by Daniel Hathaway
In this era of nearly exclusive online concerts, there are two kinds of videos: those that become unavailable for on-demand viewing after their debut — usually for performance rights reasons — and those that stick around so you can catch a program that you missed or watch it again.
Two exceptional performances from last week that we’re reviewing later today on the website are in the latter category. Click here to watch pianists Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Emanuela Friscione play the premiere of Luca Moscardi’s Suite, Op. 13 on the Tri-C Classical Piano Series from their music room, broadcast on Sunday. And go here to watch or revisit last Thursday’s live stream of Collage from the Bop Stop with the Cavani String Quartet and poet Mwatabu Okantah.
DEADLINES COMING UP:
University students embarking on careers as music educators and performers: circle January 31 on your calendars. That’s the closing date for applications to Tuesday Musical’s 65th Scholarship Competition. Details here.
Applications will be open from February 1 through March 1 for the James Stroud International Classical Guitar Competition. If you’re a U.S. resident, at least 14 years and not older than 18 years of age, and not currently enrolled in a university-level music degree program as of the date of the Final Round of the Competition, check out the procedures and rules here.
IN THE NEWS:
Heights Arts has announced its new season of Close Encounters, with three Sunday afternoon performances scheduled to be live streamed from the Bop Stop on January 30, February 28, and April 5. Details here.
New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s is scheduling hour-long, live-streamed performances on Wednesday evenings from February 17 through May 26. Click here for details and to watch a trailer.
And the Metropolitan Opera has hired its first diversity officer. Read the New York Times story here. Marcia Sells has been brought on to rethink equity and inclusion at our nation’s largest performing arts institution, well in advance of its reopening. Sells is a former dancer who has served as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, and most recently as dean of students at Harvard Law School. Read the New York Times story here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the fifth and most obscure son of Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach, departed this life on January 26, 1795 in the provincial town of Bückeburg, where he served as harpsichordist beginning in 1750 and as concertmaster from 1759, and composed a large number of works in all categories.
Here are three works from his pen that give some idea of what might have been heard in a small town in Lower Saxony during the transitional period from Baroque to Classical at the end of the 18th century.
First, his Lamento, arranged and performed by harpsichordist Jean Rondeau at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and Academy in 2016 — with a link to the full concert in which it was played.
Then, his Concerto Grosso in E-flat from 1792, a keyboard concerto featuring Christine Schornshelm and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.
And finally, his hour-long setting of Psalm 51, Miserere Mei Deus, performed in 1998 by Helmuth Rilling and the Bach Collegium Stuttgart.
Born on January 26, 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who rose out of Venezuela’s El Sistema to become conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolivar (hear them play Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (listen to excerpts from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring from 2019).
Dudamel’s box office appeal inspired the character of Rodrigo in Amazon Prime’s Mozart in the Jungle series (and the aforementioned Márquez video has been watched 2,037,167 times). As a conductor, he’s equally effective working with professionals and students. Click here to watch part of a rehearsal he led with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra.
And on January 26, 2003, American pianist John Browning died in Sister Bay, Wisconsin. He maintained a long relationship with the music of Samuel Barber, whose Piano Concerto he debuted in 1962 for the opening of Lincoln Center. (Click here to listen to a performance by The Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell – you can follow along with the piano score). As an interesting aside, Browning’s last performance was to an invited audience at the U.S. Supreme Court in May, 2002. Imagine!