The Seattle Symphony premiered another work, this time by Aaron Jay Kernis, in the Gund/Simonyi set of commissioned works to celebrate the final year of Gerard Schwarz’s directorship of the orchestra, Thursday night at Benaroya Hall.
Unlike some of its predecessors in the series, Kernis’ “On Wings of Light” is bombastic, urgent, bright. It is over seemingly moments after it starts. If ever a piece was a curtaion-raiser, this is one. Kernis writes in the program that the piece was inspired by words of the 18th-century philospher and scientist Johann Heinrich Lambert: “I take on wings of light and soar through all spaces of the heavens. I never come far enough and the desire always grows in me to go farther.” Perhaps, but I got little sense of wings of light and soaring through the heavens. Rather the work is more like blasting your way to any destination. There may be little poetry or subtlety, but it was fun to be along for the ride. Continue reading World premiere plus Dvorak’s 7th from SSO
Despite the gloom of the economy and its effect on American culture from the Pacific to the Atlantic, Pacific Northwest Ballet opened its current season Friday night at McCall Hall with splendid dancing and splendid choreography.
This is the first year after the company decided, as a means of reducing expenses, to combine opening night, usually on Thursday, with the subsequent Friday night. According to officials, Thursday night was the least attended and the most popular night for trading. Undoubtedly many people complained: No one likes to move involuntarily. Yet, the task was completed and the house looked good. Certainly it was enthusiastic, clapping and laughing at every possible moment. Continue reading Pacific Northwest Ballet opens new season
A world premiere and Brahms symphony aside, the major attraction of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s opening gambit Thursday night at Benaroya Hall was pianist Yefim Bronfman.
Unlike some major pianists who rarely grace the symphony stage, Bronfman is almost a fixture. He made his local debut in the 1970’s as part of the SSO Sunday afternoon series dedicated to up and coming artists. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma also made his local debut on that series. He was a teenager while Bronfman had already crossed into his 20s. Just. Young they may have been but obviously brilliant futures were ahead. Bronfman’s vehicle then was Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. On Thursday, and through Sunday afternoon, it is another Russian composer — Prokofiev. Continue reading SSO opens new subscription season Thursday night
As a rule we expect Cappella Romana to enlighten and enthrall us with music of the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches from the Middle Ages to the present day. For its first concert of this season, it turned to the English church choral tradition of the Renaissance in a fascinating, moving performance directed by a guest conductor from England, Guy Protheroe.
Choosing Holy Rosary Church in West Seattle for the venue Saturday night, a place where the choir has sung before, gave the requisite reverberation to allow the music to bloom, though it made words very hard to distinguish. Continue reading Cappella Romana turns to England
After nearly three decades of association with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz is saying goodbye. This season will be his last as music director, although he will return to the SSO podium in subsequent seasons as conductor laureate.
The annual gala Saturday night at Benaroya Hall, which raises several hundred thousand dollars every fall for the orchestra, was dedicated to Schwarz. The first piece, “The Human Spirit,” was written by him, and the second, a cello concerto written by the SSO composer-in-residence Samuel Jones, was performed by Schwarz’ son Julian. The closing work, a suite taken from Strauss’ opera “Der Rosenkavalier,” was arranged by Schwarz. The only piece on the program which did not bear any involvement with Schwarz, except as a conductor, was Mahler’s song cycle “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.” Continue reading Schwarz opened his farewell season Saturday night
Beethoven and wine; wine and Beethoven, the Seattle Symphony kicked off the 2010/2011 season with three shorter all-Beethoven concerts preceded by an hour of wine tasting. The Beethoven and Wine festival isn’t new. Last season was its inagueral season. It’s a disappointing world we live in. These days it takes putting “wine” in the title of the program to fill Benaroya to near capacity. Wine and ___ (fill in the blank with a composer or musical period) has proven to be such a successful model that I noticed a new Baroque and wine series has been added to the SSO season. Other orchestras have included wine tasting in their programs as well. Continue reading Beethoven and Wine festival concludes with the Eighth Symphony and Third Piano Concerto
The Seattle Symphony began its Beethoven and Wine series and its annual season at Benaroya Hall on a high note, with the Seattle Symphony debut of violinist Augustin Hadelich playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and the world premiere of a fine little work by Augusta Read Thomas.
Her composition was the first to be performed of eighteen commissioned from contemporary composers by Agnes Gund and Charles Simonyi to mark the farewell season of artistic director Gerard Schwarz. The list of composers, all working in this country, is a Who’s Who of today’s most respected names in the field Their works will be performed at concerts throughout the season, and this first one will be heard again in each of the remaining Beethoven and Wine concerts, tonight (Thursday) and tomorrow.
Read Thomas describes her five-minute “Of Paradise and Light” as a soulful work of reflection, “as though a sliver of paradise and light came down to shine upon a garden of colorful flowers.” So often a description like this leaves the listener, on hearing the work, wondering just what the composer meant. Not so here. She has captured her words in sound.
The fall concert season starts with a flurry this year, seemingly in a hurry to get going immediately after Labor Day. The Seattle Symphony has three Beethoven and Wine concerts this week and a gala on Saturday, Cappella Romana gives its first season performance Saturday, and the Early Music Guild got in first with one of its First Tuesday series, the I-90 Collective performing at Trinity Parish Church.
Local composer Nat Evans has embarked on a project that fuses nature, music, community, and subjectivity of experience. Sunrise September 18, 2010 is a completely new piece of music written by Evans. It is a site specific, time specific, event specific work experienced differently by everyone who participates in the premiere. Listeners will gather at before 6:30 am on the 18th at Kite Hill in Magnuson Park. This is also the location which inspired the work and will be the vantage point for the sunrise and the premiere.
At exactly 6:30 am (the time the sun will rise up over the Cascades) Evans will give the cue and everyone will press play on their iPod, Zune, Walkman, CD player, or any other device people choose. Participants will be hearing Sunrise, while watching the sun rise. Sunrise will be recorded before the 18th and distributed to people who let the composer know they want to participate. All participants have to do is download the music, load it onto their favorite media player, and show up on the 18th at Kite Hill.
The idea for this new work originated from the composer’s experience with Zen and how the tradition treats natural cycles like sunrise and sunset. Just as important Evans says, is how individuals experience these cycles. “Over the years I became interested in how we interact with these cycles,” Evans remarked. He elaborated further, “there is also the tradition in Indian classical music that certain pieces are to be played at specific times of the day, even specific times of the year.” Evans took these ideas, put pen to paper, and wrote Sunrise.
Evans is one of Seattle’s talented, up and coming composers. I had the good fortune of introducing a piece of his at the May Day, May Day festival. The concept behind Sunrise is so interesting to me, I asked Evans if he would want to participate in The Five. He obliged. His answers follow the jump.
Oh, and if you want to hear Sunrise, email Evans at NathanielFEvans@gmail.com and he’ll send you a link for the download. See you at Kite Hill on the 18th!
Evans’ responses to my five questions are after the jump.
Summer is winding down, classical performance — with the exception of Seattle Opera’s head scratching new production of Tristan und Isolde – are more or less on hiatus until September. All of this leaves a blogger with little to blog about. Yet a few noteworthy bits have popped up here and there.
This Sunday George Shangrow will be remembered at a service held at the University Christian Church in the U District. The service starts at 2 pm and runs until 5 pm. Get there early. Seating is limited and because George’s presence was huge there will no doubt be an overflowing crowd.
Tristan und Isolde wraps up this weekend at McCaw hall. I saw the new production last weekend. The general consensus among critics has been reservedly favorable; consensus among the audience hasn’t been as generous. Nearly everyone I spoke with thought the orchestra sounded spectacular. Fisch whipped the band into grand Wagnerian shape but it never missed a chance to embrace the score’s warmer moments. Most also liked Tristan’s cast as well. the golden age of Wagner singers is long gone but that didn’t stop Clifton Forbis and Annalena Persson from giving a memorable performance of Tristan and Isolde. Once again, Persson started her Tristan performance with uncertainty in her voice and a wavering tone. By the second act she had found Isolde’s voice; her arresting Liebestob provided a satisfying conclusion.
If the audience appreciated the musical qualities of the performance, production elements weren’t regarded as favorably. “The directing and set design were so bad I periodically closed my eyes to listen so I would not be distracted” read one comment posted on the Seattle Times web review. The painted sets looked like cheap, grey particle board. A new projection system — written up extensively in the Tristan program — added little to the opera’s texture. Israel’s changing costumes were interesting, highlighting the opera’s mythology, but with very little else on stage, they seemed out of place. Kazaras looked to explore “Tristan time” and the idea that an event which takes a few seconds in real time might seem much longer in the mind. This is all well and good as an idea, but on stage it failed to translate, turning the opera into a series of incomprehensible moments.
The music is always paramount with an opera. But for professional company’s like Seattle Opera the music can’t be everything. Audiences already expect big things in the pit and on stage — for Wagner especially. For a production to be successful then, the sets, costumes, stage direction, and everything else that isn’t musical must be good too. Fisch’s orchestra and Jenkins’s cast were memorable, while Israel and Kazaras’s production forgettable.
Gathering Note 