Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Rossen Milanov

Rachel Barton Pine on The Classical Network

When you tune in to The Classical Network this afternoon at 4:00 EST, you’ll be able to enjoy a conversation with Rachel Barton Pine, Violinist. Pine will be a guest of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra this Sunday, when she appears as the soloist in Niccolò Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1. The concert will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall. Also on the program will be works of Leoš Janáček and Igor Stravinsky. Pine will tell us a little more about the concert, her insights, and her work promoting music by Black composers, both through her foundation and a new recording on the Cedille Records label.

We’ll round out the hour with a recording on Boston Records of Princeton Symphony music director Rossen Milanov conducting a performance of Reinhold Glière’s Harp Concerto, with Gretchen Van Hoesen, principal harpist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

At 8:00 tonight, Carl Hemmingsen will host a broadcast concert with Milanov conducting the Princeton Symphony. Guest soloist Simone Dinnerstein will perform the Keyboard Concerto No. 7 by Johann Sebastian Bach and the Piano Concerto No. 3, a PSO co-commission, by Philip Glass. The program will also include works by Mason Bates and Maurice Ravel.

In matters unrelated to the PSO, it’s also the birthdays today of Paul Hindemith, Antipodean colossus Alfred Hill, and neglected Baroque master Guillaume Dumanoir. We’ll celebrate with some of their music, and more, in the 5:00 hour.

At 6:00, we’ll turn our attention to music for the silver screen, as we do every Friday, on “Picture Perfect.” This week, we’ll anticipate Thanksgiving with film scores by Aaron Copland, James Horner, Hugo Friedhofer, and John Williams.

It’s a veritable cornucopia! Give thanks for variety in music. Make us your horn of plenty, at WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

November 16, 2018
Zhou Tian’s “Broken Ink” Premieres Tonight!

Music by one-time Classic Ross Amico guest, composer Zhou Tian, can be heard on tonight’s Princeton Symphony Orchestra broadcast, on WWFM – The Classical Network. Zhou’s “Broken Ink” will be featured alongside Claude Debussy’s “La Mer” and Paul Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber.” PSO music director Rossen Milanov will conduct. Do yourself a favor and catch this well-balanced concert, especially Zhou’s assured and beautifully orchestrated suite in its U.S. premiere! The concert begins at 8 p.m. EDT at wwfm.org.

September 15, 2017
Zhou Tian’s Broken Ink on The Classical Network

I hope you’ll join me this afternoon on The Classical Network. Following today’s Noontime Concert, we’ll hear selections from the original version of Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian’s “Broken Ink.” Originally titled “Poems from the Song Dynasty,” the work received its US premiere (the world premiere of its revision) in a concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Rossen Milanov, this past weekend.

Zhou’s “Broken Ink” is a multi-movement meditation on Song Dynasty poetry, an important part of the cultural heritage of the composer’s native Hangzhou, explored through the means of a Western symphony orchestra. Zhou re-imagines the lost art of Classical Chinese poetry, a multidisciplinary form which was sung as much as it was spoken. (Increasingly, it also became tied to painting.) Though the melodies have been forgotten, the composer avoids interpreting the texts too scrupulously, choosing instead to reflect on their bittersweet nature, in a work full of touching melodies and driving rhythms.

Zhou’s “Viaje” for flute, cello and piano, written for Mimi Stillman’s Dolce Suono Ensemble, will be performed as part of a memorial concert in honor of composer Steven Stucky, at the Curtis Institute of Music’s Gould Hall at Lenfest Hall, 1616 Locust Street, in Philadelphia, tonight at 7 p.m. More information is available at http://www.dolcesuono.com.

His “Grand Canal,” a work which incorporates traditional Chinese instruments and bears the influence of Chinese opera (and which was presented here by the PSO as part of its 2012-13 season), will be performed by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, in Columbus, OH, this weekend. You can find out more at http://www.columbussymphony.com.

Tune in this afternoon for the original version of Zhou Tian’s “Broken Ink.” It will be among my musical selections, between 2 and 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

May 9, 2017
Saad Haddad Wins Ives Fellowship

Congratulations to Saad Haddad, Composer. The American Academy of Arts and Letters has named Haddad a recipient of a Charles Ives Fellowship. Ives’ widow, Harmony, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties to Ives’ music, enabling Ives awards in composition to be bestowed since 1970. The award brings with it a prize of $15,000.

Haddad appeared as my guest last month on Classic Ross Amico on WPRB 103.3 FM. His work, “Manarah,” was heard on a concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra on January 29. The PSO will present a newly commissioned work from Haddad on one of next season’s concerts. I wish him the very best.

Fascinatingly, the Academy houses the actual contents of Ives’ studio, which has been painstakingly reproduced, as it originally appeared in the composer’s home in Redding, CT, as part of the institute’s Manhattan gallery. You’ll find more information here:

http://artsandletters.org/exhibition/charles-ives-studio/

PHOTO: Saad Haddad (left) with PSO music director Rossen Milanov

March 1, 2017
PSO Concert Explores Heritage and Identity

Four composers featured on the next concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra have traveled far, both geographically and genealogically, yet all manage to retain a strong sense of heritage at their core.

Celebrated clarinetist David Krakauer will join the PSO and its music director, Rossen Milanov, for a program of music rooted in explorations of personal and cultural identity. The program, “Un/Restrained,” will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Sunday afternoon at 4:00.

On the concert will be klezmer-infused works by Krakauer, Osvaldo Golijov and Wlad Marhulets – composer. Saad Haddad, Composer will use live processing of acoustic instruments to suggest the microtonal music of his Arabic past.

Rounding off the afternoon will be Rudolf Barshai’s arrangement of Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 into a Chamber Symphony. Shostakovich’s quartet is deeply personal – intense, harried, neurotic, enigmatic, visceral, and unforgettable. It’s also full of veiled self-references, including allusions to his other works, among them a piano trio that quotes a Jewish folk song.

Read more about this fascinating program in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

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

January 27, 2017

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