November 2009

Save the date

November 30, 2009

I receive a regular stream of emails from arts organizations inquiring about TGN’s calendar and how their concerts can be listed.  In an earlier version of this blog, I actually managed a Google calendar that was embedded into the site.  I am one person, and keeping track of Seattle events was time consuming.  Right about [...]

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Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Nutcracker” Returns to McCaw Hall

November 30, 2009

By: R.M. Campbell For more than 30 years now, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker” is a fixture of the holiday season. Actually, its is in most American cities but few have similar visual charm and panache. And so, PNB opened its 2009 edition of this veritable warhorse over the weekend at McCaw Hall. [...]

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Recording round up

November 27, 2009

It has been a busy fall for live performances and equally busy for new, recommendable album releases.  A survey of some of the best, new recordings is overdue. One of the most notable releases, is the San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony. It is hard to get this piece to sound right [...]

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French pianist returns to Meany Hall

November 26, 2009

By: R.M. Campbell Lise de la Salle was by most accounts a prodigy. Born in France in 1988, the pianist made her recital debut, so to speak, at 9 in a live broadcast on Radio-France and her concerto debut in Avignon four years later. At 13 she graduated from the Paris Conservatory. She made her [...]

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Puget Sound’s best Messiah

November 24, 2009

It won’t be very long before concert stages will be filled with music customarily associated with the holidays.  Last year, I asked who had the best holiday concert.  The winner was Seattle Pro Musica.  For better or worse, Handel’s Messiah is standard holiday music. I want to know, who has the best Messiah? Are the [...]

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The Mathematics of the Pathetique

November 23, 2009

Tchaikovsky and John Luther Adams don’t appear to have much, if anything in common. More than 100 years separate the two in time. They are separated by continents and countries. Their styles are hugely dissimilar too. Tchaikovsky epitomizes the lushness of the romantic period and Adams pushes the boundaries of music with his experimentations in sound. [...]

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Midgette and the future of classical music

November 20, 2009

Anne Midgette has it all figured out.  Take a gander at how this esteemed member of the classical chattering class perceives the role of the critic.

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Norwegian conductor returns to SSO podium this week

November 20, 2009

By: R.M. Campbell Hearing a new conductor at the Seattle Symphony Orchestra used to be a simple pleasure. Now it has the hint of destiny since everyone may be a candidate to succeed Gerard Schwarz as music director in 2011. The motto at the symphony is that everyone is a candidate, no one is a [...]

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Quarter notes: upcoming

November 19, 2009

The Seattle Symphony is performing Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony this weekend with guest conductor Arild Remmereit.  Remmereit and I had a good conversation about Tchaikovsky and Mozart a week ago Friday.  The musicians I spoke with are excited to work with him again, remembering his successful concert with the orchestra three years ago.  Be sure to [...]

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Ghosts, Gargoyles, and an Emperor

November 17, 2009

  Two concerts this past weekend exemplified Seattle’s diverse classical music scene. Saturday night, acclaimed, local flutist Paul Taub celebrated thirty years in Seattle with an anniversary concert at the Cornish College of the Arts. The next day, the musicians of Philharmonia Northwest, one of the regions many talented community and semi-professional orchestras, tuned their [...]

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Review: Music Northwest, masterpieces from Eastern Europe

November 17, 2009

By: Gigi Yellen Performing as the ensemble Europa, the trio of pianist Jane Harty, violinist Leonid Keylin and cellist Mara Finkelstein today played the most traditional of this season’s Music Northwest programs (www.musicnorthwest.org).. This makes the second time this week I’ve seen these string players in concert with a series artistic director, a visionary woman, [...]

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Seattle Philharmonic – November 15, 2009: Ravel & Debussy

November 16, 2009

The Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra opened its 2009/2010 season Sunday with music by Ravel and Debussy in a delightful concert that was the perfect refuge on a dark rainy afternoon.  Conductor Adam Stern assembled a program of mostly little-known works culminating in the ever crowd-pleasing Boléro. The selections allowed each section of the orchestra to shine.  [...]

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Questioning the conductors: Arild Remmereit

November 16, 2009

Last Friday, I had the chance to sit down with Arild Remmereit.  Remmereit is set to guest conduct the Seattle Symphony this week in a concert featuring Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.  Remmereit will also lead the orchestra in the North America premiere of Ludwig Irgens Jensen’s Partita Sinfonica “The Drover.”  [...]

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Another rising young performer

November 15, 2009

By: Philippa Kiraly It’s always awe-inspiring to hear the Seattle Youth Symphony. To see 125 children, yes, kids, on stage performing difficult orchestral works with all the professionalism and technique of musicians years their senior in age and experience is exciting and hopeful. Not every teen or preteen is glued to a computer screen or [...]

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Review: Paul Taub Celebrates 30 Years of Music-Making in Seattle

November 15, 2009

By: R. M. Campbell One of Seattle’s most eminent musicians, flutist Paul Taub, gave a celebratory concert this weekend at Cornish College of the Art, his longtime local base. The flute is not a traditional major solo instrument but Taub, by virtue of hard work, a lot of talent and a nose for provocative new [...]

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Review: Simple Measures “Earth”

November 15, 2009

By: Gigi Yellen Two longhaired four-year-old girls danced during intermission, mimicking the Seattle Dance Project performers’ spins and holds. Whether from the front row, where these two little friends sat, or from a back corner just six rows behind them, where I and a dozen others stood, audience members got what they came for: close-up [...]

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Tease me Sinfonietta part II

November 12, 2009
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Changes

November 12, 2009

Anne Midgette has a nice post on the changing economics of newspapers and orchestras.  Anyone interested in the future of journalism and orchestras ought to take a look.  Changes are coming, if they haven’t already, orchestras and newspapers need to jump in feet first or run the risk of slipping into obsolescence.

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Quarter notes: upcoming

November 12, 2009

Lots and lots of music this weekend.  Some of the highlights include David Popper playing cello a number of fine, local instrumentalists playing David Popper’s Hungarian Rhapsody for Cello and Dvorak’s Dumky trio as part of Music Northwest’s concert series.  Schwarz and the SSO play Carl Orff’s much loved Carmina Burana.  The Onyx Chamber Players [...]

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Breakfast with Paul Taub

November 12, 2009

This Saturday, acclaimed local flutist Paul Taub is celebtrating 30 years in Seattle with an anniversary concert at Cornish College.  Seattle audiences know Paul well through his work with the Seattle Chamber Players, his solo flue recitals, and through his work as a Cornish faculty member.  I was lucky to be able to sit down [...]

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