Gérard Grisey’s “Le Noir de L’Étoile” at Yellow Barn, Putney, VT, Friday, May 25 at 8.16 pm

Vela Pulsar

Gérard Grisey (1946-1998) Le Noir de l'Etoile (1989-90)
for six percussionists placed around an audience
James Beauton
Greg Beyer
Amy Garapic
Doug Perkins
Jeff Stern
Mari Yoshinaga

On 25 May 2012,  Yellow Barn presented a unique event: an open-air performance of Gérard Grisey's Le Noir de l'Étoile. This roughly hour-long work for six percussion players encircling the audience was Grisey's response to his discovery of the sound of pulsars. Neither Grisey, although he taught at Berkeley  for four years, nor the largely European movement to which he belonged for a while, Spectralism, is very well known in the United States. Last year's American tour by Les Percussions de Strasbourg in which they played Le Noir de l'Étoile (for a review of their Lincoln Center performance, click here) and the New York Philharmonic residency of Grisey's pupil, Magnus Lindberg, have done something to correct that. Susanna Mälkki recently conducted Grisey's 1977 work, Modulations, with the San Francisco Symphony, reviewed here by Steven Kruger.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!



Still Life with Baer, opening Saturday, June 2, 4-7 pm at Baer’s Den Bakery & Deli, 7 East Hoosac St., Adams, Massachusetts

Still Life with Baer, at the Baer's Den, Adams, MA. Opening Saturday, June 2, 4-7 pm.

STILL LIFE with BAER

Featured artists:

Joanna Gabler, Richard Harrington, Henry Klein,

David Lane, Bruce MacDonald, Barbara May, Emily May,

Ann McCallum, Michael Miller, Julia Morgan Leamon,

Viola Moriarty, Anna Moriarty Lev, Katherine Pavlis Porter,

Dan Rose, Martha Rose, Sam Wickstrom

OK, we couldn’t think of a better name

Catered reception open to the public with refreshments

BAER’S DEN BAKERY & DELI

7 East Hoosac St. Adams, MA

Saturday, June 2nd, 4:00 to 7:00

For more information contact BAER’S DEN BAKERY & DELI:

Tel: (413) 776.7310

email : baersdenbakery@aol.com

Michael Miller
Editor-in-Chief/Publisher
The Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts
291 Cole Avenue
Williamstown, Massachusetts
01267

Twitter: @berkshirereview

tel. 413.441.4999
















Trio Dali On Their Australian Tour Play Gordon Kerry, Maurice Ravel, Franz Schubert by Andrew Miller

Fig3

An example of Dali marble (see below). From: antiquesandfineart.com

City Recital Hall, Sydney: 21 May 2012.
Trio Dali plays in Melbourne on 26 May, Perth on 29 May, Adelaide 31 May, and Sydney 2 June.

Gordon KerryIm Winde (Piano Trio no. 2)
Ravel – Piano Trio in A minor
Schubert – Piano Trio no. 2 in E flat Major, opus 100

Trio Dali
Vineta Sareika – violin
Christian-Pierre La Marca – cello
Amandine Savary – piano

In the broad diversity of chamber music genres, the piano trio is particularly full of character, though perhaps sometimes implicitly considered less pure than its cousin the string quartet. The trio is a strange, asymmetrical animal, even lopsided, though not the less graceful, very colorful for its simplicity, with an a priori transparency thanks to the extreme contrasts between the instruments. With all the instruments so plainly audible all the time, their relationships are so much more ambiguous than soloist and accompaniment, the musicians’ playing becomes very soloistic by necessity. There never seems to be a leader in a trio, they are individualistic, preferring a kind of mutually controlled anarchy. Each instrument sounds very much at home in its part; a compositional idea is either suited the grouping or it isn’t, and when it is, it is unmistakable. The breadth of range — in pitch, timbre, and others — of this little group can be astonishing, while the texture is far from smooth. Excellent musicians can meet one another halfway and make very tight, solid sounds, but naturally there is a certain jazzy friction from the natural gaps in the texture, the gulfs between the characteristic sounds of the three instruments; it is no wonder the trio is so popular for making Jazz. Where the colors of a string quartet can be rich, deep, muted or vivid, the trio is pastel.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Yellow Barn to Present and Open-Air Performance of Gérard Grisey’s “Le Noir de L’Étoile” at Greenwood School Playing Fields, Putney, VT, Friday, May 25 at 8.16 pm, by Michael Miller

Vela Pulsar

Listen to Vela Pulsar on the Berkshire Review.

At sunset on 25 May, Yellow Barn will be presenting a unique event: an open-air performance of Gérard Grisey’s Le Noir de l’Étoile. This roughly hour-long work for six percussion players encircling the audience was Grisey’s response to his discovery of the sound of pulsars. Neither Grisey, although he taught at Berkeley  for four years, nor the largely European movement to which he belonged for a while, Spectralism, is very well known in the United States. Last year’s American tour by Les Percussions de Strasbourg in which they played Le Noir de l’Étoile (for a review of their Lincoln Center performance, click here) and the New York Philharmonic residency of Grisey’s pupil, Magnus Lindberg, have done something to correct that. Susanna Mälkki recently conducted Grisey’s 1977 work, Modulations, with the San Francisco Symphony,reviewed here by Steven Kruger.

Read the full preview on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra Plays Johann Sebastian Bach and His Contemporaries

Telemann-horn-concerto

Dorée Dixon and Darryl Poulsen play horns for the Telemann concerto. Photo by Steven Godbee.

City Recital Hall, Sydney: 9 May, 2012
Continues in Sydney until 19 May.

J. S. Bach – Sinfonia from Cantata Wir danken dir, Gott, BWV 29
J. S. Bach - Chorale “Jesus bleibet meine Freude” (“Jesu joy of man’s desiring”) from Cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147
J. S. Bach - Orchestral Suite No.1 in C major BWV 1066
J. S. Bach - Opening chorus from Cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110
Jan Dismas ZelenkaKyrie from Missa Sancti Josephi, ZWV 14
Telemann – Concerto for two horns in D major TWV: 52: D
I. Largo – Allegro
II. Vivace
III. Affetuoso
IV. Allegro

Darryl Poulsen and Dorée Dixon – Baroque horns

Handel – Coronation Anthem No. 2 “My heart is inditing” HWV 261
Handel – Coronation Anthem No. 4 “Let thy hand be strengthened” HWV 259

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Paul Dyer – artistic director and harpsichord

Brandenburg Choir
soloists:
Belinda Montgomery – soprano
Tim Chung – alto
Eric Peterson – tenor
Simon Turnill – bass

Paul Dyer says he sees playing Johann Sebastian Bach as the “ultimate experience for a musician,” rightfully so, the same goes for a listener too, and in naming his orchestra after the most famous of Bach’s instrumental works, he puts his money where his mouth is, but more importantly so in the fine, detailed playing, expressiveness and unforced enthusiasm, which show much care and thought in the preparation of this program. Sydney perhaps is not and never claimed to be a great Bach town, but either way, as a lover of his music, I can feel sorely deprived of him, despite the odd performance on period instruments or otherwise over the last two years. So it felt like a parched walker coming upon a water-hole to hear a program where the whole first half was devoted to Bach and the rest to contemporary (with a small ‘c’) music. The ABO has pulled out many of the stops (within reason), assembling a larger-than-usual group of 10 violins, four violas, three cellos, one bass, two flutes, three oboes, one bassoon, two horns, three trumpets, theorbo, timpani, organ and harpsichord, as well as a choir of about 35, though of course not all of these for all pieces.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Susanna Mälkki conducts the San Francisco Symphony in Grisey, Prokofiev, and Sibelius, with Horacio Gutiérrez, piano, by Steven Kruger

Susanna-simon-fowler

<p>Conductor Susanna Mälkki. Photo Simon Fowler.</p>

The San Francisco Symphony
Davies Hall, San Francisco
Saturday, April 28, 2012

Susanna Mälkki, conductor
Horacio Gutiérrez, piano

Grisey – Modulations (1977)
Prokofiev – Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Opus 26 (1921)
Sibelius – Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Opus 39 (1899)

Music making, one supposes wryly, can sometimes be a battle of influences. In this instance, simply put, how does one reconcile late romantic Sibelius with the compositional methods of Pierre Boulez? The very thought might give one chills….

I was intrigued to hear IRCAM’s Susanna Mälkki recently, and not simply to touch base with the new generation of influential women at the podium. I wanted to experience how her musical approach would walk the line between cerebral pointillism of the Boulezian sort and the kind of broad Barbirollian phrasing favored by Leif Segerstam, with whom she studied. Mälkki was one of the principal cellists in the Gothenburg Symphony — for Sibelius lovers a considerable entry on the romantic side of the ledger — but I find myself disappointed to say that in this instance the French modernists appear to have won most of the battles of influence.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


In certain regions some wines are famous, while others are ignored…, by Geraldine ramer

Bastide-326x1024

La Bastide Saint Dominique Châteauneuf-du-Pape blanc

It’s always gratifying to have one’s theories confirmed and that’s what happened when I ran into a friend who belongs to an exclusive wine tasting group (at least I think it’s exclusive because no matter how many times I’ve hinted, I’ve never been invited). Once a month this group gets together, one person prepares dinner (I’ve been allowed to see a couple of the menus—they’re very serious) and everyone brings a bottle of wine to fit a pre-determined theme.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


Uel Wade Music Scholarship 2012, at the Spencertown Academy, Sunday, May 20, 3 pm

Spencertown_academy_ny

The Spencertown Academy

On Sunday, May 20, 3 pm, four accomplished teenage musicians will compete in a public competition/concert for money to continue their studies of classical music.  It is the 17th year of the Uel Wade Music Scholarship competition at the Spencertown Academy.

Michael Miller
Editor-in-Chief/Publisher
The Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts
291 Cole Avenue
Williamstown, Massachusetts
01267

Twitter: @berkshirereview

tel. 413.441.4999
















The Australian Ballet Dances John Cranko’s ‘Onegin’ by Andrew Miller

Portrait_john_cranko_c_hannes_

John Cranko. Photo by Hannes Kilian.

Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House: 4 May, 2012
Onegin continues in Sydney until 21 May, playing in Melbourne from 23 June to 4 July

Onegin
Choreography – John Cranko
Music – Kurt-Heinz Stolze after Tchaikovsky
Set and costume design – Jürgen Rose
Lighting design – Francis Croese

Tatiana – Miwako Kubota
Onegin – Kevin Jackson
Olga – Reiko Hombo
Lensky – Daniel Gaudiello
Prince Gremin – Ben Davis
Madame Lerina – Katie Pianoff
Nurse – Olga Tamara

Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra
Conductor – Paul Murphy

When John Cranko came to England from South Africa in 1946 at the age of 19 to learn at the Sadler’s Wells School, Ninette de Valois recognized and watered his talent, putting him to work the same year creating ballets for her Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet. She gave him opportunities and encouraged him to create at a time when she herself, though an excellent and very thoughtful choreographer in either a modern or the traditional styles, found herself with less and less time while seeing to her companies, schools and dancers and artists. De Valois made him resident choreographer of the company for the 1950 season. Cranko’s earlier work seems to show his comedic bent, e.g. Pineapple Pole (1950), and in his collaboration with Benjamin Britten in Prince of the Pagodas (1957), though by 1958 showed his full dramatic sense in creating his own version of Romeo and Juliet for Milan, which is now in many companies’ repertoires. In 1960, he left England to direct and choreograph the Württemberger Staatstheaterballett in Stuttgart, though only 33 years old, after remounting Prince of the Pagodas. His dramatic sense and keenly observed characterization, his talent for telling a story led him on to ‘adapt’ to, perhaps more to metamorphose into ballet, the literary giants, finding inspiration in unexpected places: Pushkin-Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin (Onegin, 1965) and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (1969). 

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Heinrich Schütz, Musikalische Exequien, Performed by the Aoede Consort under Richard Giarusso in Thompson Chapel, Williams College in 2007, by Michael MIller

Heinrich II Reuß zu Gera

The multi-talented Richard Giarusso continues to explore single-mindedly one vitally important and fascinating area in music—the relationship between music and text. Last summer he offered an original and moving interpretation on Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang, and, before he goes on to Die Winterreise this coming summer, he has given us an all-too-rare opportunity to hear perhaps the most sophisticated and eloquent fusion of text and music before Schubert, Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien, a Lutheran funeral Mass to German texts, which Schütz wrote for the funeral of Prince Heinrich Posthumus Reuss, a member of the ruling family of the region in which Schütz was born. The eleven participating singers of the Aoede Consort (based in Troy, New York) and Giarusso’s direction were superb, but first, I’d like to provide some background,

Read the full article on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!