Author: Ginger Dolden

The San Francisco Symphony has announced its summer season of concerts at Davies Symphony Hall as well as outdoor concerts at Frost Amphitheater, Shoreline Amphitheatre, and Sigmund Stern Grove, from June 29 to August 7, 2022. The schedule includes performances of Mason Bates’s interactive work Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra, conducted by Teddy Abrams; music-and-film concerts to include The Matrix Live, Pixar in Concert, and The Goonies; Edwin Outwater conducting the orchestra’s Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular; the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir joining the orchestra in music by Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lippa, Stephen Schwartz, Ēriks Ešenvalds, and Jake Heggie; and classical programs at Davies Symphony Hall led by Paolo Bortolameolli, Ludovic Morlot, and Erina Yashima; and Kevin Puts’s Contact: Concerto for Two Violins, Bass, and Orchestra, a co-commission featuring the string trio Time for Three; and a program featuring Gabriella Smith’s Tidalwave Kitchen and music by Gershwin, Ravel, and Rachmaninoff.

“Michael Schachter’s violin concerto, ‘Cycle of Life,’ had a fantastic world premiere on Thursday night with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, led by Aram Demirjian,” writes Diana Skinner in Sunday’s (4/24) Violinist.com. “Soloist Tessa Lark gave a deeply committed performance. The piece, inspired by artist Richard Jolley’s glass and steel installation at the Knoxville Museum of Art, was absolutely in sync with the artwork, and Tessa’s performance fully conveyed the cyclical story it was designed to tell…. The piece [is] comprised of seven through-composed movements based on the artwork that inspired it: Primordial, Emergence, Flight, Desire, Tree of Life, Contemplation, and Sky. Footage of the artwork would be projected on a screen above the orchestra…. In the second movement, ‘Emergence,’ I noticed a violinist somewhere in the middle of the firsts and seconds who put her violin under her chin and took a deliberate up-bow against a sea of down-bows…. [Lark] slowly stood while playing and simply walked down the aisle between the two violin sections toward center stage…. Tessa’s rich tone led the way as she joined the divine musical landscape…. And, oh, what luscious colors Schachter creates.” The program at the Tennessee Theatre closed with Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony.

“Meet Kyohei Sorita, pianist, aspiring conductor and chief executive officer of Japan’s first orchestra operating as a stock-issuing company,” write Go Onomitsu and Erica Yokoyama in Monday’s (4/25) Bloomberg.com. “The 27-year-old Chopin specialist is betting that he’ll be able to make money by holding concerts and tours, producing and distributing music and running an online salon that connects performers with their fans and students. Sorita founded Japan National Orchestra Co. just a year ago, during the pandemic. He’s planning to take the orchestra to perform overseas later in 2022…. Sorita sees the for-profit endeavor as a way to nurture talent and promote wider appreciation for Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff…. Sorita’s musical venture is backed by … DMG Mori Co., a Japanese manufacturer of high-precision lathes, metal cutting robots and other machine tools. The Tokyo-based company owns 70% of JNO through a foundation, while the rest is held by Sorita’s own management firm…. Musicians get salaries…. JNO also operates a subscription-style membership service called Solistiade [whose] services include access to early ticket sales, and group or one-on-one tutorials…. The first year … Sorita said … demand was so strong that tickets sold out for the latest tour.”

“In fifth grade, Na’Zir McFadden broke plastic hangers and brought them to his band teacher, asking if he could conduct the school band using his ‘baton,’ ” writes Eden MacDougall in Tuesday’s (4/26) Temple News, Temple University’s student newspaper. “ ‘She never told me “no,” ’ said McFadden, a senior music performance major…. McFadden began seeking out every opportunity he could to gain experience conducting. These efforts led him to be named assistant conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra on April 6. He begins … in September…. ‘I’m still in a deep state of shock,’ McFadden said…. ‘I’m 21, I’m Black, I’m an inner-city Philadelphia kid, I went through the public schools,’ … McFadden said… After McFadden graduated high school in 2018, [Philadelphia Ballet Music Director Beatrice Jona] Affron invited him to apply for an apprenticeship as part of the Philadelphia Ballet’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access Portal.” McFadden, who is also a clarinetist, “is excited to work with the children in [Detroit’s] Symphony Youth Orchestra… ‘They’re the future of classical music, music in general, and having a direct impact—I couldn’t ask for anything more,’ he said.”

“Don’t think about ‘Majestic Mahler,’ on the Walton Arts Center stage April 30, as the end of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas season,” writes Becca Martin-Brown in Sunday’s (4/24) Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock). “Think of it as the beginning of a summer of SoNA Beyond, an effort to ‘showcase the vast spectrum of possibilities of classical music, and to reach audiences in new and innovative ways,’ says D. Riley Nicholson, the orchestra’s executive director. ‘The heart of our symphony … is our classical programming at the Walton Arts Center,’ … he explains. ‘However, we … are the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas and should truly serve audiences regionwide.’ … In its inaugural effort this year, SoNA Beyond has already offered performances … at the Fayetteville Public Library…. [Nicholson will] announce ‘our largest and most ambitious SoNA Beyond event yet, planned for June 24 in collaboration with Crystal Bridges. We also have other concerts and experiences in the works, slated for this summer in Bella Vista and Springdale. Because it was our pilot season, we’ve been announcing shows on an ongoing basis… In the future we do plan on announcing shows further out to allow more time to get out the word.’ ”

Imani Winds will be featured on Chamber Music Northwest’s April 28 program at Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon, featuring the world premieres of three commissioned works for woodwind quintet: Miguel del Aguila’s Blindfold Music (Música a ojos vendados), Yuan-Chen Li’s A Railroad to Dreams, and Damien Peter’s I Said What I Said. Also on the program: the South African National Anthem Nkosi si ke Leli, arranged by Valerie Coleman; Nathalie Joachim’s Seen (2021); and Jason Moran’s Cane (2008). An additional daytime concert on April 28 will be offered free for students at Roosevelt High School in North Portland. The new works on the program are co-commissions in collaboration with Ashland’s Anima Mundi Productions and the Oregon Bach Festival. Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim are artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest.

“Harrison Birtwistle, one of the UK’s foremost composers, has died aged 87,” writes Imoggen Tilden in Monday’s (4/18) Guardian (U.K.). “Birtwistle’s compositions of uncompromising modernism—ranging from large-scale grand opera to intimate solo piano pieces—have dominated British music for more than five decades…. He studied in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music, where, along with his fellow students Alexander Goehr and Peter Maxwell Davies, he was part of an explosion of musical creativity, and belonged to a group once labelled ‘the Manchester School.’ His first chamber opera, Punch and Judy, premiered at the Aldeburgh festival in 1968, and legend has it that the violence of its story and music outraged much of its audience, including festival founder Benjamin Britten.… In 1975, Birtwistle became musical director of the newly established Royal National Theatre in London, where his duties included teaching Simon Callow, playing Mozart in the premiere of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, to play the piano convincingly. Birtwistle received a knighthood in 1988 and was made a Companion of Honour in 2001…. Birtwistle’s dissonant and jagged music … packs a huge emotional punch and is exhilarating and intricate…. Many conductors championed his music, including Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim and Antonio Pappano.”

“The Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2022-23 season, which includes seven classical music concerts and two pops programs,” writes Jay Gabler in Friday’s (4/15) Duluth News Tribune (MN). “Executive director Brandon VanWaeyenberghe said the orchestra has embraced ‘three new programming goals’: to ‘celebrate unheard voices,’ ‘highlight rising artists,’ and ‘engage new audiences.’ While the orchestra’s programs will feature classical mainstays like … Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 … and … Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, … the orchestra will also perform … ‘music by Black composers, from past (Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Florence Price, William Grant Still) to present (Adolphus Hailstork, Jessie Montgomery),’ said music director Dirk Meyer in a statement. ‘We also introduce other works that, I suspect, might be less familiar to our audience, such as the beautiful Cantus Arcticus by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara or Michael Tippett’s emotional oratorio A Child of Our Time.’ … The orchestra is also aiming to increase accessibility by making tickets more affordable, [adding] 280 $20 seats into the hall, with most of them on the main floor. The DSSO is also continuing its ‘casual concert’ series with two matinee performances that are free to children 17 and under and $10 for adults.”