Category: music composition

A unique opportunity for people in Salina to experience the intersection of classical and electronic music is coming, as the Salina Symphony is hosting a club night downtown next week.

The Non-Classical Club Night begins with doors opening at 8:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4 at The Warehouse, 500 N. Fifth St., and will feature music by composer and DJ Gabriel Prokofiev.

“His music is a really interesting intersection of classical and electronic,” said Adrianne Allen, executive director of the symphony.

Prokofiev, who will also be featured during the symphony’s Nov. 6 concert, “Romance,” is the grandson of prolific Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, and is no stranger to what many would typically think of as symphonic music.

“His approach is very, very different (from his grandfather),” said Yaniv Segal, the music director and conductor of the Salina Symphony. “(Gabriel) grew up playing acoustic music in school bands and ended up playing some keyboards. When he was young, he got into electronic music and synthesizers, which kind of became his passion.”

Combining the acoustic with the electronic

Segal said Gabriel began creating music in both acoustic and electronic, separately, but ended up combining the two into one.

“His big thing is to have live musicians for part of it and then he can play his own electronics, together, with the musicians,” Segal said.

When the club show happens in Salina, Prokofiev will be joined by Segal on violin and Melanie Mann, the symphony’s principal violist.

“We’ll be performing some music from this new album he’s released called ‘Breaking Screens,'” Segal said. “That’s somewhat relevant, because the symphony is actually playing the same thing with him, in a larger version, (at the concert) on Sunday.”

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In addition to this tease of the “Romance” concert, the club show will also have remixes of Prokofiev’s string quartets. Finally, the night will feature not only these performance sets, but will also give those attending a taste of what a live DJ set can be.

“(It’s) a more traditional club set, where he’s DJing by himself,” Segal said. “I think that’ll have more beats to it.”

Bringing everyone access to music

Segal is very aware of the perception of many, that the symphony is something reserved for the elite and the upper-class, with only classic styles of music being played in the concert hall. He also said he hopes these kinds of perceptions can be dismissed.

“We’re about a hundred years removed from the world premiere of a piece called ‘Rhapsody in Blue,'” he said. “At the time, George Gershwin was bringing jazz into a concert hall. Now, you can go to any classical concert and hear ‘Rhapsody in Blue.'”

He said allowing relevant and new music into the sphere of the classical concert hall brought such greats as Leonard Bernstein.

“If you think about Mozart and Beethoven, they included Turkish music into some of their most well-known pieces,” Segal said. “These old symphonies, their third movements were typically minuets, which was a dance that people did.”

Segal said there is a history of bringing the relevant dance and folk music of the time into the concert hall.

“Gabriel is doing that…taking hip hop, funk (or) whatever you might hear in a club setting, and bringing that into his concert pieces,” Segal said.

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Not only is work like Prokofiev’s bringing that relevance to the classical, but the reverse is happening as well.

“We’re bringing the classical music into the club,” Segal said.

Segal said he recognizes the history of classical music has been one that was supported by kings, queens and other royalty, skewing toward the elite.

“I’m trying to move away from that,” he said. “I think the type of demographic that might be attracted to a club night, exactly as we’re hoping, will be for someone who is looking for a different experience and to tie that experience together with the symphony.”

This kind of event is right in line with the messaging that Segal is trying to get across, that the symphony can offer and include something for everyone.

“Somebody who might otherwise not have thought about coming on Sunday, if they enjoy what they hear on Friday, maybe they’ll consider coming back (to other symphony events) and then have an opportunity to hear a wide variety of music,” Segal said.

Tickets for the club night on sale now

Tickets for the the Salina Symphony Non-Classical Club Night are available until Tuesday, Nov. 1 and are $30.

The event is limited to adults aged 21 and over with each ticker holder getting small bites and two adult beverages.

For more information about this event or to purchase tickets, visit the Salina Symphony website at www.salinasymphony.org and searching Non-Classical.

I would like to contribute to FFF (Fridays for Future) in my own way: by sharing one concrete action per week that YOU can do, and which I have done, for combating climate change. 

FFF week 12: EcoEgg

Reviews: Read What Critics Think of Straight Line Crazy, Starring Ralph Fiennes, at Off-Broadway’s The Shed

A transfer from London, the production examines the legacy of Robert Moses, the controversial “builder” of modern New York City.

Reviews are in for David Hare’s Straight Line Crazy, starring Tony winner Ralph Fiennes (Hamlet), at The Shed’s Griffin Theater. The show began previews Off-Broadway October 18 ahead of its October 26 opening night. Performances are set to run through December 18.

Fiennes reprises his role as Robert Moses, having starred in the show’s world premiere at London’s The Bridge earlier this year, with Tony winner Nicholas Hytner (The History Boys, Carousel) and Jamie Armitage at the helm. Straight Line Crazy delves into the questionable legacy of Moses and his enduring impact on New York through an imagined retelling of two decisive moments in his controversial career: his rise to power in the late 1920s and the public outcry against the corrosive effects of that power in the mid-1950s.

Read the reviews here.

Audacy (David Caplan)

City Journal (Nicole Gelinas)

New York Stage Review (Steven Suskin)

The New York Sun (Elysa Gardner)*

New York Theater (Jonathan Mandell)

New York Theatre Guide (Gillian Russo)

The New York Times (Jesse Green)*

Theatermania (Zachary Stewart)

Theater Pizzazz (Brian Scott Lipton)

Vulture (Jackson McHenry)

The Wrap (Robert Hofler)

*This review requires creating a free account or a paid subscription.

Playbill will continue to update this list as reviews come in.

Fiennes is joined on stage by Aisha Bailey as Mariah Heller, David Bromley as Stamford Fergus, Al Coppola as Sandy McQuade, Andrew Lewis as Lewis Mason, Alana Maria as Shirley Hayes, Guy Paul as Henry Vanderbilt, Krysten Peck as Carol Amis, Judith Roddy as Finnuala Connell, Helen Schlesinger as Jane Jacobs, Adam Silver as Ariel Porter, Mary Stillwaggon Stewart as Nicole Savage, and Danny Webb as Governor Al Smith.

WATCH: CBS Sunday Morning Goes Behind the History of Straight Line Crazy

The production also has set and costume design by Bob Crowley, lighting design by Jessica Hung Han Yun, sound design by George Dennis, music composition by George Fenton, associate design by Jaimie Todd, and casting by Robert Sterne. The production stage manager is Cynthia Cahill.

Fiennes (Faith Healer), Hytner (One Man, Two Guvnors), and Hare (Skylight) previously collaborated on Hare’s Beat the Devil, which ran at The Bridge in 2020.

Visit TheShed.org.

Go inside the production below.

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See Photos of Ralph Fiennes in Straight Line Crazy

Summer has finally come to Finland and German but my heart and mind is currently full of ICE!

Thanks for all of my Instagram followers super inspirational suggestions on music inspired by ice, now my own piece ICE for Sinfonia Lahti and the city of Lahti is finally ready and recorded! Video premiere coming up in August and the concert premiere was announced only this week: January 20th 2022 by Sinfonia Lahti conducted by their amazing brand new chief conductor Dalia Stasevska. 

Thank you Sinfonia Lahti and Dalia for an incredible job and can’t wait for everyone to hear what an marvellous interpretation you did of my piece!

And congratulations to the city of Lahti for being the Green Capital of Europe 2021!

Here is a small sneak peek behind the scenes of recording ICE on the 7th of May with Sinfonia Lahti and Dalia Stasevska!

Was such a fun experience to finally get to work with the fantastic Dalia Stasevska! Amazing on the podium, in rehearsal, in every single way!

Video premiere recorded for August, concert premiere coming up on her first #Mixtape concert on January 20th 2022! So happy that my music is included in Dalia’s first season as chief conductor!

ICE for Sinfonia Lahti is commissioned in honour of Lahti being the European Green Capital 2021. The piece is inspired by melting ice and in the piece we can hear how landscapes and winter become ever shorter, in the end while alarm signals are chiming and all possible breaks are put into action. Through this piece I try to express how global warming as well as the collapse of ecosystems and the ever faster growing tempo of the world, is killing the beautiful snow and ice structures of millions of years, and how the heart of the earth is fighting for its existence through each beat. In this piece I have also tried to describe what happens if we WILL take action: you can hear a rewind, how action has impact and can make us go back to winters. The name ICE stands both for ice and for “In Case of Emergency”.

Daniel Mackin Freeman, a doctoral candidate in sociology, and Dara Shifrer, an associate professor of sociology, used a large nationally representative dataset to see which types of arts classes impact math achievement and how it varies based on the socio-economic composition of the school. Schools with lower socio-economic status (SES) have a higher percentage of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.

The researchers found that taking music courses at higher- or mid-SES schools relates to higher math scores. Mackin Freeman said that’s not a surprise given the ways in which music and math overlap.

“If you think about it at an intuitive level, reading music is just doing math,” he said. “Of course, it’s a different type of math but it might be a more engaging form of math for students than learning calculus.”

However, the positive relationship between music course-taking and math achievement is primarily isolated to schools that serve more socially privileged students. The study suggests this could be because arts courses in low-SES schools are of lower quality and/or under-resourced. Students in low-SES schools also take fewer music and arts classes on average compared to their peers, also suggesting low-SES schools are under-resourced when it comes to arts courses.

“It’d be reasonable to expect that at under-resourced schools, the quality of the music program would differentiate any potential connection to other subjects,” Mackin Freeman said. “For programs as resource-intensive as something like band, under-resourced schools are less likely to even have working instruments, let alone an instructor who can teach students to read music in a way that they can make connections to arithmetic.”

Mackin Freeman said the findings suggest that learning shouldn’t happen in subject silos and the ways some schools have attempted to increase math achievement—by doubling down on math and cutting the arts—is shortsighted and counterproductive.

“Creating an environment where students have access to a well-rounded curriculum might indirectly affect math achievement,” he said. “That could be something as simple as, they’re willing to go to class because they have band or painting class to look forward to.”

The study was published in the journal Sociological Perspectives.

I would like to contribute to FFF (Fridays for Future) in my own way: by sharing one concrete action per week that YOU can do, and which I have done, for combating climate change. 

FFF13: Clean a beach ( #Satakolkyt )

WHY: Cleaning beaches improves the coastal and ocean ecosystem by making sure that none of the trash kills marine life or is toxic enough to disrupt the marine life cycle. The more biodiversity, the better nature can combat climate change (and according to research also more biodiversity goes together with less risk of pandemics)! In Helsinki the initiative “Satakolkyt” (Hundered and thirty) was launched to inspire people to enjoy the beaches of Helsinki while helping nature at the same time. 

WHAT CAN I DO: If you live in Helsinki: go to the website www.satakolkyt.fi , check which beach hasn’t been cleaned yet, borrow cleaning equipment from the library and mark the beach you have cleaned on the map. So far 170 km beaches have been cleaned in Helsinki through this initiative! If you live somewhere else, you can still clean a beach, nature will be just as happy and thankful. And I think you will too!

I usually each summer clean the public beach close to my parents’ summer house, because then I enjoy that beach more as well.

PS. You can also make it to a game with friends: the one that collects the most trash wins a *chocolate/beer/ self made up* award! Just remember to be careful and stay safe!

Link: https://satakolkyt.fi

The 76th Concours de Genève Composition Competition wrapped up on Wednesday 26 October, with First Prize awarded to Shin Kim (27, from South Korea) for his work The Song of Oneiroi, for six voices and microphones.

Yuki Nakahashi (26, Japan) took Second Prize for Settings, for vocal ensemble. Third Prize was awarded to Ármin Cservenák (26, Hungary) for his work Madrigali, for six voices.

Candidates for the 2022 Composition competition were required to submit a work for vocal ensemble, composed for six singers: bass, baritone, tenor, mezzo-soprano, soprano and coloratura soprano. The finalist works were performed as a world premiere by the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.

Since its creation in 1939, the Concours de Genève’s mission has been to discover, promote and support the best young artists of the moment. As well as the official prizes, the Geneva International Music Competition offers a Prizewinners’ Career Development Programme, providing the support and guidance needed to launch a career. The programme includes two years of management by the Sartory Artists agency, as well as recordings, international tours and a professional training workshop.

Shin Kim is a student at Korea University of the Arts in Seoul, where he is completing a master’s degree: he has also studied with the Austrian composer and sound artist Karlheinz Essl. In his work he distinguishes three major themes: religion, narrative and psychological phenomena.

In The Song of Oneiroi, Shin Kim tells the story of the dream world, drawing on pronunciation systems from various languages and using microphones to amplify and diversify his music.

Shin Kim pic: Anne-Laure Lechat