Category: Seattle

Onyx chamber players build a bridge to the Romantic era

By Gigi Yellen

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Piano Trio in D Minor Op. 11 added interest and drama to the Onyx Chamber Players’ season-long commemoration of her brother Felix’s birth-bicentennial, and the death-bicentennial of their musical grandpapa, Franz Josef Haydn. Rolling in like ominous thunder, the piano part in this mature (1846) work of Ms. Mendelssohn Hensel underlines a lyrical theme, a big open melody for the cello, in the manner of the piano figure in Schubert’s famous song “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel.”

“A bridge to the Romantic era,” is how pianist David White described Fanny Mendelssohn’s music, in his spirited remarks before the concert on Sunday afternoon May 16. He also described Fanny’s considerable contributions to her younger brother’s works.

Happily, there’s more about that contribution in a new biography, Fanny Hensel: The Other Mendelssohn by R. Larry Todd (© 2010, Oxford University Press) with extensive documentation of this powerful relationship between equally talented, but unequally privileged musical siblings. The book is filled with detailed musical analyses of Fanny’s work, including the intriguing trio Onyx played. During intermission, I showed it to pianist Judith Cohen, who was in the audience, and her eyes lit up.
Continue reading Onyx chamber players build a bridge to the Romantic era

Quarter notes

How could those masks not be dangerous? Photo LA Times.

The LA Ring sounds like a .

Meanwhile, The Met’s new Ring gets the . Robert LePage’s ideas look promising. Will Levine be healthy enough to conduct? Can this production cement Gelb’s reputation as an innovator with the right vision for the Met?

The NY Phil has unveiled a new (and even funny) video campaign for this month’s Le Grande Macabre. Gilbert and Death share a moment over . They even face off over a game of .  Death gets brain freeze; loses a fin.

Jun Markl conducts SSO in all German program

Since January, when the legendary Kurt Masur came to Seattle to conduct the SSO in a spellbinding performance of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, SSO performances have steadily improved, interpretations from the podium have varied, and among musicians there is genuine excitement for the orchestra’s future. The musicians have even magnanimously stepped up their playing for Gerard Schwarz, the orchestra’s current music director. It is, without a doubt, an exciting time to hear the SSO in action.

One musician confided a few days back that it is a good thing he isn’t on the search committee to find a new music director because he is having so much fun playing for the likes of Spano, Dausgaard, Masur, Markl, Gaffigan, and Manze that he would prefer the search for a new music director go on as long as possible.
Continue reading Jun Markl conducts SSO in all German program

Questioning the conductors: Jun Markl


Update : I am not entirely sure what happened with the video for two minutes in the middle. I apologize and will upload a mirror copy tonight.

I had a chance to sit down with Jun (pronounced June) Markl earlier this week. Markl, no stranger to the Seattle Symphony, is guest conducting a program of German music that covers Schumann, Beethoven, and Wagner. Though his program is uber-traditional, Markl takes a relativist view of Beethoven and the masterpieces of the classical music repertory. Markl doesn’t embrace just one view of how Beethoven should sound. As he says in our interview, Beethoven played in France can sound different from Beethoven played in the United States. Differences resulting from geography should be embraced for what they bring to the music.

Markl’s embracing attitude is important for someone in his position. His own family bridges two cultures (his mother is Japanese and his father is German). He also currently leads two orchestras: one in Lyon, France and the other in Leipzig, Germany and is a regular guest conductor in the United States too. Because of his firm command of the Franco-German repertory, I assume some have placed high high on their list of conductors they would like to see replace Gerard Schwarz after next season.  His previous visits to Seattle have given audiences shapely,poised interpretations of mostly familiar repertory.

These interviews often take on a life of their own when the camera is turned off. This time was no different.  When the camera was shut off I had a spirited conversation about the economic differences between American and European orchestras with Alex Prior. Prior, who is assistant to this season’s guest conductors, sat in on the interview. Afterward, I asked him what he thought about Markl’s response to my questions on the subject (which you can watch) and his own thoughts. Prior approached the subject with the free market enthusiasm of someone just beginning to get a handle on American consumerist culture and with the experience of seeing European orchestras hew to the political whims of appropriators.

Our exchange came in the context of contemporary music. In Europe it isn’t uncommon, as Markl explains, for orchestras to offer contemporary music festivals even when they know ticket sales will flatten or dip. In the United States, prolonged encounters with the music of today is a recipe for orchestra fiscal ruin. European orchestras have the luxury of being able to program difficult pieces because of the state subsidies they receive. By contrast American orchestras depend on a steady flow of private subsidies. Prior’s argument is that the American system of orchestra funding is better, because it is market oriented, which allows the audience to have more of a say. I cautioned that if orchestras are purely market oriented there is a risk that new music would be squeezed out by a parade of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Mozart.

I hope to be able to speak with Prior for more than a few moments here and there. In the meantime, take a moment to watch what Markl had to say about orchestra economics, the German tradition, and contemporary music.

from on .

Quarter notes: Amelia trailer

Seattle Opera is up with their Amelia trailer on YouTube. If RM Campbell’s review doesn’t make you want to see Speight Jenkins’ first commissioned opera, surely this trailer will.

Seattle Opera premieres Amelia

Nathan Gunn as Paul. Photo by Rozarii Lynch photo.

By R.M. Campbell

During the past 25 years or so of Speight Jenkins’ tenure as general director, Seattle Opera has traveled in many music waters. However, none involved commissioning a work. That absence was rectified this weekend at McCaw Hall with an often compelling and poignant “Amelia.” The climate for new operas has changed considerably since Jenkins took over the reins: then new opera was rarity, now it is common, despite the huge costs (“Amelia” cost $3.6 million) and huge risks of artistic or box office failure.

Jenkins did not go about the task of commissioning an opera with little thought. He began the process in 2002 with a search for a composer. The following year, Daron Aric Hagen was approached as the composer. Hagen suggested the subject of flight. The next year Hagen introduced Jenkins to the poetry of Gardner McFall, and, in 2005, Hagen and McFall began to toss ideas around at Yaddo, the artists’ colony. A story on flight emerges, and Stephen Wadsworth joins the team to create a story based in part on McFall’s own history in which her father, a flight commander in the U.S. Navy, was lost in a training mission, in 1966. A workshop of the complete opera was given in Seattle two years ago.
Continue reading Seattle Opera premieres Amelia

Haptadama comes to a close at Olympic Sculpture Park on Saturday night

Composer/conductor Eric Banks explains Haptadama to a capacity audience Saturday night.

With Haptadama: The Seven Creations of Ancient Persia, Eric Banks unexpectedly challenges audiences to reconsider how they think about opera. It’s not that Banks is dabbling in new forms or means of expression – although he does have a tremendous gift for contemporizing ancient languages and melodies in ways that observe texts, respect original ideas, and avoid kitsch. Banks calls Haptadama a choral opera. However the piece synthesizes opera, song cycles, and sacred music that leads listeners in a number of different directions.

Banks got the idea to write Haptadama after two visits to India. The material for the piece comes from the Persian creation story of the Zorostrians drawn from both the Gathas and Bundahisn. The Gathas, perhaps the oldest written music in history, provide an austere framework for the piece. The Bundahisn, on the other hand, gives the music its mystical quality. The creation story follows a well worn formula. A benevolent creator coexists with evil. The creator creates life and the known world. Evil strikes back causing cataclysm and robbing the world of its innocence. The creator redeems the world by wiping everything out with a cleansing flood.
Continue reading Haptadama comes to a close at Olympic Sculpture Park on Saturday night

Quarter notes: Le Grand


Gyorgy Ligeti supposedly spent the last years of his life worried that when he died no one would remember him or his music. His worries weren’t entirely unjustified. The work of many, many composers has slipped into obscurity. For Ligeti, an artist on the fringes of the musical mainstream, the possibility of anonymity is even more pronounced.

Thank goodness for the NY Philharmonic then, which is preparing a concert performance of Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre May 27-29. When the opera hits the concert stage later this month it will be the NY premiere of this 20th Century masterpiece. To prep listeners, the orchestras have released three new videos in their FlipCam series.

Doug Fitch, Le Grand’s director, takes the Phil’s FlipCam camera man (or woman) on a tour of his studio and reveals some of the designs that will be used.

The NY Phil has a number of other videos — non FlipCam — worth investigating too. In this video, Douglas Fitch and Edourad Getaz give an overview of the opera and the project.

In another video (a non FlipCam video) Alan Gilbert shares his own thoughts on Le Grand.

The adventurous can always download (or buy a CD version) of Sony’s EP Salonen led performance of the piece.

Closer to home, don’t forget Seattle Opera’s Amelia which will be unveiled to the concert going public for the first time tonight. Amelia, unlike the photo of Ligeti at the top of this post, is guaranteed not to frighten (that’s my own personal guarantee not Hagen’s or SO’s.) There is lots of good information about the opera (especially J. Dean’s listening guide) over at . If you don’t like to read, here is the final video is SO’s series.

Manze makes his SSO debut

By R.M. Campbell

Early in his distinguished career, Andrew Manze was known as a Baroque violinist. But not any violinist. He brought zeal, ebullience, intelligence and scholarship to everything he touched. Those qualities he brings to the podium, as his Seattle Symphony Orchestra debut testified to this weekend at Benaroya Hall. He has a small orchestra, not quite 30 musicians, all strings. The balance is at McCaw Hall doing its duty with Seattle Opera and the premiere of “Amelia.” In some ways it makes no difference because the English conductor can accomplish what he wants with whatever means he has as his disposal. What one did glimpse were his predilections toward the Baroque era, in which he has spent a good share of his career, and English music.
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Quarter notes

Stephane Deneve

Anne Midgette .  What will the press say about our own local world premiere? We’ll start to find out this weekend.

. He also received with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra — his original post. There were a handful of people who though Deneve might be a suitable music director for Seattle and is scheduled to return to the SSO next season. Does this announcement take him out of the running? Can the SSO still find a suitable replacement? How does the ongoing Philadelphia saga and the nascent search for MD’s in Cincinnati and Indianapolis affect the landscape?

Happy Birthday! with a concert tonight at the Chapel Performance Space. On the bill a new piece by Wayne Horowitz, violist Melia Watras, the Icicle Creek Trio, and the Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet.