BBC Music Matters: with Anthony McGill

BBC Music Matters

Tom Service talks to Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinettist with the New York Philharmonic, as he commences his tenure as Artist-in-Residence at Milton Court in London. They discuss his recent performances of Anthony Davis’ powerful and operatic work for clarinet and orchestra, You Have the Right to Remain Silent, and his Grammy nominated album, American Stories, on which he collaborated with the Pacifica Quartet.

Listen here.

BBC In Tune: Nicolas Namoradze

BBC In Tune

Honens International Piano Competition Laureate Nicolas Namoradze joins Sean Rafferty on BBC In-Tune ahead of his performance at the Royal Orchestra Hall. Live in the studio he gives a performance of the Sarabande and Minuet from Bach’s French Suite No. 1 in D minor, and the second movement of Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 1 in D minor.

Listen here until March 19, beginning at 16:05.

BBC In Tune: Paul Merkelo

BBC In Tune

Trumpeter Paul Merkelo joined Katie Derham on BBC In-Tune ahead of his performance with the English Chamber Orchestra to chat about the program, performing in the age of COVID, recent recordings, and more. Also included are excerpts from the Haydn, Tomasi, and Hummel trumpet concertos.

Listen here until February 20, beginning at 11:00.

BBC In Tune: Nicolas Namoradze

BBC In Tune

Sean Rafferty is joined by pianist Nicolas Namoradze ahead of the Southbank 'Inside Out' concert.

Listen here until November 19, beginning at 3:34.

BBC Radio 3 In Tune: Marc-André Hamelin

BBC Radio 3 In Tune

Marc-André Hamelin visits the BBC Radio 3 studios to discuss his upcoming performance at the BBC Proms premiering Ryan Wigglesworth’s piano concerto and he performs his Toccata on L'Homme Armé among other works.

Listen here.

BBC Music Magazine: Top 20 Live Events for April 2017

BBC Music Magazine

ANNE AKIKO MEYERS
92nd Street Y, New York, 20 April
Tel: 212-415-5500
Web: www.92y.org

In 2015, the Finnish composer Rautavaara wrote what turned out to be his last score, a violin-and-orchestra Fantasia for Anne Akiko Meyers (right). Meyers and Akira Eguchi present a violin and piano arrangement of the piece in a programme that also features a new arrangement of Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium, plus music by Jakub Ciupinski, Arvo Pärt, Beethoven and Ravel.

See more of BBC Music Magazine's 20 Events for April in North America and more in their April issue here.

BBC Music Magazine: Grand Teton Music Festival Featured in Summer Music Festivals Guide

BBC Music Magazine

GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL

With Grand Teton National Park as a dramatic backdrop, this festival features seven weekends of orchestra concerts, each with a noted concerto soloist. They include pianists Yefim Bronfman, Denis Kozhukhin and Garrick Ohlsson, violinists Augustin Hadelich and James Ehnes, and cellist Maja Bogdanovic. It's also an opportunity to hear conductors Fabian Gabel, Vasily Petrenko and Cristian Măcelaru, along with music director Donald Runnicles.

WHEN: 3 July - 20 August
WHERE: Teton Village, Wyoming
TEL: +1 307-733-1128
WEB: www.gtmf.org
HIGHLIGHTS:
7 & 8 July: Wagner Prelude to Die Meistersinger, Sibelius Violin Concerto, Neikrug The Unicorn of Atlas Peak, Beethoven Symphony No. 7; Augustin Hadelich (violin), Festival Orchestra/Runnicles
14 & 15 July: Prokofiev Suite from Romeo and Juliet, Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1; Maja Bogdanovic (cello), Festival Orchestra/Cristian Macelaru
11 & 12 August: Holst The Planets, Aaron Jay Kernis Musica celestis etc; James Ehnes (violin), Festival Orchestra/Donald Runnicles

More on the BBC Music Magazine's full Festivals Guide here.

BBC Radio 3 In Tune: Anne Akiko Meyers Performs Live

Listen here to Anne Akiko Meyers who performed Arvo Pärt's "Spiegel im Spiegel' and Bach's "Air" from Orchestral Suite No.3 in D major on BBC Radio 3 In Tune and talked with Suzy Klein about her new recording, broken foot, and Vieuxtemps Guarneri. Her segment begins at 42:22.

BBC Music Magazine: Musical Peaks in the Old West

BBC Music Magazine
By Oliver Condy

Tucked into the northwest corner of Wyoming sits the majestic Teton mountain range, its peaks rising 2,000 meters either side of the vast, flat valley floor, known as Jackson Hole. In winter, the Tetons host world-class skiing, but come summer, the lush grassland, forests, lakes and rivers of Jackson Hole teem with wildlife, including eagle, elk, moose and grizzly bear, along with thousands of tourists who head there for kayaking, walking, rafting, fishing, horse riding... Jackson Hole styles itself as the 'Last of the Old West' and there are still ranches where you can see cowboys at work.

But if, like me, you don't catch so much as a whiff of a moose or bear, you can console yourself with the sight and sounds of one of America's most impressive music festivals. Located in the ski resort of Teton Village, the Grand Teton Music Festival (GTMF) is, at over 50 years old, almost as well established as the geyers in nearby Yellowstone Park. Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles, who's often seen sporting a stetson, has been the festival's music director since 2006, bringing the GTMF to a wider international audience and attracting world-class soloists and conductors. Most of the concerts take place in the 600-seat Walk Festival Hall, built in the 1970s. 'A lot of people think this is an outdoor location.' Runnicles says over a coffee at one of Jackson Hole's ranches, 'but they're astonished to find we have this jewel of a hall.'

And playing in it is a jewel of an orchesta, an unpaid, crack team of players made up of members of the finest orchestras across the US. Many of them have been coming to Jackson for over 10 years (one or two for almost 30) and most of them stay for at least two or three weeks during the summer - over the course of the festival's five weeks, hundreds of musicians pass through Jackson Hole. Simply playing for the joy, they say, is a chance for them to 'renew their vows' with orchestra music, to remind themselves why they play music, without the crushing pressures they're up against at home. 'It's not a gig,' says Utah Symphony Orchestra's Ralph Matson, festival veteran of 20 years. 'Everyone's here because they want to make music together' chips in Seattle Symphony violist Susan Gulkis Assadi, who has made Jackson Hole something of a second home during the summer. 'It's the most collegial orchestra in the world.' 'Each member of the orchestra is reminded what a privilege it is to be performing great music with great musicians,' says Runnicles. 'There are moments during performances that I'm viscerally aware of who I have in front of me.'

Runnicles faces the challenges of not only pleasing his faithful audiences but also the orchestra - feeding them repertoire that doesn't make them feel they're on a busman's holiday. 'I'm not going to attract people from Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas or The Met if I programme Tchaik Five, Rach Two...They've done those sorts of pieces. I see the music we play as nutrition - they have to do something where they're challenged.'

2015's curveball was Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 3, a work that most of the musicians, plus Runnicles himself, hadn't performed before. The previous year it was Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony, also well received. 'Every one of our players will return to their orchestras and share their new love of Vaughan Williams. So many of the musicians have come up to me and thanked me for introducing them to this music.'

Jackson Hole's elevation also presents its demands: the dryness and lack of humidity makes playing a reed instrument a lot trickier. And singers, who have to take more frequent breaths than usual during performances, are advisde to acclimatise by arriving a few days earlier. Not that they need any encouragement to spend more time in Jackson Hole...

BBC Music Magazine: An American Adventure

BBC Music Magazine

'Welcome to Jackson Hole', says the sign at the exit to the airport, 'The last of the old west.' Driving through the wide open plains of the Grand Teton National Park framed by the majestic Teton Range, calls to mind Jerome Moross's evocative music to the opening minutes of the 1958 film, The Big Country. You can still see genuine cowboys at work here, who share the spectacular landscape with bison, elk, moose, eagle, bear (black and grizzly) and the odd peckish mountain lion, who add a frisson of excitement to any hill runner's morning constitution.

Just down the road from Jackson Hole (in American terms, that is – it's a three-hour drive) is Yellowstone National Park, packed full of thrilling geological wonders, the most famous being the Old Faithful geyser that spouts a gigantic column of boiling water almost 200 feet into the air every hour and a half, and the otherworldly, primordial Grand Prismatic Spring that reflects the entire spectrum of colours around its rim accompanied by warm, eggy gusts of sulphurous steam.

The Teton area, by winter, is one of the finest places to ski anywhere on earth, but by summer, its mountains and valleys, now devoid of snow, seduce lovers of cycling, climbing, kayaking, bird watching, fishing, and hiking. It also plays host to one of the oldest and best classical music festivals in America.

Since 1962, Jackson Hole has been the backdrop to a seven-week celebration of orchestral and chamber music, the Grand Teton Music Festival, at the heart of which is the festival orchestra, a super-ensemble comprising the finest players from America's orchestras, from Atlanta to Louisiana, Dallas to Pittsburgh. And the conductor of this staggering group of musicians is none other than Donald Runnicles, musical director of the Deutsche Oper, principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and, until September 2016, principal conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, after which he becomes conductor emeritus. 'It’s a testament to this place that the players keep coming, year in, year out'. Runnicles has been the festival's musical director since 2006.

The players themselves, some of whom stay for a couple of weeks, some for the entire seven, see it as a chance to renew their vows with orchestral music, as it were, among friends and away from the stresses of unions, orchestra politics and the school run. ‘Each and every musician is here because they want to be’, Runnicles explains. ‘There’s no compulsion to be here – their focus is on this bucolic experience and great music-making. And many of their absolute best friends were made here. They can’t wait to get back.’

The festival audience benefits from this unique chemistry through exciting, fresh, often revelatory performances in the stunning 800-seat Walk Festival Hall, although the real challenge, Runnicles admits, is finding repertoire that will fascinate his group of musicians but that will still attract audiences. The final two concerts of this year's festival featured Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 3, a work that Runnicles had never conducted before, and which only two members of the orchestra had played before. ‘So many musicians have thanked me for bringing this repertoire to the festival – that’s beautiful,’ he smiles, ‘and each of these musicians will return to their institution and share their new love of Vaughan Williams.’

The GTMF closed with a stupendous performance of Respighi’s breathtaking Pines of Rome – a grand ending to the Grand Teton. The festival traditionally allows its players to stay for one more day following the final concert, easing them gently back into the real world. Just about enough time for a decent mountain hike and one last moose encounter…