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Arts & Entertainment, Music

What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for April 2012

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It looks like April is the Month of the Symphony in Seattle.  Our calendar is full of concerts featuring some of classical music’s most beloved works of the symphonic genre. Composers represented include many of the classical greats. Symphonies by Mozart, Mahler, Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, and Shostakovich will all be heard in Seattle in April. No matter what style or time period you prefer, the symphony is a winning bet this month. Head to a local concert venue to brush up on your favorites, sample new works, and revel in the glorious orchestral sound.

Apr. 5 – 7 — Acclaimed pianist John Lill joins the Seattle Symphony for a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. Also on the program is Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.

Emerson String Quartet

Apr. 12 – 14 — Contemporary Australian dance ensemble Chunky Move makes their Seattle debut at University of Washington’s Meany Hall.

Apr. 17 — The legendary Emerson String Quartet returns to Seattle with a program of late Mozart string quartets.

Apr. 19 & 21 — Seattle Symphony performs Dukas’ beloved work, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Also on the program is Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, featuring pianist Simon Trpčeski.

Apr. 20 — Local pianists Tiffany Lin and Adrienne Varner present the world premiere of Kyle Gann’s Implausible Sketches. Also on the program are works by Erik Satie, Janice Gitek, György Kurtág, and Arvo Pärt.

Apr. 21 — Travel back in time to the days of Alexander the Great. The Early Music Guild presents Boston Camerata in “Alexander the Great: Hero, Warrior, and Lover”, a collaborative concert with Turkish music ensemble Dünya.

Apr. 26 — Contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound performs a blend of classical and pop-influenced works at Town Hall.

Apr. 26 & 28 — Gerard Schwarz returns to conduct the Seattle Symphony in a program of works by Prokofiev and Mendelssohn [With “famed pianist Alexander Toradze,” adds reader Evelyn–ed.].

Apr. 27 – 29 — Cellist David Requiro joins Northwest Sinfonietta in a performance of Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 alongside symphonies by Prokofiev and Mendelssohn.

Apr. 28 – 29 — Auburn Symphony presents a diverse program of works by Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich, and Elgar.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Auburn Symphony Gets Romantic with Chausson

The Auburn Symphony takes its friendly tone from its conductor and founder Stewart Kershaw, who gives the preconcert lectures, often in a discussion with orchestra cellist and KUOW-FM radio host Dave Beck, and also gives a brief introduction of the concert works to the audience from the podium.

Ernest Chausson, photo by P. Frois, Biarritz (France), ca. 1885, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Saturday night was a case in point. Beck and Kershaw between them gave us a thumbnail sketch of 19th-century composer Ernest Chausson, with slides, and it was clear that the composer holds a place of great affection in Kershaw’s pantheon. Chausson composed only three big works, which aren’t that often played, and Kershaw has programmed them all for Auburn, the Symphony in B Flat being last Saturday’s contribution.

I’m not sure that I agree with Kershaw of the importance of Chausson, who died at 44, but Kershaw led the orchestra in a performance luminous with the work’s meaning and subtleties, with details which might have bypassed someone less enthusiastic.

Somewhat earlier in the century, composer Hector Berlioz (a man of often unsuitable passions) became fascinated by the idea of the noble pirate, and wrote his ideas into the overture, The Corsair. He’s a composer whose musical idiom is so singular that it takes only a measure or two of any of his music to identify him as having written it. Corsair is typical. It’s a lively piece, full of color and vitality, and as usual, the excellent ASO gave it a fine, crisp, musical performance.

It is worth noting that there were at least two teenagers on stage. Kershaw has always encouraged talented local kids and given them the opportunity to experience playing in a professional orchestra. Without there being any fanfare about them, cellist Justin Kim and trumpeter Natalie Dungey performed with the orchestra Saturday night.

The final work, truly a Valentine, came from the pen of Franz Liszt, the 19th-century pianist who could play like an angel and was perhaps the first classical musician to gather swarms of adoring fans around him, fainting and grabbing bits of his clothing.

Craig Sheppard was the soloist in the Piano Concerto No. 2. Any Liszt work has an extroardinary number of notes, and though Sheppard dropped a few, he played with plenty of energy where it was due, and with beautiful smooth soft passages rich with expression and melody, or dreamy and musing. You could call it a work of romance personified, and the two Liszt encores he played after reinforced the impression.

The piano itself left something to be desired in its topmost and bottommost note ranges. Here the rich tone quality of the rest of the instrument became noticeably flattened out with little reverberance. Perhaps a local benefactor could contribute the use of a really good piano next time around.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for February

Looking for a concert to enjoy with your Valentine? An evening of live classical music makes for a classy date night. Sick of the cold and rainy nights? Stellar live music is a fantastic cure for the winter blues. Here’s what we’ve got on the calendar this month.

Feb. 2 – 5 — Experience some of the best chamber music concerts you’ll ever hear at Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Winter Festival, held this year at Benaroya Hall’s Nordstrom Recital Hall.

Feb. 6 — Classical Revolution is a global network of musicians dedicated to playing chamber music in casual, non-traditional settings. The Seattle Chapter will be performing and reading through works by Mendelssohn at Faire Gallery & Café on Capitol Hill.

The Ritz Chamber Players will perform at UW's Meany Hall on February 15.

Feb. 8 — Extraordinary 16-year-old pianist Jan Lisiecki makes his Seattle debut at the UW President’s Piano Series. It’s always exciting to hear an emerging talent.

Feb. 8 – 11 — Musicians from around the world will gather in Wallingford for the Seattle Improvised Music Festival, held in the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center.

Feb. 9 – 12 — Seattle Symphony plays Mussorgsky’s beloved Pictures at an Exhibition, along with works by Stravinsky, Jolivet, and Haydn.

Feb. 11 — Early Music Guild presents a semi-staged performance of Dido and Aeneas, Purcell’s delightful opera.

Feb. 15 — The remarkable Ritz Chamber Players return to the UW Chamber Music Series with a world premiere and works by Crusell, Dvorak, and Beethoven.

Feb. 18 – 19 — It’s always worth making the trip to catch a concert by the Auburn Symphony. This time it’s all about romance. Catch pieces by Berlioz and Chausson, as well as a performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 by local favorite Craig Sheppard.

Feb. 23 – 24 — Legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman joins the Seattle Symphony for works by Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven.

Feb. 24 — Experience music from the other side of the Pacific with “Celebrate Asia” at Benaroya Hall. Jie Ma is a featured soloist on the pipa, and exquisite instrument from China.

Feb. 25 – Mar. 10 — Don’t miss Seattle Opera’s production of Orphée et Eurydice, a Gluck masterpiece not seen here in Seattle for 24 years.

Feb. 26 — Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra performs at Benaroya Hall. This talented group of young musicians is as good as many a professional orchestra…and a lot less expensive to catch in action.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Natalie Dungey, 12, Solos with the Auburn Symphony

Natalie Dungey (Photo courtesy the artist)

In the 1980s, I heard violinist Midori perform with the Cleveland Orchestra. Aged 13 and barely as tall as the seated concertmaster, she thrilled the audience, playing like a pro. I heard violinist Leila Josefowicz, who performs with the Seattle Symphony in November, playing chamber music, her legs so short she had to wind them around the chair to keep herself balanced, at the summer camp for gifted young musicians in Ohio, also in the ’80s. She was nine. Now she has a McArthur Fellowship, a “genius grant.”

There is something awe inspiring and exciting to hear a young and extremely gifted musician, an occasion which comes up rarely.

I had that chance again Sunday.

Natalie Dungey is 12. She was the soloist in Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto with the Auburn Symphony at the Auburn Performing Arts Center last weekend. From the first measures, she showed that she is a musician, not just a technical whiz kid. What separates the one from the other is the ability to feel the music, to shape the phrases so that they arch and soar, or expand, or flow serenely when needed: that is, to give the music life. Natalie incorporated all this feeling into her performance.

With the orchestra under conductor Stewart Kershaw giving her supportive accompaniment, she encompassed the work’s technical challenges without a glitch anywhere. Her legatos were smooth as silk, her pitch impeccable, including at one point where she blew a high emphatic note, and followed it without a breath to a very soft one well over an octave below, joined by a mere thread. Astonishing.

She was equally able to play crisply and fast, her runs and her tempos even.

We do occasionally see young string players who are wonderfully gifted, like Midori and Josefowicz, or cellist Matt Haimovitz, who began his career in the Seattle Youth Symphony. It is much less usual to see a young solo brass or wind player. The reason is physical. In general, it requires adult-sized lung capacity to blow a long phrase without taking a breath, or to give it the energy a particular phrase may need.

Dungey is a slight pre-teen, but an orchestra horn player informed me that she makes very efficient use of her breath. Certainly she seemed to be able to play long phrases without any problem. It isn’t just a gift to be able to play like this. It takes long and persistent hours of work.

There are many videos of performances she has given in the past three years or so, on YouTube, but looking at those after this concert, I could see a leap Sunday in the maturity of her presentation. Dungey was poised and professional, she played with aplomb and with apparent ease, on an instrument on which Wynton Marsalis played for one of his Grammy Awards. It was lent to her for these performances

On either side of the Hummel, the orchestra gave first a sparkling performance of Rossini’s Overture to La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie), and finished the concert with the Symphony No. 1 of Rachmaninoff. It’s a difficult work to play, requiring considerable skill from the musicians who rose to the achievement. The trombones notably gave fine performances, and conductor Kershaw shaped it well and made a good case for this somber work.