What concerts are you looking forward to? (Part II)

[ChamberNut]

Brian/Solitary,

Just got the season program for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for the 2009/2010 season, and the season opening concert features Cho-Liang Lin on the violin for the Sibelius Violin Concerto!  Definitely will be one of the concerts I attend for the next season! 

Wow, this was last night's concert.  I never really had been into Sibelius' violin concerto.....until last night! What an amazing performance, and piece, now that I am more accustomed to JS' sound world.    Cho-Liang Lin was terrific.  He is very interesting to watch when he is not playing, and he's observing the conductor and orchestra.  He's very animated!

The night also included WSO's performance of Dvorak's Carnival Overture, and Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.  All outstanding!  A wonderful season opener. 

[Joe Barron]

A local group is doing an all-Haydn concert in Chestnut Hill Oct. 16. Program consists of relatively early music, including the first couple of string quartets (also called divertimenti) and the conceto for violin and harpsichord. I interviewed a couple of the musicians for a preview article and will insert the link here when it's posted online.

[Joe Barron]

My preview of the Haydn concert may be seen here.

[bhodges]

My preview of the Haydn concert may be seen here.

Really good piece, Joe!    Makes me want to go.  (But I'll be entertaining my dad then.) 

Tonight I'm hearing the world premiere of David Chesky's opera, The Pig, The Farmer, and the Artist. 

Synopsis

To avoid being slaughtered by a lunatic farmer, Shirley the cow (a former hooker from Amsterdam), and her transvestite husband, Harvey, escape to New York's East Village, where they soon become all the rage of the highbrow art scene. Back on the farm, the Pig gets wind of their fame and follows to seek his artistic fortunes as well. Will the elitist critics accept the Pig's trendy conceptual art? Will the psychotic homesteader arrive in time to reclaim his prized hog? Will swine become the new black? This outrageous Fellini-esque satire superimposes the world of contemporary music onto the modern art scene, scorchingly skewering them both.

Apparently no one under 18 will be admitted because of "adult content."   

--Bruce

[Brian]

That's an interesting plot. 

My university's orchestra is playing music that is, to understate, much more conventional...

Tonight!
BEETHOVEN | Leonore Overture No 3
RAVEL | Suite No 2, Daphnis et Chloe
BRAHMS | Symphony No 2

[Brian]

That's an interesting plot. 

My university's orchestra is playing music that is, to understate, much more conventional...

Tonight!
BEETHOVEN | Leonore Overture No 3
RAVEL | Suite No 2, Daphnis et Chloe
BRAHMS | Symphony No 2

Ravishing! There's a live online stream of tomorrow's performance. I'm gonna link it so all of you can listen. 

[secondwind]

Fairfax Symphony Orchestra 2009-2010 Season: Masterworks 1-3

2009-2010 Season: "Great Expectations"
Masterworks 2: Jon Manasse, clarinet (Info)
Glenn Quader, conductor
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
George Mason University's Center for the Arts (Directions)

MENDELSSOHN: Overture to The Fair Melusine
MOZART: Clarinet Concerto in A Major
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 4

I'm looking forward to hearing Manasse on the Mozart.  I've never heard the Fairfax Symphony before--not quite sure where they fall on the continuum of orchestras.  Somewhere below the NSO or Baltimore SO, I guess, but probably above many of the "community" orchestras in the area.

[Sergeant Rock]

Will be leaving shortly for the first concert this season sponsored by our local chapter of the German Chopin Society. What's interesting is there is no Chopin scheduled but two Russian sonatas: Scriabin's Black Mass and Prokofiev's Eighth.

Edit: The program was changed. I kind of suspected it would be. We asked the organzier about it and all he said was that the Prokofiev was a little too noisy for the room so they decided to make a substitution. I didn't buy that but let it go    The concerts do take place in a private home, the room with the baby grand only about 20x40 feet.

The pianist was a young Japanese woman, Aiko Yajima, who has been a perpetual second or third place prize winner in every competition she's entered since 1998 (eight listed in the program). She played the Shostakovich Prelude and Fuge #24 D minor, Scriabin's Sonata #9, Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brilliante and Chopin's Third Sonata. Encores: a Chopin Mazurka and Etude, and a Gershwin piece that the German audience loved.

Sarge

[owlice]

Thanks to a kind friend, tonight I'm going to hear Jane Krakowski at the Kennedy Center.

[Gabriel]

I've enjoyed a very musical weekend, with three concerts in two days. Two of them were Varèse's opera omnia, which is not precisely in my usual range of exploration, but as I knew some works as Ionisation, Density 21.5, Amériques and Arcana, I thought it might be interesting to experience it live. It was very interesting indeed, but it is so far away from my musical preferences that I must admit I had to discipline myself in order not to lose too much concentration. My best remembrance from the cycle will be Ionisation, which I curiously found rather beautiful to experience live.

After the second session of Varèse's works, I rushed from the Salle Pleyel to the Théâtre des Champs Élysées to a most splendid concert of classical music: Haydn's 56th symphony and Mozart's 35th, conducted remarkably by Thomas Hengelbrock, who is not so radical as René Jacobs but achieves an astonishing sense of coherence (even though the Haffner symphony is not among my favourite Mozart, I was totally absorbed by the magnificent playing of the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble). To crown the performance, the audience was delighted by Véronique Gens singing Beethoven's Ah, perfido! and Haydn's Scena di Berenice. This work by Haydn is one that I really wanted to listen to live (I'm convinced it is one of the summits of classical vocal music), and I was profoundly and sincerely moved by it.

As encores, we had the two arias for Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro. A great musical evening. But my main advice after this concert is one: if you have the chance to attend a concert of Hengelbrock conducting Haydn, do not miss it. He has a rare ability to make the intellectual music of Haydn shine in balance with its emotional side.

[bhodges]

Tonight, looking forward to this by an ensemble at Juilliard, and PS, it's free:

AXIOM
Jeffrey Milarsky, Conductor
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre

Davidovsky: Flashbacks (1995)
Ligeti: Kammerkonzert (1970)
Birtwistle: Three Settings of Celan (1989-1994)
Birtwistle: Secret Theatre for Chamber Ensemble (1984)

I don't recall ever hearing Secret Theatre live, so this will be a treat.

--Bruce

[MDL]

Wozzeck, tonight at the Festival Hall. Apparently, the Festival Hall lights conked out during a recent Philharmonia performance of Stravinsky's Firebird (why were they arsing around with the lighting anyway?!?). I hope there are no technical snafus tonight.

Philharmonia Orchestra
Resident at Southbank Centre / City of Dreams: Vienna 1900-1935
Thursday 8 October 2009, 7.30pm
Alban Berg: Wozzeck
(semi-staged)
(performed in German with English surtitles)
Esa-Pekka Salonen conductor
Simon Keenlyside Wozzeck
Katarina Dalayman Marie
Hubert Francis Drum Major
Robert Murray Andres
Peter Hoare Captain
Hans-Peter Scheidegger Doctor
Anna Burford Margret
David Soar 1st Apprentice
Leigh Melrose 2nd Apprentice
Ben Johnson Idiot
Louis Watkins Marie's Child
Philharmonia Voices
Jean-Baptiste Barriere video direction

[jlaurson]

going to this one tomorrow... again.

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2009/10/ionarts-at-large-midori-jansons-and.html

[secondwind]

Next weekend will be non-stop:

Thursday:

National Symphony Orchestra
Lorin Maazel, conducting
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violin
MUSSORGSKY/RIMSKY-KORSAKOV - Night on Bald Mountain
BARBER - Violin Concerto, Op. 14
MAAZEL - The Giving Tree for Orchestra, Cello Obligato and Narrator, Op. 15
FRANCK - Symphony in D minor

Friday:

At The Barns at Wolftrap
The Canadian Brass


Saturday:

National Philharmonic: The Artistry of Richard Stoltzman

Richard Stoltzman, clarinet
Piotr Gajewski, conductor

MOZART Clarinet Concerto
GERSHWIN Promenade
GERSHWIN Bess and Summertime
GERSHWIN Lullaby
COPLAND Clarinet Concerto

Sunday a friend is giving an organ recital in Baltimore. . . I would almost have time to get there after my clarinet lesson. . . 

[karlhenning]

BSO playing the Shostakovich Opus 93 tonight!

[Classical Review]

Starting to get excited about hearing Yefim Bronfman playing Brahms' Second Piano Concerto on October 22nd.

FK

[MishaK]

A week from today:

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, conductor

Bruckner -   Symphony No. 2

FREE concert!

[listener]

Vancouver BC. this last week has had some rare items:  VSO did the Bruch double concerto (violin and viola version) + Fanny Mendelssohn overture in C
The West Coast Symphony had the von Flotow 2nd piano concerto in what appears to have been its first public live performance ever.
Coming up next month -VSO: the Clara Schumann piano concerto and on another program the Strauss Brentano Lieder (+ Elgar Symphony 1)

[Brian]

the Clara Schumann piano concerto

Lovely piece! Glad it's getting played live.

[bhodges]

Tomorrow night, can't wait for this one:

International Contemporary Ensemble
Steven Schick, percussion and conductor
Miller Theatre, Columbia University

All-Xenakis program

Psappha (1975)
Akanthos (1977)
Echange (1989)
Palimpsest (1979)
Thallein (1984)
O-Mega (1997)

--Bruce