On Tuesday 26 March, cellist Guy Johnston will feature on a new release of works by E. J. Moeran with Ulster Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta. The album, to be released on record label Naxos, will include Moeran’s Cello Concerto, arguably one of the Anglo-Irishman’s most important works inspired by the landscapes of the Norfolk coast. The CD will also feature Lonely Waters with lyrics sung by soprano Rebekah Coffey, Serenade in G and Whythorne’s Shadow. Moeran’s works are renowned for being influenced by his Irish heritage, often containing fragments of well-known Irish folk tunes.

Following this, on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 March Guy Johnston will guest-lead the ‘cello section of the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev. The orchestra will perform Brahms’ German Requiem and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, and will be joined by the London Symphony Chorus and singers Sally Matthews, Ekaterina Gubanova and Gerald Finley.

(Written on March 19, 2013 )

The Telegraph

Russell Watson to sing at White House

British tenor Russell Watson will perform at Barack Obama’s White House for Independence Day celebrations.

We can’t all be Mozart – but we can still play

From Caracas to Sterling, the evidence that music can transform lives is utterly overwhelming.

Classical Music Magazine

Arts Council’s £30.5 million match funding for endowment schemes

The Hallé’s new orchestra centre, Opera North’s ongoing Ring cycle, the Philharmonia’s digital programme, and international work to be based at The Sage, Gateshead, are among projects to benefit from Arts Council England’s ‘Catalyst’ funding.

BBC Music Magazine

New Gareth Malone TV series

Choirmaster and television presenter Gareth Malone will return to television later this year with a new six-part series featuring choirs in the workplace.

The Times

Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna: the Liz Taylor and Richard Burton of opera

For anything is possible when it comes to opera’s golden couple. Their romance off-stage has mirrored the operas they headline around the world.

Arts Journal – Slipped Disc

Cello authority dies

Gerhard Mantel, author of ‘Cello Technique – Principles and Forms of Movement’ and professor at the Frankfurt Hochschule, has died aged 82.

Gramophone

King’s College Cambridge and King’s Singers Foundation launch ‘A Carol for Christmas’

The UK summer is now in full swing – complete with its traditional rain and tepid temperatures – but the King’s Singers Foundation is asking British composers to cast their thoughts forward to the Christmas season.

Guardian

Big Noise orchestra’s classical music proves instrumental in social change

El Sistema and Gustavo Dudamel’s Simon Bolivar Orchestra turn musicianship into citizenship in in Stirling’s Raploch estate.

Wagner’s Dream: watch clips from the new documentary

Susan Froemke’s documentary follows Robert Lepage’s five-year journey as he stages Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle for New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

La Cenerentola – a musical guide 

The prince is in disguise, there’s no fairy godmother and not even a glass slipper, but Rossini’s take on the Cinderella story offers sparkles, star turns and a great storm scene.

 

(Written on June 21, 2012 )

The New Yorker

Etta James: Her Lonely Sound.

Hilton Als remembers Etta James.

New York Times

Stradivari Cello Sells For More Than $6 Million.

A beloved set of strings goes to a good home.

LA Times

A New Stage Gives Voice To Nazi-Suppressed Operas.

Last weekend marked the first time that Ernst Krenek’s “The Secret Kingdom” and Viktor Ullmann’s “The Emperor of Atlantis” have shared a bill.

Placido Domingo Shows Support For New York Music Education Program.

On Wednesday, Plácido Domingo took time out of his schedule to travel 40 blocks south where he conducted a youth concert of students who are participating in a music program inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema.

BBC News

Glyndebourne Wind Turbine Divides Opinion.

The turbine at Glyndebourne Opera House has been officially launched five years after the project was first publicly mooted.

 

 

 

(Written on January 23, 2012 )

Gramophone

Cellist Li Lu to perform Bach in Manchester micro-concerts     

Cello Suites at lunchtime this Saturday and Sunday as part of Home Entertainment Manchester Show.

The Guardian

Hallé orchestra strikes wrong note with Liverpool rival.

Manchester concerts society claim to be ‘longest established professional symphony orchestra’ disputed by Liverpool fans.

The Guardian

Opera North’s queen of spades

Neil Bartlett’s new production of Tchaikovsky’s great opera of gambling, of secrets, of love and death at Opera North on 20^th October.

Mercury News

Spoofing on the classics

http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_19151973

With 25 million YouTube hits, the musical comedy duo Igudesman & Joo is going viral with classical music. Mozart meets the “James Bond Theme” and the Bee Gees. “I Will Survive,” the disco hit, gets embellished, shredded, meshed with Tchaikovsky — and played on the violin with a vibrating cappuccino frother instead of a bow.

 

 

 

(Written on October 20, 2011 )

In the most recent issue of Classical Music Magazine, Peter Gregson is described as a “trans-Atlantic cellist and techie”. In the feature below he talks about air travel and composing on the road for his most recent recording, Terminal.

(Written on November 25, 2010 )

Having recently played at the Radialsystem in Berlin, a former water utility plant, Alban Gerhardt is no stranger to alternative classical music performances.  The world-renowned cellist enjoyed the challenge of performing in an unconventional setting so much that WildKat PR decided to organise a week-long tour of unusual performances for him last week.  Each morning Alban appeared at a different radio station in Germany and encouraged listeners to suggest some alternative places in which he could perform.  He then chose the requests that interested him the most and gave some unique and surprising performances of Bach’s Cello Suites.  Here is an overview of Alban’s unusual classical music tour:

Monday

First stop: Rostock and Radio Lohro!  In the radio interview Alban’s recording of a movement from Bach’s Fifth Cello Suite was broadcast, and this was the first time classical music had ever been played at the radio station.  After some suggestions, one listener came up with a wonderful idea for a performance venue: the cellar of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.  Alban played three suites to a dozen very attentive listeners whilst they enjoyed a glass of wine.  A very relaxed way to experience Bach!

Tuesday

The listeners asked for more but Alban had to continue his tour.  On Tuesday Alban visited Lüneburg and made an appearance at Radio Zusa.  Here Alban was asked whether he could play in an anti-nuclear waste-related protest.  However, the radio host felt that this would be too dangerous and the idea was not taken up until two days later.

Wednesday

On day three, Alban was live in Kiel on the NDR broadcasting station.  It was here that Alban’s innovative project really took off, with hundreds of listeners phoning in with their requests.  These included a 70^th birthday celebration, a local pub, and a small hall in a castle!  But Alban chose the two ideas that interested him the most:

The first request he fulfilled was to play after the delivery of a baby at a maternity ward in Hamburg.  The soon-to-be Aunt of the newborn baby had phoned the radio station that morning to ask whether Alban would play  music for the parents, the nurses and the doctor in Barmbek Hospital.  Alban described this performance as ‘quite an experience’.  It was emotional for both the performer and the listeners alike, and in his blog Alban admits that was moved to tears by the situation.  He had to play the entire cello suites within the softest dynamic range so not to wake up the baby, whilst still maintaining the same level of expression and interpretation: a great musical challenge!

The second performance Alban gave on Wednesday was at a school where the Youth Orchestra of Hamburg was rehearsing.  Alban played two suites for them and the young musicians had the opportunity to ask him questions.

Thursday

Next stop: Oldenburg!  On Thursday Alban was interviewed at a non-classical radio station called Oldenburg Eins, where he received a variety of interesting performance requests.  Alban chose two of these: a local musical theatre company rehearsal and a physiotherapy fitness studio.

Despite receiving warnings from the radio host in Lüneburg, Alban chose to play some Bach during an anti-nuclear-waste protest later that evening.  Although he only played for half an hour, Alban’s audience grew quickly from a handful of listeners to at least forty nuclear-waste protestors who had been awoken from their sleep by the sounds of Bach’s Sixth Cello Suite.

Friday

Friday was the final day of Alban’s tour.  Alban made an appearance on the RBB Kulturradio’s classical musical show in Berlin.  Although it was a more conventional place to hear a conversation about classical music than other radio stations Alban had visited, there were still some very interesting performance requests.  Alban performed to appreciative audiences at an alternative coffee shop in Kreuzberg, and in a Cuban cellist’s music salon.

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Since WildKat PR’s concept proved to be so popular, Alban took it with him to his next concert in the US.  Before appearing as the soloist in Pintscher’s Reflections on Narcissus with the Cleveland Orchestra, Alban continued to experiment with unconventional performances.  Yesterday (Wednesday 3rd November) he played Bach’s Cello Suites in a supermarket in Cleveland, Ohio.  Information about Alban’s trip to Ohio can be viewed here.

The fact that so many people have shown interest in Alban’s tour proves that there is a wider audience for classical music out there waiting to be reached.  With Louise Jury, the Chief Arts Correspondent for the London Evening Standard insisting that ‘classical music must change if it is to attract younger audiences’, Alban Gerhardt and WildKat PR’s unusual tour is one significant step in the right direction.  These ‘rules-free concerts’ need to be encouraged by musicians as an alternative to the conventional concert experience, but not necessarily a replacement.  Ultimately the success of Alban’s unusual tour shows that the traditional concert hall is not an essential factor in the enjoyment of classical music.

(Written on November 4, 2010 )

Tom Service recently highlighted the new research which suggests that ‘young people are put off by formal concert formats’ in his Guardian blog, leading us to ask whether the immersive theatrical experience is the way forward for the future of classical music.

Alternative musical experiences over the last few years have often proven to be very popular.  OperaUpClose’s production of La Bohème at the Cock Tavern pub theatre in Kilburn was so successful that it now boasts the accolade of the longest continuously running opera in history.  And Charles Hazlewood’s recent outdoor Classical music festival ‘Play the Field’ saw thousands of people enjoying orchestral music in a relaxed atmosphere, in Charles’ Somerset farm near Glastonbury.

One of the great cellists of our time, Alban Gerhardt is no stranger to experimenting with alternative performance venues.  Similar to ENO and Punchdrunk’s production of The Duchess of Malfi in an office block, in July 2010 Alban performed at the Radialsystem in Berlin, a former water utility plant.  Here Alban played a marathon of Bach’s Cello Suites from four different locations within the hall to an audience who were encouraged to relax on the lounge furniture, sit casually on mats on the floor, and listen outside on the terrace or in the bar whilst drinking a glass of wine.

For his new, exciting project with WildKat PR starting today, Alban will be continuing his exploration of unusual performing spaces.  Every day listeners will be encouraged to phone in to a local radio station in Germany to suggest unique locations in which they wish to hear Alban play; maybe a classroom, maybe a department store, or even a yoga class!  Alban will be visiting various German cities throughout the week, performing to the people of Rostock today, Stralsund on Tuesday, Kiel on Wednesday, Lübeck on Thursday and Hamburg on Friday.

Alban is interviewed by Radio Lohro in Rostock

Your reaction to Alban’s new project may be one of surprise, curiosity or amusement.  Yet musicians have been pushing the boundaries of what we consider as conventional Western performance venues for decades.  In the mid-twentieth century Pierre Boulez called to burn down all the opera houses and Stockhausen suggested that the traditional concert hall should be replaced with a new spherical concert space with loudspeakers placed against the walls.  Since then composers have been constantly experimenting with different venues for musical performance, such as sending a string quartet to play in helicopters in Stockhausen’s Helikopter-Streichquartett.

With this in mind, in 2010 is it still controversial to play music that would normally be found in a concert hall in an alternative space?  Why is it that audiences still find it so fascinating?  Is it because the concert hall tradition remains so strong in our society that alternative musical experiences are still regarded as surprising and unusual?

Or is it the permanent element of chance, spontaneity and uncertainty that keeps this concept alive?  Is it the consistent sense of the unexpected that keeps the unconventional performing spaces idea an exciting and relevant one?

In Alban’s performances this week, this excitement will be enhanced further by WildKat PR’s new twist; putting the audience in charge of where Alban performs. Not only does the immersive musical experience adjust the audience’s role, it is also a challenge to the performer.  Commenting on his performance in his blog entry link ‘Bach Marathon’, Alban Gerhardt declared that due to the constant changing of lights and locations throughout his performance at the Radialsystem, more energy was required from him than in a conventional concert.  He explained; “I felt obliged to live up to their expectation in a different way, almost like a story-teller in an Arab market where the audience is longing for his unbelievable stories, and when he loses his thread or can’t come up with something really exciting, the people will walk away, so he has the pressure on him to provide some constant spark.”

With this need for a ‘constant spark’, the immersive musical experience is both a challenge to musicians and audiences alike, making it perhaps more relevant today than ever before.  And with Tom Service noting that concerts such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Night Shift are successful in preserving ‘the best of the traditional classical concert – the great performances – with a genuinely accessible informality’, the unconventional concert is capable of bringing music to a wider audience without sacrificing musical quality.  Through these attempts to bring music out of the concert hall, musicians such as Alban Gerhardt are creating a new cultural practice for our generation.

For more information on Alban Gerhardt’s performances, visit his website.

(Written on October 25, 2010 )

Alban performed a sensational Bach Marathon to critical acclaim in Berlin last Saturday and below is his blog entry from the night:

Last night was probably the hardest concert I ever played in my life. All Bachsuites in one go, the first four in the first half, the last two in the second half, with a 25 minute intermission break in which my wife, a professional healer, recharged my energy and helped relax my worn-down hands. As amazing as she is, she couldn’t prevent that I played in the second half as close to my limits of both physical and mental capacities as never before. This was also due to the settings of the concert:

It took place at the Radialsystem in Berlin, the coolest performance space in Berlin, a former water utility plant, attracting a rather special, very young audience. I played the suites from four different locations within this hall which can seat up to 600 people, but because we wanted the atmosphere to be rather relaxed and unconventional, we pulled the chairs a bit apart, added some lounge furniture and mats for people to even sit on the stage on the floor, which finally gave room to almost 500 people. I started the first suite in the back of the hall in total darkness – the light went slowly on within the Prelude. Before moving with the applause to my second location off-center stage left, I took a microphone to welcome the audience and explain what we were trying to achieve with this different setting, encouraging people to take breaks in between – no obligation to listen to every single of the suites, or rather listen outside on the terrace or in the bar while drinking a glass of wine. The third location for Suites No.3 and 6 was in the back of the stage center, surrounded by the people sitting on the mats, and the 5th Suite I played high up from the gallery, the hall almost dark, just some blue light on me.

This changing of lights, locations and talk in between may have created a more personal atmosphere between me and audience, but I think it took even more energy from my part than the stereotype way of doing a concert. I felt the audience with me much stronger than usually which was very inspiring, but at the same time very demanding – I felt obliged to live up to their expectation in a different way, almost like a story-teller in an Arab market where the audience is longing for his unbelievable stories, and when he looses his thread or can’t come up with something really exciting, the people will walk away, so he has the pressure on him to provide some constant spark.

During the 6th Suite I thought my fingers were going to fall off, my left arm felt so stiff and tired that I considered more than once to just give up, stop and leave. The title of the concert, Bach-Marathon, wasn’t suggested by me, but in that moment I realized that it was justified. I have never ran a marathon, but I could very much imagine that one has similar feeling during these 42 km… Afterwards the artistic boss of the hall and me had a talk in front of still maybe a hundred members of the audience who also got to ask some questions – it was about midnight when we wrapped up the whole concert with a steak and a glass of wine in the bar of the hall.

While I have been fulfilled with some of my performances playing Shostakovich, Dvorak or Prokofiev, I admitted last night in front of everybody, that with my Bach performances I have never ever been satisfied. No, I don’t think I play Bach badly, but there are so many possibilities how to play it, so many hidden difficulties which only seem to come out while playing it in public, and worst of all, there is the style issue which one can’t forget about either. Vibrato, yes, but not too much. Articulation important, but not at the expense of colours and sound. A constant compromise in a way, but it mustn’t sound nor feel like one – for me the most challenging of all concerts, by very, very far.

In intermission on top of everything my son told me that he liked it but that he was surprised that I made some mistakes. By then I had already forgotten my couple of little memory-slips, tiny ones, but obviously audible. Sure enough, during the fifth Suite I focused a bit too much on not getting lost, which is the death sentence: halfway through the Prelude I got lost, so bad that I jumped almost an entire page back which made for the longest Prelude ever. It is so confusing to play this suite with the A string tuned on G, so much room for error that I am never really surprised when it happens, still it is annoying, sorry for that one! But I guess this is life, it ain’t ever perfect, things happen, and it adds to the drama, at least I like to believe that. If you want pure perfection, buy a cd…

The sun is shining, my desk is waiting, but first I will spend some father-son-bonding-time hanging the punching bag his mother bought him yesterday while I was preparing for my marathon 

Check out Alban’s blog on his website: www.albangerhardt.com

(Written on July 28, 2010 )

On Thursday June 24th at 11am, cellist Alban Gerhardt will be previewing his upcoming recording for Hyperion with pianist Cecile Licad at the Austrian Cultural Forum. The event is strictly invite only, but we are offering a pair of tickets to one person who can answer a simple question:

Which Austrian city Mozart was born in?

Submit your answer by midday Wednesday 23rd June as a comment below, or send us an email and we will select a winner at random.

(Written on June 17, 2010 )

Ahead of his concert tomorrow at Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Peter Gregson spoke to The Scotsman‘s Tim Cornwell. You can also listen to Peter playing and speaking to the Music Café team on BBC Radio Scotland Yesterday afternoon (available until Weds 23rd June).

Not so long ago, Gregson was knuckling down to his exams as a schoolboy at the Edinburgh Academy, before heading south to the Royal Academy of Music.

Since then, he has performed concerts in the head offices of Twitter in San Francisco and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.

Researchers at MIT helped develop the Guitar Hero computer game, and Gregson has been working on the Hyperbow project, which aims to capture and adapt the most subtle and intricate aspects of bowing.

Tomorrow Gregson will play the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. In the first half, he will perform JS Bach’s Third Cello Suite on a conventional cello. Then he will switch to an electric cello made especially for him, with a computerised bridge and five strings (with an extra top E) connected to five different speakers, giving a surround-sound effect to several contemporary pieces.

After the Queen’s Hall gig, Gregson will also be a last-minute recruit to his Alma Mater’s production of Carmina Burana at the Usher Hall on Sunday, playing in an orchestra of about 70, with nigh on 300 singers in its scholars and parents’ choir.

Nerves permitting, I will be one of those sharing the stage with him, along with my daughter, Annie. In January, I took a voice test in an attempt to sing in a choir for the first time since I was 14 – about three decades ago, plus change.

Every Sunday for five years I sang treble in my boarding school chapel choir before retreating in confusion after my voice broke, and I could no longer belt out the tune.

At the voice test, the Edinburgh Academy music master, Angus Tully, made me count backwards from 20 as fast as possible.

From this, he concluded my natural tone was a D-flat. For all I knew, it was a musical joke, but he helped by getting the whole choir to sing it.

Modern technology makes life easier for the musically disabled. In the build-up to my big choral comeback, The CyberBass Project, which provides part-specific training recordings for hundreds of choral pieces, has been a life-saver with its Carmina CD.

With a tune you can sing along to (or at least attempt) playing at full blast on your earphones while you’re out cycling or walking, you’re safe in the superior knowledge that, unlike all those other idiots who make inappropriate grunting noises to music no-one else can hear, you are actually “practising”.

Still, my first principle of chorus singing is mostly: “Do no harm.” In other words, sing only what you think you know and if in doubt, mouth it.

Having it large

GREGSON’S Friday concert is supported by the electric sound specialist Milton Mermikides. It includes the Scottish Premiere of Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint, a cello octet for which Gregson has recorded seven parts and will play an eighth.

Also in the programme is John Metcalfe’s Tracing the Outline, a new suite for cello and interactive electronics. Gregson plays, and the computer adds notes and rhythms, creating what the cellist described as some “unbelievably large chords”.

Amateur jigsaw

EDINBURGH is “the great city of the amateur”, in the words of Richard Neville-Towle, organist at Canongate Kirk, founder of Ludus Baroque and, for his sins, music director of the Really Terrible Orchestra.

In particular, he means amateur music, from orchestras to a string of church choirs and university choirs to the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union.

For Mr Tully, the Carmina concert is “a big musical jigsaw with 375 moving parts, which will only come together for the performance”.

His soloists include the baritone Peter Thomson, who sang the part with St George’s School for Girls earlier this year, and Louise Alder, who is just about to graduate from Edinburgh University. She is heading for the Royal College of Music on scholarship to join a master’s programme in voice, and like Gregson is also making her way to the prestigious Aldeburgh Festival this year.

(Written on June 17, 2010 )