Classics Today reviews Orli Shaham "Mozart Concertos"

Marvelous Mozart From Orli Shaham and David Robertson

Review by: Jed Distler

Just about everything in this husband-and-wife Mozart concerto collaboration is ideal. For starters, the microphone placement captures Orli Shaham’s beautifully regulated Steinway and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in perfect balance, where both full-bodied tuttis and fleeting solo-instrument details clearly emerge. Secondly, and more importantly, the chamber-like sonic perspective extends to the music making.

Shaham’s enlivening inflections in the G major K. 453 concerto’s first movement interact with the woodwinds with fetching conversational flow. While Robertson minimizes string vibrato in the Andante, he avoids eliciting the kind of threadbare tone and mincing dynamic exaggerations that are stock-in-trade mannerisms of the period performance movement. Both conductor and pianist happily render the finale variations in a fluid alla breve tempo, as opposed to the relatively regimented four-beats-to-a-bar feeling evoked in the Robert Casadesus/George Szell stereo traversal.

Like Casadesus, Shaham favors Saint-Säens’ flashy yet effective cadenza for the C minor K. 491’s first movement, but plays it with more authority and force. The Larghetto conveys an appropriately tender and lyrical mood while showcasing Shaham’s masterful finger legato. Here one might argue that her phrasing is controlled and calibrated to the point of being foursquare, in contrast to the shapely variety that Alfred Brendel brought to his reference recording with Charles Mackerras. Yet Shaham more than compensates in the finale, where variety of tone and expression most definitely characterizes her detaché articulation: For example, note the uncommon urgency of the first variation’s descending chromatic patterns, or the tension informing Shaham’s ever-so-slight elongations in the coda.

The booklet contains an extensive discussion with Shaham, Robertson, and scholar Elaine Sisman that delves into fascinating performance-related issues and historical perspectives. Strongly recommended.

Lucy Shelton describes her 20th century 'tasting menu' program at National Sawdust

On Sunday, December 15 at 7:00 p.m. Lucy Shelton performs a ‘tasting menu’ of 20th century songs at National Sawdust (80 N 6th St, Brooklyn, NY). Tickets available here. This is a special opportunity to hear Shelton perform an entire recital of works that made her the legendary soprano she is. In advance of the show, presented by Chris Grymes’ Open G Series, here’s what the legendary soprano has to say about the menu.

When first asked to bring a program of mostly twentieth-century song to National Sawdust, I was flooded with sound-bites of Carter, Babbitt, Wuorinen, Schwantner, Harbison, Mamlok, Cage, Stravinsky, Ives, Rochberg, Baley, Druckman, Persichetti, Hindemith, Goehr, Henze, Knussen, Messiaen, Gideon, Laderman, Kohn, Rorem, Del Tredici, Albert, Primrosch, Crumb, Benson, Britten, Dallapiccola, Rehnqvist, Saariaho…to mention just a few, ha!! Gracious me — how on earth could I ever make the choices? But with the help of a few discussions and reading sessions with Jeremy Gill, tonight's program began to find its focus. Putting it into a MENU format gave me the opportunity to play with grouping the many short works into meaningful juxtapositions as follows:

AMUSES BOUCHES
Here are the “teasers” to the meal. Stravinsky’s Pastorale is a vocalise, with a charming open-air feel, which I sing as an invitation to join me in tonight’s event. It is followed by two works which signal that this program does not shy away from the unusual: John Cage’s unique work where the pianist never plays on the piano keys, but only on the lid and the frame; and the first of the George Rochberg selections, Black Tulips, where the pianist plays inside the piano as well as on the muted keys. The vocal writing is mostly “non vibrato” which adds to the eerie sound world of the piano writing. With Stravinsky’s Counting Song we are abruptly reminded of the “normal" piano sound, with repeated notes and glissandi, which underscores the simple setting of the lyrics (a traditional nonsense rhyme for a children’s game). I get to shout at the end - but the pianist gets the last word, playing a sweet refrain.

SOUPES
In this set the tastes become more emotionally complex. Stravinsky’s Spring (At the Cloister) is the longest song of his output [a total of 19 songs - all of which I recorded, paired with Elliott Carter’s complete songs, in 1997 on a KOCH International Classics CD no longer available] and offers time to reflect on the scene at the monastery. The ringing of bells is brilliantly depicted in the piano writing preceding the daughter of the bell-ringer’s heartfelt confession of unhappiness. The following sequence of Rochberg songs (with texts by his son, Paul - who cut his life short) opens with a defiant “I am baffled by this wall”, a more contemporary look at unhappiness. Spectral Butterfly and All my life are miniatures packed with coloristic detail for both singer and pianist. In the closing Sacre du Printemps all boundaries are removed, allowing primitive energies to be fully expressed - picture the ballet!

SALADES
Calm is restored with Elliott Carter’s Voyage. [My first performance of this was in 1972 when studying with Jan De Gaetani at Aspen.] There is a nobility and tenderness in this setting of Hart Crane which I find comforting. But not wanting to get too serious just yet, it is followed by Stravinsky’s very last song,The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, written for his wife Vera in 1965. The charming text is set in 2-part counterpoint with the piano always playing in octaves, resulting in a sophisticated simplicity. Another animal song, Pig is by Karl Kohn, [the composition faculty member at Pomona College when I studied there]. This animal reference has to do with a need to lose weight, or else be compared with the sacrificial pig at the Catalan St. Martin’s Day feast! The final song is also from Kohn’s Resplendent Air, [a cycle of 5 songs dedicated to me], and is a sublimely delicate setting about women sleeping.

ENTRÉES
And now for the protein course! Jacob Druckman’s The Season of Time was a Naumburg Foundation commission written in 1964. I suspect that the piano part was considered un-playable, because Druckman orchestrated it immediately and it has only been heard in that version since. [I believe this performance will be only the second performance of the soprano and piano original! My copy of the score (unavailable from the publisher) was from my mentor Jan De Gaetani’s library, and has beckoned to me since the 1980’s.] It is a spectacular continuous song cycle inspired by nine short segments of Norman Mailer's only book of poetry. The Two Ricercare by Ruth Crawford which follow are also rarities seldom performed. [I recorded them in 1997…] They are settings of political protests written by a Chinese immigrant in 1931 which Crawford read in a newspaper. They are hard-core in both text and music, being aggressive soap-box fare. The messages are clear, and important to hear...

DÉSERTS
Sweets are needed at this point in any meal, but especially after such a hearty main course! The Miriam Gideon miniatures gently bring thoughtful texts to life after which the sensuous Love’s Call by Shulamit Ran serves us molten chocolate cake! [This work was a 2016 commission from SongFest.] And finally we come full circle back to Stravinsky and childhood, with a hushed lullaby and Three Children’s Songs- all about birds. I hope you are not over-stuffed, and found pleasures in this feast of song!!

Lucy Shelton interviewed on WWFM

On December 15 at 7:00 PM, Chris Grymes’ Open G Series at National Sawdust presents the legendary vocalist Lucy Shelton. Ms. Shelton's performance features a ‘tasting menu’ of short works by composers with whom she has worked extensively, including Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Miriam Gideon, Shulamit Ran, and George Rochberg; as well as composers whose works she provided the first major or complete recordings of — songs by Ruth Crawford Seeger and Igor Stravinsky.

In advance of this performance at National Sawdust, Lucy Shelton spoke to Ross Amico of WWFM about the repertoire she chose for what Ms. Shelton is calling her “Feast of 20th Century Song” recital. In this clip Ms. Shelton discusses the timely issues of racial identity that are dealt with in Ruth Crawford Seeger’s “Two Ricercare”.

December 15, 2019 at 7:00 pm

Chris Grymes' Open G Series at National Sawdust:

Soprano Lucy Shelton

A Feast of 20th Century Song

National Sawdust

80 North 6th St in Brooklyn

Tickets are $29 for general admission, and are available at nationalsawdust.org or (646) 779-8455

Atlanta's "11 Alive" features Defiant Requiem and Hours of Freedom

On December 5, 2019 at 7:00 pm The Defiant Requiem Foundation performs Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezín Composer. Hours of Freedom is a concert-drama that showcases music by fifteen composers imprisoned in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Terezín) during World War II. The performance is at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue (600 Peachtree Battle Ave NW, Atlanta). Admission is free; reservations are required by November 30 at this link. This performance is the featured 2019 Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture.

Thanks to Candace Schilling of Ahavath Achim Synagogue for her work in securing this interview.

Red Pillows in Conversation with Roland Colton

At the beginning of Forever Gentleman, struggling architect and pianist, Nathan Sinclair, encounters the glamourous and beautiful heiress, Jocelyn Charlesworth. What draws Nathan to Jocelyn, and how does she respond to him when they first meet?

Although he has no expectation of an introduction, Nathan is intrigued enough to see if Ms. Charlesworth’s beauty is as extraordinary as the Sunday Times portrays it. Despite his protestations, the mistress of the estate insists on introducing Nathan to Jocelyn.  Once he observes her beauty firsthand, an intoxication of senses sweeps over him—never before has he seen a woman of such unimaginable beauty. Jocelyn’s reaction to Nathan is one of boredom, having endured countless stares from past star-struck suitors. She toys with him, looking for any opportunity to end the interview. Once she believes him to be a common servant, she rebukes him publicly, appalled that a servant would have the audacity to seek her acquaintance.

Nathan also meets the simple and plain social worker, Regina Lancaster. What’s special about Regina, and why does Nathan feel such a deep connection to her?

Though her outward appearance is ordinary, Nathan initially feels a strong attraction to Regina’s eyes and senses a kindred spirit.  Her dark brown eyes convey a journey through unspeakable tragedy, resulting in a deep appreciation for life and depth of character. Nathan is also attracted to Regina’s modesty, simplicity and inner beauty, qualities he admired in his mother. Once he learns of Regina’s selfless service to London orphans, he wonders if any man could possibly be worthy of her.

Music plays an important role in the story and in Nathan’s life. How do the musical elements in the novel tie together the themes in Forever Gentleman?

Nathan’s life has been steeped in music since his operatic mother gave birth to him. His pianistic bravado opens the door of London Society, and he becomes comfortable in a world far different than his humble abode. The music in Forever Gentleman accompanies the story as a soundtrack does a movie, enhancing both drama and mood. Women are attracted to Nathan’s musical genius, fostering love and romance in the story.

The Victorian Era was a time of contradictory wealth and poverty, along with great change, in England. What drew you to write a story set in this time period in history?

I’ve always been intrigued by a world where great beauty and brilliance could exist in the midst of poverty and misery.  While writing the story, I imagined what it would have been like to have lived in both worlds, as does Nathan in the story.  Also interesting is the sanitation miracle that occurred in the 1860’s, pulling London literally out of the squalor and stench of rotting pipes and sewer overflow into a world free of cholera and other dread diseases. And I wanted the timing of my story to coincide with the advent of the modern piano and creation of some of my favorite compositions.

How would you describe your writing process? And can you tell us about some of the research you did when you were writing Forever Gentleman?

My writing recipe involves equal amounts of struggle and ease. Sometimes the words flow in abundance; other times, I labor over every word in a sentence. I try not to let my writing get in the way of the story, and my goal was to have the reader lose himself or herself in Victorian London.  Many hundreds of hours were spent in research in my attempt to evoke the sights, sounds and smells of that bygone time. I strove for authenticity in events and venues, including authentic references to concerts, plays, performers and other events depicted in the book. I wanted to capture the times as they were, which is no small task when we live in a world far removed from that melancholy era.

Are you working on another novel? If so, what can you tell us about it?

Yes, I’m writing a new novel that highlights another passion of mine—my love for the sport of baseball. The book begins in 1911, highlighting the exploits of the wonder of the baseball world, Ty Cobb. Using newspaper reports from the time, the reader experiences some of the most incredible sports feats ever accomplished, usually thanks to the genius and skill of Mr. Cobb. After the opening chapters, a hit-and-run accident victim is discovered in modern times (with a face damaged beyond recognition), who purports to be Ty Cobb, mysteriously transported into the future. As the plot continues, this mystery man eventually shows exceptional baseball talent and ultimately plays a brand of baseball unlike anything in modern times, turning the sports world on its head. Is it possible that this baseball ace is truly Ty Cobb, or is it some imposter who has taken upon his attributes?  Only time will tell.

5 Stars for Roland Colton's "Forever Gentleman"

Heather Osborne
***** (5/5 Stars)
July 2, 2016

Forever Gentleman by Roland Colton is a historical fiction novel chronicling the fortunes, and misfortunes, of Nathan Sinclair. Nathan is a talented architect, and sometimes musician, living in London in the 1860s. Yet, all is not well for young Mr. Sinclair. He faces a debt thanks to a client who has been unable to pay, leaving him at the mercy of a loan broker. Still, Nathan does not despair, though he desperately seeks to pay off his debt. Then, while giving an impromptu concert at the home of a wealthy aristocrat, Nathan runs into a startlingly beautiful woman. Little does he know, his encounter with Jocelyn Charlesworth will change his life drastically, and force Nathan to choose between true love and the fulfillment of all his wildest dreams. All the while, outside forces and unexpected encounters threaten the life of our main character. Will he manage to come out of it on the side of honor, or greed?

It has been some time since I found myself swept away in a piece of historical fiction. Mr. Colton brings his readers directly into the world of the wealthy and the poor, delineating the distinctions with great dexterity. I loved that the main story was told from Nathan’s perspective, as I could really get into his head. Still, the ending surprised me and deviated from what I usually expect in historical novels of this type. I wasn’t sure if I liked Nathan at times, as he seemed to seek fame more than honor, but this gave him a flaw. I appreciated that he wasn’t perfect, and it made me empathize with his plight. Forever Gentleman by Roland Colton is not a novel to rush, but each page is to be savored as he paints a delicate picture of Nathan’s life, while still keeping the plot balanced. Easily one of the best books I have read so far this year.

Orli Shaham hosts From the Top in a live radio taping in Portland, Maine

In other radio news, on November 20 in Portland, Maine Ms. Shaham hosts a live taping of From the Top, the long-running NPR program featuring performances of talented young musicians. These episodes of From the Top will be broadcast nationally on select NPR stations across the United States during the weeks of December 16 and January 6. This marks Ms. Shaham's second appearance on From the Top, having previously guest hosted in October 2018. You can listen to the archived audio of show 361 at this link.

New! Pianist Orli Shaham's Bach Yard airs on WQXR-FM, Saturday mornings, November 30 - December 21, 2019

As Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard prepares for its 10th season of live interactive concerts in New York and Princeton, we’re proud to announce WQXR radio as a new platform for Bach Yard.

Orli Shaham’s stories illustrated by classical music are one of the most popular components of Bach Yard interactive concerts for young children. WQXR-FM has invited Ms. Shaham to create and host a series of these original stories with classical music designed especially for radio.

Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard for radio will air on WQXR, 105.9 FM and WQXR.org Saturday mornings at 8:00 am EST, November 30 through December 21, 2019. A different five-minute episode airs each week.  You and your children will be entertained by The Trout Family's New Friend, Belinda and Charlie's Big Day and other tales written by Orli, along with music by Handel, Schubert and more.

Orli Shaham's Bach Yard, the live interactive concert series of the same name will be performed at Merkin Hall in New York on February 23 and April 26, 2020, and at Princeton University on March 14, 2020, with Orli as host and pianist. Check out BachYard.org for details about these and other performances, as well as fun activities to do at home with your little Maestro.

Cleveland Classical interview with andPlay

andPlay @ Kent State’s Vanguard New Music Series 

November 19, 2019 by Mike Telin

When the duo andPlay — Maya Bennardo, violin, and Hannah Levinson, viola — were in Cleveland to perform on the Re:Sound Festival last summer, ClevelandClassical.com critic Jarrett Hoffman wrote that “Bennardo and Levinson played with obvious chemistry, genuinely at ease with one another in the kind of way that just makes an audience feel good.”

On Thursday, November 21, andPlay will return to Northeast Ohio for a performance on the Kent State Vanguard New Music Series. The 7:30 pm concert in Ludwig Recital Hall will include Leah Asher’s Letters to My Future Self (2018), Clara Iannotta’s Limun (2011), Anthony Vine’s Terrain (2019), Scott Wollschleger’s Violain (2017), and the premiere of a new work by Adam Roberts. The event is free.

I caught up with the duo by telephone and began our conversation by asking how their invitation to Kent came about.

Hannah Levinson: Adam Roberts teaches at Kent. We played a piece of his a few years ago, so that’s how we met him, and since then we’ve become friends. When he went to Kent he wanted to bring us there, so we commissioned this new piece from him. He introduced us to Noa Even, who runs the Re:Sound Festival. But it was a coincidence that we ended up going to the Festival, and it was very funny when we realized that it was the same Noa.

Mike Telin: Please say a few words about the piece.

Maya Bennardo: It’s a two-movement piece, and we previewed one the movements back in October.

HL: It was nice that we played something of his before because he was able to incorporate what he knows about us as players and people into the piece. It feels like all the motifs are being stretched. They are repeated and become more intricate, and the patterns are expanded in different ways. It creates a large and thick texture.

MB: There are interweaving patterns — like taking a fabric and pulling it so you can see through it a little bit. 

HL: With our commissions, it’s about finding people who will write something that sounds like more than just two string instruments, and Adam’s piece does that. It creates a multi-layered, complex, and powerful work.

MT: Congratulations on your new album playlist on New Focus Recordings. Will you be performing any works from that recording?

Read the rest of the interview at this link

New York Music Daily reviews Vasco Dantas at Carnegie Hall

Picturesque Brilliance and Rare Treasures at Vasco Dantas’ New York Debut

by delarue

“Feel free to create your own story for each of these preludes,” pianist Vasco Dantas encouraged the big crowd who’d come out for his New York debut at Carnegie Hall yesterday. Playing from memory for the better part of two hours, he gave them a panoramic view from five thousand feet. The music didn’t need titles or explanations: whatever was there, he brought out in stunning focus.

The most highly anticipated part of the program comprised a very rarely performed, pentatonically-spiced suite, Portuguese composer Luis de Freitas Branco’s 10 Preludios. Interspersing these World War I vintage pieces with five from Debussy’s 1910 Book 1 might well seem ludicrous on face value. But in a particularly sharp stroke of programming, Dantas had rearranged them so that, at least for those familiar with the French composer, there was never a question as to who was who.

And Branco’s music in many ways is more Debussy than Debussy himself: what a discovery! An Asian influence, often gamelanesque, sometimes mystical, was ubiquitous, as were close harmonies that sometimes reached an aching unresolve. Taking his time to let the narratives unfold, Dantas revealed a lullaby cached inside the ripples of Branco’s first prelude, followed by the vigorously waltzing, chiming incisiveness of the second.

The first of the Debussy works, The Sunken Cathedral, was also a revelation in that the pianist bookended its opulent languor and nebulous mysticism around a sternly rhythmic midsection: this was one striking edifice rising from the depths! Other delightful Debussy moments abounded, particularly the deviously blithe song within a song in What the West Wind Saw, and the momentary fish out of water amidst the sun-splattered ripples of Sails.

The rest of the Branco preludes glittered with minute detail. Spare, wintry impressionism moved aside for sharp-fanged, modally-tinged phantasmagoria and a slightly muted mockery of a march. The most dramatic interlude was in Branco’s Modern Ride of the Valkyries, its grim chromatics bordering on the macabre. The most technically challenging was the Preludio No. 5, Branco’s own relentlessly torrential counterpart to Debussy’s famous hailstorm shredding the vegetation.

Dantas brought equally telescopic brilliance to an old favorite of the Halloween repertoire, Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Yet not once did he go over the line into grand guignol: he left no doubt that this was a requiem. Who would have expected the carnivalesque creepiness of The Gnome to be dignified, and balanced, with just as much quasi-balletesque grace? The Old Castle may be a familiar horror theme, but Dantas’ insistently tolling low pedal notes left no doubt that this was in memory of a most original friend.

There were a few points where Dantas brought the menace to just short of redline – those were truly mad cows! – but otherwise, this was about poignancy and reflection. Dantas’ unwavering, perfectly articulated, otherworly chattering phrases in Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks were spine-tingling. The contrasts between the elegant Samuel Goldenberg and his lumbering namesake from the boondocks were striking yet sympathetic. Similarly, the grief in Dantas’ vast, desolate interpretation of The Catacombs was visceral, as was the unexpectedly distant horror of Baba Yaga. And he drew a straight line all the way back to Beethoven with the long crescendos and false endings after the whirling, evilly gleeful peasant dance in The Great Gate of Kiev.

After a series of standing ovations, he encored with his own gleaming, moodily Chopinesque arrangement of the Burnay Fado, from his home turf, complete with sparkly ornamentation mimicking a Portuguese twelve-string guitar. Let’s hope this individualistic rescuer of obscure and forgotten repertoire makes it back here soon.

ConcertoNet reviews Vasco Dantas Carnegie Hall Debut

Pictures at an 18th Century Salon

New York
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
11/17/2019 -  
Luis de Freitas Branco: Ten Prelúdios
Claude Debussy: Préludes, Book I
Modeste Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
Vasco Dantas (Pianist)

“Rosalind: O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
bottom, like the bay of Portugal”
William Shakespeare, As You Like it

“Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see
What Heaven hath done for this delicious land!
What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree!
What goodly prospects o’er the hills expand!!”
George Gordon Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

When hearing that a Portuguese pianist was giving a recital this afternoon, my heart soared like Lord Byron’s poetry, printed above, on his first visit to Lisbon. Would Maria João Pires, my absolute favorite Chopin performer, be finally coming to New York?

Alas, Ms. Pires was not on board. But her fellow Lusitanian, Vasco Dantas, was giving his New York premiere here, playing the music of a noted Portuguese musicologist and composer, one Luis de Freitas Branco. Mr. Freitas Branco was a tabula branco to me as was Mr. Dantas, but his youthful countenance was belied by an amazing two-page synopsis of his experience.

Experience which grew from a Portuguese childhood and studies in London, Paris and Germany to a remarkable number of concerts on virtually every continent. Add to this a program totally based on musical pictures, with ten preludes by an unknown Portuguese composer...

And the setting? The gorgeous baroque Weill Recital Hall, its crystal chandeliers and ivory-colored curlicued walls, were the settings of Portugal itself in its golden 17th Century apogee, the same architecture which can be seen in parts of Macao today.

(“Same”, so long as the barbarian Las Vegas casino-owners haven’t torn it down.)

Back to the music and Mr. Dantas. First, One could say that he played 30 different pieces in his two-hour recital. After the intermission, Mussorgsky’s Pictures. Before that, Mr. Dantas introduced the music of Freitas Branco, by alternating Debussy’s Book One Préludes with the Portuguese ten Prelúdios.

This was not a bad choice. True, Debussy, who lived from 1862-1918, was a generation above Freitas Branco, from 1890-1955. But the latter was a fairly conservative composer, and his “exotic” passages–whole tone melodies, faintly Asian melodies–had been Debussy trademarks long before that.

Mr. Dantas, with his slightly formal words and his swallowtail jacket, played both composers with limpid assurance. One doesn’t think of his fine technique, because he was always searching for the melodic undercurrent. Nothing was idiosyncratic in the Debussy, and preludes like The Engulfed Cathedral and Sails were taken with great assurance.

Mr. Freitas Branco has a few quirky titles (The Modern Ride of the Valkyries and Rapido, Grande Virtuosidade), but his works dovetailed on Debussy’s. A moderate Kind of Moderato was followed by an impetuous Animato. A sentimental Molto moderato was followed later by a Moto perpetuo etude.

They were all very pleasing, didn’t have an iota of traditional fado tears, and showed the mark of a craftsman, frequently inspired by hints of genius.

In a moment of his own programming genius, Mr. Dantas didn’t end with a bang, but with the delicious whispers of Debussy’s Minstrels.

One can never have enough of Pictures at an Exhibition, for those who can master its massive music. Mr. Dantas did this in style. I can’t say that I could form an image from each picture, but it was terrific music. Yes, I wanted to see more contrast between “rich Jew and poor Jew”, and the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks was heavier than the surrealistic title.

Yet that was Mr. Dantas’ choice, and he made good use of it. The final Great Gate of Kiev was played with all the power necessary, ending (prior to an encore of variations on a Portuguese song) with a triumphant set of flourishes.

By the way, the Great Gate of Kiev never existed. Like Mr. Trump’s Wall, it existed only in the mind. Painter Hartmann, composer Mussorgsky and pianist Dantas built it up to sheer power and monumental grandeur.

Harry Rolnick

The 23rd season of Cutting Edge Concerts features Mrs. President, the opera

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, the 2020 CEC Festival presents theatrical works by three women composers: Dalit Warshaw, Marisa Michelson, and Victoria Bond

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, Cutting Edge Concerts presents Mrs. President in concert on April 27

April 13, 20, & 27, 2020 at Symphony Space's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater in New York City

The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. What better way to celebrate women’s right to vote than with an opera about the first woman presidential candidate? The real-life Victoria Woodhull – a courageous as well as an outrageous suffragist – ran for president in 1872, and is the inspiration for Victoria Bond’s opera Mrs. President.

On Monday, April 27, 2020 at 7:30 pm at Symphony Space, Victoria Bond's Cutting Edge Concerts presents a concert performance of her opera, Mrs. President. In Mrs. President, composer Victoria Bond and librettist Hilary Bell have crafted a seething drama of ambition and betrayal, which tells the story of Woodhull's visionary struggle to defy history and become the first female President of the United States in 1872, before women had been granted the right to vote. She was branded “Mrs. Satan” by the press because she posed a threat to society, and jailed on election night. In the final scene, Woodhull, in her prison cell, silenced but not defeated, looks ahead to a future generation of women who will realize her vision of equality.

Tickets are $25 in advance ($35 day of show) and are available at symphonyspace.org.

Also on the 2020 Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival:

• On April 13: New Music Theater, CEC in partnership with Quog Music Theater’s first Eric Salzman Award for New Music Theater presents Song of Song of Songs by Marisa Michelson. Also on the program is Dalit Warshaw's The Letters of Mademoiselle C. Details below and at Symphony Space.

• On April 20: 21st Century Trombone, trombonists John Romeo and Steve Norrell (MET Opera Orchestra), Colin Williams and George Curran (NY Philharmonic), and JoDee Davis (Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory) perform 21st Century works for trombone. Details below and at Symphony Space.

Inspired by Pierre Boulez's series, "Perspective Encounters", the composer and conductor Victoria Bond founded Cutting Edge Concerts in 1998. With more than two decades of concerts, Cutting Edge Concerts has presented over 300 new works by nearly 200 composers. Each program highlights the music of living composers, all of whom attend the concert. Along with performances by world-class ensembles and soloists, each program features on-stage discussions between host Victoria Bond and the composers. CEC has been called "a full-throttle commitment to contemporary music" by Chamber Music America.

Calendar Listing

Mrs. President, the opera

Victoria Bond, composer

Hillary Bell, librettist

Monday, April 27, 2020
7:30 pm

Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at
Peter Norton Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th Street
New York City

Tel: (212) 864-5400
Tickets are $25 in advance ($35 day of show) and are available at symphonyspace.org

Cast

Valerie Bernhardt, soprano (Victoria Woodhull)
Scott Ramsay, tenor (Henry Ward Beecher)
Michael Kelly, baritone (Col. James Blood)
Katie Hannigan, mezzo-soprano (Roxie)
Keely Futterer, soprano (Isabella Beecher)
David Charles Tay, tenor (Joseph Treat)
Addie Rose Forstman, soprano (Elizabeth Tilton)

Marc Peloquin, piano
Victoria Bond, conductor

April 13, 7:30 pm | Cutting Edge Concerts: Two Women by Two Women

Cutting Edge Concerts, in partnership with Quog Music Theater’s first Eric Salzman Award for New Music Theater Composition, presents Song of Song of Songs, with words and music by Marisa Michelson. Performed by Marisa Michelson with Constellation Choir and scored for twelve singers, bansuri flute, melodica, cello and percussion, the work defies category, encompassing live music video, oratorio, opera and ritual. Also on the program is The Letters of Mademoiselle C. by Dalit Warshaw.

April 20, 7:30 pm | Cutting Edge Concerts: The Art of the 21st Century Trombone

The Art of the 21st Century Trombone features trombonists and bass trombonists from the Metropolitan Opera (John Romeo and Steve Norrell), New York Philharmonic (Colin Williams and George Curran), and Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory (JoDee Davis) performing new compositions for solo trombone. Works by Harrison J. Collins, John Stevens, Anthony Barfield, Kenneth Fuchs, and Victoria Bond.

April 27, 7:30 pm | Cutting Edge Concerts: Mrs. President, the opera

In honor of the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, Cutting Edge Concerts presents a concert performance of the opera, Mrs. President, about the first woman to run for President, by composer Victoria Bond, and librettist Hilary Bell. The cast includes: Valerie Bernhardt (Victoria Woodhull); Scott Ramsay (Henry Ward Beecher); Michael Kelly (Col. James Blood); Katie Hannigan (Roxie); Keely Futterer (Isabella Beecher); David Charles Tay (Joseph Treat); Addie Rose Forstman (Elizabeth Tilton). With pianist Marc Peloquin and conducted by Victoria Bond. 

New York Classical Review reviews Daedalus Quartet at Baruch PAC

Daedalus Quartet captures emotional depths of music by exiles

By Eric C. Simpson

It’s no secret that not all great performances happen in the biggest concert halls. This is especially true in the realm of chamber music, where a library or a small lecture hall is a more apposite setting than an auditorium built for thousands.

Just east of Madison Square Park, the Baruch Performing Arts Center hosts an impressive variety of musical programming in two small theaters underneath Baruch College’s main campus. On Tuesday evening, the talented Daedalus Quartet offered a program of works whose authors were all political exiles, forced by violence to leave their home countries.

As powerful as that idea is, it was the depth of the pieces themselves, rather than any thematic connection among them, that stood out in Tuesday’s concert. 

The evening began with the Third String Quartet of Viktor Ullmann. Ullmann, who was later killed at Auschwitz, wrote the quartet while a prisoner at Terezin, and the piece conveys deep emotions, even if they are not always obvious.

Open harmonies in the bars that begin the first movement feel bright but betray deep sadness, and Daedalus here brought a warm, full sound, breathing together from the start. The music proceeds with a waterfall-like flow, its apparent serenity interrupted by interludes of agitated arpeggios and nervous tremolos. In the scherzo, a waltz, at once playful and macabre, brings much harsher tonality and acid harmonies.

Long, slow, heavy breaths in the Largo are followed by a feeling of unease in the closing Rondo, where quiet tremolos create keen anticipation. Daedalus brilliantly captured the emotional ambiguity that makes the music at once so penetrating and uncomfortable.

Introducing his string quartet, Babel, Gabriel Bolaños explained that he had been born “in exile,” to use his phrase, his family having fled from Nicaragua to Colombia during the Sandinista Rebellion, just before his birth. Each of Babel’s five movements is a portrayal in music of particular features of languages to which Bolaños feels a personal connection. His musical language, though heavily gestural and reliant on extended technique, does feel expressive—though what exactly it expresses is a mystery. Overall, the piece is difficult to follow, even with program notes hinting at the ideas behind each movement.

“Spanish” presents little flashes of sound in short, disjointed phrases made up of glissandos, ricochets, and harmonics. In “English + Chinantecan,” the violins and the viola brush the strings while the cello traces a lonely melody. In “Nuxálk,” fierce pizzicato lines among the upper strings interlock in frantic conversation with each other while the cello scrapes a long, pitchless tone. The jumble of all these voices, each struggling to be heard in “Greenlandic,” gives way to a slow, chilly crawl towards resolution in “Vowel Harmony.”

The program’s second half consisted of the profound Piano Quintet by Mieczysław Weinberg, who fled Poland for the Soviet Union at the start of the Second World War. Joined by pianist Renana Gutman, Daedalus gave a gorgeous, rich reading of this emotionally complex piece.

After an abortive start when second violinist Matilda Kaul’s instrument slipped out of tune, Daedalus and Gutman began beautifully, with a warm pulse of strings supporting the piano’s haunting, discursive melody. There is a composed focus in the music of this first movement, conveying a sense that fraught emotions hide just below the surface. In spite of the hall’s dry acoustic, the musicians managed to achieve a full sound through rich dynamic definition.

The Allegretto brought just a hint of a springing dance step before ending in an astonishing hush, but a more exuberant romp came out in the boisterous waltz of the Presto, where there was a hint of comedy in the melodramatic melancholy of the dance. 

The most substantial movement of the five is the Largo, which unfolds in a deliberate but arresting development of ominously resonating chords. In it we hear the most emotional intensity and complexity of the quintet, as it passes through a number of musical ideas in succession. Out of the initial gloom emerges a wandering violin cadenza, in which Min-Young Kim channeled a folk spirit. Suddenly there appears a bright E-major chord in the piano that glides into an airy reverie in which longing, contentment, and sadness all mix together.

After the many subtle emotions of the Largo, it was a shock to hear the aggressive, gritty start of the Allegro agitato, which moves into something like an Irish reel. Daedalus and Gutman gave exuberant, heart-racing performance of the finale to finish off an impressive evening of challenging music.

Baruch Performing Arts Center’s next chamber event is 7:30 p.m. November 20, when the Alexander String Quartet performs works by Shostakovich, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. baruch.cuny.edu

Hours of Freedom at Ahavath Achim Synagogue

Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezín Composer

December 5, 2019

Ahavath Achim Synagogue

Produced by The Defiant Requiem Foundation as the 2019 Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture

Hours of Freedom combines live music, video, and narrative to highlight works by fifteen composers imprisoned in the Theresienstadt (Terezín) Concentration Camp during WWII

On December 5, 2019 at 7:00 pm The Defiant Requiem Foundation performs Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezín Composer. Hours of Freedom is a concert-drama that showcases music by fifteen composers imprisoned in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Terezín) during World War II. The performance is at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue (600 Peachtree Battle Ave NW, Atlanta). Admission is free; reservations are required by November 30 at this link. This performance is the featured 2019 Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture.

Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezín Composer combines video, music, and narrative to highlight compositions by Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Rudolf Karel, and about a dozen others. Much of this music was the last that was composed by these gifted artists - many of whom were in their 20s and 30s when they perished. Several were destined to be the next generation of significant Czech composers, following in the footsteps of Dvořák, Smetana, Janáček, Martinu, and Suk. Some of their compositions reflect the personal, eyewitness account of the agony and suffering of camp life, while others express the assurance of a return to life as it was before the war.

The music is performed by vocalists Arianna Zukerman, Leah Wool, and David Kravitz, concertmaster and solo violinist Herbert Greenberg, cellist Julian Schwarz, pianist Phillip Silver, with the Hours of Freedom Chamber Players. Program highlights include:

• Ullmann's 7th Piano Sonata, which contains hidden sociological and patriotic messages.

• The Etude for Strings by Pavel Haas, which will combine the live ensemble together with Terezín musicians captured on film in August 1944.

• A song cycle by Hans Krasa, which evokes heart-breaking longing.

• Karel Svenk's Everything is Possible, which represents the cabaret "voice" of Terezín from one of Europe's most imaginative artists.

Murry Sidlin, the founder of The Defiant Requiem Foundation, is the creator and writer of Hours of Freedom and conducts this performance. The performance is generously supported by The Molly Blank Fund of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.

2019 marks the 31st year of The Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture. This prestigious event has featured Nobel Peace Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners, United States Presidents and Vice Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, and Israeli Prime Ministers, among other eminent national and international guests. Stuart Eizenstat, The Defiant Requiem Foundation board chair since 2011, established the series in 1987 to honor the memory of his family members.

Ahavath Achim Synagogue cultivates a Jewish community of purposeful belonging. We inspire and support spiritual journeys by deepening relationships with one another. We believe it is at the crossroads of our spiritual paths that life’s purpose and God might be found.

Murry Sidlin and The Defiant Requiem Foundation also produced an Emmy-nominated documentary film narrated by Bebe Neuwirth that has been praised as a "gripping documentary" (Examiner.com), with "a very powerful message" (CNN). More information is at DefiantRequiem.org.

CALENDAR LISTING

Hours of Freedom: The Story of the Terezín Composer

Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 7:00 pm

Ahavath Achim Synagogue

600 Peachtree Battle Ave NW, Atlanta

aasynagogue.org/hours-of-freedom

Produced by The Defiant Requiem Foundation

as the 2019 Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture

Murry Sidlin, creator & conductor

Callan White, narrator

Arianna Zukerman, soprano

Leah Wool, mezzo-soprano

Jonathan Blalock, tenor

David Kravitz, baritone

Herbert Greenberg, concertmaster and solo violin

Julian Schwarz, cello

Phillip Silver, piano

Hours of Freedom Chamber Players

Admission is free, registration is required.

Reserve by November 30th at aasynagogue.org/hours-of-freedom

2019/20 Performances

Defiant Requiem Foundation

November 4, 2019: Defiant Requiem | Budapest | Hungarian State Opera

50th worldwide performance of Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín

December 5, 2019: Hours of Freedom | Atlanta | Ahavath Achim Synagogue

Produced by The Defiant Requiem Foundation as the 2019 Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture.

March 28, 2020: Defiant Requiem | Valdosta Symphony Orchestra

Presented by the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, Valdosta State University Department of Music, and The Defiant Requiem Foundation with funding from the Gretchen M. Brooks University Residency Project.

Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra announces its 2019/20 season

"MUSIC WE’VE CREATED, MUSIC THAT HAS SHAPED US, MUSIC WOVEN THROUGH WASHINGTON HEIGHTS’ TAPESTRY OF CULTURES"

Head uptown for the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra's 2019/20 season of symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and more. Highlights include:

Music from the Caribbean - opening with Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón’s What Keeps Me Awake, WHCO's season includes Valerie Coleman's Afro-Cuban Concerto, as well as music by Dominican composers José Dolores Cerón and Bienvenido Bustamante.

Guest artists - joining WHCO this season are acclaimed guest artists Nilko Andreas (guitar), Amos Fayette (violin), Abigail Fischer (soprano), and Patrick Bartley (alto saxophone).

Great works of the past - in addition to celebrating Beethoven's 250th anniversary with his 5th Symphony, this season includes landmarks of orchestral repertoire from Brahms' Symphony No. 4 to Dvořák's Symphony No. 8 .

Composers from Washington Heights - 'Buy Local'? How about 'Play Local'? Featuring works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Jessica Meyer, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Peter Gordon, and more, WHCO's 2019/20 season features many works by composers from Washington Heights.

Tickets to all shows: Adults $5 in advance / $7 at the door | Students ages 17 and under FREE | Young listeners welcome

Based in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra is a professional ensemble that presents affordable and accessible concerts to the community. 2019/20 marks the orchestra’s fifth season. Comprised of musicians from Upper Manhattan, the orchestra presents engaging concerts with a diverse repertoire; including favorite classical works, genre bending crossover pieces, and works by living composers. The WHCO was founded in 2015 by conductor and music director Chris Whittaker. The WHCO strives to engage the people of Washington Heights and neighboring communities through exemplary musical performances and innovative educational programming. The WHCO is a non-profit performing arts organization.

WHCO's 2019/20 Season

What Keeps Me Awake

October 18, 7:00 pm @ George Washington Educational Campus - (549 Audubon Ave.)

October 19, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

The Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra kicks-off its fifth season with Angélica Negrón’s probing and wandering soundscape What Keeps Me Awake, Brahms’ simmering 4th symphony, and Villa-Lobos' Guitar Concerto with soloist Nilko Andreas. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring a neighborhood coffee tasting.

Program

Angélica Negrón: What Keeps Me Awake

Heitor Villa-Lobos: Guitar Concerto, featuring soloist Nilko Andreas

Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

Arroz con Schnitzel

November 15, 8:00 pm @ Our Savior’s Atonement Lutheran (178 Bennett Ave.)

November 16, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

Enjoy a distinctive musical dinner as tasty and diverse as schnitzel and rice! The concert features Washington Heights-native Valerie Coleman’s “Afro-Cuban Concerto,” Mozart’s timeless Clarinet Quintet, featuring WHCO principal strings and clarinetist John Hong, and Arnold Schoenberg’s revolutionary Chamber Symphony that launched his new expressionist style and sparked the creation of the 2nd Viennese school of composition. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring local food and a group salsa dance lesson.

Program

Valerie Coleman: Afro-Cuban Concerto

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Quintet in A, K. 581

Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E major, Op. 9

Melodies Pour Out of Me

February 7, 2020 7:00 pm @ George Washington Educational Campus - (549 Audubon Ave.)

February 8, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

It’s the summer of 1889, and Antonín Dvořák is on fire. He’s just about to begin composing what would become his eighth symphony, and he writes to his friend with unabashed confidence: “It’s going unexpectedly easily… the melodies simply pour out of me!” This concert features melodically bold music from three centuries. Cerón’s A la caída de la tarde (At the End of the Afternoon) is a beautifully nostalgic and flowing soundscape from the Dominican classical tradition. Music Director Chris Whittaker presents his new violin concerto for former WHCO-concertmaster Amos Fayette. The concert concludes with Dvořák's sublime and melodious 8th Symphony. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring a local beer tasting.

Program

José Dolores Cerón: A la caída de la tarde

Chris Whittaker: Violin Concerto featuring Amos Fayette

Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88

Above 155th Street

March 20, 8:00 pm @ Our Savior’s Atonement Lutheran (178 Bennett Ave.)

March 21, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

A musical snapshot of a time and place: the community of classical composers and performers living in Washington Heights. Featuring works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Jessica Meyer, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Peter Gordon, and Joel Hoffman, the Strings of WHCO perform works by a collection of compelling Uptown voices for a concert you’ll only find above 155th street. Friends of WHCO are invited after Saturday's concert for a post-concert reception featuring tastings from neighborhood restaurants.

Program

Peter Gordon: Magic and Transformation

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Sort Sol

Aaron Jay Kernis: Sarabanda in Memoriam

Jessica Meyer: Through Which We Flow

Joel Hoffman: Crossing Points

Strings of the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra

Chris Whittaker, Music Director

Your Distant Destiny

May 15, 7:00 pm @ George Washington Educational Campus - (549 Audubon Ave.)

May 16, 3:00 pm @ Fort Washington Collegiate Church (729 W. 181st St.)

The final program of the season pairs a new chamber orchestra version of Paul Brantley's On the Pulse of the Morning featuring soprano Abigail Fischer with Dominican-composer Bienvenido Bustamante's rarely heard Concierto para Saxofón featuring Patrick Bartley on Alto Saxophone. The season closes with Beethoven's monumental Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.

Program

Paul Brantley: On the Pulse of Morning featuring Abigail Fischer, Soprano (New chamber orchestra version, commissioned on the work’s 25th anniversary)

Bienvenido Bustamante: Concierto para Saxofón featuring Patrick Bartley, Alto Saxophone

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

Orli Shaham's Bach Yard – formerly Baby Got Bach – is proud to announce its Spring 2020 Season!

Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard performs

new interactive concerts in association

with Ensemble Connect

Performances on February 23 and

April 26 at Merkin Hall in New York City

and on March 14 at Princeton University

“I LOVED that you really taught the kids stuff. My child was TOTALLY ENTHRALLED. So smart. Well done!!” - parent testimonial

Orli Shaham’s interactive concert series for kids, Baby Got Bach has a new name - Orli Shaham's Bach Yard – and an expanded program. Bach Yard combines live ensemble performances with storytelling, costumed musicians, and a host of activities in which children can take part. The interactive concerts introduce musical concepts, instruments and the experience of concert-going to children age pre-Kindergarten to early elementary.

The concert pianist Orli Shaham performs with orchestras and in recitals around the world. As the interactive concert series for children that she founded developed and grew, it became clear that a new name was in order. “Since our live concert series is aimed toward pre-kindergarten through early elementary age children, we decided that the name “Bach Yard” was much more descriptive and appropriate,” said Ms. Shaham. Thus, Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard (“OSBY” for short) was born.

Orli Shaham's Bach Yard: Spring 2020 Season

Sunday, February 23, 2020, 10:30 am: Winter Winds at Merkin Hall - presented by Kaufman Music Center, in association with Ensemble Connect - New York, NY

Saturday, March 14, 1:00 pm: Welcome the Winds! At Princeton University Concerts, in association with Ensemble Connect - Princeton, NJ

Sunday, April 26, 10:30 pm: Spring Strings at Merkin Hall - presented by Kaufman Music Center, in association with Ensemble Connect - New York, NY

GUEST PERFORMERS: ENSEMBLE CONNECT

Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard is excited to present new interactive concerts in association with Ensemble Connect, the fellowship program created by Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. This ensemble is made up of the finest young professional classical musicians who combine musical excellence with teaching, community engagement, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Read more about Ensemble Connect at this link.

“We are beyond thrilled to be collaborating with Ensemble Connect,” said Orli Shaham. “I have worked with these fine musicians for a number of years in various capacities, and I have found them to be the most engaging and talented performing artists around.”

Dec. 15 at National Sawdust: Legendary Soprano Lucy Shelton performs works by Elliott Carter, Igor Stravinsky, Ruth Crawford Seeger and others

Ms. Shelton’s recital is part of the 2019-2020 Chris Grymes’ Open G Series, which begins with a George Crumb portrait concert on Oct. 28

“Shelton’s musicianship, technique, and intelligence are unfailing…” - The Boston Globe

Chris Grymes’ Open G Series at National Sawdust kicks off its second season with a portrait concert of George Crumb on October 28, with the composer in attendance. The season continues with legendary vocalist Lucy Shelton on December 15.

Lucy Shelton' performance features a mélange of short works by composers with whom she has worked extensively, including Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Miriam Gideon, Shulamit Ran, and George Rochberg; as well as composers whose works she provided the first major or complete recordings of — songs by John Cage, Ruth Crawford, and Igor Stravinsky. Now in her 75th year, Lucy is a direct link to many of the most important creative minds of the 20th century, and continues to be a proponent of musical and vocal experimentation through her performances and her extensive teaching and coaching in New York City and throughout the world.

The concert will be in a format of a five course meal, with Shelton spontaneously selecting the order of each ‘course’. Performing with Ms. Shelton are pianists Robert Fleitz, Jeremy Gill, Yoon Lee and Sophiko Simsive. Program and ticket details are below.

Chris Grymes founded Open G Records with a philosophy to produce music that is rooted in the classical tradition, but delivered in a way that will resonate with current and future generations of music fans. Having released a half dozen recordings, Open G has expanded to include a concert series hosted at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.

Chris Grymes’ Open G Series at National Sawdust continues in spring 2020:

• Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg performing works by Nordic composers, including Kaija Saariaho, Bent Sørensen and Per Nørgård on February 2, 2020

• Composer and soprano Nia Franklin (2019 Miss America) performs a showcase of works by women of African descent in May

• Fidelio Trio, a piano trio from Ireland, pairs music from the British Isles with American works in a program that includes Louis Karchin, Helen Grime and Ann Cleare on June 14

• Clarinetist Chris Grymes himself takes the stage in late spring, performing chamber works written for him.

Tickets for soprano Lucy Shelton's performance on December 15 are $29 for general admission and are available at nationalsawdust.org or (646) 779-8455. National Sawdust is located at 80 North 6th Street in Brooklyn.

Winner of two Walter W. Naumburg Awards - as chamber musician and solo recitalist - soprano Lucy Shelton continues to enjoy an international career bringing her dramatic vocalism and brilliant interpretive skills to repertoire of all periods. An esteemed exponent of 20th- and 21st- Century repertory, she has worked closely with today’s composers and premiered over 100 works. She has performed with chamber ensembles such as the Emerson, Brentano, and Guarneri string quartets, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, eighth blackbird, Klangform Wien, and Ensemble Intercontemporain; and with orchestras including Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and Tokyo under leading conductors such as Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Alan Gilbert, Oliver Knussen, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Leonard Slatkin.

CALENDAR LISTING

December 15, 2019 at 7:00 pm

Chris Grymes' Open G Series at National Sawdust:

Soprano Lucy Shelton

'Mostly 20th-Century Song Recital'

National Sawdust

80 North 6th St in Brooklyn

Tickets are $29 for general admission, and are available at nationalsawdust.org or (646) 779-8455

Program:

Appetizers:

Igor Stravinsky: Pastorale (1907)

John Cage: The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (Joyce) (1942)

George Rochberg: from Eleven Songs (Paul Rochberg) (1969)

"Black tulips"

"I am baffled by this wall"

Soups:

Stravinsky: from Two Songs on Poems of Gorodetsky, Op.6 (1907-1909)

"Spring (At the Cloister)"

Stravinsky: from Four Russian Songs (1918-1919)

"Counting Song"

"Tablemat Song"

Rochberg: from Eleven Songs (Paul Rochberg) (1969)

"Nightbird berates"

"Spectral Butterfly"

"All my life"

"Le Sacre du Printemps"

Salads:

Karl Kohn: from The Resplendent Air (Catalan poems) (1985)

Leisure

Pig

Stravinsky: The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (Edward Lear) (1966)

Elliott Carter: Voyage (Hart Crane) (1943)

Main Courses:

Ruth Crawford Seeger: Two Ricercare (1932)

"Sacco and Vanzetti"

"Chinaman, Laundryman"

Jacob Druckman: The Sound of Time (Norman Mailer) (1964)

Desserts:

Miriam Gideon: from The Seasons of Time (Japanese Tanka) (1970)

"I have always known..."

"Gossip grows like weeds..."

"The wild geese..."

"Can it be..."

Shulamit Ran: Love's Call (2016)

Rochberg: from Eleven Songs (Paul Rochberg) (1969)

"We are like the mayflies"

Stravinsky: Berceuse (1917)

Stravinsky: Three Songs: Recollections of Childhood (1913)

"The Magpie"

"The Rook"

"The Jackdaw"

Ms. Shelton is joined by pianists Robert Fleitz, Jeremy Gill, Yoon Lee, and Sophiko Simsive

Chris Grymes' Open G Series

October 28, 2019 | A Night with George Crumb

December 15 | Lucy Shelton

February 2, 2020| Cellist Jakob Kullberg

May| Nia Franklin

June | Clarinetist Chris Grymes and Friends

June 14 | Fidelio Trio

About National Sawdust

National Sawdust is a non-profit music venue whose mission is to build new audiences for classical and new music by providing outstanding resources and programmatic support to both emerging and established artists and composers. National Sawdust engages artists in an ecosystem of incubation to dissemination, programming groundbreaking new music in our state-of-the-art Williamsburg venue, and developing and touring new, collaborative music-driven projects — the National Sawdust DNA produces and presents world-class artistic work which embraces a wide stylistic approach to music.

National Sawdust believes in being an innovative leader in changing the landscape of contemporary music, by bringing all voices to the stage and beyond — artistic representation that reflects the ever-evolving multicultural society in which we live.

Violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv’s new Mendelssohn album is released on November 1, 2019 on Brilliant Classics

Recording features Mendelssohn’s “Other” Violin Concerto and the Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra

"pyrotechnic mastery of trills, stops and chromatic motion...performed with impeccable skill and verve" - Times Herald

The violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv, praised for her “superlative and consummate artistry” (Fanfare) shares her passion for the music of Felix Mendelssohn in a radiant new recording. Ms. Ivakhiv’s performances of two rarely-heard gems: the Concerto in D minor for Violin and Strings, and the Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra are released in the United States on Brilliant Classics (95733) on November 1, 2019.

These are two striking examples of the precocious talent of the young Felix Mendelssohn. Written in his early teens, the D minor Violin Concerto (1822) and the Concerto for Violin, Piano and Strings (1823) display wit, charm, sentiment and skill beyond his years. Joining Solomiya Ivakhiv for the double concerto is the award-winning pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi, and both works feature the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar conducting.

"Many people are familiar with Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, but hardly anyone gets to hear this earlier concerto in D minor," said Ms. Ivakhiv. "Though it was written when Mendelssohn was just a teenager, it is clearly the work of a mature composer."

The Violin Concerto draws on Classical era compositional techniques, but it is also influenced by French innovations in violin writing developed in Mendelssohn’s own time. There is much dazzling writing, but also some deeply expressive modulations which convey an emotional maturity far beyond what one could expect from a 13-year-old composer.

Written less than a year later, the Double Concerto is an even more polished work, full of memorable melody. Mendelssohn originally composed the work for string orchestra; Ms. Ivakhiv and Mr. Pompa-Baldi chose to play his later, more colorful score with winds and timpani added. "I am delighted that I have found the perfect 'doubles' partner in Antonio," said Solomiya of the pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi. "Our musical chemistry was evident from the first time we played together. It was a priviledge to record the Mendelssohn Double Concerto with him." The detailed liner notes by Alain Frogley illuminate the history and musicology of these works in depth.

This is the first recording of Solomiya Ivakhiv’s “Singles and Doubles” project. Her next CD, "Concertos for Violin, Piano and Orchestra by Haydn and Hummel", will be released on the Centaur label in early 2020. As with the Mendelssohn album, performers include pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi and the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra led by Theodore Kuchar.

The third recording of Solomiya Ivakhiv’s “Singles and Doubles” project, "Poems and Rhapsodies", will be released late in 2020 on the Centaur label. The featured work on the album is American Rhapsody for violin and orchestra by the Grammy-winning American composer Kenneth Fuchs. The album also features The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams, Poème Symphonique by Ernest Chausson and works by Camille Saint-Saëns, Myroslav Skoryk and Anatol Kos-Anatolsky. Performers include cellist Sophie Shao and the National Symphony Of Ukraine led by Volodymyr Sirenko.

“Mendelssohn Concertos”

Solomiya Ivakhiv, violin

Antonio Pompa-Baldi , piano

Theodore Kuchar, conductor

Slovak National Symphony Orchestra

Brilliant Classics 95733

U.S. release date: November 1, 2019

Purchase on Amazon

TRACKS

Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra in D minor MWVo3 (1822)

1. Allegro – 9:40

2. Andante – 11:11

3. Allegro – 4:41

Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra MWVo4 (1823)

4. Allegro – 19:25

5. Adagio – 11:02

4. Allegro molto – 10:09

November 8 & 10: Concert performances of Victoria Bond’s acclaimed opera about Clara Schumann

The German Forum presents Clara at Symphony Space in NYC (Nov. 8), and Rhinebeck CMS presents Clara at Church of the Messiah in Rhinebeck, NY (Nov. 10)

On Friday, November 8 and Sunday, November 10, the German Forum presents Victoria Bond's acclaimed opera about Clara Schumann, performed in concert. Clara will be performed at Symphony Space's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre (2537 Broadway at 95th St., New York, NY 10025) on November 8 at 7:00 pm. Tickets are $30 and are available at this link.

A second performance of Clara with the same cast will be presented by the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society on November 10 at 3:00 pm, at Church of the Messiah in Rhinebeck, NY. Tickets are $35 and available at this link. Both performances of Clara will be an abbreviated concert version; cast details are below.

Victoria Bond’s opera about Clara Schumann (libretto by Barbara Zinn Krieger) premiered to critical acclaim at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival in Baden-Baden earlier this year. The celebration of the 200th anniversary of Schumann's birth continues with these performances in New York. Composed by Ms. Bond during her residencies at the Brahms House in Baden-Baden, Clara weaves the intertwining lives of Clara Wieck, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms into a dramatic mixture of music and passion. Complete cast details are below.

The world premiere of Victoria Bond's opera about Clara Schumann received worldwide media attention (listen to Ms. Bond's interview about Clara on WWFM) and enormous audience acclaim at 11 sold-out performances. Co-presented by the Easter Festival of the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus and the Berlin Philharmonic, Clara was performed by a cast of outstanding singers and orchestra, conducted by Michael Hasel, principal flute of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Calendar Listing

November 8 and 10, 2019

Clara

performed in concert

an opera about Clara Schumann

by Victoria Bond

November 8, 7:00 pm: Symphony Space

Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre

2537 Broadway at 95th St., New York, NY 10025

presented by The German Forum,

Babette Hierholzer, artistic director

Tickets are $30 (plus $5 service fee) and available at this link

November 10, 3:00 pm: Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society

Church of the Messiah

6436 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck, NY 12572

presented by Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society

Babette Hierholzer, artistic director

Tickets are $35 and available at this link

Cast

Clara Schumann - Christine Reber, soprano

Robert Schumann - Jonathan Estabrooks, baritone

Friedrich Wieck (Clara’s father) - Robert Osborne, bass-baritone

Johannes Brahms - Heejae Kim, tenor

Yana Goichman, violin

Thilo Thomas Krigar, cello

Babette Hierholzer, piano

Victoria Bond, conductor

Music by Victoria Bond

Libretto by Barbara Zinn Krieger

A major force in 21st century music, composer Victoria Bond is known for her melodic gift and dramatic flair. Her works for orchestra, chamber ensemble and opera have been lauded by the New York Times as "powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding."

Highlights of Ms. Bond’s catalogue include the operas Clara (premiered at the 2019 Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival), Mrs. President, The Miracle of Light and The Adventures of Gulliver; ballets Equinox and Other Selves; orchestral works Thinking like a Mountain, Bridges and Urban Bird; and chamber works Dreams of Flying, Frescoes and Ash and Instruments of Revelation, among many others. Her compositions have been performed by the New York City Opera, Shanghai, Dallas and Houston Symphonies, members of the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theater and the Cassatt and Audubon Quartets.

Bond’s recordings include Instruments of Revelation (Naxos American Classics, 2019), performed by members of The Chicago Symphony; and Soul of a Nation: Portraits of Presidential Character (Albany Records, 2018), works featuring soloists from the Chicago and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras that pay tribute to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR. Her music has also been recorded on the Koch International, GEGA, Protone, and Family Classic labels, and her works are published by G. Schirmer, Theodore Presser, C.F. Peters, Subito Music and Protone Music.

The New York Times praised Victoria Bond’s conducting as “full of energy and fervor.” She has served as principal guest conductor of Chamber Opera Chicago since 2005. Prior positions include Assistant Conductor of Pittsburgh Symphony and New York City Opera and Music Director of the Roanoke Symphony and Opera, Bel Canto Opera and Harrisburg Opera. Ms. Bond has guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. She is the first woman awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School.

Ms. Bond is Artistic Director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival, an annual new music series in New York, which she founded in 1998. She is a frequent lecturer at the Metropolitan Opera, has lectured for the New York Philharmonic and in 2019 was elected to the roster of the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows. The Wall Street Journal, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times and other national publications have profiled Ms. Bond.

Take Effect Reviews andPlay "playlist"

ANDPLAY

Playlist

New Focus, 2019

8/10

Listen to Playlist

andPlay is the duo of violinist Maya Bennardo and violist Hannah Levinson, and on Playlist the pair deliver the work of David Bird, Clara Iannotta and Ashkhan Behzadi with precision, mystery and a whole lot of varied sounds.

“Crescita Plastica” starts the listen with almost sci-fi sounding strings, as dramatic tension is met with adventurous ideas and cautious manipulation, and “Bezier” follows with a similar approach where a cinematic quality invades the unpredictable setting that’s playful, textured and sometimes vulnerable.

The back half of the listen offers “Limun”, which, at over 7 minutes, is the shortest tune but no less impactful with acrobatic swells of sharp violin, and “Apocrypha” ends the listen haunting and with electronics, as the balance between digital and organic unfolds with ingenuity.

Though this is their debut as andPlay, Bennardo and Levinson have both been involved in many other outfits. Together, however, their dynamic sensibilities and keen sense of song craft collide with an inimitable, extraordinary performance.

Travels well with: Hilary Hahn & Hauschka- Silfra; Joshua Bell- Voice Of The Violin