April 1 Chamber Jazz Ensemble Concert

April 1 at 7:30 pm, the Chamber Jazz Ensemble presents a concert in Minsky Auditorium at the University of Maine.  I am one of 10 musicians who will be performing jazz standards, under the direction of Dr. Karel Lidral.  Admission is $9 or free with a university student ID.

I just saw the poster today, so I took a photo and include it here.

Upcoming Performances

There are only five more weeks of class until final exams.

I am preparing for three performances:

1. March 30 at 7 pm, the St. John’s Chamber Choir presents Music from the English Choral Tradition accompanied by organ at St. John's Catholic Church, 207 York St., Bangor, Maine
featuring:
S. S. Wesley's Ascribe Unto the Lord (1851)
Herbert Howells' Gloucester Service (1946)
and works of Tallis and Rheinberger
Kevin Birch - Director & Organist
Kay Eames - Assisting Conductor
Invite your friends!
Free admission - donations appreciated and will support fuel assistance needs in the community.

2. April 1 at 7:30 pm, the Chamber Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Karel Lidral, presents a concert of jazz standards in Minsky Auditorium at the University of Maine.  Admission is $9 or free with a university student ID.

3. April 13 at 3 pm, the Oratorio Society will perform Carl Orff’s Carmena Burana with the Bangor Symphony at the Collins Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Maine.  Admission fees are the usual Bangor Symphony prices.

http://www.bangorsymphony.org/articles/57-173/carmina-burana/6

I am on the board of the St. John’s Organ Society, and we will be presenting our annual winter international concert on Friday, April 4, at 7:30 pm.  Hatsumi Muira from Yokohama, Japan will perform on the historic E. and G.G. Hook organ, Opus 288 at St. John’s Catholic Church, 207 York Street, Bangor.  Admission is free, and donations are appreciated to further the outreach and education mission of the St. John’s Organ Society.  Miura is the resident organist at Yokohama Minato Mirai Symphonic Hall.  She teaches organ at Ferris University and serves as organist at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, both in Yokohama.  Miura enjoys an international reputation as a concert artist, and is highly sought after in her native Japan and in the United States.  She will perform music of Bach, Brahms, Reger, and Arauxo.  The program will include a newly-premiered work by Japanese composer Hina Sakamoto entitled “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” (hymn tune St. Theodulph).

San Francisco and Columbus, Ohio

I spent the second week of Spring Break with my husband, John, in San Francisco visiting our daughter, Carletta, and her husband, Aaron.  It was spring in San Francisco, so we enjoyed the blossoms on the trees and the mild temperatures.  Carletta graduated from Tante Marie’s Cooking School baking course and we were invited to her graduation, during which we had the good fortune of tasting the final projects of all 14 of the graduates! 

Aaron, Carletta, John, and me with Carletta’s final puff pastry baking project

While in San Francisco, I attended a workshop sponsored by the San Francisco Chapter of the American Guild of Organists at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on Saturday morning, March 15.  Charles Rus presented “a personal perspective on how to prepare and practice Baroque organ music for modern performance, informed by current understanding of historical practice.”  Charles was scheduled to present a concert on Sunday evening, March 16, on the St. Mark’s Taylor and Boody organ, Opus 37 (2006).  At the workshop, Charles distributed copies of his actual music scores for his upcoming Sunday performance with all his fingering and notes.  He then reviewed some of that music and discussed how he approached some specifics of those pieces, how he registered the music, and how he practices to prepare for his concert.  The workshop was very interactive and the two hours flew by!  Unfortunately, I was not able to attend Mr. Rus’ March 16 concert, because I was flying home to Maine that day.

With Charles Rus in front of the Taylor and Boody organ, Opus 37, at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, San Francisco

During my recent visit to Columbus, Ohio, I attended a concert of sacred music with my granddaughter, Lesley Reed, performed by the Valparaiso University Chorale, conducted by Christopher Cock, at St. Joseph Cathedral.  This 45-voice choir sang works of Felix Mendelssohn, Henry Purcell, Benjamin Britten, J.S. Bach, and Sydney Guillaume.  The music was very spiritual and I was particularly impressed that they had memorized almost all of the music.

With Lesley Reed at St. Joseph Cathedral, Columbus, Ohio

Music in New York, Part 2

Due to the generosity of the Music Director, Dr. Thomas Schmidt, when I am in New York, I often practice on the pipe organ at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church.  This organ was built in 1977 by Johannes Klais of Bonn, Germany.

http://www.saintpeters.org/the-arts-and-design/instruments/sanctuary-organ/

I usually practice 7 to 9 am, before other activities start in the sanctuary.  On Tuesday morning this week, St. Peters provided breakfast and a place to rest to many homeless people.  I am learning J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in e minor (BWV 533), and of all the music that I practiced that morning, my sense was this music was the most well received by the people resting in the sanctuary.

On Thursday evening, I attended the New York Philharmonic’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeny Todd with good friends and opera buddies, Helen Levine and Marge Baxter Levine in Avery Fisher Hall.  The gruesome tale was well told by the superb orchestra, Bryn Terfel in the title role and Emma Thompson in the role of Mrs. Lovett, the meat-pie-maker, and an excellent supporting cast and chorus.  The orchestra, led by Alan Gilbert, and the cast were clearly having fun, and the audience responded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/theater/first-to-die-at-sweeney-todd-decorum-at-the-philharmonic.html

With Helen Levine and Marge Baxter Levine at Sweeney Todd at Avery Fisher Hall

I signed up for Apple’s one-to-one service when I bought my MacBook Air for school last fall.  One of the benefits of this service is that I can take as many classes as I have time for at any Apple stores.  Since there is not an Apple store in Bangor, I take advantage of the multiple Apple stores in New York City when I visit.  So far I have taken classes at both the Fifth Avenue and the Grand Central Apple stores.

 At the Apple Store in Grand Central, using Photo Booth

Jules Massenet’s (1842-1912) Werther was first performed in Vienna in 1892, just two years after Borodin’s Prince Igor.  Massenet was a professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory.  Werther is an adaptation of Goethe’s novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, which was loosely based on Goethe’s early life.  On Friday evening, Jonas Kaufmann sang the role of Werther and Sophie Koch sang the role of Charlotte.  The music was very expressive and the performances were impeccable.

http://www.metoperafamily.org/opera/werther-massenet-tickets.aspx

Inside the Metropolitan Opera

Music in New York

For the past several years, I have visited New York to attend the Metropolitan Opera in early May.  This year, because I am in school, I bought tickets for spring break instead.

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) never finished writing his opera, Prince Igor, for which he wrote both the music and the libretto.  Fellow composers, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) and Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936), who was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov, finished the orchestration and added some music of their own based on Borodin’s intentions and sketches.  It premiered in St. Petersburg in 1890.  The story of Russian Prince Igor, who took his army to battle the invading Khan, was captured, and later escaped, was based on a 12^th-century epic.  The lyrical music expresses the characters’ state of mind.  Borodin uses the chorus, which is integral to the story, to propel and comment on the action.  All was beautifully performed by the singers and orchestra.  The music for the Polotvsian Dance in Act I was made popular in the 1953 musical Kismet’s song, “Stranger in Paradise.”  Much of the action took place in a field of large red poppies, a way to depict the exoticism of the Khan’s eastern land.

http://www.metoperafamily.org/opera/prince-igor-borodin-tickets.aspx

The Enchanted Island is a new opera featuring music of Baroque masters like Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, and Purcell and a new libretto written by Jeremy Sams in 2011 based on stories from Shakespeare’s Tempest and Midsummer Night’s Dream.  The music was delightful, and the performers, who included Plácido Domingo, David Daniels, Susan Graham, and others, clearly enjoyed both the music and the far-fetched story.  The orchestra was smaller than usual and included a harpsichord.

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/enchanted-island-music.aspx

The harpsichord used at the Metropolitan Opera for The Enchanted Island

Wednesday this week was Ash Wednesday, and I attended 12:05 pm Mass at Church of Our Saviour on Park Avenue.  The choir was clearly professional; they sang Gregorio Allegri’s (1582-1652) Miserere mei, Deus, which is a famous setting of Psalm 51 sung during the Distribution of the Ashes at the Midday Mass.  From the order of worship about Allegri’s Miserere:  ”For centuries, it was sung exclusively at the Vatican, where the score was kept secret.  Excommunication was threatened if one exported the score from the Vatican or produced any attempt at publication.  A young Mozart dictated the work after hearing it once, whereby creating the first “bootleg” copy.  It is highly unlikely that the high C’s are authentic, as they first appeared in an edition published in the 1880’s.  These ornamentations, however, have become inseparable with current performance of this masterpiece.”

You can listen to Allegri’s Miserere at 29 minutes 42 seconds:

http://www.oursaviournyc.org/multimedia/audio/ash-wednesday/view

Even though the quality of the recording is not the best, you can get a sense for the beauty of the music.

The altar at Church of Our Saviour, New York