Tag: Concordia Chamber Players

  • Local Music Events to Brighten a Rainy Day

    Local Music Events to Brighten a Rainy Day

    Looking for a little musical cheer on a rainy Sunday? Here are four musical events with local connections to enjoy.

    The Bucks County-based ensemble La Fiocco – directed by Dr. Lewis Baratz, host of WWFM’s “Well-Tempered Baroque” – will host Early Music keyboard virtuoso Corina Marti. Marti will perform on a reconstruction of a hand-pumped portative organ, the clavisimbalum, and an early 16th century-type harpsichord. The program will include works by Francesco Landini, istampittas from anonymous English, Italian, and French sources, intabulations from the 15th century Faenza Codex, and pieces from the 16th century Amerbach Codex. The concert will be streamed from the neo-Romanesque St. Marienkirche in Basel, Switzerland. LINKS TO THE CONCERT AND ZOOM RECEPTION WILL BE SENT PRIOR TO THE PERFORMANCE, so if you’re interested, register ASAP! The concert will debut this afternoon at 3:00 EDT, and will be available on-demand through 4/17. For more information, visit lafiocco.org.

    During an ordinary, Covid-free season, La Fiocco would be performing at 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, in Ewing, NJ, or at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, PA (near New Hope). Another ensemble that makes Solebury its home is Concordia Chamber Players. The ensemble’s artistic director, cellist Michelle Djokic, will be joined by violinist Siwoo Kim and violist Milena Pajaro-vande Stadt, in a concert filmed at ArtYard in Frenchtown, NJ. On the program will be works by Carlos Simon, Milad Yousufi, Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Zoltan Kodaly, Erno Dohnanyi, and Georges Enescu. The video will premiere at 5:00 EDT, and remain posted for your viewing and listening pleasure, at concordiaplayers.org.

    On Friday, Princeton composer Julian Grant’s latest, a vocal chamber music work/pocket opera on the subject of a Russian folk tale, received its world premiere, courtesy of Harvard Musical Association. Grant’s “Salt” forms the centerpiece of a concert by Emmanuel Music that also includes plenty of Beethoven: selections from his Scottish and Irish folksongs, the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte” (“To the Distant Beloved”), and the Presto movement from the Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 1. The video is now posted. Grant’s piece begins about 48 minutes in, but, by all means, start at the beginning of the concert and enjoy the entire program! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCTXlzq_6Zk

    Finally, if you’re in need of a lift, Princeton Symphony Orchestra brass provide a surge of hope and nobility via Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.” The performance was recorded in Princeton’s Palmer Square. Watch it now, and turn that frown upside down, at princetonsymphony.org.

  • Princeton Festival Goes Digital

    Princeton Festival Goes Digital

    The Princeton Festival is one of the many local arts organizations that’s begun to share musical material from its archive, as we all continue to figure out ways to navigate a world plagued by coronavirus.

    Unavoidably, this June’s festival has been cancelled, with an optimistic projection that some of the events could be rescheduled for the fall.

    In the meantime, the festival is making available podcasts and music files for our delectation, with further, digital content promised, including online educational workshops, poetry readings, and Princeton Festival performances.

    This week, PF highlights Michelle Djokic, cellist and artistic director of Concordia Chamber Players. Concordia has long been a festival staple, but also presents a regular chamber music series, right across the Delaware River, at its home in the New Hope vicinity of Bucks County.

    Hear a conversation with Michelle Djokic here:

    Then enjoy Concordia performances of works by Mendelssohn and Kodály as part of the Princeton Festival’s growing archive of online music files.

    https://princetonfestival.org/music-archive/

    You can learn more about the Princeton Festival at its website or by following the organization on Facebook and Instagram.

    Last week’s conversation with festival artistic and executive director Richard Tang Yuk has been posted to the Princeton Festival YouTube channel.

  • Chamber Music Concerts in Princeton & Solebury

    Chamber Music Concerts in Princeton & Solebury

    Good things come in small packages on upcoming concerts of two area chamber music ensembles. Richardson Chamber Players will present “England’s Green and Pleasant Land” at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Sunday, and Concordia Chamber Players will present “All Things Strings” at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, PA, on Feb. 26. Both concerts will begin at 3 p.m.

    The Princeton University Concerts program will highlight folk-inflected works by Ralph Vaughan Williams (“Merciless Beauty,” on texts of Geoffrey Chaucer), Gerald Finzi (“Five Bagatelles” for clarinet and piano), John McCabe, and Benjamin Britten, with a classic example of the renowned English facility for writing for string orchestra, Edward Elgar’s “Serenade for Strings in E minor.”

    Concordia will present string music on a more intimate scale, with quartets by Philip Glass and Claude Debussy alongside a quintet by Antonin Dvořák.

    Glass, who turned 80 on Jan. 31, wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in 1983. It grew out of incidental music he composed for a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Company.” Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor, from 1893, is universally regarded as one of the greatest of French string quartets; it is certainly one of the most popular.

    Dvořák wrote his String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat major, also from 1893, during the same trip that yielded his more famous “American” String Quartet. The composer had been lured to the United States from Bohemia to take up the directorship of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He summered at a Czech community in Spillville, IA. The environment obviously agreed with him, as both works share an ingratiatingly sunny disposition. The music brims with Bohemian inflections and American inspiration.

    You can read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

    http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2017/02/classical_music_richardson_cha.html


    PHOTOS (clockwise from left): Concordia artistic director Michelle Djokic, Glass, Debussy and Dvořák

  • WWFM Today Strauss & Concordia Concerts

    WWFM Today Strauss & Concordia Concerts

    Immediately following today’s installment of “What Makes It Great,” it’s Richard Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” (“A Hero’s Life”), in an acclaimed recording that, to my knowledge, has never been played on this station, with Semyon Bychkov and the West German Radio Orchestra.

    Coming up at 4:00 EDT, stay tuned for a special concert presented by Concordia Chamber Players. The broadcast will feature Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581, and Beethoven’s String Quintet in C major, Op. 29. Concordia’s next concert will take place this Sunday at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, PA, (outside New Hope) at 3 p.m. The program will include works by E.J. Moeran, Bohuslav Martinu and Sir William Walton. Find out more at concordiaplayers.org.

    I’ll be with you until 4 today. Keep listening to WWFM – The Classical Network, and pledge your support at wwfm.org. Thanks!

  • Shakespeare Henry V Music & Trenton School Benefit

    Shakespeare Henry V Music & Trenton School Benefit

    O for a Muse of Fire!

    We’re celebrating Shakespeare this week – and over the next three Thursday mornings – on Classic Ross Amico. Stick around for an extended suite from the Laurence Olivier film of “Henry V,” with Christopher Plummer the narrator.

    We’ll take a short break in the music around 9:00 for a worthy cause, as we are joined by representatives of the Foundation Academies Charter School in Trenton. Students of the Academy will join cellist Michelle Djokic, artistic director of Concordia Chamber Players, for a fundraising concert to acquire instruments for the students at Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie Mansion, this Saturday at 4 p.m.

    Then on Sunday at 3 p.m., the students will attend Concordia’s next concert at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, PA., that will feature works by Mozart, Brahms and Michael Daugherty. Hopefully you will consider being there, as well. We’ll hear more about it, plus the Foundation Academy’s “Stand Partners” program, during the course of their visit.

    Then it’s back to music. Plenty of Shakespeare yet to come this morning, until 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 and at wprb.com

Tag Cloud

Aaron Copland (92) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (123) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (187) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (101) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (138) Opera (202) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (106) Radio (87) Ralph Vaughan Williams (85) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)

DON’T MISS A BEAT

Receive a weekly digest every Sunday at noon by signing up here


RECENT POSTS