Proceeds from the multi-million dollar sale of the Ann and Gordon Getty Collection has been gifted to the school, adding 120 “Founders Scholarships” for its students
In October this year, over 1,500 pieces of fine and decorative art objects, jewelry, and textiles from the Ann and Gordon Getty collection were auctioned off at Christie’s auction house in a historic record-breaking sale of over $200 million.
Directed through the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts, proceeds from the event became a philanthropic gift to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) — one of the largest and most significant donations to any music school.
The funds will support SFCM’s business model and provide 120 scholarships over the next four years for outstanding SFCM undergraduate and graduate students in any area of study — all in the spirit of the school’s pioneering female founders, Ada Clement and Lillian Hodghead.
In 1917, Clement and Hodghead became pioneers in music education with their creation of the Ada Clement Piano School which later developed into the SFCM, and included noted pedagogues such as composer Ernest Bloch.
An SFCM alumnus and advisor to the school’s Board of Trustees, Gordon Getty is an active classical music composer and is celebrated for his patronage of the arts. Getty had requested that the awards honor Clement and Hodghead and that they be known as the “Founders Scholarships.” Ranging from $20,000 to full tuition, each scholarship will complement SFCM’s existing financial aid programs.
Some of the Founders Scholarships will also include a service component to expand SFCM’s outreach programs, such as the Bridge to Arts and Music, which pairs collegiate students with underprivileged young people in school.
“Music unites our communities, inspires us to achieve, and reminds each of us to be the best version of ourselves. It is essential to our existence, and I hope my investment will inspire others to join us in these efforts,” Getty said. “The next generation of highly diverse and exceptional artists deserves our support, just as our shared future needs the tremendous gifts they will return to the world.”
“This monumental act of generosity expands more than a decade of support from the Getty family, who are friends of countless cultural organizations,” added SFCM President David H. Stull. “It represents a profound dedication to art, to education, and to fostering tremendous opportunities for a new generation of musicians and scholars — all characteristics shared with SFCM’s founders.”
Other designated beneficiaries of the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts include SFCM partners: the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Symphony.
A video about the SFCM founders can be viewed below.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dec. 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The Notre Dame Cathedral fire and the death of an esteemed colleague influenced the creation of “Litanies,” said Julian Anderson, a British composer who has won the 2023 Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition for the work, the University of Louisville announced today.
“Notre Dame burned while I was writing the piece,” he said. “It was traumatizing to watch such an important icon of civilization go up in flames. The experience affected my writing.” A year earlier, as Anderson was beginning “Litanies,” Oliver Knussen, an acclaimed British composer, conductor and close friend of his, died, prompting Anderson to write the slow movement of the work in his memory.
Radio France, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and chamber orchestras in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland commissioned the winning, 25-minute concerto for cello and orchestra, which German cellist Alban Gerhardt and the National Orchestra of France premiered in 2020 at Radio France Auditorium. Anderson dedicated the concerto to Gerhardt in recognition of his special qualities as a cellist, he said.
“The piece explores virtually every sound a cello and orchestra can make together,” said Marc Satterwhite, who directs the Grawemeyer music award. “It spans a vast emotional range and is constantly inventive, but always toward an expressive end, never for the sake of novelty.”
Anderson, 55, studied with John Lambert, Alexander Goehr and Tristan Murail early in his career. Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra have commissioned his work, and ensembles across Europe and the United States have performed “Khorovod” and “Alhambra Fantasy,” his most played pieces. In April, “Exiles,” a piece he wrote in 2021 for voices and orchestra, premiered in Berlin.
A professor of composition and composer-in-residence at Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London since 2007, Anderson also has taught music composition at Harvard University and the Royal College of Music. In 2021 he was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his outstanding service to music.
Schott Music Ltd. publishes his compositions written after mid-2014 and Faber Music, those written before.
Recipients of next year’s Grawemeyer Awards are being named this week pending formal approval by university trustees. The annual $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in world order, psychology, education and religion. Recipients will visit Louisville in the spring to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.
After five long years, the Kennedy Center Honors are finally back in full force. How can we be sure? Because almost no one mentioned its return to normal during a weekend of festivities that culminated Sunday in a slightly more than three-hour ceremony celebrating five new honorees.
Really, the only mention of the past five years at the 45th annual Kennedy Center Honors, which will be broadcast Dec. 28 on CBS, came from Sacha Baron Cohen. Whilespeaking in character as fictional Kazakh journalist Borat, the actor/comedian made remarks that arguably stretched the audience’s comfort zone: “I’m told president of U.S. and A. is here. Where are you, Mr. Trump?” Wait, Borat? We’ll get to him. We promise.
This time last year, Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks hailed the ceremony, which featured a star-studded crowd in black tie and masks, as a “return to something like normal.” This year we can cut the “something like.” And indeed, President Biden and first lady Jill Biden were back for a second year after four “first couple”-less years thanks to a presidential boycott during the Trump years and the ensuing pandemic, which led to a mostly virtual show for the 2020 awards (held in May 2021). Joining them were Vice President Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. Saturday’s medallion ceremony was back in its proper place at the State Department after being at the Library of Congress last year. And everyone — we mean everyone — seemed to be in the mood to celebrate.
Luckily for them, the ceremony — held in the arts center’s 2,364-seat Opera House and honoring actor, filmmaker and philanthropist George Clooney; contemporary Christian music sensation-turned-pop-star Amy Grant; the “Empress of Soul,” singer Gladys Knight; Irish rock band U2 (Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.); and Cuban American composer-conductor Tania León — was, naturally, a mostly musical affair.
Take a look around when the Pips were cooing or the Highwomen were belting, and you were likely to see someone familiar clapping along, be it Anthony S. Fauci, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), actorLaurence Fishburne, Biden adviser Mitch Landrieu or, of course, the president — you name it.
The night proceeded like clockwork. The nominees were praised in five segments, each featuring a semi-biographical video with notable voice-overs (actor Brad Pitt for Clooney, critic Wesley Morris for Knight), clips from Saturday’s medallion ceremony, a few speakers and a couple of (usually musical!) set pieces.
Celebration of the 61-year-old Clooney, as the only nonmusical artist honored, proved the exception. It began with a humorous introduction by former honorees Big Bird and jazz legend Herbie Hancock — a strange pair sure, but like peanut butter and pickles, it worked. As Hancock said, “The Kennedy Center is a place for everybody who lives in America — even birds.”
Julia Roberts, ever the fashionista, took the stage in a dress decorated with an unusual pattern — all images of Clooney — and dubbed her friend a “Renaissance man.” The screen then lifted to reveal a set re-creating an old barroom. At the small tables, sipping cocktails, sat Roberts along with actors Richard Kind, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon and, most notably, Clooney’s father, Nick. After Dianne Reeves performed a song from the 2005 movie “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which Clooney wrote and directed, each stood to give a short monologue about the actor.
Cheadle praised Clooney’s humanitarian work, particularly (he said half-winkingly) marrying Amal Alamuddin and starting the Clooney Foundation for Justice. Kind discussed the honoree’s long journey to stardom, expressing excitement of what’s to come. Damon mentioned that Clooney is often called “the last true movie star,” which struck him as incorrect given Clooney’s penchant for practical jokes.
Clooney’s father, though, told a touching story about the day the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Nick Clooney was hosting a television show at the time, and, as he was preparing a speech about the tragic day, his 7-year-old son walked into the room with a bag full of his toy guns. He didn’t want them anymore. Nick ripped up the speech. What could be more eloquent, after all.
The rest of the evening required dancing shoes — or at least a little seat-dancing. A sign reading “Gladys” in lights hung above the set for Knight, 78, where the Pips were joined by Garth Brooks for “Midnight Train to Georgia”; Mickey Guyton for “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”; and Ariana DeBose for a heck of a rockin’ version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” The Pips left the stage as Patti LaBelle sauntered on and called Brooks, Guyton and DeBose back for a touching rendition of “That’s What Friends Are For.”
Journalist Katie Couric introduced Grant’s segment, calling her music the “perfect elixir for a troubled time and troubled souls” before performances by Sheryl Crow and the Highwomen (Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires) before gospel singers BeBe & CeCe Winans belted out “Sing Your Praise to the Lord.”
Previous honoree Carmen de Lavallade introduced the tribute to 79-year-old composer León, who left Cuba as a 24-year-old refugee and was receiving this award only one year after earning the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in music. It featured multiple performances, including vocalist Alicia Hall Moran’s resounding take on “Oh Yemanja” from the opera “Scourge of the Hyacinths” and a rendition of León’s Pulitzer-winning composition, “Stride,” by the Kennedy Center Honors Orchestra, members of the Sphinx Organization, cellist Joe Kwon of Avett Brothers and conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson. Actress Anna Deavere Smith narrated the story of León’s life story from Cuba to the United States, detailing such moments of significance as Leonard Bernstein discovering her at Tanglewood.
The night ended with praise for the Irish rock band U2, known for its anthemic rock tunes, receiving the honor on the verge of its fifth decade together. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder took the stage to play covers of “Elevation” and “One,” and Sean Penn offered a touching speech about the band’s prolific philanthropy. But the showstopping moment (for good or ill, depending on your personal constitution) was probably Cohen, reprising his Borat character to praise the band “by the name of Me 2.”
“Please remove your wretched album from my iPhone 6,” Borat implored, later adding another request: “Your band fight oppressions from around the world. Stop it!”
The irreverent jokes kept the crowd lightly chuckling, the final segment featuring Ukrainian singer-songwriter Jamala, Irish musician Hozier and Carlile singing U2′s “Walk On” as many other performers from the evening — including Morris, Reeves, Guyton and Crow — joined in to close out the event with a note of exuberant joy.
On Saturday, the honorees had gathered at the State Department with a gaggle of special guests — a mixture of political and artistic stars — to share a dinner and receive their medallions. No one, though, was given a more generous welcome than a behatted Paul Pelosi, who received a thunderous standing ovation. He joined his wife, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), at the dinner, and again at Sunday’s ceremony, in a couple of his first public appearances after being attacked during a home invasion at the end of October.
Underlying the cheerful nature of Saturday night’s ceremony was a strong message of the importance of the arts to the global community. In his welcoming remarks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken referred to artists of all stripes as “diplomats” and said, “You don’t need to speak English to feel something when you listen to ‘Midnight Train to Georgia.’ ” Brooks echoed the sentiment, saying, “Art not only connects us, it binds us.”
The honorees received tailored toasts from various celebrities. Of note was Roberts, whose outfit again played a part in her praise. She donned a green dress, read a self-written limerick to U2 and invited the quartet onstage for an intimate toast of black velvets — Guinness mixed with champagne. She added that at 55, she’s been lucky to “never know a life without their music.”
The honorees, who didn’t speak during Sunday’s ceremony, then each offered a few words of their own, all hammering home the point of art as a communal good, something that brings us together.
Clooney, meanwhile, reiterated the night’s theme of art-as-togetherness, joking that he’s traveled the world and everyone agrees on one thing: “You sucked as Batman.”
Music Director Tito Muñoz conducts the Phoenix Symphony at Symphony Hall on Oct. 16, 2022.
He has performed on stages the world over, but Phoenix Symphony Music Director Tito Muñoz’s hometown of Queens, New York, remains his inspiration.
Queens is “extremely diverse. English is not the common language. There is no common language. You get on the subway and everybody’s speaking everything, and it’s great,” Muñoz said in an interview with The Arizona Republic.
In his ninth season with the symphony, the appreciation the 39-year-old maestro of Ecuadorian descent has for the Queens-like blend of cultures has helped him enrich the Phoenix audience’s musical palate.
“For me, diversity is always a thing I like to think about as sort of necessary to enhance the vibrancy of an organization. Even in symphony orchestra,” Muñoz said. “We’ll be able to play more music better. We’ll be able to connect with the community better. We’ll be able to educate the people better.”
According to data published in a September 2016 report by the League of American Orchestras, Latinos make up 8.3% of conductors for U.S. orchestras with large annual budgets.
The lack of diversity among orchestra members is not lost on Muñoz, so opening doors to more people of color is essential to his position. The music director is a part of Sphinx, a social justice organization committed to broadening access to classical music for Black and Latino performers, and works to ensure the Phoenix Symphony features compositions by creators of color.
Exposing Phoenix to a wider range of artists
The Phoenix Symphony is a 76-year-old cultural institution in the Valley. Under Muñoz’s leadership, it has performed compositions from a wider range of artists, including those of color.
This spring, the symphony played Mexican composer Juan Pablo Contreras’ mariachi-inspired piece, “Mariachitlánin.” Muñoz described Contreras’ composition as regionally relevant to Arizona, where 32.3% of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
And Black composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, whose classical music has hip-hop influences, has won over the symphony’s audience, Muñoz said.
“We are doing this because it’s great music. Here’s somebody part of our community, part of our landscape of America and it fits with the program,” Muñoz said. “That’s reflective of values rather than ticking a box.”
Some of these composers are brought onstage and introduced before their composition is performed, allowing audiences to understand the artist better, and in turn, be more appreciative of their music, Muñoz explained.
“Breaking that barrier by introducing a person and getting to know the person who actually wrote it, really makes a big difference,” Muñoz said. Audiences are “definitely more open-minded when they hear the piece.”
Muñoz, with the violin as his instrument of training, rooted his musical education at New York City’s famed LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts with supplementary classes at The Julliard School.
He made his professional debut as a conductor in 2006 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Muñoz has performed with orchestras across the country, as well as conducted in London and throughout Germany and France.
He performed with the Phoenix Symphony twice before taking the helm as music director in 2014.
As conductor, Muñoz said he views himself as a stage director imparting a vision for a performance. The score, he said, is the script and the musicians are the actors whose roles he helps mold based on their level of experience.
All this, he explained, generates a harmonious sound from the orchestra.
“The only difference between a director and a conductor is a conductor is doing the directing in real-time,” he said. “All my gestures are more like encouragement reminding of what we did in rehearsals. It’s more than just keeping a beat.”
Classical musical: ‘Like food for the soul’
Though the pandemic brought a lull over the Phoenix Symphony in its 2020-2021 season, its current roster of 63 full-time members has been busy with several shows this season, which runs from Oct. 14 to May 13.
Some of the programs this year have sources outside the classical music genre.
Curated by Muñoz, this season has a slate of more than 20 programs featuring some guest conductors.
The weekend of Nov. 18-20 at Symphony Hall saw “Dancers, Dreamers and Presidents,” a composition inspired by then-Sen. Barack Obama famously grooving to Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” during a 2007 appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
In late January at the Madison Center for the Arts, the symphony will put on “Totally ‘80s,” a concert featuring rock, R&B and new wave music hits from the decade.
“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Tito is one of the outstanding conductors of his generation,” said Phoenix Symphony Board of Directors Co-Chair Lon Babby. “He brings tremendous enthusiasm and energy to everything that he does.”
Babby, 71, is among the classical music faithful who, thanks to Muñoz’s efforts, have come to embrace composers from outside the genre orthodoxy.
Muñoz, Babby said, helps fulfill the Phoenix Symphony’s obligation as an arts organization to help the art form grow by giving young or new composers an opportunity to perform.
“He’s a master of what I would consider the repertoire of the music that I love and that I listen to and that I think attracts many in the audience,” Babby said, adding that Muñoz has “also educated us on where classical music may be headed.”
Regardless of what the orchestra plays, Muñoz consistently holds his musicians to a high standard, associate principal trumpet player Ben Nguyen said.
Playing for the Phoenix Symphony for the last 31 years, Nguyen, 61, thinks Muñoz has elevated the orchestra’s sound through his experience. Nguyen pointed to Muñoz’s time as assistant conductor with the Cleveland Orchestra, regarded as one of the country’s leading orchestras, while the widely respected Pierre Boulez was its conductor.
“There’s a certain, very high standard that he’s used to,” Nguyen said and added that Muñoz coaches the musicians to “sound like a unit” to better perform a “well-polished product that is meaningful, that is intended by the composer.”
And for all the orchestra’s forays into contemporary melodies, Muñoz said the musicians perfect their skills by regularly playing the challengingly “elegant and nuanced” compositions of classical music greats like Mozart or Schubert.
Classical musical is “like food for the soul almost – like eating your vegetables. As a music director, you try to judiciously place those pieces in the season, so that you’re giving the orchestra what they need to kind of keep in shape and healthy,” Muñoz said.
Reach breaking news reporter Jose R. Gonzalez at jose.gonzalez@gannett.com or on Twitter @jrgzztx.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Symphony director embraces diversity, champions broader sound
Sweet dreams are made of this/Who am I to disagree.” – ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Eurythmics
Where do we begin? The answer has been eluding me since listening back to not justour interview, but her music.
Paying close attention to Natasha Noorani’s wide-ranging discography is truly awe-inspiring. The versatility with which she delivers each song – across the spectrum of independent and commercial work – is unmissable.
In doing so, I am struck with the thought that Natasha’s career is so much more than co-founding a terrific music festival (Lahore Music Meet) that put her on my radar at first. Upon reflection, it is obvious that her collective work is a reflection of Natasha’s profound contribution to the music and cultural ecosystem. She has also managed to reconnect listeners with shared cultural heritage that can become lost due to our exposure to oversaturated content.
Natasha Noorani is anything but saturating. She has incorporated cultural heritage with experimental ideas without going wrong. Ergo, we have before us not another EP or single but a collective artform.
Has she played many roles in the larger musical realm? Yes. But it feels like that this is where the conversation must begin: her solo music.
When you search Natasha Noorani on the world wide web, it will give you several choices that differ from her solo music, and include an abundant number of collaborations, film songs and a song with a pioneering pop group. You might even find it intimidating. Or, you might reach out for that favourite quote from one of your favourite bands (Bono from U2): “Music can change the world because it can change people.”
More than intimidation, this is a quote that defines Natasha’s aesthetic and artistic growth and how she is pushing the envelope. It feels like this is where we should begin.
The timing also feels right. The voyage between her debut EP Munaasib (2018) and her upcoming, second EP Ronaq (2023) does reflect a sign of experimentation as well as musicality that is hers and hers alone and above all, personal expression.
“One life but we’re not the same/We get to carry each other, carry each other.” – ‘One’ by U2
To Natasha, her first EP, Munaasib was an expression of the musicality that she wanted to showcase, self-belief and getting over the fear that she wasn’t good enough which resulted in “keeping demos in my phone for a million years and not releasing them.”
From Munaasib, Natasha has moved on to her second EP, the upcoming Ronaq (2023). From Ronaq, Natasha has released two songs: ‘Choro’ in 2021, followed by ‘Laiyan’ in 2022. Both songs are refreshing and retain a Natasha Noorani signature but they’re also a step ahead and offer a duality when compared to Munaasib.
As Natasha notes, “It seems like a huge transition, and in a way, it really is, but, the musicality of Ronaq and the conceptualism is very much about who I am and have always been. Munaasib (2018) and Ronaq (2023) are different sides of the same person.”
Both songs from the EP have different producers. If Munaasib was about giving the musician inside Natasha some space, Ronaq is about stretching her wings. But Natasha doesn’t take credit away from others involved in the two songs.
The first song from the EP is called ‘Choro’ with Abdullah Siddiqui as co-producer. Working with producers like Abdullah Siddiqui and Talal Qureshi, says Natasha, is a blessing and it allows her to not be stifled in the studio. The room to experiment is what allowed her to co-produce.
“The first song, ‘Choro’ was also about me coming with my own production sound and collaborating with Abdullah on that, hence, it says co-produced. It really gave me that ability to just create the music that I want to create.”
Don’t be fooled by the eye-popping colours you see in the music video of her second song, ‘Laiyan’. There is a profound thought that you might’ve missed because of its playful character.
Natasha Noorani in a still from the music video of ‘Choro’, the first song from Ronaq, set to release in 2023.
Here, we need to first decipher Peshkash Music. Natasha Noorani is the force behind it and described how it has been in her life for the last five or six years but was formalized in recent years. It gave her a chance to listen to artists as diverse as Naheed Akhtar, Runa Laila, Salma Agha and many others that Natasha didn’t grow up listening to due to lack of access.
“The music was not readily available. Through buying records, dedicated research and digitization on Spotify, the access has been found.
“The reason I’m drawn to this research is because I feel it can help me contextualize the music industry and ecosystem today.
“On a personal level, I saw examples of voices that really spoke to me. I love the fact that Runa Laila sang a Mili Naghma but also sang ‘Jab Se Gaya Hai Mera Bachpan’.
The versatility of a female artist is no longer as welcome in today’s industry. For me, it was like ‘hey, there’s context, there is precedence’. I kind of really explored that core, which you can hear in ‘Faltu Pyar’ (with Hasan Raheem but not on the EP) and a bit in ‘Laiyan’ as well. It is not nostalgia but at the core, it is representation, the source and music that is inspiring.”
Like a foundation to build upon, I interpolate.
“Exactly. The fem voices spoke to me. It is not exactly the same thing because then it becomes a cover album. What I thought about is how – in the studio – I come up with melodies and what if my voice is the sample?”
What if, as Natasha says, she considers the melodies she makes where she’d sample from an older record.
Think ‘Laiyan’, a desi-Lollywood-inspired pop song that has a sense of modern interpretation of longing for someone but also takes on all the tropes possible. And it is the most out-there song in Natasha’s repertoire.
“If you notice the lyrics, I’m taking biggest tropes that would make poets skip a heartbeat and that’s okay with me,” she says. “I really do like pushing that boundary in terms of how I’m exploring R’n’B and pop as a genre.”
With ‘Laiyan’, Natasha certainly did prove her mettle as an R’n’B-meets-pop artist. She agrees that it was an effort to modernize older songs, not because they need modernization.
“It is about placing them in a way that it feels completely new. But if you’re really listening to it, you can hear all the references you possibly can. The music video also reflects that. In Sitara Aur Mehrunnisa, there is a scene where Atiqa Odho is calling her lover or someone and she’s on a green phone, something as simple as that like a prop shot and I made sure that the same green phone is in ‘Laiyan’. The song is an amalgamation of these small little references within our culture.”
The rest of the songs, promises Natasha, on Ronaq are not as pop-y but the voice is different.
“You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.” – ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon
What Natasha does take pride in is the versatility that’s palpable to her but not all of us. “It’s very hard for me to be out loud because of self-doubts but I do stand by the fact that I have a versatile talent of both listening and songwriting. And hence, I work with different producers and come up with different sounds and try things that may or may not work on a commercial level but they add and facilitate so much to my musical education and trajectory that no song I do is a bummer for me that way. No song has no value to me. Yes, it may not have commercial value. But it does have value.”
“Music is the shorthand of emotion.” – Leo Tolstoy
Natasha Noorani has played several roles within the music ecosystem but as an artist one of her career high points has to be performing on Boiler Room during its first Pakistan edition. Watching the performance, at one point, Natasha says she is Ronaq. Is the album, therefore, an identity, a new one at that?
Laiyan’ is a desi Lollywood-meets-pop track about longing
“I don’t think Ronaq is a personification of something outside of me. It is not necessarily a persona because that means it is something from outside of me that I’m trying to put within. Ronaq is parts of myself that allows me to be myself to its fullest without getting caught up in other things. It’s a mindset in a way. Ronaq, not in the literal sense of the word, but is parts of my personality that’s able to make these risky moves in terms of musical experimentation and representation of me visually in so many different ways that I haven’t done before but all of this is coming from within me.”
Between making segues to her commercial work, we continue to land on her music. The Boiler Room performance, remembers Natasha, is entrenched in another festival called Sine Valley, held in Nepal in 2017.
“The seeds for this were planted about 5-6 years ago when I attended my first Sine Valley (in Nepal). It was organized by Daniel Arthur Panjwaneey and that’s where I began a solo, electronic artist. It was the beginning of my musical career in a larger sense and the trajectory that I’m on and the culmination of many years of hard work began,”
Crediting Daniel Arthur Panjwaneey who saw a spark in her to include her in the festival, it was the first time Natasha had stepped into the electronic music scene. “It was still pretty much the same as the Boiler Room setup. I played at Sine Valley and the songs I wrote for Sine Valley ended up on Munaasib.”
Beyond her solo music, to learn more about the versatile Natasha Noorani, take a look at the centerspread inside. You won’t be disappointed.
One of Ireland’s most acclaimed and prolific authors shares with Ben Haugh some of the most important things he has learned and observed about the art of reading and writing
Colm Tóibín is one of Ireland’s most prolific writers, having penned ten novels, nine non-fiction books, along with many short stories, novellas and even a play. The acclaimed author’s works have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize multiple times, and his honours include the Costa Novel Award, the Impac Award and the David Cohen Prize for Literature last year. Tóibín’s latest book, A Guest at the Feast, is a collection of essays published over the …
Ayushmann Khurrana’s An Action Hero released in theatres on Friday and has largely received positive reviews. However, the makers of the film have received flack for remaking the two songs – Jehda Nasha and Aap Jaisa Koi – in the film.
Amid backlash for Jehda Nasha, Ayushmann has said that he is happy that the original creators of the song, Faridkot, has collaborated with An Action Hero and said that “now this song will reach the masses”.
Ayushmann told Mashable India in an interview, “I was listening to this song on loop during the pandemic. Independent music rose during the pandemic, the pandemic gave independent music such a push. Because you could be home, compose music and put it out there, everyone was home and a lot of us were listening to a lot of music and consuming it. All the big stars of independent music today owe it to the pandemic.”
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Adding that Faridkot got mainstream success because of his film, Ayushmann said, “Talking about Faridkot band, it is a good thing that they’re the collaborators and this song is onboard for An Action Hero. Now this song will reach the masses. It already did and I know it because the watchman of my building was watching the video of the song, and he told me how good it is. When I asked him if he had heard it before, he said no. I am glad the song has reached an audience where it hadn’t reached before.”
Earlier, the film’s music composer Tanishk Bagchi had said that recreations help “original singers in getting noticed”. In a chat with Hindustan Times, the composer said that the audience does not “even know the name of Jehda Nasha’s original singers (Amar Jalal and IP Singh). You only know my name because I have recreated it. Log jaante hi nahi ki kisne gaaya hai wo gaana (People don’t know the names of the original singers).” He added, “This step of recreating the song and picturising it on Ayushmann Khurrana and Nora Fatehi will help the original singers in getting noticed. We are just becoming a window for these people to come out in the mainstream.”
You don’t see many concert cellists who also write music. If those talents are combined, they are usually in someone who is a composer first and a cellist second.
Luigi Boccherini, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Victor Herbert and David Baker were all good enough cellists to play professionally.
Then there are cellists who focus their compositions on their own instrument, such as Pablo Casals and David Popper. Clancy Newman, who tours as an orchestral soloist and recitalist, seems to have found success in this niche.
Newman played several of his works and arrangements Thursday at Cuyamaca College as part of the Echo Chamber Music Series, along with compositions by Samuel Barber, Lukas Foss and Kenji Bunch. He was sharply accompanied by Natalie Zhu on piano.
Newman’s 2008 opus, “From Method to Madness,” certainly begins methodically. A repeated pitch is plucked out first by the cello, then sounded by the piano. A second pitch is brought in, then a third, as the rhythms and the tempos increase in a somewhat mechanical manner. As this section reaches a climax of volume and texture, it suddenly switches into a frenetic pattern of 2 + 2 phrasing, with a blues-like tune ground out by the cello — presumably the “madness” section.
It plays out rather simply but effectively, although the only thing tying the two sections together is the underlying tonality.
Newman’s solo cello arrangements of Billboard-charting hits seem more likely to appeal to other cellists. In his “Pop-Unpopped” series, he stretched his techniques to better simulate melody and accompaniment.
His version of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” calls for left hand pizzicatos and fingerboard hammer-ons in contrast to the more typical right hand plucking. His arrangement of “Uptown Funk” employs percussive effects on the cello body and glissandos simulating Bruno Mars’ cat calls.
The cleverness of the arrangements and Newman’s effortless mastery of these unusual techniques made “Pop-Unpopped” winning works.
The concert opened with Barber’s 1932 Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Minor, Op. 6. Composed while Barber was still a student at Curtis, it doesn’t quite have the hallmarks of his mature style. Yet its hyper-Romantic gestures and some nontraditional harmonic progressions hint at things to come.
Over a decade later, Foss — a recent Curtis alumnus in his early 20s — wrote his Capriccio for Cello and Piano, a sassy romp that hints at Hindemith and Copland (especially “Billy the Kid” and “Rodeo”).
Bunch, an American violist, is a successful composer of unabashedly tonal works. His “Broken Voice” for cello and piano was premiered by Newman in 2003. Bunch lives in Portland, Ore., yet somehow “Broken Voice” took 19 years to make it to the West Coast.
You’d think that more contemporary tonal composers would be able to write a good tune as Bunch can, but only a few of his peers possess that skill. Bunch’s compositions get the job done, but they are prone to long stretches of static harmony. One wishes there was more liveliness and inevitability in moving from one chord to the next.
The four movements of “Broken Voice” are exceedingly well scored for the cello, with equally fluent textures in the piano. Newman and Zhu performed it — as they did all evening — with assured technique and winning showmanship.
For any audience members who needed something more traditional and European, an encore of the slow movement from Chopin’s Sonata for Cello and Piano was beautifully played.
Hertzog is a freelance writer.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.
KINGSTON, R.I. – Dec. 2, 2022 – ’Tis the season of holiday concerts and the University of Rhode Island is featuring two shows that will ring in the season in their own way.
For those looking for offerings other than holiday tunes, there is also a full slate of semester-ending shows from the University’s Concert Band, Wind Ensemble, Concert Choir, and more. All concerts will be held in the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, 105 Upper Collage Road, Kingston. Tickets are $15 for the general public; $10 for students and seniors 60 and older.
The always-popular holiday concert featuring the Symphony Orchestra and University Chorus opens the season Saturday, Dec. 3, at 8 p.m. For tickets, go to the event webpage.
The chorus, backed by pianist Nathaniel Baker, will present “Peace and Light,” a concert of traditional spirituals and classical and contemporary pieces by such masters as Mozart and Mendelssohn and contemporary composers Joan Szymko, Elizabeth Alexander, and Susan LaBarr. The chorus will open with Szymko’s “Myr, Zaraz” (Peace Now), which was written in response to the war in Ukraine.
The orchestra will perform Tchaikovsky’s magical Symphony No. 1, movement 1. Nicknamed “Winter Daydreams,” the symphony has the “charm and spirit” of the composer’s famous “Nutcracker” ballet, said orchestra director Sam Hollister. The concert will also feature a suite of piano pieces by Elfrida Andrée, Scandinavia’s first female cathedral organist and Sweden’s first female orchestral conductor. Hollister arranged the Romantic era piano pieces for orchestra.
“Andrée wrote prolifically for the organ and piano, yet her gorgeous works are often unheard in the orchestral world,” he said. “I am honored to bring some of her works to life in an orchestral format so that we may appreciate their warmth, creativity, charm, and ability to capture the holiday spirit.”
The orchestra and chorus will join forces on Mendelssohn’s “Verleih’ uns Frieden” (Grant us Peace). “The message of ‘Verleih’ uns Frieden’ is a beautiful reminder of peace during the holiday season,” said chorus director Elizabeth Woodhouse. “It is one of my favorite pieces and it is especially exciting to be able to perform it with the orchestra.”
‘A Soulful Holiday Celebration’
If you’re looking for a more jazzy, R&B or soulful twist on the holiday season, the Jazz Big Band is teaming up with the Jazz Vocal Ensemble on Saturday, Dec. 10, at 8 p.m. in the Concert Hall for a show of holiday classics and a few musical surprises. For tickets, please go to the event webpage.
Atla DeChamplain, a jazz vocalist who was mentored by the legendary Jon Hendricks, joined URI in August 2021 as an assistant teaching professor in the new amplified voice program. This fall, she launched the Jazz Vocal Ensemble, which performed with the Big Band for the first time earlier this fall.
“I am thrilled for the opportunity to collaborate with the Big Band,” she said. “It’s something I wanted to do at every institution I’ve taught, but URI is the first to pull it off. I’m grateful to be part of URI music because we’re not afraid to try new things, and the students are thriving.”
Ricki Rizzo, a music major in amplified voice and jazz studies, has performed with the Big Band as a member of the ensemble and as a soloist. “Being able to sing with such a talented group of individuals has allowed me to experience what it would be like performing with a professional big band,” she said. “Not only have I had a great time playing with them, but they have provided me feedback that has allowed me to grow as a vocalist.”
The concert will include new gospel compositions from resident artist, composer and pianist Alton Merrell, and a number of instrumental pieces by the Big Band.
“Doctor Merrell has worked with our jazz students this semester on the relationship between jazz and gospel music,” said Emmett Goods, director of the Big Band. “He’s also taken our students through his own highly complex arrangements. This is a concert not to be missed.”
The rest of the lineup
Along with the holiday concerts, the next few weeks will host performances by other University ensembles:
On Friday, Dec. 9, the Concert Band and Wind Ensemble will present back-to-back concerts starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall. Both ensembles are under the direction of Brian Cardany, URI’s director of bands.
The Wind Ensemble will perform works by American composers, including “Chester Overture” by William Schuman, “Fantasia for Band” by Vittorio Giannini, “Variation on a Medieval Tune” by Norman Dello Joio, and “Suite of Old American Dances” by Robert Russell Bennett. The Concert Band’s program will include some of the most popular composers of the medium – James Curnow’s “Fanfare and Flourishes,” David Holsinger’s “Three Tapestries,” Michael Mogensen’s “Evókatah,” and Franco Cesarini’s “Greek Folk Song Suite.”
Tickets can be purchased at the concert webpage.
On Sunday, Dec. 11, the music of URI student composition majors will be featured starting at 7 p.m. in the Concert Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.
The concert will feature 11 works by 10 student composers, ranging in styles from jazz and popular music to such classical periods as contemporary and baroque. Along with the work of the composers, the show highlights the talents of more than 40 student vocalists and musicians who bring these original compositions to life.
“Having a composers’ concert every semester is an immensely rewarding experience for the composers,” said Eliane Aberdam, music professor and teacher of composition. “Along with helping composers build their portfolios, they get to hear what their music actually sounds like, how the balance between parts work (or not), and see for themselves the level of feasibility in actual performance by humans, as opposed to the playback of a computer. Composing is a lonely experience, so the concerts and rehearsals offer a way to connect with people – performers and the audience.”
On Monday, Dec. 12, the Concert Choir will present an encore performance of its mid-fall concert, “Do Not Leave Your Cares at the Door,” which features new works by Aberdam. The choir, under the direction of Mark Conley, will also perform an additional movement of Aberdam’s “Doors,” along with a piece by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez and a chant by medieval mystic and composer Hildegard von Bingen. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall. Tickets can be purchased here.
For other Music Department performances – such as convocations, recitals, and smaller ensemble concerts – check out its events webpage.
John Ignatowski poses at a familiar post behind a church organ in a recent photo. Ignatowski was selected by the Marquette Choral Society to recieve the 2022 Upper Peninsula Choral Leadership Award for his work across the U.P. and Canada. (Courtesy photo)
By Journal Staff
MARQUETTE — The Marquette Choral Society has honored John Ignatowski with the 2022 Upper Peninsula Choral Leadership Award.
Ignatowski received the honor for his musical talent along with his long-time contributions to choral groups throughout the Upper Peninsula and regions of Canada.
He has a long list of accomplishments working in both religious and secular capacities.
Ignatowski is currently the director of sacred music and liturgy at the St. Jospeh & St. Patrick Parish in Escanaba.
His other experience includes service at the St. Peter Cathedral in Marquette and Holy Name of Mary Proto-Cathedral in Sault Ste. Marie.
Ignatowski has also worked across the border as the music director of the Algoma Fall Festival Choir in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.
Ignatowski has also played a prominent role with Catholic Diocese of Marquette liturgies with his service as the music director and conductor of the choir for the episcopal ordination of Bishop Alexander Sample in 2006 and also performed the same role during the Sesquicentennial Mass at the Superior Dome in 2007.
He is also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, mainly playing the piano, organ and harpsichord, while he also plays the violoncello, bass viola and traditional fiddle.
Ignatowski has published multiple compositions, including “Shepherds Toiling in the Soil”, a song featured in the Hymnal of the Diocese of Marquette.
