What do falling in love and “The Poseidon Adventure” have in common? Find out in my article in today’s Trenton Times.
http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/02/classical_music_valentines_day.html
Then go hear Maureen McGovern and the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic tomorrow at the Trenton War Memorial, as they celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Or, if you prefer, join the Princeton Singers at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Just watch out for that tsunami.
ADVENT CALENDAR – DAY 13
If Christmas acts as a beacon against the shortest day, then it shines most brightly for the young.
Three local youth choirs feature prominently on this weekend’s concerts, as the Princeton High School Choir joins the Princeton Symphony Orchestra at Richardson Auditorium, tomorrow at 4 p.m.; the Princeton Girlchoir joins the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra at the Trenton War Memorial, Sunday at 3 p.m.; and the The American Boychoir holds its own, again at Richardson, Sunday at 4 p.m.
Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:
http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/12/classical_music_youth_choirs_t.html
Here’s the American Boychoir from 1988, performing with Jessye Norman, in Donald Fraser’s “This Christmastide”:
The choir led by its current music director, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz:
And in “Silent Night”:
Okay, so maybe I lack Peter Schickele’s sense of humor.
I think I’m generally a witty person, and I enjoy a good laugh, but when it comes to putting myself out there I can be fairly self-conscious. Therefore, I work hard to get it right, whether it be in my writing or in my editing for the radio broadcasts. At any rate, I do the best I can under the circumstances (which may include, among other things, tight deadlines, lack of sleep, impending holidays, and a worn-out voice that won’t cooperate).
Which brings me to this week’s newspaper article.
It looks like, in his or her haste to get to Thanksgiving, an editor altered my reference to Schickele being in Ewing for rehearsals last Thursday (was it too specific?), and in the process made gibberish of the original sentence.
Now, I realize it’s no big deal. I hate to whine about these things every Friday – last week, I kept mum about the cuts, because they didn’t mar the piece – but it is frustrating to have someone make careless or capricious changes to something I worked on very hard because I want it to read well, so that it winds up appearing to be full of potholes and hiccups. I’m not a vain person, but I think I have a sense of my own worth as a writer. Give me a word count, and all I really need is a proofreader.
I can live with the fact that they didn’t like “AAAAARRRRRGH!” in the upper case.
I have not seen the print edition, so I have yet to find out to what extent I should be ashamed to show my face in public for another week.
Anyway, enough about my smarting ego, and on to the content.
Schickele will be at the College of New Jersey on Dec. 5 for a concert titled “Choral Shenanigans and Other Musical Hijinks.” The concert will include works published under his own name and some attributed to his famous pseudonym, P.D.Q. Bach, including the “Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion,” “A Consort of Choral Christmas Carols,” and “Three Choruses from E.E. Cummings.” Also on the program will be Robert Sund’s “The Drunken Sailor” and Robert Cohen’s “Ho, Hosanna.”
The event will feature performances by the TCNJ Chorale, College Choir, and Wind Ensemble. Schickele will introduce his works through brief and informal conversations with Wayne Heisler, TCNJ Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies in Music.
Schickele will also be my guest this week on “The Lost Chord,” which will include a mix of his “serious” concert works and riotous comedy bits. You can enjoy it 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. Because of Thanksgiving, the program was assembled P.D.Q.
Also on Dec. 5 (and 6), Westminster Opera Theatre will present Franz Joseph Haydn’s comic opera, “Il mondo della luna” (“The World on the Moon”).
Haydn’s science fiction opera, on a libretto of Carlo Goldoni, concerns a sham astrologer who plans to dupe a rich old man into believing he has been transported to the moon, with the aim of tricking him into granting permission to marry his daughter.
Music director William Hobbes will conduct students of Westminster Choir College in this fully staged production, in Italian with English supertitles. Performances will be held at Princeton Regional Schools Performing Arts Center in Princeton High School.
It’s the holidays! Be of good cheer (like me). Read more about Schickele and Haydn in my article in today’s Trenton Times.
http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/11/classical_music_choral_shenani.html
As a columnist, what do you do when there are three concerts in the area that really deserve coverage, but you can only really treat one of them? Why, begin with a discursive prologue, of course!
Michelle Djokic, artistic director of Concordia Chamber Players, is really the focus this week. The first of this season’s Concordia concerts will take place at Trinity Episcopal Church in Solebury, Pa., this Sunday at 3 p.m. It may sound a bit out of the way, but the venue is lovely, and the music-making is always first-rate. Also, they put out the best spread at intermission. (That last digression is courtesy of a hungry freelancer.)
Djokic was born in Trenton, one of seven (!) musical brothers and sisters. She now makes her home in the San Francisco Bay area, where she relocated to perform with the San Francisco Symphony. She currently plays in the New Century Chamber Orchestra under Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.
Her family and her concerts with Concordia bring her back to the area a number of times each year. Now her relationship with Foundation Academy in downtown Trenton, where she conducts master classes with the kids, brings her back to her old neighborhood, in the vicinity of Cumberland Avenue.
The concert, her remarkable upbringing, and her relationship with the kids form the focus of this week’s article (once it gets going), so it’s amusing to me that the online version puts the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, mentioned in passing in the opening paragraph, in the headline.
Here’s the piece, in today’s Trenton Times:
http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/11/classical_music_nj_symphony_or.html
In the print edition, two words are cut (fine with me), but three typos slip by!
On a related note, Glenn Smith will host a broadcast of a concert given by Concordia this past February, which featured the String Quartet No. 1 by Alexander Zemlinsky and the astonishing Suite for 2 Violins, Cello and Piano Left-Hand by Zemlinsky’s pupil, Erich Wolfgang Korngold. You can enjoy the broadcast today at 12 p.m. ET, at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTO: Michelle Djokic instructing the students at Trenton’s Foundation Academy Intermediate. Sadly, none of Peggy Krist’s photos made it into the paper (the article was probably too long), or even online.
Last week, I put together my annual season round-up of area orchestral concerts; this week, the focus is on chamber and instrumental music.
http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/09/chamber_music_ensembles_announ.html
It also happens to be the last article to be supervised by my long-suffering editors, Jim Berrie and Michael Mancuso. Over the years, Jim and Michael have come to expect copy one-third longer than quota, turned in at least 24 hours late. I’ve greatly appreciated their personable approach and unflagging sense of humor. They always made everything a lot less stressful than it could have been. I will miss them both.
Big changes coming to The Times of Trenton, as NJ Advanced Media absorbs Advance Publication newspapers. Starting next week, I fear I may have to think less like a Victorian novelist and more like a haiku poet.
Here’s the official line, published in March:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/03/faq_nj_advance_media.html
And an article about pervasive layoffs, from April:
So it goes.
PHOTO: Sunset for some at the Times
Aaron Copland (92) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (123) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (187) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (101) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (138) Opera (202) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (106) Radio (87) Ralph Vaughan Williams (85) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)