Strings: Yuga Cohler on Forging a Career as a Conductor in Classical Music

Strings
Whitney Phaneuf

Yuga Cohler is on a mission to disrupt the classical-music establishment. And he already has its attention. The 28-year-old conductor, who debuts as the music director at Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra (RSO) on May 5, gained international prominence last year with his project Yeethoven, an orchestral concert comparing the works of Beethoven and Kanye West that culminated in a sold-out show at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in January.

Cohler recognizes that his new post at RSO will require a different approach than his recent success with Yeethoven, which played in Los Angeles and New York, but he’s not deterred from taking risks altogether.

“Becoming a professional music director is a milestone in the path of a conductor. But I am interested in how to incrementally push the consciousness, to push the public relevance of the orchestra and classical music as an institution within a vibrant community,” Cohler says, by phone from his home in Boston. “To make the value and the worth of classical music relevant and abundantly clear to the community you’re serving, and to allow people to enrich themselves through classical music—not in a forceful way, not a neocolonialist way, but like, ‘Hey, you like this? Maybe you’ll like this, too’—is the conductor’s number one job, at least now in America, and that is what I’m looking forward to doing there.”

Read more from Yuga's interview here.

Yale School of Music Graduate Student Ji Su Jung Wins Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Competition

Ji Su Jung, member of The Percussion Collective

Congratulations to The Percussion Collective member Ji Su Jung!

Performing E. Séjourné’s Concerto for Marimba and Strings, marimbist Ji Su Jung won the 43rd annual Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Competition, which earned her a gold medal, a $25,000 prize and a solo performance at Jones Hall with the Houston Symphony at the Donor and Subscriber Appreciation Concert on Wednesday, July 11 at 7:30 p.m. under the direction of Associate Conductor Robert Franz.

The Grace Woodson Memorial Award was presented to Jung on Saturday, June 2, in Stude Hall at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music by Honorary Chair, John Neighbors. In addition to the cash prize and solo performance with the Houston Symphony, Jung will participate in a week-long Education and Community Engagement Residency that will provide her with essential training to help her succeed in their field and contribute to the communities in which she lives and works.

Additionally, Jung was the recipient of The Hermann Shoss Audience Choice Award, an award casted by members of the audience. Jung is currently a graduate student at the Yale School of Music and is an active soloist and chamber musician. She has performed in prestigious halls and festivals around the country, including the Kennedy Center and Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival. Through her endorsement with Vic Firth mallet and drumstick company, she made numerous performance videos that have garnered a quarter of a million views on their website.

Read more about the competition on Houston Symphony's website here.

Gramophone: DG signs Long Yu and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra

Gramophone
Martin Cullingford

First album, due next year, to feature Chinese and Russian repertoire
Long Yu and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra sign to DG (credit: Leilei Cai)

Deutsche Grammophon has just announced an exclusive contract with the high-profile Chinese conductor Long Yu and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.  

In recent years China has experienced a massively expanding audience for classical music, while a number of its leading young soloists have achieved immense international prominence, not least the pianists Lang Lang, Yundi Li and Yuja Wang - all also DG artists. This new signing should help further reinforce DG's place in China's classical music scene.

Their first album under the new partnership, due for release next year to mark the orchestra’s 140th anniversary, will feature both Chinese and Russian repertoires.

Click here to read more.

San Francisco Chronicle: Classical Music Picks, June 3

San Francisco Chronicle
Joshua Kosman

Anderson and Roe: The energetic and increasingly popular piano duo performs a program of music by Rachmaninoff, Bizet, Mozart and more. 3 p.m. Sunday, June 3, Del Valle Theatre, 1963 Tice Valley Blvd., Walnut Creek; 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 4, Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto; 8 p.m. Tuesday, June 5, Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., S.F. www.chambermusicsf.org

For the full week's listings, click here.

Blogcritics: Concert Review with Julian Schwarz and Marika Bournaki

Blogcritics
Jon Sobel

Cellist Julian Schwarz and pianist Marika Bournaki presented an eye-opening survey of a fascinating and mostly neglected 20th-century musical movement at the Center for Jewish History on May 22. With contributions from violinist Avi Nagin and clarinetist Alec Manasse, the pair gave us a powerful representative sample of concert music from the New Jewish National School, and especially by cellist-composer Joachim Stutschewsky (1891-1982), with musicianship of the highest order...

Schwarz’s velvety, singing tone and Stutschewsky’s creative strength were both immediately on display in the folk-dance-influenced “Legend” at the top of the program. Gentle dissonances from the piano set the 20th-century scene as Schwarz showed brilliant dynamic control on the cello. Stutschewsky’s “Freylekhs: Improvisation” reworked Jewish folk songs into beautiful chamber music through the twin lenses, as I fancied I heard it, of Rachmaninoff and Gershwin.

Read the full review here.

The Strad Cover – June 2018

The Strad
Terry Borman

This is an extract from the second part of Terry Borman’s detailed examination of the ‘Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri ‘Del Gesù’, with contributions from experts in the latest technologies, investigating acoustics, dendrochronology, varnish analysis and plate thicknesses. Download the June issue on desktop computer, via the The Strad App, or buy the print edition

Two months before his death in June 1881, Henri Vieuxtemps was considering selling his beloved 1741 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ violin. He was no longer able to play, having suffered a stroke, and in a letter dated 9 April 1881 he told his friend, cellist Joseph Van der Heyden, that the instrument would ‘cost the buyer a lot, but it will be well worth it because this violin is a unique pearl’.

In early January 2013 the world found out how prescient his comment was, as the newspapers were flooded with reports about the violin’s sale to an anonymous buyer for an undisclosed sum – stating only that it was in excess of $16 million (£9.8 million).

That made it, at the time and still five years later, the most expensive violin in the world. The news also stated that it was to be a lifetime loan to the US violinist Anne Akiko Meyers.

The ‘Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri ‘Del Gesù’
Photo: J. & A. Beare Ltd

Read the full excerpt here.

Watch:  Anne Akiko Meyers plays Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso on the ‘Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri

21CM: Gerard Schwarz Premiere

21CM

This concert features the world premiere of Gerard Schwarz’s latest duo for violin and cello alongside the New York premieres of his first two duos. These will be played by Schwarz’s son, cellist Julian, and Bargemusic’s president, violinist Mark Peskanov. Pianist Misha Dichter joins for a Schubert trio.

21CM Takeaway: Since stepping down from his post as music director of the Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz has been able to focus more of his musical talents on composing. Between Schwarz’s music and its sublime players, this is a concert sure to satisfy.

Blogcritics: Cellist Julian Schwarz on Joachim Stutschewsky and 20th-Century Jewish Music

Blogcritics
Jon Sobel

Julian Schwarz is an award-winning cellist, an active soloist and chamber musician and a champion of new and unheralded music. Together with pianist Marika Bournaki, violinist Avi Nagin, and clarinetist Alec Manasse, he will present on Tuesday May 22 a concert sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, part of its Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series series and co-sponsored by American Society for Jewish Music. The program features compositions by Joachim Stutschewsky (1891-1982) and other 20th-century Jewish composers, much of whose music is today obscure, along with a new work written for the occasion by Israeli composer Ofer Ben-Amots. Neil W. Levin, YIVO’s Anne E. Leibowitz Visiting Professor-in-Residence in Music, will give a pre-concert lecture on the life, work, and artistic milieu of Stutschewsky, a composer whose influences ranged from Schoenberg to klezmer.

Julian Schwarz spoke with us about his approach to playing Stutschewsky and other 20th-century music, the preparation for this unique concert program, and his interest in “music of Jewish connection.”

Click here to read the exclusive interview.

Strings: Anne Akiko Meyers Reminisces on a Childhood Spent in Los Angeles

Strings
Anne Akiko Meyers

Anne Akiko Meyers as a child and onstage at the Emmy Awards Show

To quote Randy Newman, “I love L.A.!” I feel very fortunate to again call Los Angeles my home base. The year-round warm climate, beautiful ocean and mountain views, thriving music scene, world-class restaurants, and friendly people make it a wonderful place to live.

I was born in San Diego, moved to the middle of the Mojave Desert for a few years (my mother drove three hours each way for violin lessons in Los Angeles), and then grew up in L.A. until I was a teenager. It was the perfect place for an aspiring violinist to learn and grow.

When I was seven years old, I began studies with Alice Schoenfeld and had chamber-music coachings with her sister Eleonore. I had bi-weekly lessons, chamber-music studies, and classes at the Community School of Performing Arts (now the Colburn School) on the weekends. When driving around we listened to—and today still listen to—KUSC, with the comforting and friendly voice of Jim Svejda in the car.

To read the full article, click here.

The New York Times: Grand Teton Music Festival Named One of Top 15 Classical Music Festivals

The New York Times
David Allen

From Bernstein centennials at Tanglewood to Mahler in the desert, concerts across the county you don’t want to miss this season.

Grand Teton Music Festival

TETON VILLAGE, WYO., JULY 3-AUG. 18 Donald Runnicles is the music director in this picturesque town opposite Jackson Hole, which is just south of Grand Teton National Park and an hour’s drive from Yellowstone. With an orchestra whose players are drawn from major symphonies across the country, Mr. Runnicles conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, Bernstein’s “West Side Story” and much else. Visiting soloists include Daniil Trifonov, Leila Josefowicz and Kirill Gerstein. gtmf.org

For the full list of top 15 classical music festivals, click here.