Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews: ISO hands pianist Chen the keys to Chopin piece Springfield State Journal Register - Springfield,IL,USA Preview of Illinois Symphony Orchestra performance featuring Chinese pianist (and "Crystal Award" winner (3rd prize) at the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition ) Sa Chen : With the ISO, she will perform Frederic Chopins Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor. Chen sees whats often called a light orchestral accompaniment as a dialogue between soloist and ensemble. Its sentimental, dramatic and operatic, and its, in many ways, like a conversation with a lot of musically folksy elements, Chen says of the Polish composers work. See all stories on this topic Warsaw city Chopin piano stunt Thenews.pl - Warsaw,Poland Could this be a late-breaking April 1 story?  read more »

Classical performances in and around Richmond, with selected events elsewhere in Virginia and the Washington area. Program information, provided by presenters, is updated as details become available. Adult single-ticket prices are listed; senior, student, group and other discounts may be offered. SCOUTING REPORT * In Richmond: The Daedalus String Quartet, one of this countrys most highly touted young chamber ensembles, plays Haydn, Jancek and Mendelssohn in the 2008-09 opener of the Rennolds Chamber Concerts, Sept. 13 at Virginia Commonwealth University. . . . Mikhail Agrest, the young Russian conductor whos first in line of nine candidates for music director of the Richmond Symphony, leads a Masterworks program highlighted by Tchaikovskys Fourth Symphony, Sept.  read more »

We are in an age where cinema is affecting our lives in ways we don't realise
(until perhaps it is too late). There are claims that cigarette smoking on screen
glamorizes it, the American dialect in speech can be heard the world over, even
in countries where English is not the primary language and film directors, writers
and composers are branching out to live stage productions. None of these things
are new. There was a call for legislation in the 60's to ban smoking on screen.
The film industry responded by voluntarily cutting back (for a while - as now
it's difficult to find a film where there isn't someone smoking at some point).
John Wayne and Clint Eastwood cowboy flicks were huge international hits bringing
American Old West culture to the world (even though some of them were filmed
in Italy - thus spaghetti westerns). Film stars are often gone to Broadway bringing
their fame to on stage productions, and Mel Brookes has given new life to his
film "The Producers" by taking it to Broadway - although that's where
he originally intended it to be performed.  read more »

In October last year I revealed here exclusively that Hyperion were recording the Violin Concertos of the Russian Schoenberg, Mikolai (Nikolay) Roslavets, played by Alina Ibragimova . That CD is now scheduled for November 2008 release and the sleeve is seen above. For years the dated artwork on Hyperion CDs has been their only weakness, so the 'new look' for this release is particularly welcome. There is more on Roslavets claim to be the originator of serial composition in my earlier article . Judge for yourself whether he was the Russian Schoenberg by listening to the generous audio samples om the Hyperion website. Hyperion and other independents continue to show the major labels how it should be done. In January 2009 Hyperion are re-releasing at mid-price a double CD of the complete symphonies of the French composer Albric Magnard who was born in 1865. Magnard's compositions include the four symphonies, an opera ( Guercoeur ) and a string quartet. He moved from Paris to the peaceful Oise area of France to continue composing and was living there when the First World War broke out. As the German forces approached the area in 1914 he sent his wife and two daughters to safety. After shooting two German soldiers who approached his property he refused to surrender. His house was set on fire and the blaze consumed almost of all his manuscripts and art collection as well as Magnard himself. Something to reflect on, perhaps, for some of today's self-styled dissident composers ?  read more »

Classical performances in and around Richmond, with selected events elsewhere in Virginia and the Washington area. Program information, provided by presenters, is updated as details become available. Adult single-ticket prices are listed; senior, student, group and other discounts may be offered. SCOUTING REPORT * In/around Richmond: James Wilsons Richmond Festival of Music concludes its all-American 2008 edition with concerts of African-American, Asian-American and other music on May 2 at Bon Air Presbyterian Church and music of American Jewish composers, including Richmonds Allan Blank, on May 3 at the Virginia Holocaust Museum. . . .  read more »

The Composer's Role In Society is one of those subjects that seems to occasion much furrowed-brow reflection (the sort of confab Eddie Izzard would call a "strokey-beard meeting"). I sometimes think that the subject is not really that complicated, but that people would rather not admit that the Role of the Composer is essentially whatever each composer wants it to bebecause, I don't know, maybe they don't like to think they have no recourse against a piece of music they don't like. Better to cast about for philosophical justification, and, if possible, blame.  read more »

You might be familiar with the famous anecdote about Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto and his mentor and former teacher Nicholas Rubinstein, one of the leading composers and pianists in Russia at the time (second only to his brother Anton who was second only to Franz Liszt as one of the greatest pianists of all-time). The story goes that, when Tchaikovsky finished his concerto, he took it to Rubinstein who apparently was annoyed not to have been involved as a consultant in the initial stages of its composition but instead was handed a completed work which, for whatever reasons, he proceeded to savage: it was banal, poorly constructed and, by the way, unplayable.  read more »

Though I accidentally met Elliott Carter while standing in line for tickets one evening back in the late-70s and had a pleasant if short conversation with him, I was too shy to go up and (re)-introduce myself to him the night Id heard all five of his quartets in one performance . A friend read that post and wrote that he regretted not going up to meet Aaron Copland when he saw him at a 1987 recital.  read more »