Interchanging Idioms

INCLUDES DELUXE LIMITED EDITION WITH BONUS DVD “MY LIFE WITH CHOPIN” AVAILABLE OCTOBER 9 The music of Chopin – universally loved for its beauty and communicative power – has long been a dynamic force in Lang Lang’s life, propelling him through a number of career-defining experiences. Now, in his 30th-birthday year, Lang Lang records his first album entirely devoted to the great composer’s solo piano masterpieces. The Chopin Album – Lang Lang’s third album for Sony Classical – includes the second set of Chopin’s Études (op. 25), the Andante spianato & Grande Polonaise and a selection of shorter works that he has long enjoyed performing, including three Nocturnes and the Waltz op. 64 no. 1, popularly known as the “Minute” Waltz. Chopin “speaks with such a universal voice,” Lang Lang says. “I genuinely believe he’s a true ambassador for classical music among the great composers. He appeals to everyone.” Chopin has accompanied Lang Lang throughout his career. One of the fir

22 October, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 7.30pm 23 October, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 7.30pm 26 October, Cadogan Hall, London, 7.30pm Sarah Chang performs Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Sanderling, in Edinburgh, Manchester and London in October. The programmes in Manchester and London are completed by Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Haydn and Dvořák’s Symphony No 9 (From the New World). In Edinburgh Beethoven’s Egmont Overture opens the programme. Sarah Chang is recognised as one of the world’s great violinists. Since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at the age of eight she has performed with the greatest orchestras, conductors and accompanists internationally in a career spanning more than two decades. Michael Sanderling became Principal Conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra at the beginning of the 2011/12 season. The Orchestra is one of the oldest and most respected symphony orchestras in Germany

Part of the Nash Ensemble’s Dreamers of Dreams series, British music from the first half of the 20th century Saturday 27 October 2012, 7.30pm, The Wigmore Hall The Nash Ensemble is joined by tenor John Mark Ainsley at the Wigmore Hall on Saturday 27 October. They perform Benjamin Britten’s Three Divertmenti for string quartet, Frank Bridge’s Romanze, Cradle Song, and Sernade for violin and piano, Peter Warlock’s Songs for tenor and quartet, Edward Elgar’s La Capricieuse, Canto popolare, and Sospiri for violin and piano, and Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ On Wenlock Edge (Houseman) for tenor, string quartet, and piano. Marianne Thorsen is violin soloist with Ian Brown on piano. The Nash Ensemble will perform a number of Britten works throughout the Dreamers of Dreams series, in celebration of his upcoming centenary in 2013. Britten 100 is an unprecedented collaboration of leading organisations from the worlds of the performing arts, publishing, broadcasting, film, academia, and heritage, m

EMPTY ORCHESTRA this week released their much anticipated album, entitled One More Time, Altogether Now, on Pentimento Music Co. A record that comes as the result of years of writing, recording and endless touring, the group have described the incredibly in-depth sound of the release as "filled with our blood and guts and hands and hearts." One More Time, Altogether Now is available for purchase here . To coincide with the album release, the video for single, The Audience, has debuted on The Performer. Filmed and set in the historic Capitol Theatre in the band's hometown of Flint, Michigan, the clip pays a gritty homage to the unfaltering melancholy of entertaining. Hauntingly beautiful, the band wanted the clip to encapsulate the ever-present love/hate relationship between performer and audience member. Check out the music video, plus guest blog entry from band member, Stephen Wisniewski, here .

Based on the Zuni myth Four Flutes .

Kronos Quartet Announces KRONOS: UNDER 30 PROJECT / #5 Commissioning program includes mentoring, residency, premiere, + recording Deadline for applications is November 16, 2012 The Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association is pleased to announce the fifth edition of its Kronos: Under 30 Project , a comprehensive commissioning and mentoring program for young composers under the age of 30. Launched in 2003, the Under 30 Project is designed to help nurture the careers of emerging artists, while enabling Kronos to forge stronger connections with the next creative generation. To date, four composers have received commissions through the Kronos: Under 30 Project. Nearly 1,000 applications, coming from 49 countries on six continents, have been personally reviewed by the quartet. From this year’s call for applications, Kronos will select the composer to whom they feel most artistically committed. That composer will be commissioned to write a new work for Kronos in close consultatio

80 years and still going strong The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s 80th anniversary season opens next week! We begin the 2012/13 season with a diverse series of performances ranging from the dark theatrics of Strauss and Zemlinksy, spell-binding Russian bells, thought-provoking explorations of War & Peace, soulful cello concertos and brand new work from Carl Vine. Upcoming Events 26 September – Strauss & Zemlinksy Love, infidelity and scorn abound in Zemlinksy’s A Florentine Tragedy , inspired by Oscar Wilde’s play and Zemlinsky’s own embittered feelings towards former lover Alma Schindler. Greatly influenced by Richard Strauss, Zemlinksy’s colourful and gritty one-act opera is complemented by excerpts of Strauss’s own Die Frau Ohne Schatten . 29 September – Rachmaninoff The Bells An all-Russian programme of bell-inspired works, two also inspired by the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. Featuring UK premieres of Rodion Shchedrin’s Concerto for Orchestra No. 2, Denisov's B

Today, St. Louis Public Radio | 90.7 KWMU and the St. Louis Symphony announced the renewal of their partnership to include live broadcasts of all 2012-13 Saturday night Wells Fargo Advisors Orchestral Series concerts. The performances will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio’s main channel, 90.7 KWMU and will be streamed live at www.stlpublicradio.org . This is the third year of the partnership. The series’ first live broadcast from Powell Hall will be Saturday, September 29 at 8 p.m. St. Louis Symphony Music Director David Robertson will be at the podium, conducting Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (featuring pianist Emanuel Ax) and Respighi’s iconic Pines of Rome. A complete list of all live broadcasts can be found on-line at http://www.stlpublicradio.org/programs/symphony.php#.UFii91F15nw St. Louis Public Radio’s Robert Peterson returns to host the live broadcasts. The St. Louis Symphony’s Adam Crane will again join Peterson as broad

Long-Time Arts Administrator Previously Served as Executive Director of San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum and Education Director of Pasadena Kidspace Children’s Museum Roy Mueller, a highly regarded non-profit arts administrator with deep roots in Southern California, has been appointed Executive Director of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus (LACC) following a nationwide search, it was announced by LACC Board Chair Joanne Crawford-Dunér. Mueller, who is also an accomplished musician, previously served as Executive Director of the San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum, where he led the museum through a successful four-year $5.2 million capital campaign to design and build a new facility. Prior to that he was Education Director of Pasadena Kidspace Children’s Museum, where he developed innovative art and science education programs for a diverse community audience. “I am pleased to welcome Roy to the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus,” says Crawford-Dunér. “His exceptional non-profit arts le

Inspired by the Anthem Rock bands of the 70's and 80's – groups like Yes, Kansas, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. Anthem Rock has hard driving beats with intricate melodic lines and layers of different sounds – all features of the classical music I gravitate toward. This is not a pastiche of any particular song or band, but rather a homage to the artistry of these musicians. Skimming Rock & Skipping Stones has three movements. As word play, colloquialisms, and double entendré are common for song and album titles in the rock world, I indulge in the same practice. "Taken for Granite" - 1st Movement "Salt of the Earth" - 2nd Movement "Clean Slate" - 3rd Movement Even the title of the entire piece is a play on words "Skimming Rocks & Skipping Stones" In geological terms there are three types of rock      Igneous      Sedimentary      Metamorphic Granite is igneous, salt is sedimentary and slate is metamorphic. I the

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's 2012-13 season launches with a dynamic program of works both familiar and new when Music Director Jeffrey Kahane conducts and performs as soloist. It features two highly anticipated West Coast premieres, including LACO Composer-in-Residence and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Andrew Norman’s The Great Swiftness, commissioned and premiered by the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2010. Inspired by the city’s signature Alexander Calder sculpture, La Grande Vitesse, the piece prompted the Grand Rapids Press to describe it as “sliding down the giant sculpture's graceful arms.” The other West Coast premiere, True South by James Matheson – recipient of the prestigious $200,000 Charles Ives Living Award and heralded by The New Yorker as “an early thirty-something American composer who is ignoring style labels and writing synthetic, satisfying music that avoids the glib theatricality of postmodernism” – was commissioned and premiered in 2010 by the New York Philharmo

There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes trying to get this ensemble off the ground. Correspondence Probably the most surprising aspect of working with TwtrSymphony is the amount of time I spend corresponding with people. Beyond just the tweets – which have moments of being fast and furious (and I've not been nearly active enough over the last three months) – I get emails from the musicians in the group, musicians wanting to join the group, people interested in knowing more about us and people wanting to sell us some service. There are details that have to be maintained when we get new musicians, like email addresses, instruments they play, biographies. Fortunately, We have a couple of volunteers who help with this administrative work. Still, it is a lot of work keeping it all organized. Paperwork Add to this our ambitions of setting TwtrSymphony up as a non-profit organization (like most other orchestras in the United States), and there is a host of paperwork

Turning Point by Chip Michael We romanticize vampires, but what does the soul go through when turning? It can't be pretty. The experience isn't death of the body, but rather death of the soul, which has to be, in its own way, extremely painful. "Turning Point" is a solo violin work (in progress) examining that moment.

International hip hop star and renowned peace activist Emmanuel Jal was badly beaten by police in the South Sudanese capital of Juba last night on 8 September 2012. At approximately 9:30pm, Emmanuel was en route to the Gatwich guesthouse in the outskirts of Juba when he was stopped by police and robbed of his mobile phone. Determined not to use or respond in violence, he was repeatedly beaten by 5 police and national security officers until he eventually lost consciousness. A group of approximately 15 police and national security officers watched on as Emmanuel was beaten. It appears that Emmanuel was randomly attacked in an unfortunate and unprovoked example of police brutality. The incident has been reported and an investigation is underway. Emmanuel is in Juba to highlight International Peace Day with the anticipated "We Want Peace" Business Gala and concert on 20 & 21 September 2012. The scheduled events are due to take place at Juba's Independence ha

This is the 1st movement of the string quartet Atmospheres . While the cloud forms have a seemingly regular form to them, they are anything but a regular shape. So, using the time signature 19/16, I allow the quartet to move through a variety of different ways of breaking up this irregular time into semi-regular beats creating a sense of movement, while propelling the listener forward. Taking inspiration from György Ligeti, Atmospheres is a blending of the rhythmic 'clock' music with elements of the sonic-scape of 'cloud' music. For more about me and my music visit: http://chipmichael.com

Recent breakdowns in negotiations between musicians and management in the orchestral world indicate a sea change: now is the right time for TwtrSymphony to fly TwtrSymphony is a unique concept in the symphony orchestra -- the musicians come from around the world and don't actually play together in the same physical space. The music is made by each musician recording their own track with the various tracks put together in the studio. So, in many respects, we are a studio orchestra. We also are 100% volunteer right now, but that is soon to change. TwtrSymphony is taking the steps to become a non-profit organization. Once the final paperwork has come through, we will be able to apply for funding. Eventually we will be able to pay the people who put in time and effort to make the music happen. By the very nature of our music -- 140 seconds at a time -- TwtrSymphony isn't going to be a full time orchestra. There are no plans to pay our musicians enough they can quit their