On October 27, Naxos released John Adams’ 1987 masterworkNixon in China, performed at Opera Colorado in June of 2008. This is the first new recording of the Adams opera since the original cast recording was released in 1987.
Conducted by Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the recording features Robert Orth (Richard Nixon), Maria Kanyova (Pat Nixon), Marc Heller (Mao Tse-tung), Tracy Dahl (Madame Mao), Chen-Ye Yuan (Chou En-lai), Melissa Malde, Julie Simson and Jennifer DeDominici (the three Secretaries) as well as the Opera Colorado Chorus and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.
“Few operas written in the last quarter of the twentieth century have withstood the test of time to remain as musically and dramatically vibrant today as they were at their premieres,” noted Opera Colorado General Director Greg Carpenter. “Nixon in China is one of a handful of American operas to achieve celebrity status. Opera Colorado is proud to have been part of this exciting recording project, the first such recording in Opera Colorado’s history.”
The new recording was inspired by Marin Alsop’s dedication to performing and promoting contemporary classical music and was produced in cooperation with Opera Colorado and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Association. Composer John Adams attended performances of the work as it was recorded live in Denver.
John Adams
One of America’s most admired and respected composers, John Adams is a musician of enormous range and technical command. His many operatic works, including Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Doctor Atomic, and the recent A Flowering Tree, stand out among contemporary compositions for their depth of expression and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. His work, On the Transmigration of Souls, written to mark the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music. In 2003, a film version of The Death of Klinghoffer was released in theaters, on television and on DVD. Adams has been awarded honorary degrees and proclamations by Cambridge University, Harvard University, Yale School of Music, Phi Beta Kappa, the governor of California, the French Legion of Honor, and Northwestern University, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate and the first Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition. John Adams is active as a conductor, appearing with the world’s great orchestras.
Marin Alsop
Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2007, a relationship now extended to 2015, Marin Alsop is the first woman to head a major American orchestra. Currently Conductor Emeritus of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, she continues as Music Director of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, a post she has held since 1992. The first artist to win both The Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor’s Award in the same season, Alsop was named to a MacArthur Fellowship and won the Classical Brit Award for Best Female Artist that year—the first conductor to receive this prestigious American honor. Marin Alsop is a regular guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She can be heard regularly as a commentator on NPR’s Weekend Edition segment “Marin on Music” and on BBC’s Radio 3. Marin Alsop is a native of New York City; she attended Yale University and received her master’s degree from the Juilliard School.
Opera Colorado
Based in Denver, Opera Colorado has been committed to presenting the highest quality live performances of operas in their original languages since 1983. The company is dedicated to enriching the quality of life in Colorado through the presentation of opera performances that inspire audiences and serve the community through education and cultural programs. In 2005, Opera Colorado moved into the state-of-the art Ellie Caulkins Opera House inside the historic Quigg Newton Municipal Auditorium at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Under the leadership of Gregory Carpenter, the company served as one of the hosts for the National Performing Arts Convention during the spring of 2008. To celebrate this momentous event, Opera Colorado produced director James Robinson’s acclaimed new staging of Nixon in China at the opera house.
Leonard Bernstein wrote his Mass at the request of Jacqueline Onassis, for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington. It is a huge work, almost an hour and three-quarters long, that with bewildering range of musical styles. In this recording, Bernstein’s protege Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, shows convincingly that she may be the best interpreter of his music alive today. This recording also features Jubilant Sykes, the Morgan State University Choir and the Peabody Children’s Chorus.
Naxos congratulates two of its most distinguished recording artists-conductor Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Pacifica Quartet-who recently were named as two of Musical America’s 2009 honorees. Ms. Alsop and the Quartet share this honor with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma (Musician of the Year), mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe (Vocalist of the Year), and Christopher Rouse (Composer of the Year).
Marin Alsop, Musical America’s Conductor of the Year, has an extensive recorded legacy for Naxos, including an ongoing series of live recordings with the Baltimore Symphony of music by Antonin Dvořák (Naxos 8.570714), the complete symphonies of Brahms with the London Philharmonic, and three discs of works by Béla Bartók. Additionally, Ms. Alsop has made numerous recordings devoted to music by American composers, including her mentor Leonard Bernstein (Chichester Psalms; Serenade), as well as Samuel Barber, John Adams, Philip Glass, Michael Daugherty, and Michael Torke. Her upcoming releases will include John Adams’ Nixon in China with Opera Colorado, and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, a work she has championed this season.
Hailed by Gramophone as “one of the finest and most energetic quartets of the younger generation, The Pacifica Quartet, named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, was just honored with a Grammy® nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance for its acclaimed Naxos recording of Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5 (Naxos 8.559362). The Quartet has won numerous accolades for its recording; Steve Smith of The New York Times deemed it “a stunning disc of Quartets No. 1 and No. 5 … on Naxos.” The Times of London also praised the album, saying “The Pacificas, who have given all five works in a prodigious single programme, play magnificently.” The second volume of Carter quartets is due for release in February 2009.
The annual Musical America Awards recognize artistic excellence and achievement and coincide with the publication of the 2009 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, which, in addition to its comprehensive industry listings, pays homage to each of its awardees in its editorial pages. Musical America will present its awards in a special ceremony at Lincoln Center on December 15.
Hailed as one of the world’s leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of Conductor Emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002-2008 and is music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California.
In 2005, Ms. Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this prestigious award. In 2007, she was honored with a European Women of Achievement Award, in 2008 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 Musical America named her “Conductor of the Year.” A regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ms. Alsop appears frequently as a guest conductor with the most distinguished orchestras around the world. In addition to her performance activities, she is also an active recording artist with award-winning cycles of Brahms and Barber orchestral works. She is currently recording the Dvořák symphonies with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Marin Alsop attended Yale University and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she won the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition in New York.
The Pacifica Quartet, in residence at the University of Chicago, garnered international attention in 2002 when it performed all five of American composer Elliott Carter’s quartets in a single evening. Of that groundbreaking performance, The New York Times wrote: “That [the Quartet] played more than two hours of the most difficult music ever conceived with such technical assurance and keen musicianship was impressive enough. But they did more, bringing out the music’s volatile emotions, delicacy and even, in places, plucky humor.”
Marin Alsop dirigiert Dvořák - CD des Monats JUNI 2008 Antonín DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Symphony No. 9
Symphonic Variations, Op. 78
Theme – Variations 1-27 – Finale
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, ‘From the New World’
BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA • MARIN ALSOP
Recorded live at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore, USA,
from 8th to 10th June 2007
(Symphony No. 9) and on 14th, 15th and 17th June 2007
(Symphonic Variations)
Diese Aufnahme mit dem Baltimore Symphony Orchestra unter der Dirigentin Marin Alsop ist die erste von drei CDs mit den Sinfonien von Antonín Dvořák, die alle live bei Konzerten in der Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, USA, aufgezeichnet wurden.
Die populärste aller Dvořák-Sinfonien, Nr. 9 Aus der neuen Welt, hat durch den Eindruck des schier unerschöpflichen Melodie-Flusses und der perlenden Orchestrierung eine sofortige Sogwirkung. Im Jahre 1892 betrat Dvořák zum ersten Mal amerikanischen Boden, um den lukrativen und prestigeträchtigen Posten als Direktor des National Conservatory of Music in New York anzunehmen. Zu dieser Zeit war Dvořák bereits ein weltbekannter Komponist.
Noch immer spricht aus dieser Sinfonie ein zeitloser, optimistischer Pioniergeist. Die
pulsierenden Metropolen der USA sind in den wunderbaren musikalischen Themen ebenso wahrzunehmen wie die Weite der Prärie. Dvořák ließ sich von indianischen Legenden inspirieren, lässt jedoch durch typische böhmische Klänge auch seine Sehnsucht nach der Heimat deutlich werden.
Am 16. Dezember 1893 erlebte die Sinfonie Aus der neuen Welt durch das Orchester der Philharmonischen Gesellschaft unter der Leitung des deutschen Dirigenten Anton Seidl in der Carnegie Hall ihre Uraufführung. Nach stürmischen Ovationen des Publikums wurde das Largo noch einmal dargeboten.
The veteran record producer/engineers were preparing earlier this month to record all four performances of Opera Colorado’s Nixon in China for the classical Naxos label…
… For Newton and Handley, though, it was just another day at the office, even though this particular office failed to offer the control and security…
The final, crucial editing decisions would be made by Handley and conductor Marin Alsop. Yet the biggest decision in this project came two years earlier. That was when Naxos chief Klaus Heymann gave the green light to record Nixon…
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