Young Max Ball (he’s 9 years old) is a violinist, cellist, pianist, and composer. Not suitably impressed? Well, he also does his own piano reductions of wee masterpieces like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. And he lives right here in Portland! Take a listen:
Get read for the next 45th Parallel concert – Greg Ewer’s brilliant addition to the local concert scene is presenting two of the best violinists/fiddlers you’ll have occasion to witness this Thursday and Friday – May 4th and 5th at 8 PM – at the Old Church in Portland. Get your tickets here, before they’re gone!
Kevin Burke is a suave and slyly devilish Irish fiddler who has complete mastery of his instrument and musical genre. He’ll be joined by members of 45th Parallel and his long-time collaborator, guitarist Cal Scott, in his Irish Sessions Suite. Here’s a clip of Kevin doing his thing:
Gilles Apap is an astonishing violinist. He crosses all genres and styles – playing everything from Mozart to Grapelli with equal mastery and virtuosity. The great violinist Sir Yehudi Menuhin called him “a true violinist for the 21st century”. Here he plays his incomparable cadenza to Mozart’s G major violin concerto:
This past Thursday night, the Oregon Symphony was broadcast as part of a new series of local and web-streamed broadcasts on our local public classical music station, allclassical.org. In the past we’d had a series of broadcasts on the local NPR station, which were then shifted over to the home of classical music on the radio here in Portland. Due to funding issues, the broadcasts were phased out, and last year’s simulcast of our Carnegie Hall debut was the first to be heard in Portland in some time. Thankfully, funding was found, and in May and September of this year the OSO will be heard in three additional broadcast concerts.
As a titled player, I seldom get the chance to hear the orchestra from the perspective of the audience – I’m pretty much playing every piece on every concert (and when I get time off, I stay away from the concert hall). I hear a lot more than an audience member might, but especially in the Schnitz, it’s hard to hear the orchestra in its entirety rather than in its multiplicity of component parts. That’s why playing in Carnegie Hall was such a revelation to we musicians in the orchestra: we finally got to hear what we really sounded like without having to sit in the audience.
So, getting to hear what we sound like in our own hall (albeit in the somewhat manipulated circumstances of a multi-channel, multi-miked recording) was a chance to hear where we’ve come in the past ten years. In short, we’ve become an entirely different orchestra. The string sound is lush, but clear. The brass are ferociously powerful, but also sensitive and capable of a burnished tone. The woodwinds are breathtaking in their virtuosity. And the percussion are accurate, musical, and create countless different sonic effects. I think that our Mozart (and other Classical period) performances are unique among North American orchestras, since we play with limited vibrato and with a keen sense of lithe phrasing and unity of ensemble. We’re now a virtuoso ensemble capable of performances that match any in the US, and maybe the world, given the right direction, repertoire, and inspiration. We have a music director who knows music, and how to get what he wants to suit his vision of that music. We have a great staff that works tirelessly for us twelve months of the year, and we have loyal patrons and fans that come out to every concert we give. That’s not such a bad place to work, especially given that we work in Portland, one of the best cities to live in in the world.
Now, can we get started on finding out how to get a new hall, please?
Tonight, Thursday the 26th, is the night that the Oregon Symphony regains the airwaves in its first local broadcast performances in several years (aside from the Carnegie Hall concert last year). Here’s the info:
Kahane Plays Mozart
Carlos Kalmar, conductor
Jeffrey Kahane, piano
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25
Elgar: Cockaigne (In London Town)
Original concert dates: Feb. 18/19, 2012
Broadcast date: 7:00 pm, Thursday, Apr. 26, 2012
Tune in either by tuning your radio to 89.9 FM (in Oregon/SW Washington), or go to www.allclassical.org and click on the “listen now” button at the top of the page. It will also be available as an on-demand stream for two weeks from the original broadcast date.
I was just watching a special feature that AMC produces with each new episode of Mad Men, where the creator of the show, Matthew Weiner, was describing the thematic subtext of the episode. It was about displacement, going away to another place, and being with who you want to be with while doing so. This gave me pause, as I hadn’t really been thinking about anything like that when watching the episode. Today, I realized that my experience was like that of many concertgoers who hear a piece of music, and are affected by it – sometimes deeply so – and aren’t aware of why. The piece of music can be completely and justifiably enjoyed without knowing how it is constructed or why it was constructed in that manner. Some pieces are better appreciated if their deep structure is known, but most music can simply be enjoyed (or not) on the listener’s own subjective criteria.