Today, Snarky Puppy & their associated label, GroundUP Music, have announced the lineup for the second edition of GroundUP Music Festival, an intimate and eclectic musical experience set to take place in Miami Beach, FL from February 9th-11th, 2018. Hosted by three-time Grammy-winning Snarky Puppy, the festival will feature a special set from Snarky each day along with performances from an eclectic list of international superstars including: The Wood Brothers; The Flecktones Trio feat. Béla Fleck, Victor Wooten and Futureman, Robert Glasper, Lionel Loueke (artist at large), Joshua Redman, Michael League, & Larnell Lewis; Eliades Ochoa (Buena Vista Social Club great); Kitailo feat. Buika; JoJo Mayer/Nerve; Knower; Mark Guiliana's BEAT Music; Under One Sun; Weedie Braimah & the Hands of Time; Paris Monster; C4 Trio; Harold López-Nussa Trio; and GroundUP artists Charlie Hunter & Silvana Estrada; Banda Magda; Becca Stevens; FORQ; Roosevelt Collier; Breastfist; Sirintip; and Alina Engibaryan. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px} span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre} READ THE FULL Live for Live Music ARTICLE

GroundUP Festival 2017 Recap

 

It's NEA Jazz Master Lee Konitz leading a quartet that includes George Schuller on drums, Jeremy Stratton on bass, and Dan Tepper on piano. And in his Kennedy Center's Birthday Celebration, Konitz couldn't have been any more expressive, or ready for flight. Nuanced, graceful, unhurried, and sublime are but a few of the descriptors that come to mind as I reflect on this exquisite evening of jazz and community. The evening began with a rendition of "I'll Remember April." Jazz Master Konitz began the piece with a solo, which he interrupted with pauses and exclamation in reference to his musical endurance, and his 90-year-old breath. Lee's Konitz's Birthday Celebration performed twice on October 14, 2017, at The Kennedy Center's Terrace Theatre.
READ THE FULL DC Metro Theater Arts ARTICLE p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px}

 

Director of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (CF), David Marecek, signed a five-year contract with new CF chief conductor Semyon Bychkov on Monday. U.S. conductor of Russian origin Bychkov will be the new CF chief conductor and the successor to late Jiri Belohlavek starting the season 2018/2019. Before it, the guest conductors Jakub Hrusa and Tomas Netopil will be heading the CF temporarily. "This day is of major importance for CF because by signing the contract with Bychkov, certainty is returning to it. It is now certain that it will be headed by an artist who will work similarly to Belohlavek," Marecek said. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px} Bychkov has led almost all of the world's important orchestras including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, the London Symphonic Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, he regularly performs at the BBC Proms festivals and has also gained fame in the operatic field, conducting, for example, the orchestras of the Royal Opera House in London, New York's Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg festival. READ THE FULL Prague Daily Monitor ARTICLE

 

New Classical Tracks is a Syndicated Feature airing Nationally on Classical 24 & Statewide on Minnesota Public Radio. Listen to Julie Amacher's Feature with Sharon Isbin. LISTEN 

READ THE TRANSCRIPT - "I think that it's one of the best things you can ever do as a person, as a musician, is really just stay open to the world and be very welcoming to wonderful ideas as they happen." Guitarist Sharon Isbin has built her career on being open to all possibilities. "You know it's impossible to guess what's around the corner," she explains. "I've been so fortunate to meet people like Tom Jobim from Brazil and work with him. I have a trio called Guitar Passions with Stanley Jordan, the jazz player who's remarkable. And Romero Lubambo from Brazil and we'll be continuing to perform together. We've done a lot of touring and a recording called Guitar Passions. Recording with Joan Baez and Mark O'Connor - I never expected that would ever happen but what a dream it was on Journey to the New World. So, there's just so much out there that I like to just keep wide eyed, open eared and see what happens." What came around the corner about three years ago was an invitation from mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, asking Isbin to collaborate on Spanish songs. They recently captured their experience on a new recording titled, Alma Española, which means "Spanish Soul." It's been more than four decades since the last major recording of Spanish art songs featuring a guitarist and native Spanish speaker was released. Sharon says that's one reason she leapt at the opportunity. "Isabel grew up in a household where speaking Spanish was her native language along with English. Her mother is from Argentina. It is really challenging to have that combination and pairing it with guitar, so I think that it was just really fortuitous that we could come together on this and music that we both love. And when you think about the music, it's really all inspired by the guitar and there are a lot of things in this whole program that when you look at the Garcia Lorca songs for example … he never wrote them down. And the only way we have access to what he had in his mind in his arrangements was an old early 1930s recording he did with another Argentinian singer called La Argentinita. "So that recording is our access to his arrangements. And of course, that gives me a lot of freedom as well. And all the composers are connected in some way on this album. In fact, more than half of them were either forced to flee or [were] murdered by fascist governments. So, the backstories of the composers is fascinating as well. And their interactions with each other and my interactions with many of them." I want to go back to the Lorca pieces that you arranged. This is a world premiere. You were talking about how he didn't like to write his music down. What I'm intrigued about - when you and Isabel performed these works, you were spontaneous when you performed them. Can you talk about how you did that? To go with the flow while you're performing them … how does that work? "Well, we met a number of times to rehearse and go over the lyrics and she really wanted to make sure that I understand what was happening in each stanza and how best to communicate that. So there was something very delicate and sensuous that would create one kind of guitar notation, whereas if it was something very loud and flamenco-like and big strums that would complement the actual words … that would be another direction I would go in. So we really worked this through. Revised it, revised it, and then once we took it on the road, because we've been performing together now for three years, all kinds of venues from Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center. And each time we might discover something new. So being able to road test it like that in addition to having the rehearsals at the beginning and the time to create these arrangements was really very valuable to do before actually going into a recording studio. There's one song, for example, where a young man heads out in search of a wife and instead, by chance, discovers his long lost sister. So the very final stanza Rosalinda herself is speaking and Isabel suggested that I go up an octave to be that voice." There's another set of songs on the recording which have been a regular part of Isabel Leonard's repertoire. And you created the arrangements of these by Xavier Montsalvatge. "I had actually met Montsalvatge some years ago in New York when these pieces were being performed live on stage at Avery Fisher and with orchestra and this version with piano is what I base mine on. And there were two in particular: a slow, beautiful lullaby which ends the whole recording, and a very fast dance which is actually about a drunken fellow. It's funny because that one is not much more than a minute and a half long but it took so many hours and hours and hours of work to transcribe it and learn it because it is such a challenging piece technically but really fun to perform. In fact, there was one concert we did where Isabel started dancing on the stage with a little kid who had come up so we really have a lot of fun with our audiences." Now how do you think the guitar arrangements have enhanced these pieces? "One of the things that has always inspired me as a player is to listen to singers. Why is that. Because the voice is the ultimate and how you can be expressive with shaping and legato and the beautiful sounds between notes so that the guitar, unlike the piano, can actually create sound between notes that imitates the human voice. We call it portamento. So if you listen to some of my playing - you can listen to that for example at the beginning of the Granada Danza española or throughout the Capricho arabe, hear that little wisp of sound that I use as a nuance between the notes. It's kind of like the spices you add to a delicious stew. If you didn't do that it would be a bit bland. So by doing that in the right way I can become a voice as well. Also, one of the advantages I have as a guitarist and playing with my fingernails and the flesh of the finger as opposed to a pick is that I have a really infinite variety of colors that I can draw upon. It's like painting on a canvas and all of that adds to the atmosphere and the expression of the music." p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px} To hear the rest of my conversation about Alma Española with Sharon Isbin, download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

A new recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor and Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73, "Emperor" on Decca Records features acclaimed conductor JoAnn Falletta leading the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra with soloist Norman Krieger. One of the most acclaimed pianists of his generation and highly regarded as an artist of depth, sensitivity and virtuosic flair, Krieger recorded the concertos live with Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic in Buffalo's Kleinhans Music Hall. The Emperor Concerto, which was Beethoven's last work for piano and orchestra, was performed by Krieger with Falletta and the BPO as a centerpiece of the Orchestra's 2015 Beethoven Festival. The performance earned high praise from Buffalo News reviewer Mary Kunz Goldman, who called the performance "exquisite," noting that the BPO "played with extraordinary finesse" and that "Krieger, at the piano, showed a special gift for the rapturous melody lines of the Emperor."  This week, download the third movement on KDFC: San Francisco   p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px}

 

"I have plenty of musical goals left... I am not bored or burned out!" The master of acoustic blues talks about his innovative new album, and how he stays creative after 40 glorious years of making music. Professional guitarists almost always start with cheap, hard-toplay guitars, and Eric Bibb was no exception.  "I was around seven or eight when I started out," he recalls as we chat in his hotel, before his performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. "I remember that the guitar was old and the action was rough: it had steel strings and it was very frustrating because the rough action was painful to play with. I had a teacher who tried to teach me some stuff, but I was not too attentive." READ THE FULL musicradar SEGMENT p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px}

 

It's entirely characteristic of Gidon Kremer to choose a discovery piece rather than a surefire crowd-pleaser for what was a rare appearance in Seattle. Previously, the eminent violinist has appeared on the Benaroya Hall stage with his Kremerata Baltica. This was his first time partnering with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot, and it made for an evening of sensitive, deeply felt music-making. Kremer has become a leading champion of Schumann's much-misunderstood – indeed, much-abused – Violin Concerto (his discography includes two very different accounts). The piece has had to contend with casual accusations of manifesting the composer's deteriorating mental condition – Schumann did make his suicide attempt, followed by his confinement to an asylum, several months after beginning work on the score – and has even been described, on the more lurid end of the spectrum, as embodying a "syphilitic sound". p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px} Against the comparatively subdued palette of the String Symphony, Mendelssohn's Symphony no. 4 sounded like a Technicolor outburst – effected not by orchestral extravagance but by Mendelssohn's imaginative use of standard means. Morlot understands this Mendelssohnian economy and brought out a variety of ingratiating details, such as Emil Khudyev's radiant clarinet or the change of step in the walking-bass of the Andante con moto, which was taken at a very deliberate pace. Ensemble attack was well-judged in the sunny outburst of the opening and its reprise, and flutist Demarre McGill lent the finale's perky saltarello dance an airiness reminiscent of Mendelssohn's youthful Midsummer Night's Dream music.  Gidon Kremer © Paolo Pellegrin READ THE FULL bachtrack REVIEW