Classical Music

Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Radio

Parker from Orpheus to WQXR

For the past eight years, Graham Parker has been the Executive Director of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Now, he’s going to work for New York’s classical music radio station.

It was announced today that Parker will be the new Vice President of Classical WQXR 105.9 FM and WQXR online. It appears that he’s been tasked with helping the station to develop its brand identity. For those who aren’t “New Yawkers,” this may require some explanation.

In 2009, New York’s National Public Radio Station WNYC acquired WQXR from the New York Times. WQXR’s frequency, 96.3 FM, was in turn traded to Univision’s WCAA, moving the classical station further up the bandwidth to 105.9. For those of us out in the ‘burbs, this has made it more difficult in many areas to get the station. Coverage routinely goes in and out on my commute down to Princeton as I get further from the city.

While signal weakness has been a concern for many listeners, there have been other growing pains associated with the move as well. Some of the music programming previously on WNYC, which was considered the station for more cutting edge fare, has been moved over to WQXR. Some longtime DJs from WQXR were kept on; others were let go to make room for their counterparts on WNYC. As a public radio station, WQXR also jettisoned commercials and religious programs.

The marriage of mainstream classical and public radio’s eclecticism has been a challenging balance to negotiate. The station’s 2009-’10 programming doubtless left a number of longtime WQXR listeners unhappy at the increased incorporation of new music into its mainstream broadcasts. WNYC listeners who hoped for the eclectic and innovative types of music heard on programs such as Soundcheck and New Sounds to be writ large on the rest of the schedule have probably been bummed out too. They’ve been subjected to far more Vivaldi and Telemann than they consider healthy!

A bright spot has been the station’s online new music programing at Q2. This week, they’re spotlighting the music of Xenakis. While one understands that this probably isn’t their best bet for “drive-time” fare, its too bad that more of Q2 hasn’t infiltrated the airwaves.

One hopes that enlisting Mr. Parker helps the station to find its footing and reassert the importance of classical radio – contemporary music and repertory favorites alike – in New York.

So, Sequenza 21 readers, its your turn. What should Parker focus on to make WQXR a better station?

A) Better signal quality/range/accessibility.

B) A more coherent vision for music programming.

C) Local identity and live events.

D) Limiting the amount of Vivaldi bassoon concerti played during any given four-hour period to no more than three.

E) More Nadia Sirota, all the time.

by Christian Carey
CDs, Classical Music, Composers, Conductors, File Under?, Los Angeles

The Kids are All Rite

Rite

Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Deutsche Grammophon CD

True, Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps is a watershed work. It serves as many a classical listener’s jumping off point when first exploring Twentieth Century repertoire. But can a work, no matter how seminal, have too many recordings? Can it get programmed so often on concerts that it loses its zing?

I have several recordings of the piece myself, but I’d begun to wonder in the past couple years whether the Rite was in danger of being overexposed. And I’m not the only one…

Enter young conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his even younger colleagues from the Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Their version of the Rite is viscerally powerful, rhythmically muscular, and impressively wide in its dynamic range. After getting a bit burnt out by the piece and its attendant folklore, I’m refreshed by hearing Dudamel’s rendition.

In a clever programming touch, the Stravinsky is paired with Silvestre Revueltas’ La Noche de los Mayas. Originally a 1939 film score, a concert suite of the work was only fashioned some two decades after Revueltas’ death. Latin dance signatures and melodic inflections are offset by virtuosic percussion writing, including some cadenzas that help to make evident the musical kinship between Rite of Spring and La Noche de los Mayas.

The sociocultural resonances are obvious as well. It might seem gruesome to pair works based on their common interest in human sacrifice, but Rite restores the vitality and bite of early modernism’s interest in still-earlier primitivism.

by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Composers

Rude Question of the Week–Is Nico Overrated?

One of my two favorite young conductors, Brad Lubman (the other is Alan Pearson) is leading the large ensemble Signal in the American premier of The Corridor by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, one of the most prominent figures in European contemporary music, at Merkin on May 27.  A 40-minute scena, The Corridor is scored for two voices, soprano and tenor, and an ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and a harp functioning as an Orphic lyre.

The highlight of the evening, however, is apparently the world premiere of Stabat Mater by the seemingly inevitable Nico Muhly.

Which leads to this week’s rude question: is Nico Muhly a) the dreams and prayers of a grateful music world or b) not so much?  Discuss.

by Jerry Bowles
CDs, Classical Music, Composers, File Under?

Out Today: Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasión

For those who think that DG’s days of deluxe packaging are over, one only need check out one of today’s releases, Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasión segun San Marcos to realize that, given the right project, the imprint is up for going all out. The box includes the debut 2xCD studio recording of a revised edition of the work alongside a handsomely filmed semi-staged version on DVD. (A trailer for the film is below).


Premiered in 2000 (a live recording was released by Haenssler), La Pasión is an ebulliently eclectic composition. Golijov blends a number of styles: Latin American, Afro-Cuban, and postmodern contemporary classical. Catholic iconography, liturgical dance, and Yoruba rituals all play a role in the work’s visual and aural melange.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvTiWPV2da0[/youtube]

by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Composers, Recordings

Seeing what was coming right from the start

Composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900, of Gilbert & Sullivan fame) happened to be one of the earliest voices captured, in 1888, by Thomas Edison’s then-new wax-cylinder recording machine. Invited to dinner at Edison’s London outpost, Little Menlo, Sullivan recorded this small but prescient speech (which you can hear thanks to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park):

” . . . For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening’s experiment — astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. ”

[Thanks to wonderful pianist Seda Röder for the tip. The complete Edison archive can be found here.]

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Composers

Lawrence Dillon’s The Infinite Sphere Debuts

Our own Lawrence Dillon’s The Infinite Sphere will be given its World Premiere performances by the Daedalus Quartet tonight,  Friday, January 15 – 8 PM as part of the Discovery Series at The Barns at Wolf Trap  in Vienna, Virginia and on Saturday,  7:30 PM at Watson Chamber Music Hall of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.

Commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet in conjunction with the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, Dillon’s fourth quartet takes Pascal’s reference to “an infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” as the inspiration for a virtuosic wheels-within-wheels journey.

The fourth quartet in Dillon’s Invisible Cities String Quartet Cycle — a set of six quartets that explore connections between Classical forms and contemporary experience — The Infinite Sphere not only takes the form of a Classical rondo, it also adopts the rondo spirit, using popular dance music as material.

Winner of the 2007 Guarneri String Quartet Award from Chamber Music America, the Daedalus String Quartet is the resident quartet for the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

Lawrence is Composer in Residence at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and currently has commissions from the Emerson String Quartet, the Mansfield Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, the Salt Lake City Symphony, the Daedalus String Quartet, the University of Utah Philharmonia and the Idyllwild Symphony Orchestra.

by Jerry Bowles
Classical Music, Concerts

Exclusive Photos From Hilary’s Bach Party

hilary hahn @petervidor
hilary hahn @petervidor

There are a lot of older men–myself included–who have had a crush on Hilary Hahn for an unwholesome length of time so I was not surprised when a couple of my best friends–professional photographers who normally wouldn’t pick up a camera unless there was money involved–volunteered to run down to the Village Gate…ur, Le Poisson Rouge for those of you with no respect for history–and shoot some pictures for free at her Bach Party last night.  The occasion was the release of Hilary’s newest album, Bach: Violin and Voice on Deutsche Grammophon.

“Ms. Hahn is even more enchanting in person than foretold,” Peter Vidor gushed in an e-mail to me today.  “Her every line and her every move bespeak surpassing eloquence and grace, and in speaking of her I feel like a stricken schoolboy.”

I haven’t heard from my other friend, Tomas Sennett.  He must have been too stricken to remember to snap a picture.

A couple of more photos after the break. (more…)

by Jerry Bowles
Awards, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

York Höller wins 2010 Grawemeyer

It’s hard enough delivering an orchestra commission when you’re hale and hearty; but despite losing most of his vision during the course of its lengthy gestation (2001-06) York Höller managed to complete his work Sphären. His efforts amidst considerable adversity have garnered him the 2010 Grawemeyer Award.

Although now almost completely blind, Höller continues to compose. Abetted by assistants, samplers, and a new software called Jaws, he is soldiering on. One hopes that the Grawemeyer’s $200,000 prize will assist in this endeavor.

So, composers,  next time you’re planning to tell your commissioner why the piece isn’t done, you’ll need a pretty good excuse:  Höller has upped the ante!

Hear Sphären at Boosey’s website.


by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Opera, Uncategorized

Do you have the balls to follow?

cb…I hope not! They’re the last thing you need for this nine-part quest.

If you’re coming from a previous clue, you know just what’s up; if you’re clueless, heading here might make things a bit more clear. Either way, good luck! Now my friend, question the third:

Handel’s famous aria “Ombra mai fù” from his opera Serse was written for which of Porpora’s famous students?

And so on to four, just past this door…

by Steve Layton
Classical Music, Click Picks, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Online, Photos

The coffee-table book, web version

On those longer, cooler, grayer days, stuck inside with a little time on our hands, one of the nicer pastimes for the music buff is to wander through the Flickr music photo pools. Two especially for the contemporary musician: the Classical Music pool and the Experimental Music pool. Between them, with some thousands of amateur-to-pro photographers clicking away in all corners of the world, you can get a feel for the people, activities and concerns that make our music live and breathe today. Often, a striking image will mention a name or two that will get me started googling (or is that “binging” now?), and lead me to some wonderful composer, performer or event that I might otherwise have never encountered. But more than anything it’s just that glimpse of all the people in that bigger world, who have our same shared passion and work at it every day, that puts a little smile on my lips while browsing.

by Steve Layton