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Tag: Kevin Puts

Princeton Symphony: Time for Three Shines

If you can find time to squeeze it in before your Oscar party, and if you’ve got the energy after losing an hour’s sleep due to the time change, it would be worth your while to try to catch the second performance of this weekend’s concerts of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.

The program includes suites from the ballets “The Fire Dancer” (1938-40) by Bulgarian composer Marin Goleminov (in what music director Rossen Milanov claims is the work’s first U.S. performances) and “Romeo and Juliet” (1935-36) by Sergei Prokofiev.

However, for as enticing as these offerings are, the real highlight is “Contact” (2022), a recent triple concerto by American composer Kevin Puts (Pulitzer Prize winner in 2012 for his opera “Silent Night”). The work, which is cinematic in the best possible sense, was written for the loosey-goosey, genre-hopping trio Time for Three (violinists Nick Kendall and Charles Yang and double-bassist Ranaan Meyer). These guys have been like overcaffeinated squirrels from the time I used to watch them improvising in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square while still students at the Curtis Institute of Music. You won’t be able to take your eyes off the soloists, even as you’re alternately caressed, shaken and stirred by the music.

When “Romeo and Juliet” is the concert’s standard repertoire, you know the program has to be an exceptionally challenging one for the musicians, but last night you could see they were totally transfixed, charmed, and energized by their kinetic guests.

There was plenty of crackle in the hall for that piece and for the encore, as the trio presented a cover of the R&B classic “Stand by Me.” I don’t know that I’ve ever heard an audience react like that to a classical music concert in Richardson Auditorium. The level of energy was outstanding.

Today’s concert begins at 4 p.m. Admittedly, it is a long program, cresting two hours, but of course there is an intermission, and you’d be guaranteed to be out before 6:30. Grab a coffee ahead of time, have the fridge stocked in advance, and it’s possible you’ll be back in time for the start of the Oscars broadcast. You can always record the trashy red carpet prelude, if it means that much to you.

Or ditch the Prokofiev, if you must, and take off at intermission. Of course, you’d be missing some fantastic music. Also, if you love John Williams, it’s an added pleasure to be able to spend time with a composer who was clearly one of his biggest influences.

I apologize for not providing more advance notice for this extraordinary concert, but I had a lot of deadlines this week, and really, I didn’t think anything about it until yesterday! Do yourself a favor, if you can, and make time for Time for Three.

For tickets and information, visit princetonsymphony.org.

PHOTO: As seen at last summer’s The Princeton Festival

March 10, 2024
Time for Three Shines at Princeton Festival

At last night’s opening concert of The Princeton Festival, Time for Three affirmed its strong musical bond. The musicians have been playing together since their student days at the Curtis Institute of Music. In 2023, they became Grammy Award winners.

Left to their own devices, the trio presents an eclectic and electric blend of classical, Americana, and modern pop. This was their second appearance at the Princeton Festival, and the crowd was clearly energized.

In March, the group will return to perform with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, as soloists at Richardson Auditorium in Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts’ triple concerto, “Contact.” Time for Three was recently honored with a Grammy for the Deutsche Grammophon release, “Letters for the Future,” which includes a recording of the work and that of another concerto by Philadelphia composer (and Pulitzer winner) Jennifer Higdon.

The Princeton Festival, which runs through June 25, will continue tonight at 7:00 with Drama Desk Award nominee Capathia Jenkins and a tribute to the “Queen of Soul,” Aretha Franklin. The concert will feature three-time Grammy-nominated artist Ryan Shaw, with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra led by its former assistant conductor, John Devlin (now music director of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra of Wheeling, WV). The program will include such Franklin favorites as “Respect,” “Think,” “A Natural Woman,” and “Chain of Fools.”

Then tomorrow afternoon, something completely different, as internationally-acclaimed pianist Christopher Taylor will perform a recital of contrasting works by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Kapustin, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Sergei Prokofiev. That concert will take place at 4:00.

Further festival events will encompass opera (Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”), chamber music, musical theater, contemporary dance, a klezmer “good vibes explosion,” and a special family concert, all presented on the grounds of Morven Museum & Garden at 55 Stockton Street (Route 206).

Vibrant Baroque music and an intimate program for guitar and cello will be offered across the way at Trinity Church Princeton, at 33 Mercer Street.

The festival’s “big top,” an 11,000 square-foot, clear-span (no poles or obstructed views), open-sided performance pavilion, allows for easy access to refreshments, ample picnicking opportunities, a garden stroll, or the simple enjoyment of a late-spring/early-summer evening.

The Princeton Festival is the premier summer arts program of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. For complete listings and ticket information, visit princetonsymphony.org/festival.

And if you haven’t had a chance to take a look at it yet, here’s my preview in the Princeton weekly U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo.

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/eeditions/page-page-12/page_58fa5c3c-6e2a-5848-acb1-58218381fe73.html?fbclid=IwAR3N-XKweZ6w7xlx3pqJAR3i-S4269PQM87QmlCXtVhfK8WPdmHc00FJNYo

Photo by Carolo Pascale

June 10, 2023
Kevin Puts at 50 Pulitzer Winner & Composer’s Career

Kevin Puts is 50 today. Puts was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2012 for his opera “Silent Night,” about the real-life, unsanctioned 1914 Christmas truce between Scottish, French, and German troops on the Western Front. It’s a poignant story, in whatever form. (It was also dramatized in the 2005 film “Joyeux Noël.”) The opera beautifully captures the transcendent moments of humanity, like shafts of sunlight piercing clouds, during one of the costliest and most violent conflicts in the bloody history of warfare. The work was given its world premiere by Minnesota Opera in 2011. I was lucky enough to catch Opera Philadelphia’s production in 2013.

Puts’ latest opera, “The Hours,” co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, was projected to be unveiled at the Met in 2022. It looks like it’s been pushed back to next season. In the meantime, two concert performances will be given by the Philadelphia Orchestra, on March 18 & 20, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. The cast for the Met debut was to have included Renée Fleming, Kelli O’Hara, and Joyce Di Donato as Virginia Woolf. For the Philadelphia performances, Fleming and O’Hara will be joined by Jennifer Johnson Cano.

I’ve never heard anything by this composer that hasn’t been direct, beautiful, and worthwhile. He’s a contemporary artist who has had the good fortune to be rewarded for his courage to remain true to himself, avoiding the pitfall of gussying up what he wishes to express with a lot of extraneous modernist effects, in order to maintain his street cred, as some composers of a clearly romantic bent had done in the previous generation. Nor is he a post-modernist hipster, a keyboard noodler, an overweening pop artist, or a soft-headed, wannabe film composer.

Puts’ language is romantic, but it is not the lingua franca of the 19th century. In embracing tonality and melody, he honors the most fundamental purpose of music, which is not simply to express, but to communicate, and he does so intelligently, in a manner that is capable of reaching a wide audience without cheapening his art.

Furthermore, at 50, he still has a long career ahead of him.

Many happy returns, Kevin Puts.

“Inspiring Beethoven” (with disturbing slideshow)

The Flute Concerto, which flirts with Mozart in its second movement

The Symphony No. 2, a response to the events of 9/11

“Dona nobis pacem” from “Silent Night”

January 4, 2022
9/11 Reflection Music and Remembrance

9-11: A morning for reflection. It may have been 19 years ago today, but everything about it is still so vivid.

When my telephone rang around 9:00 that morning, I was already at work, at home, on my computer, oblivious to the news. I picked up. A friend was on the line. She said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I imagined the Empire State Building and the B-25 accident, back in the 1940s. I’m thinking maybe a piper. Terrible in itself, but accidents do happen. Then she said one of the towers “fell over.” That was what propelled me to the TV.

Nothing could have prepared us for the spectacle and terror of that morning. Nothing would ever be the same.

I was one of the lucky ones. My parents happened to be in the air at that time, on the way to China. They were traveling west across Pennsylvania. At 10:03, United States Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, southeast of Pittsburgh. The phone lines were jammed. Nobody owned a cell phone. It was a long day until I learned that my parents’ flight had been grounded in Pittsburgh.

My heart goes out to those who died senselessly, and for their survivors, for whom the day remains vivid and painful, I’m sure.

Here’s a work of solace and consolation: Robert Moran’s “Trinity Requiem” (2011), named for Trinity Wall Street, the so-called “Ground Zero church” in Lower Manhattan, composed to mark the attacks’ tenth anniversary:

The horror and surreality of the day are perfectly reflected in Gloria Coates’ String Quartet No. 8 (2001-02), with its eerie approximations not only of plane engines but also a kind of emotional instability. I know it gives me a sinking feeling, and that’s pretty much how it was to experience 9/11. If you’re looking for solace, do not go here:

Kevin Puts processes expectancy, uncertainty, and hope in his Symphony No. 2 (2002):

Dona nobis pacem.

September 11, 2020
9/11 Remembered A Personal Reflection

Around 9 a.m. A ringing telephone. Me, at work on my computer, somehow oblivious to the news. My friend on the line, informing me that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. I’m thinking a piper. I recall the plane that struck the Empire State Building in the 1940s. Terrible, but these things happen. Then she tells me one of the towers “fell over.” That propels me to the TV.

September 11, 2001. Every year, I marvel at the passage of time. 18 years ago this morning, but still so vivid. I can’t even imagine what it was like to be there. I never really want to know.

My parents were actually in the air at the time of the attacks, en route to China. They were traveling west, across Pennsylvania. At 10:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, southeast of Pittsburgh. The phone lines were jammed. Nobody owned a cell phone. I knew my folks had to be okay, right? It was an uneasy wait until I learned that they had been grounded in Pittsburgh.

Everyone has a 9/11 story. Some are more tragic than others. But the day touched us all and changed us as a people. It changed the world. Welcome to the 21st century.

This afternoon on The Classical Network, I’ll offer a musical memorial, which will include Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts, composer’s moving response to the attacks, as he processes expectancy, uncertainty and hope in his Symphony No. 2.

We’ll also find solace in Philadelphia composer Robert Moran’s sublimely beautiful “Trinity Requiem,” commissioned by Music at Trinity Wall Street, the so-called “Ground Zero Church,” whose St. Paul Chapel was shielded from a falling beam by a sycamore tree.

I’ve been celebrating the contributions of female composers this month to tie in with the Clara Schumann bicentennial on Friday. Today, we’ll hear Composer Alla Pavlova’s “The Old New York Nostalgia,” which features a movement titled “Lullaby for the Twins” – an allusion to the Twin Towers. The recording, by the way, will be conducted by Rossen Milanov, music director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.

The horror and surreality of the attacks and their aftermath are perfectly reflected in Gloria Coates’ String Quartet No. 8, with its eerie approximations not only of plane engines but also a kind of emotional instability. I know it gives me a sinking feeling, and that’s pretty much how it was to experience 9/11.

At 6:00 EDT, we’ll have more chamber music – by Clara Schumann and also her husband Robert – on the next “Music from Marlboro.” But from 4 to 6, we’ll remember 9/11. Music keeps us centered when faced with the unfathomable, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

September 11, 2019

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