By Daniel Hathaway
IN THIS EDITION:
. WRUW fundraiser
. Terrence Blanchard’s Champion at The Met
. Almanac: Pulitzer and the music prizes, first performances & births
HAPPENING TODAY:
Today’s edition of Not Your Grandmother’s Classical Music, hosted by Eric Charnofsky, is the special annual telethon edition fundraiser for WRUW. Featured music: Gabriel Fauré’s Ouverture from Masques et Bergamasques, Gabriel Pierné’s Fantaisie-Ballet (piano and orchestra), Teresa Carreño’s String Quartet in b, Arnold Bax’s The Happy Forest (tone poem for orchestra), Dolores White’s Crystal Gazing (orchestra), Roberto Sierra’s Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano & Lukas Foss’s American Landscapes (excerpt, for guitar). Click here to listen to the internet feed from 2 pm to 4pm or tune in to 91.1 FM in the greater Cleveland area.
INTERESTING READ:
Terrence Blanchard’s Champion, an opera in jazz opens today at the Metropolitan Opera for nine performances. Click here to read Mike Silverman’s story in AP News about adapting the piece for The Met following its debut at Opera St Louis. An excerpt:
The original production was directed by James Robinson, the artistic director in St. Louis, who said it was “kind of a chamber piece.” There were just 18 people in the cast plus a four-piece jazz combo that plays along with a traditional orchestra.
For the Met, Robinson devised what he calls a “supersized version” that now brings close to 80 people on stage. Besides the soloists, there are 12 dancers, 10 actors and a chorus of 46. The new production also adds choreography by Camille A. Brown, who created a sensation with her work on “Fire [Shut up in my Bones].”
“Champion,” which opens April 10 for nine performances, also stars bass-baritone Eric Owens as the older Emile, tenor Paul Groves as his trainer, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Kathy Hagen, owner of a gay bar, and baritone Eric Greene as Paret. Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the Met’s music director, conducts. The matinee on Sat., April 29, will be shown live in HD in movie theaters worldwide.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1847 newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the St. Louis Dispatch, was born in Mako, Hungary. His will (he died in 1911) left $2 million for the establishment of the school of journalism at Columbia University and endowed the Pulitzer Prizes, which, beginning in 1943, included an annual award for a classical musical composition by an American composer.
In the late 1990s, the entry rules were expanded to include a wider range of American music, and the first such prize recognized Wynton Marsalis’ 1997 Blood on the Fields. George Gershwin and Duke Ellington were subsequently honored on their anniversary years in 1998 and 1999.
It’s interesting to read down the list of Pulitzer Prize winners in music, both to see what works have passed into wide use and which seem to have fallen by the wayside. Click here to view.
Elsewhere on April 10, Brahms’ German Requiem received its first performance at a Good Friday concert in Bremen in 1868, and two major works for clarinet were premiered — Poulenc’s Sonata at Carnegie Hall by Benny (Goodman) and Lenny (Bernstein) in 1963, and Joan Tower’s Concerto by Charles Neidich and the American Symphony, led by Jorge Mester, in 1988.
And notable births on April 10 include French jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling (1930, in Cannes), and Uzbek pianist Yefim Bronfman (1958 in Tashkent).
