Video

Quarter notes: happy birthday Mahler

July 11, 2010

I’m a few days late (Mahler was born on July 7th), but 2010 is the 150th birthday for Gustav Mahler. Complete Mahler cycles have been popping up in abundance over the last few months. Both Universal Classics and EMI have released “complete” box sets. But, from Universal Classics, comes one of the most creative ways [...]

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Questioning the conductors: Meet Morlot!

July 9, 2010

Our conductor interviews end with the person chosen to lead the SSO to new artistic heights and performance excellend — Ludovic Morlot. Morlot was one of the few conductors I didn’t meet. I was in New York when he was here last fall and when he returned in the spring, an exploding volcano in Iceland [...]

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Quarter notes: SCMS edition

July 5, 2010

Update: SCMS is putting a limited number of rush tickets on sale for $25 30 minutes before tonight’s performance.  On the program is Debussy’s Piano Trio, Barber’s String Quartet (with its famous adagio), and Brahms’ Op. 8 Piano Trio.  With the sun lost behind the clouds this summer, let chamber music brighten your day. Although [...]

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Meet the musicians: Simon Trpceski

June 11, 2010

Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski has got to be one of the busiest musicians I have had the pleasure of talking with. He is in Seattle performing a total of five concerts with the SSO.  Earlier in the week he joined musicians from the SSO in a chamber music concert honoring the 200th birthday of Robert [...]

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Quarter notes

June 9, 2010

Video snippets from the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Le Grand Macabre.

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Questioning the conductors: Christian Knapp

May 20, 2010

Christian Knapp is the only guest conductor this season, with or without an orchestral post who has admitted to being interested in having his own orchestra. You can draw all sorts of conclusions from his openness. Is he angling to be the SSO’s next music director? Given his history with the orchestra as its associate [...]

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Questioning the conductors: Jun Markl

May 13, 2010

Update: I am not entirely sure what happened with the video for two minutes in the middle. I apologize and will upload a mirror copy tonight. I had a chance to sit down with Jun (pronounced June) Markl earlier this week. Markl, no stranger to the Seattle Symphony, is guest conducting a program of German [...]

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Quarter notes: Amelia trailer

May 11, 2010

Seattle Opera is up with their Amelia trailer on YouTube. If RM Campbell’s review doesn’t make you want to see Speight Jenkins’ first commissioned opera, surely this trailer will.

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Quarter notes: Le Grand

May 8, 2010

Gyorgy Ligeti supposedly spent the last years of his life worried that when he died no one would remember him or his music. His worries weren’t entirely unjustified. The work of many, many composers has slipped into obscurity. For Ligeti, an artist on the fringes of the musical mainstream, the possibility of anonymity is even [...]

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Questioning the conductors: Andrew Manze

May 5, 2010

The early music world has known Andrew Manze for years as an accomplished Baroque violinist, but the rest of the classical music world is getting acquainted with Manze as an assured, intelligent conductor working hard to establish a reputation as an interpreter of core 18th and 19th century repertory.  Manze’s recent Beethoven recordings have even [...]

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May Day! May Day! part three

May 3, 2010

May Day! May Day! has come and gone. Thanks to everyone who attended. But I’d also like to thank the musicians who made it possible. The whole day a quote from Robert Spano was ringing through my head “there is no ghetto for new music.” By taking Seattle’s vibrant new music scene and putting it [...]

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Questioning the conductors: Robert Spano

April 29, 2010

The first thing I noticed about Robert Spano when I met him for the first time last summer was the exhilarating energy that surrounds him. His mind races through more thoughts than are possible to keep up with. His wit is quick and sharp (often at my expense). In my conversations with Spano, good ideas [...]

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Quarter notes: Gergiev, Holst, and Pro Musica

April 20, 2010

V. Gergiev talks with the Wall Street Journal about conducting, his schedule, and Russia. Seattle Pro Musica is a semi-finalist for the American prize and the group’s conductor, Karen Thomas, is also a semi-finalist in the conducting category.  Congrats Karen and Pro Musica! Gustav Holst and Hans Graf team up with NASA. Amelia is coming [...]

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Questioning the conductors: Gilbert Varga

April 16, 2010

Gilbert Varga is in town this week to conduct the SSO in a series of concerts with Stravinsky and Beethoven as the focus. Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto will have the help of Horaccio Gutierrez; after the intermission it’s Stravinsky’s ballet Petrouchka. Varga is the son of violin legend Tibor Varga. The younger Varga also played [...]

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Quarter notes: video edition

April 6, 2010

Nico Muhly talks about his piece for the upcoming NY Phil CONTACT! concert. Here’s a more formal discussion of his piece

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Questioning the conductors: Thomas Dausgaard

March 24, 2010

This week’s Seattle Symphony concerts could be a sleeper hit of the 2009/2010 season. Thomas Dausgaard is in town to lead the orchestra in performances of Sibelius’ Fifth and Lutoslawski’s Fourth Symphony. These two 20th century view of the symphony bookend a 20th Century concerto – Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Sibelius’s Fifth isn’t as well [...]

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Questioning the conductors: Vassily Sinaisky

March 21, 2010

My series of interviews with the guest conductors taking the SSO podium continues with Vassily Sinaisky. Sinaisky wrapped up a series of four concerts with the SSO this weekend that paired Brahms’ Double Concerto for cello and violin and Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloe.” This program is a departure, of sorts, for Sinaisky. In his previous [...]

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Ferko discusses how he composed his Stabat Mater

March 20, 2010

Frank Ferko is in town for a performance of his Stabat Mater by Choral Arts. He participated in a Meet the Composer last night at Fare Start. I live blogged the Q&A (you can find the transcript by clicking on the Live Blog page) and at the beginning of the question period I took this [...]

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Shmidt discusses Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments

February 23, 2010

Here is my second interview with Mikhail Shmidt.  In this video Shmidt talks about Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag’s “Kafka Fragments,” a piece he will perform this Saturday as part of Icebreaker V.  “Kafka Fragments” is no ordinary piece; it is one of Kurtag’s most important works and one of his most difficult.  People describe it [...]

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Mikhail Shmidt discusses Icebreaker V: Love and War

February 21, 2010

Starting Friday, the Seattle Chamber Players embark on their fifth Icebreaker festival – “Love and War.” While other Icebreakers have focused on American, Russian, and Baltic contemporary music, the latest festival centers on Western Europe. Mikhail Shmidt, one of SCP’s founding members spoke with me about the festival. You can watch and hear Shmidt’s thoughts [...]

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