Music

CFA Intern Lucy Strother interviews Wesleyan professor Neely Bruce for details regarding Donald Berman’s upcoming concert.

This Thursday and Friday, Wesleyan welcomes pianist Donald Berman ’84 back to campus! Berman will hold a master class for piano students on Thursday, and on Friday night, he takes the stage in Crowell Concert Hall with a beautiful piano program, featuring music from the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries (and the 21^st, if you include professor Neely Bruce’s brand new arrangement of the orchestral accompaniment for the Chopin “La ci darem la mano” variations.)  I learned some more details about Berman’s career and his upcoming performance from professor of music and arranger-extraordinaire Neely Bruce.

LS: Is it typical for Berman to combine 18th and 19th century non-American composers like Scarlatti, Schumann and Chopin with 20th century and contemporary American pieces?

NB: Don Berman is a specialist in new and recent music, especially the music of Ives. That being said, he plays the music of the nineteenth century very, very well. I got the idea of inviting him to do this concert when I heard him play the Chopin variations on “La ci darem la mano” last season with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

LS: Is there an overarching connection between the pieces on the program? Why did Don Berman choose this particular program?

NB: The idea of this concert is to show how the music of Chopin is related to that of his contemporaries (especially Schumann) and the influence he had on posterity—which is enormous, by the way. Practically every composer who has written for the piano since Chopin is indebted to his approach to the instrument.

LS: Tell me about your arrangement of the orchestral accompaniment for the “La ci darem la mano” variations. What is your experience with this piece? Did you take any creative liberties with the arrangement?

NB: These variations are Chopin’s first work for piano and orchestra. Robert Schumann, who was a first-rate music critic as well as a composer, reviewed them with a flourish. “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius.” That’s how he greeted his Polish contemporary in print. Both men were nineteen years old when Chopin performed the piece and Schumann reviewed it. My arrangement of “La ci darem la mano” is based on contemporary practice. In the nineteenth century, if one didn’t have an orchestra, or were performing a concerto in an intimate setting, one often arranged the orchestra parts for string quartet. I’m sure this was done for salon performances of these variations in Chopin’s lifetime, but no such arrangement survives. So I have made one. “Creative liberties” are the only way to approach such a project. There is a brief timpani solo in the orchestra original. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to do that.

LS: You were working at Wesleyan when Berman was a student here.  Did you cross paths?

NB: Of course. Don was a wonderful pianist, even as an undergraduate. He was the first winner of the Tishler Competition. He took my class in American piano music. (I haven’t offered it in many years, but used to offer it regularly.) We have stayed in touch over the years.

LS: Anything else that’s notable about Don or the upcoming concert?

NB: Don Berman was the last student of the late John Kirkpatrick, who premiered the Concord Sonata of Charles Ives and edited a great many of the Ives pieces for publication. This gave Don an inside track with lots of unperformed, and even unedited, Ives works. He has two spectacular CDs called The Unknown Ives which are revelatory. I’m delighted that he has chosen to make something special of the relationship of Ives and Chopin. Anyone who has played the music of Ives knows that Ives’s technique was shaped by the technique of Chopin. Don Berman’s recital will show how that works, and how the music of these seemingly so different composers can continue to delight listeners, both as specific pieces of music and through their juxtaposition.

Thanks, Neely! Come to Crowell Friday night to see this amazing pianist that the New York Times described as a “thorough, exciting and persuasive musician!”

What follows is a a blog entry by Wesleyan Senior and CFA Intern Lucy Strother:

This weekend kicks off with the first two concerts of Wesleyan’s Chopin@200 Festival, which celebrates the 200th birthday of the beloved composer, Frederic Francois Chopin! The concert series, a brainchild of professor and pianist Neely Bruce, will feature works by Chopin, his contemporaries, and composers who were influenced by him.

Neely Bruce describes how the festival came into existence:

In the mid-1990s I began systematically to relearn the piano repertory of my youth. I realized that Chopin, whose music I had always liked but to whom I had not paid a great deal of attention, was emerging as one of my favorite composers. If you play the piano because you enjoy the physical sensation, nothing feels better to a pianist than playing Chopin, so it was both instructive and fun to practice the music. I was also struck with his originality. Pieces that had baffled me for years started revealing their secrets—most notably the Polonaise-Fantasie. (I’m still waiting to figure out the scherzos.) I began to teach a music major seminar in Chopin, first in 2003 and again in 2008.

2010 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chopin, and this semester I’m teaching the seminar for the third time. I asked my pianist colleagues if they would like to join me in playing some concerts. All of them responded, and the events quickly expanded their focus. 2010 is also the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann, the first critic to recognize Chopin’s genius in an unqualified, enthusiastic manner. He was also one of Chopin’s few close friends who was not a Pole. My pianist colleagues all wanted to include not just Chopin and Schumann, but compositions by composers in the intervening two centuries who were influenced by Chopin’s unique mix of strict classical training as a composer, immersion in Polish folk music, relentless experimentation with musical form and harmony, and undying popularity. (He may be the most popular composer who ever lived. Beethoven would seem to be his only competition.) So we have Liszt and Debussy and Szymanowski and George Crumb and Radiohead—and this is just the tip of the iceberg. The worlds of American pop music and jazz and even boogie-woogie are also influenced by Chopin (one of Jelly Roll Morton’s favorites).

So we are all going to get together, with eight of our students and former students, and our colleague David Westfall at The Hartt School, and Wesleyan alumnus Donald Berman, and have a blast playing for each other! We hope lots of people will join us in the audience.

This is an exciting opportunity to see dynamic performances by both Wesleyan piano faculty and talented piano students!

Chopin @ 200: Concert One

Saturday, October 9, 8pm, 
Crowell Concert Hall
$5, $4 Wesleyan Students

Chopin @ 200: Concert Two
Sunday, October 10, 3pm, 
Crowell Concert Hall
$5, $4 Wesleyan Students

More Chopin @ 200 concerts on November 5, 11 & 12.

Le Vent du Nord
Friday, September 24, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk by Alec McLane at 7:15pm
$22 General; $18 Seniors/Wesleyan Faculty & Staff/Non-Wesleyan Students; $6 Wesleyan Students

Video of Le Vent du Nord

What follows is a a blog entry by Wesleyan Senior Donovan Arthen:

If you are a music lover, then you are in for a treat this Friday night at 8pm; Le Vent Du Nord will be gracing the Crowell Concert Hall stage. The group is a Québécois folk band that plays traditional music from the region as well as contemporary compositions. They have been making music together since the summer of 2002, and have been wowing audiences all over since their debut.

Their members are all multi-instrumentalists and singers. Oliver Demers, initially a classically and jazz trained violinist who’s devoted the last ten years to mastering traditional Québécois folk technique, and brings a strong and melodic sound. Simon Beaudry is a guitarist who comes from a strong family background in folk tradition adds a driving rhythm to the groups music. Réjean Brunet has been playing traditional music since he was a boy and brings the harmonic sound of accordion style instruments. Finally, Nicolas Boulerice plays the piano and the hurdy-gurdy, a medieval era instrument that adds a unique and engaging sound to the group’s music.

I first saw them in the summer of 2008 at the Old Songs Music Festival in New York State, and I was thoroughly impressed by their energy, talent and personality both as a group and as individuals. Their performances are both beautiful and exciting. If you have even the slightest inkling to see what these fantastic musicians can do I encourage you to go to the box office and get a ticket for just $6 (which is practically stealing for a performance like this!) and maybe an extra one for your friend, and come to their 8pm performance in the Crowell Concert Hall! There is also another opportunity to experience this talented group, through an open jam session from 7-9pm in the Daltry Room (room 003) on the basement level of the rehearsal hall building (the short concrete building next to Crowell). Hope to see at both events! Come and get a taste of one of the richest folk music traditions in North America!

Le Vent du Nord
Friday, September 24, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk by Alec McLane at 7:15pm
$22 General; $18 Seniors/Wesleyan Faculty & Staff/Non-Wesleyan Students; $6 Wesleyan Students

Jam Session with Le Vent du Nord
Thursday, September 23 at 7pm
Daltry Room (Rehearsal Hall 003)
Free admission

“You enter a different sound world,” says Wesleyan’s Private Lessons Teacher and renowned guitarist, Cem Duruöz, when describing the music of his homeland, Turkey. “The scales and rhythms are uniquely intricate and beautiful. I grew up hearing them on my mother’s radio.” This Saturday, Duruöz will give the pre-show talk prior to the final Crowell Concert Series performance of the year, a concert by the Boston-based Turkish music ensemble, Dünya.

According to Professor of Music Mark Slobin, Turkish music is “one of the great art musics of the Middle Eastern complex that includes Arabic and Persian music and dates back many centuries.” Slobin’s former student, Robert Labaree, who received his Phd from Wesleyan in 1989, founded Dünya and is also chair of the music history department at Boston’s New England Conservatory. Slobin describes his dissertation as a “pioneering comparison of medieval music and Middle Eastern music examined through the songs of the troubadour.”

Wesleyan’s Concert Committee selected Dünya to perform in support of the University’s recent establishment of the Middle Eastern Studies Certificate Program. It also helped to have the resounding endorsement of Duruöz, who serves on the Committee. Duruöz grew up in Turkey at a time when conservatories did not offer the opportunity to study Turkish classical or folk traditions. He went to Stanford, San Francisco Conservatory and Julliard and then launched an international touring career performing classical Spanish and Baroque guitar music. Five years ago, he reconnected with the music of his youth and recently released Treasures of Anatolia, a CD of all-Turkish music for solo guitar.

According to Duruöz, “Many of the instruments audiences will hear on Saturday are the basis of Western classical instruments as we know them today including the ney (end-blown flute); the ud and saz (Middle Eastern short and long-necked lutes); the ceng (harp); the kemence (spike fiddle); and the darbuka (drum). Dünya are masters of a wonderful spectrum of music including folk songs from the rural areas, classical music from the Ottoman court and Sufi music that is more spiritual.”

Dünya
Saturday, March 27, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk at 7:15pm by Cem Duruöz

On Friday, the music of Mozart, Debussy and Penderecki will fill Crowell Concert Hall performed by the Shanghai Quartet, one of the most virtuosic quartets touring today.  (You may remember seeing them on the cover of our spring brochure in their jazzy red sports car.) Our classical music audiences have been waiting all year for this concert, and I know they won’t be disappointed. Known for their passionate musicality and impressive technique, the group was founded over twenty-five years ago at the Shanghai Conservatory, and today features violinists Weigang Li and Yi-Wen Jiang, violist Honggang Li, and cellist Nicholas Tzavaras.  At Wesleyan, the quartet will be performing Debussy’s String Quartet, Mozart’s Quartet in D Minor and Penderecki’s Quartet No. 3 (a work they commissioned.)

Under the group’s logo on their website, the tagline reads “Going Places” and they do.  For the past 27 years, the group has been touring, teaching, and innovating in the field of classical music all over the world. In addition to regularly touring the North American continent, they have toured in such places as Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and several countries in Europe. They regularly perform at Carnegie Hall and last season were featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  They are also committed educators having taught for thirteen years at the University of Richmond, and now serve as the quartet-in-residence at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where they perform, coach chamber music and teach individual lessons. They are also guest professors at the Shanghai Conservatory in China and have served as Graduate Ensemble-in-Residence at the Juilliard School.

In terms of music education, an interesting note about cellist Nicholas Tzavaras:  His mother is Roberta Guaspari, the public school violin teacher in East Harlem whose story was retold in the 1999 movie Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep.

The Shanghai Quartet has not only ventured far and wide geographically, but also in terms of the direction and scope of their music. In its fusion of “the delicacy of Eastern music with the emotional breadth of Western repertoire,” the group transcends the boundaries of genre. A peek at their extensive discography reveals that their repertoire ranges from Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Bach to Chinese folk songs and classical interpretations of Disney favorites. They also commission contemporary works, including their 2008-2009 commission of Krzysztof Penderecki’s String Quartet No. 3, which appears on Friday’s program.

Come early and have the rare opportunity to hear our renowned Professor of Music Alvin Lucier discuss the works to be performed.

Shanghai Quartet

Performing works by Debussy, Mozart and Penderecki

Friday, February 19, 8pm
Crowell Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk by Alvin Lucier, Professor of Music, at 7:15pm

For many young organists, the only time they play in a concert setting is during a competition. According to University Organist Ron Ebrecht, “They win the competition but then they have nowhere to perform their concert for an audience.”

Giving young organists this valuable opportunity is the inspiration behind Young Organ Virtuosi, celebrating its tenth anniversary of biennial concerts. This year’s guest artists are Adam Pajan, who will perform works of Tournemire, Franck, Demessieux, Bach and Reger on Friday night and Jacob Benda, who will perform works of Bach, Franck, Alain, and Guillou on Saturday evening. Pajan studied at Furman University in South Carolina and is now completing a Master’s program at Yale. Benda began as a pianist but over the course of his college career became enamored of the organ and has been playing ever since.

With the Young Organ Virtuosi concerts, these artists will get a chance to play in a non-competitive atmosphere. Not that the selection process isn’t rigorous–but Ebrecht says he doesn’t exclusively book competition winners. He also takes people who have placed second in competitions, because he says those people can be “more musical than the people who won the competitions. Sometimes the people who win are so concentrated on playing the right notes, they don’t make them into music.” In this setting, Ebrecht hopes to offer a more congenial atmosphere focused more on the music and less on status. “There are no razorblades between the keys,” he says. “They get to be nice to each other.”

It’s not just the friendly atmosphere that makes the concert a different kind of experience. In the past five or six years, the program has expanded to include other events beyond the Wesleyan campus. People who have previously performed now host their own editions of the event, and in March this year’s two guest artists and Ron will travel to Seattle to play a Young Organ Virtuosi concert at the University of Washington.

The event is also unique for its involvement of Wesleyan students. Organ classes at Wesleyan are consistently enrolled to capacity; many students, about half of whom are music majors, return year after year. Ebrecht is deeply committed to engaging his students in all aspects of organ performance. This year students will also be learning about the technical side of the organs helping to restore the console of the recently donated second practice organ in addition to performing in the annual Organ Romp, the student performance associated with the course. With the Young Organ Virtuosi Concert Series, Wesleyan organists have the opportunity to perform in a Saturday afternoon recital.

Ebrecht is constantly reminding students of where they can go with their organ playing. He is an extremely accomplished musician who’s played all over the world–this August he’ll be playing a Bach recital in Erfurt, Germany on one of the few organs Bach actually played that is still in original condition–and the practice organ in the lower level of the chapel is surrounded by posters of where he has played. “It’s fun for students when practicing to see where they could potentially go,” he says, and with the Young Organ Virtuosi concert they’ll get another chance to learn about the possibilities by interacting with other organists their age, hearing about their experiences in conservatory programs and what it’s like to work as an organist.

Young Organ Virtuosi
Friday, February 12, 8pm and Saturday, February 13, 4pm & 8pm
Memorial Chapel
Free Admission

Pamela Tatge
Director, Center for the Arts