Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Princeton University

Princeton Reunions Weekend Music on WPRB

Tomorrow, get ready for a ton of princely music on WPRB, as we kick off Princeton University Reunions Weekend with a morning full of works composed or performed by Princeton faculty and alumni.

Needless to say, Princeton University has had an exceptionally rich musical history, between the mid-century experimentalists, the visiting professors and talented students from around the world, and at least two Pulitzer Prize winners (three if you count Milton Babbitt’s lifetime achievement award). The scene remains vibrant, and we’ll hear works representative of Princeton’s current faculty composers and performers. Music by Babbitt, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, and Roger Sessions will be presented cheek-by-jowl with that of Johann Sebastian Bach, Camille Saint-Saëns, Isaac Albéniz, and Benjamin Britten.

We’ll have the eye of The Tiger, or at least his or her ear, as we present music composed and performed by Princeton University faculty and alumni, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Orange is the color of our true love’s hair, on Classic Ross Amico.

You’ll find more about this year’s Reunions, including a complete schedule of events, when following this link:

http://alumni.princeton.edu/goinback/reunions/2017/

May 31, 2017
Chamber Music Concerts in Princeton & Solebury

Good things come in small packages on upcoming concerts of two area chamber music ensembles. Richardson Chamber Players will present “England’s Green and Pleasant Land” at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Sunday, and Concordia Chamber Players will present “All Things Strings” at Trinity Episcopal Church, Solebury, PA, on Feb. 26. Both concerts will begin at 3 p.m.

The Princeton University Concerts program will highlight folk-inflected works by Ralph Vaughan Williams (“Merciless Beauty,” on texts of Geoffrey Chaucer), Gerald Finzi (“Five Bagatelles” for clarinet and piano), John McCabe, and Benjamin Britten, with a classic example of the renowned English facility for writing for string orchestra, Edward Elgar’s “Serenade for Strings in E minor.”

Concordia will present string music on a more intimate scale, with quartets by Philip Glass and Claude Debussy alongside a quintet by Antonin Dvořák.

Glass, who turned 80 on Jan. 31, wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in 1983. It grew out of incidental music he composed for a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Company.” Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor, from 1893, is universally regarded as one of the greatest of French string quartets; it is certainly one of the most popular.

Dvořák wrote his String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat major, also from 1893, during the same trip that yielded his more famous “American” String Quartet. The composer had been lured to the United States from Bohemia to take up the directorship of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He summered at a Czech community in Spillville, IA. The environment obviously agreed with him, as both works share an ingratiatingly sunny disposition. The music brims with Bohemian inflections and American inspiration.

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

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2017/02/classical_music_richardson_cha.html

PHOTOS (clockwise from left): Concordia artistic director Michelle Djokic, Glass, Debussy and Dvořák

February 17, 2017
NJ Classical Concerts Your 2017 Resolution

No matter what 2017 may hold, you should make it a New Year’s resolution to catch as many concerts as you can. Check out representative enticements from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, McCarter Theatre Center, the Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey, Princeton University Concerts, Downtown Concert Series, Princeton University Glee Club, Princeton University Orchestra, Princeton Pro Musica, Boheme Opera NJ, Westminster Opera Theatre, VOICES Chorale, and Westminster Community Orchestra, in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2017/01/classical_music_several_local.html

IMAGE: While we’re on the subject of musical resolutions…

January 6, 2017
Stravinsky at Princeton A 50 Year Remembrance

When an artist like Igor Stravinsky comes to town, you’re not likely to forget – even 50 years later.

Stravinsky was 84 years-old in 1966, and regarded as perhaps the greatest composer of his day, when he was commissioned by Princeton University and Stanley Seeger to write his “Requiem Canticles.” The work was written to the memory of Seeger’s mother, Helen Buchanan Seeger, a benefactor of the university and especially the university’s music department.

Stravinsky described the piece as his “pocket requiem,” six movements spanning roughly 15 minutes. The work is sung in Latin and rendered in the composer’s later, twelve-tone idiom. It was given its debut at McCarter Theatre Center on October 8 of that year. It would be Stravinsky’s last major work. It was played at his own funeral in Venice in 1971.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s visit, the composer will be remembered, musically, on two programs to be performed at the university this weekend. Michael Pratt will conduct the Princeton University Orchestra in a suite from the composer’s ballet “The Firebird” on Friday at 7:30 p.m., and Gabriel Crouch will lead the Princeton University Glee Club in the choral masterpiece “Les Noces” on Sunday at 3 p.m. Both works will be presented at Richardson Auditorium.

Find out more, and read first-hand accounts of the composer’s visit from Maida Pollock, then manager of the university’s concerts, and Bill Lockwood, then, as now, McCarter’s programming director, in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/12/classical_music_puo_pugc_so_pe.html

PHOTO: Stravinsky (right) with his assistant, Robert Craft, in 1964

December 9, 2016
Stravinsky A Princeton Celebration

If it’s not too early for Igor, who traveled so far, it shouldn’t be too early for you.

So pull up a chair and enjoy a cup of neoclassicism. Pour yourself a bowl of serialism. Nibble on some Russian nationalism. It’s music by the 20th century’s most versatile composer, an incredible journey from a student symphony steeped in the idiom of the Mighty Handful to the absorption of twelve-tone technique in the moving “Requiem Canticles,” his last major work.

In 1966, the “Requiem Canticles” was commissioned by Princeton University, which led to a residency by the composer, who, at 84, conducted the world premiere of the work at McCarter Theatre. Join me this morning, as we gaze back a half-century to this remarkable event, with a full playlist of Stravinsky’s music.

The program will be enhanced by commentary by Maida Pollock, now 90 years-old and living in Hawaii. Pollock was the university’s concert manager at the time of Stravinsky’s visit. In the 9:00 hour, we’ll hear recorded excerpts from a conversation we had yesterday by telephone. That will be followed by a recording of “Requiem Canticles.”

In addition, we’ll have some special guests in the 10:00 hour: Michael Pratt, who will conduct the suite from Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” on two concerts of the Princeton University Orchestra, on Dec. 8 & 9, and Gabriel Crouch, who will lead a program including Stravinsky’s “Les Noces,” with the Princeton University Glee Club and So Percussion, on Dec. 11. All three concerts will be held at Richardson Auditorium.

It’s a full morning of grapefruit and Grape Nuts with the 20th century’s greatest composer, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Suddenly we’re kind of hungry, on Classic Ross Amico.

December 1, 2016

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