Gathering Note

By: Gigi Yellen

I saw Lang Lang at Carnegie Hall tonight. Concert was part of the hall’s 3-week-long “Ancient Paths/Modern Voices: A festival celebrating Chinese Culture.” Program included a world premiere of a work for piano and orchestra commissioned by Carnegie Hall, “Er Huang” by Chen Quigang (music director of the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics). Michael Tilson Thomas conducted, with the Juillard Orchestra. Definitely not the Beethoven you’ll be hearing with Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall in Seattle this Sunday.

Lang Lang the flashy rock star was not so evident; the fluent athlete of the keyboard was. What he can do with extended arms and liquid wrists, the snap of a head, the careful suspension of a note: an audience that needed guidance got it. This was a hall filled with friends and families of student musicians, among other significant numbers of people who needed to know when to applaud and when not to.

Continue reading Lang Lang: Ancient Paths Modern Voices

On hearing Seattle Baroque Orchestra’s season opening concert at Town Hall Saturday night, my first thought was how well the group sounds in here.

Although spotty in places, the acoustics are warm and with a reverberation which enhances but leaves the sound clear. SBO has moved around a bit in its quest for a good place to play. I hope it will remain here in what is a good pairing with the hall. This season, Seattle Baroque will give one performance of each program, and the hall was quite full.

My second thought was that Seattle Baroque would sound good anywhere. This year, it has back its two founders: violinist Ingrid Matthews, returning from a year’s sabbatical to lead with her usual appealing persona and playing with her usual fine musicianship, and the remarkable harpsichordist Byron Schenkman, who has spent the past few years in New York.

Continue reading Seattle Baroque opens its season with flair

Continue reading Back from the center of the classical music universe

Even given the venerable standards of the German/Austro tradition, the age and history of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, which appeared in concert Tuesday night at Benaroya Hall, is notable. Its founding in 1841, by itself, gives the orchestra prestige, which it might not have otherwise. Simply to have survived the extraordinary cross-currents of culture and politics lends authority to the organization. So does its position in Salzburg, one of the most important cities in European musical life.

Continue reading Mozarteum Orchestra plays Benaroya Hall

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago has always been immediately appealing, with very few inaccessible moments. That was true when it was a jazz dance company in its earliest days and of which the company gave ample evidence Friday night at the Paramount Theatre.

Spectrum Dance Company followed a similar path — a mixed repertory, concentrating on jazz dance which it often did it very well for most of its history. The major exception was that Spectrum always struggled for audiences and money. Hubbard, which maintained a national presence from its base in Chicago, may have had its difficulties but had better dancers, a stronger board and greater institutional support. Yet, in some both took almost the same road. When Spectrum hired modern dance choreographer Donald Byrd, the old days were thrown aside and the company essentially became a sole choreographer showcase. It may use jazz scores, but nothing suggests the kind of good times the old ensemble projected on a regular basis. The same thing happened at Hubbard, although not to the same degree. The repertory is is still mixed and often projects a similar image, but it looks to the wider world. The dancers remain virtuosic.

Continue reading Hubbard returns to Seattle

Champions of new choral music, The Esoterics celebrated the culmination of their third annual commissioning competition with two concert performances on October 17 and 18.  In keeping with the expansive ambition of everything undertaken by The Esoterics, each year the competition commissions not just one new choral work but three: one by an U.S. composer, one by a non-U.S. composer, and one by a composer under age 30.  This year’s prescribed theme, “Mysterium: Uncovering secrets of this life and the next,” gave the newly composed works a unity of style and substance consistent with the two other works on the program.

The winning American composer, Shawn Allison of Chicago, set a portion of Walt Whitman’s poem, The Sleepers, one of the most talked-about Whitman poems of the past century.  Employing a number of contemporary choral techniques, Allison’s setting emphasized the mysterium aspect of the text with extended harmonies that achieved murkiness if not mystery.  A sequence whistled over sung voices was most effective, particularly in its return near the end.

Continue reading The Esoterics: Mysterium – October 17th and 18th

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra is now in earnest looking for a music director to replace Gerard Schwarz in 2011. All sorts of conductors are lined up this season and next in a kind of elaborate, public audition for the post.

The official line of the symphony, rather witty in fact, is that every guest conductor this season and next is a candidate and none is a candidate. In other words no one is talking on the record. It is too early for any buzz on the street but eventually there will be plenty. Well-known conductors, like Lawrence Renes, who have led the orchestra with distinction in the past, are not being invited on the theory their talents are already familiar in the city. I hope they don’t get lost in the formal process. They deserve better.

Continue reading Parade of Guest Conductors at the Symphony Is Well Under Way