Month: September 2018

The Richmond Symphony has announced six candidates to become the sixth music director of the Richmond Symphony, succeeding Steven Smith, whose 10-year tenure with the orchestra concludes at the end of the 2018-19 season.

Selected from a field of more than 200 applicants, each candidate will spend two weeks here in the 2019-20 season, conducting several concerts including one Masterworks program, speaking with city leaders and participating in the orchestra’s educational and community engagement activities.

The candidates, in order of their appearances in Richmond next season:

* Roderick Cox, winner of the 2018 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award of the US Solti Foundation, formerly associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and assistant conductor of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Alabama Symphony Youth Orchestra.

* Paolo Bortolameolli, born in Chile, a pianist now serving as assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, formerly principal conductor of the New Haven (CN) Chamber Orchestra and a participant in a number of new-music ventures.

* Ankush Kumar Bahl, an American of Indian descent, formerly assistant conductor of Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, assistant to the late conductor Kurt Masur at several orchestras and a sometime collaborator with jazz artists and groups.

* Laura Jackson, a violinist as well as a conductor, currently in her 10th season as music director of the Reno (NV) Philharmonic, formerly assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

* Valentina Peleggi, the Italian-born, London-schooled resident conductor of the OSESP São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil and principal conductor of its chorus and guest music director of São Paulo’s Theatro São Pedro.

* Farkhad Khudyev, who studied violin, piano and composition in his native Turkmenistan in Central Asia, a winner of the German Solti Conducting Competition, formerly assistant conductor of the London Philharmonic and music director of the New Haven Chamber Orchestra, currently music director of the Hidden Valley Orchestra Institute and Youth Music Monterey County in California.

noon-3 p.m. EDT
1700-2000 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
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John Adams: “Short Ride in a Fast Machine”
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle
(EMI Classics)

Past Masters:
Richard Strauss: Burleske in D minor
Byron Janis, piano
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Fritz Reiner
(RCA Red Seal)
(recorded 1957)

Haydn: Symphony No. 60 in C major (“Il Distratto”)
Il Giardano Armonico/Giovanni Antonini
(Alpha)

Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia: Piano Quartet in F minor, Op. 6
Chia Chou, piano
Yamei Yu, violin
Thomas Seiditz, viola
Michael Gross, cello
(MDG)

Beethoven: Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 (“Serioso”)
Cypress String Quartet
(Avie)

Past Masters:
Schubert: “Rosamunde” (“Die Zauberharfe”) Overture
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/George Szell
(Philips)
(recorded 1964)

Saint-Saëns: Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor
Andrew Wan, violin
Montreal Symphony Orchestra/Kent Nagano
(Analekta)

Dvořák: “Scherzo capriccioso”
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
(Naxos)

My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of the Richmond Symphony’s season-opening gala with pianist Lang Lang, Sept. 21 at the Carpenter Theatre of Dominion Energy Center:

http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/review-richmond-symphony-with-pianist-lang-lang-friday-night-at/article_3ada860a-266b-5e9e-83da-22cd2113191e.html

Katherine Needleman, onetime principal oboist of the Richmond Symphony, currently holding the same post at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, has filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, related to a 2005 incident in which she alleges an unwanted sexual advance by Jonathan Carney, the Baltimore Symphony’s concertmaster.

Subsequently, Needleman claims, Carney has subjected her to lewd and suggestive comments and has belittled her professionally, charges that Carney has denied, saying, “There were no physical or verbal altercations. . . . I have done everything I can to be professional.”

The oboist’s EEOC complaint charges that the Baltimore Symphony “has allowed a hostile work environment caused by Carney’s retaliation against her,” The Baltimore Sun’s Tim Smith reports. Smith notes that an internal investigation conducted for the orchestra earlier this year “found some behavioral incidents Needleman raised that also surfaced in the EEOC complaint,” and that Carney was advised to undergo sensitivity training:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/artsmash/bs-fe-bso-scandal-20180920-story.html

Letter V Classical Radio returns on Sept. 26.

noon-3 p.m. EDT
1700-2000 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://wdce.net

Mason Bates: “Mothership”
Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose
(BMOP/sound)

Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A minor
Pamela Frank, violin
Czech Philharmonic/Charles Mackerras
(Decca)

Mahler: Piano Quartet in A minor
Wu Han, piano
Daniel Hope, violin
Paul Neubauer, viola
David Finckel, cello
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Baldasarre Galuppi: Sonata in C major, Lily 27
Aleksandar Serdar, piano
(EMI Classics)

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A major (“Italian”)
Vienna Philharmonic/John Eliot Gardiner
(Deutsche Grammophon)

J.S. Bach: Lute Suite in C minor, BWV 997
(arrangement by Jean Rondeau)
Jean Rondeau, harpsichord
(Erato)

Past Masters:
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor
Clifford Curzon, piano
London Symphony Orchestra/George Szell
(Decca)
(recorded 1962)

Suppé: “Light Cavalry” Overture
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner
(Warner Classics)

Alexander Paley & Peiwen Chen, pianos
June 8, St. Luke Lutheran Church

This fall’s Paley Music Festival, devoted to Russian music for two pianos, concluded with Alexander Paley and Peiwen Chen, Paley’s wife and performing partner, delivering a blistering rendition of the most familiar work of all on their three programs, Shostakovich’s Concertino, Op. 94.

Written for the composer’s son, Maxim (who went on to become better-known as a conductor than as a pianist), the Concertino melds deep, rather dark Russian melodies with bumptious rhythms associated with circus music, producing a weird balance of lightness and darkness, extroversion and introspection.

Paley and Chen negotiated this shifting soundscape without missteps and with keen sensitivity to expression, tone color and balances between their two instruments.

Their work was no less impressive – maybe more so – in two suites by Anton Arensky. His Suite No. 3, Op. 26 (“Variations”) is a miniature marathon of nine different takes on a somber, nostalgic theme that recalls Schumann (Clara more than Robert), which Arensky runs through forms and moods as varied as a scherzo, a nocturne, both a minuet and a waltz, triumphal and funeral marches and, finally, an emphatically voiced Polonaise.

The two pianists managed the suite’s sharp contrasts, between the thunderous sonics of the triumphal march and Polonaise and the quicksilver rhythms and intricate instrumental exchanges in the suite’s “Dialogue” and scherzo, and the Chopinesque reveries of the nocturne.

The duo also were reliable explorers of the quasi-Lisztian harmonic explorations of Arensky’s more modestly scaled Suite No. 4, Op. 62.

In both suites, they leaned into the melodies of a composer who was almost as tuneful as Tchaikovsky, although not as gifted in developing those melodies.

The festival’s finale also featured an obscure bit of over-the-top weirdness, Vladimir Rebikov’s “Cauchemar” (“Nightmare”), a “psychological tableaux” that lays ominous, insistent, often elaborate keyboard figures atop a heavy, relentless bass line. If the sorcerer’s apprentice had a very bad dream, it might sound like this.

Alexander Paley & Peiwen Chen, pianos
Sept. 7, St. Luke Lutheran Church

The 21st season of Alexander Paley’s Richmond festival is one of the most unusual, and most artistically concentrated, devoted entirely to Russian works for two pianos, most composed within the two generations of Russian romanticism.

The opening program ranged fairly widely within those generational and stylistic boundaries, beginning with the epically romantic Fantasie, Op. 73, of Anton Rubinstein and continuing with two romantic homages to earlier styles, Anton Arensky’s neo-baroque “Suite in Canon Form,” Op. 65, and Alexander Glazunov’s “Middles Ages Suite,” Op. 79.

In his Fantasie, Rubinstein, the pre-eminent Russian piano virtuoso of the late-19th century, synthesized virtually every keyboard composer and idiom of that century, from Beethoven to Chopin to Liszt and Schumann – an unruly crowd of influences, especially in a sprawling first movement. The work is at its most cogent, and moving, in its concluding set of variations on a bittersweet theme.

Playing a pair of Blüthner concert grands, Paley and Chen emphasized the scale and scope of Rubinstein’s expression, although at highest volume their tone production turned glaring and glassy in the bright acoustic of the St. Luke church sanctuary.

On the heels of the Rubinstein, the Arensky suite sounded like a bon-bon, albeit one with audible, and stylishly apt, references to Bach and other baroque composers who produced suites on dance rhythms.

Glazunov, a prolific late-romantic composer and teacher of a subsequent generation of composers (notably Prokofiev and Shostakovich), wrote the “Middle Ages Suite” in 1902. The suite, originally for orchestra, anticipates many evocations of early music produced by modern composers. Coincidentally, perhaps, the suite’s scherzo pre-echoes the use of the Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”) theme that Rachmaninoff used in his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” while its finale is propelled by a march that sounds a lot like Prokofiev’s famous march from “The Love for Three Oranges.”

The composer’s two-piano arrangement of the suite is one of the more effective keyboard reductions of an orchestral work, retaining much of the original’s tone and color. Paley and Chen ably conveyed the work’s neo-antique elements within its prevailing romantic expressive character.

The Paley Music Festival continues on Sept. 8 with Alexander Paley and Peiwen Chen playing two-piano works by Arensky, Medtner and Leonid Nikolayev at 2 p.m., and works by Arensky, Shostakovich and Vladimir Rebikov at 7:30 p.m., at St. Luke Lutheran Church, 7757 Chippenham Parkway. Details: (804) 665-9516; http://paleymusicfestival.org

noon-3 p.m. EDT
1700-2000 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://wdce.net

Rossini: “William Tell” Overture
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Myung-Whun Chung
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Poulenc: “Aubade”
Ralph Votapek, piano
Harmonie Ensemble, New York/Steven Richman
(Music & Arts)

Haydn: Symphony No. 28 in A major
Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood
(L’Oiseau Lyre)

Janáček: Idyll for strings
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra/Iona Brown
(Chandos)

Mozart: String Quintet in C major, K. 515
Colin Jacobsen & Viviane Hagner, violins
Antoine Tamestit & Tatjana Masurenko, violas
Jan Vogler, cello
(Sony Classical)

Past Masters:
Albéniz: “Cantos de España,” Op. 232
Alicia de Larrocha, piano
(Decca)
(recorded 1973)

Saint-Saëns: Suite in D major, Op. 49
Basque National Orchestra/Jun Märkl
(Naxos)

Liszt: “Totentanz”
Rian de Waal, piano
Anima Eterna Orchestra/Jos van Immerseel
(Zig Zag Territories)

Looking over Richmond’s 2018-19 classical season, we find both more conventional programming, notably on the chamber-music front, and some unusual departures from the norm.

This year’s Tucker-Boatwright Festival at the University of Richmond focuses on intersections of contrasts between the Western canon and non-Western, especially Asian, musics. UR’s resident new-music sextet eighth blackbird will explore the long-neglected African-American composer Julius Eastman. The lineup of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rennolds Chamber Concerts includes performances by Third Coast Percussion, a group that advocates contemporary American composers, and Cuartetto Latinoamericano, the leading string quartet in Latin America.

Virginia Opera opens its season with “Street Scene,” the rarely staged 1947 opera by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes, before turning to more familiar operatic fare – Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love” and Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.”

Steven Smith, in his final season as music director of the Richmond Symphony, is joined by superstar pianist Lang Lang in the season-opener, thereafter concentrating on standard repertory such as Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique,” Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony (No. 6), Brahms’ “A German Requiem” and Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony (No. 3). Smith departs, though, with a programming departure: a semi-staged, truncated performance of Bizet’s “Carmen,” starring mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.

The symphony also is performing in four Tucker-Boatwright programs, three on the UR campus, one at its downtown home venue, Dominion Energy Center.

The chamber-music season is dotted with familiar names – the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at VCU; the Shanghai and Takács quartets at UR – as well as local debuts of major names in the field, including the Danish String Quartet and pianist Daniil Trifonov, both at UR.

The Richmond-born mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and pianist Baptiste Trotignon bring their cabaret and fin de siècle Viennese art-song program, “Thousands of Miles,” to UR in the fall.

Alexander Paley and his wife and duo-piano partner, Peiwen Chen, explore rarely heard Russian works for two pianos in this fall’s Paley Music Festival, compressed this year into three performances in two days.

The Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, in its 14th season, spotlights two sharply contrasting creative figures, Dmitri Shostakovich and Johannes Brahms, as well as a variety of baroque composers in programs during the holiday season.

Conflicting concert dates, a significant problem in past seasons, are mercifully minimal this time around. The Dover Quartet with pianist Peter Serkin at UR and the Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminus at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart perform at the same time on Oct. 19; and a Chamber Music Society program at UR and a Richmond Symphony Metro Collection concert at Randolph-Macon College conflict on April 28.

The following calendar lists performances announced to date, and will be updated as other performances are announced. Asterisks (*) denote concerts open free or by donation.

SEPTEMBER
*7 – Alexander Paley Music Festival: Duo-pianists Alexander Paley & Peiwen Chen (St. Luke Lutheran Church).
*8 – Alexander Paley Music Festival: Duo-pianists Alexander Paley & Peiwen Chen (St. Luke Lutheran Church).
16 – Attacca Quartet (Virginia Commonwealth University Singleton Arts Center).
20 – Richmond Symphony Symphony in 60, Steven Smith conducting & speaking (Dominion Energy Center).
21 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting, with pianist Lang Lang (Dominion Energy Center).
26 – Colour of Music Festival Orchestra, conductor TBA, with soloists TBA (University of Richmond Modlin Arts Center).
*29 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (Richmond Public Library).
30 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (UR Perkinson Recital Hall).

OCTOBER
3 – Tucker-Boatwright Festival: Richmond Symphony, conductor TBA, in “Middle Eastern Connections.” (UR Modlin Arts Center).
4 – Richmond Symphony Rush Hour, Steven Smith conducting (Hardywood Park Craft Brewery).
7 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting (Randolph-Macon College).
*10 – Tucker-Boatwright Festival: Vocalist Bill Miller in “Mohican Songs of the Spirit.” (UR Perkinson Recital Hall).
12/14 – Virginia Opera, Adam Turner conducting, in Kurt Weill’s “Street Scene” (Dominion Energy Center).
19 – Dover Quartet with pianist Peter Serkin (UR Modlin Arts Center).
*19 – Vox Luminus (Cathedral of the Sacred Heart).
20 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting, with violinist Joan Kwoun (Dominion Energy Center).
21 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting (Mount Vernon Baptist Church).
26 – Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey & pianist Baptiste Trotignon (UR Modlin Arts Center).

NOVEMBER
*2-3 – Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival, with eighth blackbird, other artists TBA. (UR Modlin Arts Center).
3 – Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (VCU Singleton Arts Center).
3 – Richmond Symphony Pops, conductor TBA, with Jeans ’n Classics (Dominion Energy Center).
4 – Richmond Philharmonic, Peter Wilson conducting, with trumpeters Mary Bowden & David Dash (Collegiate School).
8 – Danish String Quartet (UR Modlin Arts Center).
10-11 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting, with soloists and Richmond Symphony Chorus (Dominion Energy Center).
12 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (Branch Museum of Architecture and Design).
16/18 – Virginia Opera, Adam Turner conducting, in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” (Dominion Energy Center).
26 – Richmond Symphony, other artists TBA, in Commonwealth Catholic Charities Christmas concert (Cathedral of the Sacred Heart).

DECEMBER
1-2 – Richmond Symphony Pops, Erin Freeman conducting, with Richmond Symphony Chorus, in “Let It Snow!” (Dominion Energy Center).
8 – Richmond Symphony, Chia-Hsuan Lin conducting, with soloists & Richmond Symphony Chorus, in Handel’s “Messiah” (Dominion Energy Center).
*9 – University of Richmond Schola Cantorum & Women’s Chorale, Jeffrey Riehl & David Pedersen directing, in Festival of Lessons and Carols (UR Cannon Memorial Chapel).
*10 – American Colonial Entertainers in “A Colonial Christmas” (Cathedral of the Sacred Heart).
*15 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (Richmond Public Library).
16 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (Wilton House Museum).
18 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (Holy Comforter Episcopal Church).

JANUARY
12-13 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting, with pianist Orion Weiss (Dominion Energy Center).
19 – Seraph Brass (VCU Singleton Arts Center).
20 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (First Unitarian Universalist Church).
23 – Tucker-Boatwright Festival: Richmond Symphony, conductor TBA, in “Southeast Asian Connections.” (UR Modlin Arts Center).
24 – Richmond Symphony Rush Hour, Steven Smith conducting (Hardywood Park Craft Brewery).
27 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting (Randolph-Macon College).

FEBRUARY
2 – Richmond Symphony Pops, Chia-Hsuan Lin conducting, with Cirque de la Symphonie (Dominion Energy Center).
*3 – Pianist Richard Becker (UR Modlin Arts Center).
7 – Pianist Daniil Trifonov (UR Modlin Arts Center).
9-10 – Richmond Symphony, George Manahan conducting, with violinist Daisuke Yamamoto (Dominion Energy Center).
*11 – Richmond Piano Trio (UR Modlin Arts Center).
21 – Richmond Symphony Rush Hour, Steven Smith conducting (Hardywood Park Craft Brewery).
22 – Tucker-Boatwright Festival: Richmond Symphony, conductor TBA, with cellist and tabla player TBA, in “South Asian Connections.” (UR Modlin Arts Center).
22/14 – Virginia Opera, Adam Turner conducting, in Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love” (Dominion Energy Center).
23 – Third Coast Percussion (VCU Singleton Arts Center).
24 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting (Randolph-Macon College).
28 – Shanghai Quartet with cellist David Finckel & pianist Wu Han (UR Modlin Arts Center).

MARCH
*2 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (Richmond Public Library).
3 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (UR Perkinson Recital Hall).
*6 – Pianist Paul Hanson (UR Modlin Arts Center).
*7 – eighth blackbird (UR Modlin Arts Center).
8 – Richmond Symphony Symphony in 60, Steven Smith conducting (Dominion Energy Center).
9 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting, with pianist Adam Nieman (Dominion Energy Center).
10 – Richmond Philharmonic, Peter Wilson conducting, with trumpeter Rex Richardson (Collegiate School).
16 – Richmond Symphony Pops, Chia-Hsuan Lin conducting, with Classical Mystery Tour, in “Music of the Beatles” (Dominion Energy Center).
*22 – Schola Cantorum of Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Daniel Sañez directing, in “Lent in Leipzig” (Cathedral of the Sacred Heart).
23 – Cuarteto Latinoamericano (VCU Singleton Arts Center).
*24 – Duo-pianists Richard Becker & Doris Wylee-Becker (UR Modlin Arts Center).
29/31 – Virginia Opera, Adam Turner conducting, in Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” (Dominion Energy Center).

APRIL
*10 – University of Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Kordzaia conducting, with harpist Claire Jones, percussionist-composer Chris Marshall & GreenSpring International American Youth Harp Ensemble (UR Modlin Arts Center).
12 – Takács Quartet (UR Modlin Arts Center).
13-14 – Tucker-Boatwright Festival: Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting, with Richmond Symphony Chorus & University of Richmond Women’s Chorale, in “Influence of the World” (Dominion Energy Center).
24 – Richmond Symphony, conductor TBA (Hardywood West Creek).
25 – Richmond Symphony Rush Hour, Chia-Hsuan Lin conducting (Hardywood Park Craft Brewery).
28 – Richmond Symphony, Chia-Hsuan Lin conducting, with clarinetist David Lemelin (Randolph-Macon College).
28 – Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia (UR Perkinson Recital Hall).

MAY
5 – Richmond Philharmonic, Peter Wilson conducting and playing violin, with conductor Rondy Michael Lazaro & Latin Ballet of Virginia (Collegiate School).
12 – Richmond Symphony, Steven Smith conducting, with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves & other artists TBA, in Bizet’s “Carmen” (concert version) (Dominion Energy Center).