F1 Miami 2023: Guide to all the Grand Prix parties and events

tanglewood music festival 2022 :: Article Creator

For The Record, Op. 276: Leonidas Kavakos, Yo-Yo Ma And Emanuel Ax

March 16, 2024, 5:23 PM · Welcome to "For the Record," Violinist.Com's weekly roundup of new releases of recordings by violinists, violists, cellists and other classical musicians. We hope it helps you keep track of your favorite artists, as well as find some new ones to add to your listening!

Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97, "Archduke"Leonidas Kavakos, violinEmanuel Ax, pianoYo-Yo Ma, cello

Re-arranged for piano, violin, and cello by Shai Wosner, this album is the latest chapter in three friends' ongoing exploration of Beethoven's symphonic works - reinvented for trio. "We all feel that being able to participate in a symphony is such a wonderful thing to do," cellist Yo-Yo Ma said. "One of the things that has separated people since recording began is the categories that we put people in, in which chamber musicians, orchestra players, people who play concertos, people who do transcriptions, people who compose, people who conduct, are all viewed as separate categories with no overlap. That siloed thinking discourages actual creativity and collaboration between people. And so we feel that one of the things that is really important to do today is to actually go back to the first principles of music, the simple interaction between friends who want to do something together." Beethoven for Three has its origins in the 2021 Tanglewood Music Festival, where Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Ma first played Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in trio format. The performance was an instant success, and the first release in the series, Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, was recorded soon after. The second installment in the project, Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6 'Pastorale' and Op. 1, No. 3 was released in 2022 to further acclaim. BELOW: Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 60: I. Adagio - Allegro vivace

If you have a new recording you would like us to consider for inclusion in our "For the Record" feature, please e-mail Editor Laurie Niles. Be sure to include the name of your album, a link to it and a short description of what it includes.

New Releases: Beethoven For Three, And Avant-garde Percussion

Featuring new releases from a famous trio who loves performing music Beethoven arranged for, Elīna Garanča brings you music to "tune out" to, and Third Coast Percussion bring some experimental rhythmic sounds.

Beethoven for Three - Symphony No. 4 & 'Archduke' Trio Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Leonidas Kavakos (violin), Emanuel Ax (piano)

This is this super group's (Yo-Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos, and Emmanual Ax) third release in their series of performing music by Beethoven arranged for a piano trio (by Shai Wosner).These three musicians continue this project in the "pursuit of the essential elements of Beethoven's musical language." They perform these symphonies in the form of a trio to show that the power, strength and versatility are still present even if there are only three instruments playing. It's also an insight into perhaps what Beethoven would have heard in his private early audiences.This trio started in the 2021 Tanglewood Music Festival, where Ax, Kavakos, and Ma first played Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in trio format. The performance was an instant success, and the first release in the series, Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, was recorded soon after.

Between Breaths Third Coast Percussion

Something a little bit different here…Third Coast Percussion is a GRAMMY® Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet and GRAMMY®-nominated composer collective. For over fifteen years, the ensemble has created exciting and unexpected performances that constantly redefine the classical music experience.Featuring composers Tyondai Braxton, Missy Mazzoli, Gemma Peacocke, and Ayanna Woods.

Bloch, Dohnányi, Bruch Tim Posner (cello) Berner Symphonieorchester, Katharina Müllner

This album presents cellist Tim Posner performing works by Bloch, Dohnanyi, and Bruch with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and young German conductor Katharina Müllner.A fun fact about this album, is that Tim Posner almost became an opera singer. He was on that trajectory, even performing as the shepherd boy in Tosca and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. However, he had been learning the cello from his mother and eventually continued this at the Royal Academy of Music, even having some masterclasses with Steven Isserlis. He has since enjoyed a flourishing career, and is now the principal cello of Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

When Night Falls… Elina Garanča (mezzo), Raphaël Feuillâtre (guitar), Raimonds Pauls (piano), Albrecht Mayer (oboe), Malcolm Martineau (piano) Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria, Berlin Music Ensemble, Karel Mark Chichon

This intimate album, says Elīna Garanča, is meant for "that time of day when you withdraw to your own private life". The celebrated mezzo has selected songs to help her listeners "tune out the world for two or three minutes and immerse themselves in the special magic of the evening hours". Joined here by an array of distinguished instrumentalists, Garanča performs traditional songs as well as vocal nocturnes by Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Humperdinck and several composers from Spain and her beloved Latvian homeland.

Composer Oliver Leith: 'I Don't Think Doing Orchestral Music Is Better Than Doing A Folk Song Or An Advert'

Unlock the Editor's Digest for free

Oliver Leith cheerfully maintains that he writes music the wrong way. "My approach is totally magpie-ish. Anything goes. Anything that achieves the feeling that I'm after," says the 33-year-old British composer when we meet, one rain-sodden afternoon, in a central London café. Half the time, he says, his music sounds "wrong", experimenting "with my thick musical crayon" until it turns into something viable.

Leith, whose 2022 opera Last Days was based on Gus Van Sant's fictionalised account of the final days of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, has lately been working with some even chunkier crayons than usual. In a new piece, which the Hallé orchestra will premiere at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall in April, he relies on broad blocks of orchestral colour to create something akin to a child's drawing in music. "It's called Cartoon Sun, and I'm really focusing on that cartoon element: this uncomplicated idea of the sun's power as something completely elemental," he says. "So what I'm going for is this primary-colour, nursery-school version of what an orchestra sounds like."

But if audiences are expecting a nursery-school harmonic palette to match, they might be surprised. Leith has a predilection for "sad, sloughy and confusing" soundworlds devoid of a clear tonal centre. Cartoon Sun will be no exception, putting a new spin on familiar orchestral sounds through what Leith refers to as "blurred" notes: "[I'm using] many slight variations of the same pitch at the same time that thicken the air . . . giving the notes a sort of halo."

An orchestra playing in front of multi-coloured set

The LA Phil performing Oliver Leith and Matt Copson's 2022 opera 'Last Days' © Farah Sosa

The tension between familiarity and novelty has long fascinated Leith, who says that he loves to "use and defy" archetypes. It's a tension that came to the fore in Last Days, where Leith did his best to "slash" preconceptions about what a hero should do: in his hands banalities such as answering the door, putting the bins out and eating cereal became major operatic events. Some have described his musical approach as "trollish"; Leith has another take: "Whenever you see people on the street with a cigarette or whatever, they might be having a completely different experience from what we assume," he says, "I love using music to reframe that banality and to bring out the magic in it."

Growing up in north London, the child of two fine-art photographers from Northern Ireland, Leith was never pushed to play a musical instrument. The reason he started learning the classical guitar, aged eight, was that his cousin had one ("I got jealous"). Later, the influence of a "strangely amazing" music department at Enfield Grammar School helped to cement his musical interest.

My automatic position on some things — without trying — is to be in that provocative camp

Then he stopped playing altogether. "Although I still loved music, and I loved the feeling after a concert, I found that I didn't actually enjoy performing because the nerves beforehand were too bad," he says. Luckily, around that time, composition took over. "Some people were doing it at school and I thought, Cool, you can actually write music down and other people will play it?" I wrote a piece for nine glockenspiels because that's what they had in the cupboard. I think it was called Tinnitus or something — such a bad title. But the feeling of having my music performed was superb." A few years later, aged 18, he won a place to study composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Now, with several major commissions under his belt — not least from the London Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Festival — Leith positions himself on the cusp between multiple musical styles. "I'm happy to compose in any form. I don't think doing orchestral music is better than doing a folk song or an advert. I would do a jingle if it was an interesting thing to do and if I had full rein and freedom." He has no qualms, either, about reinventing pieces of classical music. "I know that there is a certain world in which that sort of thing wouldn't fly, where people would say, 'Oh you can't do that to this music, it's too holy.' But I believe that you can work with anything and turn it into something else."

Black and white photograph of man side-on in a room with a few people busy in the background

Does he see his music as provocative? He words his answer with caution. "My automatic position on some things — without trying — is to be in that provocative camp. For me, what's important is to have a sense of admiration [for old pieces] rather than reverence." What does he perceive to be the difference between the two? "Reverence is saying, 'This is an icon, you can't touch it,' whereas admiration is saying, 'This is great, can I melt it?'"

Irreverent though he may be, Leith lacks the ferocity of the true anarchist. The man sitting in front of me is surprisingly diffident, with a soft voice, an endearing smile and a tendency to speak in hesitant half-sentences. "I'm still not massively confident in some ways," he admits, before going on to reveal that he "all-out" refuses to give pre-performance talks: "They're too nerve-racking, but also there is something about spelling out what you're going to do in your work which I don't think is helpful." It's an attitude that extends beyond the confines of the concert hall: "My girlfriend is not a musician. She's a high-flying businesswoman; it's nice not to have to talk about music at home."

It seems that as far as Leith is concerned, his music speaks for itself. And he trusts it to do a good job. "If I send something out into the world and I love it, that's always the thing that matters. And people are free to love it too, or to hate it." He smiles, "After all, if you don't have confidence about your opinion, then what do you have?"

'Cartoon Sun' premieres on April 6, halle.Co.Uk

Find out about our latest stories first — follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen

Search This Blog

Festival Portal