The University of Notre Dame Concert Band

The University of Notre Dame Concert Band
Kenneth Dye, conductor
Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium, New York, NY
May 11, 2010

To the great pleasure of the joyous audience attending this Carnegie Hall concert, the ninety-three members of The University of Notre Dame Concert Band made a mighty sound. And the word concert alone does not fully describe this event, as it assumed, at different times, aspects of a concert, a college reunion, a pep rally. Let it be said at the outset that The University of Notre Dame Concert Band is a virtuoso ensemble. The technical skill and ensemble cohesiveness of these young players is mind boggling. The thirteen flutes in unison play as one, as do the fourteen clarinets. The forty-one member brass choir sounds great at all dynamic levels, when playing both solemn chorale-like passages and wild jazzy riffs. It was an evening of sonic splendor.

We began with the world premier of Joseph Turinn’s “Fanfare and Prelude.” Director of Bands Kenneth Dye conducted this and three other works on the concert. Five assistant conductors, Larry Dwyer, Sam Sanchez, Matt Merten, Emmett O’Leary and Alison Thigpen shared the remaining nine works. “Fanfare and Prelude,” the following work, Clifton Williams’ “Dramatic Essay,” and “Fandango,” another work by Mr. Turrin, all seemed to have similar sonic structures. All had a fast brassy beginning, a softer lyric middle section with prominent woodwinds, a loud and fast ending. Both of Mr. Turinn’s works also had an uplifting brass choral-like passage towards the end, one which would not have been out of place in a movie score. They also shared a similar harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary. The dissonances were fairly painless, the lyric melodies pop-tune-like, the beginnings and endings jazzy.

“Dramatic Essay” featured fine playing by guest artist, trumpeter Philip Smith. But with all the excellent trumpeters in the band, I’m not sure why they had to go out and get a star. (Mr. Smith is principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic.) In “Fandango,” Mr. Smith was joined by the Notre Dame Concert Band’s principal trombone, Anthony Parish. Mr. Parish more than held his own. In fact, his was the most impressive solo playing of the evening – warm, expressive, beautifully phrased. I loved his judicious use of vibrato.

On the first half we heard both arrangements and easy listening works written in the twenty and twenty-first centuries. There was a sameness about much of this music. For me, the concert came to life three works into the second half, with the Notre Dame New Orleans Brass Band’s electrifying performance of conductor Matt Merton’s arrangements of What a Friend We Have in Jesus and I’ll Fly Away. The band entered from the rear of the hall and marched down the aisle. What visceral excitement, what authenticity! I did feel there was no reason for the members of the concert band to join in after the marchers reached the stage, for it only watered down the unique sound we had been hearing.

The concert band morphed into a very good and very large “big band” with stylistically impeccable performances of Larry Dwyer’s transcription of Harold Arlen’s “When the Sun Comes Out” and Kenneth Dyes tribute to Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert, “Benny Goodman in Concert.”

The entire audience then rose to their feet for the Notre Dame Alma Mater. And how else could this concert end, but with a rip-roaring rendition of the great “Notre Dame Victory March”? It was conducted by TV personality and Notre Dame Alumnus Regis Philbin.

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by Harry Saltzman  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Richard Strauss Duo Recital

Richard Strauss Duo Recital
Sharon Cheng, soprano and Michael Fennelly, piano
Jennifer Grimaldi, soprano and Max Midoit, piano
Bechstein Piano Centre, New York City
May 4, 2010

What a pleasure it was to hear two fine sopranos, accompanied by two sensitive pianists, skillfully performing the glorious songs of Richard Strauss in a well-lit intimate setting. This year, I have attended many vocal recitals in dimly-lit major concert halls where established artists sang numerous sets of obscure and forgettable songs by great composers. But tonight, we heard fourteen Strauss songs, and there wasn’t a weak one amongst them. And our pleasure hearing these songs was enhanced by the fact that there was enough light to comfortably read the written program, with its fine notes and the original German poems written along side their English translations.

To get to the performing space of the Bechstein Centre, one enters through the piano showroom. Walking among these storied instruments is a wonderful way of transitioning between the hurly-burly of midtown Manhattan and the anticipated vocal recital to follow. A left turn takes one to the performance space. Against the right wall are many upright pianos, in the front a raised stage with a large Bechstein Grand. It was sad that there were so few people in the audience to hear this fine recital.

The recital began with a performance by soprano Sharon Cheng, who sang four of the five Brentano Lieder, Opus 68. Ms. Cheng, whose vivid red dress appropriately reflected the vocal fireworks she produced, possesses an exciting and securely produced voice which grows more and more thrilling as she moves into the stratospheric parts of a soprano’s range.The high point of the set was her performance of the last song, Amor. Ms. Cheng nailed this show stopper’s very, very high notes with ease.


Sharon Cheng, soprano
Jennifer Grimaldi, soprano
Michael Fennelly, pianist

We then heard Jennifer Grimaldi, whose more somber black dress reflected her beautifully phrased and emotionally intense performance of three of Strauss’s most famous songs, Allerseelen, Morgen, and Cäcilie. Many singers seem to be afraid of singing the “hit tunes,” perhaps feeling that they will have “nothing new to say.” But performances such as Ms. Grimaldi’s, deeply felt and expressed through beautiful sounds, thrill us even though we have heard these songs so many times before. Michael Fennelly and Max Midoit were the sensitive and supportive accompanists. That they were sometimes a bit too loud was a function of the very lively performance space and the powerful Bechstein Grand upon which they were playing.

After intermission, Ms. Cheng performed the Brentano Lied she omitted on the first half. She concluded her set with wonderful performances of Ständchen and Kling, showing that she too was not afraid to sing the “hit tunes.” Many young singers often don’t program the “hit tunes” because they are afraid that their performances will be compared to those of established stars living or dead. But both Cheng and Grimaldi were up to the task. I urge all singers to forget about how someone else has performed a song. The great ones stand up to repeated performances. It’s the mediocre ones that one should be wary of. The recital ended with a most moving performance of the Vier letzte Lieder, sung by Jennifer Grimaldi.

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by Harry Saltzman  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Distinguished Concerts International New York – Love, Lust, and Light: A Valentine’s Day Concert

Distinguished Concerts International New York – Love, Lust, and Light: A Valentine’s Day Concert
Love, Lust, and Light: A Valentine’s Day Concert
Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium, New York, NY
February 14, 2010

After hearing this concert, I am happy to report that high quality choral singing in the United States is flourishing. In my review of DCINY’s January 18th concert at Avery Fisher Hall, I lauded them for bringing fine amateur choruses to New York. The sentiments expressed in that review are equally applicable to this afternoon’s concert.

This Valentine’s Day concert began with Morten Lauridsen’s gentle “Lux Aeterna” (“Eternal Light”) – definitely a non-Valentine’s Day piece, but connected to “Love and Lust” by alliteration. Nancy Menk, a prominent Indiana choral conductor, led five choirs and the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra International, a group of fine New York free-lance musicians who perform at DCINY choral concerts. The singers were drawn from three high school choirs, leavened by more mature voices from two of Ms. Menk’s own performing organizations. What a glorious sound! But there were some problems with diction – vowels were fine, but most consonants were indistinct. And many choral entrances were tentative. As to Ms. Menk’s conducting technique: it was hard to discern a clear pattern to the beat, and there was little connection between what was going on in the music and the beat’s size and intensity. Most gestures were just too large. Good amateur choral singers don’t need the music to be constantly “drawn out from them.”

After intermission, the “Love and Lust” theme was expressed in a work beloved of many choruses and audiences, Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” We heard six choirs, a much larger orchestra and three soloists, all under the masterful direction of Vance George (DCINY Conductor Laureate). We also saw a quite different conducting technique – clear, economic, elegant. While setting fine tempi and skillfully shaping the overall performance, he just let the performers make the music they had so carefully rehearsed. No need to “draw it out from them.”

Dillon McCartney sang the stratospheric tenor part of the “Roasted Swan” with ease. Soprano Penelope Shumate, in a sexy red gown which conjured up the word “lust”, possessed a beautiful, flexible, dramatic voice. My favorite soloist was baritone Stephen Swanson, whose expressive sound was especially thrilling in the upper registers.

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by Harry Saltzman  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Musica de Camara String Ensemble

Musica de Camara String Ensemble
Christian Colberg, conductor
The Cathedral of St. Patrick’s
February 11, 2010

The soloists who participated in this concert “Celebrating 30 Years of Excellence in Classical Music” were fine ambassadors of Musica de Camara’s mission to present “Puerto Rican and Hispanic classical musicians in concert.” And the Musica de Camara String Ensemble, made up of Hispanic and non-Hispanic players, presented a beautiful picture of the diversity of this great city of ours.

After a special introductory proclamation from the City Council of New York, presented by its Speaker of the House, Christine Quinn, we heard a reduced group of the ensemble perform J.S. Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043. My worries about how this piece would fare in the over-reverberant acoustics of the cathedral were unfounded. The polyphonic textures were clear, and the expert soloists, Jose Miguel Cueto and Evelyn Estava, were well balanced. They handled the work’s technical demands with ease and performed the slow movement with lilting grace. I did miss the use of a harpsichord continuo to fill in the chords during the solo passages accompanied by just cello and bass. And we needed more celli and basses during the tutti sections.

The rest of the players then joined their colleagues for a luscious performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis”. Here, the ensemble’s beautiful, rich sound was further enhanced by the cathedral’s live acoustics. This is a perfect piece for this space, but a very important spatial aspect of the work was disregarded. It is scored for a string quartet and two different sized string orchestras. If, as in tonight’s performance, these orchestras aren’t physically separated from each other, the composer’s antiphonal effects are weakened or lost. Although we heard a fine performance, skillfully paced and shaped by conductor Christian Colberg, it was one which didn’t express a crucial part of the composer’s intent.

A performance of Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings in E major, Opus 22 exhibited the same fine intonation and tight ensemble we heard all evening. But here the echoey acoustics got in the way and created muddy textures. The concert ended with a spirited performance of Jose Ignacio Quinton’s Puerto Rican dance, “El Coqui.”

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by Harry Saltzman  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Proteus Ensemble and Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano

Proteus Ensemble and Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano
Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY
October 25, 2009

This was my first visit to Le Poisson Rouge, a multimedia art cabaret which has become the hip and trendy place to hear classical music in New York. The audience sat at tables and could eat and drink before, during and after the performance. Fortunately one heard very little table noise, and the wait-staff was quite discrete. I might add that the mac and cheese was delicious.

Soon after the piped-in-classical-background-music stopped, the five members of the Proteus Ensemble entered and flutist Jennifer Grim played “Syrinx,” Debussy’s work for solo flute. This segued into a performance of pianist James Johnston’s fine arrangement of Debussy’s “Prélude à l’apres-midi d’un faune.” Both pieces were beautifully done, and while pride of place goes to the flutist in both of these works, I was very impressed by the perfect intonation and beautiful balance one heard in the octave doublings played by Ms. Grim, clarinetist Gilad Harel, violinist Yuko Naito, and cellist Alberto Parrini. But, as we were not given programs, no one in the audience was informed as to what was being played or by whom.

Next, appearing hip and trendy in high boots and a mini-dress, mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn performed Poulenc’s song cycle “La courte paille.” These seven songs, settings of nonsense verses for children, were initially written for the soprano Denise Duval to sing to her son. For me, a little French whimsy goes a long way. But the audience delighted in Ms. Chinn expertly poised performance, for which James Johnston provided the sensitive accompaniment. Computer keystrokes by Ms. Chinn activated text translations which were projected on a screen behind the players.

Alban Berg’s “Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano” followed. Here one experienced some of this evening most memorable playing. The almost inaudible pianissimo phrases spun out by Mr. Harel were ravishingly beautiful, perfectly shaped and controlled.

Then came the evening’s major work, Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire.” The Proteus Ensemble’s makeup exactly matches the instrumentation of this 1912 expressionistic work. They performed the complex score masterfully, playing with such ease and assurance that it belied the fact that this was atonal Schoenberg, not Mozart. The same could be said for Ms. Chinn’s performance of the Sprechstimme (speech-voice) narration. There are many ways to perform “Pierrot’s” Sprechstimme, some more sung, some more spoken. Ms. Chinn “more sung” rendition was quite convincing.

Immediately after the performers left the stage, the piped-in-classical-background-music began again.

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by Harry Saltzman  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Mareda Gaither-Graves, soprano / Warren George Wilson, piano

Mareda Gaither-Graves, soprano / Warren George Wilson, piano
Merkin Concert Hall, New York, NY
October 24, 2009
 

An adoring audience braved a very heavy rain to attend this concert by soprano Mareda Gaither-Graves. They were amply rewarded. The recital began with a thrilling performance of Beethoven’s concert aria “Ah! perfido.” This is a very demanding work, one in which the soloist is asked to exhibit many aspects of the singers art. And Ms. Gaither-Graves was more than up to the task. She is secure in all part of her range and her voice is well supported at all dynamic levels, from floating pianissimos to spine-tingling fortissimos.

The Beethoven was followed by three songs, one each by William Grant Still, Howard Swanson and Margaret Bonds. Ms. Gaither-Graves performed these works with deep feeling and perfect diction. The set was entitled “People of Color Speak,” and, in the written program, the audience was told that the songs were “to be sung without pause.” And no applause interrupted the set. But since “to be sung without pause” never appeared again, an unintended consequence was that the audience felt free to applaud after every subsequent song. This applause, although deserved and heartfelt, interrupted the flow of the concert.

The rest of the first half was devoted to German Lieder, three by Joseph Marx and three by Richard Strauss.  Again we heard beautiful sounds, clear diction and total commitment to expressing the meaning of the poetry. Memorable moments during the Marx set were the ringing high notes during “Hat dich die Liebe berührt,” and the beautiful soft singing in “Selige Nacht.” Warren George Wilson was a fine accompanist, but he sometimes played a bit too loudly. His page turner, Mrs. Marjorie Landsmark-DeLewis, was graciously acknowledged on the program – a first in my many years of concert-going.

The works on the second half, although sung as well as what was performed before intermission, were just not as interesting musically. And all of the four songs by Ernest Chausson were alike in mood and tempo. Yet Ms. Gaither-Graves’ beautiful phrasing at the end of the second song, “Le Colibri” (The Humming-Bird), was for me one of the evening’s high points. The slow tempi continued during the first three of the four songs by the Russian composer Yuri Falik (b.1936.) But then a fast song, “A Ringing Day,” brought the concert to a rousing conclusion,

After prolonged standing ovations, Ms. Gaither-Graves presented two encores, Miguel Sandoval’s “Lament (Vocalise)” and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Life and Death.”

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by Harry Saltzman  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY