Messiah plays to sold-out houses

By R. M. Campbell

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra does a slew of concerts during the holiday season, appealing to a range of interests. Most of them are pretty easy on the brain and popular.

Themes come and go, but one remains a constant: Handel’s “Messiah.” It has been performed just about everywhere in the city — not to mention the world. At one time there seemed to be dozens of performances, all claiming one virtue or another. The number is much reduced now, but the symphony continues to present the proud profile of Handel’s piece in multiple performances. Of course, the great work should be performed at Easter: it concludes with the Resurrection of Christ, not his birth. But the tradition of “Messiah” at Christmas is a powerful one, and it is better to hear the oratorio at Christmas then not at all. The “Messiah” is not the only holiday offering among the performing arts, but it is the gravest. Tchaikovsky’s score for “The Nutcracker” is also a work of genius but of a quite different nature.
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Kelley O’Connor sings Lieberson’s Neruda Songs this weekend with the SSO

Kelley O’Connor talks about Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with TGN from gatheringnote on Vimeo.

Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor sings Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with the Seattle Symphony this week. Lieberson’s song cycle — drawn from five poems by Pablo Neruda — were originally written for his wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Each of the five songs meditates on love. Hunt-Lieberson only sang the songs a few times in public before cancer took her life. O’Connor has taken up the challenge of Neruda Songs, singing them with thirteen different orchestras and even receiving Peter Lieberson’s approval.

Deneve returns to Benaroya Hall

By R.M. Campbell

When Stephane Deneve made his Seattle Symphony Orchestra debut a few years ago, he was immediately recognized for the talent he was. His return to the SSO podium Thursday night at Benaroya did nothing to change that impression.

His program had multiple virtues: two works because they were little known or not known and one work which was very familiar but sounded freshly minted. Such was Deneve’s vision and talent.
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Week in classical music: Alexander Bishop, Michael Nicolella, and Monteverdi

Stephen Stubbs. Photo courtesy Pacific Musicworks.

It’s been a busy week for Cornish College, the college’s faculty, and one of the school’s talented soon to be graduates. A new president was unveiled — a violist — Nancy Uscher. That evening student composer Alexander Bishop’s music for viola was the focus at Poncho Hall. Toward the end of the week — innovative guitarist and Cornish faculty member Michael Nicolella took to the Nordstrom Recital Hall stage as part of the Seattle Classical Guitar Series. Up the hill at St. James Cathedral, Steven Stubbs (who has been tasked with building an early music program at Cornish) led the first historically accurate performance of Monteverdi’s path blazing 1610 Vespers.
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Lara Downes’ American program kicks off 2010/2011 President’s Piano series

Lara Downes

By Philippa Kiraly

Young American musician Lara Downes opened UW’s President’s Piano Series Wednesday night with an enlightening program of 20th century American music. All the composers but one are well known: Roy Harris, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, plus Florence Price, and all were born close together around the turn of the century, with Barber the youngest, born 1910, and Price the oldest, born 1888.

Price was a rarity at that time, a recognized woman composer with a large body of works under her belt, and even rarer, a black woman composer. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music, became head of the music department at Clark University and won first prize in the Wanamaker Competition and a performance of her first symphony by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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Holiday season gets underway with PNB’s Nutcracker

By R.M. Campbell

“The Nutcracker” defines the Christmas season in American towns large enough to have even a semblance of a ballet company, or perhaps just a school looking for attention and ready cash. Some productions are grand, like New York City Ballet, which started the whole affair more than 50 years ago, and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which has been happily seen by hundreds of thousands of people; others are of more modest scale and ambition, which make up in enthusiasm what they lack in sophistication. What ties everything together is, of course, Tchaikovsky’s miraculous score and, in most cases, the holiday season as the basis of the story. A notable exception was John Neumeier’s production for Royal Winnipeg Ballet which tells of a girl’s birthday party. But dreams and fantasies and a heart-felt libretto are nearly always omnipresent.

The ballet was the rock on which PNB began its uncertain life in the 1970’s. A new production, in 1983, with Kent Stowell’s choreography and Maurice Sendak’s sets and costumes, was the company’s first brush with fame. National magazines paid attention and Caroll Ballard did a feature film. It has made millions for the company and revenue derived from the box office is still the rock on which the company survives. It is the most original production in PNB’s repertory, and continues to hold its fascination with the public. This year there will be 39 performances, the first of which was Friday night at McCaw Hall.
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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!

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Classical music lives on in the youngest generation

By Philippa Kiraly

It restores faith in the future of classical music to go to hear the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. There are many kids listening attentively in the audience to the mass of kids playing on stage. The big orchestra is professional in demeanor, and the performance is high class playing.

While much of this is due to the fine adult musicians who nurture their talent—the conductors of all of SYSO’s orchestras and the coaches who work with individual sections as well as each child’s individual instrumental teacher—a lot is due the kids themselves. If they didn’t stick to the work and give up many hours to practice, they wouldn’t be where they are today.
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