On Saturday, May 7, 2022, All Classical Portland will present a bi-coastal broadcast of Damien Geter’s An African American Requiem. The live broadcast will begin at 5:50 PM PT (8:50 PM ET) on 89.9 FM in Portland, WQXR 105.9 FM in New York, and streaming worldwide via our live player.
This broadcast is generously sponsored by First Republic Bank.
Poetry was a major theme in the music of American composer Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944). Her 117 art songs explore a huge range of poets, from Robert Browning to Robert Burns. Amy Beach’s love of poetry also appears in a large catalogue of choral compositions, with settings of poets like Oliver Wendell Holmes, in The Chambered Nautilus, Op. 66, and Francis of Assisi, in The Canticle of the Sun, Op. 123.
Beach’s immersion in poetry went beyond texted music. Poetry also influenced music for the instrument Beach played the most: the piano. In honor of National Poetry Month, we present a selection of piano works by Amy Beach, all inspired by poetry. Beach inscribed the scores of the first six selections with poetic quotations, which we’ve reproduced here for you. In the last two selections, the titles themselves are quotations from one of humanity’s oldest surviving books of poetry, the Book of Psalms.
All Classical Portland is proud to announce 16-year-old double bass player Maggie Carter as the 2022 Young Artist in Residence. A home-schooled high school junior, Maggie began music lessons with former Oregon Symphony bassist Nina DeCesare at age nine. She currently studies with Jordan Anderson, Principal Bass of the Seattle Symphony, and performs regularly with the Portland Youth Philharmonic.
“I am deeply honored that All Classical Portland has chosen me and my uncommon instrument,” says Maggie. “I am filled with excitement for everything this position entails. This residency is significant for me because with it, I will grow as an artist and have the chance to share the beauty of classical music. I am particularly looking forward to showcasing solo double bass music with the wider music community.”
Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot were two of the bel canto era’s greatest mezzo sopranos. Sisters, and daughters of the imposing Spanish pedagogue Manuel García, Malibran and Viardot each left an indelible mark on nineteenth-century opera. Each was also a composer, a quality less celebrated during their lifetimes. Malibran, who died tragically young in 1836, was widely lauded for her singing, but her compositions were less noted. Viardot, who lived until 1910, survived long enough for the Western music world to become more accustomed to the notion of a woman composer. Both left exquisite compositions that offer insight into nineteenth century bel canto – and offer fascinating listening for any music lover.
In this two part series, we’ll explore the careers and music of these two remarkable sisters. We began in Part I with the elder sister, Maria Malibran. Here in Part II, we’ll meet the younger sister, Pauline Viardot.
Program director John Pitman shares his latest conversation with pianist Simone Dinnerstein, where they discuss her new CD titled Undersong. Dinnerstein chose this word, an archaic term meaning “refrain”, which can be found both in the individual pieces (Schumann’s Arabesque, and Kreisleriana; Couperin’s Les Barricade Mysterieuses), and throughout the entire program.
Hear more of their conversation, including Ms. Dinnerstein’s thoughts on the music and the album below.
On Saturday, May 7, 2022, All Classical Portland presented a live, bi-coastal broadcast of the world premiere of Damien Geter’s An African American Requiem in collaboration with WQXR in New York. The live broadcast will be available for on-demand listening in All Classical Portland’s Audio Archive through May 21, 2022.
This broadcast is generously sponsored by First Republic Bank.
Find the digital concert program as well as resources for processing this important and powerful work on Resonance Ensemble’s website.
Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot were two of the bel canto era’s greatest mezzo sopranos. Sisters, and daughters of the imposing Spanish pedagogue Manuel García, Malibran and Viardot each left an indelible mark on nineteenth-century opera. Each was also a composer, but their ability to compose was less celebrated during their lifetimes. Malibran, who died tragically young in 1836, was widely lauded for her singing, but her compositions were less noted. Viardot, who lived until 1910, survived long enough for the Western music world to become more accustomed to the notion of a woman composer. Both left exquisite compositions that offer insight into nineteenth century bel canto – and offer fascinating listening for any music lover.
In this two-part series, we’ll explore the careers and music of these two remarkable sisters. We begin with the elder, Maria Malibran. In Part II, we’ll meet the younger sister, Pauline Viardot.
It is part of All Classical Portland’s mission to expand and advance knowledge of and appreciation for classical music. If you’re just starting to discover music outside the traditional classical canon, there’s no better composer to start with than that African American 20th-century composer Florence Price, whose music has been enjoying a recent resurgence in concert performances and recordings.
Dr. Samantha Ege of Oxford University is a leading specialist on Florence Price, whose work she has been studying since 2009. Dr. Ege is a researcher, a writer, and a pianist, and equally brilliant in all these areas of expression. In addition to her virtuosic technique and stylistic sensitivity, she brings a musicologist’s scholarly analysis to her interpretations of Florence Price’s piano music.
I met Dr. Ege last November at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, where she presented a lecture-recital and appeared as a panelist. As All Classical’s Music Researcher, I recently had the privilege of chatting with her about her her work on Florence Price and the artistic flowering of Black musical life in midcentury Chicago. Read on to learn about Dr. Ege’s career and research, and about her new album Black Renaissance Woman, coming out in March 2022.
In his newest recording for Deutsche Grammophon (released September, 2021), Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson explores Mozart’s music in the context of composers who came before him and who helped Mozart shape his distinctive and immediately recognizable style. Ólafsson speaks with program director John Pitman about how he made connections between Mozart and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, as well as important composers of Mozart’s time who aren’t so well known today, such as Baldassare Galuppi, whom Ólafsson regards as a very important and forward-thinking composer of the 18th century.
Hear his conversation with All Classical Portland’s Program Director John Pitman below.
All Classical Portland is celebrating Black History Month throughout February by featuring music by Black composers and performing artists. We are proud to share a broad and diverse library of the music we love all year round, and this month we are shining a special spotlight on the extraordinary contributions to classical music made by Black artists.
