Orchestral - my/maSCENA

Verbier Festival Concert, Paul McCreesh, conductor, Sophie Koch, mezzo-soprano, Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. July 26, 2010. Salle des Combins.

By La Scena Musicale Team on 27 July 2010 Chamber Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

By Frank CadenheadThe first concert of my week at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland was, I expect, not the highlight. While the festival program correctly listed the conductor as Paul McCreesh, the Canadian star I had hoped to see, Measha Brueggergosman, had been replaced by another star, Sophie Koch. I was not too dismayed because this French mezzo is one of the great voices you are likely to hear these days. The program was also changed and Berlioz’s “La Mort de Cléopatre” was now the same composer’s song cycle, “Les Nuits d’Eté,” to the text by Théophile Gautier. I did not…

Aspen, Colorado: A Glorious Place to Make Music!

By Paul E. Robinson on 20 July 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Violin

by Paul E. RobinsonSUMMER MUSIC FESTIVALS 2010Aspen Music Festival and School After a few days in Vail enjoying the music-making of Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Marita and I drove over to Aspen, about 100 miles away through the mountains. What we found there was a much older community and a festival and school operating on an equally high artistic plane but with a more varied range of goals and activities. True, Aspen has been in the news lately for its administrative infighting which saw music director and conductor David Zinman…

Dallas Symphony Opens Extraordinary Summer of Music in Colorado!

By Paul E. Robinson on 12 July 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonSUMMER FESTIVALS 2010Bravo! Vail Valley Music FestivalImagine a music festival that features three of the world’s top orchestras in successive week-long residencies. Throw into the mix the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Gil Shaham. Shake things up with some of the best conductors at work today: Jaap van Zweden, Alan Gilbert, Charles Dutoit, and Marin Alsop. And don’t forget to add lots of chamber music. Set all this talent up in one of the most spectacular mountain locations you can think of – say, Vail, Colorado – and run your festival for about six weeks.…

Music In The City: Toronto Summer Music Festival

By Newswire on 12 July 2010 Newswire, Orchestral

Conductor Agnes Grossmann (Photo courtesy of TSMF)Summer has traditionally been a quiet time musically in Toronto, with the opera, symphony and ballet all in hiatus. The little bit that were available – like the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Ontario Place and the Canadian Opera Company’s Altamira Harbourfront Concerts, have long been consigned to history. Music-starved Torontonians, myself included, have had to venture out of town for our musical fix, to places like Elora, Parry Sound, Campbellford, Sharon, Niagara for example. While many of us continue to do that, those who would rather stay in town can still experience great music…

Round Top, Texas: The Impossible Dream?

By Paul E. Robinson on 5 July 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonSummer FestivalsRound Top Festival Institute, 2010Never underestimate the dreams of a concert pianist – especially those of an adopted son of Texas! Van Cliburn, you say? Yes, he had an impossible dream and realized it when he won the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in 1958, but there is another, lesser-known, Texas pianist who dreamed big and succeeded; James Dick, who was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, attended the University of Texas, and has lived in Texas ever since, built his own concert hall and music festival, in one of the least likely places – Round Top,…

Mahler Resurrection a Dallas Symphony Specialty!

By Paul E. Robinson on 6 June 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic

by Paul E. RobinsonI try to get to Dallas as often as I can to bask in the glory of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, one of the world’s great concert halls. After listening to concerts in other venues, it is always a shock to experience the Meyerson. To hear every instrument in the orchestra as it was meant to be heard, and to hear the perfectly blended sound of a fine orchestra, with a presence that is palpable, is satisfaction beyond words. Simply put, as the saying goes: “You had to be there!”Of course, the Meyerson is simply…

Austin Symphony Shines Again in Mahler

By Paul E. Robinson on 31 May 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic

by Paul E. RobinsonThe 100th anniversary of Mahler’s death is in 2011, but conductors and orchestras are already programming his music at every opportunity – Symphony No. 2 with Jaap van Zweden in Dallas at the end of May, for example; and more recently, Symphony No. 1 with Peter Bay leading the Austin Symphony.Mahler’s Long Lost Blumine Blossoms on its OwnMaestro Bay opened the evening’s programme with Blumine, which began its life as part of the Symphony No. 1 until Mahler decided it didn’t belong there after all.At the first three performances of the Symphony No. 1 in the 19th…

Van Zweden and DSO Raise their Game with Schönberg and Brahms

By Paul E. Robinson on 23 April 2010 Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Paul E. RobinsonAs he nears the end of his second season as music director of the Dallas Symphony, Jaap van Zweden has clearly raised the quality of playing in the orchestra. There have not been many personnel changes, but there has been a palpable exploitation of the enormous pool of talent already in the orchestra. A case in point: the trombone section has always been ‘good’ but now it is ‘remarkably good.’ The sureness of intonation, the beauty of tone, the balance between the three instruments and tuba – all these things are on a level of refinement only…

Claudio Abbado’s Grand Tour with his Mozart Orchestra

By La Scena Musicale Team on 8 April 2010 Classical, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

by Giuseppe PennisiMusic is the best medicine to cure cancer according to Maestro Claudio Abbado. Doctors removed much of his stomach and he can only eat small amounts at a time.“I found a new life, without a stomach,” he states. “I think differently. My senses are different.” His music-making has also changed: “I hear more lines now; I hear sounds I never heard before.”Unfortunately, the therapy has weakened him: it’s now a special occasion when Maestro Abbado conducts. At 77, Abbado has mostly turned away from the kind of grand institutions he once led — La Scala, the Vienna State…

Cette semaine à Montréal (7 à 17 avril) / This Week in Montreal (April 7 – 17)

By La Scena Musicale Team on 6 April 2010 Chamber Music, Choral, Dance, Orchestral, Scena Jazz, Theatre, This Week in Montreal, Visual Arts

Musique / Music Canadian trumpet virtuoso Guy Few (pictured to the left) joins the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal on April 7 to perform a concerto for trumpet and orchestra by the renowned and recently deceased Jacques Hétu. Under the baton of assistant conductor Nathan Brock, the orchestra performs works that include Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 1 and Smetana’s The Moldau. 514-842-2112, www.osm.ca — Hannah Rahimi The Trio Fibonacci presents its final concert of the season on April 9 at the Chapelle Saint-Louis. Audiences can experience the wide range of compositions for string trio with a varied programme that begins with Haydn and concludes…

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