English music in Princeton this weekend: Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, with Elina Vähälä, and one of my desert island favorites, Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” (No Vaughan Williams, sadly.)
The @[100043116381457:2048:Princeton Symphony Orchestra] performs on two concerts at Richardson Auditorium, Saturday evening at 8:00 and Sunday afternoon at 4:00. Tickets and information here: https://princetonsymphony.org/
I first saw Anne Akiko Meyers with the Philadelphia Orchestra at The Mann Center back in 1991 (playing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto), and she was very special indeed. Ten years earlier, at the age of 11, she was already performing on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” The next year, she made her “Top 5” debut, with the New York Philharmonic. Meyers has long since been in demand as one of the world’s top-tier violinists.
This weekend, she will be the soloist on the opening concerts of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in Arturo Márquez’s Violin Concerto “Fandango,” a piece that was given its premiere, by Meyers, last summer at the Hollywood Bowl.
The concerto will form the core of a Latin-inflected program that will also include Ruperto Chapí’s prelude to the zarzuela “La Revoltosa” and the U.S. premiere of Marcos Fernández-Barrero’s homage to Leonard Bernstein, “America.”
Joaquín Turina’s evocative “Danzas fantásticas” and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s colorful “Capriccio espagnol” will lend further zest to this musical paella.
Music director Rossen Milanov will conduct.
The concerts will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 pm. For tickets and more information, visit princetonsymphony.org.
Meyers on “Living the Classical Life”
The all-new The Princeton Festival (the first overseen by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra) begins this evening at 7:30, with Storm Large in Kurt Weill’s “The Seven Deadly Sins.” On the second half of the program: Rodion Shchedrin’s colorful arrangement for strings and percussion of Bizet’s most famous music as the “Carmen Suite.”
Rossen Milanov will conduct, in a specially-constructed outdoor 10,000 square foot state-of-the-art performance tent on the grounds of Morven Museum & Garden on Route 206 (55 Stockton Street), not far from the Princeton Battle Monument.
The Princeton Festival runs through June 25, with a variety of musical events filling every evening: opera, jazz, cabaret, musical theater, chamber music, classical and Broadway pops, and Baroque music across the street at Trinity Episcopal Church.
Partake of free pre-concert talks, a poetry workshop, an on-site bar, and abundant lawn space at Morven for picnicking prior to the concerts. For a complete schedule, visit princetonsymphony.org/festival.
In case you missed it, here’s my preview in last week’s U.S. 1
The raising of the tent!
Storm Large sings “The Seven Deadly Sins” with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Rodion Shchedrin’s “Carmen Suite”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QysD8zCfGTs
Direct link to tickets for tonight’s concert
https://princetonsymphony.org/performances/seven-deadly-sins/2022-06-10
The curtain rods come in for a fair amount of abuse as I write about Erich Wolfgang Korngold and John Williams for this week’s edition of Princeton U.S. 1.
The Capital Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey will present an all-Williams concert at Trenton’s Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Saxophonist Jonathan Wintringham will be the soloist in “Escapades,” a concerto on themes from the Steven Spielberg film “Catch Me If You Can.” CPNJ music director Daniel Spalding will conduct.
Then the Princeton Symphony Orchestra will present Korngold’s Violin Concerto on a program that will also include Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Elegía Andina” (“Andean Elegy”) and Felix Mendelssohn “Scottish Symphony,” at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on May 7 & 8. Stefan Jackiw will be the soloist in a work that lifts its thematic material from classic film scores of the 1930s and ‘40s. PSO music director Rossen Milanov will conduct.
Catch me if you can, as I outline a film music continuum, and along the way reveal the source of my lifelong passions for swashbuckling swordfights and symphony orchestras, in this week’s U.S. 1 newspaper, out today.
Princeton Symphony Orchestra
New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra
Patriots Theater at the War Memorial
Stefan Jackiw
Jonathan Wintringham
Community News
U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo
Looking for a little musical cheer on a rainy Sunday? Here are four musical events with local connections to enjoy.
The Bucks County-based ensemble La Fiocco – directed by Dr. Lewis Baratz, host of WWFM’s “Well-Tempered Baroque” – will host Early Music keyboard virtuoso Corina Marti. Marti will perform on a reconstruction of a hand-pumped portative organ, the clavisimbalum, and an early 16th century-type harpsichord. The program will include works by Francesco Landini, istampittas from anonymous English, Italian, and French sources, intabulations from the 15th century Faenza Codex, and pieces from the 16th century Amerbach Codex. The concert will be streamed from the neo-Romanesque St. Marienkirche in Basel, Switzerland. LINKS TO THE CONCERT AND ZOOM RECEPTION WILL BE SENT PRIOR TO THE PERFORMANCE, so if you’re interested, register ASAP! The concert will debut this afternoon at 3:00 EDT, and will be available on-demand through 4/17. For more information, visit lafiocco.org.
During an ordinary, Covid-free season, La Fiocco would be performing at 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, in Ewing, NJ, or at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, PA (near New Hope). Another ensemble that makes Solebury its home is Concordia Chamber Players. The ensemble’s artistic director, cellist Michelle Djokic, will be joined by violinist Siwoo Kim and violist Milena Pajaro-vande Stadt, in a concert filmed at ArtYard in Frenchtown, NJ. On the program will be works by Carlos Simon, Milad Yousufi, Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Zoltan Kodaly, Erno Dohnanyi, and Georges Enescu. The video will premiere at 5:00 EDT, and remain posted for your viewing and listening pleasure, at concordiaplayers.org.
On Friday, Princeton composer Julian Grant’s latest, a vocal chamber music work/pocket opera on the subject of a Russian folk tale, received its world premiere, courtesy of Harvard Musical Association. Grant’s “Salt” forms the centerpiece of a concert by Emmanuel Music that also includes plenty of Beethoven: selections from his Scottish and Irish folksongs, the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte” (“To the Distant Beloved”), and the Presto movement from the Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 1. The video is now posted. Grant’s piece begins about 48 minutes in, but, by all means, start at the beginning of the concert and enjoy the entire program! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCTXlzq_6Zk
Finally, if you’re in need of a lift, Princeton Symphony Orchestra brass provide a surge of hope and nobility via Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.” The performance was recorded in Princeton’s Palmer Square. Watch it now, and turn that frown upside down, at princetonsymphony.org.
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