Category: Seattle

The masterpiece by Prokofiev and Sergei Eisenstein

By Philippa Kiraly

How many film directors hope to boast that their movies are being shown and revered more than 70 years after their making? There can be few talking movies in that category before Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Prokofiev collaborated on the epic “Alexander Nevsky” in 1938, one of the first and arguably the most massive movie production ever at that time and the forerunner of others in similar vein from “Ben Hur” to “Spartacus” and more.

“Nevsky” is black and white and a bit grainy by current standards, but what has helped to keep it high in the category of great films is the musical score by Prokofiev. To his great credit, Eisenstein allowed the composer considerable rein in his musical portrayals of the plot.

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Corigliano Quartet performs at Cornish College

The Corigliano Quartet. Photo credit: Michael Jinsoo Lim.

Even though half of the Corigliano Quartet calls Seattle home, and another member has family in the city (Amy Sue Barston is the sister of Elisa Barston, principal second violin with the SSO), the group’s performances in the area haven’t been as plentiful as you might expect. To my knowledge, the last one was in 2008 when the group made their debut on the University of Washington’s International Chamber Series.  This quartet’s local schedule this season includes two concerts at the Cornish College of the Arts and a forthcoming performance in May with Simple Measures.

A Corigliano performance tends to be an adventure in contemporary music. This doesn’t mean the pieces they play are replete with dissonances, microtones, and explorations of the percussive properties of string instruments, far from it. The ensemble takes its name from the composer John Corigliano, a living, breathing, active artist who finds inspiration in the popular neo-romantic idiom that has demonstrated music can be easy on the ears and challenging to hear.

Continue reading Corigliano Quartet performs at Cornish College

Amelia sneak peek

Daron Hagen, the composer of Amelia.

Reminder

: I’ll be live blogging the Amelia sneak peek tomorrow afternoon.  Check back here at 2 pm and you can access my live blog of the event.  To watch the live blog, click the link below and a new window will open up.  Or, if you prefer, you can click the Live Blog tab at the top of the page and you can watch an embedded version of the blog.  I hope you tune in, It should be fun and interesting.

Seattle Opera is holding a “sneak peek” event for bloggers on April 13 from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm.  Seattle’s community of arts bloggers (who are they?) will be meeting with the creative team responsible for Amelia.  It is the first commission for the opera in more than 40 years.  Perhaps more striking is Amelia is an American opera, set in America, about American things.  American opera isn’t as cemented in the repertory as its French, German, and Italian counterparts.  Of course, there are exceptions.  Nixon in China (John Adams), Porgy and Bess (George Gershwin) and Vanessa (Samuel Barber) are successful relative to other American operas, but I would hesitate to call them repertory staples.

Amelia is a big deal for Seattle Opera and could be considered a more important operatic achievement than the every-four-years Ring cycle.  In any event, you can use the link below to open up a pop out window that will let you follow the live blog.  Or, you can always check out the Live Blog page by clicking the tab at the top of this page.

Quarter notes: Levine, the Ring, and Amelia

Scary clowns in the LA Ring.

has hit Los Angeles.

Levine on the rest of the Met season.

Morlot to Seattle to fill in for Roberto Abbado.  More than a few are looking forward to his return.  According to the SSO, Dutilleux and Morlot are close.  Will the second date be as good as the first?

The Seattle Chamber Music Society is out with their

Next week, I will be attending a media availability with the Seattle Opera’s creative team to discuss Daron Hagen’s new opera Amelia.  Don’t know Hagen?  Check out his Frank Lloyd Wright inspired opera Shining Brow on Naxos.  Live blogging will ensue.  Stay tuned for more details.

Ludovic Morlot to replace Roberto Abbado

Roberto Abbado has withdrawn from his upcoming appearance with the SSO.  In his place, the orchestra is bringing back Ludovic Morlot.  Morlot was last here in October when he conducted a concert of Martinu and Haydn.  For that concert, the orchestra was split with the opera.  This time, Morlot will have the benefit of the whole orchestra as he leads the group in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Henri Dutilleux’s Cello Concerto with Xavier Phillips as the cello soloist.

Celebrating Seattle’s choral music community

Seattle’s choral music community is routinely passed over in praise and attention in favor of the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera. Even Seattle’s healthy early music community often garners more attention. This deficit persists even as local choral music groups have celebrated the contributions of Frank Ferko, centuries of “French” composers including Frank Martin, and Samuel Barber in his anniversary year during the month of March.

In the most recently concluded concert, Seattle Choral Arts presented what turned out to be the west coast premiere of Palo Alto, California (by way of Chicago and Valparaiso) composer Frank Ferko’s setting of the Stabat Mater. Most of the area’s local music lovers probably had never heard of Ferko before he talked publicly about composing the piece at a March 19th meet the composer reception held at Fare Start in downtown Seattle. Robert Bode, Choral Arts’ engaging music director even confessed that he didn’t know Ferko’s setting until he came across a recording of the piece by Cedille records, Anne Heider, and His Majestie’s Clerks.
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Quarter notes: Chamber Music Madness, the Met, James Gaffigan, and La Traviata

On this Easter Sunday some classical music bits and pieces to tide you over.

Chamber Music Madness, a local organization that helps kids grow as musicians is looking for a new executive director.  String players with good administrative and fundraising skills should apply.

Vanity Fair is out with a piece questioning whether the Metropolitan Opera’s economic model is sustainable.  The article comes on the heels of Alex Ross’ own critique of the current Met season which includes the now infamous Luc Bondy Tosca.

Speaking of sustainable economic models, the Honolulu Symphony has a plan to save the beleaguered orchestra.

Ariadne opens at Meydenbauer in Bellevue

By R.M. Campbell

Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” is a opera with many, sometimes opposing, characteristics. It is deft and sophisticated, a piece intended for refined tastes. High art is forced to mingle with low art, each looking unfavorably upon the other.

With the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program spring production, which opened Thursday night at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, the opera seems even more madcap than usual with the forces of the low made particularly engaging. Indeed, they appear to win the day in this fictitious battle.
Continue reading Ariadne opens at Meydenbauer in Bellevue

Denk, Schumann, and Ives: so happy together

Jeremy Denk is no stranger to a Seattle audience. For more than ten years he has been one of the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s regular pianists. In the summer, you could find Denk at the Lakeside School, and in the winter, Nordstrom Recital Hall. Local music lovers also know Denk from his long association with the violinist Joshua Bell. In fact, Bell and Denk last performed in Seattle in February.

Followers of Denk’s career commend his fearlessness regarding repertory and an authentic, intellectual approach to playing that is as much for him as it is for the audience. Though Denk is familiar to Seattle audiences, one might be surprised to know that the pianist only made his local recital debut on March 31st of this year, as part of the President’s Piano Series at the University of Washington.
Continue reading Denk, Schumann, and Ives: so happy together

Chicks, fox, witch, oxen, little kids…symphony concert?

By Philippa Kiraly

Animals, nature and generally pictorial matter suffused two thirds of the Seattle Symphony’s concert Thursday night at Benaroya Hall and, together with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 5, they created a lively, colorful and satisfactory program.

It can be enlightening to hear show music without the visual element, in this case the Suite from Janacek’s opera “The Cunning Little Vixen.” When you are watching a complete event on stage, there is so much to see and hear and take in that the details of the music can get passed by, so it’s good to hear it shorn of other elements.

Janacek is not easily pigeonholed. His central European origins and musical idioms are shot through with highly individual harmonies.

Continue reading Chicks, fox, witch, oxen, little kids…symphony concert?