all over the world, was telling me how he found his way to the cello. Moser, who studied with the renowned cello teacher David Geringas, was a top prize winner at the 2002 Tchaikovsky Competition and has been involved in commissioning numerous new works for cello, will play this week at the Grand Teton Music Festival, in both a chamber concert Thursday and this weekend as soloist for Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1.
Read more here.
Minnesota Public Radio: New Classical Tracks: Anderson and Roe Piano Duo honors mothers with musical tribute
"Motherhood might be perhaps the ultimate form of creation, but as artists we are giving birth to new pieces, to performances, to new ideas all the time. And so, it felt like a fitting sort of theme and tribute to the wonderful maternal figures in our lives," says Elizabeth Joy Roe, pianist and one half of the Anderson and Roe Piano Duo. Mother, a musical tribute, is the latest recording from Roe and duo partner Greg Anderson.
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR)
Julie Amacher
"Motherhood might be perhaps the ultimate form of creation, but as artists we are giving birth to new pieces, to performances, to new ideas all the time. And so, it felt like a fitting sort of theme and tribute to the wonderful maternal figures in our lives," says Elizabeth Joy Roe, pianist and one half of the Anderson and Roe Piano Duo. Mother, a musical tribute, is the latest recording from Roe and duo partner Greg Anderson.
The idea for the project came to the duo while they were performing at the Gilmore Festival.
"Initially, this kind of got under way when we performed on Mother's Day at the Gilmore Festival a couple of years ago, and we wanted to pay tribute to our mothers who were attending that concert. We saw just the huge variety of ways mothers have been portrayed in music over the years, and that really got us excited and got us thinking about what it means to represent motherhood through music," explains Anderson.
An important part of the project was representing the diverse aspects of mother figures.
"And also, we like to tap into the diverse aspects of women or of people that serve as mothers you know. Mothers aren't merely beautiful beings who emit tenderness but they can also be saucy women or saucy figures like Mrs. Robinson, and so we took that classic Simon and Garfunkel tune and lovingly added it to the mix because sometimes mothers are only seen in one way," says Roe.
"When I think about my mother, there are times like in Bohemian Rhapsody when the singer just sings, 'Mama!' That closeness one might get with their mother. And I mean I certainly have many instances in my life where it's just like I want that. All of these emotions, certainly as we were putting the album together you know, just kept coming up in us and we kept remembering our own histories and pasts with our mothers," adds Anderson.
Read or listen to the full interview here.
OperaWire: Yannick Nézet-Séguin To Lead Staged ‘Tosca’ At Bravo! Vail Music Festival In 2019
The Philadelphia Orchestra will be back in 2019 to showcase Puccini’s “Tosca” as Bravo! Vail Music Festival’s debut opera production. Performances are set for July 11 and 13, 2019 at the outdoor Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater.
OperaWire
David Salazar
The Philadelphia Orchestra will be back in 2019 to showcase Puccini’s “Tosca” as Bravo! Vail Music Festival’s debut opera production. Performances are set for July 11 and 13, 2019 at the outdoor Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater.
The announcement was made by Bravo! Vail’s Music Festival’s Artistic Director Anne-Marie McDermott during a concert by the ensemble, as led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Nézet-Séguin will conduct with director James Alexander leading production company Symphony V in the rendition of the famed Puccini opera. The production will be set in the 1800s and the opera will showcase an all-star cast that will be revealed at a later date.
Read more here.
The Atlantic: What Classical Music Can Learn From Kanye West
Since 2016, Feigenbaum and the conductor Yuga Cohler have periodically put on performances they call “Yeethoven,” including two in Los Angeles and one at New York City’s Lincoln Center. With a contingent of classical instrumentalists, they trace the similarities between the works of a 21st-century rapper/producer [Kanye West] and a 18th- to 19th-century composer.
The Atlantic
Spencer Kornhaber
The conversation around Kanye West lately has focused on politics, stunts, and the phrase scoopity-poop. It can be easy to forget that it was his musicianship, not provocations, that built up enough goodwill for him to go on a five-week spree of releasing one album a week (at least one of which, apparently, was put out in unfinished, soon-to-be-revised form).
Some of those albums—Nas’s Nasir and Teyana Taylor’s KTSE, both produced by West—feature string arrangements and vocals by the Yale-trained composer and pop artist Stephen “Johan ” Feigenbaum. He had, in a way, gotten West’s attention by drawing attention away from the noise around West and back to his music. Since 2016, Feigenbaum and the conductor Yuga Cohler have periodically put on performances they call “Yeethoven,” including two in Los Angeles and one at New York City’s Lincoln Center. With a contingent of classical instrumentalists, they trace the similarities between the works of a 21st-century rapper/producer and a 18th- to 19th-century composer.
Read more here.
South China Morning Post: Passing the baton: Chinese conductors finally get their chance on the big stage
After years of relying on Westerners, symphony orchestras across China are turning to a fresh generation of Chinese musical directors.
South China Morning Post (via AFP)
Julien Girault (AFP)
After years of relying on Westerners, symphony orchestras across China are turning to a fresh generation of Chinese musical directors.
Jing Huan, one of a new generation of Chinese conductors, performing in Beijing (AFP Photo/WANG Zhao)
Jing Huan twirls her conductor's baton nervously in the wings while the brass and string sections of China's Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra tune their instruments.
Aged 36, Jing is part of a new breed of foreign-trained conductors, as China hopes to gain recognition in the field after winning global fame for its soloists, including piano and string virtuosos...
Last year her orchestra performed on a prestigious Beijing stage as part of a "musical marathon" that saw nine ensembles play one after another to mark the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Music Festival...
China has come a long way however, said Long Yu, 54, artistic director of the Shanghai and Guangzhou symphony orchestras, and founder of the Beijing Music Festival.
"I grew up in Shanghai in the midst of the Cultural Revolution," a period of political turmoil from 1966-1976 during which Western music was banned, the maestro told AFP.
Long secretly learned the piano from his grandfather, a renowned composer, and in the 1980s became one of the first Chinese musicians to study abroad as the Communist government started to open up to the rest of the world.
Classical Post: Shanghai Orchestra Academy Students Gain Invaluable Experience in NYC
Five Shanghai Orchestra Academy students spent more than eight action-packed days in New York City last month participating in both musical and cultural exchange.
Classical Post
(L to R) Sihong Zhao, Yanru Chiu, Fangyu Huang, Joshua Bell, Renchao Yu, and Kuan Liu \ Credit: Chris Lee
Five Shanghai Orchestra Academy students spent more than eight action-packed days in New York City last month participating in both musical and cultural exchange. In addition to performing Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade in four concerts with the New York Philharmonic as part of its annual Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, the students – called Zarin Mehta Fellows – enjoyed tours of the New York Philharmonic Archives, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and important cultural sites including the 9/11 Memorial and Freedom Tower, Statue of Liberty, and Brooklyn Bridge.
The four Concerts in the Parks performances attained resounding success with the Fellows. The students – Renchao Yu, violin; Kuan Liu, viola; Fangyu Huang, flute; Yanru Chiu, clarinet; and Sihong Zhao, bassoon – met superstar violinist Joshua Bell in addition to working one-on-one with New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Frank Huang, Principal Associate Concertmaster Sheryl Staples, and other Philharmonic Principals.
Read more here.
Gramophone: The Listening Room
James Jolly's weekly selection includes Bach from Daniel Lozakovich, Mark-Anthony Turnage from Marc-André Hamelin and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Bach for the lute played by Thomas Dunford, and a reprise for Jakub Józef Orlinski's Vivaldi
Gramophone
James Jolly
James Jolly's weekly selection includes Bach from Daniel Lozakovich, Mark-Anthony Turnage from Marc-André Hamelin and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Bach for the lute played by Thomas Dunford, and a reprise for Jakub Józef Orlinski's Vivaldi.
A work I’m really glad to have discovered is the Piano Concerto by Mark-Anthony Turnage, a work from 2013 and premiered by Marc-André Hamelin with the Rotterdam Phil and Yannick Nézet-Séguin (and the recording here is, I assume, of that first performance). It’s a highly energetic piece and Hamelin is a magnificent soloist. The central movement is an elegy to Hans Werner Henze but the composer I keep getting little hints of is Leonard Bernstein.
Read more here.
BBC Music: An interview with conductor Long Yu
Freya Parr talks to the renowned Chinese conductor as he hands over the baton after 20 years as artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival.
BBC Music magazine
Freya Parr
Conductor Long Yu is at the forefront of today's classical music scene in China, where he holds major posts with the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras, and the MISA Shanghai Summer Festival. He also conducts orchestras around the globe, from New York to London.
It’s been a month of big changes for Long Yu. He has signed to Deutsche Grammophon with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and has announced that he will be stepping down from his role as artistic director of the prestigious Beijing Music Festival, which he founded in 1998.
Over the years, the festival has hosted artists including pianists Martha Argerich, Murray Perahia and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, violinist Maxim Vengerov and conductor Valery Gergiev. Shuang Zou, who was been the festival's assistant programming director for several years, will take over as the festival's new artistic director.
Read more here.
Strings: Cellist Julian Schwarz on Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1
Laurence Vittes connects with Julian Schwarz about getting the upper hand on Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1.
Strings
Laurence Vittes
Photo Credit: Matt Dine
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107, was composed in 1959 for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who committed it to memory in four days and gave the premiere with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in the Large Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory.
It has attained mainstream popularity—more than 60 recordings fill the catalogue including five different performances by Rostropovich himself. Julian Schwarz has not recorded the concerto—yet—but he performed it with the Tucson Symphony in January, and will play it twice this fall, in Lake Forest, Illinois, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In other words, he’s all pumped up for Shostakovich.
In addition to being a virtuoso cellist, Schwarz likes to interact with his audiences—to find out what they feel, what captures their attention, what stands out as “formidable.” After he finished a 30-minute Shostakovich workout in Tucson, Arizona, he returned to the stage and recounted a master class he had led at the University of Arizona earlier in the day, then played five minutes of Bach for an encore.
Click here to read the interview.