Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Gala with World-Renowned Piano Virtuoso Orli Shaham
Maestro Brotons and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Celebrates the Generosity of the Community and the Resiliency of Music
Maestro Brotons and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Celebrates the Generosity of the Community and the Resiliency of Music
[Vancouver, WA. August 11, 2021] – Following one of the most dramatic, artistically ambitious and critically acclaimed seasons in its history, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will kick-off its 43rd season with the highly anticipated hybrid Gala. VSO Music Director, Maestro Salvador Brotons and the Orchestra’s Board of Directors will welcome in-person guests at the beautiful Discovery Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in historic downtown Vancouver, Washington. The entire event will also be live-streamed on the VSO website.
Internationally acclaimed pianist Orli Shaham will return by popular demand as the Gala’s Guest of Honor. Shaham will team up with VSO concertmaster and principal players in live performances of music by Mozart, Dvorak, Chopin and others.
What: Gala 2021: Resiliency Through the Arts
When: Friday, September 17, 2021
12:00pm - 6:00pm PDT: Virtual Music Celebration from the VSO Archive
6:30pm PDT: Live Event/Streaming (pre-show begins at 6:00pm PDT)
Where: The in-person event will be held at the Vancouver Hilton, 301 W. Street Vancouver, Washington. Virtual guests can enjoy the live-streamed event on any viewing device.
Tickets: In-person tickets are available for $100. Space is limited, RSVP by September 8. Virtual tickets are free to anyone around the world at www.vancouversymphony.org
Gala festivities will begin at 12:00pm PDT with a virtual music celebration featuring past performances from the VSO archive. During this free event, available on the VSO website, guests will be able to bid on auction items, donate, and support the VSO while enjoying some of Orchestra’s best performances of all time.
The 2021 auction features five, once-in-a-lifetime VIP experiences which includes tickets and VIP backstage access to the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Seattle Symphony and amazing trips to New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Barcelona, and Hawaii. All proceeds raised at the Gala will support the VSO’s artistic programming and will help advance the Symphony’s educational outreach initiatives.
About the VSO
The VSO, now in its 43rd season, has been a cornerstone of Southwest Washington's arts community, providing symphony music of the highest caliber in live performances and through music education in schools, concert halls, and throughout the community. For more information, please visit vancouversymphony.org.
About Orli Shaham
The 2021 Gala will be Orli Shaham’s fourth appearance with the VSO. Shaham has established an impressive international reputation as one of today’s most gifted pianists. Praised by critics on four continents, Shaham is hailed for her interpretations of both traditional and modern repertoire. The New York Times called her a “brilliant pianist”, the Chicago Tribune referred to her as “a first-rate Mozartean”, and the London Guardian said Shaham’s playing at the Proms was “perfection”. Shaham has performed with most major orchestras in the United States, and many significant ensembles internationally, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Orli Shaham is on faculty at The Juilliard School, Artistic Director for Pacific Symphony’s Chamber Music Series in Costa Mesa, California, and Artistic Director of “Bach Yard”, an interactive children’s concert series. She also serves on the juries of the Cliburn International Piano Competition and the Honens International Piano Competition. She has previously served on the juries of the Cliburn International Junior, New York International, Sydney International, Virginia Waring International, and Hilton Head International piano competitions.
About Salvador Brotons
Maestro Salvador Brotons returns to Vancouver for his 31st season as Music Director and Conductor of the VSO. In addition to the VSO, he has been the Music Director and Conductor of the Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears “Ciutat de Palma” (1997-2001, 2009-2013) and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Vallés (1997-2002). He is presently the Conductor of the Barcelona Symphonic Band. In 2005, he received the “Arts Council” award from Clark County and the City of Vancouver as well as the Kiwanis Rose Award. Brotons has guest-conducted orchestras in countries such as the United States, Israel, France, Germany, China, Poland, South Korea, Mexico, Uruguay, and Colombia.
About our Sponsors
The VSO is generously supported by individual donors, The M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, All Classical Portland, Oregon Public Broadcasting, The Community Foundation of Southwest Washington, The Columbian, Dick Hannah, PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center Foundation, Propel Insurance, MedicareHelpNow, Opsahl Dawson CPAs, Burnt Bridge Cellars, Clark Public Utilities, the VIC, Realvest Corporation, and Michelle’s Pianos.
Memeteria: A Homecoming for the Grand Teton Music Festival
It’s only my first time in these parts, but already I can understand the deep, magnetic sense of connection that draws people back here again and again. Upon passing through the elk antler arch at Jackson Hole Airport (the only U.S. airport located within a national park, incidentally), I soon began to feel the charm of a place that hasn’t been flattened out by plastic predictability. Even with lingering smoke from the latest Western fires imposing a thin pall, the capacity for this landscape to inspire awe was undimmed.
Memeteria
Thomas May
It’s only my first time in these parts, but already I can understand the deep, magnetic sense of connection that draws people back here again and again. Upon passing through the elk antler arch at Jackson Hole Airport (the only U.S. airport located within a national park, incidentally), I soon began to feel the charm of a place that hasn’t been flattened out by plastic predictability. Even with lingering smoke from the latest Western fires imposing a thin pall, the capacity for this landscape to inspire awe was undimmed.
With its marriage of valley and dramatic, looming scarps, it’s obvious how the Jackson Hole area beckoned as an ideal spot to make music. The Grand Teton Music Festival opened on 2 July, following the all-too-familiar hiatus, and is now into Week 4 of a seven-week season — which also marks the Festival’s 60th anniversary.
Read more here.
Violinist: Live and In-Person, from Bravo! Vail, Colorado: New York Phil Quartet Review
Greetings from Vail, Colorado! For the next few days I'm going be exploring the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, a summer event that has been bringing together fine orchestras and artists from all over the world to this ski town in Colorado's Rocky Mountains for some 34 years.
Violinist.com
Laurie Niles
Greetings from Vail, Colorado! For the next few days I'm going be exploring the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, a summer event that has been bringing together fine orchestras and artists from all over the world to this ski town in Colorado's Rocky Mountains for some 34 years.
After last year's limits due to the pandemic, this year brings a full schedule of in-person concerts, and they have quite a prestigious and impressive lineup. Bravo! Vail kicked off in June with a week-long visit from The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Joshua Bell, followed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. After that came the Philadelphia Orchestra, and this week I'm lucky enough to be here for the New York Philharmonic. Guest artists this summer have included some of the best, with violinists Joshua Bell, James Ehnes, Gil Shaham and Augustin Hadelich; as well as pianists Conrad Tao, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Daniil Trifonov, and Yefim Bronfman.
Read more here.
The Strad: Opinion: Relaxed body, focused mind
All art forms are mirrors of our inner selves. From writers to composers, from dancers to musicians, from artists to actors – the moment we are touched by inspiration, time stands still and we focus inward to create a transcendent artistic experience. It is every musician’s goal to communicate from the soul through music.
The Strad
Hsin-Yun Huang
The art of Chinese calligraphy has much to teach us about playing a stringed instrument, writes violist Hsin-Yun Huang
All art forms are mirrors of our inner selves. From writers to composers, from dancers to musicians, from artists to actors – the moment we are touched by inspiration, time stands still and we focus inward to create a transcendent artistic experience. It is every musician’s goal to communicate from the soul through music.
Ancient Chinese ideology taught that a cultured person was expected to study in six areas: etiquette, musicology, archery, chariot driving, literacy, and quantitative methodology and cosmology.
To explain each area further:
1. Etiquette encompasses human and social behavior. It includes law, management and communication sciences
2. Musicology includes music performance, popular culture, ceremonies, rituals and spirituality
3. Archery broadly represents martial skills, sports and gentlemen’s competition
3. Chariot driving stands for martial arts and physical culture
4. Literacy includes reading, writing, literature, history and philosophy
5. Quantitative methodology and cosmology stands for physics, arithmetic and mathematics.
Read more here.
CBS News Denver: Live Music Is Back In Vail!
Bravo! Vail Music Festival will host the first in-person concert in over a year, featured on CBS News Denver.
Bravo! Vail Music Festival will host the first in-person concert in over a year, featured on CBS News Denver.
Read more here.
Billboard: No. 1 Traditional Classical Album — Music From the Promised Land by Duo Mantar
Music From the Promised Land — No. 1 Traditional Classical Album
Billboard
Duo Mantar makes their #1 Billboard Debut on the Traditional Classical Album chart this week with Music From the Promised Land, edging out Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax's latest album, Hope Amid Tears.
Purchase or stream the album through your favorite platform here.
The New Criterion: Ending the Palm Beach season
The Palm Beach Symphony closed out its forty-seventh season on May 22 with a concert of Ravel and Brahms featuring the Georgian piano soloist Alexander Toradze. Steeped in the international Romantic tradition, Toradze approached Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, part of the composer’s foray into multi-movement orchestral works, with a sparkling combination of wit and grace, ending the introductory Allegramente movement with a raised hand and faux-serious inquiry to the audience, “Was it any good?”
The New Criterion
Paul du Quenoy
On a live concert of Ravel & Brahms at the Palm Beach Symphony.
The Palm Beach Symphony closed out its forty-seventh season on May 22 with a concert of Ravel and Brahms featuring the Georgian piano soloist Alexander Toradze. Steeped in the international Romantic tradition, Toradze approached Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, part of the composer’s foray into multi-movement orchestral works, with a sparkling combination of wit and grace, ending the introductory Allegramente movement with a raised hand and faux-serious inquiry to the audience, “Was it any good?”
Read more here.
The Know: From sentimental to sensational: These 7 classical music happenings that will shape summer 2021
Classical music makes a nimble return to stages across the region this summer after a painful, pandemic-induced year off.
A sentimental note: “Seven O’Clock Shout,” the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bravo! Vail music festival, July 17
Composer Valerie Coleman calls her “Seven O’Clock Shout” musical anthem “a declaration of our survival.” The piece was first performed in a city that knows something about declarations when The Philadelphia Orchestra premiered it last summer. Coleman wrote it as a tribute to front-line health and safety workers and it recalls the nightly cheers that erupted around the country to thank them for their labor during the pandemic.
The Know
Ray Mark Rinaldi
Classical music makes a nimble return to stages across the region this summer after a painful, pandemic-induced year off. In some ways, things will be different, with venue changes and programming sure to serve as reminders of what we’ve all been through over the past 15 months. But in other ways it will be same, with the high level of premieres and performers that have come to define the world-class classical scene we are fortunate to have here. If you are looking for memorable moments, here are a few likely candidates.
“Seven O’Clock Shout,” the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bravo! Vail music festival, July 17.
Composer Valerie Coleman calls her “Seven O’Clock Shout” musical anthem “a declaration of our survival.” The piece was first performed in a city that knows something about declarations when The Philadelphia Orchestra premiered it last summer. Coleman wrote it as a tribute to front-line health and safety workers and it recalls the nightly cheers that erupted around the country to thank them for their labor during the pandemic.
Read more here.
United Hemispheres: Take in Classical Music and Mountain Scenery at These Summer Festivals
While artists and venues have tried to make due with virtual performances over the past year, nothing can replace the shared thrill of an in-person concert. That goes not only for pop stars but for orchestras. With music festivals set to make a comeback this summer, here are three orchestral concert series that send world-class musicians onto stages with spectacular Rocky Mountain backdrops.
United Hemispheres
Thomas May
While artists and venues have tried to make due with virtual performances over the past year, nothing can replace the shared thrill of an in-person concert. That goes not only for pop stars but for orchestras. With music festivals set to make a comeback this summer, here are three orchestral concert series that send world-class musicians onto stages with spectacular Rocky Mountain backdrops.
Sun Valley Music Festival
Famous for attracting Hollywood royalty (Ernest Hemingway, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger), Sun Valley, Idaho, is also home to the largest admission-free classical music festival in the U.S…
Bravo! Vail Music Festival
Set at the base of Vail’s ski runs, the open-air Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater provides a beautiful setting for the Bravo! Vail Music Festival…
Grand Teton Music Festival
Returning for its 60th season, the Grand Teton Music Festival once again graces Jackson Hole, Wyoming, right next to Grand Teton National Park.
Read more here.
BBC Music Magazine: Bartók • Beethoven • Dvorák: String Quartets (Juilliard String Quartet)
Bartók • Beethoven • Dvořák (5-star rating)
The Juilliard String Quartet celebrates its 75th anniversary this year– and here is the first recording with its most recent recruit, first violin Areta Zhulla. While its membership has changed over the decades, the quartet is still associated with the institution it is named after (all its members teach there), and its trademark tonal beauty, sensitively attuned ensemble and technical splendour is amply on show in this recording.
BBC Music Magazine
Jessica Duchen
Bartók • Beethoven • Dvořák (5-star rating)
Bartók: String Quartet No. 3; Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8, Op. 59 No. 2 ‘Rasumovsky’; Dvořák: String Quartet No. 12 ‘American’
The Juilliard String Quartet celebrates its 75th anniversary this year– and here is the first recording with its most recent recruit, first violin Areta Zhulla. While its membership has changed over the decades, the quartet is still associated with the institution it is named after (all its members teach there), and its trademark tonal beauty, sensitively attuned ensemble and technical splendour is amply on show in this recording.
Read more here.