Stories » Igor Levit's 'Bach | Beethoven | Rzewski' Makes Iowa Public Radio's 2015 Mega-Meta-List

Stories for August 17, 2019

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    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

  • Harry Connick, Jr. 'Just One Of Those Things' is Play MPE #1 Jazz download & stream
     
    Posted At : August 16, 2019 12:00 AM

    After 30 million albums sold worldwide, 13 No. 1 jazz albums in the United States, and a music, film, television and Broadway career spanning three decades, the Grammy® and Emmy® winning and Tony nominated musician and actor, Harry Connick, Jr. returns with a sensational new record, True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter on the legendary Verve Record label. The first single "Just One Of Those Things' has just been released and goes #1 on both Play MPE's 'Jazz downloads & Jazz streams'  charts.

  • The Carr-Petrova Duo #50Days4Refugees releases 'The Bongo King'
     
    Posted At : August 16, 2019 12:00 AM

    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} 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 5: "The Bongo King"  Please meet one of the most enthusiastic participants of our musical workshops over this past year of #NovelVoices Refugee Aid Project travels: Mohammad from Kuwait. Mohammad lives in the Jelling Refugee Camp in Denmark and happens to have one of the cutest and sweetest smiles any of us had ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Mohammad has a very open, uplifting, and welcoming spirit - with an eternally curious mind that is ready at any moment to stir up a little mischief. During every activity we offered - Mohammad would be the FIRST to volunteer - ESPECIALLY when it came to playing the bongo (or foosball).  :) 

  • Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra shifting gears after 20 years with new music director / KABC-Yahoo
     
    Posted At : August 15, 2019 12:00 AM

    The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is shifting gears after 20 years, with Music Director Designate Jaime Martín, who's excited about ushering in a new era this September as LACO's sixth-ever Music Director. The LACO, ranked among the world's top musical ensembles, marks an exciting new era as Martín builds upon the orchestra's rich legacy as a preeminent interpreter of historical masterworks and, with eight ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, a champion of contemporary composers. Headquartered in the heart of the country's cultural capital, LACO is "more important with each passing year," (Los Angeles Times), "America's finest chamber orchestra" (Public Radio International) and "one of the world's great chamber orchestras" (KUSC Classical FM). Martín's appearance as LACO's Music Director Designate in early 2019 was described by the Los Angeles Times, as "a thrilling performance, and the orchestra played like it was having the time of its life," adding, "he will make fans very quickly." Overseas, he has been praised as "a visionary conductor, discerning and meticulous" (Platea Magazine), and London's The Telegraph said, "his infectious enjoyment of the music communicated to the orchestra and audience alike." WATCH THE KABC-Yahoo VIDEO p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre}

  • The Carr-Petrova Duo #50Days4Refugees releases 'Nightmares'
     
    Posted At : August 15, 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 4: Nightmares While combing through the footage we collected over the past year, we came upon this moment in an interview with our friend Mohammad from Kuwait. In this clip, our film-maker asks Mohammad three questions during his on-camera interviews: What do you miss from Kuwait? What do you like about Denmark? What are three things you dislike in the world?   His responses - though told innocently and through a nonchalant smile, left us with much to ponder. As we played this footage back, we realized that, without fail, each time our film-maker returned to her third question, Mohammad would respond quickly with his first two answers of, "rain, pork" - but no matter how many times she asked, he would always pause and for a split second struggle before his final word, ".....nightmares."

  • Camerata Chicago MD Drostan Hall speaks with classical radio about the poetics of Vivaldi's Four Seasons
     
    Posted At : August 15, 2019 12:00 AM

    Camerata Chicago is thrilled to release its new recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons Educational Double Disc CD, through its in-house record label DMD Classics. Featuring Amelia Piscitelli, violin, Steve Robinson, narrator, and led by Drostan Hall, conductor, Camerata Chicago presents this fabulous double CD set replete with poetry written by Vivaldi himself and incorporates more than twenty musical examples of seasonal elements and characters cleverly depicted in the music  In conjunction with the release, maestro Drostan Hall has made himself available to classical radio TODAY!!! Thursday August 15, to discuss the recording. Watch for our tweets throughout the day. 

  • Itzhak Perlman will pick up a violin and a baton at Ravinia / Chicago Tribune
     
    Posted At : August 14, 2019 12:00 AM

    Violinist Itzhak Perlman will launch a two-night residency Friday evening at the Ravinia Festival, where he will perform as soloist and conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Perlman has been a consummate virtuoso and superb interpreter of the standard repertory for more than half a century, and he seems incapable of wearing out his welcome. So even though he played Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the DePaul Symphony Orchestra last November – to celebrate the opening of the university's multi-faceted Holtschneider Performance Center – it's easy to look forward to hearing him perform it again on Saturday evening. For starters, he'll be accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on a program that also will include Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Wojciech Kilar's "Orawa." Perlman performs Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. Saturday; and conducts the CSO's "Tchaikovsky Spectacular" at 5 p.m. Sunday; at the Ravinia Festival, Lake Cook and Green Bay Roads, Highland Park.
    PHOTO: (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images) READ THE FULL Chicago Tribune ARTICLE

Top 10 for Aug

  • Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Kahane-Batjer :

    Jalbert, Bach, Part & Vasks

     Making their first appearance on BIS, Margaret Batjer and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) cross great  distances in both time and space in this programme of  concertante violin works.
  • Jon Batiste :

    Anatomy of Angels

     In the fall of 2018, pianist and bandleader Jon Batiste played a six-night residency at the historic Village Vanguard in downtown New York City.
  • Philip Bailey :

    Love Will Find A Way

     Philip Bailey, the legendary falsetto voice, Grammy Award winner and co-founder of Earth, Wind & Fire announces his upcoming solo album Love Will Find A Way via Verve Records on June 21 with the release of the first single "Billy Jack," which he co-produced with Robert Glasper.
  • Nicola Benedetti :

    Marsalis -Violin Concerto in D, Fiddle Dance Suite

     Nicola Benedetti's new album on Decca Classics features premiere recordings of two works written especially for her by jazz musician Wynton Marsalis: Violin Concerto in D and Fiddle Dance Suite for Solo Violin.
  • Carr-Petrova Duo :

    Novel Voices

     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.
  • elbow :

    Dexter & Sinister

     British rock band elbow return with ‘Dexter & Sinister' - an exact seven minutes of new music, an epic melding of ominous, creeping grooves and deity denying lyrics that bursts into a sweeping second phase of lament and redemption.
  • Cast Albums :

    Oklahoma

     In 1943, Decca Broadway released the first-ever cast album of all time.
  • Cast Albums :

    Tootsie

     In 1943, Decca Broadway released the first-ever cast album of all time.
  • Laurence Hobgood :

    t e s s e t e r r a

     The Laurence Hobgood Trio with string quartet ETHEL "Two impressive things stand out: how enormous his arrangements make the string quartet sound, and how fluidly these seven musicians blend together.
  • Chloe Flower :

    Get What U Get

     After sending shockwaves through the socialsphere following her electrifying performance alongside Cardi B at the 2019 Grammy Awards, high-energy performance pianist Chloe Flower releases her first-ever original single on Sony Music Masterworks.

Igor Levit's 'Bach | Beethoven | Rzewski' Makes Iowa Public Radio's 2015 Mega-Meta-List

Posted: January 15, 2016 12:00 AM | By: Admin
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Today's output of classical albums is (pardon me while I scribble on the back of an envelope) something like triple what it was a generation ago. I won't vouch for that exact ratio, but I will for Anne Midgette's description of how it feels: "Keeping up with the stream of new releases is like trying to drink from a fire hose." Now imagine trying to capture a hose's jet-spray in a bucket, and you'll see why making a classical "best-of-year" list in 2015 struck many writers as a thankless task, even a hopeless one. Yet that didn't stop more of us than ever from trying - perhaps enough of us to be called a crowd. Could that crowd, taken together, have some kind of collective wisdom?

That was more or less the premise behind my "Classical Mega-Meta-List" last year (inspired by economist /blogger Tyler Cowen). I tallied every "best of year" list I could find - a total of 36, comprising about 100 writers.  This year I found far more: 64 lists, with at least 160 contributors, which makes this year's meta-list 60-77% more mega. It's not surprising that almost twice as many releases made the final cut, defined by being chosen for more than three best-of-year lists. Last year, 28 albums reached that threshold; this year, 50 albums did. That's a 78% increase.

Igor Levit's 'Bach | Beethoven | Rzewski' received more than 12 votes in this pole.

Two of the top five albums feature twenty-something Russian-born pianists playing variation sets - yet they could hardly be more different. Igor Levit, whose family moved to Germany when he was eight, focuses on leviathan variation sets by the greatest German composers, Bach and Beethoven - and adds an equally mammoth set by Frederick Rzewski based on a Chilean protest song, The People United Will Never be Defeated. Levit fell in love with it when he combed the music library as a student in Hannover, and he has recently commissioned a new work from the American composer. (Footnote: the pianist who recorded the premiere of the Rzewski in 1976, Ursula Oppens, issued a remake in 2015 which also made the mega-meta-list Bronze category - the only contemporary classic to make the list twice.)

READ THE FULL IOWA PUBLIC RADIO PAGE

Crossover Media Projects with Igor Levit

  • Igor Levit

    Life

    Sparked by the tragic death of a close friend in an accident, Igor Levit's piano playing reflects upon an experience of loss encompassing grief, despair, resignation and solace. He concentrates on works whose gloomy grandeur and melancholy beauty have occupied him for years. Each of them pays tribute to the virtuoso possibilities of the piano. Poetic moments of contemplative silence blend with life-affirming and extremely sensual music with a direct physical fascination. ... 

  • Igor Levit

    Bach | Beethoven | Rzewski

    Sony Classical announces the release of Pianist Igor Levit's third album - Bach, Beethoven, Rzewski.  Available October 30, the album includes Bach's Goldberg Variations and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, long considered acid tests of the performer's art, plus Frederic Rzewski's gigantic cycle on the Chilean revolutionary song ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!, which has the reputation of being nearly unplayable. Not content with canonized masterpieces, Levit is equally drawn to the physical challenge of Rzewski's virtuosic tightrope walks.

    38 NEW  43 Total
    SYND:     C24, CBC
    Direct: SiriusXM, Music Choice, MOOD
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Portland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Baltimore, Denver, Pittsburgh, Austin, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Louisville, Buffalo, Columbus OH, Honolulu, Canada
    Online: theartsdesk

  • Igor Levit

    Bach - Partitas: BWV 825-830

    Igor Levit has recorded the Partitas by this incommensurable Bach, BWV 825-830: it's the second release by the 27-year-old pianist, whom many regard as the greatest talent of his time. With his debut album, featuring the late Beethoven sonatas, Levit already enjoyed great success and international critical acclaim: the album rose to no. 46 in Germany's Top 100 album charts.

    45 Total
    SYND:     PRI/Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: SiriusXM, Music Choice
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Denver, Portland, Austin, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Memphis, Madison, Canada
    Online: Taintradio

  • Igor Levit

    Beethoven: The Late Piano Sonatas

    "Unlike those technically brilliant young pianists who dazzle briefly and disappear, Levit is pre-eminently a real musician who seems built to last." – The Guardian

    For the last three years, Igor Levit's name has been the first to be mentioned whenever there has been talk of the most exciting of the younger generation of pianists. What is so surprising about Levit is not only the maturity of his interpretations, but his boundless appetite for new repertoire of works as difficult and demanding as possible.  For his long awaited debut album, the twenty-six-year-old Levit has chosen some of the most challenging repertoire ever written for piano: Beethoven's last five piano sonatas. On his two-CD debut set, Levit is not just another young aspiring pianist releasing his debut album, but rather an outstanding artist who meets the exceptionally high demands of this extraordinary music. Levit's technical and artististic command in the difficult "Hammerklaviersonate" op. 106 is sure to be recognized as one of the most astounding accomplishments in recent history of Beethoven recordings.