Wow! Here’s Mimi Stillman with “The President’s Own” United States Marine Chamber Orchestra in the world premiere of a new flute concerto by Zhou Tian, composer. I’ve had the privilege to interview and record with Mimi a number of times over the years, and I know Zhou from having interviewed him for the Trenton Times and on the air during my days at WPRB. Both such personable and talented people! Definitely also do check out Zhou’s Grammy-nominated Concerto for Orchestra, recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. It’s a knockout! Mimi has many other wonderful videos posted on her page. Follow her! And congratulations to both.
World premiere of Zhou’s Flute Concerto
Live performance of his Concerto for Orchestra, with the Basque National Orchestra
PHOTO: Zhou, Mimi, and the U.S. Marine Band’s Col. Jason K. Fettig
I’m sure it will surprise no one to learn that, back in the days when I ran a book shop in Philadelphia, I amassed a veritable trove of music inventory. Since a lot of my business was conducted online, I had musicians contacting me from all over the word. One of these was Lowell Liebermann. When, in the course of our correspondence, I asked if he was any relation to the composer, he quipped, “If you mean Rolf Liebermann, no.”
If you don’t get the joke, Rolf Liebermann wrote this:
Years later, I interviewed Liebermann for the Trenton Times. His Flute Concerto (1992) was twice performed by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra – once by Eugenia Zukerman, in 2012, and later by Met principal flute (and former Princeton principal) Chelsea Knox, in 2019. In fact, the concerto may be Liebermann’s most frequently-played orchestral work. Here’s Zukerman’s world premiere recording of the piece (written for James Galway), with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra:
His Flute Sonata (1987) is, if anything, even more popular, if only because a flutist need only collaborate with a pianist. There are 11 recordings of it in the current catalogue. Here’s one I like with principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Jeffrey Khaner. The work falls into two movements, so let it play to the next screen.
Liebermann’s “Gargoyles” is a popular showpiece for pianists. Here it is, performed by Yuja Wang.
I also had the privilege to hear Liebermann’s opera, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” in 2007. The world premiere was conducted in Monte Carlo in 1996, by Benjamin Britten champion Steuart Bedford (who died last week at the age of 81). I heard it at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philly, in a version for chamber orchestra, with Center City Opera Theater, who did a bang-up job with it. Here’s just a taste, in a semi-staged performance, with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Odyssey Opera.
Liebermann serves on the composition faculty of Mannes College The New School of Music and is director of the Mannes American Composers Ensemble.
Happy birthday, Lowell Liebermann!
My interview with Liebermann in The Times of Trenton
Here’s an interesting discovery for Mozart’s birthday – a recording of the Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major, K. 313, conducted by Karlheinz Stockhausen, employing Stockhausen’s own cadenzas!
I learn with sadness of the passing of Australian composer Colin Brumby. Brumby died yesterday in Brisbane at the age of 84. He was the composer of symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, film scores, musicals, chamber music, songs, and choral works. I’ve always been particularly fond of his Piano Concerto No. 1, which isn’t posted on YouTube. However, I did find the slow movement of his Flute Concerto, which sounds equally lovely. I really should have written to him when I had the chance. R.I.P.
