BBC Music Magazine: Revival (Michelle Cann)
Acclaimed pianist Michelle Cann has long been a champion of African-American composer Florence Price, and this fine new recording brings together two substantial works by Price for solo piano alongside Margaret Bonds’s glorious Spiritual Suite.
BBC Music Magazine
By Kate Wakeling
Acclaimed pianist Michelle Cann has long been a champion of African-American composer Florence Price, and this fine new recording brings together two substantial works by Price for solo piano alongside Margaret Bonds’s glorious Spiritual Suite.
Born in Arkansas in 1887 in the midst of the Jim Crow segregation laws, Florence Price showed early talent at the piano and went on to forge a remarkable path as a composer. Her series of Fantasie nègre for solo piano (the first of which was premiered by a young Margaret Bonds), were composed across the 1930s and ’40s: they present a new musical genre which fused elements of European classical music with African-American spirituals. Each of the Fantasie nègre included here is intricately constructed, and Cann’s vivid performances bring out a terrific depth of emotion – among many such fine moments, the final rendition of the spiritual ‘Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass’ in No. 1 is breathtakingly powerful. Price’s Piano Sonata in E minor is every bit as accomplished and Cann’s reading is poised yet vital, drawing out the work’s vibrant polyrhythms and creating a wonderful sense of line in the luscious slow movement.
Read more here.
BBC Music Magazine: 'We must educate young musicians' ears and hearts' – violist Hsin-Yun Huang
Every time I take the train between New York and Philadelphia, I am reminded of my earliest days of train travel. First I was at the Menuhin School in the UK, travelling from Cobham to Wimbledon to play for my teacher, David Takeno. Later I travelled from Philadelphia to New York to play for Michael Tree when he didn’t have time in his schedule to visit the Curtis Institute, where I was a student.
My train time became sacred thinking time as I played a game with myself — am I going to face forward or backwards? I never knew and was delighted in the mystery revealing itself as the train departed.
BBC Music Magazine
Hsin-Yun Huang
The Juilliard School and Curtis Institute viola professor Hsin-Yun Huang reflects on music's cult of perfection
Every time I take the train between New York and Philadelphia, I am reminded of my earliest days of train travel. First I was at the Menuhin School in the UK, travelling from Cobham to Wimbledon to play for my teacher, David Takeno. Later I travelled from Philadelphia to New York to play for Michael Tree when he didn’t have time in his schedule to visit the Curtis Institute, where I was a student.
My train time became sacred thinking time as I played a game with myself — am I going to face forward or backwards? I never knew and was delighted in the mystery revealing itself as the train departed.
Forward and backward is exactly what we do in life and in music. Young people have the privilege of extraordinary excitement, keeping their dreams alive as they embrace an unknown journey ahead of them.
Older people have the privilege of experience: the wisdom not to repeat mistakes and live a life that is more intentional and conscious. Each day, we are our youngest selves as well as our oldest selves. This is such a good reminder for all of us, gifted as we are with this one life.
Read more here.
Vail Daily: Bravo! Vail Music Festival Welcomes Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in 2024
The Bravo! Vail Music Festival (Bravo! Vail) announces the debut of Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería (the Orchestra) for a three-concert residency on June 20, 22 and 23, 2024, opening its 2024 Festival season. Led by Artistic Director and renowned Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, the acclaimed ensemble will be Bravo! Vail’s 2024 international chamber orchestra and the first Latin American orchestra featured at Bravo! Vail.
Vail Daily
The Bravo! Vail Music Festival (Bravo! Vail) announces the debut of Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería (the Orchestra) for a three-concert residency on June 20, 22 and 23, 2024, opening its 2024 Festival season. Led by Artistic Director and renowned Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, the acclaimed ensemble will be Bravo! Vail’s 2024 international chamber orchestra and the first Latin American orchestra featured at Bravo! Vail.
“Since we started the international chamber orchestra residency at Bravo! Vail, I have dreamed of inviting my friend, the incredible Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, to bring the musicians from the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería to Vail,” said Anne-Marie McDermott, Artistic Director of Bravo! Vail. “Musically speaking, having performed with them many times, I can attest to the magical chemistry Carlos has with the players and the level of artistic commitment they bring to the incredibly wide range of music they perform. I simply can’t wait to welcome them.”
As part of its residency, the Orchestra will perform an expansive breadth of repertoire — from Beethoven and Haydn to leading Mexican and Latin American composers such as Pacho Flores, Gabriela Ortiz and Alberto Ginastera, and including Spaniards Joaquín Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla. Members of the Orchestra will also participate in education and engagement programs throughout Colorado’s Vail and Eagle River Valley communities.
Read more here.
The Washington Post: Classical music festivals feature Mother Nature as accompaniment
For nearly 40 years, this admission-free festival has been attracting persnickety listeners and unpicky picnickers to Sun Valley, Idaho. Music Director Alasdair Neale has lined up strong guest artists, including pianist Orli Shaham (July 30 and Aug. 3); mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke (Aug. 9 and 10); Stéphane Denève, the new director of the New World Symphony, conducting a concert of John Williams’s music (Aug. 12); pianist Yefim Bronfman (Aug. 14); and violinist Augustin Hadelich (Aug. 20 and 21).
The Washington Post
By Michael Andor Brodeur
Sun Valley Music Festival
For nearly 40 years, this admission-free festival has been attracting persnickety listeners and unpicky picnickers to Sun Valley, Idaho. Music Director Alasdair Neale has lined up strong guest artists, including pianist Orli Shaham (July 30 and Aug. 3); mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke (Aug. 9 and 10); Stéphane Denève, the new director of the New World Symphony, conducting a concert of John Williams’s music (Aug. 12); pianist Yefim Bronfman (Aug. 14); and violinist Augustin Hadelich (Aug. 20 and 21).
Read more here.
The Denver Post: Your summer guide to the fine arts in Colorado
Colorado’s fine-arts calendar is rich in the coming months with an abundance of high-level live performances and gallery exhibitions. We looked across the state and assembled this list of offerings with serious potential.
The Denver Post
Ray Mark Rinaldi
The Philadelphia Orchestra with Hilary Hahn
(Bravo! Vail Music Festival, July 12)
Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a true podium star, and his presence with the ensemble this summer in Vail is especially promising. The orchestra is set to perform Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3, a work that was the highlight of its 2022 Grammy Award-winning recording. Even better: The evening features popular soloist Hilary Hahn, who will take on the thrill ride that is Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.
New York Philharmonic Orchestra with Marin Alsop and Yunchan Lim
(Bravo! Vail, July 26)
The classical world’s personality of the moment is no doubt Yunchan Lim, who in 2022 — at the age of 18 — became the youngest-ever winner of the legendary Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On this night, he will perform Rachmaninoff’s difficult Piano Concerto No. 3, while local fave Marin Alsop conducts from the podium. It’s a swell combo and just the kind of program that makes Vail a special place.
Read more here.
Pianist Magazine: Getting to Know: Illia Ovcharenko
Back in October, Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko was named Prize Laureate of the prestigious 2022 Honens International Piano Competition. He walked home that day with 100,000 (CAD) and an Artist Development Program valued at a half-million dollars. Over half a year later, he is thriving and is enjoying his playing more than ever.
Pianist Magazine
By Ellie Palmer
Back in October, Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko was named Prize Laureate of the prestigious 2022 Honens International Piano Competition. He walked home that day with 100,000 (CAD) and an Artist Development Program valued at a half-million dollars. Over half a year later, he is thriving and is enjoying his playing more than ever. Below he opens up on his experiences in Canada, his Carnegie Hall debut, and how he balances his fast-paced lifestyle...
How has winning the Honens International Piano Competition changed your life?
I am often lost [for] words when trying to describe how my life has changed since winning the Honens International Piano Competition. It was changed drastically! It truly feels like a beginning of a new chapter in my life as a musician. Most of the time I am either on a plane or in front of the piano and I must say, I love it! The best part is performing and being on stage as well as always preparing for something.
Read more here.
New Sounds: A Deep Dive: Music For the Bottom of the Ocean
Hear an hour of music that dives deep into the ocean where sunlight doesn’t reach, with work by Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, composer and violinist Matt McBane with Sandbox Percussion, French harpist and composer Laura Peruddin, and Berlin-based composer and audio technologist Floating Spectrum.
New Sounds
By John Schaefer
Hear an hour of music that dives deep into the ocean where sunlight doesn’t reach, with work by Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, composer and violinist Matt McBane with Sandbox Percussion, French harpist and composer Laura Peruddin, and Berlin-based composer and audio technologist Floating Spectrum.
…Then, listen to some of composer, producer, and violinist Matt McBane’s collaboration with Sandbox Percussion, Bathymetry -inspired by the ocean floor and a “reference to how bass synthesizers affect percussive sounds, mimicking how the ocean floor shapes the waves above,” (National Sawdust.)
Read more here.
The New York Times: Review: Yunchan Lim, Teenage Piano Star, Arrives in New York
The 19-year-old musician made his New York Philharmonic debut with a powerful yet poetic performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto.
“He plays like a dream,” we say about musicians we like, meaning simply that they’re very good.
But when I say that Yunchan Lim, the 19-year-old pianist who made a galvanizing debut with the New York Philharmonic at David Geffen Hall on Wednesday, played like a dream, I mean something more literal.
I mean that there was, in his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, the juxtaposition of precise clarity and expansive reverie; the vivid scenes and bursts of wit; the sense of contrasting yet organically developing moods; the endless and persuasive bendings of time — the qualities that tend to characterize nighttime wanderings of the mind.
The New York Times
By Zachary Woolfe
The 19-year-old musician made his New York Philharmonic debut with a powerful yet poetic performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto.
“He plays like a dream,” we say about musicians we like, meaning simply that they’re very good.
But when I say that Yunchan Lim, the 19-year-old pianist who made a galvanizing debut with the New York Philharmonic at David Geffen Hall on Wednesday, played like a dream, I mean something more literal.
I mean that there was, in his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, the juxtaposition of precise clarity and expansive reverie; the vivid scenes and bursts of wit; the sense of contrasting yet organically developing moods; the endless and persuasive bendings of time — the qualities that tend to characterize nighttime wanderings of the mind.
This dreamy concert was among Lim’s first major professional performances outside his native South Korea, though he is already world-famous for this concerto. His blazing account of it secured his victory last June as the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition’s youngest-ever winner, and the video of that appearance has been viewed millions of times on YouTube.
Read more here.
Photo Credit: Chris Lee
Playbill: National Children's Chorus Makes Carnegie Hall Solo Debut May 6
The concert previews music the Grammy-winning group is set to record at London's Abbey Road Studios this summer.
The Grammy-winning National Children's Chorus makes its solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage May 6 at 3 PM. The concert, titled Voices of Action, Creating a World of Belonging, previews music the group is set to record at London's famed Abbey Road Studios this summer, part of their forthcoming holiday music album.
Playbill
By Logan Culwell-Block
The concert previews music the Grammy-winning group is set to record at London's Abbey Road Studios this summer.
The Grammy-winning National Children's Chorus makes its solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage May 6 at 3 PM. The concert, titled Voices of Action, Creating a World of Belonging, previews music the group is set to record at London's famed Abbey Road Studios this summer, part of their forthcoming holiday music album.
The multi-cultural offerings include the world premieres of Gaayatri Kaundinya's"Diya Jalein," the Spanish lullaby "A La Nanita Nana" by Carlos Cordero, Andy Beck's arrangement of the Nigerian carol "Betelehemu," and André J. Thomas and Langston Hughes' "I Dream a World," along with works by Sharon Farber, Ola Gjeilo, and Eric Whitacre.
The ensemble, made up of young singers aged 10 to 18, is led by conductors Luke McEndarfer, Dr. Pamela Blackstone, Dr. Allan Laiño, and Dr. Nicholas Nicassio.
Read more here.
San Francisco Classical Voice: Anne Akiko Meyers Brings Fandango to Symphony San José
Symphony San José’s concert on May 6 at the California Theatre featured Anne Akiko Meyers as soloist in Mexican composer Arturo Márquez’s new violin concerto, Fandango. Meyers requested the work from Márquez and gave the first performance, with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in August 2021. Since then, she has been taking the piece around on her guest appearances.
So it’s fortunate that when San José’s intended guest conductor, Tatsuya Shimono, withdrew for personal reasons less than two weeks before the concert, the Symphony was able to secure José Luis Gómez, music director of the Tucson Symphony, as a replacement. He had conducted Meyers in this same concerto in a Tucson program last September.
San Francisco Classical Voice
By David Bratman
Symphony San José’s concert on May 6 at the California Theatre featured Anne Akiko Meyers as soloist in Mexican composer Arturo Márquez’s new violin concerto, Fandango. Meyers requested the work from Márquez and gave the first performance, with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in August 2021. Since then, she has been taking the piece around on her guest appearances.
So it’s fortunate that when San José’s intended guest conductor, Tatsuya Shimono, withdrew for personal reasons less than two weeks before the concert, the Symphony was able to secure José Luis Gómez, music director of the Tucson Symphony, as a replacement. He had conducted Meyers in this same concerto in a Tucson program last September.
Meyers had been inspired to approach Márquez after hearing the composer’s Danzón No. 2, a boundlessly joyful expression of the character of Veracruz’s dance music that’s become something of a signature piece for Dudamel. Meyers hoped that Márquez could import something of the same spirit into a violin concerto. It turned out that the composer, whose father was a mariachi violinist, had already been thinking along those lines.
Read more here.
Photo Credit: Allen Murabayashi