Violin Channel: VC Artist Paul Huang to Join Taiwan Philharmonic on American Tour
Known in Taiwan as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Taiwan Philharmonic (NSO) is one of the first international orchestras to be presented by the New York Philharmonic in David Geffen Hall in its return to the U.S. this spring.
The NSO’s 2023 tour follows previous successful tours of the U.S. with violinist Cho-Liang Lin in 2016, and with pianist Stephen Hough and violinist Yu-Chien Tseng in 2018.
This year VC Artist violinist Paul Huang will join the NSO, and its music director Jun Märkl, for its David Geffen Hall debut on the tour’s last three days with Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy Op. 46.
Violin Channel
The Taiwan Philharmonic and conductor Jun Märkl will perform across New York City, Chicago, and Washington D.C. from April 14–23, 2023
Known in Taiwan as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Taiwan Philharmonic (NSO) is one of the first international orchestras to be presented by the New York Philharmonic in David Geffen Hall in its return to the U.S. this spring.
The NSO’s 2023 tour follows previous successful tours of the U.S. with violinist Cho-Liang Lin in 2016, and with pianist Stephen Hough and violinist Yu-Chien Tseng in 2018.
This year VC Artist violinist Paul Huang will join the NSO, and its music director Jun Märkl, for its David Geffen Hall debut on the tour’s last three days with Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy Op. 46.
The tour starts on April 14, 2023, in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, with a chamber music concert featuring members of the Taiwan Philharmonic & Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Read more here.
Photo: Marco Borggreve
KIOS-FM: The Omaha Symphony & Andy Akiho Celebrate Jun Kaneko With World Premier Performance
There’s a very special interdisciplinary collaboration between two time Grammy and Pulitzer-prize nominated composer Andy Akiho and internationally renowned local artist Jun Kaneko, who was honored with the 2021 International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Each movement of Akiho's new work is inspired by a particular type of Kaneko's sculptures. The musical piece is structured as movements for full symphony orchestra with interludes, during which Akiho will be playing Kaneko's multi-ton sculptures on-stage and on video. Akiho has been in residence multiple times over the past year in Omaha discovering the pitches for the sculptures and repurposing them as instruments. This will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience this work with the sculptures on-stage as performed by Akiho.
Omaha Public Radio KIOS-FM
By Mike Hogan
There’s a very special interdisciplinary collaboration between two time Grammy and Pulitzer-prize nominated composer Andy Akiho and internationally renowned local artist Jun Kaneko, who was honored with the 2021 International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Each movement of Akiho's new work is inspired by a particular type of Kaneko's sculptures. The musical piece is structured as movements for full symphony orchestra with interludes, during which Akiho will be playing Kaneko's multi-ton sculptures on-stage and on video. Akiho has been in residence multiple times over the past year in Omaha discovering the pitches for the sculptures and repurposing them as instruments. This will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience this work with the sculptures on-stage as performed by Akiho.
Read more here.
Idaho Mountain Express: Sun Valley Music Festival gets down to 'brass' tacks
The odd, oft-misquoted adage, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” points out how useless it is to define music in words.
Sun Valley Music Festival (SVMF) Director Alasdair Neale disagrees. But, it takes someone as knowledgeable and eloquent as Neale to harness the transcendence of music through the English language. And, only a rare professional can explain complex theory to a gathering of curious ears.
That’s exactly what he does in his beloved “Upbeat with Alasdair” sessions at The Community Library. Anyone who has sat in the Sun Valley Pavilion during a bombastic SVMF concert on a summer night has likely wondered how the many parts make a coherent, often beautiful whole. What really goes on behind the curtain to bring all this magic together?
Idaho Mountain Express
By Joey Thyne
The odd, oft-misquoted adage, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture” points out how useless it is to define music in words.
Sun Valley Music Festival (SVMF) Director Alasdair Neale disagrees. But, it takes someone as knowledgeable and eloquent as Neale to harness the transcendence of music through the English language. And, only a rare professional can explain complex theory to a gathering of curious ears.
That’s exactly what he does in his beloved “Upbeat with Alasdair” sessions at The Community Library. Anyone who has sat in the Sun Valley Pavilion during a bombastic SVMF concert on a summer night has likely wondered how the many parts make a coherent, often beautiful whole. What really goes on behind the curtain to bring all this magic together?
Read more here.
Gramophone: Video of the Day: Marc-André Hamelin plays Ives
Marc-André Hamelin performs 'Alcotts' from the Concord Sonata
Marc-André Hamelin has recorded Charles Ives's Concord Sonata on two occasions, the first recording (for New World Records) was singled out for praise by Philip Clark in his overview of the available recordings of the work for Gramophone, writing: 'Hamelin’s technique can take him places other pianists can’t reach'.
Gramophone
Marc-André Hamelin performs 'Alcotts' from the Concord Sonata
Marc-André Hamelin has recorded Charles Ives's Concord Sonata on two occasions, the first recording (for New World Records) was singled out for praise by Philip Clark in his overview of the available recordings of the work for Gramophone, writing: 'Hamelin’s technique can take him places other pianists can’t reach'.
Read more here.
Datebook: Review: Clarion Choir shines in a Berkeley oratorio performance
Most of us, if we’re being honest, go to classical musical events and keep our eyes and ears on the star performers — the lead singers, the instrumental soloists, the conductor. But sometimes the stars are elsewhere.
During the performance of Handel’s oratorio “Solomon” presented by Cal Performances on Sunday, March 5, in UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, the dazzling heroism came from the rear of the stage, where the chorus was arrayed.
Not that they got top billing. The headliner was the English Concert, the estimable British early-music ensemble led by conductor and harpsichordist Harry Bicket. Also on hand were a handful of established singers, including mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg in the title role of the biblical king, and soprano Miah Persson as his unnamed queen.
Yet Sunday’s 3½-hour offering came most vividly to life whenever the chorus got into the action. The Clarion Choir, led by Artistic Director Steven Fox, provided episode after episode of luxuriant and richly hued singing.
Datebook
By Joshua Kosman
Most of us, if we’re being honest, go to classical musical events and keep our eyes and ears on the star performers — the lead singers, the instrumental soloists, the conductor. But sometimes the stars are elsewhere.
During the performance of Handel’s oratorio “Solomon” presented by Cal Performances on Sunday, March 5, in UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, the dazzling heroism came from the rear of the stage, where the chorus was arrayed.
Not that they got top billing. The headliner was the English Concert, the estimable British early-music ensemble led by conductor and harpsichordist Harry Bicket. Also on hand were a handful of established singers, including mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg in the title role of the biblical king, and soprano Miah Persson as his unnamed queen.
Yet Sunday’s 3½-hour offering came most vividly to life whenever the chorus got into the action. The Clarion Choir, led by Artistic Director Steven Fox, provided episode after episode of luxuriant and richly hued singing.
Read more here.
New Sounds: Jennifer Grim at National Sawdust
Flutist Jennifer Grim is especially interested in recent works for the instrument, and her album Through Broken Time is a collection of Afro-modernist and post-minimalist compositions, mostly for flute and piano. But then there’s this work, called “Oxygen,” by New York composer Julia Wolfe, which calls for twelve flutes, from the high-pitched piccolo down to the hulking bass flute. On March 7, at National Sawdust, Jennifer Grim pre-records eleven of the flute parts and plays the twelfth part live, using that venue’s Meyer Sound spatial sound system to present a surround-sound version of the piece. Also on the program are works by Tania León, Alvin Singleton, David Sanford, and Allison Loggins-Hull.
New Sounds
By John Schaefer
Flutist Jennifer Grim is especially interested in recent works for the instrument, and her album Through Broken Time is a collection of Afro-modernist and post-minimalist compositions, mostly for flute and piano. But then there’s this work, called “Oxygen,” by New York composer Julia Wolfe, which calls for twelve flutes, from the high-pitched piccolo down to the hulking bass flute. On March 7, at National Sawdust, Jennifer Grim pre-records eleven of the flute parts and plays the twelfth part live, using that venue’s Meyer Sound spatial sound system to present a surround-sound version of the piece. Also on the program are works by Tania León, Alvin Singleton, David Sanford, and Allison Loggins-Hull.
Read more here.
The Guardian: The English Concert/Bicket review – Handel of grace and elan as Bicket takes us back to 1749 London
This recreation of the composer’s benefit concert for the Foundling Hospital was beautifully delivered
Harry Bicket and the English Concert have recently embarked on an extraordinary and ambitious project entitled Handel for All, the aim of which is to eventually make their own filmed performances of the composer’s entire output available free online. This Barbican concert essentially recreated an afternoon in May 1749, when Handel gave a benefit performance of his own works in aid of the Foundling Hospital in London. The programme, then as now, consisted of the Music for the Royal Fireworks, extracts from Solomon, and the Foundling Hospital Anthem, newly composed for the occasion, though much of it actually recycled existing material, including the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah.
The Guardian
By Tim Ashley
This recreation of the composer’s benefit concert for the Foundling Hospital was beautifully delivered
Harry Bicket and the English Concert have recently embarked on an extraordinary and ambitious project entitled Handel for All, the aim of which is to eventually make their own filmed performances of the composer’s entire output available free online. This Barbican concert essentially recreated an afternoon in May 1749, when Handel gave a benefit performance of his own works in aid of the Foundling Hospital in London. The programme, then as now, consisted of the Music for the Royal Fireworks, extracts from Solomon, and the Foundling Hospital Anthem, newly composed for the occasion, though much of it actually recycled existing material, including the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah.
Read more here.
Blogcritics: Concert Review: Ukrainian Pianist Illia Ovcharenko – Music of Liszt, Scarlatti, Silvestrov, Revutsky, Chopin
Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko dazzled an enthusiastic audience at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall on Sunday, showing NYC why at just 21 he was the laureate of the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition.
Ovcharenko is as thoughtful and exact in his concert programming as he is technically proficient and emotionally immersive at the keyboard. His first set centered on Franz Liszt’s challenging Sonata in B minor and bookended that vast opus with two Scarlatti sonatas in that same key, which set off and commented on the Liszt in interesting ways. In the second half he interspersed pieces by two Ukrainian composers, exercising his dynamic control in short works by Valentin Silvestrov and contextualizing Levko Revutsky’s late Romanticism with a Chopin Polonaise at the end.
Blogcritics
By Jon Sobel
Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko dazzled an enthusiastic audience at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall on Sunday, showing NYC why at just 21 he was the laureate of the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition.
Ovcharenko is as thoughtful and exact in his concert programming as he is technically proficient and emotionally immersive at the keyboard. His first set centered on Franz Liszt’s challenging Sonata in B minor and bookended that vast opus with two Scarlatti sonatas in that same key, which set off and commented on the Liszt in interesting ways. In the second half he interspersed pieces by two Ukrainian composers, exercising his dynamic control in short works by Valentin Silvestrov and contextualizing Levko Revutsky’s late Romanticism with a Chopin Polonaise at the end.
Read more here.
Photo Credit: Chris Lee
The Today Show: How one music program became instrumental in the lives of kids
The Harmony Program in New York City is helping level the playing field of musical education for kids by providing training in underserved communities. TODAY’s Craig Melvin sits down with the program’s founder, Anthony McGill, whose mission goes beyond music.
The Today Show
The Harmony Program in New York City is helping level the playing field of musical education for kids by providing training in underserved communities. TODAY’s Craig Melvin sits down with the program’s founder, Anthony McGill, whose mission goes beyond music.
Watch here.
Strings: New Dover Quartet Violist Julianne Lee Describes ‘Natural Synergy’ with Founding Members
Beginning in September 2023, Julianne Lee, currently assistant principal second violin of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal second violin with the Boston Pops, will take up her new role as violist of the Dover Quartet. She will join the founding members—violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee and cellist Camden Shaw—and replace Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, who left last August.
Lee began playing viola during her third year at Curtis, when she learned about Curtis’ Viola for Violinists program. The program led her to continue viola studies while she pursued her master’s degree at New England Conservatory, studying with violist Kim Kashkashian. Lee has since forged a career as both a violinist and violist, frequently appearing as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player.
Strings
By Laurence Vittes
Beginning in September 2023, Julianne Lee, currently assistant principal second violin of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal second violin with the Boston Pops, will take up her new role as violist of the Dover Quartet. She will join the founding members—violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee and cellist Camden Shaw—and replace Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, who left last August.
Lee began playing viola during her third year at Curtis, when she learned about Curtis’ Viola for Violinists program. The program led her to continue viola studies while she pursued her master’s degree at New England Conservatory, studying with violist Kim Kashkashian. Lee has since forged a career as both a violinist and violist, frequently appearing as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player.
Read more here.