Stories » Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast presents - How to change the world with Yo-Yo Ma

Stories for January 26, 2020

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    Decca Classics releases: Sheku Kanneh-Mason - Elgar / The Violin Channel
     
    Posted At : January 24, 2020 12:00 AM

    Recorded with conductor Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, the disc features the Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor, Frank Bridge's ‘4 Short Pieces‘, Ernest Bloch's ‘Prelude‘ and ‘From Jewish Life‘, Gabriel Faure's ‘Elegie‘, Julius Klengel's ‘Hymnus‘ – plus a number of new cello arrangements of Elgar's ‘Enigma Variations‘ and ‘Romance‘ and the traditional folk songs ‘Scarborough Fair‘ and ‘Blow the Wind Southerly‘. "The main piece on the album is Elgar's Cello Concerto, which I grew up listening to a lot … it has always been one of my favorite pieces of music, so it was was such a privilege to record …" Sheku has told The Violin Channel. "I wanted to also record pieces around it that relate to the Concerto – by either also being written by Elgar, or being by British composers, or written around a similar time … or simply sharing a mood or theme …" the 20-year-old 2016 ‘BBC Young Musician of the Year‘ has said. "But essentially it's just pieces I really love." SEE The Violin Channel PAGE & WATCH THE VIDEO

  • Rachel Barton Pine takes WETA through her favorite moments of the Dvorak - Khachaturian Concertos
     
    Posted At : January 24, 2020 12:00 AM

    WETA Evening Host James Jacobs speaks with world renowned violinist Rachel Barton Pine about her latest album on the Avie label, a pairing of the violin concertos of Antonín Dvořák and Aram Khachaturian, in which she collaborates with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Teddy Abrams. In this wide-ranging conversation Ms. Pine takes us through her favorite moments of both works, analyzes the ways in which both concertos are derived from the folk music of the countries of their respective composers, and reveals the joy she felt in discovering a connection between the Khachaturian and heavy metal. (She references a video she made that delves more deeply into that connection, which can be found here.) She also provides a brief history of the fraught relationship between Dvořák and Joseph Joachim, his concerto's intended dedicatee who ultimately rejected the work, and shares her thoughts on finding happiness through music.  LISTEN TO THE WETA: Wash DC INTERVIEW

  • Andris Nelsons, Vienna Philharmonic - Beethoven Complete Symphonies is the WFMT: Featured New Released
     
    Posted At : January 24, 2020 12:00 AM

    Andris Nelsons has joined forces with the Vienna Philharmonic to record Beethoven's nine symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon. The release marks the start of the label's celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth in 2020. Beethoven has been central to Nelsons' work since he began his career. The Latvian conductor garnered rave reviews for his 2013-14 Beethoven cycle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and scored critical acclaim for more recent Beethoven performances as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} Andris Nelsons, Vienna Philharmonic - Beethoven Complete Symphonies is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Released'

  • Black Oak Ensemble discusses 'Silenced Voices' with All Classical Portland
     
    Posted At : January 24, 2020 12:00 AM

    2020 (specifically, January 27) marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the WWII concentration camp that is symbolic of the persecution and murder of millions of Jews and other groups by the Nazi regime.  In addition to the handful of people who survived the camps, a small body of art, including music, has emerged over time.  Music written by prisoners of the Nazis who persevered in their art despite the conditions.  The string trio Black Oak Ensemble (violinist Desirée Ruhrstrat, violist Aurélian Fort Pederzoli and cellist David Cunliffe) first encounter of much of this music was in a shop in Budapest, and at first, they didn't know the circumstances of the composers of these works.  This debut disc is the result of several years of research and performance, including at the Czech camp at Terezín. The music is at times filled with a sense of foreboding, at other times sadness, but also great energy and even humor.  They were written between the late 1920s (when the first signs of fascism were appearing in parts of Europe) to the 1930s era of persecution, and finally to the last years of the war (most of the composers went from places like Terezín, where artists were kept, to the death camps such as Auschwitz.  Only one composer on the disc, Géza Frid, survived the war and lived in the Netherlands to 1989). LISTEN TO All Classical Portland's John Pitman discuss the album with with Cunliffe and Pederzoli from BOE who share their unique connection and admiration for this music which, finally, is "silenced" no more.

  • Ted Poor - 'Only You' feat. Andrew D'Angelo makes this week's 'Play MPE Top 10 Downloads and Streams'
     
    Posted At : January 24, 2020 12:00 AM

    You Already Know, the New Deal/Impulse! debut from the acclaimed drummer Ted Poor - "a trustworthy engine in countless modern-jazz settings,"  (New York Times) isn't your typical jazz drummer's recording, almost defiantly so. But if you're at all familiar with the Seattle-based Poor's explorative career-or the wide-ranging work of his principal collaborators here, the deeply influential guitarist-producer Blake Mills and the saxophonist Andrew D'Angelo-this should come as no surprise. After all, Poor has proven equally brilliant in bands led by the visionary avant-jazz trumpeter Cuong Vu and the lauded indie singer-songwriter Andrew Bird. Whether he's on a club bandstand alongside a generation-defining improviser like the guitarist Ben Monder, or onstage at New York's historic Town Hall, backing Paul Simon as part of Chris Thile's trusted Live From Here band, Poor is a music-first drummer. His tremendous technical abilities behind the kit are inarguable-and no doubt serve him well as the Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle-but he places color, texture, sound and especially melody atop chops. "The songs that I write, and certainly the songs that appear on this record, are songs you can sing," Poor says, explaining how his time in the employ of renowned singer-songwriters has informed his own composing. "These are the songs I sing to myself as well." Ted Poor - Only You feat. Andrew D'Angelo makes the 'Play MPE Top 10 Downloads and Streams' for Friday 1.24.2020

  • 'Common Tones in Simple Time' from OSM: Kent Nagano - The John Adams Album is 'Out of the Box' on 99.5WCRB: Boston
     
    Posted At : January 23, 2020 12:00 AM

    "Common Tones in Simple Time" is featured on a 'minimalist' album brimming with sublime subtlety, which, like so many things in life, is much more than it first appears. The Montréal Symphony Orchestra's The John Adams Album presents some of John Adams's most spectacular orchestral works. Included are the Schoenberg-inspired "Harmonielehre," the fast-paced "Short Ride in a Fast Machine," and Adams's first minimalist orchestral work, our focus this week on Out of the Box, "Common Tones in Simple Time." Minimalism is, broadly speaking, a compositional style characterized by simplicity and repetition -- think of it as music stripped down to the chassis. There is something deeply mesmerizing about minimalism, especially in the hands of composer John Adams. In the late Seventies there were very few models for an Minimalist orchestral style. So in a certain sense, I felt both the excitement as well as the challenge of venturing in to uncharted terrain. - John Adams, on 'Common Tones in Simple Time' Minimalism grew out of one of the more heated musical debates of the 20th century: what should Western "classical" music be? Should it be deeply complex, cerebral, and impenetrable? Should it be big and richly colorful, shot through with meaning and story? Or should it be undecorated and simple, aiming for a sonic and rhythmic aesthetic above all else? Composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg believed firmly in the first, creating atonal and mathematically derived serial compositions. Gustav Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Richard Strauss were deeply committed to the second, following in the footsteps of Romantics like Brahms and Wagner. But the "minimalists," composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and eventually John Adams, disavowed the central tenets of either of those compositional philosophies and set about creating something simpler than atonal music and without the narrative aspects of the Romantics. It was... minimal. I really enjoy the driving subtlety of minimalism because I find it really easy to become enveloped in it. And I find John Adams, of all the early minimalist composers (having come to the style nearly a decade after it was first invented in Manhattan in the 1960s), the most interesting to listen to. As writer Michael Steinberg puts it, John Adams's works are "full of surprises, always enchanting in the glow and gleam of their sonority, and bursting with the energy generated by their harmonic movement." It's as though John Adams took aspects of all three of the aforementioned 20th-century schools of compositional thought, and wove them into his own unequivocably unique sound tapestry. It's not simple music. It's just minimal, and mesmerizingly so. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px} LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT Catch Out of the Box on the radio Sunday nights at 9, following WCRB In Concert.

  • 1917 is a major hit. It's nominated for 10 Oscars, including best film, best director and, of course, best music by composer Thomas Newman / Soundtrack WORLD
     
    Posted At : January 23, 2020 12:00 AM

    The movie 1917, directed by Sam Mendez, is a major hit in theatres. It is nominated for 10 Oscars, including best film, best director and, of course, best music. Composer Thomas Newman has been collaborating with Mendez since Mendez's first film American Beauty. Some of his movies had amazing scores, featuring Newman's famous piano melodies that I love, such as American Beauty and The Road to Perdition. 1917 would be a very different movie though, where during The Great War, two English soldiers have to cross through German-occupied territory as fast as possible to deliver a message. The whole movie was shot in such a way that the camera follows them as they move, giving the audience the impression that all has been shot in a single take, with the cameraman being the witness of the whole journey. As a side effect, the pace of the movie is in real-time. To write the music for such a movie must have been quite a challenge.  READ THE FULL Soundtrack WORLD REVIEW

Top 10 for Jan

  • Colin Stetson :

    Color Out of Space

     Milan Records today releases COLOR OUT OF SPACE (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) with music by GRAMMY® Award-winning saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and composer COLIN STETSON.
  • Lorne Balfe :

    Bad Boys for Life OMPS

     Sony Music today releases BAD BOYS FOR LIFE (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE) with music by GRAMMY Award-winning, EMMY- and BAFTA-nominated composer LORNE BALFE (Ad Astra, His Dark Materials, Gemini Man).
  • Ted Poor :

    You Already Know

     You Already Know, the New Deal/Impulse! debut from the acclaimed drummer Ted Poor-"a trustworthy engine in countless modern-jazz settings," per the New York Times-isn't your typical jazz drummer's recording, almost defiantly so.
  • Robert Thies - Damjan Krajacic :

    Blue Landscapes III Frontiers

     Mindfulness music leader Real Music presents Blue Landscapes III: Frontiers, the pioneering third album in the award-winning Blue Landscapes series from internationally renowned pianist Robert Thies and flutist Damjan Krajacic.
  • Thomas Newman :

    1917 OMPS

     Sony Music announces the December 20 release of 1917 (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) with music by GRAMMY®, EMMY® and BAFTA® Award-winning composer THOMAS NEWMAN.
  • Dustin O'Halloran :

    Sundoor

     Deutsche Grammophon is proud to announce the signing of Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning composer Dustin O'Halloran and his release of a new EP, Sundoor.
  • Sheku Kanneh-Mason :

    Elgar w/London Symphony Orchestra - Rattle

     Award-winning cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason returns with Elgar, a new album of works anchored around Elgar's Cello Concerto – arguably the best-known work in the classical canon written for solo cello, which saw the 100th anniversary of its first performance this month.
  • Joey Alexander :

    Warna

     Today, Joey Alexander, the Grammy-nominated jazz pianist, composer and bandleader announces the release of his major label debut album, WARNA (Verve Records).
  • Andrea Bocelli :

    Si Forever

     Following over 1 million album sales of his No.
  • Alexandre Desplat :

    Little Women OMPS

     Sony Music announces the release of LITTLE WOMEN (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) with music by Academy Award®, Golden Globe® and GRAMMY® Award-winning composer ALEXANDRE DESPLAT.

Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast presents - How to change the world with Yo-Yo Ma

Posted: December 28, 2017 12:00 AM | By: Admin
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Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast!

Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast!  This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, or is just getting ready to dive in for the very first time.  Take a look back at one of the classic episodes of Season 2!  In this full-length interview with Yo-Yo Ma, we talk about how civic engagement and the arts can change the world.  We also talk about his childhood, making decisions with the cello, and so much more.  Thanks so much for listening, and have a great New Year!  

Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy it!  LISTEN

Crossover Media Projects with Yo-Yo Ma

  • Yo-Yo Ma

    Salonen Cello Concerto w/Los Angeles Philharmonic

    On March 8, Sony Classical will release a recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen's cello concerto featuring Yo-Yo Ma and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Salonen's baton. Co-commissioned for Ma by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Barbican Centre, and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Salonen's cello concerto premiered on March 9, 2017 with Salonen himself conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Ma and the concerto then came to the New York Philharmonic on March 17, 2017, with then-Music Director Alan Gilbert conducting; Ma and Gilbert continued the premiere season with performances at London's Barbican Centre and Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie. This recording captures the live performance in Los Angeles on February 8, 2018.

  • Yo-Yo Ma

    Six Evolutions - Bach Cello Suites

    YO-YO MA releases Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello Suites today.  The new album from Sony Classical marks Ma's third and final recording of the works and celebrates his nearly six-decade-long relationship with the music.  Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello Suites is available to stream and download now on all digital service providers and for purchase as a 3-LP 180-gram vinyl set.

    As Ma's "constant musical companions" for almost 60 years, Bach's Cello Suites first entered the cellist's life at the age of four, when he learned the first measure of the Prélude to Suite No. 1 under his father's instruction.  His Grammy Award-winning first complete recording of the suites was made in his late twenties. His second, Inspired by Bach, was released in his early forties and recorded alongside a multi-genre, collaborative exploration of the works. Both previous recordings of the Cello Suites, also on Sony Classical, became landmarks in classical discography, as well as milestones in Ma's musical life.  Since then these works have been a through line in his life, guiding him through times of happiness as well as hardship, prompting Ma to ask, "What power does this music possess that even today, after three hundred years, it continues to help us navigate through troubled times?"

  • Yo-Yo Ma

    Yo-Yo Ma plays Bach

    CBS/Sony Classical has been accompanying superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma for decades on his journey through the unsurpassed works written for his instrument by Johann Sebastian Bach. The label is now pleased to announce the release of important landmarks from that journey, Yo-Yo Ma Plays Bach, on a single CD. Ma's first recording of Bach's six Solo Suites, which went on to win the Grammy? for "Best Classical Instrumental Performance" and is represented here by the Sarabande from the Sixth Suite, took place in 1982. In the same year, Yo-Yo Ma recorded Bach's complete sonatas for viola da gamba with harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper which was hailed by Gramophone as "intelligent and expressive."

    24 NEW  53 TOTAL
    SYND:     Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: SiriusXM, MOOD, AccuRadio 
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Seattle, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Portland, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Austin, Denver, Memphis, AL(Statewide), NE(Statewide), MN(Statewide), MI(Statewide)
    INTER: Canada, UK
    Online: Bradenton Herald, BroadwayWorld

  • Yo-Yo Ma

    Songs Of Joy & Peace

    Imagine a party, a musical party inspired by the holiday season. A party that celebrates the universal hopes, dreams and joy animating seasonal festivals the world over Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid al-Adha, Kwanzaa, Yule and New Year's Day. That is what brought Yo-Yo Ma together with a remarkable group of friends to create Yo-Yo Ma & Friends Songs of Joy & Peace, a new album of songs from Sony Masterworks.

    3 New 'ON' this week: 291
    SYND:     NPR/Hearts of Space, APM/Prairie Home Companion & Performance Today, PRI/Jazz After Hours & Classical 24, WFMT Network/Jazz with Bob Parlocha, UnderCurrents, Folkscene, Music Of Your Life, Acoustic Cafe, Radio DeLuxe
    Direct: XM/Fine Tuning, Music Choice/Jazz & Soundscapes
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Wash DC, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, Cleveland, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, San Diego, Denver, Portland, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Berkeley CA, Nashville, Memphis, Albuquerque, Honolulu, Austin, Louisville, San Antonio, Columbus OH, Madison WI, Puerto Rico, Canada

  • Yo-Yo Ma

    The Essential Yo-Yo Ma

    An Essential Collection From Yo-Yo Ma. One Of The Most Popular Musicians Of Our Time! 34 Incredible tracks spanning Yo-Yo Ma's entire career - From his Academy Award winning performance on: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and his Grammy Winning Soul Of The Tango: to his latest Silk Road Ensemble recording: Beyond the Horizon.

    8 ADD's this week: 68 Stations now "ON"
    Markets include:     New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinatti, Pittsburgh, Houston, New Orleans, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Buffalo

  • Yo-Yo Ma

    30 Years Outside the Box

    Comprising ninety discs, Yo-Yo Ma: 30 Years Outside the Box is a salute to Yo-Yo Ma's monumental musical achievements and to his 30-year legacy with Sony Masterworks. The exciting story of his life and work is eloquently told in a quality hard bound book of over 312 pages, lavishly illustrated with more than 150 color and black-and-white archival photos, original album artwork, liner notes and credits. Further enriching the story of this musical giant is a warm and insightful foreword by his longtime friend and esteemed fellow artist, pianist Emanuel Ax, as well as a lengthy, insightful essay by noted critic Richard Dyer.

    40 New ON this week   53 Total
    Synd: Virtuoso Voices
    Direct: SiriusXM, Music Choice
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Portland, Baltimore, New Orleans, Berkeley CA
    Online: Taintradio, Dr. Music

  • Yo-Yo Ma

    Appassionato

    Yo-Yo Ma's latest recording for Sony Classical, Appassionato, is a journey through some of the world's most romantic music-from Mendelssohn to Gershwin to John Williams. An exclusive Sony Classical artist, and with a CD catalogue of astonishing breadth and depth, Yo-Yo Ma has consistently been one of the top-selling classical artists in the world. His recordings have earned him a total of fifteen Grammy Awards.

    7 New 'ON' this week: 63 Total "Stations/Shows"
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Baltimore, Salt Lake, New Orleans