RIP ANDRE PREVIN

André George Previn, KBE (/ˈprɛvɪn/; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, conductor, and composer. Previn won four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings (and one more for his Lifetime Achievement). Previn died on February 28, 2019 at home in Manhattan at the age of 89.

  WIKIPEDIA

Lang Lang with R Alan Campbell album showcased on classical music network

It’s been three years since his last release – and now the global sensation is back with a show-stopping collection of pieces to inspire the next generation From child prodigy to extraordinary virtuoso, Lang Lang is without a doubt one of the most celebrated concert pianists of the past few decades. Since the release of his first album in 2000, Lang Lang: Live At Seiji Ozawa Hall, the Chinese pianist’s career has only gone from strength to strength. 


NEW ALBUM 'PIANO BOOK' – RELEASED 29TH MARCH. “The hottest artist on the classical music planet”– New York Times . 




Host Campbell (Blog editor) showcases the new recording on his www.classicalmusic.network radio program.
LINK

Anthony Tommasini on composers

THE INDISPENSABLE COMPOSERS

When he began to listen to the great works of classical music as a child, Anthony Tommasini had many questions. Why did a particular piece move him? How did the music work? Over time, he realized that his passion for this music was not enough. He needed to understand it. Take Bach, for starters. Who was he? How does one account for his music and its unshakeable hold on us today? As a critic, Tommasini has devoted particular attention to living composers and overlooked repertory. But, like all classical music lovers, the canon has remained central for him. In 2011, in his role as the Chief Classical Music Critic for the New York Times, he wrote a popular series in which he somewhat cheekily set out to determine the all-time top ten composers. Inviting input from readers, Tommasini wrestled with questions of greatness. Readers joined the exercise in droves. Some railed against classical music’s obsession with greatness but then raged when Mahler was left off the final list. This intellectual game reminded them why they loved music in the first place. Now in THE INDISPENSABLE COMPOSERS, Tommasini offers his own personal guide to the canon--and what greatness really means in classical music. What does it mean to be canonical now? Who gets to say? And do we have enough perspective on the 20th century to even begin assessing it? To make his case, Tommasini draws on elements of biography, the anxiety of influence, the composer's relationships with colleagues, and shifting attitudes toward a composer's work over time. Because he has spent his life contemplating these titans, Tommasini shares impressions from performances he has heard or given or moments when his own biography proves revealing. As he argues for his particular pantheon of indispensable composers, Anthony Tommasini provides a masterclass in what to listen for and how to understand what music does to us. When he began to listen to the great works of classical music as a child, Anthony Tommasini had many questions. Why did a particular piece move him? How did the music work? Over time, he realized that his passion for this music was not enough. He needed to understand it. Take Bach, for starters. Who was he? How does one account for his music and its unshakeable hold on us today? As a critic, Tommasini has devoted particular attention to living composers and overlooked repertory. But, like all classical music lovers, the canon has remained central for him. In 2011, in his role as the Chief Classical Music Critic for the New York Times, he wrote a popular series in which he somewhat cheekily set out to determine the all-time top ten composers. Inviting input from readers, Tommasini wrestled with questions of greatness. Readers joined the exercise in droves. Some railed against classical music’s obsession with greatness but then raged when Mahler was left off the final list. This intellectual game reminded them why they loved music in the first place. Now in THE INDISPENSABLE COMPOSERS, Tommasini offers his own personal guide to the canon--and what greatness really means in classical music. What does it mean to be canonical now? Who gets to say? And do we have enough perspective on the 20th century to even begin assessing it? To make his case, Tommasini draws on elements of biography, the anxiety of influence, the composer's relationships with colleagues, and shifting attitudes toward a composer's work over time. Because he has spent his life contemplating these titans, Tommasini shares impressions from performances he has heard or given or moments when his own biography proves revealing. As he argues for his particular pantheon of indispensable composers, Anthony Tommasini provides a masterclass in what to listen for and how to understand what music does to us.

Composer Oliver Knussen dies aged 66 | Music

Oliver Knussen CBE (12 June 1952 - 8 July 2018) was a British composer and conductor. Though Knussen began composing at about the age of six,; an ITV programme about his father's work with the London Symphony Orchestra prompted the commissioning for his first symphony (1966–1967). Aged 15, Knussen stepped in to conduct his symphony's première at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 7 April 1968, after István Kertész fell ill. After his debut, Daniel Barenboim asked him to conduct the work's first two movements in New York a week later. In this work and his Concerto for Orchestra (1968–1970), he had quickly and fluently absorbed the influences of modernist composers Britten and Berg as well as many mid-century (largely American) symphonists, while displaying an unusual flair for pacing and orchestration. It was as early as the Second Symphony (1970–1971), in the words of Julian Anderson, that "Knussen's compositional personality abruptly appeared, fully formed". He was awarded CBE in the 1994 Birthday Honours. Knussen was principal guest conductor of The Hague's Het Residentie Orkest (Residentie Orchestra) between 1992 and 1996, the Aldeburgh Festival's co-artistic director between 1983 and 1998 and the London Sinfonietta's music director between 1998 and 2002 – and became that ensemble's conductor laureate. In 2005 Knussen was the music director of the Ojai Music Festival. From September 2006, Knussen was artist-in-association to the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and from 2009 to the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His major works from the 1980s were his two children's operas, Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop!, both libretti by Maurice Sendak. WIKIPEDIA

Gennady Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky, CBE (4 May 1931 – 16 June 2018) was a Soviet and Russian conductor....

Remembering the late Gennady Rozhdestvensky who was born in Moscow. His parents were the noted conductor and pedagogue Nikolai Anosov and soprano Natalya Rozhdestvenskaya. His given name was Gennady Nikolayevich Anosov, but he adopted his mother’s maiden name in its masculine form for his professional career so as to avoid the appearance of nepotism. His younger brother, the painter P.N. Anosov, retained their father's name. He studied conducting with his father at the Moscow Conservatory and piano with Lev Oborin. Already known for having conducted Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre at the age of 20, he quickly established his reputation. He premiered many works of Soviet composers, including Edison Denisov's Le soleil des Incas (Sun of the Incas) (1964), as well as giving the Russian premiere of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Western premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony at the 1962 Edinburgh Festival. WIKIPEDIA

JEFFREY TATE... RIP

The pianist and conductor Jeffrey Tate has died. He was 74. He was rehearsing the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy, when he suffered an attack. 

Sir Jeffrey Philip Tate CBE (28 April 1943 – 2 June 2017) was an English conductor. Tate's international conducting début was with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1979. In 1985, he was appointed the first principal conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra. He was named to the position of principal conductor of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden effective in September 1986, the first person in the House's history to have that title.[3] He was principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 1991 to 1995. In 2005, he was appointed music director of the San Carlo Theatre of Naples, and served in the post through 2010.

  WIKIPEDIA

Ex-Minnesota Orchestra maestro Stanislaw Skrowaczewski dies

Skrowaczewski conducted major orchestras in England, Japan and other countries. His last concerts were with the Minnesota Orchestra in October 2016, conducting works by Anton Bruckner, his specialty. Skrowaczewski was born in Lwów (then in Poland, now in Ukraine). As a child, he studied piano and violin; displaying talent on the piano at an early age, he made his public debut playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor. A hand injury ended his piano career. After World War II, Skrowaczewski graduated from the Academy of Music in Kraków (in the composition class of Roman Palester and conducting class of Walerian Bierdiajew) and soon, in 1946, became the music director of the Wrocław Philharmonic, then the Katowice Philharmonic, the Kraków Philharmonic and finally the Warsaw National Orchestra. He studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 1956 he won the Santa Cecilia Competition for Conductors. At the invitation of George Szell, Skrowaczewski conducted the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1960 he was appointed music director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (later renamed the Minnesota Orchestra under his tenure in 1968), a position he held until 1979 when he became conductor laureate. In 1981 the American Composers Forum commissioned the Clarinet Concerto which Skrowaczewski wrote for Minnesota Orchestra principal clarinetist Joe Longo, who premiered it in 1981.WIKIPEDIA

Jim Keeler, remembered as host of early Philadelphia Orchestra radio broadcasts

James W. Keeler, 82, of Suttons Bay, Michigan died Monday, April 13, 2009, at Tendercare of Leelanau. Keeler was born March 21, 1927, in Corning, N.Y., the only son of James and Helen (Doane) Keeler. As a young man, James served in the United States Army in Korea immediately after World War II. Keeler was a passionate classical music fan, and worked his entire life as a classical music radio broadcaster. He was a classical music announcer at Philadelphia's WHYY FM in the late 1950s. At WHYY FM, in 1961, he co hosted an afternoon news and features program called Kaleidoscope for ERN [Educational Radio Network] with Al Hulsen at WGBH FM in Boston. Later at WFLN AM and FM, Philadelphia Keeler was the station program manager...and later PD at WQRS, Detroit. His travels in radio broadcasting took him from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia to Boston, New York, Detroit and to Traverse City.

Keeler, was the announcer on Philadelphia Orchestra radio concerts in the 1960s and 1970s. This series was heard in national syndication weekly. "From the historic Academy of Music in Philadelphia, "This is James W. Keeler welcoming you to a broadcast concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra." He was program director for Philadelphia's WFLN Radio and the production credit on those broadcasts went to the "Magnetic Recorder Reproducer Corporation" a division of the classical station. Following many years at WQRS the Detroit classical station he retired to Traverse City, MI. James wrote reviews in the Record-Eagle for the Traverse Symphony Orchestra. He was also involved with the cities public radio station WNMC.

ROCmusic Transforming Lives through Music

ROCmusic is a community based partnership, designed to introduce classical music to students in the city of Rochester. The program is based on the El Sistema model, which focuses on using music as a tool for social change, working primarily with children that have access to the fewest resources and have the greatest need. The program began here in Rochester as a partnership between the Eastman School of Music, the Eastman Community Music School, the Hochstein School of Music, the city of Rochester, the Rochester City School District and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. The lessons are provided free of charge to students that live in the city of Rochester from grades 1-12, regardless of their musical background. The instruction takes place in three levels from the most basic, singing simple songs and learning the recorder, to beginning string instruction and the more advanced string orchestra. Several times each year, the public is invited to the David F. Gantt Community Center to hear the students perform in concert. What they witness is much more than just the music that these students have learned. As teachers and parents have noticed, the impact of the program can be seen in the progress students have made in their school work, in their attitude and in the relationships they have formed with each other and with teachers. The result of this collaboration is perhaps best summed up in the meaning of the acronym that gives ROCmusic its name: Responsibility, Opportunity, Community. To learn more, please visit:
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Sir Neville Marriner, RIP

(15 April 1924—2 October 2016)

Marriner was born in Lincoln, England, and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Martin String Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra, playing with the last two for 13 years. He later formed the Jacobean Ensemble with Thurston Dart before going to Hancock, Maine, in the United States to study conducting with Pierre Monteux at his school there. In 1958, he founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra and recorded copiously with them. Marriner was the first music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, from 1969 to 1978. From 1979 to 1986, he was music director of the Minnesota Orchestra. He was principal conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 1989. Marriner recorded for various labels, including Argo, L'Oiseau Lyre, Philips and EMI Classics. His recorded repertoire ranges from the baroque era to 20th century British music, as well as opera. Among his recordings are two CDs of British music for Philips Classics with Julian Lloyd Webber, including acclaimed performances of Benjamin Britten's Cello Symphony and Sir William Walton's Cello Concerto. Marriner also supervised the Mozart selections for the soundtrack of the 1984 film Amadeus. He was chairman of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra until 1992, when he was succeeded by Malcolm Latchem. Marriner held the title of Life President. He was the father of the clarinettist Andrew Marriner, principal clarinet of the London Symphony Orchestra.

VIDEO: The Academy of St Martin in the Fields was founded by the now legendary conductor Sir Neville Marriner in 1958. Watch to find out a little more about Sir Neville and his relationship with the Academy, whilst enjoying the Academy's performance of the opening to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner in April 2014. Read more about Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy at: http://www.asmf.org/sir-neville-marri...

 

Bruckner Symphony No.5 in B flat major

The Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major (WAB 105) of Anton Bruckner was written in 1875–1876, with a few minor changes over the next few years. It was first performed in public on two pianos by Joseph Schalk and Franz Zottmann on 20 April 1887 at the Bösendorfersaal in Vienna. The first orchestral performance - in a non-authenticated version ('Schalk-version'), a.o. with a changed orchestration in a Wagnerian fashion and with omitting 122 bars of the finale - was conducted by Franz Schalk in Graz on 8 April 1894 (Bruckner was sick and unable to attend: he never heard this symphony performed by an orchestra). It was dedicated to Karl von Stremayr, minister of education in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The symphony is sometimes referred to as the "Tragic", "Church of Faith", or "Pizzicato" symphony. WIKIPEDIA VIDEO: Bruckner Symphony No.5 in B flat major 00:00 1. Introduction. Adagio - Allegro 20:50 2. Adagio. Sehr langsam 39:38 3. Scherzo- Molto vivace (Schnell) - Trio. Im gleichen Tempo 53:08 4. Finale. Adagio - Allegro moderato Giuseppe Sinopoli , Conductor Staatskapelle Dresden

enjoy...

first...stop music player at right...click II SECOND...start video... WIKIPEDIA

Alirio Díaz (12 November 1923 – 5 July 2016) Venezuelan classical guitari

Alirio Díaz was one of the most prominent composer-guitarists of his country. A guitar competition named Concurso Internacional de Guitarra Alirio Díaz has been held in his honor in Caracas and other cities in Venezuela (the April 2006 contest was held in Carora). Many compositions have been dedicated to Díaz including Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo's Invocación y Danza. In 1961, Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo's piece Invocación y Danza, dedicated to Alirio Díaz, won the First Prize at the Coupe International de Guitare awarded by the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF). In turn, Díaz obliged and the next year performed this very difficult solo piece. It has also been recorded by Díaz. This was the first of many compositions subsequently dedicated to Alirio Díaz. Alirio Díaz performed all over the world combining baroque music with the works of modern Latin American composers, such as Lauro, Sojo and Barrios Mangoré. He teached in Rome and performed in concert with his son Senio. During the European winter, he used to return to Venezuela to his native town, La Candelaria. WIKIPEDIA

MAHLER, Kondrashin

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 is not only Mahler’s longest work, but is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire. A typical performance lasts between 90 and 105 minutes. The six-movement piece is regarded as one of Mahler’s greatest, and has been recorded by all of the major orchestras. This recording of Mahler’s 3rd symphony was taken in Moscow, 1961, and features contralto Valentina Levko as well as the Ladies of the Moscow State Choir and Children’s Choir. Alongside Mahler’s work is Prokofiev’s October, Cantata Op 74, in a recording taken in Moscow in 1966. Both of these works feature the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Kirill Kondrashin. VIDEO: Great presentation of the legendary american conductor Leonard Bernstein, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Christa Ludwig (contralto solo), the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Boys Choir playing the Symphony No. 3 of Gustav Mahler, at 1973.

JOSHUA PIERCE 2015 release MSR Classics RUSSIAN PIANO CONCERTOS

The Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between November 1874 and February 1875. It was revised in the summer of 1879 and again in December 1888. The first version received heavy criticism from Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's desired pianist. Rubinstein later repudiated his previous accusations and became a fervent champion of the work. It is one of the most popular of Tchaikovsky's compositions and among the best known of all piano concerto. Also on this CD: Russian Piano Concertos
Concertos by Rimsky-Korsakov, Aram Khachaturian, Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergi Prokofiev a re-issue of MSR CLASSICS.

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From the site their player will start automatically playing the classical music stream within a few seconds...enjoy. link:
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young people join together in music

Music Unites is a national charity with the mission to raise academic and lifetime achievement for at-risk public school students through the support and creation of unique music education partnerships and programs. We currently provide free after-school music programs to youth through school-based partnerships, along with special monthly workshops designed in alignment with standards for career and college readiness. Read More here ››

Five Things You Did Not Know About BEETHOVEN

Beethoven: Five facts you probably didn't know about the composer.

From his unhappy love life to when he was actually born - here are the surprising facts about the German classical virtuoso's life ....

  INDEPENDENT.UK

Mahler and Thierry Fischer and the Utah Symphony!

The Mighty Mahler Symphony No. 1 from Thierry Fischer and the Utah Symphony!

Reference Recordings is pleased to announce the release of this new and fresh performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. This work was performed as part of the orchestra’s two-year Mahler Symphony Cycle. 

  

Founded in 1940, the Utah Symphony became recognized as a leading American ensemble largely through the efforts of Maurice Abravanel, Director from 1947 to 1979. During his tenure, the orchestra undertook four international tours, released numerous recordings and developed an extensive music education program. A pioneering cycle of Mahler Symphonies conducted by Abravanel was recorded between 1963 and 1974 and included the first commercial stereo recordings of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies. These recordings also marked the first complete Mahler cycle recorded by an American orchestra. This new release furthers the tradition of outstanding Mahler from the Utah Symphony, with more albums planned for 2016 release in a Utah Symphony series from Reference Recordings.

Thierry Fischer, Music Director of the Utah Symphony since 2009, has revitalized the orchestra with creative programming and critically acclaimed performances that have drawn consistently full houses. Highlights of his tenure include complete symphony cycles of Mahler in commemoration of former Utah Symphony Music Director, Maurice Abravanel, complete Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Nielsen cycles, a multi-season Stravinsky and Haydn symphony cycle and the tour of Utah’s five national parks. Mr. Fischer has also initiated a major commissioning program in Utah that has produced new works by Simon Holt, Michael Jarrell, Nico Muhly, Andrew Norman, and Augusta Read Thomas. The Utah Symphony's first performance of a Mahler symphony came in 1951: In the Salt Lake Tribune the next day, Lowell M. Durham said it was "one of the most ambitious programs" yet attempted by Abravanel and the new symphony...The young ensemble met the challenge surprisingly well."

SAINT-SAENS Michael Stern Kansas City Symphony

The Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, was completed by Camille Saint-Saëns in 1886 at what was probably the artistic peak of his career. It is also popularly known as the Organ Symphony, even though it is not a true symphony for organ, but simply an orchestral symphony where two sections out of four use the pipe organ. The composer inscribed it as: Symphonie No. 3 "avec orgue" (with organ). Of composing the work Saint-Saëns said "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again."

VIDEO:Saint Saëns Symphony No 3 in C minor, Op 78 Järvi

The composer seemed to know it would be his last attempt at the symphonic form, and he wrote the work almost as a type of "history" of his own career: virtuoso piano passages, brilliant orchestral writing characteristic of the Romantic period, and the sound of a cathedral-sized pipe organ. The symphony was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society in England, and the first performance was given in London on 19 May 1886, at St James's Hall, conducted by the composer. After the death of his friend Franz Liszt on 31 July 1886, Saint-Saëns dedicated the work to Liszt's memory. The composer also conducted the French premiere in January 1887.