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.

KUSC: Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers on Respecting the Old and Welcoming the New

KUSC
Jim Svejda

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers believes in respecting the old and welcoming the new. In this recent conversation with Jim Svejda, they discuss several of her recent commissions.

Listen below or here.

Wisconsin Public Radio: Pianist Marc-André Hamelin

Wisconsin Public Radio

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin joins Norman to talk about his upcoming performance of Strauss' "Burleske in D minor" and Ravel's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G Major" with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, John DeMain conducting, at the Overture Center in Madison on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 12-14.

Mr. Hamelin has released almost 80 albums and has been nominated for a Grammy nine times. He is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the German Record Critic’s Association and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. The Canadian native currently lives in Boston.

Read and listen from WPR’s website here.

KUSC: Pianist Olga Kern Lights Up Southern California Concert Halls

KUSC
John Van Driel

Renowned Russian-American pianist Olga Kern, 2001 winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, is coming to Southern California for a series of concerts starting with Friday at SOKA Performing Arts Centre, Broad Stage in Santa Monica this Saturday, and two performances on Saturday, February 16 with the Pasadena Symphony. Recently John Van Driel had a chance to talk to Ms. Kern about her busy performing and teaching schedule. Listen below or click here for more.

Minnesota Public Radio: New Classical Tracks: Anderson and Roe Piano Duo honors mothers with musical tribute

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR)
Julie Amacher

"Motherhood might be perhaps the ultimate form of creation, but as artists we are giving birth to new pieces, to performances, to new ideas all the time. And so, it felt like a fitting sort of theme and tribute to the wonderful maternal figures in our lives," says Elizabeth Joy Roe, pianist and one half of the Anderson and Roe Piano Duo. Mother, a musical tribute, is the latest recording from Roe and duo partner Greg Anderson.

The idea for the project came to the duo while they were performing at the Gilmore Festival.

"Initially, this kind of got under way when we performed on Mother's Day at the Gilmore Festival a couple of years ago, and we wanted to pay tribute to our mothers who were attending that concert. We saw just the huge variety of ways mothers have been portrayed in music over the years, and that really got us excited and got us thinking about what it means to represent motherhood through music," explains Anderson.

An important part of the project was representing the diverse aspects of mother figures.

"And also, we like to tap into the diverse aspects of women or of people that serve as mothers you know. Mothers aren't merely beautiful beings who emit tenderness but they can also be saucy women or saucy figures like Mrs. Robinson, and so we took that classic Simon and Garfunkel tune and lovingly added it to the mix because sometimes mothers are only seen in one way," says Roe.

"When I think about my mother, there are times like in Bohemian Rhapsody when the singer just sings, 'Mama!' That closeness one might get with their mother. And I mean I certainly have many instances in my life where it's just like I want that. All of these emotions, certainly as we were putting the album together you know, just kept coming up in us and we kept remembering our own histories and pasts with our mothers," adds Anderson.

Read or listen to the full interview here.

WQXR: The Shanghai Quartet Celebrates Its 35th Anniversary

WQXR

Join us on Facebook Live for Midday Masterpieces, featuring the Shanghai Quartet. The chamber ensemble is marking its 35th anniversary by performing on four valuable instruments loaned to the group for the occasion by J.A. Beare: the 1714 “Kneisel, Grün” Stradivari violin, the 1729 “Stretton” Guarneri violin, a 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola, and 1690 Stradivari cello. On Wednesday, the Shanghai will play chamber music by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, as well as some traditional Chinese folk music specially arranged to suit the quartet’s western instrumentation.

Join the Shanghai Quartet live in our studio! They're performing Beethoven and Mendelssohn, as well as traditional Chinese folk music on some really old wood and varnish - they've been loaned...

KUSC: Championing American Music with Conductor Gerard Schwarz

KUSC
Alan Chapman

Gerard Schwarz was the second-ever conductor of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra before spending 26 years on the podium with the Seattle Symphony. KUSC’s Alan Chapman caught up with him while Schwarz was in town to help celebrate LACO’s 50th anniversary. Here’s their conversation about the unique logistics of Schwarz’s first concert with LACO and how he (secretly) became a champion of American music in Seattle.

KUSC: Behind the Festival Uniting Classical and Electronic Music

KUSC
Brian Lauritzen

The worlds of classical and electronic music come together this weekend in Little Tokyo. It’s all part of a concert and community arts festival hosted by the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Chamber Orchestra and dreamed up by YMF music director Yuga Cohler and composer Stefan Cwik. The event will combine the music of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, and LA-based DJ and electronic musician Flying Lotus in a unique concert experience. Yuga Cohler tells me it’s an outgrowth of how young people consume music today.

Yuga Cohler: I grew up studying and playing classical music. But I also grew up with the internet: I had Napster when it came out and I’ve been exposed to a lot of different types of music just because it’s so available. My thought is that any art form sort of has to have both value and relevance to the current age. It’s important that people who consume the art are able to derive something of value from it. So for me, what that means in a classical music context is two things: first of all, I do believe that classical music has a lot to offer in terms of depth of emotion, complexity of structure, the subtleties involved with it, the amount of passion and commitment that it demands. I also believe that there’s a lot that all sorts of other types of music have to offer in those areas and also in terms of relevance, in terms of reflecting our current society’s thoughts and values. I think it provides a useful mirror into what our society is today. So, finding the intersection point between those two—of the values that classical music has to offer and the values that other types of music have to offer seems to me a very natural thing to do.

Read the full interview here.

WCNY: Anne Akiko Meyers

WNYC with host Diane Jones

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers stopped by the WCNY studios to chat with mid-day host Diane Jones about her upcoming performance with Symphoria.  She talked about “Archeopteryx,” the violin concerto she commissioned from composer Mason Bates, as well as finding the emotion in new works.

More information about Symphoria can be found here.

Klara Min on WWFM Radio, The Classical Network

This past May, Klara Min was featured in a Radio Showcase/Interview on WWFM.org - Between the Keys with Jed Distler.

 Listen to the podcast below.