Maurice Wright’s work of music theater The Lyric’s Tale will be performed at Haverford College’s Marshall Auditorium this Sunday, April 3, at 3:00. Here is the trailer:
Month: March 2011
(AMC + MTC) + ACF = NMUSA + ACF
Big news this morning about the American Music Center, Meet the Composer and American Composers Forum amalgamating their services and activities. Read about it here.
Maria Bachman at Penn
A reminder about the Maria Bachman violin recital at Penn tomorrow evening, Tuesday, March 29. She and pianist John Klibonoff will play two Philadelphia premieres: a set of Three Pieces by Paul Moravec, and a Sonata by Philip Glass; a world premiere, The Flight of the Red Sea Swallow, by Penn professor Jay Reise; and the Sonata by the late George Rochberg, who was long a Penn faculty member. George wrote the sonata for Maria. The program is at Amado Recital Hall in Irvine Auditorium, 34th and Spruce in Philadelphia. The concert is presented by Penn Contemporary Music.
Queen of Spades at the Met
I was at the Met for The Queen of Spades on Monday night, and enjoyed the evening greatly. I had not heard Karita Mattila live - as Lisa her voice was very beautiful, sweet and true, but a little wan in the upper register. Vladimir Galouzine as Hermann was the opposite of wan, powerful throughout as the obsessed gambler to the point of being overbearing at times. There was handsome singing from Alexey Markov and Peter Mattei, but to me the real find was Tamara Mumford as Pauline. She is a lovely young woman, and her voice matched Mattila’s for beauty of timbre in their duet, and with an exceptionally rich lower register. I am sorry I missed her in the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s production of Rape of Lucretia not long ago. Much-touted conductor Andris Nelsons did not strike me as anything special. He was able to bring some shaky ensemble moments under control in the early part of the piece, but I did not get much sense of a point of view about the piece. Perhaps I need to know the work better to appreciate what he did.
It is an odd piece. Hermann’s darkly obsessive character contrasts greatly with the various genre pieces, which, though enjoyable, felt like filler. I agreed with the character of the Countess, portrayed by Dolora Zajick, who seemed to think that the Pastorale in the second act went on too long. What is the relevance of the entry of Catherine the Great at the end of that scene? Galouzine’s Hermann was such a madman that I was reminded of another opera about a tormented soldier - Berg’s Wozzeck, which will be at the Met later this season.
(picture: the Countess comes back to haunt Hermann. No, she is not trying to tell her colleague to sing more quietly.)
How Philly Moves
Read about - and support - Jacques-Jean Tizou’s How Philly Moves project here.
Instant Encore playlist
Now playing at Instant Encore:
- Ryan MacEvoy McCollough plays Andrew McPherson’s Secrets of Antikithera and John Harbison’s Second Piano Sonata.
- two works of mine are available: the Albany Symphony playing Luminism (various posts about the piece begin here), and organist Karel Paukert playing my Meditation on “What Wondrous Love is This?”
- Da Capo Chamber Players offer music by Cleveland composers Keith Fitch, Andrew Rindfleisch, and Greg D’Alessio.
- Darknesse Visible, a piano work by Thomas Adés, played by Hoang Pham.
- the Ying Quartet offers Chou Wen-Chung’s First String Quartet, “Clouds”.
Dance yourself to death
Recent listening and reading
LifeMusic III - Ying Quartet (Dorian). Strong works by Sebastian Currier, Pierre Jalbert, Paul Moravec, and Lowell Liebermann in polished and passionate performances. The Currier is of special interest as he is emerging as an important voice in the use of electronic media, as in Next Atlantis on this disc.
Modernistic - Jason Moran (Blue Note). Solo piano, prepared piano, piano with sampler - fresh concepts, virtuosic playing from the recent MacArthur grant winner. (Listen to excerpts here.)
Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas - Richard Goode (Nonesuch). I recently returned to this set that was issued several years ago because I am starting to work on a new piano piece and have been feeding my ear with standard repertoire. I believe Goode was the first American to record the entire Beethoven sonata cycle. I love the sheer beauty of piano sound of these recordings - beautiful for the variety of colors Goode can produce, from luscious to crisp and million points in between, beautiful for the warm recording sound. I learn more about these sonatas every time I listen to Goode play them.
The Mind’s Eye - Oliver Sacks. The most recent collection of case studies by the neurologist and geographer of the human brain’s mysteries. The longest piece here is about the patient Sacks knows best - himself - a journal of notes kept during his struggles caused by a cancerous tumor on his eye, and the partial loss of sight that resulted.
Upcoming in Philly and NYC
- March 18 - soprano Mary MacKenzie (of SongFusion) performs with Shuffle Concert this Friday, March 18 at Baruch College. It’s a nice idea - the audience picks the program on the spot!
-March 19 and 20 - Orchestra 2001 plays Hindemith, Berio and Roberto Sierra. Julianne Baird, soprano; Marcantonio Barone, piano, Lori Barnett, cello are featured. The performance on the 19th is at the Trinity Center in Center City, Philadelphia, on the 20th at Swarthmore College.
- March 22 - the Philadelphia chapter of the American Composers Forum presents a webcast interview with George Crumb at 7 PM. Audio trailer here.
- March 29 - Penn Contemporary Music presents violinist Maria Bachman and pianist Jon Klibonoff at Penn’s Amado Recital Hall in Irvine Auditorium, 34th and Spruce Street. Program includes Glass: Sonata No. 1; Paul Moravec: Three Pieces; George Rochberg: Sonata; and the first performance of a new work by Penn faculty composer Jay Reise, The Flight of the Red Sea Swallow. The Glass and Moravec works are Philadelphia premieres. The late George Rochberg was, of course, a long-time Penn faculty member, and he wrote his sonata for Bachman.
- April 12 - looking a little ahead, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra will perform Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony at the Kimmel Center, Christoph Eschenbach conducting, with Di Wu, piano and Thomas Bloch, ondes Martenot.
From the Reading Journal, #5
“But it was in her art, her music, that Lilian not only coped with disease but transcended it. This was clear when she played the piano, an art that both demands and provides a sort of superintegration, a total integration of sense and muscle, of body and mind, of memory and fantasy, of intellect and emotion, of one’s whole self, of being alive.”
-Oliver Sacks, writing about pianist Lilian Kallir in The Mind’s Eye, his most recent book of essays.
James Primosch, composer 