Road report: old friends, new friends in Moscow

[/caption]

After a very long flight from Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles to Moscow, ODEONQUARTET finally arrived in Russia on a rainy Tuesday. We had time the next day before our rehearsal to take the Metro to Red Square and see the incomprehensibly huge square and its famous Basilica as well as the Kremlin. Probably on account of the rain, there was no line to get into Lenin’s mausoleum, so we took the opportunity to view the preserved and rather waxy-looking remains of  the revolutionary leader in leisurely fashion. We had heard it would normally involve hours of waiting and we therefore hadn’t counted on visiting Mr. Lenin, but we were glad to have had the opportunity as it rated very high on he strangeness scale.

Following an afternoon of practice and much-needed rest, Pavel Karmanov, composer of three of the works we’ll perform on Friday, came to pick us up at our hotel to drive us to the Moscow Conservatory for rehearsal with our pianist. We had the chance to experience Moscow traffic at dinner hour – evidently there is no such thing as rush hour, the streets are generally packed except in the middle of the night – and arrived at our destination (about 2 miles away) in a brisk 35 minutes or so.

We didn’t know what to expect from pianist Peter Aidu, who is performing Karmanov’s two piano quintets with us, as we’d heard he’d only received the music recently, and we were absolutely delighted with his brilliant playing. In a nice coincidence, after finishing our rehearsal, we went to look at the concert hall and ran into none other than Ivan Sokolov, known to many Seattleites from his collaborations with the Seattle Chamber Players, most recently at On The Boards in February where he premiered a new work with cellist David Sabee. The music world is truly small and is was wonderful to see him on the other side of the planet. Vanya had a complex array of percussion instruments laid out on the stage of the concert hall for his percussion composition that will be premiered tomorrow night. Sadly we’ll miss it as we have our own performance at the House of Music at the same time. Our program will feature the Russian premiere (amazingly, since it was written in 1991) of Philip Glass’ Quartet No. 5, Marcelo Zarvos’ “Nepomuk’s Dances” and Osvaldo Golijov’s stirring “Tenebrae”.

Our Moscow Conservatory performance featuring Pavel Karmanov’s three works will be on Friday evening.

Quarter notes

The local Odeonquartet departs for Russia today for two concerts, one of which will include the Russian premiere of Phillip Glass’ Fifth String Quartet. Heather Bentley, the group’s violist, will be blogging from the tour. Check back for Heather’s road report.

Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic have found critics outside of LA less generous in their assessments. and whether it even matters.

In case you missed it over the weekend, the about the search for Gerard Schwarz’s replacement. There weren’t any revelations in the piece, most of the qualities sought in the new music director are obvious.  Nancy Evans says some of the requirements of the search committee are,”The musical ability of the person, the ability to conduct and the ability to understand music, to know music, know instruments. All those features of the orchestra.”

The SSO isn’t just looking for a new music director, they are also looking for a new executive director too. Earlier this year, Thomas Phillion announced he would step down at the end of his contract in June. Without much fanfare,Phillion stepped down a lot earlier than June and is now the head of

Second night of American String Project features Mendelsson & Beethoven

By Dana Wen

A performance by the American String Project is like chamber music on steroids. The Project beefs up the concept of the string quartet, bringing together fifteen musicians from across the country to perform arrangements of great works from the string quartet repertoire. But the size of the ensemble is not the only thing that’s been amplified here. The effect of adding more musicians to each part (and including a double bass) results in performances that crackle with the heightened energy and vivid colors of a large ensemble, but retain the intimacy and close communion of a string quartet. This is exciting music-making that has a lot to offer, whether you’re new to string quartet repertoire or can hum the opening bars of each of the Beethoven quartets from memory.
Continue reading Second night of American String Project features Mendelsson & Beethoven

Barry Lieberman’s American String Project returns for a ninth season with five new arrangements

Barry Lieberman

What Barry Lieberman, and the American String Project do – taking well known and sometimes not so well known – pieces for string quartet, quintet and arranging them for an orchestra of fifteen string instruments isn’t new or even that unique. Composers and musicians have always tinkered with their own music and the music of others in this way. Sometimes they improve the product other times they don’t. Just this morning I was listening to Gideon Kremer’s orchestration of Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata.  I can report, it isn’t an improvement on the original sonata.

What is unique, is that the string project, now in its ninth season, isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. This season alone, five of the six pieces to be performed are new arrangements by Lieberman. The sixth, Johannes Brahms’ String Quintet Op. 111 was first arranged in 2003, but for this season Lieberman went back to his arrangement, adjusting the piece for Sunday’s performance. All in all, Lieberman has created an impressive repertory of sixty arrangements for string orchestra.
Continue reading Barry Lieberman’s American String Project returns for a ninth season with five new arrangements

Cirque Dreams returns to Seattle

By R.M. Campbell

In its more than 20 years of business around the world, Cirque du Soleil has spawned all sorts of children seeking some of its mystique and popularity. Cirque Dreams, descended from Cirque Productions, is among them with shows in theaters, casinos, arenas and parks. Its current show, Cirque Dreams Illumination, runs through Sunday evening at the Moore Theatre.

This somewhat dowdy theater, which has hosted all sorts of events, high and low, for a good share of the past 100 years, the Moore is a good place to present a show that is part circus, part vaudeville, part glossy entertainment. The current production is all of the above. The best parts are the circus performers and the worst is the shlock in which they must perform. There are nearly 30 artists all of whom perform multiple roles. They are amazingly diverse in national origin, with some from Mongolia, Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Belarus in the Old World and the United States, Canada, Argentina, Cuba and Trinidad in the New. They bring years of training and experience to their circus roles, defined in the program as magicians, wirewalkers, vaudevillians, cube aerialists, chair climbers, foot manipulators, percussion jugglers, perch balancers and perch aerialists, ring rollers, paint can stackers, hand balancers and strap flyers. Most of the acts have a novel twist that makes them unique.
Continue reading Cirque Dreams returns to Seattle

Mark Morris Dance Group makes its annual Seattle visit Friday night at the Paramount

By R.M. Campbell

Time passes. Is it possible that the Mark Morris Dance Group has been visiting Seattle for 25 years? It is. Morris is now middle-aged, as is everyone else still around from those days, at the very least. On the Boards was the first to bring the company here in its funky space off Yesler. Then, Morris outgrew that for Meany Hall, which presented the company for years until it got too expensive. For the past there years, the Seattle Symphony and Paramount Theatre have co-produced the annual visit. Thank goodness. Who does not want to see the Morris company on a regular basis?

Sometimes he brings new work. Not this year. On Friday night there was “Gloria,” his first major work from the 1980’s. The other two works were only slightly younger: “A Lake,” premiered at Wolf Trap near Washington, D.C., by the White Oak Dance Project, which Morris co-founded with Mikhail Baryshnikov, in 1993, and “Jesu, meine Freude,” commissioned by Dance Umbrella in Boston and premiered in that city two years later.
Continue reading Mark Morris Dance Group makes its annual Seattle visit Friday night at the Paramount

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.

from on .

Quarter notes

My write up of last week’s Music of Remembrance concert and the premiere of Vedem is up at the .  I’ve generally liked the Music of Remembrance concerts I’ve attended.  This one didn’t do it for me.

A couple of events this weekend to check out: and the .  The SYSO dives into Mahler’s Second Symphony while the American String Project gives three concerts of string quartets and other chamber works, arranged for string orchestra.

From last week, an article which asks an important question: ?  Should it matter if he is?  Later today I will be posting a video interview with Christian Knapp (the former associate conductor and guest conductor this week of the SSO) where this subject came up.

Youth Symphony tackles death and resurrection in Mahler’s Second Symphony this Sunday

Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, the Seattle Youth Symphony’s music director, sat perched on a stool looking out over his orchestra. He flipped through the pages of his score to Mahler’s Second Symphony, searching for a good place in the music to start rehearsal. This was only the symphony’s second rehearsal of the symphony. Press were invited to attend to watch and hear how the orchestra was approaching the piece in advance of their May performance.

When the Second Symphony is performed this weekend (Sunday, May 23rd), it will be only the second time the orchestra has played the work in front of a paying audience and only the second time Radcliffe has conducted the piece – the previous time was with a professional orchestra in Sioux City, Iowa.
Continue reading Youth Symphony tackles death and resurrection in Mahler’s Second Symphony this Sunday

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