Interchanging Idioms

Guest Violinist, Josiah Hamill, Winner of 2014 Concerto Competition Denver – The Arapahoe Philharmonic presents “Classic Traditions” on Friday, March 14, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. with a program featuring Johannes Brahms’ lush Symphony No. 2 and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, one of the most popular and technical concertos for violin, with soloist Josiah Hamill, winner of the 2014 T. Gordon Parks Collegiate Concerto Competition sponsored by the orchestra. Maestro Devin Patrick Hughes conducts this fifth concert in the Philharmonic’s 60th Anniversary Season at Mission Hills Church, 620 SouthPark Drive, Littleton. Hughes and Charley Samson, Colorado Public Radio classical music host and Arapahoe Philharmonic emcee, will give a pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m. discussing the program. Tickets are $25 (adults), $20 (seniors), and $5 (students/children) and are available online at www.arapahoe-phil.org , by phone at 303-781-1892 or at the door. Each Arapahoe Philharmonic concert a...

left to right: Michael Laurello, Todd Lerew, Kristina Warren Three student composers are chosen from 250+ applicants In partnership with the acclaimed new music ensemble So Percussion, the American Composers Forum is pleased to announce the finalists in the 2014 American Composers Forum National Composition Contest: Michael Laurello (Yale School of Music), Todd Lerew (CalArts), and Kristina Warren (University of Virginia). Each finalist will receive a cash prize and be asked to compose an eight- to ten-minute piece for So Percussion. The resulting pieces will be workshopped with the finalists in residence, and premiered by So Percussion on July 20 at Princeton University, as part of the So Percussion Summer Institute 2014. One of the works will be chosen to receive the final prize, which includes an additional cash award and future public performances by So Percussion. The National Composition Contest is open to composers currently enrolled in graduate and undergraduate inst...

Boston, MA – Jan. 16, 2013 – Delighted to hear of the Oscar nomination of Morgan Neville’s documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma said: “What I love most about 20 Feet from Stardom is how deeply Morgan Neville examined the preconditions of creativity. He showed us how the giants stand on the shoulders of the artists whose stories he told." Morgan Neville is currently directing The Sound of Silk, a documentary about the musicians in the Silk Road Ensemble. Brought together by the Silk Road Project, which was founded in 1998 under the artistic direction of Ma, the Ensemble has featured members from more than 20 countries, performed in 119 cities in 30 countries, generated more than 80 new works, recorded 60 pieces of music, and just released its fifth CD, A Playlist Without Borders. The Silk Road Ensemble: Ascending Bird For further information about The Sound of Silk, which is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pershing Squa...

Instrumental Solo or Duo Christian Mason Learning Self- Modulation Chamber Thomas Adés The Four Quarters Vocal Colin Matthews No Man’s Land Choral Gabriel Jackson Airplane Cantata Wind Band or Brass Band Simon Dobson A Symphony of Colours Orchestral Sir Harrison Birtwistle Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Stage Works Jocelyn Pook DESH Liturgical Francis Grier Missa Brevis Sonic Art Ray Lee The Ethometric Museum Contemporary Jazz Composition Christine Tobin Sailing to Byzantium Community or Educational Paul Rissmann The Chimpanzees of Project Happytown Making Music Award Emily Howard Mesmerism for Piano and Chamber Orchestra International Award Thomas Larcher Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra The Awards were presented at a ceremony at Goldsmiths' Hall, on Monday 3rd December 2012 which opened with a performance of Gareth Moorcraft’s Rondo? – winner of the third Student Competition at the British Composer Awards – performed by membe...

AWARD FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROFESSIONAL CHORAL ART Duain Wolfe, Chorus Director for the Colorado Symphony, has been awarded The 2012 Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art. “I am overwhelmed and truly honored by this award,” said Mr. Wolfe. “In a nation where ten percent of the population is actively involved in choral singing, it is humbling to be accorded such a tribute. The professional choral arts embrace a wide range of organizations and I am especially proud that two of Colorado's finest choruses that are models of high professional standards, the Colorado Symphony Chorus and the Colorado Children's Chorale, are sharing this tribute with me.” VP for Artistic Administration at the Colorado Symphony, Anthony Pierce, added “Duain is a remarkable resource for the Colorado Symphony, and I can’t emphasize enough how fortunate we are to have him make the commitment that he does to this community and the state of Colorado.” “As an artis...

On Sunday, April 29, the seventh annual Opera News Awards will be presented at a gala celebration in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza in New York City, paying tribute to five extraordinary artists who have made an invaluable contribution to the art form: sopranos Karita Mattila and Anja Silja, baritones Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Peter Mattei, and director Peter Sellars. Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, who sings Fricka in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Wagner’s Ring , will host the awards. Among the special guests for this year’s festivities are conductor James Conlon (a 2005 Opera News Award-winner), who will present the award to Ms. Silja; legendary baritone (and 2008 Opera News Award-winner) Sherrill Milnes, who will present the award to Mr. Hvorostovsky; bass-baritone Eric Owens, another star of the Met’s Ring , who will present to Mr. Sellars; Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who will present to Ms. Mattila; and soprano Deborah Voigt, a 2007 Opera News Award-wi...

21C Media Group is pleased to announce that it now represents the American Pianists Association (APA), recognized by the New York Times for offering “profound early-career assistance” to world-class young American classical and jazz pianists. Over the coming season, the APA will present the finalists for the 2013 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship Award. The Fellowship offers one of the piano world’s most substantial prizes, valued at over $100,000, awarded every four years to a classical pianist at the conclusion of a unique 13-month-long competition process. The names of the five finalists for the 2013 award, selected from America’s foremost young pianists ages 18-30, will be announced on April 24 at a media event in New York’s Steinway Hall – to be recorded for future broadcast on WQXR and other classical radio stations. The mission of the American Pianists Association is to discover, promote, and advance the careers of young, American, world-class jazz and classical pianists. ...

The Metropolitan Opera Guild and Opera News, the award-winning magazine published by the Guild since 1936, will present two notable events this spring. On Tuesday, March 22, the Guild honors Thomas Hampson, one of today’s foremost singers, in its “Met Mastersingers” series at New York City’s Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. The great American baritone – who is making his company role debut as Verdi’s Macbeth at the Met this month – will engage in an informal conversation with Paul Gruber, the Guild’s Executive Director of Program Development. The evening program will also showcase video excerpts of Hampson’s most celebrated performances; a new video biography created for the occasion; and the honoree performing songs by Liszt, Barber, and Porter (program subject to change). On Sunday, April 29, the seventh annual Opera News Awards will be presented in a gala celebration in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza in New York City, paying tribute to five extraordinary artists who have made an i...

Award to be received posthumously by family at Symphony Ball 2012 The Colorado Symphony has announced that the 2012 Margaret Phipps Award will be given to Erna Butler posthumously at the Symphony Ball 2012 held on April 28. This prestigious award goes to an individual or institution in recognition of longstanding philanthropic support of The Colorado Symphony. “The Board of Trustees is honored to recognize the long-time generosity and support of Erna Butler to The Colorado Symphony. Her philanthropic spirit and enthusiasm provided inspiration to everyone she touched at every level of the organization. Erna was at the forefront of those providing financial and volunteer support crucial to the health of the symphony,” says Colorado Symphony board co-chair, Jerome H. Kern. The Colorado Symphony established the award in 1993 to honor the philanthropic contributions and the memory of Margaret Rodgers Phipps. A Denver native, Mrs. Phipps was celebrated throughout Colorado for her rem...

“In the world of talented young singers, there may be none with greater promise.”— Mike Silverman, Associated Press American soprano Angela Meade is having a momentous season. In October she caused a sensation in the title role of the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere production of Anna Bolena , delivering what the New Yorker’s Alex Ross called “as pure a display of vocal power as I’ve heard at the Met in the past few years.” A month later she was honored with the prestigious 2011 Richard Tucker Award , and now – still less than four years since her professional debut – the soprano has been named recipient of the seventh annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera. Muffy Greenough, Beverly Sills’s daughter, presented the award to Meade at a ceremony at the Met this afternoon. The award, for young singers who have appeared in featured solo roles at the Met, has been given annually since 2006, and with prize money of $50,000 it is the largest of its kin...

eighth blackbird enjoys a happy relationship with the Grammys, having won a nomination and two awards, including the one for “Best Chamber Music Performance,” in 2008. Now nominations for the 54th Grammys are in, revealing that the new-music sextet has drawn away from the pack once again with a full three nods – one for “Best Small Ensemble Performance” among them – for Lonely Motel: music from “Slide.” Released in September by Cedille Records, Lonely Motel features music from Steve Mackey and Rinde Eckert’s Slide, the genre-defying new music-theater piece that eighth blackbird commissioned and premiered as the centerpiece of the 2009 Ojai Music Festival*. As Tim Munro, the sextet’s flutist, explains: “This project has been a decade-long labor of love for eighth blackbird, and we are excited that the Grammy Academy members love Steve Mackey and Rinde Eckert’s crazy, fascinating, passionate work as much as we do. What an honor!” The three nominations for the disc are in the fol...

Oscar® -winning composer Hans Zimmer and Grammy® Award-winning songwriter and producer Pharrell Williams will serve as music consultants for the 84th Academy Awards, telecast producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer announced today. This will be the first time the composers have worked on the Oscar show. "Hans is one of the most accomplished and creative film composers of our time, and Pharrell is a phenomenal songwriter with an amazing list of credits," said Grazer and Mischer. "This is an exciting and prestigious collaboration that promises to take the audience on a musical journey." "It is a great privilege to serve the Academy in this role and to help celebrate and honor this year's incredible artistry," stated Zimmer. "I am honored to work with my mentor and teacher, Hans Zimmer and I have wanted to collaborate with Brian Grazer on something for years," said Williams. "I cannot believe I will be joining them and their teams on t...

Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 3 Nominated for a GRAMMY for “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” Recorded by the Chiara String Quartet New Amsterdam Records Composer Jefferson Friedman's String Quartet No. 3, part of the Chiara String Quartet's Jefferson Friedman: Quartets album released in April on New Amsterdam Records, has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category (#76). The 54th Grammy Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, at 8pm EST on CBS. Jefferson Friedman: Quartets also includes the composer’s String Quartet No. 2 and two remixes of the quartets by electronica duo Matmos. Grammy-winning engineer Judith Sherman (who is also nominated this year in the Classical Producer of the Year category) produced the recording. The album has drawn significant praise since its release. The Boston Globe reports that String Quartet No. 3 shows “astonishing imaginative breadth,” while The San Francis...

France’s most prestigious recording prizes — the Diapason d’or de l’année — for 2011 were awarded on Thursday in Paris. The Diapason d’or de l’année , honoring the year’s finest CDs and DVDs, are voted by a jury composed of critics from Diapason magazine and broadcasters from France Musique. Among the victors were Universal recording artists Jonas Kaufmann and Pierre Boulez as well as I Fagiolini’s recording of Alessandro Striggio’s Mass in 40 Parts. This is just the latest in a list of outstanding critical and commercial plaudits for I Fagiolini’s Striggio release on Decca – the world premiere recording of the 40-part mass, which is said to have inspired Tallis’ Spem in alium, after the work was lost for almost 450 years. As well as winning Gramophone ’s “Early Music Award” last month, The Observer described it as “a masterpiece”. Jonas Kaufmann also recently received an award from Gramophone for his recital album, Verismo . For the Diapason d’or de l’année Kaufmann wi...

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation holds its 36th annual Richard Tucker Gala on Sunday, November 6 in Avery Fisher Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center. Soprano Angela Meade, winner of the 2011 Richard Tucker Award, joins a star-studded cast of singers – including mezzo-sopranos Stephanie Blythe and Dolora Zajick, both previous Richard Tucker Award winners; bass-baritone Bryn Terfel; tenor Jonas Kaufmann; and many more – in a program of popular arias and ensembles by such favorites as Verdi, Donizetti, Bizet, Mascagni, and Puccini. Maestro Emmanuel Villaume leads the line-up, which is supported by members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society. As Anthony Tommasini reported in the New York Times, at last season’s Richard Tucker Gala the stars brought “style and stamina to diverse works from opera, operetta, and Spanish zarzuela.” Tickets are still available by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500 or at the Avery Fisher Hall box office. Founded in 1975, t...

On Monday, October 31, the Metropolitan Opera Guild pays tribute to the legendary American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, one of the greatest singers of our time, at the Guild’s 77th annual luncheon, a perennial highlight of the opera season. “Jackie! Celebrating Marilyn Horne” will feature tributes from her colleagues; live and prerecorded performances, including a musical tribute by acclaimed mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe; and other surprises. Among the 800 guests expected to attend are a bevy of stars and fans of opera, as well as an array of New York’s society, business and civic leaders. Current Met stars Bryn Terfel and Deborah Voigt will be on hand, along with many Met stars of the past, including Martina Arroyo, Richard Bonynge, Roberta Peters, Renata Scotto, and Frederica von Stade. Also attending will be Miss Horne’s friends, such as stage and screen actress Tyne Daly (who recently starred to great acclaim in a revival of Terrence McNally’s play Master Class ), TV and stage a...

On the evening of Friday, October 14, at Powell Hall in St. Louis, conductor David Robertson, Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony, was made a “ Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres ” by the French Republic’s Ministry of Culture. The award and medal were presented to Mr. Robertson by Marie-Anne Toledano, Cultural Attaché of the Consulate General of France in Chicago, at a festive reception after the St. Louis Symphony concert. This concert, led by David Robertson, gave the U.S. premiere of French composer Philippe Manoury’s Synapse, with violinist James Ehnes as soloist. It was supported by FACE, the French-American Fund for Contemporary Music created by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in 2004. Additional works on the program were the Overture to Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1. The “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” (Order of Arts and of Letters) was established on May 2, 1957, by the French Minister of Culture, and ratified as part ...

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein was today named a 2011 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. The prestigious award carries a prize of $500,000 of “no strings attached” support over the next five years and has been dubbed the “Genius Award”. In a letter advising her of the honor, the MacArthur Foundation outlined that the fellowships are given in recognition of the recipient’s “originality, creativity, self-direction, and capacity to contribute importantly to society through your work.” New York-based Ms. Weilerstein, 29, was performing in Jerusalem when she received the news about being made a MacArthur Fellow: “This is an incredible and unexpected honor and completely overwhelming. My first response was an expression of total shock and amazement and I still cannot believe it.” Ms. Weilerstein has attracted widespread attention worldwide for playing that combines a natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship. She has appeared with all of the major orchest...

The 2011 Gramophone Awards ─ widely referred to as the “Oscars of classical music” ─ has unveiled the nominations for its prestigious awards, to take place at a much-anticipated ceremony in London on 6 October. The awards honour the most outstanding recordings of the past year, with nominees competing to win across 15 categories including Best Opera, Instrumental, Orchestral, Vocal and Contemporary recording. Featuring recordings from the likes of Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien, and previous Young Artist of the Year Yuja Wang, to DVD documentaries of the late Carlos Kleiber – recently voted by his peers as the “best conductor of all time” - the list demonstrates the depth and breadth of talent making up today’s classical recording world. Competition is fierce across all categories with Joyce DiDonato, who triumphed as last year’s Artist of the Year, battling it out with fellow mezzo-soprano Magdalená Kozena in the Recital category, the Doric and the Pavel Haas Quartets going...

The seventh annual Opera News Awards will be presented on Sunday, April 29 at The Plaza in New York City, paying tribute to five extraordinary artists who have made an invaluable contribution to the art form: sopranos Karita Mattila and Anja Silja, baritones Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Peter Mattei, and director Peter Sellars. The official announcement of this year’s honorees appears in the September 2011 issue of Opera News, which is available on August 4 and features baritone Mariusz Kwiecien – the Metropolitan Opera’s new Don Giovanni – on its cover. All of the winners will be present at the gala awards dinner, which will feature celebrity presenters speaking about the awardees and introducing video performance clips. The April 2012 issue of Opera News will feature tributes to the five awardees, all distinguished members of the international operatic community. The Opera News Awards were created in 2005. They recognize five individuals each year for distinguished achievement in ...