The Fabulous Philadelphians Return

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composers, opening nights, Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Yo-Yo Ma

Photo: Jeff Fusco

The Philadelphians soulful season opener

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Yannick Nezet-Seguin, conductor

Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Charlotte Blake Alston, Speaker

Yannick Nezet-Seguin and the musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra were back in Verizon Hall on October 5^th for their season opener that ended18 months away from performing for a live audience. On this night playing to almost packed house for a moving concert program with cello superstar Yo-Yo Ma.

The orchestra was not already onstage as the audience filed in, but instead made their entrance together, and the audience bounded out of their seats to greet them back. In a sartorial switch, the musicians had more modern dress code, sans tails on the men for starters and even maestro Yannick had ruby studs on his shoes. Meanwhile, the crowd had on their required masks, but otherwise were decked out in celebratory outfits- sleek gowns, stylish suits, cocktail hour wraps, studded pumps- giving the evening an added sense of musical occasion.

But the most glittering thing about the night was the program that Nezet-Seguin designed to meet this unique moment. Without ceremony, Yo-Yo Ma entered with the maestro and guest speaker Charlotte Blake Alston. Mr. Ma started to play a somber solo that just engulfed the room and led to Ms. Alston’s invocation for the audience to “stand in the name of human dignity” and spoke to the need for unity in a perilous time and finishing her remarks with a poem by Langston Hughes. Then Ma launched into the Aria from Villa- Lobos’ ‘Cantilena Bachianas Brasileiras’ leading the Philadelphia strings in music that was so appropriate, so reflexive of this moment in time.

 From there, without pause, Ma glided into the musical labyrinth of Camille Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto, with its unique structure. Ma performance is completely in the service of the music, from the sustained bowing , dark sonorities, staccato riffs,  its joyous lyrical passages to its most profound musical chambers. Ma has been playing the concerto for decades, and still does so with such rapturous immediacy.

Throughout, Ma’s interplay with the orchestra musicians showcases a joyous shared artistry.

 The concert was performed without intermission, and Nezet-Seguin spoke about the role that music can play to help heal a traumatized world. And to be together again for the shared expressions of “Joy, reflection, introspection, hopes and dreams.”

He then introduced Valerie Coleman’s ‘Seven O’Clock Shout’ composed in tribute to the front – line workers that saw us through the pandemic. Coleman was inspired by the New Yorkers who banged on pots and shouted their support every evening in solidarity for health care workers, police officers, food service employees, transit workers and who kept serving their communities. The somber atmosphere of the first half of the piece shifts into an orchestral  statement of communal solidarity with the musicians shouting out and the percussion banging out a joyful noise of hope.   

The closer was Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ which never loses its luster with audiences. Even though the lead solos were sharp, this ‘Bolero’ seemed a tad disjointed in the first half of its slow build symphonics.  It all came together midway through, with outstanding solos by Peter Smith (oboe), Daniel Matsukawa (bassoon), Ricardo Morales (clarinet) and the blazing trumpet of Jeffrey Curnow.. When the full strings thundered in, their lustrous depth engulfing Verizon Hall, led by principal violinists David Kim and Kimberly Fisher.

The Fabulous Philadelphians packed their season launch with events, the following night  were in New York City for their return to Carnegie Hall performing a completely different program with soloist Yuja Wang, then were back to Philly for a three-concert weekend with a program called American Masters, with pianist Aaron Diehl performing Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’

ClassicalPhilly

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Beethoven, Boulanger, composers, Farrenc, PhiladelphiaOrchestra, VerizonHall

Pianist Daniil Trifonov (courtesy Philadelphia Orchestra)

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor

Daniil Trifonov, piano

Jan. 30, * 31- Feb 1-2, 2020

Verizon Hall, Philadelphia

To commemorate Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has launched BeethovenNOW, the year to revisit and put the current orchestra’s stamp on all the symphonies and the bounty of other repertory from Beethoven’s works.

Yannick kicked it off in grand style, with the orchestra back in their longtime house, the Academy of Music, for a subscription concert for the first time in two decades. Pianist Yefim Bronfman performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4 (slated for CD/digital release). The same week the orchestra was back in Verizon Hall with four performances with pianist Daniil Trifonov performing Beethoven’s 1st and 5th concertos. Trifonov may have been the marquee draw, but the rest of the program proved just as interesting with works by Lili Boulanger and Louise Farrenc, that also highlights the orchestra’s season long overdue concept of performing more works by women composers.   

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 has a lengthy symphonic opening, played on this night with full force. Trifonov makes a warm entrance, a bit distanced from the orchestra and. there were moments the pianist-orchestra energy was a little cold.  Everything came together in the Largo and some moments of Beethoven transcendence by the Rondo Allegro 3rd movement. Trifonov’s interpretive artistry came thundering through in Beethoven’s cadenzas, illuminating the edge of Beethoven’s adventurism.  

Trifonov revels in the improvisational aspects of certain composers (brilliantly with Chopin) and   in this concerto give him room to explore. He is in the zone, lurching over the keyboard with an entranced intensity, then pulling back, bolt upright, his head drops back in the progressions and orchestral resolves. Worth noting that the maestro kept close eye on the pianist, there was no doubt who was driving this concerto. You sense his visceral connection to the music that is not a performance pose or mask. After three curtain calls of unabated standing ovation, after a long pause backstage Trifonov strode back onstage and unceremoniously sat down to play   Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s Polonaise No. 8 in E minor with its haunting lyricism that is simply magic in Trifonov’s hands.

This season the orchestra is finally performing more music composed by women, past and present, Nezét-Séguin and on this night the orchestra performing two works that should be part of the orchestra’s heavy rotation repertory.  A surprise that the maestro didn’t introduce either work, something that he often does with compositions that are being performed by the orchestra for the first time.

The concert opened with a radiant performance of Lili Boulanger’s D’un Soir Triste (Of a Sad Evening)   composed in 19 17-18 the last year of her life. She was only 24 years old.  There is so much musical life in this work, even with the foreboding atmospherics, Boulanger’s vivid dynamics of the strings and frame the her progressive mise-en-scenes.  Among the outstand soloists- cellist Hai-Ye Ni, harp and violin dialogues by David Kim and Elizabeth Hainen. Kyoto Takeuti in the haunting background celesta. All of it so distinctly Boulanger’s, what a great loss to music that she died so young.

The closer proved just as captivating in an altogether stellar performance of this rarely performed work. In a program note for Louise Farrenc’s Symphony no. 2. Nézet-Séguin writes that concert audiences not familiar with Farrenc’s work will be tempted to compare it to the famous classical-romantic composers of the early 18^th century- Berlioz, Gounod, Schubert, etc. and certainly on the surface of the symphony there are symphonic tropes of the era.  Nézet-Séguin in the program notes that Farrenc’s voice “doesn’t sound like any of these people. It sounds like her.”  The structure of the symphony’s four shorter movements is unique, as are the pulsing subtleties of the strings, the sensual blend of woodwinds prescient to French tone poems of the early 20^th century. Farrenc was writing her own chapter of French symphonic music that has, without doubt, too long been ignored.

ClassicalPhilly

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composers, NYE Classical concerts, Philadelphia Orchestra, SanctuaryofMusic

Maestro Tovey rings in 2020 with humor & musical class

British composer-conductor Bramwell Tovey
(photo: courtesy Philadelphia Orchestra)

 

British conductor Bramwell Tovey was back on the Philadelphia Orchestra podium for a spirited ‘musical tour around to globe’ on New Year’s Eve.  Tovey has a unique relationship with the Fabulous Philadelphians; he has composed new music in both classical & jazz genre, he has guested as piano soloist and his sharp wit continues to delight Philly audiences when he leads the orchestra’s year end holiday programs, always bringing surprises on top of the traditional seasonal classical fare.

True to form, maestro Tovey rang out the ragged decade with a rousing NYE concert in Verizon Hall, peppered of course with his wry asides. The first half of the program plum with showpieces from Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Brahms, and the second half the inevitable Strauss waltz carousel, with a piece of Mahler as the entre-acte.

To open, Tovey bounded to the podium and launched the band into the rousing orchestral fireworks of George Gershwin’s ‘Strike Up the Band.’ After-which he picked up the microphone and had the audience laughing right out of the gate with some ribbing about the antics of the coming Mummers parade and even working in a loaded line about New Jersey drivers coming to town for the cine-bomb movie ‘Cats.’

He told the wayward maritime tale of how Rimsky-Korsakov composed ‘’Capriccio espanole’ when the Russian composer was then a merchant marine’ who never actually set foot in Spain, but heard the music from his ship off harbored off shore, “Isn’t that what they all say?” he quipped. But adding Tovey how brilliant a Spanish-Russian symphonic fusion Rimsky-Korsakov made. Tovey’s interpretive detailing bringing it to its full musical dimensions in the fast shifting tempos and stellar orchestral passagio. Among the outstanding soloists Peter Smith (oboe), Patrick Williams (flute) and Associate concert master Juliet Kang, essaying those haunting gypsy lead violin lines.

Tovey set up the fantasy story of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake about a Prince falling in love with a Swan, joking all the way, but also noted that he was playing the composer’s original version which had been tampered with on the ballet stage many times after Tchaikovsky’s death   ‘He’s a de-composer now.’  but adding that his ballet music is “So transparent…in expressing the tenderest feelings of love.”

In Tchaikovsky’s original Act II ‘White Swan’ pas de duex- The harp -violin dialogue representing the Prince/Swan duet onstage.  Juliet Kang’s violin and Elizabeth Hainen’s harp were dancing on air and into our souls.  The orchestral elements though proved a bit wayward in this arrangement. An unscheduled infant’s soft crying was heard from the balcony (like Baby new year trying to bust in early, no?), it was, indeed, a magical moment in Verizon Hall.   

As urbane as the maestro is he is also not afraid to bring a POPs Orchestra sentimentality via in waltz miniatures by American composer Leroy Anderson in works including ‘Belle of the Ball’, ‘Forgotten Dreams. ‘ Then the fireworks of ‘Bugler’s Holiday.’ The last a virtuoso walk in the park for trumpet trio Robert Curnow, Tony Prist and principal David Bilger, returning to the orchestra after recovering from shoulder reconstruction and leading those staccato triplet lines in fine form. Later, Bilger also stellar in the trumpet solos in Gustav Mahler’s tone poem ‘Blumine’ that opened the concert’s second half.

The highlight of the entire concert was Brahms’ Hungarian Dance’ no. 5. In the 1938 arrangement byMartin Schmeling. As in the Rimsky-Korsakov, Tovey showcasing the dynamics of the orchestra in top form, as well as the brilliance of the music.

“A chance to have a fresh start and begin again.’ and ‘Let’s have a good time tonight.” Sincere sentiments from the maestro in light of the fact that Tovey told arts journalist Susan Lewis for the live NYE broadcast on WRTI that he had missed a half year of conducting because he had just recovered from cancer treatments. And in light of that it is particularly inspiring to observe how dancerly maestro Tovey continues to be in performance. 

For Johan Strauss’ ‘Emperor’s Waltz’ Tovey set the scene for us to imagine being a lady in a 19th Vienna ballroom waiting for the Viennese gentleman-officer to ask you to dance and raising your hand reach his in “long white gloves covering up most of your tattoos.”

Strauss’ The Kunster Quadril’  a waltz mash of 19^h century greatest hits tropes of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, & Schubert, which Tovey dubbed “classical elevator music.” but made it more than a pastiche piece.  

On Johan & Josef Strauss’s ‘Pizzicato Polka’ which Tovey announced he was recreating his first time conducting with many “bad habits then.” He hilariously (& lithely) emoted through the music as he wielded two batons and characterized the music ala- la- Looney Tunes maestro. The comedy continued with the Strauss Champagne Polka, punctuated by a cork popping instrument, but Tovey also brandishing a bottle of fine bubbly popping the last cork note almost on cue and pouring the wine into flutes then handing out glasses to cellist Yumi Kendall who just got married ‘to a wonderful man’ Tovey enthused. Then slugging back a glass himself, complete with a soft-shoe spin on the podium.

The concert closer, inescapably ‘Blue Danube‘  that waltz to dance us into a new decade.  The encore which the British Tovey introduced in a Scottish B(urr)ogue of “Rrrobbie Burns”  Auld Lang Syne. Tovey raising his voice in song, his eyes sparking with hope and resignation for us all to face the music and dance.

PhillyJazz

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composers, jazzfestivals, JazzPhilly, musicians, vanguards

 Monterey Jazz Festival tour | 60^th Anniversary vanguard ensemble

Kimmel Center, Philadelphia March 23, 2019

The Monterey Jazz Festival Tour is currently crisscrossing the country for one night only performances after they their exquisite debut at Jazz at Lincoln Center in March.  A millennial vanguard ensemble with vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant, trumpeter Bria Skonberg, baritone saxist Melissa Aldana, pianist Christian Sands, drummer Jamison Ross and bassist Yasushi Nakamura. with is made up of musicians and composers and they are making these concerts something truly memorable. In Verizon Hall in Philadelphia jazz multigenerational jazz fans and many local musicians were in attendance March 23 for their sizzling 100-minute set.

The group unceremoniously walked on the Verizon Hall stage and from the first notes of Cecile’s composition  ‘Fog’ this ensemble made this a musical night to remember.  Salvant’s writing her own chapter on stellar jazz phrasing and her energy with the other musicians the subtle power of her voice simply rapturous. ‘Fog’ is Salvant’s starts as a baleful torch song that breaks out into a rollicking jam. The singer joked she was inspired to write it by the rudeness of a man who stood up for a date because he said he had to walk his dog.

Also among the many substantive highlights-The free-form fusion orchestral by tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana titled ‘Elsewhere’ that initially sounds like a solo tenor sax scales study then careens for 15 or so minutes into a raucous instrumental with each player weighing in lyrically, progressively, some dissonant voicings, but all together a cohesive showcase for MJF’s ensemble virtuosity.

David Sands transcription of one of the most famous arias in all of opera  E lucevan le Stelle sung by the painter Mario in the 3^rd act of Puccini’s Tosca.  Sands builds up to the great Puccini passage with an improvisational prologue, then with Ross with whispery rhythmic and Nakamura, caressing bass bowing, it is a tour de force of jazz and classical piano fusion, then Sands solos on the soaring heart of the aria, that proved a make or break tenors around the world.

Sands’ piano, Nakamura’s bass and drummer Ross, a rhythmic internal drive proves to be towering jazz rhythmic architecture.

Not to be outdone Aldana and Skonberg’s sax-trumpet harmonics took center soundstage throughout the concert. And as Skonberg noted before she paid tribute to Valiadia Snow an African-American singer and trumpeter in the 30s and 40s. Skonberg saying how great it is to have female jazz musicians equal time on the MJF Anniversary Tour. Then Skonberg sang and blew the during a vampy swing of “I Got My High Hat Trumpet and Rhythm” in delectable homage with call and response  (HI HI-Ho HO)vocalese from the audience and Skonberg.is

Salvant returned to the stage with a tribute to legendary jazz vocalist Betty Carter’s song ‘I Can’t Help it’ with an opening vocalese duet with Nakamura.  Later she sang ‘Moonsong’ Salvant displayed her unfussy rich upper range and her entrancing  sonorous lower register. 

Ross also has a great voice/ singing his song ‘Sack Full of Dreams’ (The wonderful world of love) with evocations of acapella Africanist song intro then singing his same lyric about a world in love with love in a smooth jazz style, then weaving in lyrics from the ballads What a Wonderful World and Reach Out and Touch.  

 Yasushi Nakamura weighed in with another raucous orchestral which Sands introduced as ‘Yasugaloo’ ala the 60s Bugaloo R&B dance funk. Nakamura with a rhythmic bass line that Skonberg intercepts and blazes through a Nola style mute horn, then Sands picking up spidery piano runs. 

Sands’ finale ‘Fight for Freedom’ a blazing jazz orchestral, a musical j’accuse to the current socio/cultural landsca~ pe and the vital musical spirit of the progressive jazz vanguards. In style and substance, this MJF ensemble tour celebrates 60-plus years of America’s premiere West Coast jazz festival diaspora.

~for MJF tour cities & dates go to http://www.montereyjazzfestival.org/ontour

~The Kimmel Center celebrates Jazz month in April~ go to http://www.kimmelcenter.org for the line up of scheduled concerts and artists events

ClassicalPhilly

Tags

classical Philly, composers, maestros, musicians, watlz

The Philadelphians make it more than holiday pageantry 

Dressed in a short blood -red velvet jacket, conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin was tres debonair raising his glass and waltzing NYE in on the Verizon Hall podium with the Fabulous Philadelphians onstage and in the audience.

Yannick kicked it off with a luminous performance of Strauss’ Overture to Die Fledermaus and Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes (arg. Hermann) both showcases for the command of the Orchestra’s swirling strings. Nezet-Seguin made the evening more than a showcase for his obvious mastery of waltz repertoire. He also camped it up for The ‘Waltzing Cat’ (Anderson) with those meowing strings, playfully clawing at the strings with his maestro paws. Then more bubbly comedy with “the Champagne Waltz” with principal percussionist Christopher Deviney swilling it down and providing sound effects.

The program highlight was Kimberly Fisher’s
Fritz Kreisler violin medley Schon Rosmann/Liebesleid/Liebesfreud. Fisher is the orchestra’s 2nd chair principal and her technical artistry and expressiveness with Kreisler’s music is soulful and simply lustrous.

Yannick clearly enjoys conducting the traditional ‘Vienesse – centric repertory, but the Fritz Kreisler selections, Richard Rogers’ Carousel Waltz and ‘Tchaikovsky’s Waltz from Swan Lake made for a most vibrant second act. finished of course, that panoramic dance over the Blue Danube and the requisite clap songs, but Yannick skipped his usual NYE closer Robert Burns’ Auld Lang Syne, perhaps kicking off the afterparty toasts on Broad St or winging back to New York in time for 2019 on Broadway.

Bramwell Tovey spirited style for Philly holidays

Meanwhile, Philadelphia Orchestra’s most popular guest conductor-composer Bramwell Tovey was also having a robust holiday season in Philly, conducting two separate seasonal programs earlier in December.

The first, Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, with Tovey’s his narrative interludes laced in. “I wouldn’t dignify it with the term narration. What I would say though is that the first time I did it was with an audience of all young people and it seemed to work very well.” Tovey said a few days later in an impromptu interview in his dressing room.

The audience disagreed, this was vibrant Britten with added charm and the perfect prelude to a strong staging and orchestral-choral performance of Giancarlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, though rarely performed is a modern classic and many in this audience still remember seeing it on tv in 1951. It was actually the first opera to have its world premiere on television and was a huge success.

The key role of Amahl, scored for a boy soprano was portrayed by Dante Michael DiMaio, who sings with the Philadelphia Boy Choir and has performed with Opera Philadelphia. 

Tovey said “Young Dante is truly exceptional,” Tovey said. “Amahl is a huge undertaking for a boy soprano. When I arrived, he was already note-perfect playing this role. During rehearsal, I asked him to do a few things and took it in a ran with it, some of it is so high, he handled those high gs.”

The adapted biblical story of a poor widowed mother and her disabled son who take in three travelers while on a religious journey. DiMaio and mezzo-soprano Renee Tatum, as Amahl’s mother, had wonderful vocal chemistry and pathos.

The Philadelphia Symphonic Choir bringing detail and emotional dimension, to the chorale. And the Three Kings- tenor Andrew Stenson (Kaspar), bass-baritone Brandon Cedel (Melchoir) and bass David Leigh (Balthazar)- making the most of their character solos.

It played beautifully on the Verizon Hall stage, not an easy thing to stage opera with the orchestra also onstage. Tovey noted stage director Omera Ben Seadia is the reason why. who moved the large chorus from the choir loft to the stage scenes with ease.

“We literally only had one staging rehearsal.  He was very creative, responsive to the beats and hungry for musical information…and if I suggested leaning on a phrase this way or that, he would do it next time and it would immediately go onto his musical hard drive.”

For his part, Tovey had never conducted the piece.   And a vast majority of the Philadelphia Orchestra had never performed it, though, on both counts, one would never have guessed. This was a triumphant performance of an underappreciated Menotti work.

The following week, Tovey’s revisited the repertory of Philadelphia Orchestra’s number one classical album of all time 1962’s The Glorious Sounds of Christmas.

The highlight of which was Tovey’s narration as he accompanied himself on piano with melodies of carols, jazz riffs, and classical improvisations, while reciting ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, with that sonorous deep voice, delivering magical moments.

As busy as the maestro was during his holidays in Philly, he still had time for a pop-up a concert at Liberty Place shopping tower.  And he popped up to New York in between the programs to perform as guest pianist with the New York Philharmonic. “It’s fun to do it like that. In some ways, it’s easier to conduct it when I’m playing it.” Tovey recalls that  Leonard Bernstein gave him the idea.

Tovey not only cracks audiences up with his relaxed banter on the podium, but he also has the vocal prowess of a veteran British actor. For the second program with the Philadelphians is now becoming a semi-annual performance by Tovey of a recreation of conductor Eugene Ormandy’s 1964 concert The Glorious Sounds of Christmas’ that became a bestselling album across the charts recording by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1964.
“Something I really enjoy doing with the Philadelphia Orchestra,” the maestro intimated.

He narrates the  ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ Tovey’s golden baritone is as warm as a holiday fire, but he also draws more laughs with his witty asides on audience members arriving late, musical jokes about the orchestra or even slinging sharp political barbs.  He is the drollest maestro on the international circuit, but in the end, it is all about the music and his creative relationship with the musicians wherever he conducts.  

Tovey is now conductor emeritus of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, recently stepping down after his 18-year tenure as musical director-conductor. The maestro is by no means slowing down; he has been named the musical director of BBC Symphony Orchestra. Artistic advisor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and musical Director of Calgary Opera. He has a slate of new projects lined up, including plans to premiere his new opera.