ECM New Series Releases Thomas Larcher's The Living Mountain

ECM New Series Releases

Thomas Larcher: The Living Mountain

Sarah Aristidou, soprano; Alisa Weilerstein, violoncello; Aaron Pilsan, piano; Luka Juhart, accordion; Andrè Schuen, baritone; Daniel Heide, piano

Münchner Kammerorchester
Clemens Schuldt, conductor

ECM New Series 2723
CD 0289 485 8784 1

Release Date: October 6, 2023
Press downloads available upon request. 

Austrian composer Thomas Larcher’s new album features premiere recordings of three strongly contrasting works. The Living Mountain, composed 2019-20, draws inspiration from Scottish poet and nature writer Nan Shepherd’s book of the same name. Having grown up in Tyrol and familiar with mountain landscapes, Larcher was taken by Shepherd’s unique approach to the topic in her memoir, and “how completely different it is from all the other literature touching upon this subject. There’s a particularly palpable connection between her introspection and the nature that surrounds her, the microscopic details that are elaborated in that context. Being able to identify with her writing as much as I did, reading the book turned into my own introspective journey and immediately sparked the musical connotations that I elaborate in my piece”.

In the piece, motifs are bound to thunderous percussive crescendos and insistent note repetitions that frame the powerful and evocative vocal performance of Sarah Aristidou. Besides the relation to Nan Shepherd’s text, Larcher’s piece also draws from a series of photographs by Dutch photographer Awoiska van der Molen – landscape pictures taken in the mountains of Tyrol that were first published alongside the premiere of Larcher’s piece in 2022. Van der Molen and the composer felt a deep affinity with each other’s work from the start – work “characterized by the slowness of analogue composing and photography as well as constraint through erasing and concealing of content.”

The act of concealment, of leaving things unsaid, is the keyword of Larcher’s setting of German author W.G. Sebald’s Unerzählt (composed 2019-20). A song cycle performed by baritone Andrè Schuen and pianist Daniel Heide, Unerzählt is composed of thirteen sparsely designed miniatures that underscore Schuen’s expressive range. Unerzählt presents its miniatures in a very pure and concentrated way, with their enigmatic appeal leaving much freedom for interpretation.

On Ouroboros, an instrumental work in three movements for violoncello and orchestra, cellist Alisa Weilerstein draws compelling lines against the backdrop of the Munich Chamber Orchestra’s cluster harmonies and the pointillist accompaniment of pianist Aaron Pilsan. The second movement, Allegro infuriato, true to its tempo indication, is a storm of sonic fury.

*

Described by Alex Ross in The New Yorker as “an unpredictable, freethinking composer, who has set aside the modernist strictures that have long governed Central European music”, Thomas Larcher, was born in Innsbruck in 1963, and studied composition and piano in Vienna. His ECM recordings include Naunz (2001), Ixxu (2006) and Madhares (2011).

Andrè Schuen grew up in South Tyrol, where he played cello before studying singing at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. He is today one of the most sought-after baritones, performing in opera houses across the world, such as the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and others. More recently, Schuen “made big waves”, to quote the Swiss daily Neue Züricher Zeitung, at the Salzburger Festspiele 2023 for his part as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s La Nozze Di Figaro.

The French-Cypriot soprano Sarah Aristidou is an award-winning interpreter of both contemporary music and core opera repertoire. In 2022/23, Aristidou she made her debut at Semperoper Dresden under Omer Meir Wellber as Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. In the same year she also made her debut at the Bavarian State Opera.

American violoncellist Alisa Weilerstein’s commitment to new music has been recognized with a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant”. She has worked extensively with composers Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach and Joseph Hallman, among others.

The Münchner Kammerorchester’s association with ECM began in 2000. Since then the orchestra has recorded music of Mansurian, Hartmann, Bach, Webern, Scelsi, Hosokawa, Isang Yun, Barry Guy and more. In 2011 they also contributed to Larcher’s Madhares album.

The Living Mountain and Ouroboros were recorded in June 2021 and Unerzählt in May 2022. The album was produced by Manfred Eicher.

CD booklet include photographs from Awoiska van der Molen’s ‘The Living Mountain’ series and liner notes by Friedrike Gösweiner.

Kellen Gray and Royal Scottish National Orchestra Release African American Voices II on October 13th

Announcing African American Voices II

Conducted by Kellen Gray | Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Featuring the First Commercial Recordings of Landmark Orchestral Pieces Composed by Margaret Bonds, Ulysses Kay, and Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson

Release Date: October 13, 2023 (Digital) & October 20, 2023 (CD)
Linn Records

CDs and press downloads available upon request.

 www.kellengray.com | www.rsno.org.uk | www.linnrecords.com

American-born, Scotland-based conductor Kellen Gray has reunited with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) in this second installment of African American Voices, featuring the first commercial recordings of three landmark orchestral pieces. African American Voices II includes Margaret Bonds’ Montgomery Variations (1964), Ulysses Kay’s Concerto for Orchestra (1948), and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Worship: A Concert Overture (2001) and will be released worldwide on Linn Records on October 13, 2023 (digital) and October 20, 2023 (CD). The album follows Gray’s 2022 recording with the RSNO, African American Voices I, which was praised for its “finesse and sensitivity” in a five-star review by Diapason, and includes William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony (1934), William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 (1930), and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings (1946/1990).

Kellen Gray was the Assistant Conductor at the RSNO from 2021 to 2023. The Scotsman gave his Royal Scottish National Orchestra subscription debut four stars. Of the same performance, Vox Carnyx: Scotland’s Voice for Classical Music and Opera reported, “he unfolded the smooth, mellifluous contours with patience and understanding.” His recent and upcoming engagements include the Philharmonia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, English National Opera, Chineke! Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and many more.

Gray has earned a reputation as a versatile and imaginative artist through his diverse array of traditional and experimental programming, thrilling performances, and provocative multimedia concert experience curation. He currently serves as Associate Conductor of the Charleston Symphony, where, as a champion for African-diasporic composers, he founded and curates the Symphony’s Project Aurora, a programming and performance initiative aiming to illustrate the richness of African-American arts and culture as equally important to its European equivalent. He is also Assistant Editor and Conductor Liaison for the African Diaspora Music Project.

Kellen Gray is a native of South Carolina and credits the many folk music styles of the southeastern United States as his earliest and most impactful musical influences. He learned folk music by rote, in church and in his local community, including from the Gullah people – direct descendants of West Africans enslaved in the United States in the Lowcountry and Sea Island regions, who have preserved many of their musical traditions. Though most known for his mastery of the works that feature American folk idioms, his performances of other folk-based composers such as Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, and Ralph Vaughan Williams root from the same passionate pursuit of authenticity.

This musical background has informed Gray’s approach to the music on African American Voices I and II. “I think the music of our earliest years leaves a lasting impression on all of us,” he says. “Some of my first memories are clapping and singing in Sunday morning choirs, on the school yard, or in the grass of the backyard. Whether it was spirituals, juba, or rags, the most important element was that the music was performed with the utmost expression and aimed to make the listener truly feel something. In our rehearsals I sang the songs on which the Bonds and Perkinson are based with the syncopated Gullah rhythms we’d clap and stomp on Sundays mornings. It was most important to us to perform these pieces in a way that would feel authentic to those of us who have performed the source material all our lives.”

About the Music on the Album 

Margaret Bonds’ Montgomery Variations was rediscovered in 2017 and is her only purely orchestral work not lost after her death. The piece chronicles the first decade of the Civil Rights Movement and was written after Bonds’ visit to Birmingham, Alabama on a concert tour with baritone Eugene Brice and the Manhattan Melodaires. The seven-movement piece is a programmatic theme and variations on the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” It begins with the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and culminates in the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham that killed four young girls, closing with a moving lament and benediction. Bonds dedicated the piece to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. She never heard it performed during her lifetime.

Watch the Album Trailer:

Bonds’ contemporary, the prolific composer Ulysses Kay, who was the first African-American composer to win the Prix de Rome, cultivated a neoclassical voice, as his Concerto for Orchestra exemplifies, very much in line with William Grant Still and his teacher Paul Hindemith. As musicologist Gayle Murchison explains in the album's liner notes, “Kay’s music is tonal, but it freely uses chromatic and dissonant harmony and counterpoint, as it suits the musical moment. Possessing a lyrical gift, Kay favors complex and rhythmic counterpoint, layering melodies to create complex textures. His orchestrations are lush, especially exploiting the woodwind instruments. Regarding form, Kay embraced clear forms, though not always limiting himself to the forms of previous eras.”

A versatile musician, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson comes a generation later. Murchison notes, “We hear both the enduring imprint of Perkinson’s involvement in the Black church in Worship: A Concert Overture and the way in which he weaves multiple stylistic elements. In this one work, we can hear a blend of Baroque counterpoint, elements of the blues, spirituals, and Black folk music, complex rhythmic interplay, Romanticism, and lyricism in his treatment of the traditional Christian doxology ,the hymn ‘Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.’ Perkinson merges the sacred hymn and the secular concert overture as he centers Black spirituality.”

All three pieces on African American Voices II were included as part of the Minnesota Orchestra’s 2021 Listening Project, in partnership with the African Diaspora Music Project. They have not previously been recorded for commercial release.

About the Royal Scottish National Orchestra:

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra is one of Europe’s leading symphony orchestras. Formed in 1891 as the Scottish Orchestra, the company became the Scottish National Orchestra in 1950, and was awarded Royal Patronage in 1977. Many renowned conductors have contributed to its success, including Sir John Barbirolli, Walter Susskind, Sir Alexander Gibson, Neeme Järvi, Walter Weller, Alexander Lazarev and Stéphane Denève.

The Orchestra’s artistic team is led by Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård, who was appointed RSNO Music Director in 2018. The RSNO is supported by the Scottish Government and is one of the Scottish National Performing Companies. The Orchestra performs across Scotland, including concerts in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness and appears regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms. The RSNO has made recent tours to the USA, China and Europe.

The RSNO has a worldwide reputation for the quality of its recordings, receiving a 2020 Gramophone Classical Music Award for Chopin’s Piano Concertos (soloist: Benjamin Grosvenor), conducted by Elim Chan, two Diapason d’or awards (Denève/Roussel 2007; Denève/Debussy 2012) and eight Grammy Award nominations. Over 200 releases are available, including Thomas Søndergård conducting Strauss (Ein Heldenleben, Der Rosenkavalier Suite) and Prokofiev (Symphonies Nos. 1 and 5), the complete symphonies of Sibelius (Gibson), Prokofiev (Järvi), Bruckner (Tintner) and Roussel (Denève), as well as albums championing the music of William Grant Still (Eisenberg), Xiaogang Ye (Serebrier) and Thomas Wilson (Macdonald).

Track List:

African American Voices II
Kellen Gray, Conductor | Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Linn Records CKD 731 - 1 CD
Release Date: October 13, 2023 (digital) & October 20, 2023 (CD)

Margaret Bonds (1913–1972) Montgomery Variations (1964)
1. Decision [1:41]
2. Prayer Meeting [4:45]
3. March [3:19]
4. Dawn in Dixie [2:41]
5. One Sunday in the South [2:45]
6. Lament [2:40]
7. Benediction [5:20]

Ulysses Kay (1917–1995) Concerto for Orchestra (1948)
8. Toccata: Allegro moderato [4:50]
9. Arioso: Adagio [6:11]
10. Passacaglia: Andante [7:08]

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932–2004)
11. Worship: A Concert Overture (2001) [6:25]

Total Time: 47:48
Recorded in Scotland’s Studio, Glasgow, UK, on February 15-16, 2023
Recording Producer: Philip Hobbs
Recording Engineer: Hedd Morfett-Jones
Post-Production: Matthew Swan
Label Manager: Timothée van der Stegen
Design: stoempstudio.com
Cover Image © Martin McCready, Upfront Photography
Recording session photo by James Montgomery for the RSNO.

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Schubert+ Festival Unity Temple

Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by
Schubert+ Festival Unity Temple

Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie
From her Album Undersong and A Character of Quiet

Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 7:30pm
Unity Temple | 875 Lake St. | Oak Park, IL

Tickets and information:
www.schubertfestivalunitytemple.org/program-and-tickets

“lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance”
– The New Yorker

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Oak Park, IL – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” will be presented in concert by the Schubert+ Festival on Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 7:30pm at Unity Temple (875 Lake St.), an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Dinnerstein is part of a two-concert event that also includes vocalist Meigui Zhang, who will perform separately at 4:30pm. A dinner break will be held at 6pm with a limited number of tickets available for an Austrian style meal offered at a separate cost of $50.00 per person.

American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

On October 14, Dinnerstein will perform selections from her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong –– the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also included A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. In addition to works from Undersong, Dinnerstein will also perform music from A Character of Quiet. Her concert program will include Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush and Etude No. 2; and Franz Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D 960.

Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”

Sequenza21 describes Dinnerstein’s approach to Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses as “sonorous [and] eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies.” Meanwhile, the tempo of Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc is thought to mirror the rhythmic precision of a clock and the full title (Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Maillotins), references little hammers or mallets. The San Francisco Classical Voice says Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece makes it appear as if she “magically transform[s] the piano into a harpsichord.”

Dinnerstein explains that Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 is “a very beautiful, poetic piece of music but it ends with a separate type of epilogue that's something different from the piece and modern in a way. There's a rest before you play it and the rest serves as a bridge to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. It's unclear to the listener whether it's Schumann or Glass. I really like that blurring of the composer's languages with each other."

With its distinctly repetitious compositional structure, Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a piece originally composed for organ at New York City’s St. John the Divine, underscores the collectively seamless nature of this program’s repertoire. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece as “transcendent – the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision.” Of her interpretation of Glass’s Etude No. 2, Classics Today said Dinnerstein ”savor[s] every note without losing any sense of narrative,“

Reflecting upon her experience reconnecting with music during the pandemic lockdown, Dinnerstein explains how Glass’s etudes and Schubert’s B-flat Sonata stood out to her:

“Once I’d warmed up to the idea of playing again there was the question of what to record. The three Glass etudes and the Schubert B-flat Sonata immediately came to mind. Glass and Schubert are very different composers but they share some unexpected similarities. I love their pared down quality, their economy, their ability to change everything by changing just one note in a chord. Their asceticism suited the moment. But there is a sensual element in both, too, because the human voice is central to Glass and Schubert’s sound worlds. They both create a feeling of a solitary journey, a sense of time being trapped through repeated vision and revision as the music tries to work itself to a conclusion. This all spoke to the way I was feeling.”

More About Simone Dinnerstein: Simone Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” is presented in concert by the Schubert+ Festival. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 album, Undersong, as well as her 2020 album, A Character of Quiet –– both released on Orange Mountain Music. The program will feature Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush and Etude No. 2; and Franz Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D 960.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” is presented in concert by the Schubert+ Festival, performing selections by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Franz Schubert from her albums A Character of Quiet (2020) and Undersong (2022).

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Schubert+ Festival Unity Temple
What: Music by François Couperin­, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Franz Schubert
When: Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Unity Temple, 875 Lake St, Oak Park, IL 60301
Tickets and information: www.schubertfestivalunitytemple.org/program-and-tickets/

Emerald City Music Announces Season 08

L-R: Sybarite 5, Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand
Sybarite 5 photo credit: Shervin Lainez | CityBand photo credit: Liudmila Jeremies

Emerald City Music Announces Season 08

Fourteen Concerts from October 2023 through May 2024
in Seattle and Olympia

Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director

Season Opening Weekend: Evolution of Improvisation

With Kristin Lee, Anthony Tidd, Steve Coleman, Miles Okazaki, Dafnis Prieto, Julio Elizalde

Friday, October 20, 2023 at 8pm | 415 Westlake | Seattle, WA
Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 7:30pm | The Minnaert Center for the Arts
2011 Mottman Rd. | Olympia, WA

Tickets & Information: www.emeraldcitymusic.org

Seattle & Olympia, WA – Continuing under the leadership of Artistic Director and violinist Kristin Lee, Emerald City Music (ECM) presents fourteen concerts during Season 08 between October 2023 and May 2024 at its two signature venues – in Seattle at 415 Westlake and in Olympia at The Minnaert Center for the Arts – as well as at Olympia’s Washington Center for the Performing Arts in November and Capitol Theater for a special performance in May. Emerald City Music is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Known for a casual environment combined with award winning artists, ECM has gained recognition since its founding in 2015. The Seattle Times says of ECM: "ECM isn’t falling back on the tried-and-true, under the assumption that a new listener is an unadventurous, easily frightened-off listener. Instead, they’re betting that the tried-and-true could be precisely one of the barriers to sparking interest that classical-music organizations need to overcome." The concept of the concert series as a platform where artists and audiences transform one another breathes life into every element of what ECM does – from the casual open-bar setting of its flagship Seattle concert experiences, to the bustling community that faithfully assembles in its concert halls in Olympia and beyond. At Emerald City Music concerts, the audience’s presence matters, transforming the artists, the community, and the future of classical music.

Emerald City Music’s focus during Season 08 is on connection – between performer and audience, between genres, and across time periods. “Our theme this season is ‘connection,” explains Kristin Lee. “My goal was to connect the dots of time, genre, art forms, and more – hence juxtaposing jazz and classical in our opening program, Gamelan and classical in our December concert, film with storytelling in our May concert, music mentor to mentee (Calidore Quartet and Abeo Quartet) in our March concert, and cultural exchange through a brand new, world premiere work in February. By creating programs that highlight these connections, we ultimately connect the people in the audience with those on the stage.”

From exploring the evolution of improvisation from baroque to jazz, to hosting major ensembles such as the New York Classical Players, the University of British Colubmia Balinese Gamelan Ensemble, two string quartets – the Calidore Quartet and the Abeo Quartet – and more, this season is packed full of opportunities to connect with music and with one another

Watch the Season 08 Introduction:

As in past seasons, all of ECM’s Mainstage performances will be recorded live and then made available on Emerald TV, ECM’s subscription-based streaming platform for performances and additional video content.

Emerald City Music’s Season 08 Mainstage Performances:

Evolution of Improvisation – October 20-21, 2023: Artistic Director and violinist Kristin Lee and bass player/producer Anthony Tidd (a collaborator of a myriad of artists, from Steve Coleman to Lady Gaga and The Black Eyed Peas) co-curate the newest program in ECM’s Evolution Series: Evolution of Improvisation, a comprehensive historical journey spanning 250 years through the art of improvisation, from the baroque to modern jazz. They collaborate with saxophonist Steve Coleman, guitarist Miles Okazaki, drummer Dafnis Prieto, and pianist Julio Elizalde for a performance blending the work of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach with Okazaki’s Improvisation For Solo Guitar, Prieto’s Improvisation For Solo Drums, and Coleman’s Spontaneous Composition Collective.

New York Classical Players with Dongmin Kim, conductor – November 10-11, 2023: The New York Classical Players and 2017 Cliburn Piano Competition gold medalist Yekwon Sunwoo make their West Coast debut collaborating on a program crafted with the richness of Romantic-era music by Tchaikovsky and Chopin, as well as living composer David Ludwig’s (b. 1957) Moto Perpetuo, For Solo Violin (2016).

Inspired by Gamelan – December 15-16, 2023: The Balinese Gamelan stands as one of the world’s most fascinating, hypnotic, and transporting experiences of music. In this concert-length evening, experience the Gamelan alongside the works of three 20th Century composers that found their influence in this music: Steve Reich, Claude Debussy, and Lou Harrison. This concert features performances by Kristin Lee, violin; Michael Stephen Brown, piano; Svet Stoyanov, percussion; and the University of British Colubmia Balinese Gamelan Ensemble, which will provide a 30 minute experience of the gamelan as the second half of the performance. It is supported in part by the American-Indonesian Cultural & Educational Foundation.

Oboe / Oboe – February 9-10, 2024: Superstar oboists Titus Underwood and James Austin Smith collaborate on a program that highlights their instrument’s versatility and presence throughout time, performing music from 18th century baroque works to a world-premiere by Ghanaian-American composer Fred Onovwerosouke, commissioned by ECM. Performers include Titus Underwood, oboe; James Austin Smith, oboe; Kristin Lee, violin; Ling Ling Huang, violin; Ayane Kozasa, viola; Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello; Rachel Calin, bass; and Oksana Ejokina, piano and harpsichord.

Quartet(s) in Spotlight: Calidore Quartet & Abeo Quartet – March 8-9, 2024: For this Quartet-in-Spotlight program, the Calidore Quartet and Abeo Quartet join together to perform a program that features the brilliance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet, alongside Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 11, Op. 122 performed by the Abeo Quartet and Mozart’s String Quartet No. 16, K. 428 performed by the Calidore Quartet.

Evening with Jinjoo Cho – April 19-20, 2024: Emerald City Music welcomes award-winning violinist Jinjoo Cho in a full-length multimedia concert for solo violin that will feature music from the 17th century, to J.S. Bach’s famed “Chaconne” from Partita No. 2 in D Minor, to Juri Seo’s 2022 work Toy Store For Violin And Fixed Media Electronics.

Mother – May 17-18, 2024: The finale program of Season 08 aligns the mediums of film and live music to explore the true diverse stories of Pacific Northwesterners expounding on the simple but profound question, “What is a mother?” The evening will feature the premiere of a new film by Carlin Ma presented alongside music by Anna Clyne, Antonín Dvorák, and more.

For Emerald City Music’s Complete Schedule and Concert Details, visit www.emeraldcitymusic.org/calendar.

Emerald City Music’s 2023-2024 concerts take place on Fridays at 8pm at 415 Westlake in Seattle, WA and on Saturdays at 7:30pm at The Minnaert Center for the Arts in Olympia (2011 Mottman Rd) Washington Center for the Performing Arts, or Capitol Theater in Olympia (206 5th Ave SE). Season tickets and tickets to individual concerts are now on sale at www.emeraldcitymusic.org.

About Kristin Lee, ECM Artistic Director:

Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.

As a soloist, Lee has appeared with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ravinia Festival, the Louvre Museum, the Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery. An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center after winning The Bowers Program audition and completing the program's three-year residency. In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is a devoted educator. She is on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as an Assistant Professor of Violin. Lee is also the founding artistic director of Emerald City Music (ECM), a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

Kristin Lee’s honors include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, top prizes in the Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists National Auditions, and awards from the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation. 

Born in Seoul, Lee moved to the United States and studied under prestigious teachers including Sonja Foster, Catherine Cho, Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein, and Itzhak Perlman. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples, Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul & Linda Gridley. For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.

About ECM:

Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Deemed "the beacon for the casual-classical movement" (CityArts), ECM hosts world-renowned musicians in unique concert experiences. Founded in 2015, Emerald City Music produces and tours seven productions annually, with each tour visiting Seattle’s South Lake Union (415 Westlake, a chic contemporary venue with an open bar), Olympia’s Minnaert Center (a 495 seat modern concert hall), a once annual concert at the Bellingham Music Festival, and an annual concert in New York City.

ECM has gained recognition regionally and nationally as a major player in the chamber music scene. Artistic Director Kristin Lee –– a touring violinist awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant and a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center –– is regarded for her innovative programming that both honors the tradition of chamber music while expanding the genre’s boundary past common limits. Emerald City Music made a name for itself beginning in its second season with a national collaborative commission with Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams, and has continued to press the boundary of chamber music with accolades like a tour of Steve Reich’s iconic and rare Music for 18 Musicians, a pitch-black performance of Georg Haas’s “In the Dark” quartet, and the West Coast debut of the Danish folk group The Dreamers’ Circus.

ECM values real, authentic connection and holds the belief that music possesses the innate power to connect people, inclusive of varying backgrounds and perspectives. Over eight years, artists from every corner of the globe have visited Emerald City Music to prove just that: there exists a special connection between artist and listener that only music can facilitate.

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The Jasper String Quartet Releases Insects and Machines - Vivian Fung's String Quartets - on Sono Luminus

The Jasper String Quartet Releases Insects and Machines on Sono Luminus

Premiere Commercial Recording of Vivian Fung’s String Quartets Nos. 1-4

Release Date: October 27, 2023
Available for Pre-Order Now 

CDs and press downloads, including album booklet, available upon request.

 The Jasper String Quartet Performs Vivian Fung’s Quartets in Concert

Monday, October 16, 2023 at 7pm
Presented by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas
680 Park Avenue| New York, NY

Tickets: www.as-coa.org/events/jasper-quartet-music-vivian-fung 

www.jasperquartet.com | www.vivianfung.ca | www.sonoluminus.com

On October 27, 2023, Sono Luminus will release Insects and Machines, the Jasper String Quartet’s new album featuring JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung’s String Quartets Nos. 1-4. This is the premiere commercial recording of Fung’s first four string quartets, composed over a span of 18 years from 2001 to 2019. Truly a collaborative effort, the portrait album was recorded by the Jasper String Quartet (violinists J Freivogel and Karen Kim, violist Andrew Gonzalez, and cellist Rachel Henderson Freivogel) with the composer in the studio, in October 2022. The album title is borrowed from the subtitle of Fung’s fourth quartet.

NPR calls Vivian Fung “one of today’s most eclectic composers” and The Philadelphia Inquirer praises her “stunningly original compositional voice.” A recipient of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, the Jasper String Quartet has been hailed as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling,” (The Strad) and described by Gramophone as “flawless in ensemble and intonation, expressively assured and beautifully balanced.” The Quartet’s 2017 album Unbound was named by The New York Times as one of the 25 Best Classical Recordings of the year.

Vivian Fung has long been a friend and admired composer of the Jasper String Quartet. The Quartet first performed one of her works in 2019, and was immediately captivated by the visceral energy and impeccable craft of her writing.

The Jasper Quartet says, “Vivian’s String Quartets Nos. 1–4 reflect a remarkable journey of absorbing, integrating, and synthesizing a unique spectrum of influences into her compositional voice. Unwavering in all of the works is a fierce heart, instrumental fearlessness, and an amazing instinct for texture. We are incredibly grateful to have recorded these works with Vivian in the studio and for the growth we experienced in the process.”

The Jasper String Quartet and Vivian Fung will celebrate the release of Insects and Machines with a concert on Monday, October 16, 2023 at 7pm presented by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas in New York. In spring 2024 at the Kaufman Music Center, the Quartet will collaborate with tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang on the premiere of a new work by Fung addressing climate change, culminating in the world premiere performance on May 30, 2024.

About the Music on the Album 

The piece that became the third movement of Vivian Fung’s String Quartet No. 1, “Pizzicato,” was composed while Fung was in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2001, for a reading by the American String Quartet. Fung had been listening to and absorbing influences from the folk music of parts of Asia, including China and Indonesia, and incorporated them into this piece. She went on to compose the other three virtuosic movements of the piece over the next two years, with the Avalon String Quartet premiering the entire work in 2004. 

Watch the Jasper String Quartet in Vivian Fung’s String Quartet No. 1

Of her String Quartet No. 2, Fung states, “As a composer, I try to best represent in musical terms my own individual voice in each work that I write. Even though each composition addresses different artistic challenges, issues of my Asian identity underscore much of my work. Oftentimes, the source of inspiration for a work lies in Asian folk materials, as is the case in this String Quartet No. 2, which uses a Chinese folksong as the basis of the introduction, interlude, and postlude.” The piece, which comprises six shorter movements, each a study in a certain mood or affect, was premiered by the Shanghai Quartet at The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. in 2009.

Vivian Fung wrote her String Quartet No. 3 in 2013 for the Banff International String Quartet Competition. The piece revolves around a chant. Fung writes, “Evoking non-Western song, the chant is announced by the entire quartet, highly ornamented, powerful, and tuned to suggest the microtonal tendencies found in many non-Western scales. My recent reflections on faith and spirituality come to life in this quartet as a world of varied prayers, sometimes turbulent, sometimes passionate, sung to oneself or among a crowd.”

Fung’s String Quartet No. 4: Insects and Machines from 2019 was influenced by her time in Cambodia. She writes, “I was especially attuned to the persistent noises of buzzing insects that accompanied my walk through the thick jungle, and this cacophony gelled with my emotional reaction to the terrible genocide of the Khmer people. I give voice to this background babbling in this quartet, organizing the various moments as episodes that freely morph from one event into another. One can hear buzzing at the beginning that turns into a waltz, which in turn transforms into a motoric adventure of machine-like chuggings-along.”

About the Jasper String Quartet:

Jasper String Quartet by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Celebrating its seventeenth anniversary in 2023, the Jasper String Quartet is recognized as one of the leading American string quartets on the performance stage today. The Quartet is the Professional Quartet-in-Residence at Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians and is committed to celebrating the diverse array of compositional voices writing for string quartet on every program. Highlights of the 2023-24 season include residencies at Trinity University, Swarthmore College, and the Fine Arts Center of Greenville, SC. The Quartet is the Founder and Artistic Director of Jasper Chamber Concerts. 

The Jasper Quartet is passionate about connecting with audiences beyond the concert hall and has performed hundreds of outreach programs in schools and community centers. The Quartet received a Residency Partnership grant from Chamber Music America for the 2020-21 season and has received numerous Picasso Project grants from Public Citizens for Children and Youth to support its ongoing work with public schools in Philadelphia. The Fischoff National Chamber Music Association recognized the Quartet's "outstanding and imaginative programming for children and youth in the United States" with their 2016 Educator Award.

Formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the Jasper Quartet launched their professional career in 2006 while studying with James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Kenneth Goldsmith as Rice University’s Graduate Quartet-in-Residence. In 2008, the Quartet continued its training with the Tokyo String Quartet as Yale University's Graduate Quartet-in-Residence. In 2008, the Jaspers swept through the competition circuit, winning the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize in the Plowman Chamber Music Competition, the Grand Prize at the Coleman Competition, First Prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs, and the Silver Medal at the 2008 and 2009 Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions. They were also the first ensemble honored with Yale School of Music’s Horatio Parker Memorial Prize, an award established in 1945, and selected by the faculty for “best fulfilling… lofty musical ideals." In 2010, they joined the roster of Astral Artists after winning their national auditions. 

The Jasper String Quartet is named after Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. For more information, please visit www.jasperquartet.com. The Quartet is represented by Artist Manager Marianne LaCrosse of Suòno Artist Management.

About Vivian Fung:

Vivian Fung by Geneviève Caron

JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. Upcoming performance highlights include the world premiere of her fifth String Quartet by Canada’s Lafayette String Quartet and a new piece for Houston’s ROCO; international performances of her critically-acclaimed elegy for the pandemic, Prayer; and the European premieres of A Child's Dream of Toys and Baroque Melting. Mary Elizabeth Bowden tours her Trumpet Concerto to Philharmonia Northwest, Waynesboro Symphony, San José Chamber Orchestra. Fung is the 2023 Composer-in-Residence at Alba Music Festival Composition Program in Italy.

Fung is currently at work on a new project with soprano Andrea Nunez and Royce Vavrek, percussion works for Network for New Music and Ensemble for These Times, a piano work for the “Ligeti Etudes meets 18 Composers” commissioning project, and a commission by Cape Cod Chamber Music Society. Elizabeth Bowden has recorded her Trumpet Concerto with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras for future release on Çedille Records.

Fung has a deep interest in exploring cultures through travel and research. As a composer whose trips often inspire her music, Fung has also explored diverse cultures in China, North Vietnam, Spain, and Indonesia. With a grant from the Canada Council, she and Royce Vavrek will travel to Cambodia in 2023 to continue research for a new opera based on her family’s experience surviving the Cambodian genocide.

In 2012, Naxos Canadian Classics released a recording of Fung’s Violin Concerto [No.1], commissioned by the Metropolis Ensemble, which earned Fung the 2013 JUNO Award for “Classical Composition of the Year.” Several of Fung’s other works have also been released commercially on the Telarc, Çedille, Innova, and Signpost labels.

Fung is a passionate mentor for young composers, is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and served on the board of the American Composers Forum. Born in Canada, Fung received her doctorate from The Juilliard School. She currently lives in California. Learn more at www.vivianfung.ca.

Track List:
Insects and Machines
The Jasper String Quartet | Vivian Fung, Composer
String Quartets Nos. 1-4

[1-4] String Quartet No. 1 (2004)
1. I. Animato [4:03]
2. II. Interludium [3:37]
3. III. Pizzicato [4:21]
4. IV. Moto Perpetuo – Presto Possible [4:28] 

[5-10] String Quartet No. 2 (2009)
5. I. Introduction [1:40]
6. II. Of the Wind [3:01]
7. III. Of Birds and Insects [3:29]
8. IV. Interlude – With Calmness: Klangfarbenmelodie [1:45]
9. V. Of Tribes and Villages [3:44]
10. VI. Postlude: Of Ghosts and Memories [2:51] 

11. String Quartet No. 3 (2013) [11:48]

12. String Quartet No. 4: Insects and Machines (2019) [11:27]

Total time: [56:22]

Producer: Dan Merceruio

Recording, Mixing, Mastering Engineer: Daniel Shores
Editing Engineer: Dan Merceruio
Recording Technician: Joshua Frey
Photography: Cover Front/Back - “Scenic Drive” © Julia Fosson
Encaustic Art, pp. 9/10 & digipak inside - Lisa-Marie Mazzucco; p.14 - Geneviève Caron; p. 17 - Joshua Frey
Graphic Design: Joshua Frey
Liner Notes: Vivian Fung
Executive Producer: Collin J. Rae

Recorded at Sono Luminus Studios, Boyce VA, October 2-5, 2022
Recorded in Pyramix with Merging Technologies Horus.
Mastered with Merging Technologies Hapi.
Recorded in DXD at 24 bit, 352.8kHz in Native 7.1.4
Mixed and mastered on Legacy Audio speakers. legacyaudio.com

Generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Alice M. Ditson Fund.

Invoke Announces Evolve & Travel Album Debut with Sono Luminus

Invoke Announces Evolve & Travel
Album Debut with Sono Luminus

Worldwide Release: October 27, 2023
Pre-Order Available Now

Downloads and CDs available to press on request

“[Invoke’s music] sounds impeccable without losing its sense of lightness and joy — no small feat.”
– NPR Music

www.InvokeSound.com

Austin, TX – Multi-instrumental quartet Invoke (Nick Montopoli, violin/banjo/vocals; Zach Matteson, violin/vocals; Karl Mitze, viola/mandolin/vocals; Geoff Manyin, cello/vocals) announces Evolve & Travel, its newest album and debut with Sono Luminus which is set for worldwide release, digitally and CD on October 27, 2023. This new record marks the group’s tenth anniversary and features seven original works. Each song reflects Invoke’s growth as people, composers, and as friends with a rich history of shared creative experiences and personal memories.

Invoke’s journey from strangers to string quartet is an intriguing tale. All students at the University of Maryland, the last place Montopoli, Matteson, Mitze, and Manyin expected to bond over a deep appreciation for new American music was in the heart of Tuscany, Italy, busking for “spaghetti money” on the medieval streets of Siena while there for a summer music festival. That shared spark followed the four friends back to Maryland and from there, excitement, drive, and a desire to stand apart from their quartet competitors in a chamber music competition inspired the group to embrace multifaceted musicality. Learning to play and write music for instruments like the banjo and mandolin, Invoke took their creative scope –– both as composers and ever-curious storytellers –– beyond the bounds of classical convention.

Invoke instilled their versatility, compositional creativity, and artistic spirit into the seven original works on Evolve and Travel, while also highlighting the strengths of Mitze and Montopoli as songwriters and composers. The music lets the group completely abandon any semblance of the traditional “string quartet” formality and focus on what makes “Invoke” Invoke –– best friends who make the music they love to hear, weaving together threads of classical technique, folk improvisation, and musical camaraderie.

Evolve and Travel was born out of Invoke's experience of (and evolution during) the pandemic and of being back on the road, traveling again. After a strenuous touring schedule from 2018 to 2020, like all other musicians in spring 2020, the members of Invoke found themselves without an agenda.

Violinist Zach Matteson summarizes the experience: "The unexpected bright side of the pandemic lockdown was an excess of time and a newfound drive to be creating music that connected with people in a virtual space on a regular basis. We dug deep to create new work at a faster pace than ever before and Evolve and Travel is a direct result of that. A lot of the new tunes have individual inspirations, but certainly you can say they express an aspect of what we were interested in during our time in lockdown –– from books that we were reading and other periods of history that we were looking back on, to a need for hope and optimism in the face of great doubt. Coming together amid our tenth year together as a group, Evolve & Travel is a culmination of lessons we have learned along the way. From the straight-ahead sound of the string quartet to a blend of voice, mandolin, banjo, and strings, this album showcases the entire scope of our growth as musicians, composers, and collaborators."

Hailed by The Capital Gazette as writing music that is “versatile and musically adventurous, [and] way more than classical,” and according to the Austin Chronicle, “bust[ing] through genres in…spicy performances,” Invoke embraces exploration and kinship through music that is far reaching both in its technical ambition and social and cultural curiosity.

Evolve & Travel joins Invoke’s discography which began with Souls in the Mud (2015), featuring original works composed by Invoke and works by composer Danny Clay; Furious Creek (2018), featuring original compositions and arrangements; and Fantastic Planet (2021), an original soundtrack composed by the group inspired by the 1973 French animated feature.

Evolve and Travel | Invoke | Sono Luminus | Release Date: October 27, 2023 (Digital, CDs, Worldwide)

[1] Burlywood 4:42
[2] Prohibition Song 5:55
[3] Alchemy 4:33
[4] Doorway 4:13
[5] Evolve and Travel 6:42
[6] Syl 4:51
[7] Dustbowl 3:01

[Total Time: 33:57]

Geoff Manyin, cello/vocals
Zach Matteson, violin/vocals
Karl Mitze, viola/mandolin/vocals
Nick Montopoli, violin/banjo/vocals

Composer: Burlywood, Prohibition Song, Evolve and Travel, and Syl - Karl Mitze
Composer: Alchemy, Doorway, Dustbowl - Nick Montopoli

Editing Engineer: Nick Montopoli
Recording Engineer: Charlie Kramsky
Recorded at 12th St. Studios on July 25th and 26th, 2022 & Spectra Studios on December 16th, 2022
Mixing/Mastering Engineer: Daniel Shores
Executive Producer: Collin J. Rae and Sono Luminus
Management & PR: Jensen Artists
Photography: Marshall Tidrick
Graphic Design: Joshua Frey

About Invoke: Described as “...not classical but not, not classical…beautiful, adventurous, American and immediately engaging” (David Srebnik, former SiriusXM Classical Producer), Invoke (Nick Montopoli, violin/banjo/vocals; Zach Matteson, violin/vocals; Karl Mitze, viola/mandolin/vocals; Geoff Manyin, cello/vocals) strives to successfully dodge even the most valiant attempts at genre classification. The multi-instrumental quartet encompasses traditions from across America, including bluegrass, Appalachian fiddle tunes, jazz, and minimalism. Fueled by their passion for storytelling, Invoke weaves all of these styles together to form a unique contemporary repertoire, featuring original works composed by and for the group.

Invoke was selected to be the Young Professional String Quartet in Residence at the University of Texas at Austin from 2016-2018. The group also participated in the Emerging String Quartet Program at Stanford, and was selected as an Artist in Residence at Strathmore, the Emerging Young Artist Quartet at Interlochen, and the Fellowship String Quartet at Wintergreen Performing Arts. In 2018, Invoke was named a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition in New York, NY, received First Prize at the M-Prize International Chamber Arts competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received First Prize in the Coltman Competition in Austin, Texas.

Invoke has shared the stage with some of the most acclaimed chamber groups in the country, including the Westerlies, Miró and Ensō Quartets, and the U.S. Army Field Band. Additional performance highlights include Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Green Music Center, a concerto appearance with the Brevard Sinfonia, a residency at the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Institute, and performances on the NextNOW Festival at University of Maryland and Festival Amadeus in Montana. Invoke has also appeared with musicians from various genres, including chamber rock group San Fermin, indie group Never Shout Never, and DC beatboxer/rapper/spoons virtuoso Christylez Bacon.

Invoke is strongly committed to championing diverse American voices through commissioning and highlighting new music. Invoke’s ongoing commissioning project, entitled American Postcards, asks composers to pick a time and place in American history and tell its story through the group’s unique artistry. They have commissioned eight new works since 2017, including the latest addition to the initiative, The Lessons of History, by Jonathan Bingham, which premiered in summer 2021.

In addition to American Postcards, Invoke has performed and recorded numerous world premieres, including works by Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Armando Bayolo, and Geoff Sheil. The group’s recording credits appear on bassist/composer Ethan Foote’s solo album Fields Burning, singer/songwriter Marian McLaughlin’s Spirit House, jazz/soul singer Rochelle Rice’s EP Wonder, and many more.

For more information, visit www.invokesound.com.

Sono Luminus releases Sonic Alchemy featuring music by Mozart, Arvo Pärt, and Pēteris Vasks

Sono Luminus Releases New Album Sonic Alchemy

Featuring Violinist YuEun Kim, Pianist Mina Gajić, and Cellist Coleman Itzkoff
Music by W.A. Mozart, Pēteris Vasks, and Arvo Pärt

Release Date: October 13, 2023

Pre-Order Available Now

CDs or press downloads, including album booklet, available upon request. 

www.sonoluminus.com

On October 13, 2023, Sono Luminus will release Sonic Alchemy, a new album from a formidable trio –  violinist YuEun Kim, pianist Mina Gajić, and cellist Coleman Itzkoff – featuring music by W.A. Mozart, Pēteris Vasks, and Arvo Pärt. Sonic Alchemy explores music by composers offering a new perspective on how we perceive time. All three artists on the album have recorded for Sono Luminus before, as part of the label’s Boulder Bach Festival album released last year. In addition, pianist Mina Gajić's Sono Luminus album with violinist Zachary Carrettin, Boundless, was released in 2020 and made the Top 10 on The Billboard Classical Chart. Her album Confluence: Balkan Dances & Tango Nuevo was also released in 2022 on Sono Luminus.

Sonic Alchemy weaves together music spanning several centuries – from 1782 to 2013 – connected by a common quality of creating ephemeral moments that seem removed from time, encouraging deep, meditative listening.

“Sonic Alchemy is inspired by the transformation and fluidity of life, represented by the seasons in nature, and in humankind in the way people connect through religion and spirituality,” Mina Gajić says. “In that way we can look towards Mozart–Adagio and see how it ‘converts’ to a trio while remaining true to itself at the same time. Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel is as mirrored reflections in water, movement and stillness appearing simultaneously. Vasks’ Castillo Interior echoes the same thoughts but this time they seem to refer to something internal, very personal. In this respect I was glad to collaborate with colleagues who – like myself – walk the line between historical and modern instruments, crossing into practices and repertoires of the 21st century.”

Vasks’ White Scenery from 1980 is part of his larger work, The Seasons for piano. The piece is notated in a non-traditional way, with simple dots placed on the page to indicate how many seconds each note should last. Icelandic composer Páll Ragnar Pálsson, who has contributed the album’s liner notes, writes, “Although Vasks is referring to the snowy landscape, perhaps of his beautiful homeland Latvia, it is also tempting to see White Scenery as a blank page, tabula rasa, a space for us to just be, rid of time and meaning.” The other piece by Vasks on the album, Castillo Interior for violin and piano from 2013, conjures images of the ancient Baltic landscape, and was written in remembrance of the great mystic St. Teresa of Avila.

Sonic Alchemy includes three pieces by iconic Estonian composer Arvo Pärt: Fratres from 1977, Spiegel im Spiegel from 1978, and Mozart-Adagio (after Sonata K. 280) from 1992. Pálsson writes in the liner notes, “His compositional method, which has been written about extensively, is based on a fixed relation between two voices. One is the melody and the other his distinct version of countervoice consisting only of one of the three notes that make up the fundamental triad. But for music that is so mathematically constructed, how can it sound so spiritual and pure? Pärt himself has compared his method to how we perceive the subjective and objective worlds. One represents our thoughts and feelings, doings, and mistakes, the other the unchangeable, the things in life that we cannot control like God, death, and love. It is perhaps in this space between those worlds where the fundaments of our existence lie, and time stands still.”

The album is anchored by two of W.A. Mozart’s Fantasias for solo piano – the D minor, K. 397 from 1782 and the C minor, K. 475 from 1785. Pálsson writes, “Despite the roughly 200 years that separate Mozart from Vasks and Pärt, there are elements that connect them. Similarly to Pärt and Vasks who needed to find a way to deal with the oppressive rule of the Soviet Union, Mozart also made a well-known declaration of independence. He left the archbishop in Salzburg and the financial security that followed and embarked on a path of what we would call freelance composing today. All of them needed to get away from an authority that demanded something much more primitive than they were willing to provide. Their youthful playfulness, sheer joy of creating and giving combined with clarity and depth of thought was stronger than the cage around them.”

About the Artists:

Award-winning South Korean violinist YuEun Gemma Kim concertizes internationally as soloist and chamber music collaborator in a wide variety of repertoire on modern and baroque period instruments. She moved to the United States in 2013 to attend University of Southern California, where she studied with Midori Goto. In 2022 YuEun was named Artist-in-Residence with Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra and Concertmaster of The Chamber Orchestra at St. Matthew’s, Los Angeles. Recent performances include collaborations with American Bach Soloists, Boulder Bach Festival, Voices of Music, and Blue Hill Bach. She was a top prize winner at Boulder International Chamber Music Competition Art of Duo, a semi-finalist at the Qingdao International Violin Competition in China and at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand, and recently received the Jeffrey Thomas Award from American Bach Soloists.

YuEun is a core member of the self-conducted chamber orchestra Delirium Musicum. During the pandemic, Delirium Musicum created MusiKaravan, which took YuEun and Artistic Director Etienne Gara on the road in a vintage Volkswagen bus to perform socially distanced concerts for farm workers, winemakers, random passersby, and even the occasional ostrich. MusiKaravan won the Audience Choice Award of the San Francisco Classical Voice for “Best Streaming Series.” She can be heard on Delirium Musicum’s recent debut album, Seasons.

YuEun is also a founding member of “Yu & I,” a duo with guitarist Ines Thomé. Together, they won the Beverly Hills National Auditions, and recently recorded their debut album, A Journey with Yu & I, featuring folk-inspired music from around the world. As concerto soloist, YuEun has performed with symphony orchestras across North America and Asia. Embracing audiences worldwide during the pandemic, her Chopin Nocturne video on YouTube has been viewed more than 14 million times thus far.

Mina Gajić has garnered an international reputation for insightful and dynamic performances of a vast and ever-evolving repertoire including many new works by living composers, concertos and recitals performed on historic Romantic Era pianos, and collaborations on harpsichord and fortepiano. She started her education and music career in Yugoslavia and subsequently performed as concerto soloist and recitalist in Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Montenegro, China, Bolivia, and across the United States. As duo partner with violinist Zachary Carrettin, she has appeared on four continents, focusing on a diverse repertoire spanning the centuries and various styles—on historic period pianos in addition to modern concert instruments, and including new works composed for the duo.

Notable performances have included critically-acclaimed period instrument renditions of works by Chopin, Brahms, Britten, Ives, Berg, Antheil, and Bartók. Her doctoral dissertation and subsequent research on the work of Yugoslav composer Josip Slavenski connect Balkan folkloric traditions and approaches to twentieth century music between the two World Wars. Her performances of Brahms and Schumann (Érard piano, 1895) can be heard on the audio book Escapement, by award-winning author Kristen Wolf. Additionally, Gajić and Carrettin’s recording of Schubert sonatas on historical instruments (Érard piano, 1835), Boundless, was released in 2020 and made the Top 10 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart the following month. Her recording Confluence: Balkan Dances & Tango Nuevo was released in 2022 on the Sono Luminus label. She performs as harpsichord concerto soloist on the 2023 Boulder Bach Festival album, also on Sono Luminus.

Gajić holds degrees from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Gajić is the founder and Artistic Director of Boulder International Chamber Music Competition—Art of Duo. Former faculty at Sam Houston State University, in 2019 she became Artistic and Executive Director of Boulder Bach Festival.

Cellist and performer Coleman Itzkoff stands at the intersection of baroque/classical/new music, contemporary dance, and experimental theater. Whether premiering works by living composers and performing baroque music on historical instruments in the same concert, delivering enigmatic monologues in a piece of avant-garde dance theater (as well as dancing in said piece), composing, arranging, and recording music for the Amazon film Le Bal des Folles, or simply playing a piece of solo Bach for hospital patients in the time of COVID, Coleman continues to push the boundaries of what it means to be a musician of the 21st century, bringing his diverse range of interests and shape-shifting presence to every room and stage he occupies.

Hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for his “flawless technique and keen musicality,” Coleman has performed in the great halls and festivals of America and abroad. As a soloist, he has had the privilege of being the featured soloist with many great orchestras, including recent appearances with the Houston, San Diego, and Cincinnati Symphonies. As a recitalist, he is allowed to express his eclectic taste and inventive programming, and is constantly experimenting with the form and format of a solo concert, playing with unique lighting, unconventional spaces, and often with an accompaniment of dance or text.

Collaboration is the heart of Coleman’s art making. To that end, he is a dedicated member of several ensembles, including the early music ensembles Ruckus and Twelfth Night, and is a founding member of AMOC, the American Modern Opera Company. Coleman holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Rice University, a Master of Music degree from University of Southern California, and an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School.

Track List:
Sonic Alchemy
Violinist YuEun Kim, Pianist Mina Gajić, and Cellist Coleman Itzkoff

1. Balta Ainava (White Scenery) by Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946) [8:27]

2. Fratres by Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) [11:38]

3. Fantasia in D minor, K. 397 by W. A. Mozart (1756-1791) [6:00]

4. Mozart-Adagio (after Sonata K. 280) by Arvo Pärt [6:33]

5. Fantasia in C minor, K. 475 by W. A. Mozart [12:13]

6. Castillo Interior (Interior Castle) by Pēteris Vasks [13:07]

7. Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt [10:24]

Total Time:  [68:27]

Producer: Erica Brenner
Recording, Mixing, Mastering Engineer: Daniel Shores Editing Engineer: Erica Brenner
Recording Technician: Joshua Frey
Piano Technician: John Veitch
Photography: Cary Jobe
Graphic Design: Joshua Frey
Liner Notes: Páll Ragnar Pálsson
Executive Producer: Collin J. Rae

Recorded at Sono Luminus Studios, Boyce VA
August 30 - September 2, 2022

Recorded in Pyramix with Merging Technologies Horus. Mastered with Merging Technologies Hapi.
Recorded in DXD at 24 bit, 352.8kHz in Native 7.1.4 Mixed and mastered on Legacy Audio speakers. legacyaudio.com

Newport Classical Presents Two Free Community Concerts

L-R: Sybarite 5, Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand
Sybarite 5 photo credit: Shervin Lainez | CityBand photo credit: Liudmila Jeremies

Newport Classical Announces Fall Community Concerts

Free, Casual, and Welcoming to All
Presented by BankNewport

Sybarite5
Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 2:30pm
Great Friends Meeting House | 21 Farewell Street | Newport, RI

Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand
Sunday, October 8, 2023 at 2:30pm
Newport Craft Brewing | 293 JT Connell Highway | Newport, RI

Newport, RI – Continuing its commitment to ongoing year-round programming, Newport Classical presents two fall Community Concerts featuring Sybarite5 on Sunday, September 10, 2023 at 2:30pm at Miantonomi Memorial Park (120 Hillside Ave) and Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand on Sunday, October 8, 2023 at 2:30pm at Newport Craft Brewing (293 JT Connell Highway). Audiences can look forward to casual, engaging, and welcoming concerts right in their own Newport neighborhoods. The performances are free and advanced registration is requested but not required.

On September 10, Sybarite5, described as “hyper-accurate yet fiercely vivacious” by I Care If You Listen, presents its signature cocktail of post-genre musical goodness expressed through the virtuosity of five accomplished string musicians – violinists Sami Merdinian and Suliman Tekalli; violist Caeli Smith; cellist Laura Andrade; and double bassist Louis Levitt. This exciting quintet is constantly evolving, defying categorization, and has been keeping audiences on their toes for ten years. Diversity is a strength and Sybarite5 is known for bridging genre gaps to bring unexpected musical combinations together, creating unique, dynamic, and intoxicating concert experiences. Expect works from John Coltrane, Radiohead, Xavier Foley, Komitas, The Punch Brothers, Pedro Giraudo, Marc Mellits, Jessica Meyer, Kenji Bunch, Shawn Conley, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Astor Piazzolla, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and more.

On October 8, Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand comes to Newport Craft Brewing for an afternoon of music, food trucks, and beverages. The Kinan Azmeh CityBand (Kinan Azmeh, clarinet; Kyle Sanna, guitar; Josh Myers, bass; and Shane Shanahan, drums) immediately gained recognition for their virtuosic and high energy performance, receiving praise from critics and audiences alike. With this New York ensemble, clarinetist Azmeh strives to reach a balance between classical music, jazz, and the music of his homeland, Syria. Azmeh’s expressive clarinet meets Kyle Sanna’s rustic guitar, soaring at times over the dynamic and volatile backdrop of Shane Shanahan’s percussion and Josh Myers’ double bass. Each band member has come from varied backgrounds to add their personal flair to this ensemble, resulting in a thoroughly exciting and rewarding listening experience.

“BankNewport is proud to support Newport Classical as presenting sponsor for the Community Concert Series again this season," said Jack Murphy, President and CEO, BankNewport. “Throughout our more than 200 year history, we have been committed to arts and culture within our local communities. Newport Classical's efforts to ensure that music is accessible to all perfectly aligns with our ‘All In’ mission.”

This concert is generously presented as part of the BankNewport Community Concerts Series, with additional support from the Newport County Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation, Rhode Island Foundation Community Grant and Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

Up next, Newport Classical’s Chamber Series opens on September 1 with musicians from Young Concert Artists on Tour, featuring today’s emerging star performers and arts leaders in music by Mendelssohn, Strauss, and more. On October 6, internationally renowned soloists and chamber musicians violinist Chad Hoopes and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott come together to create an exciting duo in a program anchored by Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9. Hoopes previously performed on the series in 2022, and McDermott has a long relationship with the organization – from 1990 to 1997, she was in residence as a Festival Artist. Violinist William Hagen, who performs on November 3 with pianist Orion Weiss, has been hailed as a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” (The Dallas Morning News). On January 26, rising-star pianist Eric Lu, who has been described by The Guardian as “a veritable poet of the keyboard," will make his Newport Classical debut in a program featuring music by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Chopin. The Galvin Cello Quartet, which burst onto the scene after capturing the Silver Medal at the 2021 Fischoff Competition and the 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition, will perform on February 23. Bassoonist Eleni Katz and pianist Evren Ozel take the stage on March 22 in a program celebrating the many facets of the bassoon, featuring music by Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Coleridge-Taylor, and more. On April 26, the award-winning Balourdet Quartet, which recently won the Grand Prize at the 2021 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, will present a program featuring Hadyn, Kurtág, and Schubert. Polish-American soprano Magdalena Kuźma, praised as a "standout" with "star quality" by Opera News, performs a program spanning from Chopin to Rachmaninoff to Rodgers and Hammerstein on May 17. On June 7, pianist Asiya Korepanova closes the Chamber Series with music by Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Beach, Chopin, and more.

For Newport Classical’s complete concert calendar, visit
www.newportclassical.org/concerts

About Newport Classical

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc. and previously known as Newport Music Festival (NMF), Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity presenting the American debuts of over 130 international artists and rarely heard works and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. The organization has produced more than 2,000 concerts and hosted more than 1,000 musicians and singers. In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music.

Newport Classical is proud to be an essential pillar of New England’s cultural landscape, and to invest in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form. Newport Classical’s four core programming initiatives – the iconic summer Music Festival taking place across Newport; the year-round Chamber Series at the organization’s home base Newport Classical Recital Hall at Emmanuel Church in downtown Newport; the free family-friendly Community Concerts held in green spaces around Aquidneck Island; and its newly expanded Music Education and Engagement Initiative program – illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

Violinist Kristin Lee is Featured Soloist with Winston-Salem Symphony in Two Concerts on September 23rd and 24th.

Photo by Lauren Desberg available in hi-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/kristin-lee

Violinist Kristin Lee is Featured Soloist with
Winston-Salem Symphony in Two Concerts

Conducted by Music Director Michelle Merrill
Performing Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

Friday, September 23, 2023 at 7:30pm
Saturday, September 24, 2023 at 3pm
Reynolds Auditorium | 301 N Hawthorne Rd. | Winston-Salem, NC

Tickets and more information:
www.wssymphony.org/event/merrill-conducts-bernstein-brahms/2023-09-23/

Kristin Lee: www.violinistkristinlee.com

Winston-Salem, NC – On Friday, September 23 at 7:30pm and Saturday, September 24, 2023 at 3pm violinist Kristin Lee will be the featured soloist with the Winston-Salem Symphony, conducted by newly appointed Music Director Michelle Merrill in her season debut at Reynolds Auditorium (301 N Hawthorne Rd.). Lee will perform Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77. The concert program will also include Dvořák’s Carnival Overture and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

Kristin Lee’s accolades and sheer virtuosity as a violinist make any opportunity to witness her perform live an occasion worth much excitement. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Lee has performed as soloist with leading orchestras around the world including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Nordic Chamber Orchestra of Sweden, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic, and many more.

In all of her performances and in the impressive array of roles she inhabits as a musician, Kristin Lee is dedicated to forging personal connections between audiences and classical music. She performs widely as a member of New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, including on tour in Italy, Croatia, Germany, Taiwan, and across the U.S. Always up for adventure, at the Moab Music Festival in Utah, Lee has performed in such unexpected places as rafting down the Colorado River, in a natural rock grotto, and in the magical landscape of the red rock canyons of the area. Lee founded Emerald City Music in Seattle, and as artistic director, presents eclectic, vibrant concert experiences in unusual venues, which leave both performers and audiences mutually transformed. The series was recently deemed "the beacon for the casual-classical movement" (CityArts). She is also committed to the future of classical music as a devoted mentor and educator for the next generation, serving on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as an Assistant Professor of Violin, and teaching in residencies with the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, El Sistema Chamber Music Festival of Venezuela, and Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute, among others.

Of her upcoming performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto with the Winston-Salem Symphony and her personal history of memories with the piece, Lee says:

“I am delighted to start my 23-24 season on a very high note with the Brahms Violin Concerto and the Winston Salem Symphony Orchestra. I am especially excited for this performance because I have the great privilege to join Michelle Merill on her debut as the new Music Director. I have vivid memories from when I first learned the Brahms Violin Concerto. I was so obsessed with this work that I spent many hours in the Listening Room at The Juilliard School, listening to recording after recording, and identifying the different interpretations from my musical heroes. Brahms's composition stands out from other violin concerti because even though it is one of the most technically demanding pieces in the violin repertoire, every single moment is to serve a musical purpose, not a virtuosic display. The emotional and musical complexity that Brahms captures through his writing is the reason why it remains as my favorite violin concerto to this day."

Born in Seoul, Kristin Lee moved to the United States and studied under prestigious teachers including Sonja Foster, Catherine Cho, Dorothy DeLay, and Itzhak Perlman. Her many honors include awards from the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation. She is also the unprecedented First Prize winner of three concerto competitions at The Juilliard School, where she earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Her violin was crafted in Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul & Linda Gridley.

For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.

About Winston-Salem Symphony: Proud to be one of the Southeast’s most highly regarded regional orchestras, the Winston-Salem Symphony enters its 76th season, inspiring listeners of all ages throughout North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad with various concerts, education programs, and community engagement initiatives each year. www.wssymphony.org/

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Violinist Kristin Lee will be presented in two concerts on September 23 and 24, as the featured soloist with the Winston-Salem Symphony conducted by Music Director Michelle Merrill. A musician of impeccable skill whose performances The New York Classical Review describes as “vivid” and “fluid and expressive,” Lee will perform Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 as part of a program that also includes Antonin Dvořák’s Carnival Overture and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

Short description: Violinist Kristin Lee –– a musician of impeccable skill whose performances are described as “vivid” and “fluid and expressive” (The New York Classical Review) –– will be presented in two concerts as the featured soloist with the Winston-Salem Symphony, conducted by Music Director Michelle Merrill. Lee will perform Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77.

Concert details:
Who: Violinist Kristin Lee
Presented by the Winston-Salem Symphony
What: Music by Johannes Brahms, Antonin Dvořák, and Leonard Bernstein
When: Friday, September 23 at 7:30pm and Saturday September 24, 2023 at 3pm
Where: Reynolds Auditorium, 301 N Hawthorne Rd., Winston-Salem, NC 27104
Tickets and information: www.wssymphony.org/2324-2/

Pianist Sarah Cahill in an NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert Performs Music from The Future is Female Album Trilogy on First Hand Records

Photo credit: Michael Zamora

Pianist Sarah Cahill in an NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

WATCH NOW

Featuring Music from Sarah Cahill’s
The Future is Female Album Trilogy on First Hand Records

“Sarah Cahill plays a wide-ranging selection of music composed by women on the final volume of a series distinctive for its finesse and conviction.”
– Gramophone Magazine on The Future is Female

www.sarahcahill.com

Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, recorded a NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert in July 2023, which premieres today. Cahill performed selections by composers highlighted on the three volumes of her album trilogy, The Future is Female –– the recorded counterparts to her ongoing curation project of the same name. The concert is available for viewing via NPR Music –– watch here.

The Future is Female is a three-volume series which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include many new commissioned works and world premiere recordings.

Listen to The Future is Female, Vols. 1-3 (First Hand Records):

Vol. 1: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol1
Vol. 2: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol2
Vol. 3: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol3

“It was an incredible honor to perform in the iconic Tiny Desk series,” says Sarah Cahill. “I've admired the crew there for many years, and they were so welcoming. It was deeply meaningful to be in that legendary space where some of my favorite musicians have performed.”

NPR Music producer Tom Huizenga writes, “Pianist Sarah Cahill commands a near godlike status among fans of contemporary classical music. She's commissioned dozens of new works from today's top composers including John Adams, Julia Wolfe and Terry Riley. But when she sat down at the piano behind Bob Boilen's desk, she was focused not so much on new music but instead the plight of women composers. . . For this performance, she offers a sampler of The Future is Female, her multi-volume project that collects piano music by a staggeringly wide swath of women composers over a four-century span."

For her NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, Cahill performed Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová’s April Prelude No. 1; Ethiopian nun and composer Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou’s Presentiment; Sarabande and Gigue from French Baroque era composer Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Suite No. 1; and "a candle burns time" from American composer Regina Harris Baiocchi’s Piano Poems, written for Cahill in 2020. (Presentiment is included courtesy of the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation, a self-financing non-profit that funds music education for underserved children in the U.S and Ethiopia.)

Sarah Cahill began working on The Future is Female, which now encompasses more than 70 compositions, in 2018. “For decades I had been working with many living American composers, including Pauline Oliveros, Tania León, Eve Beglarian, Mary D. Watkins, Julia Wolfe, Ursula Mamlok, Meredith Monk, Annea Lockwood, and many more, but felt an urgent need to explore neglected composers from the past, and from around the globe,” she explains. “Like most pianists, I grew up with the classical canon, which has always excluded women composers as well as composers of color. It is still standard practice to perform recitals consisting entirely of music written by men. The Future is Female, then, aims to be a corrective towards rebalancing the repertoire. It does not attempt to be exhaustive, in any way, and the three albums in this series represent only a small fraction of the music by women which is waiting to be performed and heard. Since recording these three albums in August 2021, I’ve performed extraordinary music by Louise Farrenc, Maria Szymanowska, Helen Hopekirk, Dora Pejačević and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Reena Esmail, Arlene Sierra, Viola Kinney, Marion Bauer, and many other composers who should rightfully be included in this series. The possibilities are, in fact, limitless.”

Cahill’s recent performances of The Future is Female include concerts presented by The Barbican, National Gallery of Art, Carolina Performing Arts, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival.

About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF). Her discography includes more than twenty albums on the First Hand Records, New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Her radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by the Wisconsin Union Theater Performs Music from her Album Undersong

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by
the Wisconsin Union Theater

Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie
From her Album Undersong

Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 7:30pm
Shannon Hall at Memorial Union | 800 Langdon St. | Madison, WI

Tickets and information:
www.union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/simone-dinnerstein-piano/

“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity”
– The Washington Post

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Madison, WI – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented by the Wisconsin Union Theater on August 28, 2023 at Shannon Hall at Memorial Union.

Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong –– the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also includes A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The concert program will include: Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.

Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”

Reflecting on Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18, Dinnerstein explains that it’s “a very beautiful, poetic piece of music but it ends with a separate type of epilogue that's something different from the piece and modern in a way. There's a rest before you play it and the rest serves as a bridge to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. It's unclear to the listener whether it's Schumann or Glass. I really like that blurring of the composer's languages with each other."

Dinnerstein offers this connective observation between Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 and Schumann’s, Arabesque “The Arabesque has some quick changes in mood and the most breathtaking coda at the end that completely takes it someplace else, written in Schumann’s music language but sounding absolutely contemporary. In comparison, Kreisleriana changes on a dime. Suddenly, you’ll be in a completely different headspace. I think that’s as much about Schumann himself, as about his love for Clara.”

Sequenza21 describes Dinnerstein’s approach to Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses as “sonorous [and] eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies.” Meanwhile, the tempo of Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc is thought to mirror the rhythmic precision of a clock and the full title (Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Maillotins), references little hammers or mallets. The San Francisco Classical Voice says Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece makes it appear as if she “magically transform[s] the piano into a harpsichord.”

With its distinctly repetitious compositional structure, Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a piece originally composed for organ at New York City’s St. John the Divine, underscores the collectively seamless nature of this program’s repertoire. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece as “transcendent – the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision.”

Of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3, Dinnerstein says, “Erik Satie published three Gymnopédie and three Gnossienne together, though he eventually wrote more Gnossienne, a fantastical term that he came up with. The markings in the score for Gnossienne No. 3 are bizarre: “Plan carefully”; “Provide yourself with clear sightedness”; “Alone for a moment”; “So as to get a hollow”; “Quite lost”; “Carry this further”; “Open your mind”. These are written right over the notes. The commentary is dada-esque.”

Patrons can visit union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/simone-dinnerstein-piano/, visit the Memorial Union Box Office or call (608) 265-2787 to purchase tickets to experience Dinnerstein’s artistry. Patrons can save on season events tickets by purchasing subscriptions available between June 1 and Sept. 28, including a Wisconsin Union Theater Classical Series subscription for a 20% discount or brand-new build-your-own subscription options of three to five events for 15% off or six or more events for a 20% discount.

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About the Wisconsin Union Theater: For more than 80 years, the Wisconsin Union Theater has served as a center for cultural activity in the heart of the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. The Theater hosts performances in multiple locations, including Memorial Union, and has an extensive history of remarkable performances. The Wisconsin Union Theater is committed to social justice and works to create an equitable, diverse, and inclusive place for all who engage with the Theater’s programming, events, and activities. The Wisconsin Union Theater is part of the Wisconsin Union, a membership organization that blends study and leisure to create unique out-of-classroom opportunities. Learn more: union.wisc.edu/wisconsin-union-theater.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by the Wisconsin Union Theater. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album, Undersong, including Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert by the Wisconsin Union Theater performing selections by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie From her 2022 album Undersong.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by the Wisconsin Union Theater
What: Music by François Couperin­, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie
When: Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Memorial Union, Shannon Hall, 800 Langdon St., Madison, WI, 53706
Tickets and information: www.union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/simone-dinnerstein-piano/

ECM New Series Releases John Holloway Ensemble’s Recording of Purcell’s Fantazias

ECM New Series Releases

Henry Purcell | John Holloway
Fantazias

John Holloway, violin; Monika Baer, viola; Renate Steinmann, viola; Martin Zeller, violoncello

ECM New Series 2249
Release Date: September 22, 2023

Henry Purcell’s “fantazias” are regarded as some of the finest and most intricately wrought examples of the fantasia, due to their profound embrace of counterpoint and great command of the polyphonal techniques of the time. Composed in the summer of 1680 – a time when the fantasia was already considered old-fashioned and had been replaced by the sonata – Purcell’s “fantazias” turned out to be the very last ensemble fantasias to be published in England. As John Holloway notes in his detailed liner text contextualizing the three- and four-part works, “it is tempting in retrospect to see their brilliant distillation of the very best of Byrd, Lawes, Jenkins and Locke as a personal farewell to a kind of music, which in Purcell’s own chamber music would soon be superseded by sonatas”.

In this recording John Holloway and his ensemble – violists Monika Baer and Renate Steinmann as well as violoncellist Martin Zeller – excel at bringing to light the emotional nuance and technical complexity of the works in all their transparency and colorfulness, naturally emphasizing Purcell’s contrapuntal idiosyncrasies in the process. Holloway’s expansive studies of Purcell’s life and work are evident in this music, and the violinist discloses his great appreciation of the composer in the accompanying text, saying, “only just out of his teens, Purcell already shows his extraordinary ability, shared by few other composers of any era, to walk the fine line between joy and sorrow, to beautifully express the melancholy which was such a characteristic mood of his times; and all this within the strictest self-imposed disciplines of complex counterpoint.”

On the album, recorded at Zürich’s Radio Studio, Holloway and his ensemble approach Purcell’s fantasias No.1 through 12 with distinct and convincing interpretations that substantiate John Holloway’s suggestion that even J.S. Bach “would have been immensely proud to have composed this music, and had he encountered it, would certainly have acknowledged it as equal to his finest achievements in this art.”

The CD includes a booklet with liner notes by John Holloway.

A pioneer of modern Early Music and historically-informed performance practice, John Holloway has been a leading figure in chamber music and concertmastering of Renaissance and Baroque music for over five decades, with many distinguished recordings under his belt. He is the founder of the baroque ensemble L’Ecole d’Orphée and in 2001 became Musical Director of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, in addition to multiple other activities as teacher and instructor across Europe and the USA. Holloway made his ECM debut in 1999 with a recording of the Sonatae unarum fidium by J.H. Schmelzer and has recorded eight further albums – including this release – for the label since, with repertory spanning music of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Francesco Maria Veracini, J.S. Bach, Jean-Marie Leclair, John Dowland and more.

Esther Abrami Announces New Album Cinéma Out On Sony Classical on September 22, 2023

Esther Abrami Announces New Album

Cinéma
Out on Sony Classical on September 23, 2023

Featuring Unique Versions of Abrami’s Favorite Soundtracks

Internationally acclaimed violinist and social media sensation Esther Abrami announces the release of her new album, Cinéma, set for release on September 22, 2023 on Sony Classical and available for preorder here.

With a captivating collection of lush new arrangements for violin and orchestra of film and TV scores, classical music from the movies, anime hits and new compositions by Oscar-winning composers, Cinéma showcases Esther Abrami’s versatility, musical sensitivity and technical mastery. She carefully curated each piece on the album, noting: “I am so thrilled about my new album. I wanted to curate a diverse collection that reflects my classical background, my French and Jewish heritage, my support of women in music, the films & anime that moved me the most and to offer a rich tapestry of music that spans genres, cultures & generations.  I often reflect on the similarities between film music & classical music – the intricacy of the orchestral arrangements, the emotional depth, and the timeless beauty of both – and I hope that listeners will fall for the music of ‘Cinéma’ just as I have.”

Cinéma features unique new arrangements of blockbuster hits such as Naruto, Demon Slayer, The Witcher and The Hunger Games alongside iconic French music such as Amélie and Les Choristes as well as beloved classics by Pjotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich and Astor Piazzolla. The album also includes two world premiere recordings by OSCAR-winning composers Anne Dudley and Rachel Portman. Anne Dudley wrote her new work especially for Esther Abrami and Rachel Portman has reworked her music for The Little Prince with Esther in mind. Esther Abrami came to the violin through her grandmother, has Jewish roots and since childhood already established a particularly emotional connection to the movies Life is Beautiful and The Diary of Anne Frank, hence their inclusion on Cinéma. Another particularly emotional piece on the album is a new arrangement of the protagonist's theme “Zeyn” from the Lebanese social drama Capernaum. The Oscar-nominated movie from 2018 is about the survival of a young boy in the slums of Beirut. Composer and film producer Khaled Mouzanar wrote this new arrangement especially for Esther Abrami.

Esther Abrami has been working closely with a variety of arrangers to create her own, unique arrangements for Cinéma. With stunning clarity, virtuosity, and expression, she brings this range of repertoire to life with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ben Palmer.  For two of the pieces on the album, however, Esther Abrami chose a very different type of instrumentation. In one – “Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi” from Amélie, originally written for piano - Esther incorporated a loop station and thus accompanies herself on the violin.  In another, young guitarist Marcin features as her duet partner in “Libertango” by Astor Piazzolla from Le Pont du Nord.

For the recording of Cinéma, Esther Abrami chose the legendary Smecky Studios in Prague, one of the busiest soundtracks recording studios in the world.  In its 80-year history, many famous composers have recorded soundtracks there, including Rachel Portman, Daniel Pemberton, Philip Glass, Howard Shore, Alexandre Desplat, Bear McCreary, Johann Johannsson, and Brian Tyler.

CINÉMA Tracklist:

1. Toshio Masuda: Naruto: Alone Theme

2. Dmitri Shostakovich: The Gadfly, Op. 97: III. Youth (Romance)

3. Michael Nyman: If (From "The Diary of Anne Frank")

4. Anne Dudley: Chasing Rainbows 

5. Composer Go Shiina: Demon Slayer: Kamado Tanjirou no Uta

6. Sonya Belousova / Giona Ostinelli: The Witcher: Toss A Coin To Your Witcher

7. Bruno Coulais: Vois sur ton chemin (From "Les Choristes")

8. James Newton Howard: The Hanging Tree (From "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt. 1")

9. Astor Piazzolla: Libertango feat. Marcin

10. Shigeru Umebayashi: Yumeji's Theme (From "In the Mood for Love")

11. Rachel Portman: The Little Prince Orchestral Suite

12. Khaled Mouzanar: Zeyn (From "Capharnaüm")  

13. Yann Tiersen: Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi (From "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" / “AMÉLIE”) 

14. Nicola Piovani: Buongiorno Principessa (From "La vita è bella")

15. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Valse sentimentale, Op. 51, No. 6  

ESTHER ABRAMI

Esther Abrami is much more than a musician: she's an inspiration to a new generation of music enthusiasts. Through her large social media platform, Esther shares her passion for music, performance and practice sessions and shares behind-the-scenes glimpses into her life as a musician with an ever-growing community worldwide.  With her dazzling talent, infectious personality and boundless enthusiasm for music-making, Esther Abrami is a rising star and her new album Cinéma is not to be missed.

The 26-year-old violinist studied at the Royal College of Music and completed her master's degree at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, for which she received a full scholarship.  In 2019, she became the first classical musician ever to win the ‘Social Media Superstar’ category at the Global Awards and in 2021 she was featured in Classic FM's ‘30 under 30 Classical Artists to Watch’ series, curated by Julian Lloyd Webber and was listed as a “Rising Star” by BBC Music Magazine. In the UK, Esther Abrami is considered one of the most promising young classical artists of her generation and has been appointed Creative Partner and Artist in Residence by the English Symphony Orchestra. With her debut album Esther Abrami (2022) and an EP dedicated to women composers recorded with ‘Her Ensemble’, a free-form group that seeks to address the gender gap and gender stereotypes in the music industry, Esther has become an artist who achieves wide attention outside the classical sphere. In her podcast “Woman in Classical,” Esther Abrami regularly interviews outstanding women musicians and composers from the world of classical music with the hope of inspiring young people to pursue a career in music.

Esther Abrami plays a violin by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, kindly provided by Beare's International Violin Society.

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.

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September 23rd, Simone Dinnerstein Performs with Emmanuel Music Conducted by Ryan Turner with Video Installation by Laurie Olinder

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein with Emmanuel Music Conducted by Artistic Director Ryan Turner

Performing Concertos by J.S. Bach, Mozart, and Glass
with Video Installation by Laurie Olinder

Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 7pm
Distler Hall at Tufts University
20 Talbot Ave. | Medford, MA

Tickets and information:
www.emmanuelmusic.org/performance-info/season-announcement

“an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation”
– The New York Times

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Medford, MA – Following an immensely successful performance in June 2022, pianist Simone Dinnerstein returns to perform with Emmanuel Music on Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 7pm at Distler Hall at Tufts University (12 Talbot Ave.). Artistic Director Ryan Turner will conduct. Celebrated for her distinctive musical voice and her commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, Dinnerstein and Emmanuel Music will perform three piano concertos: Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467, and the “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Philip Glass. The performance will be coupled with a visual counterpoint in the form of an abstract video journey by artist Laurie Olinder. Dinnerstein and Olinder have collaborated before in Dinnerstein’s 2021 production, The Eye is the First Circle.

Of the opportunity to collaborate with Dinnerstein again this season, Music Director Ryan Turner says:

“I am incredibly excited to work together again! [Simone Dinnerstein’s] collaborative approach combined with dazzling skill and poetic interpretation make for an ideal musical partner. And, our orchestra relishes playing with Simone!“

Recognized for her appreciation of J.S. Bach’s work, Dinnerstein recorded Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052 on her 2011 Sony Classical release, Bach: A Strange Beauty. Even then, more than 10 years ago, the Grammy-nominated pianist was lauded for her approach to Bach’s music and the resulting beauty and skill of her execution. NPR described Dinnerstein’s recording as a, “wonderfully expressive interpretation.” One can also relish in Dinnerstein’s thoughtful approach to Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467 on her 2017 Sony Classical release, Mozart in Havana with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra. Gramophone describes Dinnerstein’s performance as offering “heartfelt directness [and] purity of line.”

Dinnerstein recorded and extensively performed Philip Glass’s Piano Concerto No. 3, written for her in 2017, but this will be her first time performing Glass’s Piano Concerto No. 1 “Tirol” from 2000, a seldom-played work based on traditional Austrian folk music, Volkslied.

Of this unique piece by Glass and the opportunity to work with Laurie Olinder again, Dinnerstein says:

“I am eagerly looking forward to collaborating again with Ryan Turner and Emmanuel Music in this unusual program featuring three of my favorite piano concertos. I have performed Bach’s D Minor and Mozart’s K 467 many times, but this will be my first performance of Glass’s Tirol. The second movement of the Tirol is what first drew me to it. Built almost as a set of variations, the sound is lush and pulsating, and its mood relates to his Symphony No 3 for strings. I love the play between intense lyricism and a feeling of austerity, so reminiscent of Schubert’s writing.

I’m also excited that the visual artist, Laurie Olinder, will be collaborating on this performance with her colorful and dynamic video art. Laurie and I worked together over the pandemic creating The Eye is the First Circle, a devised work using my father, Simon Dinnerstein’s Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. I can’t wait to see how she brings this added visual dimension to the music on this program.”

Laurie Olinder says:

“Watching the shadow of leaves trembling on a wall, a current of air fluttering the leaves on a branch or the sun’s reflection rippling on the water’s surface. The rhythm of nature has a music all its own. This is what inspires me. The mind seeks to find connections to these cadences.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About Emmanuel Music: Through its performing, teaching, mentoring, and scholarly activities, Emmanuel Music occupies a unique niche: a living laboratory for the music of J. S. Bach. Emmanuel Music finds new and creative ways for audiences and musicians to engage with the artistic, spiritual, and humanistic aspects of the music of J. S. Bach, the cornerstone of our musical output for our first fifty years.

We seek to make Bach’s music deeply relevant to our current lives, including highlighting the connections between Bach and artists that he influenced, especially creative voices that have been marginalized in our society. Building on the symbiotic partnership between an arts nonprofit and an intellectually curious and open-minded religious community, Emmanuel Music further embraces Bach’s sacred music, especially his cantatas, as opportunities to explore the transcendent aspects of our shared human experience.

By embracing a new mission and strategic plan in March 2021, Emmanuel Music asserts its role as an essential musical, humanistic, intellectual force for participatory engagement in its local community, and around the world through its online programming. Learn more at www.emmanuelmusic.org.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” performs with Emmanuel Music conducted by Artistic Director Ryan Turner in three piano concertos - J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467, and Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. The performance will be coupled with a visual counterpoint in the form of an abstract video journey by artist Laurie Olinder.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” performs with Emmanuel Music and Artistic Director Ryan Turner in J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467, and Philip Glass’s “Tirol” Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with visuals by artist Laurie Olinder

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein with Emmanuel Music
Conducted by Artistic Director Ryan Turner
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Philip Glass with abstract visuals by artist Laurie Olinder
When: Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 7pm
Where: Distler Hall at Tufts University; 20 Talbot Ave, Medford, MA 02155
Tickets and information: www.emmanuelmusic.org/performance-info/season-announcement

Cellist Ofra Harnoy’s Rediscovered & Unreleased 1996 Recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto Debuts on Sony Classical

Cellist Ofra Harnoy

Her Rediscovered & Unreleased 1996 Recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto Gets its Long Overdue Debut on Sony Classical

Available September 15
Pre-order Now

With George Pehlivanian Conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the “Lost” Elgar Performance is Coupled with Harnoy’s Celebrated 1995 Recording of the Lalo Cello Concerto

When cellist Ofra Harnoy entered London’s venerable Abbey Road Studios in 1996 to record Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85, she never imagined she would have to wait 27 years for the recording’s release – at last, set for release on September 15 via Sony Classical and available for pre-order now.

The new album also includes a reissue of Harnoy’s recording of the Cello Concerto in D Minor by the French composer Edouard Lalo, made in 1995 with the late Antonio de Almeida conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

The Elgar recording – with George Pehlivanian conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra – was completed in its 1996 Abbey Road sessions. However, it was never edited and released, all but vanished. Repeated inquiries and searches over the years yielded no results, until a diligent effort in 2022 finally discovered the master tapes in the storage of a former associate.

Fortunately, notes from the sessions survived, and the Elgar recording’s original producer, Andrew Keener, was available to advise Mike Herriott, Harnoy’s husband and manager, who edited the tapes in their own home studio. Ron Searles of Red Maple Sound in Toronto mastered the final edit, as well as remastering the Lalo recording, using the latest Dolby Atmos technology.

Keener recalls how the Elgar concerto felt at the time. “The sessions at Abbey Road’s fabled Studio 1 were productive and enjoyable, fresh and uninhibited. I hope you enjoy the result.”

In the last half-century, Elgar’s Cello Concerto has emerged as one of the masterpieces of late Romantic music for cello and orchestra – and it finally makes an essential addition to Ofra Harnoy’s catalogue of recordings. Shortly after the 1996 Abbey Road sessions, she spoke with the International Cello Society, for an interview. “I recently recorded the Elgar Concerto with the London Philharmonic,” Harnoy said, at the time. “I'm very excited about this because the Elgar is one of those pieces that just wrings me dry; I always end up crying. It's such a wonderful piece.”

The sensitive, deeply spiritual Elgar was an aging man – devastated by the brutality of World War I and newly aware of his own mortality – when he was inspired to write the concerto in 1919. His work was transfiguring, if audiences at the time were not quite ready to hear that. Interestingly, it has been women cello virtuosos who most eloquently kept it in the repertoire. The British cellist Beatrice Harrison triumphed with the concerto in the first successful performances after its troubled premiere, and she went on to record it twice with the composer conducting. In the years that followed, Canadian cellist Zara Nelsova believed in the concerto so completely that she performed it in concert and even in a reduction for cello and piano.

But it was the vibrant and heartfelt stereo recording by the young Jacqueline du Pré in the mid-1960s that sparked a new and enduring interest in the work. She inspired a young Ofra Harnoy, who met her and played for her in a master class near the end of du Pré’s tragically brief life. This new release will confirm Harnoy’s place in the Elgar concerto’s distinctive legacy.

The Lalo recording from 1995 also comes from the cellist’s years as an exclusive artist on the RCA Victor Red Seal/BMG Classics label, now a part of Sony Classical. On its release, Gramophone’s critic noted how, in the opening movement of the Lalo, the recording “ensures that the soloist’s disarmingly gentle recitativo projects naturally, and readily tames the vehement orchestral protests,” then praises how “the finely graduated and eloquently phrased solo introduction for the finale again shows Harnoy at her most imaginative.”

OFRA HARNOY: ELGAR / LALO: CELLO CONCERTOS

RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

TRACKLIST

Elgar: Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85

1. I. Adagio – Moderato

2. II. Lento - Allegro molto

3. III. Adagio

4. IV. Allegro - Moderato - Allegro, ma non-troppo - Poco più lento – Adagio

Lalo: Cello Concerto in D Minor

5. I. Prelude. Lento - Allegro maestoso

6. II. Intermezzo. Andantino con moto - Allegro presto

7. III. Introduction. Andante - Allegro vivace

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.

CONNECT WITH OFRA HARNOY: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE

Brandon Patrick George Releases New Album Twofold on In a Circle Records September 15th

Brandon Patrick George Releases New Album Twofold on In a Circle Records

Pairing Canonical Works for Solo Flute with New Compositions

Featuring Music by C.P.E. Bach, Claude Debussy, Reena Esmail, Saad Haddad, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Toru Takemitsu

Release Date: September 15, 2023

Downloads available to press on request​

www.brandonpatrickgeorge.com

Grammy®-nominated flutist Brandon Patrick George has been praised as “elegant” by The New York Times, as a “virtuoso” by The Washington Post, and as a “knockout musician with a gorgeous sound” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. On September 15, 2023, In a Circle Records will release George’s second solo album, Twofold, which explores musical dialogues that transcend space, time, and identity. The recording features music by C.P.E. Bach, Claude Debussy, Reena Esmail, Saad Haddad, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Toru Takemitsu, and is being released digitally in stereo as well as in full Dolby Atmos spatial audio, available via Apple Music.

Twofold follows the success of Brandon Patrick George’s debut solo album, which included music by Kalevi Aho, J.S. Bach, Pierre Boulez, and Sergei Prokofiev, and was released in 2020 on Haenssler Classics. George was featured in The New York Times around the album’s release, in an article titled “A Flutist Steps into the Spotlight,” which described the album as “a program that showcases the flute in all its wit, warmth and brilliance."

George’s concept for his new album Twofold is to pair canonical works for solo flute with new compositions, reveling in the conversations composers have across time and space. He was inspired by Saad Haddad’s piece Tasalsul I, which was written in response to the slow movement from C.P.E. Bach’s Sonata in A minor, WQ. 132, H. 562 – both included on the album.

Three extraordinary lyrical works – Claude Debussy’s Syrinx, Tōru Takemitsu’s Air, and Reena Esmai’s Zinfandel – provide Twofold’s core, plumbing the interplay between European, Hindustani, and Japanese musical traditions. Debussy’s colorful harmonies and textures were a source of inspiration for Takemitsu, the celebrated Japanese composer who blended sounds from the East and West. Reena Esmail weaves scales and harmonies from Hindustani music throughout her music. She has said that it was in this work, Zinfandel, that she first began exploring this concept, which is now part of her signature compositional style.

The final pairing comes from two American composers, both Chicago-based but working at a distance of 90 years from one another. Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Diaphonic Suite from 1930 is written in a conversational style, with the flutist providing both halves of a dialogue. Likewise, Shawn E. Okpebholo’s On a Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner - The Thankful Poor from 2021 imagines a soulful dialogue between a boy and his grandfather, depicted in Tanner’s painting.

Engaging in his own colloquy with all of these exceptional composers, George takes listeners on an adventurous journey and invites them to join the conversation themselves.

About Brandon Patrick George:
Brandon Patrick George is a leading flute soloist and Grammy®-nominated chamber musician whose repertoire extends from the Baroque era to today. He is the flutist of Imani Winds and has appeared as a soloist with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Albany symphonies, American Composers Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among others.

George has performed at the Elbphilharmonie, the Kennedy Center, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Prague Spring Festival. In addition to his work with Imani Winds, his solo performances include appearances at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 92nd Street Y, Tippet Rise, and Maverick Concerts. His current collaborations include touring projects with harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, pianist Aaron Diehl, and harpist Parker Ramsay.

In 2021, Brandon Patrick George was part of the inaugural class of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab, a program designed to advance the careers of early and mid-career artists and support the future of classical music. During his yearlong residency at WQXR, he guest hosted Evening Music, interviewed Ford Foundation president Darren Walker about diversity and equity in the performing arts, and recorded with pianist Aaron Diehl and harpist June Han.

Prior to his solo career, Brandon Patrick George performed as a guest with many of the world’s leading ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). With the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl with music Director Gustavo Dudamel. His ensemble work allowed him to work closely with some of the foremost composers of our time including John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Tania León, Steve Reich, and George Lewis.

Raised by a single mother in Dayton, OH, George is the proud product of public arts education. He draws on his personal experiences in his commitment to educating the next generation, performing countless outreach concerts for schoolchildren every year, and mentoring young conservatory musicians of color embarking on performance careers. He trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire de Paris, and the Manhattan School of Music, and he serves on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

About In a Circle Records:
In a Circle Records was founded in 2008 by Grammy® Award-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman. Since then, the label has released albums by Brooklyn Rider, Christopher Cerrone, Layale Chaker & The Sarafand, Nicholas Cords, Christina Courtin, Sandeep Das & The HUM Ensemble, The Knights, Jon Mendle, Silkroad Ensemble & Yo-Yo Ma, Kojiro Umezaki & Wu Man, and Gandelsman himself. The label received its first Grammy® Nomination in 2021, for Brooklyn Rider's Healing Modes. Most recently, the label released an album of original music from Ken Burns & Lynn Novick's PBS documentary, The U.S and the Holocaust.

Track Listing:
Twofold
Brandon Patrick George, flute
Release Date: September 15, 2023
In a Circle Records | ICR029

C.P.E. Bach: Sonata in A minor, WQ. 132, H. 562 (1747)
1. Poco adagio [4:26]
2. Allegro [5:04]
3. Allegro [4:26]

4. Saad Haddad: Tasalsul I (2022) [5:55]

5. Reena Esmail: Zinfandel (2010) [5:06]

6. Shawn E. Okpebholo: On a Painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner - The Thankful Poor (2021) [8:32]

Ruth Crawford Seeger: Diaphonic Suite (1930)
7. Scherzando [0:37]
8. Andante [2:10]
9. Allegro [1:05]
10. Moderato, Ritmico [0:41]

11. Claude Debussy: Syrinx (1913) [2:50]

12. Toru Takemitsu: Air (1995) [6:30]

Total Time: [47:22]

Executive Producer: Brandon Patrick George
Producer: Graham Parker
Engineer & Editor: Charles Mueller, Oktaven Audio
Mastering Engineer: Oscar Zambrano, Zampol Productions
Recorded: June 12-13, 2022 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY
Photography: Lauren Desberg
Art Direction & Design: Christopher Kornmann / Spit + Image

Simone Dinnerstein Joins The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra as Featured Soloist on September 8th

Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://www.jensenartists.com/simone-dinnerstein

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Featured Guest Soloist
with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman

Dinnerstein’s First Performance of
Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major

Friday, September 8, 2023 at 7:30pm
Williamsburg Community Chapel
3899 John Tyler Hwy. | Williamsburg, VA 23185

Tickets (In-Person and Livestream Available) and information:
https://www.williamsburgsymphony.org/concerts

“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,”
– The Washington Post

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Williamsburg, VA – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist​​ of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” will be the featured guest soloist with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra for its opening night concert on Friday, September 8, 2023 at Williamsburg Community Chapel (3899 John Tyler Hwy.). Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform ​​Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major as part of a concert program which also features a performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor. The performance will be conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman and a pre-concert lecture will be held at 6:30pm. A masterclass will be held at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church (215 Richmond Rd.) on Wednesday, September 6 at 5pm. Student musicians are encouraged to attend and view from the audience. The class is open to the public.

While Dinnerstein has come to be recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of music by J.S. Bach, she has also brought bold and expressive artistry to the work of Brahms in performances for over 10 years –– including the other of Brahms’ two piano concertos: No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15. This will be her first performance of Brahms’ second piano concerto. Dinnerstein says:

“Brahms’s second piano concerto has long been my favorite, but I never felt ready to play it. Something about turning fifty felt like it was about time I faced this challenge, and I have spent the past few months delving deep into the forest of this remarkable work.” she says. “I am so thrilled that my very first experience of performing it will be with my dear friend, Michael Butterman, and The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra. I have the greatest respect for Michael’s musicianship and I am looking forward to exploring Brahms’s world with him and the wonderful musicians of the symphony.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: Simone Dinnerstein is an American pianist with a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Since that recording, she has had a busy performing career. She has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Seoul Arts Center and the Sydney Opera House.

Simone has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard classical charts, with repertoire ranging from Couperin to Glass. From 2020 to 2022, she released a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic. A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020), featuring the music of Philip Glass and Schubert, was described by NPR as, “music that speaks to a sense of the world slowing down,” and by The New Yorker as, “a reminder that quiet can contain multitudes.” Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021), surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The final installment in the trilogy, Undersong, was released in January 2022 on Orange Mountain Music.

In recent years, Simone has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She continues to perform it across the country this season. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. She has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs from the keyboard. This season, Simone presents two series anchored by Bach at Miller Theatre at Columbia University and at the Gogue Center for the Performing Arts at Auburn University. She joins Awadagin Pratt for a four-hand piano program presented by Washington Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center, and is the featured soloist for the Chamber Orchestra of New York’s performance at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.

Simone is committed to giving concerts in non-traditional venues and to audiences who don’t often hear classical music. For the last three decades, she has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to the widespread dissemination of classical music. It was for the Piatigorsky Foundation that she gave the first piano recital in the Louisiana state prison system at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She has also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Simone founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City Public Schools to raise funds for their music education programs. She also created a program called Bachpacking during which she brought a digital keyboard to elementary school classrooms, helping young children get close to the music she loves. She is a committed supporter and proud alumna of Philadelphia’s Astral Artists, which supports young performers. Simone is on the piano faculty of the Mannes School of Music and is a guest host/producer of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase.

Simone counts herself fortunate to have studied with three unique artists: Solomon Mikowsky, Maria Curcio and Peter Serkin, very different musicians who shared the belief that playing the piano is a means to something greater. The Washington Post comments that “ultimately, it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

About Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra: The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra is a professional orchestra based in Williamsburg, Virginia. Now in its 39th season, the orchestra offers a six-concert Masterworks series, Pops concerts, and a series of educational initiatives. The orchestra is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. For immediate comment, contact: Carolyn Keurajian at 201-218-8114 or carolyn@williamsburgsymphony.org. For Michael Butterman’s bio and approved images, visit www.williamsburgsymphony.org/press/approved-press-images.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented as the featured guest soloist with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra in a performance led by Music Director Michael Butterman of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major. The evening’s program will also include Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, K.550.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra led by Music Director Michael Butterman as the featured soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman
What: Music by Johannes Brahms and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
When: Friday, September 8, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Williamsburg Community Chapel, 3899 John Tyler Hwy., Williamsburg, VA
Tickets (In-Person and Livestream) and information: www.williamsburgsymphony.org/concerts

ECM New Series September 2023 New Releases

ECM New Series September 2023 New Releases

Veljo Tormis: Reminiscentiae
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste
Release Date: September 8, 2023

Éventail
Heinz Holliger, oboe & Anton Kernjak, piano
Music by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus, Koechlin,
Jolivet and Messiaen
Release Date: September 22, 2023

Veljo Tormis: Reminiscentiae

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste

ECM 2793

Release Date: September 8, 2023

The elemental power of ancient folk music is the lifeforce that drives the compositions of Veljo Tormis (1930-2017). As the great Estonian composer famously said, “I do not use folk song. It is folk song that uses me.” This sentiment is echoed in definitive performances by the Estonian Philharmonic Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, for decades one of Tormis’s closest musical associates. Four orchestral cycles celebrate the changing seasons: Autumn Landscapes, Winter Patterns, Spring Sketches, Summer Motifs. And three pieces – Worry Breaks The Spirit, Hamlet’s Songs and Herding Calls – feature new arrangements by Tõnu Kaljuste, continuing and commemorating Tormis’s work. The album opens with The Tower Bell In My Village which Kaljuste commissioned 45 years ago. It sets words by Fernando Pessoa that seem entirely pertinent in the context of this tribute. “Oh death, it’s a bend in the road/You can’t be seen when you’ve passed by/But still your steps continue…” Reminiscentiae was recorded at Tallinn’s Methodist Church in October and November 2020.

Éventail

Heinz Holliger, oboe & Anton Kernjak, piano

Music by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus, Koechlin, Jolivet and Messiaen

ECM 2694

Release Date: September 22, 2023

In his Éventail de musique française, Swiss oboist and composer Heinz Holliger traverses a broad selection of French works for oboe and piano in a multichromatic programme of early 20th century music. As Holliger states in his liner note, “the closeness of the oboe to the human voice inspired my idea of opening up the richly coloured fan of French music through the still far too little known collection of Vocalises-Études.” Contained in this wide-ranging recital are compositions by Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Saint-Saëns, Casadesus as well as Koechlin, Jolivet and Messiaen – Holliger cultivated a personal relationship with several of the composers. On piano returns Anton Kernjak, who appeared on Holliger’s 2014 recording Aschenmusik, while French harpist Alice Belugou comes in to play on André Jovilet’s Controversia pour hautbois et harpe. The richness of the 20th century oboe-repertoire is on full display throughout and finds Holliger in engaging dialogues with piano and harp. Éventail follows the release of Heinz Holliger’s multiple awards-winning large-scale opera Lunea from 2022.

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by Maverick Concerts on August 26th as Featured Soloist with Caroga Arts Ensemble Conducted by Alexander Platt

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Tanya Braganti available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein presented by Maverick Concerts
with Caroga Arts Ensemble

Performing Bach’s Piano Concerto in D Minor
Conducted by Alexander Platt

Saturday, August 26, 2023 at 6pm
Maverick Concert Hall | 120 Maverick Rd | Woodstock, NY
Tickets and information: www.maverickconcerts.org/events/annual-chamber-orchestra-concert-2/

“an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation”
– The New York Times

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Woodstock, NY – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is presented by Maverick Concerts at Maverick Concert Hall (120 Maverick Rd) on Saturday August 26, 2023 at 6pm. Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and her commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, is the featured soloist in a performance of Bach’s Piano Concerto in D Minor with the Caroga Arts Ensemble, conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt. The concert also includes Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue, K.546; Mahler’s Adagietto from the Symphony No.5; and Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night (version 1943).

Recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of J.S. Bach’s work, Dinnerstein recorded Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052 on her 2011 Sony Classical release, Bach: A Strange Beauty. Even then, more than 10 years ago, the Grammy-nominated pianist was lauded for her approach to Bach’s music and the resulting beauty and skill of her execution. NPR described Dinnerstein’s performance with the Keyboard Concerto in D Minor on the album as a “wonderfully expressive interpretation.” The San Francisco Classical Voice writes that it’s Dinnerstein’s “almost Romantic-style legato and narrow-ranged rhythmic freedom that impresses,” and that “this approach reaps the greatest rewards to the listener.”

On the chance to perform this Bach concerto with the Caroga Arts Ensemble, Dinnerstein says:

“It is always such an inspiring experience to perform at the Maverick. There’s something about the old wood of the concert hall mingling with the sound of the birds outside and the palpably wrapt listening of the audience that makes the music come alive in a new way. I am looking forward to meeting the wonderful musicians of the Caroga Arts Ensemble and bringing Bach’s music to life in this special space.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About Maverick Concerts: Maverick Concerts, Inc. is the oldest, continuous summer chamber music festival in America, celebrating over a century of world class music in the woods. The mainstay of the festival, which runs from June to September, is to be found in the Sunday chamber music concerts performed by renowned soloists and ensembles. Jazz and Contemporary Music presentations have been given more prominence in recent seasons. Our popular Young Mavericks Festival, designed to introduce students to the wonder and power of various musical genres, are free for youth age 16 and under. The festival is a winner of the Award for Adventurous Programming, accorded jointly by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP.)

Maverick Concerts, Inc., is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. Concerts are made possible in part with an award from the National Endowment for the Arts; funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, with the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the Maverick Concerts Endowment Fund; Friends of Maverick; the towns of Woodstock and Hurley; local businesses; individual donors; and other public and private foundations. Yamaha, the official piano of Maverick Concerts, appears through the generosity of Yamaha Artist Services.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation” is presented by Maverick Concerts as the featured soloist with the Caroga Arts Ensemble. Together, Dinnerstein and the Ensemble will perform J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052, as part of a concert program which also includes music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Mahler, and Arnold Schoenberg.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” is presented by Maverick Concerts with the Caroga Arts Ensemble, performing J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052.

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Caroga Arts Ensemble Conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt
Presented by Maverick Concerts
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Mahler, and Arnold Schoenberg
When: Saturday, August 26, 2023 at 6pm
Where: Maverick Concert Hall, 120 Maverick Rd, Woodstock, NY
Tickets and information: www.maverickconcerts.org/events/annual-chamber-orchestra-concert-2/

Newport Classical Announces 2023-2024 Chamber Series Concerts from September through June

Newport Classical Announces 2023-2024 Chamber Series Concerts
Tickets on Sale August 1

Including a Special Concert on October 6 Featuring Internationally Renowned Violinist Chad Hoopes and Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott

“Embracing a new tune, Newport [Classical] is reimagining classical music for a wider audience.”
– The Public’s Radio

Information & Tickets: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Following its successful summer festival, Newport Classical continues its commitment to ongoing year-round programming for the third year, with a full season, nine-concert Chamber Series held on Fridays at 7:30pm, running from September 2023 through June 2024 at the organization’s home venue, Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn St.). Tickets will go on sale to the public on August 1 at www.newportclassical.org. 

Newport Classical Executive Director Gillian Friedman Fox says, “This year’s Newport Classical Music Festival drew nearly 7,500 attendees, with 38% of audience members attending a concert for the first time. We are so thrilled to have welcomed so many familiar faces and new patrons to experience classical music with us in an inviting and intimate atmosphere. Our Chamber Series continues this programming throughout the year, and we can’t wait to share with the community the incredible artistry of these world-class musicians who will be coming to perform from September through June in downtown Newport.”

As part of Newport Classical’s desire to create connections between classical music, the artists who perform it, and the Newport community, all musicians performing on the Chamber Series will also go into the Newport-area public schools to perform for and speak with students, through Newport Classical’s Music Education and Engagement initiative.

Newport Classical’s Chamber Series opens on September 1 with musicians from Young Concert Artists on Tour, featuring today’s emerging star performers and arts leaders in music by Mendelssohn, Strauss, and more. On October 6, internationally renowned soloists and chamber musicians violinist Chad Hoopes and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott come together to create an exciting duo in a program anchored by Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9. Hoopes previously performed on the series in 2022, and McDermott has a long relationship with the organization – from 1990 to 1997, she was in residence as a Festival Artist. Violinist William Hagen, who performs on November 3 with pianist Orion Weiss, has been hailed as a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” (The Dallas Morning News). On January 26, rising-star pianist Eric Lu, who has been described by The Guardian as “a veritable poet of the keyboard," will make his Newport Classical debut in a program featuring music by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Chopin. The Galvin Cello Quartet, which burst onto the scene after capturing the Silver Medal at the 2021 Fischoff Competition and the 2022 Victor Elmaleh Competition, will perform on February 23. Bassoonist Eleni Katz and pianist Evren Ozel take the stage on March 22 in a program celebrating the many facets of the bassoon, featuring music by Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Coleridge-Taylor, and more. On April 26, the award-winning Balourdet Quartet, which recently won the Grand Prize at the 2021 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, will present a program featuring Hadyn, Kurtág, and Schubert. Polish-American soprano Magdalena Kuźma, praised as a "standout" with "star quality" by Opera News, performs a program spanning from Chopin to Rachmaninoff to Rodgers and Hammerstein on May 17. On June 7, pianist Asiya Korepanova closes the Chamber Series with music by Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Beach, Chopin, and more.

During the 2023-2024 season, Newport Classical will also present several free family-friendly Community Concerts at neighborhood-centered locations, generously sponsored by BankNewport, and two holiday programs, which will be announced later this year. The 2024 Newport Classical Music Festival will take place from July 4-21, 2024.

Newport Classical 2023-2024 Chamber Series Schedule At-A-Glance:
September 1: Young Concert Artists Sing Mendelssohn and Strauss
October 6: Chad Hoopes and Anne-Marie McDermott in Concert
November 3: Violinist William Hagen Plays Dvořák and Brahms
January 26: Pianist Eric Lu Performs Bach and Mendelssohn
February 23: Galvin Cello Quartet Plays Vivaldi and Piazzolla
March 22: Eleni Katz and the Bassoon
April 26: Balourdet Quartet Plays Schubert and Haydn
May 17: Soprano Magdalena Kuźma Sings Barber, Rachmaninoff, Chopin
June 7: Pianist Asiya Korepanova Plays Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff

Complete concert details can be found at www.newportclassical.org/concerts. All Chamber Series concerts are held on Fridays at 7:30pm at Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn Street). 

About Newport Classical

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc. and previously known as Newport Music Festival (NMF), Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity presenting the American debuts of over 130 international artists and rarely heard works and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. The organization has produced more than 2,000 concerts and hosted more than 1,000 musicians and singers. In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music.

Newport Classical is proud to be an essential pillar of New England’s cultural landscape, and to invest in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form. Newport Classical’s four core programming initiatives – the iconic summer Music Festival taking place across Newport; the year-round Chamber Series at the organization’s home base Newport Classical Recital Hall at Emmanuel Church in downtown Newport; the free family-friendly Community Concerts held in green spaces around Aquidneck Island; and its newly expanded Music Education and Engagement Initiative program – illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”