Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Leo Brouwer

Brouwer Premiere LIVE on The Classical Network

¡Hola!

Tune in this afternoon on The Classical Network to get a taste of LEO BROUWER, LIVE.

Join me for a special visit from Michael Newman and Laura Oltman of the Newman and Oltman Guitar Duo. Newman and Oltman will drop by to talk about the final concert of this year’s Raritan River Music Festival, which will take place this Saturday at 7:30 p.m., at Stanton Reformed Church, in Lebanon, NJ, and will include the WORLD PREMIERE of Brouwer’s “El Libro de los Seres Imaginarios” (“The Book of Imaginary Beings”).

Brouwer, who turned 80 in March, is Cuba’s foremost composer and arguably the most important living composer of music for the classical guitar. “El Libro” is a 16-minute, four movement work, inspired by a compendium of mythological beings by Jorge Luis Borges.

The fulfillment of the commission, which was planned to coincide with Newman and Oltman’s 40th anniversary as a guitar duo and the 30th anniversary of the Raritan River Music Festival, has been years in the making, the culmination of a successful pentathlon of sorts, guitarists and composer bounding over the hurdles of language, geography, culture, politics, and bureaucracy.

What makes Newman and Oltman’s visit today particularly exciting is that they plan to perform selections from Brouwer’s new work, LIVE, IN-STUDIO, which means the music will be heard FOR THE FIRST TIME ANYWHERE. Following Saturday’s premiere, the couple will take the piece to New York City for the opening of the New York Guitar Seminar on June 26. The duo holds exclusive performance and recording rights to the piece.

Saturday’s program, “New Music of the Americas: Compositions from Brazil, Cuba, & USA,” will also include music by Paul Moravec and works by festival guests Clarice Assad and João Luiz.

The Raritan River Music Festival was founded by Newman and Oltman in 1989, as a stimulating series of concerts that embrace new music, world music, and straightforward classical repertoire, presented by professional musicians, in intimate, historic venues in Hunterdon and Warren Counties.

This year’s festival has included concerts by the Horszowski Trio, performing Schumann and Elliot Carter, at Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Stewartsville; Eileen Ivers and the unIVERSal Roots Band, in a celebration of Americana music and its Irish roots, at Clinton Presbyterian Church in Clinton; and harmonicist Robert Bonfiglio and flutist Clare Hoffman, performing works by Native American and Grand Canyon-inspired composers, at Prallsville Mills in Stockton.

For more information about Saturday’s concert and the Raritan River Music Festival, visit raritanrivermusic.org; to learn more about Newman and Oltman, look online at guitarduo.com; and for scintillating music and conversation, tune in at 5:00, the core of today’s broadcast with Classic Ross Amico, which will take place, as always, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

May 20, 2019
Chopin Brouwer Saint David and Previn on WWFM

There’s so much going on, and I’ve got only two hours to touch on everything today on The Classical Network!

To begin with, March 1 is the anniversary of the birth of Frederic Chopin. You can’t ignore that. It’s also the 80th birthday of Cuban composer and guitarist Leo Brouwer. AND it’s the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales.

And let me express my regret right away to any of you of Welsh descent: I had fully intended to do a “Picture Perfect” (this evening at 6:00) made up entirely of music from movies set in Wales. However, because of some last-minute editing issues – I had not anticipated having to jettison half of my recorded script for this week’s edition of “The Lost Chord” on account of having chosen way too much music for my memorial to the late Dominick Argento (to air Sunday at 10:00 p.m.) – I am falling back on an encore broadcast of PP from three years ago.

It’s still a good show (“Behind-the-Scenes Hollywood”), and timely, as it runs so close upon the heels of Oscar. Listen in for music by Franz Waxman (“Sunset Boulevard”), David Raksin (“The Bad and the Beautiful”), Dominic Frontiere (“The Stunt Man”), and Ludovic Bource (“The Artist”).

In the meantime, I will do my best to include a few works by Welsh composers, between 4 and 6 p.m. It is also, after all, the birthday of the Welsh harpist John Thomas.

And of course, we lost André Previn yesterday. It pains me to have to postpone a proper memorial – he was such a superb and versatile musician – but you can tune in next week for all-Previn playlists on both “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord.” In the meantime, Previn will be represented on every one of my weekday air shifts, including this afternoon’s.

I’ll do the best that I can, with my abbreviated Friday, from 4 to 6 p.m. EST. Don’t forget, “Picture Perfect” is on the way at 6! My weekend will be well-earned today, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

March 1, 2019
Rock Stars Go Classical on WPRB

They say that waking up is hard to do. Unless you’re Neil Sedaka, of course.

Sedaka may seem like an unlikely choice for a classical music program, but if you join me this Sunday morning on WPRB, you’ll get to hear his piano concerto, titled “Manhattan Intermezzo.” It will be part of a morning devoted to classical music by, or influenced by, popular music superstars.

Among our featured works will be a suite for guitar and orchestra, inspired by the Beatles, by Leo Brouwer, “Dead Elvis” by Michael Daugherty, and a salute to drummer John Bonham, by Christopher Rouse.

When his rock band ran afoul of the Soviet authorities, classically-trained Latvian composer Imants Kalniņš turned to writing symphonies. His Symphony No. 4 was his eloquent response, as much indebted to illegal rock groups of the West as it was to Latvian folklore.

Hear Kalniņš stick it to the man, this Sunday morning between 7 to 10 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We’ll be caught between “rock” and a hard place, on Classic Ross Amico.

May 5, 2018
Sharon Isbin Guitar at McCarter Princeton

With 25 recordings, four Grammy Awards, and a mastery of repertoire ranging from the baroque to the 21st century, it seems there is nothing guitarist Sharon Isbin can’t do well.

Isbin will appear at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton on Saturday at 8 p.m. “The theme of the program, for the most part, is folk-inspired music,” she says. “That would include Spain, Latin America – including South America and Cuba – as well as our own country.

“There will be another couple of works that have been written for me, one of which is by Leo Brouwer, which is based on African love stories.” Also on the program will be music by Andrew York, formerly of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and Bruce MacCombie.

Isbin is the kind of performer composers love to write for. In the case of Brouwer, arguably Cuba’s most celebrated living composer, he sent her, unsolicited, the manuscript of “The Black Decameron.” The piece became an instant classic.

She has also had guitar concertos written for her by a number of other respected composers, including John Corigliano, Tan Dun, Lukas Foss, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner.

A 2015 documentary, “Sharon Isbin: Troubadour,” continues to air on PBS stations across the country. The film was a recipient of an ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Television Broadcast Award. Videos, including an excerpt from the documentary, news and touring information are posted at her website, http://www.sharonisbin.com.

Isbin will be the first of an impressive triumvirate of performers to appear at McCarter over the course of three days. Iranian-American harpsichord phenomenon Mahan Esfahani will present a stimulating program of works both old and new on Sunday at 3 p.m., and violinist Hilary Hahn will perform Bach, Mozart and Schubert, alongside music by Anton Garcia Abril and Hans Peter Turk, on Monday at 7:30 p.m.

Learn more in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2017/03/classical_music_sharon_isbin_m.html

March 17, 2017

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