Tag: Seattle

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.

Music of Romantic era dominates festival on second night

Bion Tsang

By R.M. Campbell

The inaugural season of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival in its new home — Nordstrom Recital Hall — has gotten off to a splendid beginning. The first concert Monday night was a major success, even with the absence of pianist Andrew Armstrong because of an infection in his leg. The second concert, on Wednesday, with Armstrong still out and in the hospital, was also a concert with considerable merit.

Arnold Schoenberg’s “Verklarte Nacht” (“Transfigured Night”) was the major piece on the program, and it was played as such by violinists James Ehnes and Augustin Hadelich; violists Cynthia Phelps and Richard O’Neill, and cellists Bion Tsang and Robert deMaine. The work, originally written for string sextet in 1899 and recast by the composer 18 years later for string orchestra is among the most admired pieces Schoenberg ever wrote. It is a coupling of late romanticism and early modernism. Schoenberg wrote some of the most challenging music of the 20th century: it is also some of the most despised. There is nothing to despise — or fear, to use Steven Lowe’s term in his excellent program notes — in “Verklarte Nacht.” This is real 19th-century program music, with a distinct narrative.
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SCMS Summer Festival opens new season in new hall

James Ehnes

By R.M. Campbell

The Seattle Chamber Music Festival, which opened its 29th season Monday night, has a long, distinguished history. For nearly all of its 28 years, it has been located at the Lakeside School. The New England-style prep school informed the festival a few years ago that it was claiming summer usage of its concert hall, throwing the administration into a search for an alternative. Nordstrom Recital Hall was always a good possibility, in terms of size and acoustical properties. The drawback was its urban setting in contrast to the pastoral idyll of the Lakeside campus.

The opening concert in the new venue proved what a good choice the festival made. The house was nearly full, with 100 more seats than at Lakeside. Even the pre-concert recital was packed. The festival has grown considerably from a handful of weeks to a month of concerts, with an extension at Overlake School on the Eastside and Winter Festival in January, also at Nordstrom. There is still pre-concert dining and free broadcasts outside the hall on the Benaroya property. Most important the acoustics are so much better — greater clarity and richness — than St. Nicholas which are marginal at best.
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“H. M. S. Pinafore:” Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s July offering

William Darkow stars as the Right Good Captain of the Pinafore. Photo, Pat Andre

By Philippa Kiraly

For all of us Gilbert & Sullivan fans, it’s time to get ready to enjoy the annual offering of comic opera by Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society. Like the happy arrival of June strawberries each year, this regular dose of absurd plots, witty words, and irresistible music is worth celebrating.

This year, it’s one of the prime favorites, “H. M. S. Pinafore.” While I would dearly love to see more of the less well known ones, this particular gem helps to fill the coffers, and it is being paired with a rare performance of the curtain-raiser, “Cox and Box,” where an enterprising landlord rents a room twice over to two men who work opposite shifts, and thus never meet, until…

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Bernstein and Schuman close out SSO season, Bernstein festival, highlighting Schwarz’s legacy

William Schuman

To close the Seattle Symphony’s current season, Schwarz assembled a program of Leonard Bernstein and William Schuman works. This season finale also closes out the Seattle Celebrates Bernstein festival — a city wide effort to honor the 20th anniversary of Bernstein’s death. Personal struggle has been a theme in season finales over the last few seasons. With the help of Schwarz and the SSO, audiences have probed Mahler’s despairing Sixth Symphony and last year Aaron Jay Kernis’ pleading Third Symphony, a world premiere. Leonard Bernstein’s personal torment, doubt, and faith, embodied by his Second Symphony, were the fundamental qualities of Friday’s struggle.

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The Onyx Chamber Players end their season with Haydn and Mendelssohn at Town Hall

By Dana Wen

One of the great joys of chamber music is the conversation that unfolds between the musicians on stage. Each performer is given a chance to contribute to the musical dialogue in a very prominent way. In such an intimate environment, the personality of each musician inevitably emerges. Sometimes the going gets rough, and personalities will clash. But other times, especially with a group of musicians who have been playing together for a while, watching a performance can feel like sitting in on a lively conversation between old friends. When this happens, it’s a treat for the performers and the audience alike.
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Barber’s songs take center stage at the Good Shepherd Center

In this, the Barber anniversary year, mezzo-soprano Janna Wachter paid homage to the creative partnership of Samuel Barber and his long time partner Gian Carlo Menotti with a recital of songs, piano works, and chamber operas by the two composers. Wachter’s Saturday evening tribute concert on June 19th was a first for the season. With the exception of The Esoterics, no other local ensemble has delved into Barber’s music for voice or vocal ensembles. And, to my knowledge no one has explored Barber’s formidable songs until this Wachter’s recital this past Saturday.

For her recital, Wachter enlisted the help of a number of local musicians. Roger Nelson provided confident accompaniment throughout the night. While the voices changed, Nelson’s contributions were consistently reliable. Nelson even took the spotlight himself on a couple of occasions playing Barber’s character shifting Nocturne and Menotti’s own Nocturne with searching aplomb.

The best and worst of the night were reserved for A Hand of Bridge and Knoxville Summer 1915. To close the evening, Wachter showed Unabridged, Curtis Taylor’s movie reproduction of A Hand of Bridge. Eric Banks and Glen Guhr sang roles in the chamber opera along with Wachter and Avinger. These four card players represent the composer’s inner circle. Each singer takes turns exploring the personal world of the card player they depict. Thoughts range from the vacuous to the perverse. Taylor’s visuals were a witty compliment to the four singers and the libretto. Taylor’s movie was the night’s high point. By contrast, Anneliese von Goerken’s rendition of Knoxville Summer 1915 was the night’s low-point. You would expect, in a small space like the Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center, clarity wouldn’t have been issue. For this performance it was. The lines of James Agee’s poem blurred. Goerken chose mawkish grandeur that might have worked on a concert stage, with a full orchestra, and an audience that gives the sung text at best casual attention. Scott Garlund arranged each piece’s instrumental music for saxophone ensemble. The arrangement was seductive in its simplicity but I still prefer Barber’s instrumentation better.

Wagner and Mendelssohn paired on symphony program

By R.M. Campbell

Nearing the end of its current season, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra is pairing the famous with the obscure for three concerts at Benaroya Hall starting Thursday night.

Both composers are in the pantheon of Western icons — Richard Wagner and Felix Mendelssohn — but the works offered are less obvious. Wagner’s “Parsifal” rings through Western civilization. For some it carries too much weight, but, in fact, it is a profound piece of art. The opera opened McCaw Hall, in 2003, a new production by Seattle Opera, which completed the company’s survey the composer’s canon of 10 operas. Thursday night was not the same as viewing, and hearing the entire opera, but the performance had the merit of simply being with this music another time. Gerard Schwarz, SSO music director, chose three excerpts: the preludes to Act I and III and the “Good Friday Spell.” To the good particularly were the warm string sound and long, seamless phrases. On the not-so-good side were inexact attacks and sloppy phrases. Not enough rehearsal perhaps?

Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang” is on the other side of the aisle of popularity. Performances are rare: most people probably have never heard it. There are reasons for that. It is a remarkably uninteresting piece of music in spite of expansive choral writing and effective vocal writing for the three soloists, all of whom were excellent at Benaroya: sopranos Christine Goerke and Holli Harrison and tenor Vinson Cole. The Seattle Symphony Chorale was in generally good shape, sound well-assembled, balance keen. The orchestra played well. The only difficulty was the piece itself. For a man of such felicity, “Lobesang” (“Hymn of Praise”) caught Mendelssohn on his day off. It is always good to hear music that is not performed with any regularity, but the reasons for that are often because it is simply not very good. Such is this piece.

Quarter notes: YNS edition

YNS

By now most people have heard the Philadelphia Orchestra has found a new music director. – YNS for short. He is a predictable choice given the youth movement afoot these days. Chicago bucked the trend by appointing Ricardo Muti. They are the only orchestra which ignored the orchestra group think these days (does that make the Muti choice revolutionary?) Maybe, before Dudamel, before Gilbert, and before the small army of sub-forty year olds took over a number orchestras in the UK the choice would have shocked or inspired. At best, Philadelphia has recruited the next big thing. At worst, the orchestra has found a music director for the next seven years.

(Sorry, but the section on James Garlick has been redacted.)

More contributor news. Did you read Michael Upchurch’s Seattle Times piece on the Toy Box Trio? No? Then ! Keep it up Dana and Harlan.

Did anyone notice Terry Teachout’s piece in the this past weekend? He wonders whether we even need regional orchestras in the digital age. With definitive recordings of just about every piece of standard repertory just a click away, why would anyone go hear a middle of the road performance of the same repertory with a local orchestra? It is an interesting thought experiment. I get hung up on what defines a regional orchestra. The Seattle Symphony is certainly a regional orchestra. So is the Oregon Symphony. Neither have the stature of America’s Big Five, or Big Seven if you include LA and San Francisco and both cater to audiences which stretch beyond the urban centers of Seattle and Portland. Maybe the answer isn’t to allow orchestras to die, or to load a season with pops concerts, but to reexamine the role and mission of the orchestra in the community?  Playing the same old music doesn’t seem to be cutting it anymore.

PNB says multiple goodbyes Sunday

By R.M. Campbell

For some June represents weddings while others it is graduations. At Pacific Northwest Ballet, the month signifies a time to bid farewell to not only dancers but artistic directors and conductors as well. No other arts organization says goodbye quite so well. They are grand affairs with plenty of tears and flowers for everyone. The first in recent history was dedicated to Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, co-artistic directors of the company for more than 25 years. Then came Patricia Barker, one of the greatest talents PNB ever fostered, followed by the beloved Louise Nadeau a couple years later, among others. On Sunday at McCaw Hall, the company bid adieu to Stewart Kershaw, who created the PNB Orchestra 20 years ago, as well as dancers Mara Vinson and Jordan Pacitti.

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