Category: Video

Bright Sheng sits down with TGN

Bright Sheng, a name familiar to SSO audiences, sat down with the Gathering Note earlier this month. The composer was in town to hear the orchestra perform two of his short pieces. One of them, Prelude to Black Swan, a world premiere. The other, Shanghai Overture, a Seattle premiere.

Sheng came onto the classical music scene in the 1980’s when he and a number of other Chinese composers settled in New York to continue their studies and also begin careers. A young Gerard Schwarz noticed the composer, commissioned a piece for his chamber orchestra, and helped launch Sheng’s career.

Schwarz and Sheng’s creative partnership has resulted in countless commissions and premieres, and two stints for the composer as Seattle’s composer in residence.

Bright Sheng talks with TGN from gatheringnote on Vimeo.

Mara Gearman and Alexander Bishop talk about their upcoming recital

Composer Alexander Bishop’s music came into wider awareness last spring when SSO violist Mara Gearman played two of his works as part of Paul Taub’s May Day, May Day festival. Gearman was looking for a couple of new pieces of music to play for the festival, and Bishop was seeking a violist to to play two short pieces he wrote for Viola. Bishop and Gearman are taking their partnership one step further on December 1st with a an all Bishop recital featuring two brand new works: a viola sonata and a string quartet. Composer and violist sat down with me last Saturday to talk about the recital, their creative partnership, and even the possibility of new Bishop compositions for the viola (a viola concerto perhaps?)

For your Thanksgiving and Black Friday viewing pleasure!

Continue reading Mara Gearman and Alexander Bishop talk about their upcoming recital

Seattle Percussion Collective plays Gallery 1412

Seattle Percussion Collective Plays John Cage from gatheringnote on Vimeo.

Last night the Seattle Percussion Collective played a show of late John Cage percussion works at Gallery 1412 at the collision of Capitol Hill and the Central District. I’ll be writing a longer post about the experience later today.  In the meantime I urge you watch the video above — a performance of two composed improvisations played simultaneously. If you have even a passing interest in percussion music the Collective is playing another show tonight at the Good Shepherd Center’s Chapel Performance Space. The music won’t be Cage, but there will be a number of premieres for percussion and other instruments, including Greg Sinibaldi’s Quintet for Percussion and Piano. Since they formed in 2009, the Seattle Percussion Collective has generated a loyal following. Gallery 1412 was almost completely full. Dale Speicher told me last night that their Chapel performances have always generated big crowds. If you go to their Chapel performance, it would be wise to get their early.

The show starts at 8 PM. The Chapel Performance Space is located in the Wallingford Neighborhood at 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N, 4th Floor, Seattle, WA.

Questioning the conductors: Meet Morlot!

Our conductor interviews end with the person chosen to lead the SSO to new artistic heights and performance excellend — Ludovic Morlot. Morlot was one of the few conductors I didn’t meet. I was in New York when he was here last fall and when he returned in the spring, an exploding volcano in Iceland and compressed rehearsal schedule prevented an interview then too.

Seattle met Ludovic Morlot today. Not for the first time of course. Morlot guest conducted the SSO twice last season. But it was the first time as the SSO’s music director designate. Morlot will assume his music director duties officially in 2011, but he is already planning his first season with the orchestra and making friends with orchestra musicians, orchestra staff, and of course the city. I will be posting more video from today’s public introduction. Until then, here is a video of my interview with the young maestro from yesterday.

SSO music director designate Ludovic Morlot talks with TGN from gatheringnote on Vimeo.

Quarter notes: SCMS edition

Update: SCMS is putting a limited number of rush tickets on sale for $25 30 minutes before tonight’s performance.  On the program is Debussy’s Piano Trio, Barber’s String Quartet (with its famous adagio), and Brahms’ Op. 8 Piano Trio.  With the sun lost behind the clouds this summer, let chamber music brighten your day.

Although I am still buzzing from the Ludovic Morlot announcement last week, it is time to focus on something different. The Seattle Chamber Music Society’s summer festival starts today. Once again the SCMS is bringing together a fine line-up of musicians at different stages of their career. Some are festival reliables (like Adam Neiman, Richard O’Neill, Anton Nel etc.) others are newer (Erin Keefe, Austin Hadelich etc.) and as always there are a few musicians who are brand new to the festival (Jeremy Turner, Andrew Wan, etc.). This year, the festival takes up residency in Benaroya’s Nordstrom Recital Hall. Nordstrom may not have comforting green lawns, full shade trees, and the suitable ambiance for drinking wine, but it does boast superior acoustics. Seems like a fair trade off to me. Besides, listeners who need a break from the urban hurly-burly can find relief in the Garden of Remembrance.

We’ll be covering the festival from start to finish, reviewing every (or pretty close to every) concert and talking with a handful of musicians about pieces of music that have impacted them as artists.  Check back regularly for updates, enjoy the chamber music festival, and if you can’t get concert tickets, remember there are always free recitals an hour before each concert.  Tonight’s recital is Bartok’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano played by James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong.

For a refresher on the great chamber music the festival presents each year, here are a few short videos of festival musicians playing chamber music. More videos after the jump.

Augustin Hadelich playing Ysaye
Continue reading Quarter notes: SCMS edition

The last word on Leonard Bernstein this season…

A young Lenny.

“I have rarely met a composer who is so faithfully mirrored in his music; the man is the music. We are all familiar with the attributes generally ascribed to his compositions: vitality, optimism, enthusiasm, long lyrical line, rhythmic impetuosity, bristling counterpoint, brilliant textures, dynamic tension. But what is not so often remarked is what I treasure most: the human qualities that flow directly from the man into the works – compassion, fidelity, insight, and total honesty.”

Meet the musicians: Simon Trpceski

Simon Trpceski. Courtesy BSO Musicians

Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski has got to be one of the busiest musicians I have had the pleasure of talking with. He is in Seattle performing a total of five concerts with the SSO.  Earlier in the week he joined musicians from the SSO in a chamber music concert honoring the 200th birthday of Robert Schumann.  Last night, he started a four concert series (one of the concerts will be played in Olympia tonight) with the orchestra where he plays Saint Saens’ Second Piano Concerto.

People who have followed Trpceski’s career since he made his North American debut in Seattle told me there was plenty to enjoy in his rendition of Schumann’s epic Piano Quintet. Even those people who are cool to Trpceski’s distinctive style told me the Piano Quintet crackled with unexpected velocity, poetry, and interpretive depth.

I ended my chat with a simple question: what piece of music would you like to play that you haven’t? Trpceski launched into a long list of concerti — Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Stravinsky. With each new concerto, he pointed out concerts where he would have his chance at the piece. Trpceski is also spending time later this year playing chamber music in Chicago with friends. There is also his Carnegie Hall debut. Busy doesn’t begin to describe this pianist’s schedule.

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Questioning the conductors: Christian Knapp

Christian Knapp is the only guest conductor this season, with or without an orchestral post who has admitted to being interested in having his own orchestra. You can draw all sorts of conclusions from his openness. Is he angling to be the SSO’s next music director? Given his history with the orchestra as its associate conductor a few years back, the thought of returning to Seattle in the orchestra’s top artistic spot is probably very enticing. Or, perhaps he has eyes on other posts? Indianapolis is looking for a new conductor (Knapp has guest conducted there as well) and so is the Richmond Symphony.

Knapp is back in Seattle this week to lead the SSO in a performance at the Paramount Theater with the Mark Morris Dance Group. Mark Morris is back for a third year, and this year his troupe will dance to Haydn, Bach, and Vivaldi.

Established conductors, with larger (and fragile) egos, might bristle at being a secondary focus for the audience. Not Knapp, he takes it in stride. Just because Knapp’s temperament is self effacing doesn’t mean he lacks ideas about how the music he will take charge of starting tonight should sound. Quite the contrary. Knapp is full of ideas about Haydn, Bach and Vivaldi, but also new music, repertory staples, and the qualities that he would find ideal for an orchestral post in the United States or abroad.

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Questioning the conductors: Andrew Manze

Andrew Manze

The early music world has known Andrew Manze for years as an accomplished Baroque violinist, but the rest of the classical music world is getting acquainted with Manze as an assured, intelligent conductor working hard to establish a reputation as an interpreter of core 18th and 19th century repertory.  Manze’s recent Beethoven recordings have even been met with praise from David Hurwitz, a period performance skeptic of sorts.

For my interview with Manze yesterday, I was most curious about his view on the limits of historically informed performance practice (HIPP). We talked at length about vibrato, its appropriateness, and HIPP as it relates to 20th Century music. Manze’s concerts this week with the Seattle Symphony juxtapose music by Corelli and Tallis with Tippett, Elgar, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. 3/5 ths of the program was composed in the first half of the last century.

Manze struck me as an artist who lets HIPP guide his work on the podium without dominating it. He readily admits that Elgar wouldn’t sound like Elgar without vibrato and the contends (although not explicitly) that there hasn’t been a time before vibrato and a time after vibrato.

There was one shocking moment in the interview. As we talked about how he inhabits the musical world of the composers he is conducting, Manze admitted (after a question from me) that he doesn’t understand Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and other nationalist composers.

The SSO is split this week and for the next few weeks because of Seattle Opera’s premiere of Amelia.  Even with the smaller forces of the SSO Manze’s insights from the podium and a Baroque influenced program should make for good listening this week.

from on .