Recording features the Nashville Symphony and its new Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero
This month the Nashville Symphony releases its latest recording on Naxos American Classics, featuring two works by American composer Michael Daugherty. Scheduled for release on September 29, the recording is the Symphony’s first with new Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero.
According to the League of American Orchestras, Daugherty is one of this country’s 10 most performed living composers. His Metropolis Symphony pays tribute to the American comic book hero Superman, with movements devoted to characters such as Lex Luthor and Lois Lane. The London Times has called the work a “Symphonie Fantastique for our times.” Featured performers include Nashville Symphony musicians Mary Kathryn Van Osdale (violin), Erik Gratton (flute) and Ann Richards (flute/piccolo).
The recording also includes the piano concerto Deus ex Machina, which was co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony and four other American orchestras. Inspired by trains of the past and the future, the piece features award-winning soloist Terrence Wilson.
“I’m a big fan of Michael Daugherty’s music,” Guerrero said. “It’s amazingly rich with color, rhythm and vivid orchestral effects, and I think this recording will appeal to a wide range of listeners.”
“In these pieces, I seek to express the energies, ambiguities, paradoxes and wit of American popular culture,” Daugherty added. “The Nashville Symphony has done a truly remarkable job of bringing this music to life.”
Over the past decade, the Nashville Symphony has become one of the most active recording orchestras in the country. Recorded at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, this latest release is the orchestra’s 17th for Naxos. Past releases include Joan Tower’s Made in America, which received 3 GRAMMY® Awards in 2008.
September 18, 2009. Nominations for the 10th Annual Latin GRAMMY® Awards were announced yesterday at a press conference at the Conga Room at L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles. The Awards will be announced on November 5 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, and broadcast live on the Univision Network from 8 – 11 p.m. ET/PT (7 p.m. Central).
This year, artists from Naxos of America’s family of distributed labels were nominated for three awards, including BestClassical Album nominations for pianist Sonia Rubinsky for her Naxos recording Villa-Lobos: Piano Music; Guia Pratico, Albums 10 and 11; Suite Infantil Nos. 1 and 2 (Naxos8570504); and renowned cellist Andrés Díaz, for his Azica recording of Bach Cello Suites (ACD-71252).
Composer Clarice Assad also was nominated for the Best Classical Contemporary Composition award for Danças Nativas, from the Chandos recording Spirit of Brazil (Aquarelle Guitar Quartet; CHAN 10512).
Heitor Villa-Lobos was one of the most prolific composers of all time. Along the way he wrote 17 string quartets. This podcast is an introduction to these quartets, and to a Dorian box set featuring the complete string quartets with Cuarteto Latinoamericano.
Album details…
Catalogue No.: Dorian Sono Luminus DSL-90904
Or at least, that’s what most of the media would tell you when it comes to classical music. But there is a classical revolution happening right in our back yard. As the older, traditional ways of performing classical music inspire less and less audience participation and subscription, newbies to the scene are bringing classical music to the masses. And not in conventional ways.
Take for example a great article on WBEZ today. Lynette Kalsnes interviewed a group called Classical Revolution and asked them all sorts of questions about playing chamber music in bars and pubs in Chicago. One of my favorite quotes is from Mike Muszynsk, the group’s bassoon player,
“I remember the first time I played, there was some guys watching the Hawks game and they were getting pretty hammered. At the end of every movement that we played, they were the loudest people in the bar, showing their praise for us.”
Classical Revolution isn’t the only classical group bringing their music to the masses. Classical music is also beginning to dominate the New York Club scene. Take for example, Le Poisson Rouge. One of our Naxos artists, Ge Gan-Ru, is actually performing there on July 8, 2009 at 9:00pm. In fact, one of our other artists, Philippe Quint, had an wildly successful CD Release party at Le Poisson Rouge last month, primarily because of all his fans! There are tons of these small, intensely loyal classical music communities bubbling up in major metropolitan areas in the US as well as in the UK. In fact, one of my favorite classical newsletters comes from the UK: DilettanteMusic.
So my Top 5 Reasons for digging the classical revolution taking place in the US are:
Combining 2 of my favorite past times: Drinking adult beverages & listening to great music
Hanging out with people who also dig classical music in a relaxed environment
Clapping, whistling and generally carrying on when a musician does something extraordinary
Watching friends faces as it dawns on them that classical music is cool
Meeting the musicians afterward and congratulating them on great performances!
Have you gone to any of these kinds of performances before? What was your impression? Would you go again? Who’s been your favorite performer to watch?
I think opening up classical music to the masses and making it accessible can almost be synonymous with making the Bible available in languages other than Latin. Exposing my friends and family to all the great classical musicians and composers is a great first step, but I’m hoping to turn them into lifelong devotees! Well, at least expand their horizons…for now. .
This will be the first of a sereis of email conversations I’ll be having with pianist (and Naxos recording artist) Ralph van Raat. After contacting Ralph about this project we quickly become friends and found ourselves chatting about more than the music. Here is the first round of questions I had / have for Mr. van Raat. enjoy!
-What do you have going on this summer musically?
Usually, I spend my holidays mostly by learning a lot of new repertoire for the coming concert season. I deliberately (and almost traditionally) reserve a period of several weeks in this period without any concerts or other engagements, to fully concentrate myself at making a good start with all those new works. Obviously, the process of learning new works continues throughout the whole year, but then all the attention has to be divided between many things, such as concertizing, lecturing, and practising. It always turns out to be an absolutely amazing and enjoyable experience to put aside these things for a while and just plunge into all those exciting new projects! Another exciting thing is the recording of two new CD’s for Naxos, right at the end of summer, which I am greatly looking forward to.
-Where will you be taking your Holiday?
Holidays will take me this year to a rather quiet place in southern France – a very small village near Avignon – where there is, in fact, no piano or whatsoever. I used not to take holidays and continue to work for many years, however, retreating into silence, quietness and into your own world of thought for a while, with many books and good food, turns out to be very inspiring and refreshing, too…
-You’re a Pilot? When did aviation start to interest you and how did this interst develop?
It is almost hard to remember when aviation started to interest me, as my interest (like with music) started before I was born (at least – that is the way it feels!!). It had always been a dilemma for me in what area to try and pursue a career – aviation or music. At 14, I took a glider flying course. I was at high school, and mostly had time for my interests (playing the piano and flying) during the weekends. I noticed that, despite my enthusiasm for flying, the passion for music won more often. Unfortunately I had to make a decision how to spend my time, and after two years I chose to spend as much time as I could on a music career. However, the dream of flying never let go of me. Once I studied at the conservatory, I was happy to win some competitions not only because it helped my career, but also because I thought that it would bring the prospect of being able to fly more close: at least as a passenger, travelling to foreign concert venues, but perhaps even for private flying, some day….And sometime ago I decided to make that dream come true and plunge into a PPL course.
I can say, that it is the best of life, combining the worlds of music and aviation. I mutually learn from them: music has to do with a lot of mental and practical preparation; with finding a balance between reason and emotion (i.e. taking passion into control); and with the final performance as a critical moment where all knowledge comes together at once. With flying, I recognize many of the same issues and processes. You prepare your flight carefully, the route, the circumstances such as weather, your fuel etc. Then the flight itself can be seen as the performance, where it comes down to passion, skills and knowledge, like in a concert. During a flight, you have to take many things into account in order to arrive where you want to arrive, such as the action of wind. That is very similar to adjusting your musical performance to the acoustics of the concert hall and the ‘mood’ of the audience, in order to shape the ‘destination’ (or goals) of your concert performance. So in fact, flying for an hour does not feel much different that playing the piano for an hour!
-Do you look at very much art? Do you have any favorites in the world of the Visual Arts?
In fact, I have always been very inspired by the analogies between visual arts and music especially from the end of the 19th century up till and including today. To me it seems that in any period of time in history, there never has been a closer correlation between those two. In fact, especially more “difficult” abstract music (such as the compositions by Webern and Schoenberg) can be much better understood by looking at the visual interpretations of very similar artistic views in works by painters such as Kandinsky. Personally, I am very fascinated by post-impressionism, which is characterized by painters such as Cézanne. They were especially interested in the different emotions and effects of colour, something that interests me in music a lot. Also, they tried (with pointillist techniques) to create a larger whole by using minute streaks of paint. In music, one also strives to make one coherent story of seemingly loose entities, which are the individual notes, until something recognizable appears. It is especially in this perspective that I find ideas for playing and interpreting music in visual arts.
Helsinki, June 9th, 2009 – Leading Finnish classical recording label Ondine is proud to announce a change in ownership to Naxos International.Naxos of America will commence physical distribution of the Ondine label in the United States and in Canada on July 1, 2009. “We are thrilled to welcome the prestigious Finnish label, Ondine, to Naxos of America’s family of distributed labels. Ondine’s excellent reputation and exceptional recordings are a perfect addition to our roster of more than 40 of the world’s finest performing arts labels.” commented Naxos of America’s CEO Jim Selby.
Ondine remains an independent unit within the Naxos group organization and its release policy will remain unaffected. The label will continue to pursue its mission to represent the very best of Finnish performing artists and composers combined with working with top level international artists and orchestras.
“I’m extremely excited that Naxos was keen to become our owner,” said Reijo Kiilunen, Managing Director of Ondine. “Naxos shares our solid commitment to classical music. Ondine will benefit from its extensive and professional international organization and distribution network as well as its highly advanced digital business models. In addition, joining forces makes us the strongest classical player in the domestic Finnish market. All this made me realize, that from a number of interesting alternatives, Naxos was the best choice of owner in facing all the challenges within our business world.”
Commented Klaus Heymann, founder and owner of Naxos: “For a long time, Ondine has been one of my favorite labels and I am delighted that it is now part of our group. There is very little duplication in terms of repertoire and the label has a very clear identity which makes it a perfect fit. I think Ondine will benefit from being distributed physically and digitally worldwide by our subsidiaries and qualified third-party distributors. I look forward to working with Reijo on strengthening the label’s presence in the international market.”
Commented Håkan Lagerqvist, CEO of Naxos Sweden and new chairman of Ondine: “This is a very welcome addition to our bouquet of Nordic labels owned by Naxos, already including Proprius, Swedish Society and others. With Ondine, we’ve worked with distribution in Sweden, Denmark and Norway for some years now and we look forward to taking this cooperation to a new level both in the Nordic territory and internationally. I have known Reijo for many years and I have the highest respect for his competence and the way he has made Ondine such a strong brand. This is also a statement that we strongly believe in the future of high quality recorded classical music.”
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