Gramophone: Video of the Day: VOCES8 and the National Children's Chorus perform 'Homeward Bound'
A truly ethereal sound from a combined choir of over 300 singers
Three minutes of solace is on offer in today's Video of the Day from the National Children's Chorus of the United States. The three hundred strong choir is joined by the internationally-acclaimed VOCES8 in a performance of Homeward Bound from a concert this July at the St John's Smith Square in London.
Gramophone
By Jonathan Whiting
A truly ethereal sound from a combined choir of over 300 singers
Three minutes of solace is on offer in today's Video of the Day from the National Children's Chorus of the United States. The three hundred strong choir is joined by the internationally-acclaimed VOCES8 in a performance of Homeward Bound from a concert this July at the St John's Smith Square in London.
Watch here.
The New York Times: Making Sweet, and Bittersweet, Music Together
A bite of bruschetta helped lay the foundation for the relationship between the conductor Michael Repper and Vanessa Moody. That honesty served them well when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Michael Eric Repper’s history of unflagging devotion to a narrow set of passions dates back to the early 1990s when, as a 3-year-old, he snapped to attention the moment the orchestra kicked in at a classical music concert. By the time he had reached his early 20s, another of his select few passions was consuming him: his relationship with his girlfriend, Vanessa Rodrigues Moody.
Dr. Repper, now 33, became the youngest American to win a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance this year, and Ms. Moody, 31, a lawyer with the global law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, met and began dating in April 2013 as students at Stanford.
Six months later, when she was a senior and he had graduated and moved to Baltimore to start a doctoral degree in music, neither was sure what would become of their budding romance. But on April 14, 2014, she called to tell him she had been diagnosed with a rare brain tumor the size of a tangerine and asked whether he wanted out of the relationship. Both knew then it was built to last.
“I was terrified,” Dr. Repper said. “But I was also all in.”
The New York Times
By Tammy LaGorce
A bite of bruschetta helped lay the foundation for the relationship between the conductor Michael Repper and Vanessa Moody. That honesty served them well when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Michael Eric Repper’s history of unflagging devotion to a narrow set of passions dates back to the early 1990s when, as a 3-year-old, he snapped to attention the moment the orchestra kicked in at a classical music concert. By the time he had reached his early 20s, another of his select few passions was consuming him: his relationship with his girlfriend, Vanessa Rodrigues Moody.
Dr. Repper, now 33, became the youngest American to win a Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance this year, and Ms. Moody, 31, a lawyer with the global law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, met and began dating in April 2013 as students at Stanford.
Six months later, when she was a senior and he had graduated and moved to Baltimore to start a doctoral degree in music, neither was sure what would become of their budding romance. But on April 14, 2014, she called to tell him she had been diagnosed with a rare brain tumor the size of a tangerine and asked whether he wanted out of the relationship. Both knew then it was built to last.
“I was terrified,” Dr. Repper said. “But I was also all in.”
Read more here.
San Francisco Classical Voice: Anthony McGill Graces Oakland Symphony With Anthony Davis Concerto
The Oakland Symphony has never let its under-$3-million budget cramp its thinking. It’s still an orchestra on a social equity mission, which you could see from the highly diverse audience at Friday night’s concert at the Paramount Theatre and from the title of the concert itself: “Truth to Power.”
Since the orchestra is still in search mode for a new music director, critical eyes were cast upon the evening’s conductor, Jeri Lynne Johnson. She has an impressive resume, giving well-received guest appearances, founding the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, and winning the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2005. She’s a direct presence on the podium, all business and no extra movements. She had the orchestra’s attention, leading a crisp reading of Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture to start. And she was more impressive leading Anthony Davis’s clarinet concerto You Have the Right to Remain Silent. I’d give her high marks for her conducting work.
You might not expect a high-powered soloist like Anthony McGill — 2024 Grammy nominee, a performer at former President Barack Obama’s first inaugural, principal of the New York Philharmonic — to sit in with the Oakland Symphony. That is, you wouldn’t expect it if you don’t follow the orchestra or McGill. Since learning this piece for a performance with the Cincinnati Symphony (available on YouTube), he’s made it his own cause and played it in Boston, Detroit, New York, Miami, and finally here. He’s also done a couple of interviews about it.
San Francisco Classical Voice
By Michael Zwiebach
The Oakland Symphony has never let its under-$3-million budget cramp its thinking. It’s still an orchestra on a social equity mission, which you could see from the highly diverse audience at Friday night’s concert at the Paramount Theatre and from the title of the concert itself: “Truth to Power.”
Since the orchestra is still in search mode for a new music director, critical eyes were cast upon the evening’s conductor, Jeri Lynne Johnson. She has an impressive resume, giving well-received guest appearances, founding the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, and winning the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2005. She’s a direct presence on the podium, all business and no extra movements. She had the orchestra’s attention, leading a crisp reading of Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture to start. And she was more impressive leading Anthony Davis’s clarinet concerto You Have the Right to Remain Silent. I’d give her high marks for her conducting work.
You might not expect a high-powered soloist like Anthony McGill — 2024 Grammy nominee, a performer at former President Barack Obama’s first inaugural, principal of the New York Philharmonic — to sit in with the Oakland Symphony. That is, you wouldn’t expect it if you don’t follow the orchestra or McGill. Since learning this piece for a performance with the Cincinnati Symphony (available on YouTube), he’s made it his own cause and played it in Boston, Detroit, New York, Miami, and finally here. He’s also done a couple of interviews about it.
Read more here.
The Daily Beast: How Anthony Davis Put Malcolm X, and Black Power, Center Stage
Pulitzer-winning composer Anthony Davis on Malcolm X at the Met, challenging racism in opera, championing Black power in his work—and why artists must “step up” against bigotry.
In the opera, X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, to Dec. 2), the iconic title character sings, “As long as I’ve been living, you’ve had your foot on me, always pressing,” and “You’ve had your foot on me a very long time.” The words may have been written in 1986, but, as its composer Anthony Davis told The Daily Beast, they are piercingly prescient for baritone Will Liverman to sing in 2023.
“That’s George Floyd, that’s the image,” Davis said. “Unfortunately, that cycle of violence still exists, and it existed prior to Malcolm too. On stage you see the names of all the victims of that history of racist violence. That violence has always been with us; it is part of the legacy to slavery too. The opera puts it in a larger historical context, and then has a cathartic release too.”
Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his 2019 opera The Central Park Five, based on the high-profile 1989 case of five Black and Hispanic teenagers convicted and later exonerated of attacking a female jogger in Central Park. He is only the second Black composer to have their work presented by the Met. X—with a libretto by Thulani Davis, Anthony’s Grammy Award-winning cousin and longtime collaborator, and a story by his brother Christopher—premiered at New York City Opera in 1986, and it was “very exciting” to finally see it staged at the Met, said Davis.
The Daily Beast
By Tim Teeman
Pulitzer-winning composer Anthony Davis on Malcolm X at the Met, challenging racism in opera, championing Black power in his work—and why artists must “step up” against bigotry.
In the opera, X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, to Dec. 2), the iconic title character sings, “As long as I’ve been living, you’ve had your foot on me, always pressing,” and “You’ve had your foot on me a very long time.” The words may have been written in 1986, but, as its composer Anthony Davis told The Daily Beast, they are piercingly prescient for baritone Will Liverman to sing in 2023.
“That’s George Floyd, that’s the image,” Davis said. “Unfortunately, that cycle of violence still exists, and it existed prior to Malcolm too. On stage you see the names of all the victims of that history of racist violence. That violence has always been with us; it is part of the legacy to slavery too. The opera puts it in a larger historical context, and then has a cathartic release too.”
Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his 2019 opera The Central Park Five, based on the high-profile 1989 case of five Black and Hispanic teenagers convicted and later exonerated of attacking a female jogger in Central Park. He is only the second Black composer to have their work presented by the Met. X—with a libretto by Thulani Davis, Anthony’s Grammy Award-winning cousin and longtime collaborator, and a story by his brother Christopher—premiered at New York City Opera in 1986, and it was “very exciting” to finally see it staged at the Met, said Davis.
Read more here.
The Daily Northwestern: A feast of pianistic fantasy: Yulianna Avdeeva enchants with Chopin and Rachmaninoff
Against the lustrous backdrop of Lake Michigan, pianist Yulianna Avdeeva took the Galvin Recital Hall audience on a journey of imagination and rumination through the music of Frédéric Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
The winner of the prestigious 2010 International Chopin Competition, Avdeeva performed as part of Bienen School of Music’s Skyline Piano Artist Series.
Avdeeva opened with Chopin’s “Polonaise-Fantasie.” Rather than emphasizing the “Polonaise” — a traditional Polish dance — Avdeeva let dance rhythms accompany the wandering melodies and frequent tempo changes of the “Fantasie.” Sometimes Avdeeva’s right and left hands were subtly offset, an imaginative touch that created a sense of exploration.
The following piece, Chopin’s “Barcarolle,” a reimagination of Venetian boat songs, exemplified Avdeeva’s characteristic restraint and subdued grandeur.
After a nuanced, poignant performance of Chopin’s “Prelude in C-sharp minor,” Avdeeva launched without pause to his “Scherzo No. 3.” The interplay between serene spontaneity and tumultuous outbursts in the Scherzo mirrored the imaginative and fiery performance of Rachmaninoff that would come later.
The Daily Northwestern
By Ben Kim
Against the lustrous backdrop of Lake Michigan, pianist Yulianna Avdeeva took the Galvin Recital Hall audience on a journey of imagination and rumination through the music of Frédéric Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
The winner of the prestigious 2010 International Chopin Competition, Avdeeva performed as part of Bienen School of Music’s Skyline Piano Artist Series.
Avdeeva opened with Chopin’s “Polonaise-Fantasie.” Rather than emphasizing the “Polonaise” — a traditional Polish dance — Avdeeva let dance rhythms accompany the wandering melodies and frequent tempo changes of the “Fantasie.” Sometimes Avdeeva’s right and left hands were subtly offset, an imaginative touch that created a sense of exploration.
The following piece, Chopin’s “Barcarolle,” a reimagination of Venetian boat songs, exemplified Avdeeva’s characteristic restraint and subdued grandeur.
After a nuanced, poignant performance of Chopin’s “Prelude in C-sharp minor,” Avdeeva launched without pause to his “Scherzo No. 3.” The interplay between serene spontaneity and tumultuous outbursts in the Scherzo mirrored the imaginative and fiery performance of Rachmaninoff that would come later.
Read more here.
KUSC Classical Californians: Sameer Patel
Our Classical Californian this week is Sameer Patel, Music Director and Orchestra Conductor of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus. He’s also the Artistic Director of the San Diego Youth Symphony, and was named by Musical America “New Artist of the Month” this past April. He’s chosen a selection of pieces including a late Beethoven String Quartet, a choral work of empowerment by Caroline Shaw, an anguished song by Osvaldo Golijov. and more. There’s even a solo piano cover of a song by David Bowie.
KUSC
Our Classical Californian this week is Sameer Patel, Music Director and Orchestra Conductor of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus. He’s also the Artistic Director of the San Diego Youth Symphony, and was named by Musical America “New Artist of the Month” this past April. He’s chosen a selection of pieces including a late Beethoven String Quartet, a choral work of empowerment by Caroline Shaw, an anguished song by Osvaldo Golijov. and more. There’s even a solo piano cover of a song by David Bowie.
Listen to highlights here.
The New York Times: Anthony Davis’s Malcolm X Opera Finally Arrives at the Met
The epigraph of Anthony Davis’s opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” is a quote from an interview in which, asked about the cost of freedom, Malcolm responds, “The cost of freedom is death.”
That tension — between hope and reality, between liberation and limitation — courses through a new production of “X” that opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, in the work’s company premiere. This staging dreams of a better future, with a towering Afrofuturist spaceship that, at the beginning, appears to be calling Malcolm X home. But the beam-me-up rays of light are pulled away to reveal a floating proscenium, gilded at the edges and decorated with a landscape mural. It is a replica of the podium at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, where he was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965.
The New York Times
By Joshua Barone
The epigraph of Anthony Davis’s opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” is a quote from an interview in which, asked about the cost of freedom, Malcolm responds, “The cost of freedom is death.”
That tension — between hope and reality, between liberation and limitation — courses through a new production of “X” that opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, in the work’s company premiere. This staging dreams of a better future, with a towering Afrofuturist spaceship that, at the beginning, appears to be calling Malcolm X home. But the beam-me-up rays of light are pulled away to reveal a floating proscenium, gilded at the edges and decorated with a landscape mural. It is a replica of the podium at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, where he was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965.
Read more here.
The New York Times: The Family That Turned Malcolm X’s Life Into Opera
“X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which arrives at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, was a family affair. The meditative yet dramatic work has a score by Anthony Davis to a scenario by his younger brother, Christopher Davis, and a libretto by their cousin Thulani Davis.
When they were working on the opera, in the early 1980s, the three were living in New York. Christopher appeared as Malcolm X in a play in Jamaica, Queens, and Anthony was playing experimental, improvised music in ensembles alongside Thulani’s poetry in productions downtown.
“There was a lot of energy in the air,” Christopher, 70, said in a recent interview at the Met alongside Anthony, 72 — with Thulani, 74, joining by video from her home in Madison, Wis.
The New York Times
By Zachary Woolfe
“X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which arrives at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, was a family affair. The meditative yet dramatic work has a score by Anthony Davis to a scenario by his younger brother, Christopher Davis, and a libretto by their cousin Thulani Davis.
When they were working on the opera, in the early 1980s, the three were living in New York. Christopher appeared as Malcolm X in a play in Jamaica, Queens, and Anthony was playing experimental, improvised music in ensembles alongside Thulani’s poetry in productions downtown.
…
ANTHONY DAVIS When we moved to New York, Thulani and I were part of this scene of music and poetry, what were called choreopoems; Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls” was the most famous. And Thulani and I worked with Ntozake and Jessica Hagedorn on “Where the Mississippi Meets the Amazon.” We ran at the Public Theater for several months.
Read more here.
Gramophone: Video of the Day: Weiyin Chen performs Mozart at London Fashion Week
Pianist and fashion designer brings the worlds of music and haute couture together
Today's video of the day takes us to London Fashion week where pianist and designer Weiyin Chen gave a piano recital with a couture twist. The international pianist performed at the ballroom at the Savile Club in Mayfair surrounded by a total of nine concert gowns designed by Chen herself based on each of the works in the recital. Between each piece she changed into the gown that represented the relevant work.
Gramophone
Pianist and fashion designer brings the worlds of music and haute couture together.
Today's video of the day takes us to London Fashion week where pianist and designer Weiyin Chen gave a piano recital with a couture twist. The international pianist performed at the ballroom at the Savile Club in Mayfair surrounded by a total of nine concert gowns designed by Chen herself based on each of the works in the recital. Between each piece she changed into the gown that represented the relevant work.
Read more here.
Oregon Arts Watch: Choose your own adventure: Oboist Ben Price talks about their life at the Curtis Institute of Music
Discussing American and European oboe styles, musical studies, dry halls and the Curtis Sound with the Portland-raised musician.
Ben Price, age 19, is an oboist in their second year of studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where they hold the Anderson and Daria Pew Fellowship at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Price performs as a member of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and as a soloist and chamber musician in the Curtis Student Recital Series.
…
Oregon ArtsWatch: What led you to playing the oboe?
Ben Price: I had a couple of false starts. I played violin for about five minutes when I was three, but I was more interested in the keychain around my violin teacher’s neck than the violin. I started playing piano when I was five, but the practicing aspect of that turned me off initially. Then I really started studying piano when I was eight. I studied piano with oboe for nine or ten years. We all take piano lessons here at Curtis once a week as well. So, I still study piano, but it became clear pretty early on that oboe would become my primary instrument, especially after I heard a recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Scheherazade. That really got to me.
Oregon Arts Watch
By James Bash
Discussing American and European oboe styles, musical studies, dry halls and the Curtis Sound with the Portland-raised musician.
Ben Price, age 19, is an oboist in their second year of studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where they hold the Anderson and Daria Pew Fellowship at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. Price performs as a member of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and as a soloist and chamber musician in the Curtis Student Recital Series.
…
Oregon ArtsWatch: What led you to playing the oboe?
Ben Price: I had a couple of false starts. I played violin for about five minutes when I was three, but I was more interested in the keychain around my violin teacher’s neck than the violin. I started playing piano when I was five, but the practicing aspect of that turned me off initially. Then I really started studying piano when I was eight. I studied piano with oboe for nine or ten years. We all take piano lessons here at Curtis once a week as well. So, I still study piano, but it became clear pretty early on that oboe would become my primary instrument, especially after I heard a recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Scheherazade. That really got to me.
Read more here.