Category: Classical music

Today’s featured work is one for the southern hemisphere, now entering its warmest months of the year. Composed in 1991, Lithuanian composer Onutė Narbutaitė‘s Vasara is a miniature choral homage to the season of summer. The words, written by the composer, have a nostalgic flavour, looking back at the experiences of summer (possibly from many years ago) from the perspective of autumn’s imminent arrival.

The piece expresses this wistfulness with a playful, celebratory energy, spending the first 30 seconds indulging in rhythmic onomatopoeic noises and patterns suggesting the sounds of birds and insects, the most obvious being a cuckoo. When the words begin, they’re articulated as lilting phrases tilting back and forth over a static harmonic foundation (suggesting G# minor). However, there’s little lingering over the words at all, the memories of summer are practically gabbled out in an exuberant torrent that’s all about the joy of the experiences rather than sadness that they’re over.

Just twice the music pulls back, first savouring the middle sequence about clouds resembling ships floating in the sky, and then again towards the end, as day comes to an end. After which the piece finishes as it began, filled with the sounds of summer, rhythmically dying away into the night.

This performance of Vasara was given by the Swedish Radio Choir (Radiokören) conducted by Giedré Slekyté.

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tock tock, thrrr thrrr, katydid katydid, oo-ee-oo, etc.

—Onutė Narbutaitė (transl. Linas Paulauskis)

From Christmas with the Rat Pack to numerous art openings to legends of classical music, there’s more to be found among the arts in Detroit this weekend than any one person can manage. Here’s a rundown of 11 events.

A classical superstar

Beloved violinist Itzhak Perlman will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Ann Arbor’s Hill Auditorium, presented by the University of Michigan’s University Musical Society. He’ll be joined by not one, but two pianists — Emanuel Ax and Jean-Yves Thibaudet — as well as the Juilliard String Quartet for a program of chamber music by Mozart, Jean-Marie Leclair and Ernest Chausson.

“We wanted to have a nice and balanced program,” Perlman told the Free Press. “I ask myself, ‘What would I like to hear when I go to a concert?’ So we’re starting with two violins, then we have a quartet and then we have a concert for piano and so on. And the first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet is a former student (of mine)!”

Hill Auditorium, 825 N. University Ave., Ann Arbor. 734-764-2538. www.ums.org. Tickets starting at $25, with student tickets starting at $12.

Classical standards and a bold new work

Last week, Pulitzer Prize-winning classical composer Tania León was celebrated at the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors. This weekend, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra will premiere her “Pasajes,” a vivid new work co-commissioned by New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices program. “Pasajes” is León’s reminiscence on growing up in Cuba and will open the performance, which also includes Mendelssohn’s piano concerto and Dvořák’s powerful Symphony No. 8.

Pianist Yeol Eum Son will join the orchestra for the concert, which will be led by sought-after conductor Jonathan Heyward. Heyward will return to Detroit at the end of this month to conduct Detroit Opera’s “Aida.”

“The piece by Tania León that we start off with has a lot of influences (from) South American music, including samba and salsa as well, which is really indicative to her style of writing,” Heyward told the Free Press. “In the course of the Dvořák, there’s a lot of sense of folk tunes from within the Czech world. So to bookend the evening, we have music represented by one’s culture. And then, sandwiched in the middle is Mendelssohn’s first, which is an extraordinary piece that I think is actually underrated as a work that complements anything and everything. Particularly with our fantastic, really amazing Yeol Eum Son, whom I’ve worked with several times.”

Story continues

Performances are 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday.

Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit. 313-576-5111. www.dso.org. Tickets starting at $25.

Poetry, soul and jazz

Though she has performed all over the world and even at the famed Carnegie Hall, poet Jessica Care Moore still calls Detroit home, and she’s bringing her unique brand of magic to the Carr Center’s stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. She’ll be joined by some of Detroit’s best musicians, including Wayne Gerard Milton on guitar, Chris Spooner on bass, Nate Winn on drums and Allen Dennard on trumpet, plus special guest vocalists Ideeyah and Apropos.

The Carr Center (located inside the Park Shelton), 15 E. Kirby St, Detroit. 313-437-9244. Update: This performance is now sold out.  

A neighborhood holiday

A free, family-friendly holiday event can be found Friday when the Marygrove Conservancy hosts Light Up Marygrove from 5 to 9 p.m. The Tune-Up Man from WDMK-FM (Kiss 105.9) will serve as the evening’s host, with live entertainment including 3D Dance Academy, Jit Masters the Institute of Dance at Marygrove and music from the 313 Live Experience Band. Caroling, arts and crafts, giveaways and refreshments will be part of the fun, as well as a small business marketplace. The night will conclude with a tree lighting and laser light show.

The Marygrove Conservancy, 8425 West McNichols Road, Detroit. 888-213-4832. Event registration can be found at http://bit.ly/LightUpRSVP. Complete information can be found at marygroveconservancy.org/lightupmarygrove.

Christmas with the Rat Pack

The Macomb Center for the Performing Arts will roar to life at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with “Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Christmas,” an original, holiday-themed musical about one of the 20th century’s most legendary stage acts. Join cast members portraying Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop as they sip and swing their way through jazzy classics and new tunes.

The performance will be a homecoming for Lisa Dawn Miller, who guests in the production as Ava Gardner, Sinatra’s one true love. Miller’s father, Ron Miller, was a master Motown songwriter who penned such hits as “For Once in My Life,” “Touch Me in the Morning,” “Yester-me, Yester-you, Yesterday” and “Someday at Christmas.” Along with favorite hits by the famous characters, Hackett’s script incorporates never-before-heard Ron Miller songs you’ll leave the theater humming. A glance at the Macomb Center’s seating chart shows that the performance is almost completely sold out, so book quickly if you want to get in on the act!

More info on the show can be found at SandysRatPack.com.

Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, 44575 Garfield Rd., Clinton Twp. 586-286-2222. www.macombcenter.com. Tickets starting at $39.

An artist’s homecoming

Internationally renowned artist and native Detroiter McArthur Binion will showcase his work with an exhibition opening Saturday at Library Street Collective. It’s his first Detroit show in more than a decade. The artist will be on hand for the opening of his “Self:Portraits” show from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Immediately preceding, at 5:30 p.m., Binion and Juana Williams, associate curator of African American art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, will share an intimate conversation about his work. Fourteen of Binion’s Minimalist abstract pieces, more than half of them created this year, will be on display.

Library Street Collective, 1274 Library St. (in The BELT), Detroit. 313-600-7443. www.LSCgallery.com. Free.

A satire of the wealthy class

Detroit artist Mary-Ann Monforton will debut her newest show, “LUXE,” at noon Saturday at Birmingham’s David Klein Gallery. Featuring sculpture and drawings from her recent series “Everybody Is a Star,” it’s a tongue-in-cheek look at what’s considered fashionable and highly valuable to social media influencers and wealthy collectors of luxury goods. Parodies of top-name brands like Hermes, Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Valentino and Fendi are highlighted in works made of wire mesh, plaster gauze, paint and the occasional steel spike. The installation includes a 40-inch gold-painted chandelier made of wire mesh and plaster gauze.

“The real and the fake is constantly at play in my latest body of work,” said Monforton in an artist statement. “LUXE explores the psychology of fame, fortune, mega-wealth and privileged consumption. The broader concepts of ascribing value to things is played out in this line of luxury goods that defy perfection and are rife with failure and humor.”

The exhibition will remain on display until Feb. 4.

David Klein Gallery, 163 Townsend St., Birmingham. 313-818-3416. www.dkgallery.com. Free.

Charlie Brown jazz

Pianist and bandleader Cyrus Chestnut brings his band to the DSO’s Orchestra Hall at 8 p.m. Friday for hip and grooving takes on Vince Guaraldi’s classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas” jazz score. Chestnut rearranged and reimagined Guaraldi’s adored pieces for his serenely swinging 2000 “Charlie Brown Christmas” album, and those interpretations are the ones Friday night’s audience will hear.

Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit. 313-576-5111. www.dso.org. Tickets starting at $45. The Civic Jazz Orchestra will perform an opening set at 7 p.m. in the Cube; tickets are $15 and can also be purchased at dso.org.

An art anniversary

Playground Detroit’s contemporary gallery is celebrating five years in the city. During that time, it has had 45 exhibitions showcasing more than 150 artists and attracting thousands of visitors. Their ARCHIVE exhibition, on display through Jan. 31, includes work from the Playground vault by artists who’ve exhibited there. Visitors can also check out a holiday pop-up offering fine art, jewelry, apparel, home goods and more.

Playground Detroit, 2845 Gratiot Ave., Detroit. 313-649-7741. www.playgrounddetroit.com. Free. Hours are noon-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday.

An LGBTQ+ coming-of-age story

Matrix Theatre Company’s “Swimming While Drowning,” running through Dec. 17, follows teenager Angelo Mendez, who leaves his homophobic father’s home and lands in a queer homeless shelter in Los Angeles. Gritty, sweet, funny, heartbreaking and visceral, it’s a tale strongly told by local playwright Emilio Rodriguez that explores the resilience of young gay and trans teens.

Matrix Theatre Company, 2730 Bagley St., Detroit. 313-967-0999. www.matrixtheatre.org. $22; $17 for students, seniors 65 and up, veterans and active military personnel.

Pass the glogg!

Detroit’s Irwin House Gallery will host Glogg & Cookie Sundays on Dec. 11 and Dec. 18 from 3 to 6 p.m. It’s a holiday mixer, with artists and guests encouraged to bring their favorite cookie(s) and enjoy a spiced holiday beverage inspired by Norwegian glogg.

The gallery has also extended artist Donald Calloway’s “Cheap Wine & Chicken” exhibition at its alternate location through the end of the year. Visitors may access the location by coming to the main gallery during regular business hours and from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Irwin House Gallery, 2351 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit. 313-932-7690. www.irwinhousegallery.org. Free.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Itzhak Perlman, Rat Pack show, exhibits fill weekend arts calendar

For those of a Catholic persuasion, today is one of the days devoted to Mary in the liturgical calendar, so it’s as good a time as any to feature in my Advent Calendar a setting of Ave Maria by Estonian composer Tõnis Kaumann. A few years ago i explored Kaumann’s Ave maris stella, and described how it functioned in a permutational way, moving between different options to create a simple but ever-changing music. His Ave Maria, composed six years earlier in 2013, takes a similar approach.

The piece has six sections, A to F. Kaumann uses three portions of chant-like melody (having thoroughly checked my Liber Usualis, none of them appears to be a specific Gregorian chant), the first assigned to sections A, C, E and F, the second and third to sections B and D respectively.

Section A (“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum”) is the longest and most elaborate. Melody 1 is repeated multiple times, first by one voice, then two (the second voice singing a parallel / contrary motion version), then four (adding a G drone), after which the whole choir repeats this while soprano and alto soli improvise extensive melismas over the top. This continues for several minutes, occupying most of the work’s 6-minute duration, and grows to become intensely passionate. It’s a fascinating, powerful expansion, ending up a long way from the restrained sobriety of chant.

The remaining sections pass by relatively quickly. Section B (“benedicta tu in mulieribus”) uses Melody 2 twice over a dronal chord. Section C (“et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus”) returns to Melody 1, sung over a slightly lower register chord than previously, then reduced further to just two voices. Section D (“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus”) abruptly switches the tonality from G to D, presenting Melody 3 as a strong tutti climax, returning to G at the end. Section E (“nunc et in hora mortis nostrae”) uses most of Melody 1 as an echoing call and response between pairs of voices; the final phrase is saved for Section F, sung as a simple tutti “Amen”.

It’s a superbly effective harnessing of the principles and attitude of conventional chant, spiced up in that remarkable opening section. The cycling repetitions and dronal harmony keep the music grounded, yet i can’t help feeling the intensity of those wildly florid improvisations remains throughout what follows, flaring up somewhat in the ensuing climax, and persisting in the more sedate sections as a kind of implied breathlessness.

This performance of Ave Maria was given by Vox Clamantis conducted by Jaan-Eik Tulve.

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Programme note

Ave Maria is unique among my compositions, being the only one I first recorded while singing it myself and then transribed. This might just as well be one of my most performed pieces, because it fits well with the repertoire of Vox Clamantis and is therefore often in use.

—Tõnis Kaumann

As many Americans step out and reconnect to a version of what their musical lives were before the pandemic, I remain, stubbornly, at home. No, I don’t have “cave syndrome,” but I’ve not had COVID and I want to keep it that way. My last concert was March 8, 2020, when I gleefully let the sounds of Third Coast Percussion wash over me as the band performed music by the electronic artist Jlin in an old church. With live music verboten, my exploration has come largely through recordings — and the albums that touched me most deeply this year are the 10 below, in which I’ve found a pervasive theme of connection.

Soprano Julia Bullock’s affecting solo debut, with its breathtaking spin on a deep cut by the enigmatic Connie Converse and a sublime rendition of Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, traces the tenuous connections individuals share with one another and their own senses of purpose on earth. There’s a ghost in the machine that reconnects the late composer Jóhann Jóhannsson to his own luminous Drone Mass, while his fellow Icelander, pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, makes a life-altering connection to a nonagenarian composer, resulting in the introspective From Afar. Classical guitarist Sean Shibe stitches unlikely connections between disparate composers by way of a Mexican Stratocaster. The new music outfit Wild Up once again wields the music of the late Julius Eastman, empowering listeners to fearlessly connect to their most authentic selves. And, as luck would have it, Third Coast Percussion released an album containing that mesmerizing Jlin composition, connecting me to a now-distant but no less thrilling memory of witnessing new music in the wild.

These albums not only kept me company at home this year, but helped me realize how important our connections are to each other — perhaps more so now than ever. I hope they do the same for you.

A Far Cry / Shara Nova The Blue Hour

For Those Who Like: My Brightest Diamond, song cycles, compulsive sequencing

The Story: Few multi-composer collaborations are memorable. However, The Blue Hour, an engrossing cycle of songs by Caroline Shaw, Angelica Negrón, Sara Kirkland Snider, Rachel Grimes and Shara Nova — who sings and narrates its 40 sections — is unforgettable. The five women have inspired each other for years, and Snider calls the communal result “an embodiment and celebration of a musical sisterhood.” The texts were plucked from Carolyn Forché’s expansive poem “On Earth,” which traces ruminations on life and death in vivid, alphabetically organized vignettes.

The Music: A Far Cry, the Boston-based chamber orchestra that commissioned the piece, gives the music its buoyancy and broad color palette. In songs such as Negrón’s “A black map,” strings caress and thread around Nova’s vocals, commenting almost like an additional character in this hallucinatory journey. Nova has rarely sounded so all-encompassing — from intimate, unguarded communications to full-throated operatic splendor. It’s best to hear The Blue Hour in its entirety, but I’m hoping some of these finely built songs will be embraced by others and make their way into the world on their own.

Julia Bullock
Walking in the Dark

For Those Who Like: Connie Converse, Nina Simone, velvety voices

The Story: With a singularly expressive voice and a career on the upswing, you’d think the 35-year-old soprano from St. Louis would stuff her debut album with show-stopping opera arias. But nothing is conventional about Bullock — who lives in Munich and has applied a careful craft to her career reminiscent of the late Jessye Norman — and so Walking in the Dark instead offers songs associated with the likes of Nina Simone and Sandy Denny. A keen curator, Bullock has drawn praise for assembling programs that balance fun with intellectual rigor — like staging a tribute to Josephine Baker on the grand staircase of the Met museum in New York, or mixing songs developed by enslaved people with new music by Black women composers.

The Music: While there is no opera here, there is drama. Bullock’s fiery side emerges in a scene from El Niño, John Adams’ gripping retelling of the nativity story, and she communicates tenderly, with elegant phrasing, in Samuel Barber’s ruminative Knoxville: Summer of 1915. She even unveils the interior tension in “One by One,” a deceptive little song by Connie Converse, the pioneering 1950s singer-songwriter who never cut an album and disappeared mysteriously. “Brown Baby” and “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” point to Bullock’s sense of social justice, while her completely reharmonized version of Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” closes the album on a breathtaking note of nostalgia.

Jóhann Jóhannsson
Drone Mass

For Those Who Like: Arvo Pärt, noise, Nordic noir

The Story: Even if the name is unfamiliar, you know Jóhann Jóhannsson’s music if you’ve seen Arrival, Sicario, Prisoners or The Theory of Everything. Acclaimed for his award-winning movie scores, the Icelandic composer spent years writing music at the intersections of classical, electronic, ambient and indie rock. Just as he was gaining international recognition, Jóhannsson died suddenly in Berlin in early 2018. Just 48, Jóhannsson was a restless artist, lost way too soon, who would have continued to search and amaze.

The Music: Three years before his death, Jóhannsson completed Drone Mass, arguably his magnum opus. Neither particularly drony nor set as traditional liturgy, the 45-minute piece unfolds as a crepuscular ritual, and along the way blurs distinctions between acoustic instruments, electronics and voices. Strains of Renaissance choral riffs somehow sound at home in washes of jet-engine distortion, while calmer tracks invoke the God-squad serenity of composers Arvo Pärt and John Tavener. And in an unlikely gift from the afterlife, a savvy engineer located audio files of Jóhannsson’s own electronic performance of the piece and incorporated them into the recordings, allowing him to play alongside the fine musicians on this release.

Sean Shibe
Lost & Found

For Those Who Like: Guitar Hero, William Blake, transcendent duality

The Story: The mild-mannered, conservatory-educated classical guitarist from Scotland possesses an untamed imagination, a sharp ear for curation and an extraordinary technique. That he’s clad in a pink tulle dress on the album cover might be a wink at William Blake, whose metaphysical poetry and painting play loosely with disguise, and whom Shibe describes in the album booklet as “a radical looking for the revelatory.”

The Music: What’s “lost” here is Shibe’s traditional nylon-string classical guitar; what’s found is the black Mexican Stratocaster on which he plays most of the diverse music on this recording. Repertoire-wise, strange bedfellows have rarely sounded so good together: Shibe sets music by Moondog against Bill Evans (a heavenly version of “Peace Piece”), while Olivier Messiaen and Meredith Monk lie down with Julius Eastman and the medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Shibe can shred, but more often he makes the instrument as featherlight as an angel’s wing.

Third Coast Percussion
Perspectives

For Those Who Like: Jlin, Bang on a Can, banging on cans

The Story: These four Grammy-winning gents from Chicago, who pound on anything from vibraphones to steel pipes, found a surprisingly simpatico collaborator in Jlin, whose suite Perspective is this album’s centerpiece. The electronic music artist and Gary, Ind. native has transformed the hyperbeat footwork style of music and dance from the clubs and house parties of Chicago into a realm wholly her own. She crafted a 30-minute suite for Third Coast Percussion, which the band transcribed to its unconventional arsenal of instruments.

The Music: At upwards of 160 beats per minute, Jlin’s suite is far more than just a toe tapper. Metal bowls filled with water give the third section, “Derivative,” a woozy swagger. Elsewhere, the album offers more traditional fare from some familiar names. Danny Elfman’s Percussion Quartet weaves colorful threads in a transparent way, while a laid-back arrangement of Philip Glass’ Metamorphosis No. 1 will appeal to the glockenspiel-obsessed. Another successful collaboration features the duo Flutronix in a three-paneled suite that begins with jitters in flutes and ends in breathy tranquility.

Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet
Evergreen

For Those Who Like: string quartets, puzzles, hugging trees

The Story: Shaw is a triple threat: a gifted violinist, superb vocalist and Pulitzer-winning composer. Along with her orchestral and choral compositions, she has been writing some of the finest string quartet music of recent times. Evergreen, named after the composition Shaw wrote for a specific tree in Canada, is the Attacca Quartet’s second album devoted to her music, and the group plays it with an irresistible blend of precision, wit and color.

The Music: Slotted between three major pieces written for the quartet alone, Shaw sings three of her own songs in her trademark crystalline sheen. Her text for “And So” reveals her knack for the stylishly meta: “Would scansion cease to mark the beats / if I went away?” Similar trap doors abound in the music for quartet. First Essay (Nimrod) introduces a lilting theme that soon gets twisted and tossed down a rabbit hole of surprising deconstructions. A solitary moment where strings, in extremely high register, dovetail in a chromatic haze, is alone worth the price of admission to this musical funhouse.

Víkingur Ólafsson
From Afar

For Those Who Like: Ólafur Arnalds, upright pianos, miniatures

The Story: By his own admission, From Afar is the Icelandic pianist’s most personal album, inspired by a lengthy visit with the nonagenarian Hungarian composer György Kurtág. After their meeting, Ólafsson wanted to write the composer a thank-you letter, but sat at the piano instead, creating this double album for Kurtág. As a bonus, he recorded the music twice — once on a grand piano and again on an upright, like one from his childhood, with the damper pedal engaged to create what Ólafsson calls a “whispering intimacy.”

The Music: Kurtág was a master of the miniature, compressing color and expression into mere seconds. Ólafsson sprinkles pieces from the composer’s series Játékok (Games) throughout the album. Some are jaunty (“Harmonica”) while others hang spaciously in air (“A Voice in the Distance”). In between are pieces from Ólafsson’s past — Brahms intermezzi, Bach arrangements, lovely Hungarian folk songs by his beloved Bartók and the sparkling cascade of intertwining notes that make up Schumann’s Study in Canonic Form. From Afar is a quiet album, the perfect pairing for morning coffee on a winter Sunday or a late-night glass of whiskey.

Wild Up
Julius Eastman Vol. 2: Joy Boy

For Those Who Like: Albert Ayler, Steve Reich, ecstatic excursions

The Story: If only Julius Eastman were alive to enjoy the recent, richly deserved resuscitation of his uncompromising music, which during his short career put him in collaboration with Pierre Boulez, Meredith Monk and other important experimentalists. Boldly gay and proudly Black, Eastman gained precarious acclaim in the 1970s for his provocative pieces and performances, then withdrew and crashed too early, dying alone and unknown in a Buffalo hospital in 1990. He was only 49.

The Music: In its second volume of Eastman’s work, the Los Angeles-based outfit Wild Up once again gives astonishingly committed performances. The music, unlike the first volume’s frenetically joyous Femenine, doesn’t always land comfortably on the ear, but dig in deep and you’ll find the rewards are manifold. Touch Him When, in two separate guitar arrangements (“Light” and “Heavy”), plumbs deep ambient spaces and shreds with scorched-earth élan. Joy Boy offers a caucus of fidgety saxophones and flutes amid chaotic chatter, while the album’s final track, Stay On It, for voices and ensemble, returns to the funky spasms of ecstasy so warmly welcomed in Femenine. If you’re interested in art that prizes connection with one’s “authentic self,” this album is the sound of freedom.

Steve Reich
Runner / Music for Ensemble and Orchestra

For Those Who Like: John Adams, African bell patterns, sativa

The Story: If you’ve ever been hesitant to dip your toe into the pulsating music of Steve Reich, now is the time to take the full plunge. The 86-year-old composer has released his 26th album on the Nonesuch label, and it contains a pair of ebullient pieces that might just be Reich’s most accessible since Music for 18 Musicians in the mid-’70s.

The Music: The two works teem with all that is vibrant and mesmerizing in Reich’s music. Runner, for 19 musicians, opens with a piano pulse of toggling 16th notes, while strings, winds and percussion file in separately to create a whirligig of interlocking layers. A passage where two chirping oboes chase each other as vibraphones chime like clocks is among the sunniest, most joyous stretches in Reich’s catalog. Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is set up in the same five-movement structure (ABCBA), but actually embeds the smaller group of Runner‘s musicians into a full orchestra. Hats off to conductor Susanna Mälkki, who leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a vigorous, transparent performance.

(A version of this review originally appeared on NPR Music’s #NowPlaying blog.)

Jonathan Tetelman
Arias

For Those Who Like: Jonas Kaufmann, muscular tenors, high B-flats

The Story: While his name is still somewhat off the radar, Jonathan Tetelman has hit it big. The tenor, born in Chile, raised in central New Jersey and educated at New York’s Mannes School of Music, has signed a multi-record deal with the venerable Deutsche Grammophon and is making starring debuts this season at the Vienna State Opera, San Francisco Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

The Music: Opera geeks routinely complain about “park and bark” syndrome, where singers stand motionless, in mid-drama, belting out music at a single earsplitting volume. Tetelman, with a voice of bronze and velvet, embodies an opposite approach. His physical acting is often praised, but it’s the sensitivity of his dynamic control that marks him as a truly great singer. In the aria “Pourquoi me réveiller” (from Massenet’s Werther), which finds its character is near meltdown mode, Tetelman, in a single line, shows us stentorian frustration, then pares the loudness down to a golden ribbon of grief, perfectly supported by the breath.

10 More Terrific Albums:

Johnny Gandelsman, This Is America: An Anthology 2020-2021

Klaus Mäkelä / Oslo Philharmonic, Sibelius

Carlos Simon, Requiem for the Enslaved

Steven Beck, George Walker Piano Sonatas

Tania León, Teclas de mi Piano (Adam Kent)

Marc-André Hamelin, C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas & Rondos

Jason Vieaux: Bach, Violin Works, Vol. 2

Jakub Józef Orkinski, Farewells

Micah Frank & Chet Doxas, The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part One

Evgueni Galperine, Theory of Becoming

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Though i don’t (any longer) have a religious bone in my body, i’m nonetheless drawn to the paintings of John Martin, particularly his vast, frenzied depictions of some of the more apocalyptic events described in the Bible. i find myself thinking of Martin’s paintings while listening to On the Face of the Deep, a work for large ensemble composed in 2017 by Chaya Czernowin (whose 65th birthday is today). The piece has its origins in a joint project by Ensemble intercontemporain and the Philharmonie de Paris, commissioning seven composers to create a musical interpretation of a single day of creation, with Czernowin being assigned the first day, corresponding to the mythical moment when void and darkness are wiped away following the command, “Let there be light”.

Part of what makes On the Face of the Deep (subtitled, “BERESHIT (Genesis): Day One”) so effective is the relative simple palette of sounds Czernowin draws upon: small chitterings, low rumbles, rapid tremolos, busy textures of wailing or sliding pitches, sharp, isolated accents. Everything primordial, not so much ideas as the potential for ideas, nascent sonic possibilities, all heard from what appear to be multiple vantage points, from far in the distance to right in our faces, from great heights to abyssal depths.

Yet arguably of greater importance than what happens is the way that it happens. For a start, Czernowin’s act of creation is not some conventional instantaneous burst but a prolonged, intricate process. One of the most beguiling aspects of this is the way Czernowin allows certain parts of this process to continue for a surprising length. The first instance occurs a few minutes in, after a dramatically convoluted episode where a loud snare drum yields to a network of high strings, becoming polarised with the addition of a deep intoning drone. Onto this drone is heaped layers of dry percussive clatter, persisting as a huge slab of prolonged gravitas.

The aftermath of this is a wonderful menagerie of elemental forces appearing within the ongoing polarised music: floating streaks, weird wails, wild brass calls, the shivering emergence of a xylophone, a ferocious piano tremolo, distant brass accents. It’s one of a number of sequences in On the Face of the Deep that give the impression (or suggest the possibility) of a gradual intensification but which in fact is simply in a state of flux, its details evolving. It culminates in the unexpected eruption of a trio of ratchets. Again, though, Czernowin is not concerned with creating conventional climaxes, instead making everything vague in another prolonged tremulous episode.

The creative act concludes in an atmosphere of quiet, moving through a granular texture into a coda of faint pitch smears and glissandos, ending with something like a long exhalation: perhaps a sigh of relief, satisfaction or even exhaustion.

The UK première of On the Face of the Deep took place during the 2018 London Contemporary Music Festival, performed by the LCMF Orchestra conducted by Jack Sheen.

‘Tis the season for superlatives. Below are the best of the best in classical music and jazz’s broad orbit:

A “Tosca” for the ages: When considering this straightforward Puccini blockbuster, “thought-provoking” probably isn’t at the tippy-top of the adjectives list. But Lyric Opera’s revival of a 50-year-old Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production (March 12 to April 10) was endlessly textured and, yes, smart. In a remarkable role debut, Michelle Bradley’s Tosca was feisty and flawed, not a saintlike cardboard cutout, and baritone Fabián Veloz made even Scarpia utterly sympathetic. It was also the company’s most vocally sterling offering of the year; cinching tenor Russell Thomas in a lead role (Cavaradossi) always helps on that front.

Best trip around the sun: The Sun Ra Arkestra performs in Chicago, its origin city, every couple of years, but those visits become increasingly precious as bandleader Marshall Allen nears 100. (He turned 98 in May.) The cosmic jazz unit’s March 26 performances at Constellation, its first since the pandemic shutdown, were a veritable group prayer — one you could dance to, to boot. At one point, Allen ripped so hard on his sax that his dentures flew out into the crowd, and one attendee dove for them like a guitar pick at a Van Halen concert. That just about sums up my feelings.

Strongest symphonic program: There wasn’t a weak link to be found in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s March 31 and April 1 program, conducted by Riccardo Muti. It led with a new orchestral work by former CSO resident composer Missy Mazzoli, progressed through Mahler’s luscious “Rückert-Lieder,” featuring nonpareil mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, and ended with a shapely Bruckner 2.

Best belated local premiere: I can’t remember the last time I teared up at an orchestra concert, but Muti and the CSO’s gorgeous, worthy performance of Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3 (May 5-7) elicited enough waterworks to inspire a Handel suite. If only Price, who died in 1953, could have been there herself.

Best Beethoven: The “Eroica” was the only work on the Grant Park Music Festival’s July 15-16 program that wasn’t new, and that symphony is hyper-familiar to classical fans. But revelations came fast and furious in guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s account of this most battle-scarred of war horses. Watching me jot in my notebook, at one point my seat neighbor grumbled to his wife: “The person next to me is going crazy.” He wasn’t wrong.

Grooviest night at Symphony Center: Chucho Valdés had reason to be in a retrospective mood at his Oct. 18 Symphony Center show: He’d just turned 81 and the evening’s marquee piece, “La Creación,” reflected his own lifelong spiritual preoccupations. But this was no solemn sermon: Valdés and his Yoruban Orchestra performed ecstatically, with Valdés sprinkling his signature quote-heavy improvisations throughout the entire set. Keep an eye out for 25-year-old percussion phenom Roberto Jr. Vizcaino, who quite literally stopped the show with an epic drum solo in “Creación.”

MVB (Most Valuable Band): Many thanks to the reader who emailed me with an imperative, not a request, to hear Chico Freeman (son of fellow tenor sax man Von, nephew of guitarist George) headline Jazz Showcase Oct. 27-30 with a gangbuster quintet: guitarist Mike Allemana, pianist Julius Tucker, bassist Christian Dillingham and drummer Kyle Swan. The icing on this multitiered cake was Swiss percussionist Reto Weber playing the Hang, a steel drumlike instrument.

Best guest conductor appearance: I’ve never been moved to go to the CSO twice in one concert cycle. That changed when Christian Thielemann came here Oct. 20-25, his first time conducting the CSO since 1995. He led what was, without question, the most eloquent Bruckner 8 I’ve heard, and one of the most polished CSO performances I’ve yet experienced.

But is a glorious one-off seriously enough to consider him a Muti successor, as some — The New York Times included — speculate? If you ask me, between Thielemann’s staid core repertoire and apparent divisiveness among CSO musicians, a Thielemann appointment would rank among the most chuckleheaded administrative decisions the institution has made in recent memory. A conductor is more than his worst night, but he’s also much more than his best (and not always flatteringly so).

But hey, if Thielemann comes back to conduct Bruckner, I’m there — maybe even more than once.

Best CSO guests, period: Comparisons between Thielemann and Kirill Petrenko are so 2015, when the latter beat out the former as a dark-horse successor to Simon Rattle at the Berlin Philharmonic. But when both lead two of the most stunning orchestral performances of the year within a month of one another, well, pardon me for going apple- and orange-picking. Petrenko’s Nov. 16 Mahler 7 with the Berliners was no less clean than Thielemann’s seductive, razor-edged Bruckner, but it was warmer, kinder, more curious. Let’s find someone like that.

Best 12 hours: Have you ever had one of those days that perfectly encapsulates what makes Chicago great, better than any breathless monologue or sappy social media post could? I’ve had a few, but Sept. 24-25 might take the cake.

It all started at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, with pianist Jim Baker’s afternoon solo set at the Logan Center for the Arts; if Scriabin could swing, maybe he’d get within spitting distance of that performance. Then, it’s off to a signing of Paul Steinbeck’s new book about the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, “Sound Experiments,” and a lecture by Mike Allemana on the late saxophonist Von Freeman. Afterward, an attendee tearfully takes to the mic to say he feels like he witnessed one of the best gigs of his life. (Co-signed.) From there, string trio Hear in Now and Ethiopian band Qwanqwa team up to play one of the best sets I’ve ever heard: grooves emerging inexorable and sweet, the musicians’ sheer joy catapulting the audience to whatever firmament they’re floating in.

I leave to make my way to DePaul’s Holtschneider Center in Lincoln Park, where Haymarket Opera is staging Claudio Monteverdi’s “L’incoronazione di Poppea.” Written in 1643, it’s one of the oldest operas still in the repertory; Haymarket faithfully presents productions as then-contemporary audiences would have experienced them, so it’s sure to be a treat.

But a mix-up at the box office means I actually have a ticket to new-music module Ensemble Dal Niente’s season opener: a trippy tribute to German composer Carola Bauckholt happening in the same building. It starts with Bauckholt’s “Vakuum Lieder” (2017), which tasks a vocalist with vacuuming her face, then her mouth, then a flaccid rubber balloon; the resulting partials aren’t too far-off from what you’d hear from a brass instrument. Balloons are evidently a fixation for Bauckholt, as two human-sized ones figure powerfully into her 2016 music theater piece “Oh, I See.” A ticket mix-up has never been so enthralling.

That said, there’s still plenty of time to catch the last act-and-a-half of “Poppea.” I do, just in time for the anti-heroes (the ever-wonderful Erica Schuller as Poppea and caramel-voiced Lindsay Metzger as Nerone) to sing “Pur ti miro” and live happily ever after.

I leave Holtschneider to a pitch-colored sky and enough rain to parch the Sahara, so I seek refuge inside Kingston Mines. Musically, it’s another happy accident: regulars Vance Kelly and his Backstreet Blues Band are on the southern stand, Omar Coleman’s band on the northern stand. Guesting with the latter is 21-year-old rising star Nick Alexander. His eyes are a candela or two too bright to believably sing about wasting away in county jail, but I guess that’s what you get when you’re a blues prodigy. Besides, his voice fits the part — lean, muscular, and with an edge like ripped jeans.

The evening is also a case study in the social mix one witnesses when a magnet blues venue is ensconced in Lincoln Park. On four different occasions, friendly patrons ask me what I’m reading — I’m still awkwardly toting that AACM book under my arm — including some older gentlemen with rough hands and butter-thick Midwestern accents. They kindly reward me with a beer and a book recommendation (Charles Shaar Murray’s “Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-War Rock ‘N’ Roll Revolution”). Later, though, I and others watch in horror as two drunk white women unknowingly barrel straight into Vance Kelly while thrashing around to his band. Other patrons promptly straighten them out.

I catch the last Brown Line home at a quarter to two, my eardrums full to bursting. Everything I’ve experienced feels extraordinary — but it isn’t, not really. It’s just another perfect day in Chicago.

Honorable mentions: Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 11 at the CSO (Feb. 17-19), CSO MusicNOW’s “Night of Song” (March 14), Folks Operetta’s “Die Kathrin” at the University of Chicago’s Korngold Festival (April 7-9), Adrian Dunn Singers’ “Emancipation” (April 29 and airing on PBS in February 2023), CSO MusicNOW’s “Concerto” (May 23) and Samara Joy at Jazz Showcase (Nov. 10-13).

Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.

Founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey John Davies was named as one of the “Resilient Warriors” for The Violin Channel’s outstanding innovation and perseverance during the pandemic

Each year, Musical America releases its Top Professionals of the Year award recipients, to highlight the people working behind the scenes of the classical music industry. The 2022 “Pros” were chosen from over 100 nominations, the largest number to date.

“Given the political, financial, and health crises of the last half-decade, we wanted to recognize the leaders who have dealt with the pandemic and its aftereffects through game-changing innovation or sweat equity, or both,” Musical America editor Susan Elliott wrote.

The Violin Channel’s founder Geoffrey John Davies was among industry professionals, including Verbier Festival’s Director Martin T:son Engstroem, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts’ Artistic Director Kathy Schuman, Kaufman Music Center’s Executive Director Kate Sheeran, Harlem Chamber Players’ Founder, Executive and Artistic Director Liz Player, Heifetz International Music Institute’s President and CEO Benjamin K. Roe, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s General Manager Kathryn Ginsburg, honored this year.

For a full list of chosen professionals, click here.

Musical America acknowledged the efforts of The Violin Channel, and in particular, The Violin Channel’s Vanguard Concert Series — produced and broadcast to great acclaim during the pandemic period.

Series 1 of The Violin Channel Vanguard Concerts, which premiered in the Spring of 2021, garnered over 4 million views internationally. The mission of the project was to support artists during and post-COVID-19 by giving them ownership of the material and making the programs available worldwide for free.

Series 2 was released this fall, with all full episodes available to watch on The Violin Channel’s YouTube.

“The Violin Channel has led the industry through Covid and they’ve done it because it’s the right thing to do,” said Michael Hill International Violin Competition Executive Director Anne Rodda.

Co-produced by Geoffrey John Davies, the Alphadyne Foundation, and veteran performing arts executive Charles Letourneau, each concert features a custom look and feel created by Creative Director David Katzive. Each episode was shot in 4K with seven cameras at the Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall, in New York City. The artists performed in front of a 41-foot-long and 11.5-foot-high background curved LED wall that incorporated gently moving colors, patterns, or scenic views customized for each performer. The result is a musically and visually stunning product that redefines the virtual concert experience for audiences worldwide.

“We worked extremely closely with each of the artists to create a résumé piece for them,” said Davies. “Not only did we pay the performers real fees for their performances, but we also created the ultimate promotional materials and gave the artists the right to use them at no cost in perpetuity.”

“These were made with TV quality and we’re looking into TV broadcast opportunities,” he added. “These were made specifically to be a digital, online experience; they were far from just a recorded concert.”

Founded in Brisbane, Australia in 2009, The Violin Channel is now headquartered in New York City and continues to flourish as one of the most important platforms for classical music worldwide.

In 2015, Geoffrey was also named by Musical America as one of the 30 “Most Influential Professionals” in the classical music industry.

As part of its mission, VC aims to keep classical music culturally relevant and make news and content freely available and accessible.

“The Violin Channel upholds standards of true reporting and sharing without bias,” New England Conservatory Viola Professor Kim Kashkashian has said.

Good morning!

This weekend, I was on a video call with my family, who asked, “What time does the sun set today?”

“Probably 4:30,” I said, and then checked my weather app, only to discover that the sun would actually set at 4:12pm. This is the part of winter I like the least — each day a little darker than the one that came before. It’s no wonder, then, that so many of our winter holidays are celebrations of light. It’s even less of a wonder that those celebrations, lit by flickering candles or brightly-colored bulbs, are also times of gathering and community, and most importantly for this newsletter, of song.

So many of my glowing holiday memories center around music: caroling parties, with friends and family crowded around a piano; outings to the Holiday Pops, or to A Christmas Celtic Sojourn; evenings curled up at home with a good book and a mug of something warm, a Nat King Cole CD playing in the other room. In these dark and cold midwinter days, music keeps us warm — or, at risk of sounding corny as all get-out, at least it warms our hearts.

With that in mind, it’s high time to turn on some holiday tunes! You can find all of our holiday music programming here, including our three 24/7 holiday music streams: Heavenly Holiday Classics, Perfect Holiday Party Soundtrack, and Ultimate Holiday Classical Mix. A neat trick: you can play the holiday streams on your smart speaker, too! Here’s how.

What else is happening at CRB? Read on!

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The Note is always free, but this week, it’s even freer — we’re sharing it online so you can share it with your friends! If you’ve read this far, first of all, thank you; second of all, share this link on social media so your friends know they can subscribe here.

Have a great week! I’ll talk to you soon.
Kendall Todd