by Mike Telin
Welcome to Thursday the 25th of February.
ON THE WEB TODAY:
Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
— Charles Mingus
At 7:00 pm The Cleveland Orchestra debuts its In Focus Bonus Episode 2 featuring cellist Alicia Weilerstein in performances of J.S. Bach’s Six Solo Cello Suites, recorded live at Severance Hall in January, 2021. The concert is available to current subscribers and donors at no additional charge, or for Adella Premium subscribers on the Adella digital streaming app and adella live.
I think that the artists who don’t get involved in preaching messages probably are happier — but you see, I have to live with Nina, and that is very difficult.
— Nina Simone
A half-hour later at 7:30 pm, Oberlin Black History Month: A Celebration of Black Artistry continues on Stage Left with a pre-recorded program hosted by associate professor of horn Jeff Scott. The evening features three of his own compositions as well as works by Ulysses Kay and Duke Ellington. The concert is free. Click here at start time.
Click here to read our interview with Scott where he talks about why it was important for him and his Imani Winds colleague, Mark Dover, to make an arrangement of Abel Meeropol’s classic Strange Fruit, a song made famous by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. He also talks about his admiration for Simone as an artist and as an outspoken critic of social injustices.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On February 25 in 1890, English pianist Dame Myra Hess was born in South Hampstead, London. She made her professional debut in 1907 playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham. Hess toured extensively throughout Britain, the Netherlands, and France and made her U.S. debut in New York City in 1922.
The pianist may be most remembered for her performances during The Blitz of World War II. During that time Hess organized nearly 2,000 lunchtime concerts in Trafalgar Square’s National Gallery. The concerts were held every Monday and Friday for six-and-a-half years. And every performer was paid five guineas for their services. In 1941 King George VI made Hess a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
In addition to an active performing career, Hess was a dedicated teacher. One of her students was Clive Lythgoe, the long-time Dean of Faculty at Cleveland’s Music School Settlement.
Hess’s legacy lives on at the Chicago Cultural Center with its Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. The free lunchtime series is produced by Chicago’s International Music Foundation and broadcast live on WFMT and streamed on WFMT.com.
Click here to listen to an interview with Hess, and here for a performance of Chopin’s Waltz No. 1 in E flat Op. 18.
We also celebrate the birth of American composer and installation artist Maryanne Amacher, who entered this world in 1938 in Kane, Pennsylvania. Amacher is best known for her work in the phenomenon known as auditory distortion products.
Amacher attended the University of Pennsylvania where one of her teachers was Karlheinz Stockhausen. She continued her composition studies in Salzburg, Austria, and Dartington, England, and graduate work in computer studies and acoustics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
During a fellowship at Harvard and MIT, Amacher was recruited by John Cage to collaborate on several projects including a soundtrack for his 1975 multimedia piece Lecture in the Weather. The recipient of major commissions around the globe, in 2005 she was awarded the Prix Ars Electronica in “Digital Musics” category for her project TEO! A sonic sculpture. Click here to listen to Living Sound, for “Sound-joined Rooms” series (1980).
For many who hear the name Serge Koussevitzky, the first thing that comes to mind is his long association with the Boston Symphony. However, we often forget that the celebrated conductor was also an accomplished double-bass player and composer. On February 25, 1905, Koussevitzky performed the premiere of his Double-Bass Concerto in Moscow. Click here to listen to a performance by Gary Karr and Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Uros Lajovic. You can follow the score and ask yourself — how does his do that?