Classic Ross Amico

Tag: New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra

NJ Orchestra Couple Connects Through Music

In life and in career, the husband-and-wife team of Daniel Spalding and Gabriela Imreh understand the importance of human connection.

Spalding, formerly on the conducting staff of Romania’s Cluj-Napoca Philharmonic and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, is music director of the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra, and Imreh, a concert pianist with an international career. The couple has been living out of boxes in Ewing, where they have made their home for the past 30 years. They are in the process of moving to Trenton, where Spalding conducts the NJCPO, in search of a greater sense of community.

The next concert of the NJCPO, to be held at the Trenton War Memorial on April 2, will be an intimate affair, with a slimmed down orchestra performing “in the round” in the structure’s elegant Art Deco George Washington Ballroom. The program will include works by Rossini, Mozart, Piazzolla, Bernstein and Copland.

The aim is greater immediacy and increased interaction with the audience. You can find out more about it, learn a little bit about the couple’s travails after they met in Romania, and glean some of Imreh’s insights into what it takes to perform American music, in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/03/classical_music_gabriela_imreh.html

March 25, 2016
Glass & Moran Reunited in NJ This Weekend

Two old cronies are brought together again, if only in my newspaper article.

Composer Robert Moran enlisted Philip Glass to be one of 25 composers to participate in “The Waltz Project” in the late 1970s. The project was documented on an album released by Nonesuch Records in 1981.

In 1985, the two collaborated on an opera, “The Juniper Tree,” after a tale by the Brothers Grimm (and a very grim one at that), the composers divvying up its four acts between them. In the meantime, Moran set about arranging 21 variations, for various combinations of instruments, on Glass’ “Modern Love Waltz,” which have also been recorded.

On Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Glass’ “Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra” will open the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra season, at the Trenton War Memorial. The soloists will be Jonathan Haas (for whom Glass wrote the work) and William Trigg (who has performed with the Philip Glass Ensemble). Also on the program will be Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.

By coincidence, on Saturday morning, from 10:00 to 1:00, Moran will preside over a workshop hosted by Westminster Conservatory Honors Music Program. The composer will lead the HMP community on a freewheeling journey through his creative process, seasoned with personal anecdotes, audio and video illustrations, advice to young composers, and what promises to be lively discussion, offered up in a kind of master class setting.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at Hillman Performance Hall, The Marion Buckelew Cullen Center, at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton. Refreshments will be provided.

Moran studied with Hans Erich Apostel in Vienna and then with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio at Mills College. He gained notoriety in the late 1960s and early ‘70s through a series of performance pieces incorporating entire cities, including San Francisco, Bethlehem, Pa. and Graz, Austria. These involved tens of thousands of performers.

His many stage works include “Desert of Roses,” written for Houston Grand Opera, and, in 2011, “Alice” composed for the Scottish Ballet.

For the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he was commissioned to write a work for the youth chorus of Trinity Wall Street, the so-called “Ground Zero” church in Lower Manhattan. “Trinity Requiem,” scored for children’s chorus, four cellos, harp and organ, offers a similar brand of solace to that conjured in the 19th century masterwork by Gabriel Fauré.

With Robert Moran, you never know what you’re going to get. In his more puckish moments, he might write for harpsichord and electric frying pan. But then there are times when his natural gift for lyricism will melt your heart.

Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/10/classical_music_njcp_opening_s.html

October 23, 2015
George Antheil Returns to Trenton

Trenton’s prodigal son returns! I was so excited to be able to write about George Antheil again. Antheil, if you don’t know, was the greatest composer ever to emerge from New Jersey’s capital city.

The self-proclaimed “Bad Boy of Music” (the title of his autobiography), Antheil would practice the piano with such ferocity that he would have to pause periodically to soak his hands in two fish bowls. During his recitals, he would ostentatiously remove a pistol from a silk holster sewn into his jacket and place it atop the piano, to let the audience know up front that he would brook no nonsense.

Of course, he had good reason. His “Ballet Mécanique,” scored for player pianos, airplane propellers, siren and electric bells, inspired one of classical music’s great riots at its Paris premiere in 1926.

This weekend, the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra will present a substantial suite from Antheil’s ballet, “Capital of the World,” on a concert which will also feature works on Spanish themes by Emmanuel Chabrier, Maurice Ravel and Manuel de Falla.

Based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway, “Capital of the World” tells of a young waiter who dreams of becoming a matador. Unfortunately, some spirited horseplay leads to tragic results.

Just don’t go into it expecting Antheil the enfant terrible. By the Second World War, his music had taken a turn toward the kind of populism embraced by many American composers of mid-century. Also, he had entered into a sideline of writing for film (“The Pride and the Passion,” also with a Spanish setting, was one of the projects he scored).

The ballet features a prominent part for flamenco dancer. Liliana Ruiz will be the soloist in tomorrow night’s performance. The concert will take place at the Trenton War Memorial, beginning at 8 p.m.

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

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/05/classical_music_nj_capital_phi_1.html

If you missed it, here’s a write-up of an Antheil walking-and-driving tour I took, back in 2013:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2013/08/early_life_in_trenton_left_mar.html

PHOTO: The Original Trenton Cracker

May 8, 2015
Trenton NYE: Classical Music Celebrations

End of the year celebrations make up the meat of my article in today’s Trenton Times.

The New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra will present a New Year’s Eve concert at the Trenton War Memorial, beginning at 8 p.m. on 12/31 (obviously). The program will be simulcast over WWFM The Classical Network, which can be heard locally at 89.1 FM, or at http://www.wwfm.org.

In other radio news,Marvin Rosen of “Classical Discoveries” will host a 24-hour “plus” marathon of contemporary music, “Viva 21st Century,” over WPRB Princeton, beginning at 2 p.m. tomorrow and concluding at 3 p.m. Sunday. WPRB may be heard at 103.3 FM, with streaming at http://www.wprb.com.

The reality of New Year’s Eve is generally pretty terrible, but good music makes the bitter pill go down easier.

Read more about it here:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/12/nj_capital_philharmonic_to_rin.html

PHOTO: Composer Robert Moran (right) will be one of several drop-by guests during the course of Marvin Rosen’s “Viva 21st Century” marathon on WPRB

December 26, 2014

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