A front-row view of everyday life and anecdotes from musicians and staff of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra - in New York City and on the road.

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June 18, 2009

Orpheus Announces 2009-10 Carnegie Hall Series

Filed under: Carnegie Hall, Concerts — admin @ 2:04 pm

Orpheus is very excited announce its 2009-10 Subscription Series at Carnegie Hall!  All concerts begin at 8PM in Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall (57th St. and 7th Ave., New York, NY).

Thursday, October 8, 2009

with Janine Jansen, violin

Stravinsky - Dumbarton Oaks
Bach/Webern - Musical Offering: Ricercare
Aaron Jay Kernis - New Work inspired by Brandenburg No. 6 (World Premiere)
Beethoven - Violin Concerto in D major

Saturday, December 5, 2009

with Albrecht Mayer, oboe

Mozart - Ballet Music from Idomeneo
Strauss - Concerto for Oboe in D major
Stravinsky - Eight Instrumental Miniatures
Mozart - Symphony No. 36 in C major “Linz”

Saturday, February 6, 2010

with Angela Hewitt, piano

Stravinsky - Concerto in D major “Basel Concerto”
Bach - Concerto for Piano and Strings No. 1, BWV 1052
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies - New Work inspired by Brandenburg No. 5 (World Premiere)
Dvorak - Serenade for Strings in E major

Saturday, March 20, 2010

with Truls Mørk, cello

Stravinsky - Apollon Musagete
Tchaikovsky - Rococo Variations
Tchaikovsky - Andante Cantabile from String Quartet No. 1 in D major
Beethoven - Selections from Prometheus

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Ryu Goto, violin

Stravinsky - Octet
Bruch - Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor
Beethoven - Symphony No. 2 in D major

For more information, visit our website or check us out on Facebook.

• • •

April 20, 2009

A Conversation with Ned Rorem

Filed under: — admin @ 10:56 am

Composer Ned Rorem

Composer Ned Rorem

Orpheus concludes its season with a celebration of great orchestrators, including Haydn, whose expanded instrumentation added rich colors and textures to his orchestrations. Three 20th century geniuses, Ravel, Stravinsky and Ned Rorem, took the idea of orchestral color to new heights in their work. Now Ned Rorem enhances his legacy, adding new songs to his repertoire and orchestrating this collection for the first time, especially for Orpheus and the glorious Susan Graham, long considered to be a premiere interpreter of his work. Following is an interview with with Ned Rorem and Aaron Grad.

How did you come to start composing songs?
I started writing songs on pre-existing texts pretty young, not because I loved songs, but because I loved poetry. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t link my two loves, which were music and poetry, so I did. I was also lucky in that I had good people to sing them immediately, fellow students at Northwestern University, and at The Curtis Institute where I went to school when I was still a teenager.

For all the music and all the words you have written, have you ever linked the two?

No. I flatter myself that, whatever my songs are worth, at least my choice of texts is pretty good. If the Ned who writes words and the Ned who writes songs were both good, then I wouldn’t need to write, I would just be able to drop them. They are two separate things entirely. It’s also rather European of me, because Americans are almost always specialists, and Europeans are general practitioners. 

11 Songs for Susan has a unique format, mixing new songs with orchestrations of old songs and including texts by seven different poets. Did you conceive this new work as a unified song cycle? 
It’s a song cycle if I say it is. I’ve written several so-called cycles, usually all on one poet or all on one theme. But these are not on one theme, and they certainly are not just on one poet. I was supposed to write a bunch of songs for Susan Graham, and so that’s what I did. Susan is one of the few real singers – that is to say with a real voice and a real reputation – who does contemporary music. When Orpheus Chamber Orchestra asked me to write a piece for her, I was very pleased to do it.
 

You included three songs with Paul Goodman texts in this piece, and you have written many others over the years. What is the history behind your Goodman settings? 
I’ve written perhaps 400 songs, of which the first songs were by Paul Goodman, who was a friend from my childhood. He was about ten years older than me. I wrote Clouds a long time ago on a Paul Goodman poem, and the orchestration just asked for strictly strings. The Lordly Hudson is one of the first and one of the most popular songs I ever wrote. I haven’t actually heard this orchestral setting of The Lordly Hudson yet. I’m sure it will sound good, but I don’t know if it needs all of this. 

When you orchestrate songs, do you ever change or add musical material?

No, I’m not writing new material at all; I take it exactly as it is. I’m looking, for example, at I Strolled Across an Open Field, which is a rollicking song, and the orchestration is sort of obvious. It asks for these things.  

One of the new songs, Wild Nights, and another that is decades old, The Serpent, share a daringly sparse style of accompaniment, with often just a single line supporting the singer. What draws you to this sound?
I’m an economical composer. I like to put down on paper what needs to be put down, and not put down what doesn’t need to be put down. It’s the same with orchestration: I try to keep as near to the original impetus as I can. And I try not to obliterate the singer with too heavy an orchestra. I don’t like doublings in
orchestration. 

Your music has been a major influence on many younger American composers. Do you pay attention to what they are doing? Do you like what you hear? 
I taught for about 15 years, but then I stopped teaching, and I don’t know how to do it anymore. How do you teach? What does it mean? All you can do is deal with something that already exists and say what’s wrong with it. But you can’t make a person compose who isn’t a composer. The farther I get from it, the less I know about it. And I don’t feel an urge to keep up on what’s happening, but I just do, by the nature of things. I try to go to friends’ concerts and hear what’s going on, and some of it I like and some I don’t. I would say this: I think America, with all of its vulgarity, is the most interesting country musically in the world today. I can’t even think of the name of a composer in France or Germany, let alone what they are doing.

 

What drives you to keep writing new music?

Money! I’ve said almost all I have to say, both in my books and in my music. I don’t really think much about it anymore unless I get a commission. I’ve got a couple of very small commissions at the moment, but if I died now, I wouldn’t be ashamed of leaving what I’ve done.  

You are known as the great American composer of songs, and you also have written many successful instrumental pieces, including a Pulitzer prize-winning orchestral work. What people seem to connect to in your music, no matter the format, is its “singing” nature. Is that a core quality of your music? 
All music is song. Everything is sung, whether there is a singer around or not, even The Rite of Spring, even Bolero. The pitched human voice is what impelled music from the days of the cavemen up to the present. Even with people who’ve never written for the voice, music is the voice.

• • •

April 10, 2009

Orpheus lanches www.SeatsforASong.org

Filed under: — admin @ 10:23 pm

Due to the generosity of Orpheus trustee Simon Yates and his partner Kevin Roon, Orpheus will launch this program April 11 at 11am. You’ll get an inside look at composer Ned Rorem and his 11 Songs for Susan. These songs will premiere at Orpheus’ May 11th concert at Carnegie Hall.

You’ll be able to stream Ms. Graham’s performance of eight of these 11 Songs for Susan, released with piano accompaniment by Erato records in 2000. A new song in the set will be highlighted each of these eleven days—but the content can be enjoyed beyond the promotion. You’ll also get insight from some of the artists involved.

Even more, you will be able to purchase a selected number of concert tickets at dramatically reduced rate, starting at $11 for balcony seats, for eleven days – from April 11 through April 21.

Mr. Yates commented, “Kevin and I have been admirers of Susan for many years, and she has become a good friend. The musicality that she brings to a wide range of repertoire across opera and song recital, together with her beautiful voice, make her one of my favorite singers. I’m delighted to be supporting her and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in commissioning these new orchestrations. It’s great also to be able to make this concert affordable and accessible to a wider group of fans who can enjoy this terrific evening of music.”

Check out www.SeatsforASong.org!

 

• • •

February 17, 2009

Orpheus In Europe!

Filed under: — admin @ 10:35 am

This month, Orpheus is traveling throughout Europe performing in some of the finest venues the continent has to offer. Many musicians have invited their family members to accompany them on their travels. Orpheus clarinetist, Alan Kay, is traveling with his fifteen year-old son, Noah. Noah provided this account of the Italian leg of the tour:

School life can be abusive, grueling, and boring.  I wake up at 6 AM every day of the week; even the backpack that I carry is about half of my weight. However, it is surprisingly good to take a break once in a while from this fantasyland and explore the real world. 
I have never been out of the country before, let alone Europe, so I was pretty excited when I received my fresh, new passport. Then began the period of waiting for the day of departure.
Once we arrived at the airport, my dad introduced me to everyone. How the heck am I gonna memorize all these names? I thought. But I did it; my dad quizzed me every few minutes and I gradually remembered more names each time he did. 

The first day of traveling was heavy; we checked in to Lufthansa Airlines and boarded a 7-hour flight bound for Frankfurt. I slept for more than half, and listened to my iPod on the flight from Frankfurt to Rome. A two-and-a-half hour bus ride was waiting for us after we picked up our luggage at the claim, and we were finally on our way to our first destination: Perugia, Italy.

As I stepped out of the bus in Perugia, I rubbed my eyes; partly because it was raining and I couldn’t see, and partly because I couldn’t believe that I was actually in Italy. Italy! Home of the Italian Serie A, pizza, and great pasta. Heaven, basically.

After we checked into the Hotel la Rosetta (in which my room had a frescoed ceiling!), we grabbed umbrellas and began to explore Perugia. Even in the rain, the city was beautiful. It was like another world; everything was old and amazingly preserved. At dinner, I ordered some fantastic gnocchi and lamb, and went to bed satisfied and on a full stomach.

Piazza IV Novembre

The next day, we woke up early and visited the main sites of Perugia: the Piazza IV Novembre with a beautiful cathedral and the pink Palazzo dei Priori, and the Oratorio di San Bernardino. Although we got lost plenty due to my and my dad’s horrible sense of direction, we saw many more beautiful and well-preserved sights.
In Ravenna, Italy, the first thing we did was to visit the Basilica di San Vitale. This enormous and beautiful cathedral was composed of amazing mosaics on its high ceiling. After that, we visited another cathedral; both cathedrals were constructed in the fifth and sixth centuries.
On the bus ride to Treviso, Italy, there was plenty of suspense. A betting pool was set up in which each participant had to guess how long it would take to get from Ravenna to Treviso. In the end, it turned out that I was off by six minutes.

Although Treviso was supposed to be one of the less interesting Italian cities, we made the most of our day there. We checked into the hotel and immediately rushed off to find someplace to eat before closing time. It was close; we got somewhat lost, but made it in time to eat some fantastic food. I had a shrimp antipasto, a soup, and some gnocchi. Plus, I finished everything on each of my plates and that is incredibly rare.

Europe has been an incredible experience for me and I enjoyed seeing two of my former au pairs, Nancy and Steffi. Still, Italy is the country that stood out most to me and I hope to return someday soon.

 

• • •

January 25, 2009

Reactions to OrpheusRAGA

Filed under: — admin @ 7:25 pm

Some of the most recent reactions from the member’s area of www.OrpheusRAGA.com:

Date:   1/25/2009, 4:10 pm
Name:   Chuck
 
 

I think unless you’ve listened to a lot of Indian music, much less played it, you’ll read the notes and play accordingly. The little snippets of the MIDI tracks they got don’t give a hint. But learning the notes from the score, then bringing the personality and rasa into what has been learned is the essence of learning new music. I love this and agree with others, I’d love to see so much more.
 

 

Date:   1/25/2009, 4:09 pm
Name:    
 
 

i think this is about complimenting each other with their incredible talent i think also what we have to remember that the sitar has many other keys or cords than say classical does ie a to g …sitar works on many diffrent chords of keys and has many other chords of key frequenciesi love what you are all doing

beautiful creative nrg

blessings

 

 

Date:   1/25/2009, 3:28 pm
Name:   Joe Davison
Email:  
 
 

“…And maybe I’m biased but can anyone else hear how the sitar’s presence has changed the ‘mix’. the temper and comportment of the music?”
Listening to Webisode4, I think it’s very obvious. At the beginning Orpheus is playing parts I can recognize as sort of Indian, but they feel too mechanical — very regular with no swing. Presumably expertly playing the piece as written. (I am not a musician, but I listen to them and particularly like Indian classical music). Then once Anoushka plays for them there gets to be a bit more lilt in the music.

I don’t think it’s so much “the presence of the sitar” as “having listened to an Indian musician playing”.

Which is, of course, a major purpose of playing together.

Thanks for letting us peak in! I do wish the clips weren’t quite so stingy — 3 to 4 minutes. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to download some longer sessions to see the music develop — it’s quite informative for those of us interested in the process.


 

 

Date:   1/25/2009, 9:09 am
Name:   John Brennan
Email:   a88fates@yahoo.com
 
 

I’m finding myself wondering if I’m actually going to like the piece…and whether or not my personal infatuation with Anoushka might be pulling me toward acceptance?…lol…for my own sake, I’m really hoping that it kicks a**.

I’m sure that it will…

Good Luck and Roses.

-AT8FATES

 

 

 

Last edited by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at 1/25/2009, 12:37 pm

 

 

Date:   1/25/2009, 8:11 am
Name:   Alex Oliver
Email:  
 
 

The snatches we are hearing suggest that it is coming together beautifully.
I wish the Orpheus people would ignore the written material and just play it - with their ears open. Therein is the (ancient) dialogue and magic that music is - in the ear the mind and soul, rather than in written media.

I’m just greedy I suppose but please can we have more playing and less talk OR longer webisodes; the performance speaks more about what we might anticipate.

…And maybe I’m biased but can anyone else hear how the sitar’s presence has changed the ‘mix’. the temper and comportment of the music?


 

 

Date:   1/24/2009, 9:54 am
Name:   Dhruv
Email:  
 
 

Hmm, loving the honest and willing interaction between the two different styles of music.  

 

Date:   1/24/2009, 3:29 am
Name:   dean
Email:  
 
 

i think this will truly break bounderiesi think thank the beauty of anoushka is that she will no dout leave lots of ideas for everone to put there own creative stamp on this peace

i think you will all be great this is a postive movement in music and beyond thank you for sharing such warth

jusomeguy

 

• • •

OrpheusRAGA with Anoushka Shankar

Filed under: — admin @ 7:15 pm

Wenesday, January 21, 2009 thirty-four musicians of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra gathered in a rehearsal room on New York’s Upper West Side to meet sitar virtuoso, Anoushka Shankar.


Working together, they will give life to the world premiere of Ravi Shankar’s newest composition Concerto No. 3 for Sitar and Orchestra.

Filmmakers Chris and Alex Browne will capture this collaboration as Indian and Western classical music combine. They will create Raga Saga, 12 daily webisodes that will give you exclusive access to the skill, the artistry and the inherent drama that are part of the unique Orpheus rehearsal process.

Did we mention there’s no conductor?

• • •

September 23, 2008

2008 Season Kick-Off Picnic

Filed under: — admin @ 1:04 pm

Bringing together brand new staff members, new trustees, long-standing staff and trustees, and musicians!

It was a great summer for Orpheus and nothing short of uneventful! A picnic was the perfect bookend to the close of summer and to the beginning of an exciting new season.

There were a few slight worries about the meteorologists’ forecast for Saturday’s storm coming a day early, but the weather was perfect!

There was a tad too much food left over, so…we’ll need more empty stomachs next year! Violist Nardo Poy made an unforgettable hummus. There was also some very tasty fried chicken from Director of Operations, Ryun Schienbein. Do I foresee a possible Orpheus cook-off or eating competition next summer?!? I’ll bring the TUMS!

-Da Ping Luo, Executive Assistant and Staff Secretary to the Board

• • •

August 8, 2008

Orpheus Announces its 2008-2009 Season!

Filed under: — admin @ 9:35 am

Orpheus is pleased to announce its…

2008-2009 CARNEGIE HALL SERIES:
“INSPIRED INVENTION”

Thursday, October 16th, 2008
with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Piano
Thibaudet04-KASSKARA
HAYDN: Symphony No. 59 “Fire”
PAUL MORAVEC: Brandenburg Gate*
IBERT: Hommage à Mozart
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor

Saturday, December 6th, 2008
with Jonathan Biss, Piano
Copy of Biss_EMI (c) Jillian Edelstein Cropped
HAYDN: Overture to L’infedeltà delusa
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major
IVES: The Unanswered Question
ELLIOT CARTER: Symphony No. 1 (100th Birthday celebration)

Saturday, January 31st, 2009
with Anoushka Shankar, Sitar
Anoushka Shankar(c) PamelaSpringsteen - cropped
MOZART: Incidental Music from Thamos, King of Egypt
RAVI SHANKAR: Concerto for Sitar & Orchestra (World Premiere, Orpheus Commission)
KODÁLY: Summer Evening
HAYDN: Symphony No. 99 in E-flat

Saturday, March 21st, 2009
with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Violin
NSS 2 (c) Grant Leighton
HAYDN: Symphony No. 6 (Le Matin)
PIAZZOLLA : Four Seasons of Buenos Aires for violin & orchestra
MELINDA WAGNER: New Work*
BRAHMS: Variations on a Theme by Haydn

Monday, May 11th, 2009
with Susan Graham, Mezzo-soprano
Graham1 Credit Dario Acosta
HAYDN: Symphony No. 26 in D minor (Lamentatione)
NED ROREM: Songs (New orchestrations by Rorem & new songs)
RAVEL: Pavane pour une infante défunte
STRAVINSKY: Danses Concertantes

*World Premiere, Commissioned by Orpheus as part of The New Brandenburgs

• • •

June 9, 2008

Orpheus Tour to Korea - June 2008 - Part 2

Filed under: — admin @ 1:52 pm

June 4, 2008: Seoul 

It took us five hours to travel from Seoul to Busan, so we are looking at about a five-hour journey back to Seoul. To add a level of suspense to our journey, Maya Gunji, Orpheus’ timpanist, decided she would offer the orchestra a chance to guess the exact time of our journey, for the price of 1,000 Korean won per estimate. This was a winner-take-all opportunity. The whole orchestra participated, leaving a pot of nearly 40,000 won (approximately $40) for the winner. Maya was extremely clear about the timing rules: it was the “rolling time” - from wheels up at the hotel to wheels down at the other hotel - and would include all wrong-turns, rest stops, etc. Anticipation was thick in the air. Who would win? How would the winnings be spent? Did Ryun Schienbein, Director of Operations, and Zev Greenfield, General Manager, have insider information? Would Priscilla Lee, the only Korean in the orchestra on this tour, use “home court advantage” to walk away smiling? She had won the previous day’s wager.

And so, the clock began at 9:02am as we departed Ulsan for Seoul. A word about Ulsan - this is Hyundai town. Hyundai owns Ulsan. The Hyundai cars that most of us would know the company for is merely a part of a vast array of businesses and industries under the Hyundai umbrella. Everywhere you turn in Ulsan, you are reminded who signs your paycheck. We stayed at the Hyundai Hotel. Played in Hyundai Hall. And shopped in Hyundai Department Store. And for those of us up at 7am, you could watch the wave of like-uniformed workers arriving to build ships at the Hyundai ship yard. According to Mrs. Chang (Sarah’s mother), it holds many records for size and advanced technology.

The concert at Ulsan was good, although the hall not one of the great acoustics in the world. However, a huge reception and ovation greeted the orchestra, and for those not able to hear the concert in the hall, you could sit outside in Hyundai plaza and listen via a closed-circuit tannoy. As I left the concert a little early to join a conference call with members of the Orpheus Board of Trustees, I enjoyed the Tchaikovsky “Serenade” along my journey.

As we arrived in the outskirts of Seoul, many of us saw victory slip through our fingers as our estimated arrival times were defeated by the midday Seoul traffic. The suspense mounted as we got very close to the hotel, as by then, every minute counted. As we pulled into the hotel, Maya’s announcement was eagerly awaited. Victory was secured by Artistic Director, Eric Wyrick, who promptly ran a victory lap around the parking lot.

The concert at Seoul Arts Center was the jewel in the schedule thus far. The hall is an acoustic gem and the performance was recorded to be televised for later broadcast on one of the largest Korean TV networks. This concert was also the focus for MetLife, our very generous sponsor, with a pre-concert reception, open rehearsal, and three hundred guests for the performance. Quite a busy night for all of us. I thought that it was somewhat like pulling off a Carnegie Hall performance, but with just three members of staff instead of our usual complement. Not something to be done on a regular basis!

The concert was an incredible success - the orchestra really used the great acoustics to produce intensely nuanced phrasing and shaping for the Mozart and broad range of color for the Tower. Sarah Chang also found new depth in the Bruch and fired up her tempos in her encore, “Zigeurnerweisen” by Sarasate.

-Graham Parker, Executive Director

• • •

June 5, 2008

Orpheus Tour to Korea - June 2008

Filed under: — admin @ 10:43 am

Seoul to Busan - Orpheus musicians Jordan Frazier and Jonathan Spitz

Tuesday, June 2, 2008: Bulsan

“Best of Best”. A wonderful grammatically awkward phrase used on the concert poster by the promoter in Busan to describe the combination of Orpheus and Sarah Chang performing together. Grammatically awkward, perhaps, but certainly not musically. This really was the “Best of the Best”.

After a full day of rehearsal in Seoul on Sunday, the orchestra left the comforts of Seoul to begin exploring the delights of the southern tip of the penisula with visits to Busan and Ulsan.

Our long-ish bus trip from Seoul to Busan, scheduled to be about 3-4 hours, turned into a nearly five hour trip after unscheduled stops by our small-bladdered bus drivers. However, the rest stops gave us all a chance to explore Korean highway snack food: fish cakes on sticks, roasted potatoes with sugar, spicy rice cake stew. Also, our stops brought us together with over five hundred Korean middle-school students, who must have been on a class trip. If you were going in the wrong direction, against the flow of student traffic, it was best to stand still and wait for the tide to pass! As we were trying to leave, a couple of students boldly came over to practice their English, while giggling and taking pictures. Our musicians gladly obliged with idle banter and posed for Kodak moments.

We finally pulled into the hotel, with barely 90 minutes standing between our arrival and departure for the concert. This was becoming quite an exhausting day, and it was only 2pm!

As the orchestra started a full rehearsal before the 8pm concert, I met the president of the Busan Concert Hall. A thoroughly pleasant meeting began, with the usual small talk and enthusiasm about the upcoming concert exchanged. A very special guest was attending the concert that evening, Mr. Roh, the most recent former President of Korea. A resident of Busan, he and his wife were great classical music fans and were especially excited to hear Sarah Chang with Orpheus.

Towards the end of the meeting with the ‘other’ president (of the hall), I was handed a concert program. While I flipped through, I noticed that the concert was listed to begin at 7:30pm. We had the concert on our schedule at 8pm; the rehearsal was not scheduled to finish until 7:15pm, and we had a lot of hungry musicians to feed between the rehearsal and concert. I looked at the production manager from our Korean management company, also acting as translator - we needed to deal with this problem quickly. If there was an error, we needed to cut the orchestra’s rehearsal early by 25 minutes, and there was a lot of repertoire to re-warm since last it last it was rehearsed in New York.

We found Ryun Schienbein, Orpheus’ Director of Operations, backstage and confirmed the discrepancy in the schedule. As only Ryun can, he diplomatically broke the news to Jonathan Spitz, our rehearsal coordinator. The orchestra was notified and the problem solved. Less time for all pieces, and one of the encores would not be rehearsed (more on this later)!

The concert was just tremendous, with both the orchestra’s arrival on stage and Sarah’s subsequent appearance greeted by loud applause and cheering. At intermission, Sarah, Ronnie Bauch, Orpheus’ Managing Director and member violinist, and I were ushered past numerous security guards and press to meet President Roh for a terrifically formal exchange of pleasantries.

The orchestra played a truly incredible second half of the concert - Joan Tower’s “Chamber Dance” received a warm response, and Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony in D Major, a knock-out punch! The audience screamed for more, as the orchestra came on and off the stage for multiple bows. The Bartok “Romanian Dances” was the first encore, but the crowd simply wanted more. So, the winds left the stage, allowing the second encore to be played - the Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings”. If you remember, this piece had not been rehearsed at all! Thank goodness for the fearless Orpheus musicians and a collective musical memory of this work. Eriko Sato sat in the concertmaster chair and led the work seemingly effortlessly. After more ovations, the orchestra left the stage for the final time. Perhaps next time, we should pack more encores!

On to Ulsan…

-Graham Parker, Executive Director

• • •
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