Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Princeton University

Stravinsky’s Princeton Premiere 50th Anniversary

It was 50 years ago that Igor Stravinsky came to Princeton to give the world premiere of his new work for chorus and orchestra, the “Requiem Canticles.” The composer, then 84 years-old, was seen lying flat on his back in the McCarter Theatre box office, trying to conserve his energy. He stunned everyone by leading the work’s first performance in October of 1966. (Many had expected to see his assistant, Robert Craft, take over following rehearsals.)

Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we honor the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s Princeton University residency. We’ll have a full morning of his music, including the early Symphony in E-flat, composed while he was yet an apprentice of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the ballet “Le baiser de la fée” (“The Fairy’s Kiss”), written in homage to Tchaikovsky, and his final masterpiece, the “Requiem Canticles.”

Dropping by at 10:00 will be 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.

And we’ll have yet another special treat: some recorded comments by Maida Pollock, whose job it was to pull the concert together in 1966, culled from a phone conversation she granted from her current home in Hawaii. We’ll hear those around 9:00.

I hope you’ll join me for this multi-faceted salute to Igor Stravinsky, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’ve always got an ear for Igor, on Classic Ross Amico.

December 1, 2016
Princeton Symphony Concert Tonight

In just a few minutes, I’ll be joined by Marc Uys, executive director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, who will drop by the studio around 9:00 to tell us about a special concert that will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium tonight at 8 p.m.

Violinist Daniel Rowland will be soloist in and conductor of Astor Piazzolla’s “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” which will be interleaved with the concertos of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” Rowland has performed the program many times and has even made a very fine recording of it (from which we will sample). Then we’ll hear Piazzolla himself performing some of his own music on the bandoneon.

Also yet to come this morning, Benny Goodman plays Bartok and Keith Jarrett plays Barber, with an early work by famed film composer John Williams written for Stan Kenton, “Prelude and Fugue,” coming up in just a few minutes.

It’s classical music played by jazz artists, with perhaps just a hint of “Third Stream,” until 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM at wprb.com.

September 15, 2016
Maxwell Davies at Princeton Returns

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies returns to Princeton University! Maxwell Davies attended Princeton on a Harkness Fellowship, which he secured with the help of Aaron Copland and Benjamin Britten in 1962. This morning, from deep beneath Bloomberg Hall, we honor the angry young man of Manchester, who went on to become Master of the Queen’s Music, on what would have been his 82nd birthday.

The composer lived in the Orkney Islands, off the northern coast of Scotland, for his last 45 years. We’ll have all music on Scottish themes and of Scottish inspiration, whether that inspiration be the Celtic folk traditions of Maxwell Davies’ adopted land or the austere seascapes churning outside his cottage.

At Princeton, Max studied with Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt and Earl Kim. His own music could be madcap and iconoclastic, drawing from a dizzying array of sources, ranging from Renaissance polyphony to foxtrots.

No one during those early years, least of all Max, would have expected him to embrace the time-honored form of the symphony. In the event, he wrote ten of them. They are austere affairs that require careful attention, imbued with the composer’s coastal impressions and frequently compared to the great masterworks of Jean Sibelius. Maxwell Davies is regarded as the foremost British symphonist of his generation. Be that as it may, the symphonies are not exactly an easy listen.

We’ll be sampling from Max’s Scottish works, whether they be charming or severe, alongside pieces by others who hailed from Scotland, were of Scottish descent, or just plain loved to visit.

You take the high road and I’ll take the low road, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Our love for Max is like a red, red rose, on Classic Ross Amico.

September 8, 2016
So Percussion Summer Institute Princeton

It’s the “Just So Story” that Kipling never wrote.

So Percussion will oversee its annual So Percussion Summer Institute (SoSI) in Princeton, July 10-24. The town’s streets, public spaces and concert venues will be alive with exciting rhythmic and timbral combinations, in performances at the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Matthews Theater, Albert Hinds Plaza, Princeton Public Library, Princeton Record Exchange, and Small World Coffee. All events are free and open to the public.

SoSI will celebrate 15 years of new works for percussion quartet, involving college-age composers and performers from all over the world in an intensive two-week chamber music seminar. Many of the pieces to be performed were developed with faculty from Princeton University Department of Music.

For the third year, So Percussion will be closely assisted by Andrea Mazzariello in developing a curriculum of writing for percussion, readings of composer’s pieces and interactions with Princeton faculty, graduate students and special guests.

Highlights will include performances of Terry Riley’s “In C” at Princeton Public Library (July 18, 7 p.m.) and a concert made up of So commissions, including works by Steve Reich, David Lang, and Princeton composers Steven Mackey, Paul Lansky and Dan Trueman, at the Lewis Center (July 23, 7 p.m.).

I do my best to drum up some interest in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/07/classical_music_so_percussion_1.html

July 8, 2016
Tim Keyes’ New Oratorio The Well Premieres

When composer Tim Keyes was in search of inspiration for his new oratorio, he knew all he had to do was return to “The Well.”

“The Well,” based on an episode from the Gospel of John, tells of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman, in which He, a Jew, gently erodes the cultural divide between them and introduces her to the concept of “living water,” a metaphor for salvation and eternal life.

Keyes first embarked on the project many years ago, in the early 1990s, while he served as music director for Marty Haugen, himself a prolific composer of liturgical music.

“I abandoned it, because I just wasn’t happy with how it was coming out,” Keyes says. “Then the Pope this year declared a Holy Year of Mercy, and I thought this was a perfect time to revisit it. But I revisited in a different way. I created something that lives somewhere between opera and Broadway. It has the emotional content of a Broadway production, but it has the musical content of an opera. It’s kind of a departure for me, but I think it works in a very interesting way.”

The oratorio, scored for eight soloists, choir and orchestra, will be given its premiere at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium tomorrow at 8 p.m., with the composer conducting the Tim Keyes Consort.

The program will also include works on themes of mercy and forgiveness by English Renaissance composer Richard Farrant (“Lord Who Throughout Thy Tender Mercy”), the Belgian-born French Romantic César Franck (his symphonic poem “Redemption”), and contemporary Irish composer Michael McGlynn (“Pie Jesu”).

You can find out more about it, Keyes the composer, and his consort, in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/06/classical_music_tim_keyes_cons.html

June 10, 2016

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