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Tag: Princeton Symphony Orchestra

Princeton Symphony Salutes the Silver Screen

Lights! Camera! Music?

The Princeton Symphony Orchestra will present “A Silver Screen Salute” on February 7 at 8 p.m.

The concert, which will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, will include some of film’s most evocative music, including themes from “Gone with the Wind,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Star Wars.”

Also featured will be Academy Award winning music by Franz Waxman for “Sunset Boulevard,” Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” Ennio Morricone’s poignant melodies for “Cinema Paradiso,” and John Williams’ Indiana Jones march from “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The PSO will be joined by The American Boychoir for selections from Williams’ “Empire of the Sun,” “Amistad,” and “Saving Private Ryan,” as well as Herbert Stothart’s score for “The Wizard of Oz,” on themes of Harold Arlen.

NPR arts commentator Bob Mondello will host the event. Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/01/princeton_symphony_orchestra_p.html

PHOTO: PSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, ready for his close-up

January 30, 2015
Robert Belinic Croatian Guitarist Princeton Symphony

How much is a ten-minute phone call to Croatia?

I interviewed Croatian guitarist Robert Belinić – who speaks impeccable (and, to my ear, unaccented) English, by the way – for my article in today’s Trenton Times.

Belinić will join the Princeton Symphony Orchestra for Joaquin Rodrigo’s beloved “Concierto de Aranjuez” at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Sunday at 4 p.m. The program will also include Ottorino Respighi’s “Three Botticelli Pictures” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Daniel Boico, for two seasons assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, will guest conduct. I find it amusing – or perhaps bemusing – that although the focus of the article is Belinić, the Times selected a photo of Boico.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/01/classical_music_princeton_symp_1.html

BTW – As a follow-up to my Shakespeare article the other week, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will present their second program of Bard-inspired works this weekend, including a concert at Richardson Auditorium tonight at 8 p.m.

The program will include Dvorak’s “Othello Overture,” Sergei Taneyev’s recovered love duet from a projected opera on “Romeo and Juliet” by Tchaikovsky, selections from Samuel Barber’s rarely-heard “Antony and Cleopatra,” and the “Walk to the Paradise Garden” from “A Village Romeo and Juliet” by Frederick Delius.

In addition, violinist Sarah Chang will appear in a suite after Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” (of course inspired by “Romeo and Juliet”) in an arrangement by film composer David Newman.

If you missed the write-up, here it is again:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/12/classical_music_nj_symphony_or_1.html

Happy listening!

PHOTO: Robert Belinić, the guitarist whose image the Times would not print

January 16, 2015
Princeton Symphony: Commedia dell’Arte Concert

Commedia dell’arte tomfoolery, I suppose, could have a tenuous connection to Hallowe’en, with its masked stock characters (figures such as Harlequin, Scaramouche, Pulcinella, etc.) all up to some sort of trickery. But comparisons end there, as the Princeton Symphony Orchestra presents a commedia-heavy concert this Sunday.

Rossen Milanov will conduct Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” a ballet about a lovelorn puppet who meets a violent end, only to return commedia-style and jeer his tormentors, and William Bolcom’s “Commedia for ‘Almost’ 18th Century Orchestra.” In between, Natasha Paremski will be the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

The concert will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Sunday at 4 p.m., with a pre-concert talk at 3.

A post-concert reception will be held for ticket-holders at the Princeton University Art Museum, at which commedia-related prints will be displayed.

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

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/10/classical_music_princeton_symp.html

PHOTO: Antic Arlecchino (a.k.a. Harlequin)

October 31, 2014
Rossen Milanov to Lead Columbus Symphony

Princeton Symphony Orchestra music director Rossen Milanov will venture west next season, to create a new world in Columbus, OH.

Milanov, 49, has been named music director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, beginning with the 2015-2016 season. He will appear with the orchestra twice during the upcoming season, Jan. 30-31 and Mar. 20-21.

Milanov, who is also artistic director of Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, will retain his post in Princeton. He will, however, be stepping down as conductor of the Collingswood-based training orchestra, Symphony in C.

This past week, he led Symphony in C in a concert featuring Peter Richard Conte on the famed Wanamaker organ at what is now Macy’s department store in Center City Philadelphia. Milanov will conduct the Princeton Symphony in music of Max Bruch and Anton Bruckner at Richardson Auditorium on Sept. 28. For more information on that program, visit http://princetonsymphony.org/.

Milanov’s primary residence will be in Columbus, where he plans to spend 16 weeks next season working with the orchestra, though he will retain his apartment in Philadelphia.

Milanov served with the Philadelphia Orchestra for eleven years, first as assistant conductor, from 2000-2003, and then as associate conductor, from 2003-2011. Concurrently, he served as the orchestra’s artistic director at its summer home of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, from 2006-2010.

Here’s an article that appeared this morning in The Columbus Dispatch:

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2014/09/10/columbus-symphony-to-tap-milanov-as-new-conductor.html

If all goes as planned, I’ll be talking with Milanov this week about his upcoming concert with the Princeton Symphony. The interview will run in the Trenton Times a week from Friday.

September 10, 2014
Mercer County Orchestral Season Highlights

So many worthwhile orchestral performances scheduled to take place in and around Mercer County this season. Michael Tilson Thomas conducting Mahler’s 7th at McCarter Theatre Center. Enrique Bátiz in a program featuring Manuel Ponce’s Piano Concerto at the State Theatre in New Brunswick. Cellist Zuill Bailey with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. Excerpts from Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra” performed by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. A Verdi Requiem with the Princeton University Glee Club and Princeton University Orchestra. Niels Wilhelm Gade’s Symphony No. 7 with Sinfonietta Nova. Also, local performances of Howard Hanson’s “Romantic” Symphony (the TCNJ Orchestra) and George Antheil’s “Capital of the World” (the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra).

Read more about it in my orchestral overview in today’s The Times of Trenton.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/08/area_orchestras_announce_conce.html

PHOTO: MTT will conduct GM in Princeton

August 29, 2014

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