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Your result for "Alsop" from 01/01/2000 to 07/31/2010 in Interviews/Features
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Interviews & Features |
July 29, 2010 |
This year's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music brings out an all-star line-up of guest composers
By: Wallace Baine, of the Santa Cruz Sentinel
If Marin Alsop had assembled a baseball team instead a roster of guest composers for this year's Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, you might say that she's put together the makings of a championship squad -- a couple of superstars, a couple of promising youngsters and a lot of fine, dependable professionals in between.
OK, so contemporary orchestral music is a rather rarefied realm on today's cultural landscape. But if you know who's who on the scene, then you might approach this year's Cabrillo Music Festival like a baseball fan approaches the All-Star Game.
Chief among those stars is Alsop herself, one of the most prominent and accomplished female composers in the world, now in her 19th season of programming the CMF. Then come the giants in the field, the minimalist pioneer Philip Glass and "Nixon in China" star composer John Adams. Behind them, the near-greats -- the prolific Briton Mark-Anthony Turnage and friend-of-the-festival Jennifer Higdon, whose year so far includes winning a Grammy and a Pulitzer Prize. Then, the familiar names to Cabrillo watchers -- Kevin Puts, Michael Hersch -- and the young newcomers -- Anna Clyne, Sean Hickey, Nathaniel Stookey. The festival also includes top-drawer performers as well, including the Kronos Quartet, percussionist Colin Currie, cellist Wendy Sutter and the ensemble Eighth Blackbird...
...Over the past 19 years, Marin Alsop has created an environment where composers want to be. Much of the appeal for composers, she said, comes from Cabrillo's audiences, a relationship she cultivates with the annual "Meet the Composers" luncheon this year on Aug. 7.
"Uniformly, composers are always impressed by the level of discourse from our audience," said Alsop. "It's not just When did you start composing?' or Who's your favorite composer?' There are questions about philosophy and more existential questions than they're accustomed to."
Like novelists or painters, composers often find their work to be a lonely experience. Festival appearances are one of the most immediate ways that composers connect with audiences.
"Composing is very much like the situation that I'm in as a conductor," said Alsop. "You're not there in big numbers and, often, you're the only one who does what you do there. I think the composers find it stimulating and illuminating to be around other composers."
"It's great to be around like-minded people," said Hersch.
However much they like communing with each other and audiences, Cabrillo composers reserve their highest accolades to Alsop and the musicians of the CMF Orchestra...
..."I've been to my fair share of festivals," said Michael Hersch, whose last time at Cabrillo was in 2003. "And from my first experience at Cabrillo, the experience was so positive. I can't really imagine it being any better."
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Interviews & Features |
July 28, 2010 |
Baltimore Symphony to offer 2010-11 season preview at Strathmore
By: Tim Smith of The Baltimore Sun
One of the smart ideas to have emerged in orchestral circles in recent years is the season preview concert -- a program designed to provide prospective concert-goers (and subscription-buyers) a taste of what will be in store on the series ahead. The Baltimore Symphony will offer such a program in September, although not in Baltimore
This preview of the 2010-2011 season will be performed Sept. 10 at Strathmore, conducted by BSO music director Marin Alsop and, making his public debut, the teenage Ilyich Rivas, the BSO-Peabody Bruno Walter Assistant Conductor who is about to start the second year of his fellowship with the orchestra. He makes his subscription-series debut in October...
...The BSO's wildly popular Rusty Musicians project was presented at Strathmore first last winter, but will make it to Baltimore in September. "Our aim is to have annual Rusty events and a season preview concert at both venues," says Eileen Andrews Jackson, BSO v.p. for marketing and communications.
Meanwhile, there's no reason why Baltimore-area folks can't check out the Strathmore preview, too -- the price is right ($10 in advance, $15 at the door) and, for those who have yet to compare the aural and ambiance differences between Meyerhoff and Strathmore, this is a great opportunity.
Alsop will conduct the bulk of the program, which includes
movements from symphonies by Schumann, Prokofiev and Shostakovich; an overture by Mozart and an Essay by Barber; and selections from the world of ballet (Prokofiev's "Cinderella") and film (Williams' "Star Wars" main title music).
Mahler, who is a substantial focus of the '10-'11 lineup (the season coincides with the 150th anniversary of his birth and the centennial of his death), will be also represented. Alsop will conduct his arrangement of the famous "Air" from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3. Rivas will lead the BSO in the exquisite "Blumine" movement from the original version of Mahler's Symphony No. 1.
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Interviews & Features |
July 24, 2010 |
Baltimore Symphony's Zappa, Glass, Shodekeh concert generates great vibes
By: Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun
The tattoos offered the first clue. The congregation of smokers outside at intermission – at least four times the usual number – provided another strong signal: That wasn’t the routine Baltimore Symphony crowd Friday night at Meyerhoff Hall.
I hope the BSO is already hard at work on figuring out how to lure them back in the future with more of the left-field programming that drew such an age-, race- and everything else-diverse group of engaged, enthusiastic people. The vibes were great in that house.
Music director Marin Alsop devised this summer concert as a Baltimore-centric exploration of stylistic cross-pollination – works by two major innovators born here, Frank Zappa and Philip Glass; and a guest appearance by Baltimore’s favorite beatboxer, Shodekeh. (I loved encountering a senior citizen during the interval on his cell phone – he was one of the few who did look every bit the traditional symphony-goer – telling someone that he had just heard the most “amazing,” “unbelievable” performance by a person called a beatboxer.)
Zappa’s orchestral works are surprising in many ways, sometimes almost Second Viennese School-ish in the application of brief, dense clusters of harmony and instrumentation; sometimes unmistakably infused with the idioms of pop music. Alsop, who set off a surprising, sustained ovation from the audience when she praised her musicians for charging into this material with such spirit, drew crisp and colorful performances of “Dupree’s Paradise”; “Be-Bop Tango” (complete with yelps from the players and the audience); “Outrage at Valdez” (rather mild outrage, but making haunting use of an Alpine horn); and a particularly rollicking “G-Spot Tornado.”
Glass was represented by four of the six movements from
his Symphony No. 4, titled “Heroes,” a work based on the Brain Eno/David Bowie album of that name. This is not necessarily Glass’ strongest stuff. There are absorbing passages -- the “Neukoln” movement, with its moody descending theme and shimmering instrumental background, is wonderful – but also moments when the music seems curiously earthbound and constricted. And what’s up with the Tchaikovsky-like, big unison ending for the otherwise Glass-y last movement? It comes off as awfully tacky.
That said, it was great to hear this music in the concert hall, and to hear the BSO spinning out the composer’s trademark reiterative patterns with such a warm and beautifully nuanced sound.
As for Shodekeh, well, he brought the house down with his virtuoso vocal acrobatics, applied first in a modest little concerto for beatboxer and strings called “Fujiko’s Fairy Tale,” by Finnish composer Jan Mikael Vainio, who was on hand to take a bow.
What Shodekeh does is quite brilliant. On one level, the technique constitutes a human percussion-generator and is plenty impressive for that alone. But it’s the array of character that Shodekeh brings to the device -- all the subtlety, surprise and humor in his propulsive and evocative sounds (my favorite suggested an approaching plane) -- that turns it into a more personal kind of music-making. He had a field day in the concerto, providing so much texture and action that Vainio’s score began to sound more interesting.
Shodekeh returned to the stage after intermission to provide a lead-in to the Glass symphony with a solo improv. Taking a leaf from Bobby McFerrin, he tried added some group participation stuff along the way, starting with the BSO players, who gamely tried emitting various vocal noises, then bringing in the audience. It went on a little too long, but certainly had its moments, especially those involving Alsop’s baton, which Shodekeh commandeered.
After the BSO concert, I headed to the Windup Space to catch Mobtown Modern’s presentation of some cutting-edge UK artists – composer Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of Sergei), pianist GeNIA and percussionist Joby Burgess (leader of the ensemble Powerplant).
I particularly enjoyed the kinetic performances Burgess gave of the “Fanta” movement from Prokofiev’s “Import/Export” (who knew a Fanta soda bottle could be so versatile?) and of Steve Reich’s “Electric Counterpoint” on a “xylosynth.” Late in the evening, Shodekeh dropped by and did a bracing, anything-you-can-beat-I-can-beat-faster-and-louder jam with Burgess (now on drum set).
For all I know, the session went on until dawn, but, with midnight approaching, I slipped away, nearly overloaded from more than four hours of cool sounds.
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Interviews & Features |
July 22, 2010 |
BSO mixes beatboxer, Glass and Zappa
Shodekeh to make BSO debut in beatboxer concerto
By: Tim Smith, from The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra doesn't always generate hot sellers for its annual summer season, but it sure has a cool concert this year, surely one of the coolest programs in decades.
Marin Alsop, the BSO's intrepid music director, will lead the ensemble in examining two sides of an intriguing coin — orchestral works written by a Baltimore-born rock star, Frank Zappa; and a symphony written by a Baltimore-born composer, Philip Glass, inspired by the rock songs of David Bowie and Brian Eno.
That would be cool enough, but Friday's performance at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall also features Baltimore beatboxer Shodekeh. He'll be the soloist in a recent concerto by Finnish composer Jan Mikael Vainio called "Fujiko's Fairy Tale."
"I'm trying to highlight the fact that musical boundaries are much less rigid these days," Alsop says. "There's a fluidity now, a willingness to cross over and to share among different stylistic approaches and backgrounds."
Alsop has long championed the music of Glass, which received very little attention from the BSO before she took the podium in 2007. The conductor also has a good deal of Zappa in her repertoire. His pieces "show how drawn many pop artists are to the power of symphonic music," Alsop says. "He was one of the first. I like his music. It's very distinctive, individualistic and quirky, to say the least. And the titles are always fantastic."...
..."I hadn't thought about integrating beatboxer and orchestra before," Alsop says, "but I heard a concert in London last year that involved DJs and alternative music products. It was very effective."
Once Alsop learned about Baltimore's stellar beatboxer, she wanted to find a program for him. "The thing Shodekeh does is awesome," she says...
...The Vainio concerto provides a handy vehicle for Shodekeh's BSO debut. "I like it," Alsop says of the work. "It basically sets down a bed of strings playing melodic things for the beatboxer to play around with. It's pretty much an improvised solo part. And we're adding a couple of cadenzas for Shodekeh to riff on his own."
Shodekeh describes the concerto as "a piece that basically captures a moment in an imaginary fairy-tale land, with a lot of tension and adventure. It kind of felt it was speaking to me in a certain way."
Alsop didn't want to limit Shodekeh's involvement in the program to the concerto. She asked him to open the second half of the program with vocal improvisations. "I thought it would be a cool way to introduce the Glass symphony," the conductor says. (The BSO will perform four of the symphony's six movements.)
Shodekeh has been working on something appropriate for the pre-Glass slot. "I can't give it away," he says, "but I'm hoping the moment will create an inspiration for bridging gaps."
Such bridging is what the whole program is about.
"Music is music," Alsop says. "And we're all in this together."
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Interviews & Features |
July 22, 2010 |
New Music at Festival, but Familiar Players
By: Chloe Veltman
It took some convincing to get Galen Lemmon to play with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music’s orchestra.
Mr. Lemmon, the principal percussionist with Symphony Silicon Valley and owner of the Lemmon Percussion store in San Jose, declined numerous invitations to join the orchestra of the annual festival in Santa Cruz. He finally agreed to fill in for a fellow musician — just one time — as a favor. That was 10 years ago, and Mr. Lemmon has since performed with the Cabrillo Festival orchestra every summer.
“After one concert, I was hooked,” Mr. Lemmon said. “It was an instant love affair.”...
Led by Marin Alsop, the music director of the Baltimore Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival stands out among music festivals for its dedication to new orchestral music. “Summer events like the Tanglewood and Aspen festivals feature some new music, but only Cabrillo as far as I know is distinctive for being focused entirely on contemporary works,” said Jesse Rosen, president and chief executive of the League of American Orchestras.
Like other summer festival orchestras, Cabrillo attracts musicians who accept generally lower pay to enjoy the sense of camaraderie with their fellow instrumentalists in beautiful surroundings. But its repertory of new music presents particular challenges not faced by musicians in most other festival orchestras, which largely perform the standard classical fare.
Players arrive in Santa Cruz a week before the festival begins, and Ms. Stewart said they were expected to show up at the first rehearsal ready to go.
“We perform a total of five programs in two weeks, not including family and chamber concerts,” she said. “Most professional orchestras do only one program a week, so we’re basically talking about two weeks of working more than double time.”
...The players are drawn to Cabrillo for the opportunity to explore cutting-edge musical frontiers, hone skills and work first-hand with Ms. Alsop and renowned composers like Mr. Adams, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Jennifer Higdon, Philip Glass and Kevin Puts — all of whom will be at the festival this year presenting works.
“Most musicians don’t have many opportunities to play contemporary music in their traditional symphony jobs throughout the year,” Ms. Alsop said. “Devoting an entire effort to new music is a unique experience.”
Ellen Primack, the Cabrillo Festival’s executive director, said: “We are in some ways a foil to the rest of the musicians’ lives. If having a steady orchestra job is like a marriage, then the festival is like a fling.”
The passion in the festival players’ performances certainly has the energy of a mad crush — for better and for worse.
“As a pickup group, the orchestra lacks the homogenous sound of an ensemble like the New York Philharmonic whose members are used to playing together all the time,” said Mr. Puts, who has had seven of his works performed at the festival since 2002 and who will make his Cabrillo Festival debut as a soloist in his own piano concerto, “Night,” on Aug. 14. “Yet I’ve never experienced more energy and commitment from an orchestra playing my work than I’ve experienced at Cabrillo.”
It is working with composers like Mr. Puts that helps to put energy into the playing.
“One of the best things about the festival is interacting with the composers,” Mr. Lemmon said. “For the rest of the year, we mostly work with dead composers. But at Cabrillo, we feel like we’re part of the process of making their music come alive.”
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Interviews & Features |
July 6, 2010 |
New Classical Tracks: Symphonic Dvorak
By: Julie Amacher, Minnesota Public Radio
St. Paul, Minn. — When Marin Alsop arrived as music director of the Baltimore Symphony in 2007, she brought with her a valuable connection to the recording industry. The end result is several new releases from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which hadn't recorded in almost a decade... Their latest recording in that cycle explores the dramatic contrasts between Dvorak's Symphony No. 7 and 8...
The virtuosic soloists within the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra really shine in the second movement, which is marked Poco adagio. This movement starts with a clarinet melody in F major followed by another melody for flutes and oboes that explores new harmonies. Another theme is introduced by violin and cello, and then the rich colors of the horn explode into a gorgeous theme.
The third movement is the Scherzo ("Vivace"), which is a favorite for most musicians because Dvorak, who spent many years playing in an orchestra himself, gives every member of the orchestra something thrilling to play. Various cross-rhythms make this movement very intriguing. While the violins and violas have three beats per measure, the cello and bassoons have just two, making this a somewhat light-hearted, yet very energetic movement...
The second movement is a reflection of the idyllic surroundings of the Czech countryside. This Adagio is almost a miniature tone poem of village life, with the sounds of a rustic country band and bird songs fluttering in the woodwinds.
A graceful g minor waltz is at the head of the third movement, with a contrasting trio section that Dvorak borrowed from his comic opera, "The Stubborn Lovers."
The finale is a concoction of wandering variations with numerous orchestral effects, like virtuosic flute passages and high horns blasting their way to the finish line.
Dvorak once said, "Mozart is sunshine." I think the same can be said of Dvorak. In these live recordings from Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra bring new ideas to light in these works, thanks to these crisp performances that let you listen to these dramatic symphonies with fresh ears.
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