What a genius Dudley Moore was, and what a shame that we lost him much too soon. A friend pointed me to this classic video of Moore doing two parodies of Britten and Weill, and then I discovered a brilliant version of Schubert’s Erlkönig, too… and then this parody of a Beethoven piano sonata,
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While the Classical Beaver makes it seem like we in the Oregon Symphony are doing keg stands, beer bongs, wet t-shirt competitions, and slathering sunscreen all over each other’s bodies during spring break, it’s often quite different for some of us. Yes, there are some lucky musicians who have scraped together the funds to head
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The XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition has announced the competitors that have made it through to the first live rounds. The categories are piano, violin, cello and voice. The most interesting tidbit from the competitors lists is that former Seattle Symphony principal cellist Joshua Roman has made the cut. It will be interesting to see how
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The Oregon Symphony’s Beethoven Festival (rehearsals begin today) kicks off May 15th with the Lenore Overture No. 3, the Piano Concerto No. 2, and the Triple Concerto. Arnaldo Cohen is the amazing pianist who will be playing all of the concertos. He’ll be joined in the Triple by OSO concertmaster Jun Iwasaki and cellist Quirine
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As a violist, I’m a big fan of Schubert’s Sonata for Arpeggione (an now-defunct six-stringed instrument resembling a cello). It has all the great melodic lines that you expect of Schubert, and it’s one of the great pieces written for any instrument. Cellists like to claim it as their own, but there is nary an
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Of course, it’s in China. [link]
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Pianist Mark André Hamelin has composed this ode to that most disturbing and recognizable ring tone – the Nokia Song.
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Saturday, December 19th, the quartet played the Newport Performing Arts Center in Newport, Oregon as part of the Newport Symphony’s 2009-2010 season. We were invited by the NSO’s music director Adam Flatt, who Heather and I know well from his years as an apprentice conductor with the Oregon Symphony over a decade ago. He asked
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On this coming weekend’s performances there are two seminal works of two major composers who blazed a trail for their respective nation’s modern musical heritage: the composers are Charles Ives and Béla Bartók, and the works are Ives’ Three Places in New England and Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto. To round out the theme (intended or
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The Arnica String Quartet, with guest cellist Marilyn De Oliviera, will be playing a concert presented by the Newport Symphony at the Newport Performing Arts Center on Saturday, December 19 at 7:30 p.m. It’s an all-French program: the Debussy String Quartet, op. 10, the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello, and Franck’s grand Quintet for
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It’s the middle of the summer. The dog days, one might say, at least here in Portland, where the mercury is expected to top 90°F again today. There is little going on, classical musically speaking in Portland right now, except for the final concerts of Chamber Music Northwest‘s summer festival this Thursday through Sunday. The
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I hope you all have a chance to come to the concert this weekend, it’s shaping up to be very interesting and very well played. Our dress rehearsal this morning was quite good, with the Mozart “Linz” Symphony jelling into what one should expect from this orchestra – elegant and flexible. Horacio Gutierrez is masterful
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Cellist Gregory Dubay plays the Brahms e-minor Sonata with pianist Bill Crane just after dawn. Pianist and organist Tamara Still plays selections from Bach’s Goldberg Variations at 8 a.m. Soprano Lisa Mooyman, pianist Bill Crane and cellist Justin Kagan. Cellist Justin Kagan.
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Tomas Svoboda Tomas Svoboda’s new opus is opus 197, to be exact: Vortex for Orchestra. It’s quite a piece, very elegantly crafted, full of energy and vibrant textures, and it’s really something of a concerto for orchestra. Tomas Svoboda is clearly at the height of his powers these days (was he ever anything but thus?)
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Violinist Jonathan Dubay and cellist Gregory Dubay will give a concert of chamber music for strings and piano by Brahms with pianist Janet Guggenheim. It’s a selection of some of Brahms’ best works for strings – the A major Violin Sonata, the E minor Cello Sonata, and the Trio in B major, Op. 8. Should
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