Oregon Arts Watch: All Classical On the Move
The term “classical music radio” suggests revered, decades-old recordings of music by familiar, long-dead composers. You wouldn’t expect to associate it with 21st century music, Oregon performers and composers, young audiences, or, really, innovation. But while Portland’s All Classical radio’s airwaves and internet streams still abound with recordings of Old Masters, and likely always will, the station has lately been going way beyond its increasingly inaccurate name.
Oregon Arts Watch
By Brett Campbell
Portland’s ambitious, forward-looking classical music radio station is expanding its scope, creating space for live performances, and relocating to downtown Portland.
The term “classical music radio” suggests revered, decades-old recordings of music by familiar, long-dead composers. You wouldn’t expect to associate it with 21st century music, Oregon performers and composers, young audiences, or, really, innovation. But while Portland’s All Classical radio’s airwaves and internet streams still abound with recordings of Old Masters, and likely always will, the station has lately been going way beyond its increasingly inaccurate name.
And now, as its 40th anniversary approaches, the “independent, community-funded radio station and multimedia platform” (to use its own description) is moving even farther afield — literally. It’s crossing the Rubicon, or at least the Willamette, relocating its operations from the Portland Opera building on the east bank to an office tower in the heart of downtown Portland, and creating new, state-of-the-art production studios for broadcast, video, recordings, and live performances of music and theater by Oregon artists. Construction is underway, with the move-in expected in early 2024.
Read more here.
The New York Times: Illuminating Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, a Pinnacle of Russian Sacred Rep
In a classical music world obsessed with anniversaries, be they grand or modest, the 150th birthday of the Russian émigré composer Sergei Rachmaninoff has inevitably drawn notice. Just as inevitably, commemorations have tended to focus on his war horses: the symphonies, piano concertos and solo piano works.
It seems to have fallen to Steven Fox and his excellent choirs to tend to Rachmaninoff’s motley but treasurable body of choral works. The sacred ones, particularly — with their flowing yet restrained lyricism and none of the bombast or sentimentality often associated with the composer — represent the very best of Rachmaninoff.
The New York Times
By James R. Oestreich
Steven Fox and the Clarion Choir are tending to a less well-known part of the composer’s canon for his 150th birthday: His choral works.
In a classical music world obsessed with anniversaries, be they grand or modest, the 150th birthday of the Russian émigré composer Sergei Rachmaninoff has inevitably drawn notice. Just as inevitably, commemorations have tended to focus on his war horses: the symphonies, piano concertos and solo piano works.
It seems to have fallen to Steven Fox and his excellent choirs to tend to Rachmaninoff’s motley but treasurable body of choral works. The sacred ones, particularly — with their flowing yet restrained lyricism and none of the bombast or sentimentality often associated with the composer — represent the very best of Rachmaninoff.
On Wednesday, Fox, the artistic director of the New York-based Clarion Music Society, will return to his alma mater — Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H. — to lead the Clarion Choir in Rachmaninoff’s exquisite All-Night Vigil, a pinnacle of the rich Russian Orthodox repertory. They will repeat the performance on Friday at Carnegie Hall.
Read more here.
Blogcritics: Concert Review (NYC): Taiwan Philharmonic, Paul Huang – Music of Bruch, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Ke-Chia Chen
The Taiwan Philharmonic’s concert at Lincoln Center on Friday night was a festive affair. Conductor Jun Märkl brought sweeping majesty to Debussy’s La Mer and Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. Violinist Paul Huang dazzled with Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra. And the concert opened with a spectacular new piece by Taiwanese composer Ke-Chia Chen titled Ebb and Flow, written for the orchestra’s current tour.
Sometimes you can tell when musicians are really delighted to be where they are. There was that sense of excitement on the stage at David Geffen Hall, matching the enthusiasm bubbling in the audience. Musicians crowded the stage wall-to-wall, and you could feel positive energy emanating from them as individuals as well as collectively. The program’s theme was islands and oceans, but the feeling was homey, like a huge family reunion.
Blogcritics
By Jon Sobel
The Taiwan Philharmonic’s concert at Lincoln Center on Friday night was a festive affair. Conductor Jun Märkl brought sweeping majesty to Debussy’s La Mer and Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. Violinist Paul Huang dazzled with Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra. And the concert opened with a spectacular new piece by Taiwanese composer Ke-Chia Chen titled Ebb and Flow, written for the orchestra’s current tour.
Sometimes you can tell when musicians are really delighted to be where they are. There was that sense of excitement on the stage at David Geffen Hall, matching the enthusiasm bubbling in the audience. Musicians crowded the stage wall-to-wall, and you could feel positive energy emanating from them as individuals as well as collectively. The program’s theme was islands and oceans, but the feeling was homey, like a huge family reunion.
Read more here.
Houston Chronicle: Houston's Windsync quintet brings back multi-site music fest that begins Tuesday
Playing more than 100 dates out of town each year has taken Windsync to some interesting places, but it’s hard to beat where the Houston-based wind quintet found themselves last November. They checked into London’s Abbey Road Studios to record an album of pieces by Seattle-based composer Miguel del Aguila, which the group hopes to release later this year.
It was a little like recording in a museum, explains bassoonist and artistic director Kara LaMoure.
Houston Chronicle
By Chris Gray
Playing more than 100 dates out of town each year has taken Windsync to some interesting places, but it’s hard to beat where the Houston-based wind quintet found themselves last November. They checked into London’s Abbey Road Studios to record an album of pieces by Seattle-based composer Miguel del Aguila, which the group hopes to release later this year.
It was a little like recording in a museum, explains bassoonist and artistic director Kara LaMoure.
Read more here.
SYMPHONY MAGAZINE: YOUTH ON THE RISE
After the New York Youth Symphony submitted its debut album in the Best Orchestral Performance category for the 2022 Grammy Awards, neither the young musicians nor their music director, Michael Repper, thought they’d edge out competition like the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. Yet in February, the fresh-faced ensemble became the first youth orchestra to be awarded a Grammy, winning with a recording of music by Black women.
Symphony Magazine
By Vivien Schweitzer
After the New York Youth Symphony submitted its debut album in the Best Orchestral Performance category for the 2022 Grammy Awards, neither the young musicians nor their music director, Michael Repper, thought they’d edge out competition like the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. Yet in February, the fresh-faced ensemble became the first youth orchestra to be awarded a Grammy, winning with a recording of music by Black women.
The album, which reached #1 on Billboard’s “Traditional Classical Albums” chart, features the first recording by an American orchestra of Florence Price’s Ethiopia’s Shadow in America (1932). It also includes Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement (1934) with soloist Michelle Cann. The NYYS had been scheduled to perform the work with Cann at Carnegie Hall in the spring of 2020, but after the pandemic shuttered concert halls Repper decided instead to record it with Cann.
Read more here.
BBC Music Magazine: The Clarion Choir: East Meets West
For Steven Fox, music director of The Clarion Choir, Rachmaninov’s anniversary year presents the perfect opportunity to celebrate the composer’s often overlooked choral music, as he tells Charlotte Smith.
'In the darkest days of the pandemic, as I was sitting at home, it occurred to me that 2023 would be a significant year – the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninov’s birth. Would I live to see another anniversary of such importance? Perhaps if I lived to 90! So, I thought to myself, “If we ever get though this, I’m going to celebrate properly.”’
Steven Fox, music director of New York’s Clarion Choir, is speaking to me in a restaurant just a stone’s throw away from 505 West End Avenue, the stately New York apartment where Rachmaninov and his wife Natalia eventually settled after fleeing the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Fox is telling me about his very special project for 2023 – to conduct all of Rachmaninov’s major choral works. ‘I had no worries that orchestras would celebrate the symphonies and that pianists would perform the concertos, but so little attention is given to his choral works in general,’ he continues, ‘and they were his favourite works. The two works he was most proud of at the end of his life were the All-Night Vigil and The Bells – he even requested that part of the Vigil be sung at his funeral.’
BBC Music Magazine
By Charlotte Smith
For Steven Fox, music director of The Clarion Choir, Rachmaninov’s anniversary year presents the perfect opportunity to celebrate the composer’s often overlooked choral music, as he tells Charlotte Smith.
'In the darkest days of the pandemic, as I was sitting at home, it occurred to me that 2023 would be a significant year – the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninov’s birth. Would I live to see another anniversary of such importance? Perhaps if I lived to 90! So, I thought to myself, “If we ever get through this, I’m going to celebrate properly.”’
Steven Fox, music director of New York’s Clarion Choir, is speaking to me in a restaurant just a stone’s throw away from 505 West End Avenue, the stately New York apartment where Rachmaninov and his wife Natalia eventually settled after fleeing the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Fox is telling me about his very special project for 2023 – to conduct all of Rachmaninov’s major choral works. ‘I had no worries that orchestras would celebrate the symphonies and that pianists would perform the concertos, but so little attention is given to his choral works in general,’ he continues, ‘and they were his favourite works. The two works he was most proud of at the end of his life were the All-Night Vigil and The Bells – he even requested that part of the Vigil be sung at his funeral.’
Read more here.
Photo Credit: Isabelle Provost
Musical America: New Artist of the Month: Conductor Sameer Patel
As he describes the career choices that have led to his current position, Sameer Patel refers to a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: “‘It’s better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another’—in other words, to follow your own virtue or path or journey.”
The San Diego-based conductor is reminded of this ancient advice when discussing how the pandemic influenced his decision to take over last year as artistic director of the San Diego Youth Symphony (SDYS). “One thing it awakened was a desire to go by my own playbook of what will bring me happiness,” he explained during a recent Zoom interview. “I’ve found that this involves a balance between working with students, traveling to exchange with different orchestras as a guest conductor, and being at home with my family.”
Musical America
By Thomas May
As he describes the career choices that have led to his current position, Sameer Patel refers to a verse from the Bhagavad Gita: “‘It’s better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another’—in other words, to follow your own virtue or path or journey.”
The San Diego-based conductor is reminded of this ancient advice when discussing how the pandemic influenced his decision to take over last year as artistic director of the San Diego Youth Symphony (SDYS). “One thing it awakened was a desire to go by my own playbook of what will bring me happiness,” he explained during a recent Zoom interview. “I’ve found that this involves a balance between working with students, traveling to exchange with different orchestras as a guest conductor, and being at home with my family.”
Patel already showed a strong inclination to follow his own path while growing up in Port Huron, Michigan, just across from the Canadian border. His Indian American parents encouraged him to study music as an extracurricular activity that would promote well-roundedness. But they didn’t expect this to turn into a serious passion and were surprised when their son announced his determination to become a professional musician.
Read more here.
I Care If You Listen: Andy Akiho Wrings New Sounds out of Colossal Sculptures
A massive bronze head, with loops jutting out from every crevice of its face, sits amongst the orchestra at The Holland Performing Arts Center, in Omaha, Neb. Though it may not look like it at first glance, the glimmering sculpture, created by Jun Kaneko, is another instrument waiting to be played, a cavernous object that holds within it a psychedelic spectrum of sound.
Composer and percussionist Andy Akiho has spent the better part of a year playing this head and other works by Kaneko, getting to know their pitches and textures. His piece Sculptures, which premiered at the Holland on March 17 and 18, reacts to and implements Kaneko’s art in nine evocative movements that seesaw between orchestra, video, and live sculpture playing. It was commissioned as part of the Omaha Symphony’s annual gala, which honored Kaneko and his wife Ree with the Dick and Mary Holland Leadership Award.
I Care If You Listen
By Vanessa Ague
A massive bronze head, with loops jutting out from every crevice of its face, sits amongst the orchestra at The Holland Performing Arts Center, in Omaha, Neb. Though it may not look like it at first glance, the glimmering sculpture, created by Jun Kaneko, is another instrument waiting to be played, a cavernous object that holds within it a psychedelic spectrum of sound.
Composer and percussionist Andy Akiho has spent the better part of a year playing this head and other works by Kaneko, getting to know their pitches and textures. His piece Sculptures, which premiered at the Holland on March 17 and 18, reacts to and implements Kaneko’s art in nine evocative movements that seesaw between orchestra, video, and live sculpture playing. It was commissioned as part of the Omaha Symphony’s annual gala, which honored Kaneko and his wife Ree with the Dick and Mary Holland Leadership Award.
Read more here.
Photo Credit: Casey Wood
The Post and Courier: Charleston’s classical scene rises ‘Under an Indigo Sky’ with Billboard No. 2 spot
Charleston’s claim to classical fame has reached a new crescendo.
Composer Edward Hart’s new recording, “Under an Indigo Sky,” has come out on a high note, hitting the No. 2 spot on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Album ranking.
The recording, released by Navona Records, includes two original works by Hart, a Charleston native.
A violin concerto, “Under an Indigo Sky” was written expressly for and features Charleston Symphony’s artistic director and concertmaster Yuriy Bekker as soloist and folds in the composer’s impressions of various regions of South Carolina.
The Post and Courier
By Maura Hogan
Charleston’s claim to classical fame has reached a new crescendo.
Composer Edward Hart’s new recording, “Under an Indigo Sky,” has come out on a high note, hitting the No. 2 spot on Billboard’s Traditional Classical Album ranking.
The recording, released by Navona Records, includes two original works by Hart, a Charleston native.
A violin concerto, “Under an Indigo Sky” was written expressly for and features Charleston Symphony’s artistic director and concertmaster Yuriy Bekker as soloist and folds in the composer’s impressions of various regions of South Carolina.
“A Charleston Concerto” spotlights the Grammy Award-winning Harlem Quartet in performance with Charleston Symphony, conducted by Ken Lam, during the CSO’s 2021-22 season and homes in on the past, present and future of Charleston, layering in the rhythms and cultural touchstones of the locale.
Read more here.
The San Diego Union-Tribune: Pandemic pivots enrich orchestral director Sameer Patel’s family, career
Before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, Sameer Patel was set to be at the podium of several orchestras across the country. But suddenly, he went from leading 60 to100 musicians in front of enthusiastic audiences to conducting an orchestra of one.
With all his gigs canceled, Patel, 40, stayed home with his 2-year-old son, Devan, whose preschool had closed. Patel’s wife, Shannon, a memory-care specialist, is an essential worker. After two or three weeks of caring for Devan, Sameer decided to become his teacher.
The San Diego Union-Tribune
By Beth Wood
Before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, Sameer Patel was set to be at the podium of several orchestras across the country. But suddenly, he went from leading 60 to100 musicians in front of enthusiastic audiences to conducting an orchestra of one.
With all his gigs canceled, Patel, 40, stayed home with his 2-year-old son, Devan, whose preschool had closed. Patel’s wife, Shannon, a memory-care specialist, is an essential worker. After two or three weeks of caring for Devan, Sameer decided to become his teacher.
“I threw myself into it and consider it my greatest accomplishment of my life — teaching my son for nine months,” Patel recalled, speaking from his family’s Bankers Hill home. “I drew up lesson plans — I’d talk to my mother-in-law, a retired kindergarten teacher. I’d find little themes — volcanoes, bridges. Balboa Park became our backyard.
Read more here.
Photo: Brittany Cruz-Fejeran