Classic Ross Amico

Tag: TCNJ

Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo TCNJ Concert Friday

After being pinned down in the house for a few days by torrential rain, maybe you’d like to get out for an evening and enjoy some guitar music. If so, I have the very thing, as the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo will perform at The College of New Jersey on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

The recital will be held at the Mayo Concert Hall (located in the music building), 2000 Pennington Rd., in Ewing, NJ.

Together ensemble-in-residence at Mannes College of Music, Michael Newman and Laura Oltman are founders and artistic directors of the New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes and New Jersey’s Raritan River Music Festival. Michael serves on the faculties of Mannes and TCNJ. Laura serves on the faculties of Princeton University and Lafayette College.

I have no idea what’s on tomorrow’s program, but I’d be very surprised if the evening doesn’t include at least some Leo Brouwer, as the artists have enjoyed a close working relationship with the composer in recent years and had a couple works written specifically for them. In fact, they’ve released an all-Brouwer album on the MusicMasters label.

This is also an excellent opportunity for me to give advance notice of the Raritan River Music Festival, which always manages to sneak up on me, as the first of the warm weather music festivals. The concerts are held in historic venues in Central Jersey’s Raritan and Warren Counties throughout the month of May. Learn more about the rapidly-approaching 35th season at raritanrivermusic.org.

In the meantime, Laura and Michael, who make their home along the banks of the swollen Delaware, will slalom down to TCNJ for tomorrow night’s appearance.

For tickets and information, visit tcnjcenterforthearts.universitytickets.com or call the box office at 609-771-2585.

April 4, 2024
Peter Schickele & PDQ Bach at TCNJ

As detailed in my article in yesterday’s Trenton Times (http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/11/classical_music_choral_shenani.html), composer and humorist Peter Schickele will be in Ewing on Dec. 5 for a concert at The College of New Jersey. The concert, titled “Choral Shenanigans and Other Musical Hijinks,” will include a number of works published under his own name and some attributed to his famous pseudonym, P.D.Q. Bach.

Schickele’s “discovery” of this oddest of Johann Sebastian Bach’s twenty odd children has provided him with a comic persona (or perhaps two, since his “Professor Peter Schickele” is an equally amusing, unreliable source) through which he has entertained for decades with a mix of freewheeling parody, excruciating puns and outright, pie-in-the-face slapstick.

It should be stressed that Friday’s event is not a standard P.D.Q. Bach concert. As flabbergasting as it may seem, Schickele is now 79. So there will be no swinging to the stage on a rope, as he once did at Carnegie Hall. Instead, he will oversee the proceedings like something of a dignified lion – though I’m guessing a wry lion – introducing his pieces through brief and informal conversations with Wayne Heisler, TCNJ Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies in Music.

The event will feature performances by the TCNJ Chorale, College Choir, and Wind Ensemble.

Schickele will be my guest this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord.” He’ll talk a bit about his career, the evolution of P.D.Q. Bach, and his upcoming appearance at TCNJ.

I’ve always admired Schickele’s non-P.D.Q. concert music. We’ll get to sample some of it, with of course a few comedy classics thrown into the mix.

Join me for “Schickele, P.D.Q.,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Props to Professor Schickele

November 29, 2014
Guitar Duo Concert at TCNJ & Princeton

If you’re in the area and you’d enjoy a musical serenade to go along with your peanut butter and banana sandwich, head on over to The College of New Jersey in Ewing for today’s “brown bag” concert.

Laura Oltman, who has taught guitar at Princeton University for over three decades, will join her husband, Michael Newman, who is new to the TCNJ faculty. Newman & Oltman will perform works for guitar duet by Ferdinando Carulli, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Astor Piazzolla.

In addition, flutist Jayn Rosenfeld will join Oltman for Mauro Giuliani’s Gran Duetto Concertante, Op. 52. The hour-long concert will be held at Mayo Concert Hall in the college’s music building, beginning at 12:30. Bagged lunches are welcome.

Oltman and Rosenfeld will repeat the Giuliani work on Sunday, as part of concert by Richardson Chamber Players, to be held at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, beginning at 3. The predominantly wind program will also include works by Mozart and Francis Poulenc. Oltman will preface Poulenc’s Sextet with a late guitar work, the “Sarabande,” from 1960.

Newman also teaches at Mannes College of Music in New York, and Oltman at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. The Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo is ensemble-in-residence at Mannes.

Husband and wife will reunite for a Christmas concert at Villa Milagro Vineyards in Finesville, NJ, on Dec. 6 at 6:30 p.m.

To learn more about it – and them – check out my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/11/classical_music_newman_oltman.html

PHOTO: Newman & Oltman: Zing! go the strings of their art

November 21, 2014

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