by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: Davis Badaszewski (pictured) at the Covenant
•Announcements: Pulitzer Prize in Music, CWRU choral composition competition & KSU percussion camp
•Almanac: the many talents of Anne Sofie von Otter
HAPPENING TODAY:
Today’s Tuesday Noon Organ Plus concert at Church of the Covenant will feature organist Davis Badaszewski. His program includes William Walton’s Three Pieces, Harold Darke’s In Green Pastures, and César Franck’s Choral No. 1 in E. The concert will also be livestreamed.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize were announced yesterday, and the prize for music went to Michael Abels’ and Oberlin alumna Rhiannon Giddens’ Omar — described on the Pulitzer website as “an innovative and compelling opera about enslaved people brought to North America from Muslim countries” and “a musical work that respectfully represents African as well as African American traditions, expanding the language of the operatic form while conveying the humanity of those condemned to bondage.”
The day after its premiere last May at the 2022 Spoleto Festival USA, Giddens and Abels sat down with CBS News correspondent Martha Teichner to discuss the work. Watch here.
The Case Western Department of Music has announced the second year of its Undergraduate Choral Composition Competition. Entries will be accepted from undergrads at Ohio colleges and universities, and the winning work will be premiered by the CWRU Concert Choir. Submissions are due October 1, and there is no fee to enter. Learn more here.
And the Kent State School of Music will be hosting the second edition of its annual Percussion Camp from June 21-23. More info here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Two musical figures who figure importantly into this date in history today have been featured in previous almanacs: German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude, who died on May 9, 1707, and American composer/arranger/bandleader James Reese Europe, who passed away on this date in 1919.
That brings us to Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, who turns 68 today — and with as wide-ranging a career as hers, there are many ways to celebrate.
Lieder? How about a selection from her Grieg album, which won 1993 Gramophone Record of the Year? Have a listen to Våren (“Last Spring”) here, where she is joined by her regular performing partner Bengt Forsberg.
Opera? There are many possibilities to choose from, both in the classics and in contemporary music (including the premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel), but here’s a half-hour recording from a gala concert from 1989 full of wonderful standards.
Oratorio? How about Bach’s “Schlafe, mein Liebster” from the Christmas Oratorio, where she’s joined by the English Baroque Soloists led by John Eliot Gardiner? Listen here.
And pop? One of her better-known entries in that genre is an album titled For the Stars in which she collaborated with Elvis Costello. Click here to listen to their cover of the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder).”
Whichever pill you choose, the outcome is the same: this is one special musician.