Long-Lost Art Revisited

The art of improvisation has largely been lost in the world classical music. Is it making a comeback?

Classical Musicians Learn to Improvise - WSJ.com

Lynn Harrell on Playing Bach in the 21st Century

ArtsJournal: Daily Arts News - music

Review: Impassioned quartet gives grand performance

Legend has it that while on his deathbed, Franz Schubert asked to hear Beethoven's great C-sharp-minor string quartet.

Though that story may be apocryphal, there's no doubting the transporting quality of Beethoven's music, especially when an ensemble like the Chiara Quartet plays it.

Chiara closed its terrific Organ Vesper Series concert on Sunday with Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. For more go to: http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2620&u_sid=10321594

BY JOHN PITCHER
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Chiara Quartet Likes to Really Mix It Up

Chiara String Quartet concerts often seem set to an iPod's shuffle mode.
BY JOHN PITCHER
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2620&u_sid=10317872

Guarneri String Quartet

21.4.08

Guarneri Quartet and the Grosse Fuge

by Michael Lodico | Monday, April 21, 2008

Arnold Steinhardt, Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony (1998)

Friday evening, the Guarneri String Quartet, in their 26th year in residence at the University of Maryland, performed an all-Beethoven concert as part of the school’s Scholarship Benefit Series (postponed from Leap Day, due to a player injury). The program included the “Harp” String Quartet No. 10 (op. 74, E-flat major) and String Quartet No. 13 (op. 130, B-flat major), which featured its original finale, the Grosse Fuge. Hearing the venerable ensemble, now in their 44th year and penultimate season, should be a high priority on one’s cultural to-do list. Their final season, 2008-2009, is anticipated to be heavy. For more: http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2008/04/guarneri-quartet-and-grosse-fuge.html

Chiara String Quartet on Organ Vesper Series

Sunday, April 27

3:00 p.m.

Chiara String Quartet

Admission Free

Presented in Collaboration with The Lied Center for the Performing Arts

Concert at Presbyterian Church of the Cross

1517 South 114 Street Omaha Nebraska

"Each young artist marries a nimble technique to eager-to-please intensity and unhackneyed joy."

--The Washington Post

www.organvesper.com

Régine Crespin, French Soprano, Dies at 80

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Published: July 6, 2007

Régine Crespin, the operatic French
soprano and later mezzo-soprano, one of the most important vocal
artists to emerge from France in the decades after World War II, died
Wednesday in Paris, where she lived. She was 80.

Régine Crespin, French Soprano, Dies at 80 - New York Times

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Daedalus String Quartet in Omaha

The Daedalus String Quartet will appear on the Organ Vesper Series on Friday, July 20 at 7:30 in a free concert.  For more...

ovsnewsletter1

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Classical Music at Risk?

The sounds of a dying tradition are painful, particularly if the
tradition’s value is still so apparent, at least to the mourners, and
still so vibrant to a wide number of sympathizers. For more....

Edward Rothstein - Connections - Music - New York Times

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Classical Internet Radio

On An Overgrown Path: Classical internet radio - a user's guide

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Online Manuscript Treasures

Last year I reported on the Juilliard School's grand unveiling of the much-talked-about manuscript of the four-hand arrangement of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, alongside dozens of other musicological treasures. Juilliard has now set up a handsome, high-tech website for its manuscript collection. You can roam through masterpieces of ancient and modern music, using zoom features to examine pages closely (for example, to see Leonard Bernstein's cartoons in the margins of his arrangement of Copland's El Salón México). It's hard to think of a comparable site where the working methods of so many great composers are made instantly accessible. This is a magnificent and generous use of digital technology.

Alex Ross:The Rest is Noise

Omaha Symphony Players Contract Talks, Part 2

Omaha Musicians Claim Executive Greed The dispute between musicians and management of the Omaha Symphony is ratcheting up, with the musicians claiming that the salary of the orchestra's CEO rose an average of 20% over the past three years, as the musicians were held to a 2-3% bump over the same period. The orchestra management acknowledges that its CEO's pay is nearly twice that of some comparable ensembles, but says that much of the raise came through incentive pay.
Omaha World-Herald 06/23/07

‘AN AMERICAN AWAKENING’ Cornhusker Style

In honor of Lukas Foss’s 85th birthday, the Choral Society of the Hamptons, the Greenwich Village Singers and the Brooklyn Philharmonic (where Mr. Foss was music director for 20 years) join forces for his rarely performed piece “The Prairie.” The German-born Mr. Foss wrote this cantata in 1944 — several years after emigrating to the United States from Paris — based on a poem from Carl Sandburg’s “Cornhuskers,” and it reflects his enthusiasm for his new homeland. The soloists are Elizabeth Farnum, a soprano; Julia Spanja, a mezzo; Gerard Powers, a tenor; and Robert Osborne, a bass-baritone. At 8 p.m., Thursday, June 28 Rose Theater, Broadway at 60th Street.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/arts/music/22classical.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Big Pay Raise for KC Symphony players

The Kansas City Symphony and its musicians have ratified a contract
that will provide a 19 percent salary increase over the next four years. For more....

www.kansascity.com | 06/06/2007 | Pay scale to jump for Kansas City Symphony musicians

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Symphony musicians' contract talks hit sour note

Omaha Symphony musicians said Friday that contract negotiations between
the orchestra's management and musicians broke down earlier this week
because management didn't come to the table prepared to bargain.



More in Omaha.com Entertainment Section

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Benjamin Britten on the 45th anniversary of the premier of War Requiem

"Since I believe that there is in every man the spirit of God,...."(Benjamin Britten)



On An Overgrown Path

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OMAHA CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY SUMMER 2007

The Omaha Chamber Music Society has announced its 2007 summer series.



Omaha Chamber Music Society - Summer Series

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Berlin Philharmonic Looks into Its WW II Role

One of the world’s most renowned orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic, said Tuesday it plans an investigation into its role during the Nazi era. "We’ve never really come to terms with the history of the Philharmonic Orchestra under National Socialism," general manager Pamela Rosenberg said.

On An Overgrown Path: Berlin Philharmonic investigates its Nazi past

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Gone are the Days

Lament for the Death of Classical Music Stores: Norman Lebrecht

By Norman Lebrecht April 24 (Bloomberg) --

Something goes out of a town when its classical outlets close down: First Sam Goody's, then Tower Records, then one by one the backstreet stores. Where does a guy
have to go these days to get his Hammerklavier fix?

Bloomberg.com: Muse

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Trio Nuovo on Organ Vesper Series May 6

TRIO NUOVO

Mark Clinton, piano

Karen Becker, cello

Anton Miller, violin

Music by Piazzolla, Shostakovich, Chausson

FREE ADMISSION

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