Stories » Jonas Kaufmann - The Puccini Album / ClassicsToday

Stories for August 21, 2019

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    Women Warriors - The Voices of Change, Chapter 5: Women Build Peace podcast
     
    Posted At : August 20, 2019 12:00 AM

    Women Warriors: The Voices of Change multimedia concert performed by Orchestra Moderne NYC, under the direction of Amy Andersson, features the music of eight renowned female film composers and presents 800 years of women fighting for human rights and equality. This 80-minute interactive experience is a socially and culturally relevant world premiere concert which includes historical visuals from the past to present day. Women Warriors: The Voices of Change celebrates the strength and heroism of female global activists fighting for human, civil, and minority rights, environmental causes, and gender equality. Orchestra Moderne NYC and Conductor/Producer Amy Andersson team with composers Nathalie Bonin, Miriam Cutler, Anne-Kathrin Dern, Sharon Farber, Mandy Hoffman, Penka Kouneva, Starr Parodi, and Lolita Ritmanis, who together have created a rich and cinematic orchestral experience in seventeen world premiere pieces that inspire hope and courage for women and girls around the world. Special guest artists include; Afghan rapper/songwriter Sonita Alizadeh, fifteen year old singer/songwriter Isolde Fair, and violinist Nathalie Bonin. Iranian human rights activist and author Masih Alinejad is the honored guest speaker. Featured Podcast for Week 8.19.2019 is 'Chapter 5: 'Women Build Peace' with music by Penka Kouneva & violin solo by Nathalie Bonin Penka Kouneva says that the Women Warriors: The Voices of Change multimedia concert is the most important and relevant event that she has ever been a part of as it gives orchestral music an urgent social and cultural resonance by tackling humanistic issues that are not usually addressed on a classical concert stage. Kouneva's music will accompany six segments in the program. For the Women Build Peace segment which shows Israeli and Palestinian women peacefully coming together and searching for common language amidst the most violent, continuous and divisive war of our modern times, Kouneva's soaring piece 'Earth' expresses love, care and humility honoring the power of the human spirit to rise above conflict, hatred and profound differences. In this piece she strived for the music to have a timeless and universal sound. Violinist and composer Nathalie Bonin has always loved to spark emotion through music and art. Bonin is honored to be part of the Women Warriors event both as composer and soloist. In Chapter Five, Bonin's soulful violin solo for Penka Kouneva's 'Earth' transcends nations, religions, and ideologies, speaking the language of brotherhood, peace and reconciliation. Join us at New York's Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center - September 20 2019 at 8:00pm for this historical and stunning concert experience which celebrates the strength and heroism of female global activists fighting for human and civil rights, environmental causes, and gender equality. The opening theme music for this podcast was provided by Penka Kouneva This content, as well as the related podcast, are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) for redistribution and adaptation.

  • Lyn Stanley's 'Live at Bernie's' is a good album, a good tribute and an excellent collection of standards / Jazz Square
     
    Posted At : August 19, 2019 12:00 AM

    American vocalist Lyn Stanley is an excellent stylist. I became convinced of this five years ago, reviewing her album Potions (From The 50's), released in 2014. There, Lin splendidly conveyed the atmosphere of the 50s, performing popular hits of that decade. Over the past five years, the singer has taken a huge step forward, while remaining at the same time within the framework of her chosen way of stylizing music of a certain period. Since then, she has released several more works, and in 2018 created a tribute album to Julie London, a popular American singer and actress, whose peak of success again fell on the 50s. All of Stanley's new works met a very good press, and Sol Levin from Los Angeles, program editor of America's most popular jazz radio station KKJZ-FM, named her the best vocalist of the year in 2018. In 2019, Lyn Stanley and her regular accompanying ensemble Jazz Mavericks continued their tribute project in honor of Julie London, releasing another album with songs from her repertoire at the end of June: London With A Twist. A good stylist should be accurate in everything, and Lin Stanley is also a perfectionist, which she proved by deciding to take an extraordinary step when recording this album: apply direct-to-disc recording technology. This means that the entire recording of the program goes directly to the analog disk: no films, no takes, from beginning to end the whole program is recorded immediately, spontaneously, neither Lin nor her ensemble had any pre-arranged arrangements - in short, complete identity with a concert. So far, only four vocalists in history have ventured to record such a record, with the record consisted of recording three songs in a row with a total duration of twelve minutes - the program London With A Twist sounds forty-four minutes! What happened? Here you need to listen, and you will undoubtedly enjoy both the quality of execution and the program itself. Lyn Stanley presented an excellent collection of standards: here, and Richard Rogers Blue Moon (a cool interpretation, to my taste - the best on the disc), and In The Still Of The Night and I've Got You Under My Skin Cole Porter, and Love Letters Hayman and Young, and along with them - the once popular Route 66, Pink Cadillac of Bruce Springsteen, Bye Bye Blackbird, and finally You Never Can Tell one of the rock and roll kings Chuck Berry - is another peak of this album, from my point of view . A good album, a good tribute (more precisely, its continuation) and a new strengthening of the already existing reputation of this vocalist. SEE THE Jazz Square PAGE

  • Ola Onabule discusses and demos the Neumann KMS stage microphones
     
    Posted At : August 19, 2019 12:00 AM

    Ola Onabule has always had a love of vocal microphones. "I have always been fascinated by sound" he says. Onabule goes on "As much by the way it is produced, as by the way it is perceived. I am intrigued by it's mystical and scientific qualities. The fact that it can stir the full gamut of emotional responses in the listener and that it achieves this through the agitation of a delicate membrane in the ear and sound waves in the air. Microphones are to my mind, the electro-mechanical facsimile of this phenomena and to a singer, the single most important piece of technology they will ever interact with. So not surprisingly, as both a singer/songwriter and producer who runs a project studio and tours extensively, I really do love me a good mic …or two." Onabule was introduced to Neumann's range of microphones at the start of his career more than two decades ago and he still gets knocked off his feet by the effortless reproduction of nuance and harmonics that he'd previously only ever heard in his head and never out of a pair of studio monitors.   Onabule discusses and demos the Neumann KMS Stage Microphones. WATCH THE VIDEO p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} WATCH THE VIDEO  p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Calibri; color: #4d4d4d} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Calibri; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px} span.s1 {font: 13.0px 'Helvetica Neue'}

  • The Carr-Petrova Duo #50Days4Refugees releases 'Reality Check'
     
    Posted At : August 18, 2019 12:00 AM

    The Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project, created and directed by the Carr-Petrova Duo, is a project designed to give voice and visibility, through music and film, to the lives and struggles of both local and international refugee communities, and to encourage audiences and artists alike to become connected and involved. Since August 2018, it has brought free, interactive classical music concerts and workshops to displaced populations while increasing awareness of and raising support for both U.S.-based and international refugee-aid programs.  From August 12th to October 1st, 2019, The Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project, and the Carr-Petrova Duo are launching #50Days4Refugees - a social media campaign which walks through our past year of travels with the Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project from start to finish. We are releasing a single story/image/clip a day in order to give our followers the chance to virtually travel with us, meeting and engaging with the people, places, life-stories, cultures, music, and organizations we encountered along the way. Follow us daily as we share our journey and highlight the activities, strengths, and specific needs of the organizations we partnered with - along with what we learned about ways anyone anywhere can get involved.  Day 7: "Reality Check" Please meet our sweet, gentle, and very shy friend named Siha. Siha is an Egyptian from Kuwait awaiting asylum in Denmark. We were immediately drawn to Siha because of her deep, curious, thoughtful, and expressive eyes - and although she was very reserved upon our initial meeting, we were excited to watch her slowly start to open up after making music together and by the end even got to hear about her favorite song "Lille Petter Edderkopp" (AKA - "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"), her love of dancing, and how she would sit with her family in Kuwait listening to music all together in their livingroom in the evenings...   Siha gave us another "reality check" moment on our second day when we were working with the students to design a "musical story" together. The students created the story, and we had to narrate it with the sounds that matched the characters and activities in the story. When we asked for a volunteer to draw what "happiness" might look like - Siha came up and drew a couple getting married (shown in the clip).  When we all spoke later that night about the day's activities, this moment came up again - and we all simultaneously abashedly admitted how our pre-conditioned psyche's had actually expected a "refugee girl" to draw something more exotic and un-relatable to ourselves and our cultures. And instead, we were faced with a moment of seeing just how similar our new friend from Kuwait was to every other little girl we had ever met in each of our respective countries and cultures…

  • The Carr-Petrova Duo #50Days4Refugees releases 'Smiles'
     
    Posted At : August 17, 2019 12:00 AM

    The Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project, created and directed by the Carr-Petrova Duo, is a project designed to give voice and visibility, through music and film, to the lives and struggles of both local and international refugee communities, and to encourage audiences and artists alike to become connected and involved. Since August 2018, it has brought free, interactive classical music concerts and workshops to displaced populations while increasing awareness of and raising support for both U.S.-based and international refugee-aid programs.  From August 12th to October 1st, 2019, The Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project, and the Carr-Petrova Duo are launching #50Days4Refugees - a social media campaign which walks through our past year of travels with the Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project from start to finish. We are releasing a single story/image/clip a day in order to give our followers the chance to virtually travel with us, meeting and engaging with the people, places, life-stories, cultures, music, and organizations we encountered along the way. Follow us daily as we share our journey and highlight the activities, strengths, and specific needs of the organizations we partnered with - along with what we learned about ways anyone anywhere can get involved.  Day 6: "Smiles" -  Music has such an uplifting, community-building effect, that it was easy for us to forget amidst our camp visits, the abundance of darkness and sadness which we were so often staring in the face. It was hard for our psyches to consolidate the innocent smiles we saw together with the knowledge of what those smiles had already experienced at such a young age. Only one moment in our first trip ripped away the veil and gave us a half-second glimpse into reality. On our second day in the Jelling Refugee Camp, we greeted the children as they entered the Jelling Red Cross School classroom, and were stopped in our tracks when a disagreement broke out between two of the students over who would have first dibs on playing the viola. We held our breath and felt our blood run cold as a chair flew threw the air and two incredibly sweet children with whom we had interacted the entire day before released furious tirades at each other in Arabic. As the teachers moved in to assuage the situation, one of the children released a scream none of us will forget. That scream told it all - there was more anger, sadness, frustration, and fury in that sound than any of us had ever witnessed.  Things quickly went back to normal, and we carried on with our activities - but all of us were shaken by that brief glimpse into the sorrow and trauma that was and would continue to run underneath those innocent smiles for years to come...    

  • Bion Tsang's new Dvorak And Enescu Cello Concertos with RSNO are chock-full of drama, emotion and power / Wisconsin Public Radio
     
    Posted At : August 16, 2019 12:00 AM

    Bion Tsang was born in America to Chinese parents, and after debuting with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic at age 11, studied at Juilliard, Harvard and Yale. He's a recording artist and professor of cello at the University of Texas-Austin. Tsang's newest release is on the Sony Classical label, and it contains two major works: the "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in b minor, op. 104," by Antonín Dvořák, and the "Symphonie Concertante for Cello and Orchestra, op. 8" by George Enescu. Both pieces are chock-full of drama, emotion and power and there are myriad opportunities for Tsang to display his technical virtuosity. There are lovely lyrical passages as well, full of beauty and subtlety. Tsang handles them all with depth, skill and ample musicality. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the baton of Scott Yoo is crisp and clean with a terrific sense of ensemble. Their playing is sensitive and nuanced, providing an equal partnership for the drama unfolding in both pieces. "Each of these concertos takes the listener on an epic journey," says Tsang. "They are both gloriously lush and dramatic in their orchestration, and the cello sings above this backdrop with intense emotion. In both pieces, I feel there are distinct depictions of longing, searching, struggle, and finally triumph." SEE THE Wisconsin Public Radio PAGE

  • 89.3KCUR plans to launch 24-Hour classical music station in Kansas City
     
    Posted At : August 16, 2019 12:00 AM

    Kansas City is one of the few metropolitan areas of its size in the country without a full-time classical music broadcaster.
    That may be about to change. KCUR 89.3 has signed an agreement to purchase KWJC 91.9 FM from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, with the intention of bringing 24-hour classical music programming to Kansas City. On Thursday, KCUR - Kansas City's public radio station - filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to approve the purchase. "Given the strength of the performing arts community and the classical music community in town, we think it's a huge hole, both for audiences and performing arts organizations," KCUR general manager Nico Leone said. "We see in market after market that classical music stations can be a rising tide for performing arts organizations." READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Jonas Kaufmann - The Puccini Album / ClassicsToday

Posted: November 14, 2015 12:00 AM | By: Admin
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Jonas Kaufmann has been around now long enough for any glaring faults to have appeared and been criticized; the best we've been able to do is accuse him of crooning occasionally and lacking squillo on top notes. His preparation always seems to be diligent, his use of dynamics, though occasionally exaggerated, is both musical and in character, his phrasing is utterly idiomatic, and the tone handsome and healthy. The problem with a recital such as this, which includes arias from all of Puccini's operas (except, of course, Suor Angelica), is that we realize that tenor heroes are rarely the most three dimensional folks in any opera, and so a sameness sets in. But Kaufmann is too intelligent to just slide by, and this, with a few minor protests, shows him to be unique among today's tenors.

He is at his best in Puccini's more heroic music. As one might guess, his dark-hued tone is rich and full enough for grand statements. The Edgar and Villi excerpts, both beautiful arias, are in the exclamatory Verismo tradition of Giordano and Cilea, and Kaufmann is stunning in both. Luigi's aria from Il tabarro is similarly thrilling: it's a very hard, bitter sing that few tenors can cope with, but Kaufmann makes us hang on every word and every note. (He tries his best with Rinuccio's little aria, singing with great "face" and impeccable diction, and even keeping the vowels pure on the high B-flats, but he sounds as if he could beat the hell out of the whole Donati family, and if I were Schicchi I would keep him away from my daughter at all costs.

READ THE FULL ClassicsToday REVIEW

Crossover Media Projects with Jonas Kaufmann

  • Jonas Kaufmann

    An Italian Night - Live from the Waldbuhne Berlin

    Two years after the release of his highly successful album Dolce Vita, Jonas Kaufmann reaffirmed his love affair with Italian music this summer with a special concert at the Waldbühne – Berlin's renowned stage-beneath-the-stars. In what can be seen as a wondrous zenith of his dedication to Italy and her music, the concert has become one of this year's biggest classical music events. Sony Classical is proud to announce the release of the magical concert on DVD and Blu-ray on October 19, with the CD and digital formats available October 5.

    "An Italian Night – Live from the Waldbühne Berlin" features popular songs and canzone as well as passionate Italian opera arias and duets from Cavalleria rusticana, where Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili joined Jonas as a charming guest-artist and duet partner. Both were supported by Jochen Rieder conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

  • Jonas Kaufmann

    L'Opera

    Jonas Kaufmann pays homage to a magnificent era of opera that defined musical splendor and elegance, in his new album of 19th-century French opera arias and duets. His selection of music for tenor spans this momentous period, starting with "Rachel, quand du Seigneur" from Halévy's La Juive (1835), through two of Bizet's greatest works, "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée" from Carmen (1875) and "Au fond du temple saint" from Les Pêcheurs de perles (1863), by way of Gounod's "Ah! lève-toi, soleil!" from Roméo et Juliette (1867) and ending with the latest aria "Pourquoi me réveiller" from Massenet's masterpiece Werther (1892). Plus many more along the way.

    15 NEW  70 TOTAL
    SYND:     NPR/ATC, Classical 24, TRH, CBC
    Direct: MOOD, AccuRadio
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Dallas, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, Santa Fe, Honolulu, IA(Statewide), WI(Statewide), Canada
    Online: AccuRadio, Passion Musique et Culture

  • Jonas Kaufmann

    Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde

    Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde was posthumously premiered in Munich in 1911 and described by Mahler as a "symphony for tenor, alto (or baritone) and orchestra." It follows that two soloists have been featured in every performance and recording to date: either tenor and baritone or tenor and alto/mezzo soprano. Jonas Kaufmann is the first soloist to be heard singing both parts. His recording of Gustav Mahler'sDas Lied von der Erde has been recently released on Sony Classical.

    28 TOTAL
    SYND:     Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: MOOD
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Dallas, New Orleans, Denver, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Canada
    Online: AccuRadio, Beyondcriticism.com 

  • Jonas Kaufmann

    Dolce Vita

    Italy and its immortal music have a magical pull on people like no other culture. Jonas Kaufmann, long familiar with Italy's ways has had his own special bond with the country since his youth. The new album, Dolce Vita is his tribute to this culture, this way of life that has conceived one immortal melody after the other for the tenor voice. Available October 7, Sony Classical is proud to release this special collectionof timeless Italian songs – sung by "The world's greatest tenor" (The Daily Telegraph)

    24 NEW  66 TOTAL
    SYND: Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: MOOD, AccuRadio
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Austin, St. Louis, Denver, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Madison WI, Louisville, Honolulu, KS(Network), IA(Network), WI(Network), MN(Network), NE(Network), CO(Network)
    Online: DWRadio

  • Jonas Kaufmann

    The Age of Puccini

    Jonas Kaufmann became the first German tenor to sing Cavaradossi at the Metropolitan Opera in 103 years. He shaped Puccini's music with exceptional elegance, balancing the character's essential revolutionary fervor with a heart-stopping tenderness. Critics and audiences received the portrayal ecstatically. Listeners familiar with Kaufmann's artistry in German and French repertoire exclusively will be astonished by his affinity for Italian music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Having welcomed him as Cavaradossi in 2008, Covent Garden presented his first Maurizio in 2010 and his debuts as Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut in 2014 and as Andrea Chénier in 2015. The current collection highlights many of these roles as recorded for Decca.

  • Jonas Kaufmann

    Nessun dorma - The Puccini Album

    After years of singing Giacomo Puccini's heroes on stage to vast critical and audience ac­claim, Jonas Kaufmann finally records an album entirely devoted to the world's most-loved opera composer. His new album Nessun dorma will be released on Sony Classical on September 11th and will include a selection of the composer's stupendous tenor arias drawn from Puc­cini's greatest operas, including Turandot, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly and La fanciulla del West, amongst others. Spanning the breadth of Puccini's output from the early operas Le Villi and Edgar, the album culminates in the mighty aria "Nessun dorma" from his final opera Turandot. Jonas Kaufmann is joined on this album by Maestro Antonio Pappano, the Orchestra dell' Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and soprano Kristīne Opolais.

    41 NEW  55 Total
    SYND:     Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: Music Choice, MOOD
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Wash DC, Dallas, Atlanta, St. Louis, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Portland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Austin, New Orleans, Honolulu, Canada
    Online: Taintradio

  • Jonas Kaufmann

    You Mean the World to Me

    Jonas Kaufmann has often sung standards such as "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz", "Freunde, das Leben ist lebenswert" or "Du bist die Welt für mich" as encores. We need to only think of his Berlin Waldbühne concert with Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott in August 2011. That's when the idea arose for his new album titled You Mean the World to Me, on Sony Classical. It needed a solid concept: no bland arrangements, just the original sound. The huge field of light music between Offenbach and Abraham was narrowed down to the period between 1925 and 1935 – from the hits of Franz Lehár and Richard Tauber to the heyday of the movie song, from the Roaring Twenties to the expulsion and blacklisting of all the songwriters, lyricists and singers who effectively defined the genre.

    28 New 'ON'  95 TOTAL
    SYND:     PRI/Classical 24
    Direct: Music Choice, MOOD, Spafax
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Atlanta, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Detroit, Austin, Louisville, Columbus OH, Buffalo NY, Canada
    Online: Taintradio, ClassicallyHip