Posts

Showing posts from May, 2009

Mahler: Symphony No 2, 1st movement (Valery Gergiev, London Symphony Orchestra)

Image
YouTube Video of Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra performing Mahler's second symphony. Recorded in April, 2008. Available from LSO Live on disc and download from lso.co.uk/mahler In celebration of the release of Bernstein Mahler: The Complete Symphonies by Sony Masterworks , Interchanging Idioms is giving away ONE set of this marvellous collection to one of our readers. For more details click on the button on the upper right. For more information about Leonard Bernstein visit his website , his MySpace Page or Sony Masterworks information on Leonard Bernstein.

Kent Nagano & the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra:
Bruckner Symphony 4 Original Edition

Image
For their debut recording together, Grammy Award-winning conductor Kent Nagano and the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra explore the rarely heard original edition of Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. The performance showcases the abrupt contrasts and more complex structures of the initial 1874 version of Bruckner’s much-lauded piece. Marrying Kent Nagano’s unique perspective, intellectual clarity and great precision to the BSO’s nearly 200 years of evolving traditions and stylistic flux, this milestone recording allows the listener to experience a musical masterpiece anew. Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major (WAB 104) is perhaps the composer's most popular symphonies. Written in 1874, it was revised several times through 1888. The symphonies nickname of "Romantic" was used by the composer with several references to program elements indicative of a Medieval style romance rather than one of romantic love. "In the first movement of the "Romantic" ...

Review - Jan Vogler and The Knights Experience: Live from New York

Image
On this latest release, Vogler abandons a typical classical orchestra and teams up with the cutting-edge New York ensemble The Knights. The CD's repertoire centers on the music of Russia's Dmitri Shostakovich – from his Cello Concerto No. 1 to the catchy waltzes he wrote for film scores and jazz suites – but it ends with a surprising take on Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun.” This eclectic and innovative recording has been garnering accolades in Germany since its recent release. “…the way Jan Vogler plays the Hendrix-Cello is remarkable. This live recording gives the impression of sparkling freshness…” - Frankfurter Rundschau Typically, with a lot of “live” albums there is a sense of space, a lack of punch that comes from studio recording. Initially, the first couple of tracks give the impression Jan Vogler and The Knights latest CD may suffer the same fate - not have the punch they could have achieved in the studio. Don’t be lulled into a sense of complacency, however....

In honor of Haydn’s Anniversary Sony Masterworks Releases Haydn: Early London Symphonies

Image
with conductor George Szell & The Cleveland Orchestra 2-CD set available may 19 “If I had to choose a single disc of Haydn for my desert island, it would have to be the coupling of (Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 93 and 94) – irresistible performances in every way.” - GRAMOPHONE on the Szell/Cleveland Haydn recordings (May 1974) George Szell is one of the most critically acclaimed and revered conductors of the 20th century. He is remembered today for his long and successful tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and for the recordings of the standard classical repertoire he made in Cleveland and with other orchestras. Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over a respected, but undersized, orchestra which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into “what many critics regarded as the world’s keenest symphonic instrument.” Through his recordings...

Jan Vogler and the Knights: Experience Live from New York

Image
For two nights in October 2008, The New York club, Le Poisson Rouge rocked to the sounds of Shostakovich and Jimi Hendrix and the result is a live recording of a stunning collaboration that takes Jan Vogler ’s trademark “singing-playing” style to new heights. Vogler abandons a typical classical orchestra and teams up with the cutting-edge New York ensemble The Knights . The CD's repertoire centers on the music of Russia's Dmitri Shostakovich – from his Cello Concerto No. 1 to the catchy waltzes he wrote for film scores and jazz suites – but it ends with a surprising take on Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun.” Since Jan dedicated himself to his instrument, he has constantly been working on expanding the spectrum of his cello sound and refines his musical language in an enduring dialogue with renowned contamporary composers and interpreters – with passion and the required dose of risk. The Ne w York Times admires Jan Vogler’s “lyrical intuition”, the Gramophone Magazine praises hi...

Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Celebrate Legendary Composer Richard Rodgers

Image
Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra open the final week of the spring season June 16, 17, and 18 with “A Richard Rodgers Celebration,” honoring the remarkable legacy of one of most celebrated songwriters of all times. Tony Award winner Victoria Clark (pictured) headlines a talented slate of vocalists, including Fellows from the Tanglewood Music Center and members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, for this program, which draws from Rodgers’ more than 900 songs and 40 Broadway shows, including Oklahoma! , South Pacific , Carousel , and The Sound of Music . On June 19 and 20, four-time Grammy nominee Michael Feinstein draws from his latest CD release, The Sinatra Project , for evenings of some of Sinatra’s most memorable songs. The orchestra is led by one of the country’s great pops conductors, Erich Kunzel, in his first appearance with the Boston Pops in twelve years. To close the 2009 Boston Pops season on June 21, Mr. Kunzel will lead the orchestra in the popul...

Grammy award-winning eighth blackbird performs world premiere of Slide at Ojai Music Festival, June 12

Chicago-based sextet eighth blackbird plays a great deal of new music, but the double assignment to curate California’s Ojai Music Festival in June and perform a major world premiere as the festival’s highpoint and culmination is something new and different. Steven Mackey and Rinde Eckert’s eagerly-awaited Slide will debut at Ojai on June 12. Slide is music-theater of a kind that eighth blackbird is well-equipped to perform: the group is famous for playing most of its scores from memory, often moving about the stage freely or in choreographed steps. In Slide , according to librettist Rinde Eckert, the six players will combine to represent a single character – that of a psychologist conducting a strange and strangely stimulating experiment. Eckert and Mackey based Slide on Eckert’s recollection of reading about an experiment in which a psychologist showed subjects out-of-focus slides, and asked them to describe what they saw. Through stages of the experiment, when challenged ...

Two centuries of Romanticism: Mendelssohn, Mahler and Rasch and the London Symphony Orchestra

Sunday 31 May | 7.30pm | Royal Festival Hall 'It is to be hoped that Jurowski will continue such innovative and fascinating programming,' ended one review of the concert on 22 April, which featured music by three living composers, Kancheli, Yusupov and Silvestrov. This Sunday 31 May you can continue your exploration of contemporary classical music with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Symphony Orchestra. Torsten Rasch's song cycle Mein Herz brennt has its source in the romantic era, but from a twenty-first century perspective. Instead of nineteenth-century heart-rent words by Rimbaud or Rückert, the passionate lyrics of love and loss are taken from poetry by Till Lindemann, lead singer of rock band Rammstein, who has already used them in tracks by his band. Sung, whispered, shouted, accompanied by a stunning spectrum of orchestral sound, Rasch's songs are a mesmerising development of Mahler's late romantic music. René Pape sings the solo bass role in this UK ...

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Kicks Off Summer Season with Star-Spangled Spectacular

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announces 2nd annual “O, Say Can You Sing Contest” winner to perform national anthem with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will kick off its 2009 summer season at Oregon Ridge Park in Cockeysville, Md. on July 3 and 4 at 8:00 p.m. with Star-Spangled Spectacular , an all-American salute to our nation’s founding. Guest conductor Damon Gupton will lead the BSO in classical patriotic favorites including Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever . Each concert will begin with the national anthem led by the winner(s) of the BSO’s “O, Say Can You Sing” competition and end with a dazzling fireworks display. Last season, more than 60 contestants auditioned for the chance to sing the National Anthem alongside the BSO. Nine-year-old Maya Goldman of Columbia and 13-year-old Vibav Mouli of Reisterstown snagged the coveted positions. These gifted youngsters not only performed with the BSO, but were also feature...

Pablo Heras-Casado makes L.A. & Saint Paul debuts

Image
After hearing Pablo Heras-Casado conduct Mahler's Fourth Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in March, critic Alan Rich lamented missing the 31-year-old Spaniard's LAPO debut last December. "He's terrific," Rich wrote on his blog, So I've Heard. "His bio, which has him leading virtually every new-music, experimental-music and youth-oriented organization here and abroad, goes on for days; that document is breathtaking, and so is his work." In his December concerts with the Philharmonic, Heras-Casado, who counts Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös as mentors, led a program of Stockhausen and Ligeti. Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed praised these concerts, stating: "Heras-Casado did a superb job controlling the dramatic gestures and let the [Ligeti] speak for itself." Last month Heras-Casado made his Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra debut conducting the world premiere of Chinese-American composer Chen Yi's Prelude and Fugue ,...

Joshua Roman debuts with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra and performs Stock premiere in Seattle

Image
Cellist Joshua Roman is now a familiar figure to YouTube users around the world. The April 15th concert, which featured Roman as a soloist with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, has been viewed more than 1.3 million times in the past month. Roman's solo spot playing Bach at the sold-out event was introduced (on video) by one of his role models, Yo-Yo Ma: "Occasionally I get to meet an extraordinary young musician. Such is the case with Joshua Roman. ... To me, Joshua is one of the great exemplars of the ideal 21st-century musician. He's deeply grounded in a classical tradition and he is a fearless explorer of our world." This week the 25-year-old cellist returns to the Seattle Symphony for the world premiere of David Stock's Cello Concerto with conductor James DePreist. Roman has strong ties with the orchestra there: he was appointed principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony at age 22 and held the position for two years. As well as keepi...

Pianist Inon Barnatan Wins Avery Fisher Career Grant

Image
Pianist Inon Barnatan has been awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant , one of the most prestigious honors a young classical instrumentalist can receive. Previous recipients of the $25,000 prize include Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham, Matt Haimovitz, and Jeffrey Kahane. Barnatan received the award in April, the same month he returned to his native Israel to perform with the Jerusalem Symphony (he has been based in the U.S. since 2006). The 30-year-old pianist is no stranger to Lincoln Center. With two concerts in May he completed his third season as a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS Two. He will be back in November curating his own three-concert series, ";Schubert Ascending," which he recently presented to sold-out houses at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. The programs feature treasured works from the remarkably productive last year of Schubert's life. A recording of Barnatan playing Schubert's Impromptus , D. 935 and Sonata in B-flat m...

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra To Perform 2 Week Run of ¡Música Ardiente? Festival

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will embark on a two-week journey of South American music with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the ¡Música Ardiente? Festival, May 27-June 6.The festival, presented by CNN en Español, will feature three programs. The first program, May 28 and 30, 2009, entitled Caminos del Inka, will share the rich musical traditions of the Inca Trail. The second program will feature a special presentation on May 29, 2009 of Osvaldo Golijov's cello concerto, Azul, performed by Yo-Yo Ma. The third program, June 4-6, 2009, will celebrate the modern evolution of Latin-American song and dance in a program entitled Tangos, Fados, and Dance, featuring vocalist Luciana Souza and the Rosa Collantes Dancers. The ¡Música Ardiente? Festival was inspired by the concept and programs of conductor and curator Miguel-Harth- Bedoya's Caminos del Inka Project. The project was created to rediscover, preserve, and disseminate the musical legacy of South America. It is an effort ...

Remarkable Debut Recital from Award-Winning Russian pianist Anna Vinnitskaya

“Vinnitskaya is a true lioness at the keyboard, devouring the most difficult pages of music with adamantine force.” – Washington Post For her debut recording on ambroisie, the young Russian pianist Anna Vinnitskaya – winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Belgium in 2007 – pays tribute to the Russian piano sonata with a thrilling recital featuring Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonata No. 2 (1931), Gubaidulina’s Chaconne (1962), Medtner’s Piano Sonata “Reminiscenza” Op. 38, No. 1 (1918-20), and Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 83 (1942). Following performances of the featured repertoire in September 2008, a critic for the Wa shington Post reported, “She seemed almost to relish the technical thickets, never rushing, never banging, maintaining control of wildly different simultaneous textures (in the Gubaidulina Chaconne) and pacing long buildups with unswerving focus. In this literature, she has everything a top-level artist needs.” In a booklet essay with the tit...

François-Frédéric Guy completes Beethoven Concertos cycle

François-Frédéric Guy completes his cycle of Beethoven’s five piano concertos with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under the direction of Philippe Jordan with a new recording featuring Concertos No. 2, Op. 19 and No. 3, Op. 37. “This performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with pianist François-Frédéric Guy and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, conducted by Philippe Jordan , is notable for its elegance and rhythmic springiness. This is not a heavily Romantic reading; the performers emphasize the concerto’s Classical delicacy and briskness, with special attention given to the integrity of the individual lines. Both pianist and orchestra approach the first movement with crisp precision, but their performance is rhythmically limber and never stiffly mechanical or reserved. There is plenty of passion here, and the cadenza is effusively lyrical. The contrast between the piano and orchestra in the dialogue in the second movement is especially dramatic, as ...

Anne-Sophie Mutter honours Mendelssohn with New Recording

Image
To mark the bicentenary of Mendelssohn's birth, Anne-Sophie Mutter is honouring the composer with a very personal tribute combining symphonic music and chamber works on CD and DVD: The Violin Sonata in F major of 1838, the Piano Trio in D minor op. 49 that was completed in 1839 and the Violin Concerto in E minor of 1845, a work which even today has lost none of its fascination. Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg on 3 February 1809, the son of a wellto-do Jewish banker, but grew up in Berlin. A brilliant pianist, he was also a conductor and an impassioned chamber musician. Not infrequently he himself gave the first performances of his own works, and this was also the case with his Piano Trio op. 49. Anne-Sophie Mutter admires Mendelssohn for a number of reasons: "He was a man of many parts, but also one with many obligations and duties who showed great commitment to all that he did. His importance to the history of music is clear not least from the fact that he played a signific...

Summer Music: There is a lot to enjoy...

The San Jose Mercury News published a list of events in the San Francisco Bay area for folks to enjoy, everything from San Francisco Opera to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music , with the Midsummer Mozart Festival and the International Russian Music Piano Competition also on the docket. Travel a bit further south and you have the Ojai Music Festival in June. Down in Los Angeles there is the Hollywood Bowl or the Ford Amphitheatre , both which host summer concerts not to be missed. You can also enjoy the outdoors at the Huntington Main Art Gallery with their Summer Festival at the Huntington . The Denver Post published a list of FREE concerts hosted by the Colorado Symphony . There is also the Colorado Music Festival in late July and August the Aspen Music Festival where you can enjoy the scenic beauty of Aspen Colorado and some of the worlds best musicians, or the Bravo! Vail Music Festival featuring the Dallas & Philadelphia Orchestras and the New York Phi...

Listen: Life with Classical Music, America’s New Classical Music Magazine, Looks at East Coast/West Coast Maestros

Image
The May/June issue of Listen: Life with Classical Music spotlights legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein on its cover, and features Alan Gilbert and Gustavo Dudamel in “East Coast/West Coast”, a story about the two young conductors taking over the podiums of the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras this fall. These are just two of the highlights in the second issue of the new bimonthly print magazine published and distributed by the online classical music retailer ArkivMusic , The Source for Classical Music™. Russian maestro Valery Gergiev is profiled by Listen’s editor-in-chief Ben Finane. Pulitzer Prize–winning author James B. Stewart muses about the piano in his writer’s life. “Beethoven, Scholarship, and Mystery on Broadway” introduces the recent hit play by Moisés Kaufman, 33 Variations, which puts Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations center-stage with Tony-nominee Jane Fonda and pianist Diane Walsh. Artists featured in the May/June issue include violinists Hilary Hah...

Francisco J. Núñez Receives the Victor Herbert Award

ASCAP’S 10th Annual Concert Music Awards Francisco J. Núñez , founder and artistic director of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, was presented with ASCAP’s Victor Herbert Award on May 21 for his “commitment to music education, to the enrichment of the choral repertory, and his dedication to musical excellence.“ The award was presented by composer Michael Gordon at ASCAP’s 10th annual Concert Music Awards event hosted by Peter Schickele at The Times Center. The awards recognize the achievements of ASCAP’s 2009 Concert Music Honorees who “represent the diverse aesthetic spectrum of the concert music world.” The other 2009 ASCAP award recipients are composer and educator Jason Beeson, So Percussion, and Kristin Lancino, vice president of G. Schirmer, Inc. Also announced were the recipients of he 2009 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, as well as grants from The ASCAP Foundation Jack Amy Norworth and Morton Gould Funds. The 2009 ASCAP composer/judges were...

Peter Pastreich Appointed Executirve Directory of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra San Francisco

Veteran orchestra leader Peter Pastreich has been appointed executive director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra [PBO] effective June 1, 2009, it was announced today by Paul Sugarman, President of the Board. Pastreich’s four-decade career as an orchestra leader includes executive positions with the San Francisco Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony and, most recently, a successful international consulting and teaching practice. “I want to thank my colleagues on the board of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for their strong commitment to this institution and congratulate the members of our search committee for a job well done. All of us on the Board are tremendously excited about Peter’s wealth of experience and his tremendous love of music. We know great things are ahead for PBO and we are pleased to welcome him to the Robert A. Birman Executive Director Chair.” - Paul Sugarman, President of the Board Peter Pastreich served as executive director of the San Francisco Symphony during ...

London Symphony Orchestra presents Summer Nights

4 June – 30 July 2009 Highlights include: 4 June Roby Lakatos Ensemble and the LSO 7 June British Film Composer George Fenton and the LSO 11 June Yan Pascal Tortelier , Susan Graham and the LSO 17 June Sir Colin Davis conducts pianist Paul Lewis in Beethoven Piano Concerto No 5 21 June Sir Colin Davis 50th Anniversary conducting the LSO concert 25 June Michael Tilson Thomas conducts Yuja Wang in Ravel Piano Concerto in G 30 June Michael Tilson Thomas conducts Yuja Wang in Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 3 2 July James MacMillan conducts Nicola Benedetti in UBS Soundscapes: Eclectica, ‘From Ayrshire’ 5 July Daniel Harding conducts Frank Peter Zimmermann in Sibelius Violin Concerto 9 July Valery Gergiev conducts the LSO in Bruckner’s Symphony No 9 The London Symphony Orchestra ’s Summer Nights series features an eclectic mix of inspiring, enjoyable, momentous and moving concerts at the Barbican, LSO St Luke’s and St Paul’s Cathedral. This eight-week long series h...

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Rachmaninov and Dvorak

Image
Yannick Nézet-Séguin joins the London Philharmonic Orchestra next Wednesday to conduct symphonies by two nineteenth century composers loved for their lively, tuneful music. Mendelssohn's Symphony 4 (Italian) opens the programme, reflecting the composer's impressions of his journeys in Italy as well as Mendelssohn's own prodigious energy and vitality. The concert ends with Dvořák's Symphony 7. The emotional depths that Dvořák explored in this piece generate rich and satisfying music, in which tension, melancholy and doubt are eventually relieved by brave themes in the finale. We look forward to a passionate and committed performance from Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the orchestra, whose concerts of Mussorgsky, Bruckner and Brahms earlier this season were outstanding. Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto 2 is the centrepiece of the programme, with soloist Aldo Ciccolini. Tickets £9-£55 London Philharmonic Orchestra Ticket Office 020 7840 4242 Mon-Fri 10am - 5pm. No book...

Julia Fischer to Perform in San Francisco

Image
Julia Fischer and Yefim Bronfman join the San Francisco Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas in exploring the world of Franz Schubert and Alban Berg through works such as Berg's Lulu Suite, songs of Schubert and Berg, and four-hand piano music by Schubert. June 3-4 San Francisco - Davies Symphony Hall Franz Schubert - Trio für Violine, Cello und Klavier Es-Dur, D 929 Franz Schubert - Fantasie für Klavier zu vier Händen f-Moll June 5-6 San Francisco - Davies Symphony Hall Alban Berg - Kammerkonzert für Klavier und Geige Special pre-concert recital by Michael Tilson Thomas and Yefim Bronfman begins one hour prior to each concert.

Hilary Hahn Continues to tour Jennifer Higdon's new Violin Concerto

Image
Since Hilary Hahn premiered Jennifer Higdon 's Violin Concerto in February, she has performed the new work in a variety of different settings. At the end of May she will appear with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic with Vasily Petrenko as conductor, her second performance of Higdon's Concerto in Europe. Hilary then returns to Baltimore to work with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony for a spate of concerts in the Maryland area. After her concerts in Baltimore Hilary rejoins with Valentina Lisitsa on piano for a tour of South America. May 28 Liverpool, UK - Philharmonic Hall Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Vasily Petrenko, conductor Higdon: Violin Concerto June 4 Baltimore, MD - Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, conductor Higdon: Violin Concerto June 5 Baltimore, MD - Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, conductor Higdon: Violin Concerto June 6 North Bethesda, MD - Strathmor...

Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra celebrate 50 year anniversary

Image
17 & 21 June 2009, 7.30pm, Barbican [of] concerts given by Davis and the orchestra…there are qualities that are guaranteed – impressive ensemble, strong orchestral playing and a tough resilience to the artistic vision" - Financial Times, January 2009 On 21 June 1959, Sir Colin Davis conducted his first concert with the LSO, a performance of Vaughan Williams’ Concerto for Bass Tuba and Stravinsky Symphony in Three Movements; John Addison and Malcolm Arnold conducted the remainder of the programme. There began a relationship that has grown and developed, and thrives to this day. Sir Colin is President of the LSO and was Principal Conductor from 1995 to 2006, the longest serving in the Orchestra’s history. Sir Colin has conducted the LSO in peerless concert performances of opera, which have included Berlioz’s The Trojans , Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes , Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah and Verdi’s Falstaff . His festivals of the music of Sibelius, Elgar, Berlioz, Czech m...

Cliburn Piano contest has a Strong Asian Participation

Angela Brown of the Associated Press reported from Fort Worth, Texas, fifteen of the twenty-nine competitors are from Asian countries. There are six competitors from China, four from from Korea, three from Japan and two who have dual citizenship with the US (one from China and one from Japan). There was one more pianist from China, but had to withdrawal due to a hand injury. The contest which runs from Friday through June 7th. "These countries have developed an uncanny affinity for this classical music from the West, and it has become an art form of great prestige. And they are incredibly hard workers and self-disciplined, which are necessary to become a concert pianist." - Richard Rodzinski, president and executive director of the Cliburn Foundation The trend of Asian musician started in 2005 when organizers noticed 10 of the 35 competitors were from Asian countries. That year Joyce Yang was the second place winner.

Concert & Broadway Star Linda Eder sings songs of Judy Garland with the Boston Pops

Image
Buzz Aldren joins Lockhart and the Pops to Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing Contemporary songstress Linda Eder joins Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops on June 9 and 10 for a program celebrating the extraordinary musical legacy of Judy Garland. Drawing from her acclaimed 2005 CD By Myself , the versatile Eder lends her expressive vocals to songs the legendary Garland made famous, such as “The Boy Next Door,” “The Trolley Song,” and the unforgettable “Over the Rainbow.” Week six of the Pops’ spring season continues June 11-13 with a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Lockhart and the Pops commemorate the triumphant achievement with an evening of stirring music, a the premiere of a new moon-themed sing-along, and a newly commissioned film created especially for the occasion with music by John Williams. The program also includes excerpts from Gustav Holst’s The Planets , set to high-definition videos produced and dir...

Mahler: ADAGIETTO Symphony 5 -Bernstein & Wiener Phil. 2/2

Image
YouTube Video of Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 5 Adagietto Part 2 Bernstein and Wiener Philharmoniker In celebration of the release of Bernstein Mahler: The Complete Symphonies by Sony Masterworks , Interchanging Idioms is giving away ONE set of this marvellous collection to one of our readers. For more details click on the button on the upper right. For more information about Leonard Bernstein visit his website , his MySpace Page or Sony Masterworks information on Leonard Bernstein.

Barry Douglas performs Brahms Piano Concerto No 2 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Italian maestro Carlo Rizzi returns to Liverpool to conduct Barry Douglas in Brahms’ extended masterpiece, the second Piano Concerto. A work that demands not only great technical abilities from the pianist, but also a chamber-music-like sensitivity to the piano part’s interaction with the orchestra, the concerto appeals directly to Douglas’s proven qualities as a reflective virtuoso. The orchestra completes the programme with a performance of Saint-Saëns’ best known symphony, the mercurial Third, which is remarkable in its use of both piano and organ as part of the enhanced orchestral fabric. The resulting ride is at once both seductive and exceptionally exhilarating. Barry Douglas continues to enjoy a major international solo career which has developed since winning the Gold Medal at the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, Moscow. In 1999, he formed Camerata Ireland an all Irish chamber orchestra, with players from both Northern and Southern Ireland to celebrate ...

Mahler Symphony No. 5 Adagietto Karajan Part 1

Image
YouTube Video of Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 5 Adagietto Part 1 Herbert von Karajan Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra In celebration of the release of Bernstein Mahler: The Complete Symphonies by Sony Masterworks , Interchanging Idioms is giving away ONE set of this marvellous collection to one of our readers. For more details click on the button on the upper right. For more information about Leonard Bernstein visit his website , his MySpace Page or Sony Masterworks information on Leonard Bernstein.

Conductor James Conlon receives three awards:

Image
In the span of one month, conductor James Conlon has received three awards including two honorary doctorate degrees and an award from the Music Institute of Chicago. Mr. Conlon received the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Brandeis University in Waltham , MA , where he was a special guest at the university’s commencement ceremony on May 17, 2009. Brandeis University honored Mr. Conlon for his distinguished accomplishments as the pre-eminent conductor of his generation, and for his extraordinary efforts in reviving works suppressed by the Nazi regime through his multi-year “Recovered Voices” project at LA Opera. This year’s other honorary degree recipients include opera singer Marilyn Horne, Newark , NJ Mayor Cory Booker, Indian environmentalist Rajendrea K. Pachauri, choreographer Bill T. Jones, Holocaust survivor and scholar Israel Gutman, and Israeli entrepreneur and industrialist Stef Wertheimer. Mr. Conlon and the other recipients, join a distinguished group of individua...

Mehta conducts Mahler: Symphony 5: mvt. 5 (Finale) 1/2

Image
YouTube Video of Zubin Mehta conducting Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile. 2001. In celebration of the release of Bernstein Mahler: The Complete Symphonies by Sony Masterworks , Interchanging Idioms is giving away ONE set of this marvellous collection to one of our readers. For more details click on the button on the upper right. For more information about Leonard Bernstein visit his website , his MySpace Page or Sony Masterworks information on Leonard Bernstein.