Last night’s Never-on-Monday Evening Concert at LACMA presented the Argento Chamber Ensemble in its sampling of German music. Lanier Sammons wrote a nice review of the concert’s performance in New York. As performed here, the program had a different sequence, separating the two pre-Expressionist works so that the Schoenberg Kammersymphonie ended the first half and the Wagner transcription ended the second. Despite Lanier’s good review (and that from the NY Times), I felt the concert made a strong argument that an ensemble of five strings and ten winds does not make for good balance and clean textures. Listening to the Liebestod made me think of a transcription for concert band, one with a few strings thrown in. I did enjoy the Rihm and Haas performances, both of which were West Coast premieres, and I thought that the performance of the Kleine Harlekin of Stockhausen was a delight, and a very good concert-opener. Fortunately, the new management of the music programs at LACMA did away with the slide-show of art during the concert. I hope the management also learns that it’s better to plan and organize what you’re going to say when you come to talk to the audience while the stage is being set up.
On Sunday, Argentinean composer Osvaldo Golijov won two 2007 Grammy awards—Best Opera Recording and Best Contemporary Classical Composition—for his opera, Ainadamar (Fountain Of Tears) starring soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with conductor Robert Spano. In August of last year, WGBH Classics in the Morning host Cathy Fuller sat down with Golijov at his home in Brookline, MA and discussed this award winning opera, his first. This exclusive, in-depth interview—complete with excerpts from the moving opera—can be heard online at wgbh.org/osvaldo.
Ainadamer tells the story of dramatist Federico García Lorca and his muse, Catalan stage actress Margarita Xirgu (in a twist, Lorca is played by a woman) and incorporates Arab, Jewish, and flamenco elements.
Classics in the Morning with Cathy Fuller airs weekdays, 9am-12noon on 89.7 FM in New England and streams live worldwide at wgbh.org/classical.
We’re having an ice storm in the Center of the Universe this morning. Good day to be old and vested although it’s not really the thrill you think it’s going to be. Especially the old part.
The last time Master Salvage and I took a meeting in the S21 Starbucks HQ the subject of guilty pleasures came up. You know what I mean, Steve and Eydie, Karen Carpenter, Alvin and the Chipmunks. But, applied to non-pop music. David confessed that there were parts of certain Michael Nyman pieces that sound pretty darn good. I owned up to an affection for Hovhaness. Now, it’s your turn. What’s your guilty pleasure.
I sure hope nobody says Philip Glass. I’m listening right now to a new recording of Music with Changing Parts (Orange Mountain) by the brilliant English group Icebreaker. No need to be embarassed about liking this one; it’s as good as it gets.
The Tablet PC-wielding piano-playing super-awesome Hugh Sung is celebrating one year as a blogger. He has a podcast here introducing his cool gear to musicians. Get with the program, folks, and give Hugh a click.
Busy here chasing pentatonic collections in Debussy. I think there goes one right now…
Times have been good for my old composition teacher Lee Hyla. After many years on the composition faculty at Boston’s New England Conservatory, he has been hired into an endowed chair at Northwestern University, where he will take up residence in the coming academic year. His impending departure has precipitated a flurry of activity in Boston, including a lengthy and glowing profile in the Boston Globe in mid January and a farewell retrospective concert at New England Conservatory a few days ago. And in November, John Zorn’s Tzadik label released his latest CD “Wilson’s Ivory-bill.” Samples of three of the four works on the CD are available at http://www.leehyla.com/, if you’d like a taste of what I’m talking about here. (more…)
- Classical Vocal Performance: “Rilke Songs,” Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Peter Serkin), track from Lieberson: Rilke Songs, The Six Realms, Horn Concerto.
- Classical Contemporary Composition: “Golijov: Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears,” Osvaldo Golijov (Robert Spano).
- Opera Recording: “Golijov: Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears,” Robert Spano, conductor, Kelley O’Connor and Dawn Upshaw; Valerie Gross and Sid McLauchlan, producers (Women of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra).
- Producer of the Year, Classical: Elaine Martone.
- Classical Album: “Mahler: Symphony No. 7,” Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, Andreas Neubronner, producer (San Francisco Symphony).
Classical Crossover Album: “Simple Gifts,” Bryn Terfel (London Voices; London Symphony Orchestra). - Engineered Album, Classical: “Elgar: Enigma Variations; Britten: the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Four Sea Interludes,” Michael Bishop, engineer (Paavo Jarvi and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra).
Orchestral Performance: “Mahler: Symphony No. 7,” Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (San Francisco Symphony). - Choral Performance: “Part: Da Pacem,” Paul Hillier, conductor (Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir).
- Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance(with Orchestra): “Messiaen: Oiseaux Exotiques (Exotic Birds),” John McLaughlin Williams, conductor; Angelin Chang (Cleveland Chamber Symphony).
- Instrumental Soloist Performance(without Orchestra): “Chopin: Nocturnes,” Maurizio Pollini.
- Chamber Music Performance: “Intimate Voices,” Emerson String Quartet
- Small Ensemble Performance: “Padilla: Sun of Justice,” Peter Rutenberg, conductor (Los Angeles Chamber Singers’ Cappella).
Found on the Web:
” … I think the thing about classical music being a class-signifier is more to do with the fact that our society has lost the notion that there are great works of culture that people should … might be excited to discover and there’s a common pool of artistic excitement that in a democracy you should offer to everyone.
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t broaden the repertoire, but essentially if you live in a western democracy you have a certain historical — well, things have got to where they are now because of the culture, and I think you’d want to look at what that culture has produced. I don’t think it is particularly restrictive. I’d feel awkward at a pop concert, but if I were to go, I’d try to find out about it.
“I think it’s also partly living in a culture that doesn’t have the idea that in order to enjoy something a lot, you might have to put something into it to get anything out. Maybe that’s television culture — it’s a passive culture. It sounds very old-fashioned, and maybe patronising, but the culture of working-class education at the end of the nineteenth century was incredible, because people had this sense of a culture of self-education, and I suppose that is what we’ve all lost.
“I think we’re all drawn towards the commodiification that television represents: an endless consumption of things. Shopping is the easiest thing in the world to do. Most people’s major cultural experience, where they exercise discrimination, where they look at things in terms of color, and shape, is through shopping. Maybe other things always seem a bit strange in comparison with shopping …”
Composer Ann Millikan sent us a note yesterday.
Please let it be known:The great Quapaw-Cherokee composer Louis Ballard passed just around midnight at his home in Santa Fe, NM. He was 75. He was a dear man, and will be missed.
Nice burble of activity going on here. Way to keep the fires burning, people.
Robert Zimmerman’s learning how to take the heat over in the Composers Forum. Click on comments: some heavyweights are weighing in.
A charming post from Jeffrey Biegel, who’s performing Lowell Liebermann in Germany. I wonder what all the Kool Kats in Deutschland think about our Lowell.
Anthony Cornicello digs the five-octave marimba; Naxos’s hawking some Virgil Thomson; Jay Batzner’s uncovered a copy of the long suppressed video of Einstein on the Beach. Huzzah! Makes me long for a Lego Lohengrin. (Paging Robert Wilson!)
And just below Steve Layton has the real deal from South of the Border. I wonder if having CD reviews on the home page constitues illegal immigration.
(Boo! Hiss!) Tough crowd.
And Gottschalk has top billing in CD Reviews.
Gottschalk???
I’ve got some serious dissertating to do over the weekend. Aren’t you glad it’s a long one, too? When I told my ear training class they had off because of Abraham Lincoln, one orange-haired genius said: “We should shoot all the Presidents!”
Jerry’s back next week. Poor guy’s in San Diego.
Our regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since they’re nice enough to offer so much good listening online:
“New” Mexico via Myspace
If your idea of contemporary Mexican art music is still Chavez and Revueltas, you’re so far out of date that it’s not even funny! I can’t catch you up on composers from the 50’s through the 90’s; Google will have to help you out there. Some names to explore might be Manuel Enríquez, Mario Lavista, Federico Ibarra-Groth, Marcela Rodríguez, Hilda Paredes, Hebert Vázquez, Germán Romero, Gabriela Ortíz Torres, Juan Felipe Waller, Julio Estrada, Mauricio Beltránand. (Feeling out of the loop already? Then get busy…)
Those are all fine and respected composers, surely, but where I want to take you is to an even newer fringe of younger Mexican composers and performers, experimental and electronic musicians and improvisers, who happened to have set up a loose confederation on Myspace.com. We’re talking the NEW new, musicians whose influence lists always include Ferneyhough, Lachenmann and Murail right along with my generation’s heros like Xenakis, Ligeti and Feldman; where Zorn and Merzbow are placed as equals with any of those previous names; and where electronic and digital means are are taken for granted as stock-in-trade, right along with all the traditional instruments.
Many will have links on their Myspace page to more “official” websites; but the Myspace pages will give you an easy central location with plenty to listen to for starters, lots of information (Spanish helps but isn’t absolutely essential), and a good sense of the interconnection involved. I don’t need to tell you much more; this is Myspace after all, so you don’t need to just listen but can actually meet and talk with each and any of them! So what are you waiting for?.. say hello to our southern neighbors.
Iván Naranjo: Composer, his 2002 string quartet Uno, played by the Arditti, was just released on a new Mode CD.
Wilfrido Terrazas: Flautist and composer, seems to be a large part of the “glue” bringing these groups of musicians together.
Isaac de la Concha: Composer, improviser, teacher, with no less than three (!!) Myspace pages, one devoted to each aspect.
Alexander Bruck Santos: Violist with a fondness for everything from Feldman to free improv.
Adnán Márquez-Borbon: Saxophonist and improviser.
With a number of other musicians (who you’ll find listed in their personnel of the pages), this posse does duty in one or more of the following experimental ensembles:
Circling the periphery, but still connected and quite worth checking out, are these composers: