WGN: The Juilliard String Quartet
The Juilliard String Quartet plays live on WGN’s Morning News in Chicago.
WGN Morning News
Juilliard String Quartet is widely considered America's most important string quartet. With unparalleled artistry and enduring vigor, the Juilliard String Quartet continues to inspire audiences around the world. They were founded in 1946 and hailed by the Boston Globe as “the most important American quartet in history." The Juilliard draws on a deep and vital engagement to the classics while embracing the mission of championing new works. Each performance of the Juilliard Quartet is a unique experience, bringing together the four members’ profound understanding, total commitment and unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders of the string quartet literature.
Watch them live in WGN’s studios here.
National Review: A Maestro-Ambassador, Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz is an exemplary musician. He was a hotshot trumpeter — one of the best in the world. Then he became a leading conductor. For many years, he led the Seattle Symphony, and also the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. He has led other institutions too. Now he is going to the Palm Beach Symphony. I joke that this is a “hardship post.”
National Review
Jay Nordlinger
Gerard Schwarz is an exemplary musician. He was a hotshot trumpeter — one of the best in the world. Then he became a leading conductor. For many years, he led the Seattle Symphony, and also the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. He has led other institutions too. Now he is going to the Palm Beach Symphony. I joke that this is a “hardship post.”
In addition to being a superb player and conductor, he is an outstanding — really good — talker about music, and teacher of music. There is more than a little Bernstein in him. (He knew the late maestro and played under him in the New York Philharmonic.)
Listen to the Q&A session between Maestro Gerard Schwarz and Jay Nordlinger here.
Gramophone: Gerard Schwarz, July 2019 Cover
Benstein, Barber and buddies were terrific symphonists, but what about their lesser-known 20th-century compatriots? Gerard Schwarz flies the flag for music that deserves wider acclaim.
Gramophone
The hidden giants of American Music
Benstein, Barber and buddies were terrific symphonists, but what about their lesser-known 20th-century compatriots? Gerard Schwarz flies the flag for music that deserves wider acclaim.
Read the article covering the music of Paul Creston, William Schuman, Alan Hovhaness, David Diamond, Howard Hanson, Peter Mennin, and Walter Piston in Gramophone’s July issue available here.
Gramophone: One to Watch – Nicolas Namoradze
The Georgian pianist Nicolas Namoradze, the winner of the 2018 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, has already impressed pianists of rare knowledge and experience. Like the two Honens winners before him (Pavel Kolesnikov in 2012 and Luca Buratto in 2015), Namoradze will make his debut recording for Hyperion.
Gramophone
The Georgian pianist Nicolas Namoradze, the winner of the 2018 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, has already impressed pianists of rare knowledge and experience. Like the two Honens winners before him (Pavel Kolesnikov in 2012 and Luca Buratto in 2015), Namoradze will make his debut recording for Hyperion.
Read more in the June issue of Gramophone available here.
The Guardian: Mahan Esfahani – ‘The harpsichord is like the posh, pretty boy in prison’
Mahan Esfahani was nine when he first heard a harpsichord. He and his parents were visiting Iran, the country where he was born, and which his family had left for the US five years before. “An uncle gave me a bunch of cassettes,” he says. “One was of Karl Richter [the German conductor and harpsichordist] playing Bach. Well, I listened to it, and I thought: ‘This is what I’ve got to do.’ I don’t mean in terms of a career. I just thought my life would be well spent in the company of this instrument. I thought I would get a profession, which is what every Iranian parent wants for their child, and that – once I was a doctor or lawyer – I’d be able to buy a harpsichord, and play at home.”
The Guardian
Rachel Cooke
Mahan Esfahani was nine when he first heard a harpsichord. He and his parents were visiting Iran, the country where he was born, and which his family had left for the US five years before. “An uncle gave me a bunch of cassettes,” he says. “One was of Karl Richter [the German conductor and harpsichordist] playing Bach. Well, I listened to it, and I thought: ‘This is what I’ve got to do.’ I don’t mean in terms of a career. I just thought my life would be well spent in the company of this instrument. I thought I would get a profession, which is what every Iranian parent wants for their child, and that – once I was a doctor or lawyer – I’d be able to buy a harpsichord, and play at home.”
Was it like falling in love? “Yes, absolutely it was.” Can he describe how the sound of it made him feel? He thinks for a moment: it’s hard to put into words. “When I played the flute or the violin, which I did seriously, it was as if there was a hand over my mouth. The second I played a harpsichord, it was as if the hand had been removed. This was the sound I’d been looking for to express myself.”
Read more here.
KUSC: Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers on Respecting the Old and Welcoming the New
Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers believes in respecting the old and welcoming the new. In this recent conversation with Jim Svejda, they discuss several of her recent commissions.
KUSC
Jim Svejda
Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers believes in respecting the old and welcoming the new. In this recent conversation with Jim Svejda, they discuss several of her recent commissions.
Listen below or here.
Musical America: Gerard Schwarz Headed to Palm Beach
Having been appointed to the faculty of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami last month, conductor Gerard Schwarz is planting further roots into the Florida sands by accepting the post of music director of the Palm Beach Symphony. He starts next season, succeeding Ramón Tebar, who held the job for eight years.
Musical America
Nicholas Beard
Having been appointed to the faculty of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami last month, conductor Gerard Schwarz is planting further roots into the Florida sands by accepting the post of music director of the Palm Beach Symphony. He starts next season, succeeding Ramón Tebar, who held the job for eight years.
Read more here.
The Irish Times: What makes Marc-André Hamelin so special? Different class
There are any number of ways you could attempt to explain what makes Canada’s leading living pianist Marc-André Hamelin special.
The Irish Times
Michael Dervan
There are any number of ways you could attempt to explain what makes Canada’s leading living pianist Marc-André Hamelin special.
He’ll turn 57 in September and he’s been recording since he was in his 20s. So you could point to his extensive discography, which runs to over a hundred CDs. His recordings for the Hyperion label alone run to over 900 pieces.
But to look at the extent would be to miss the point. Other pianists have copious discographies. Alfred Brendel’s complete Philips recordings were issued as a set in 2015 and ran to 114 CDs, and the recordings he made earlier in his career add a further 35.
Read more here.
National Review: The Harpsichordist, An Instrument of Their Own
Mahan Esfahani is a musician, and an unusual one. He’s not a pianist, violinist, cellist, or even a tuba player: He is a harpsichordist. Jay talks with him about his life and his instrument. William F. Buckley Jr., a devotee of the harpsichord his entire life, would have loved this.
National Review
Jay Nordlinger
William F. Buckley Jr. would have loved meeting Mahan Esfahani. I have done a Q&A with Esfahani, here. He is one of the leading harpsichordists in the world. He is also sort of an evangelist for his instrument — making the case for it as a going, living concern. WFB was devoted to the harpsichord, all his life. He owned several and played them regularly. He knew Wanda Landowska, and her student Ralph Kirkpatrick, and his student Fernando Valenti, and so on. He told many stories about them (a few of which I shared with Esfahani). He had harpsichordists give recitals in his home(s). He definitely would have loved having Esfahani over. I think the feeling would have been mutual.
Read more here.
The New York Times: Classical Music Concerts to See in N.Y.C. This Weekend – Mahan Esfahani
ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA at the 92nd Street Y (May 8, 7:30 p.m.). The harpsichordist de nos jours Mahan Esfahani is the soloist in two relatively recent concertos, by Manuel de Falla and Bohuslav Martinu. Also on the bill are two arrangements for nonet, one of Mozart’s Wind Quintet by Jean Françaix, and another of Strauss’s “Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche” by Brett Dean.
212-415-5500, 92y.org
The New York Times
David Allen
ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA at the 92nd Street Y (May 8, 7:30 p.m.). The harpsichordist de nos jours Mahan Esfahani is the soloist in two relatively recent concertos, by Manuel de Falla and Bohuslav Martinu. Also on the bill are two arrangements for nonet, one of Mozart’s Wind Quintet by Jean Françaix, and another of Strauss’s “Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche” by Brett Dean.
212-415-5500, 92y.org
Read about other events here.