Yesterday I attended the University of Colorado's Conference on World Affairs. For the last 10 or 12 year I've been going fairly faithfully, but this year I've not attended as much. The topics were a bit lack-luster and it's the same old crew saying the same old things to an overly crowded audience. However, one session piqued my interest, Siriusly, Podcasts, Pandora and the Future of Radio. It was okay but nothing great. Margot Adler made an interesting comment which confirms what I've thought all along -- "Classical music radio has problems". Colorado Public Radio's classical music station basically went off the air when it changed it's broadcasting power. It was an economic decision due to a shrinking listener base, or that's what was intimated by the session moderator, Dan Meyers from Colorado Public Radio.
Another panelist in this session, Molly Sheridan, mentioned that the "gatekeepers are changing" and with the Internet you don't have to listen to the tepid local NPR broadcasts. You can listen select from thousands of stations world-wide. I completely agree with that, though my lousy Comcast connection still causes me grief.
Margot Adler also pointed out that there are still millions and millions of listeners in cars where the Internet isn't really available. Just this morning I noticed an advertisement for an Internet car radio. It was a device which would do a Blue Tooth connection to your iPhone. It seems like a bit of a kluge to me, so I think I'm going to pass on that one for now, particularly since I don't even have a cell phone.
The panelists' comments also got me thinking about their different view of music. They kept referring to "songs" and "artists" and "tunes" -- what the software and services focus on today. The iPod Shuffle plays stuff randomly -- image listening to an opera or a string quartet that way! As a classical music buff, I'm more interested in the "composer" and the "composition" and music has order. Is it a generational gap or an genre difference or is it just me?
Finally last night I went to this year's final Pendulum concert at the University of Colorado's music school. The quality of both the performances and the compositions by these these undergraduate and graduate students was very impressive. I particularly enjoyed a string quartet by Dustin Rumsey called "Lighting Dreams" and the "Piano Quintet No 1: Scenes from Childhood" by Greg Simon. Simon was the winner of an annual award for the best student composition for this quintet and it seems well deserved. The performing string quartet in both pieces was the Tasman String Quartet. I've enjoyed them many times over these last two years while they studied with the Takács String Quartet. I wish them well as they head off to Champagne-Urbana for further studies.
I normally enjoy the summer in Boulder without all those college kid. The area is a little less crowded. However, I'll be missing the music school students and the Pendulum series.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Two nights of strings
Over the last few nights I attended two concerts, both featuring strings. The first was the the Boulder Chamber Orchestra under the leadership of Bahman Saless. Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola was well played by Annamaria Karacason and Geraldine Walther. Karacason is the wife of Karoly Schranz, second violin for the famous Takács String Quartet and Walther is their violist. It's interesting the see a famous quartet member playing outside her normal role.
The piece that intrigued me the most was Verdi's Symphony for Strings in E minor, a transcription of his only string quartet. At the beginning of the piece Saless commented that according to legend, Verdi composed this quickly to fill some time while waiting for a stop in the rehearsals for Aida. Saless said it seemed to him that the movements were about a murder. First the actual mysterious murder, then the arrival on the scene of the detective, an unknown third movement (to Saless) and finally the resolution with the detective pointing out the guilty. It was an amusing premise that got my imagination going during the performance. When the third movement began it was clear to me that this was the time when all the parties were stewing about worrying if the detective suspected them. There is a beautiful flowing cello section that reminded me of a soprano solo early in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. Clearly this was the innocent virgin satisfied in her knowledge that she most certainly did not commit the murder. How did Bahman not pick this out?
The Verdi quartet is an interesting piece with some luscious song like lines which clearly remind you that Verdi is an opera composer. It was performed here a few years ago by either the Takács or the Vinca quartet. On our supposedly all classical FM radio station, essentially off the air in Boulder, the quartet was broadcast 5 times in 2006, 3 times in 2007, 1 time in 2008 and not yet this year. Opera isn't broadcast much save for the Saturday Metropolitan broadcasts, and Verdi's limited broadcast repertoire seems to be snippets of a few of the old favorites. So much for the educational role of public radio.
Last night I went to what would normally be a performance by the Takács String Quartet. Instead, a visiting group, the Albers Trio, performed. Three attractive sisters did a yeoman's job on Mozart's long Divertimento in E-flat, K563, but to me the highlight was a wonderful Serenade for String Trio by Ernst von Dohnányi. I wonder what their early family life was like, with 3 talented musicians? Competion? Pressure? The program notes said they performed as young girls down on the Pearl Street mall in Boulder, so they must have once been somewhat local. They offered an nteresting evening.
The piece that intrigued me the most was Verdi's Symphony for Strings in E minor, a transcription of his only string quartet. At the beginning of the piece Saless commented that according to legend, Verdi composed this quickly to fill some time while waiting for a stop in the rehearsals for Aida. Saless said it seemed to him that the movements were about a murder. First the actual mysterious murder, then the arrival on the scene of the detective, an unknown third movement (to Saless) and finally the resolution with the detective pointing out the guilty. It was an amusing premise that got my imagination going during the performance. When the third movement began it was clear to me that this was the time when all the parties were stewing about worrying if the detective suspected them. There is a beautiful flowing cello section that reminded me of a soprano solo early in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. Clearly this was the innocent virgin satisfied in her knowledge that she most certainly did not commit the murder. How did Bahman not pick this out?
The Verdi quartet is an interesting piece with some luscious song like lines which clearly remind you that Verdi is an opera composer. It was performed here a few years ago by either the Takács or the Vinca quartet. On our supposedly all classical FM radio station, essentially off the air in Boulder, the quartet was broadcast 5 times in 2006, 3 times in 2007, 1 time in 2008 and not yet this year. Opera isn't broadcast much save for the Saturday Metropolitan broadcasts, and Verdi's limited broadcast repertoire seems to be snippets of a few of the old favorites. So much for the educational role of public radio.
Last night I went to what would normally be a performance by the Takács String Quartet. Instead, a visiting group, the Albers Trio, performed. Three attractive sisters did a yeoman's job on Mozart's long Divertimento in E-flat, K563, but to me the highlight was a wonderful Serenade for String Trio by Ernst von Dohnányi. I wonder what their early family life was like, with 3 talented musicians? Competion? Pressure? The program notes said they performed as young girls down on the Pearl Street mall in Boulder, so they must have once been somewhat local. They offered an nteresting evening.
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