Insider Interview with composer Karen Tanaka

Orli Shaham is pianist, narrator, and instructor in a new video series. The Adventures of Anya is a musical fairy tale with music and original story written for Shaham by Karen Tanaka, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke. Originally published in the Japanese magazine Musica Nova, the series features 22 episodes with Shaham narrating the story, performing the music, and giving lessons on how to perform each of the corresponding compositions. (Full series available on Youtube)

In this interview with Tanaka, the composer talks about taking inspiration for her backyard, collaborating with Shaham and Beeke, and more.

What inspired you to write this story and its music? How did you come up with the idea for the story about Anya and her adventures?

The animals featured in this piano collection - the rabbit, small bird, and squirrel - visit the backyard of my home in Southern California, and they were the inspiration for this collection.  

In March 2021, the Tokyo-based music publisher Ongaku no Tomo commissioned me to compose a series of piano pieces for their magazine Musica Nova. With the series set to begin in June, I had to decide on the subject matter quickly. 

In my previous piano collection, I collaborated with the British picture book illustrator Tiphanie Beeke. When I received the new commission from Ongaku no Tomo, I emailed her again to request illustrations for this collection. After writing a rough story overnight, I sent it to her, and she agreed. Her picture books, filled with charming and adorable illustrations of animals, perfectly matched my ideas. Naturally, the main characters in "The Adventures of Anya" were animals, and I wanted to create an adventurous story infused with fantasy, love, and thrills. Each month, Tiphanie sent me a new illustration, which inspired and influenced my composing. Also, the story developed when I was working with her.

After completing the monthly series with Musica Nova, Schott Music in New York decided to publish "The Adventures of Anya" in two volumes with fully colored illustrations. Project Schott New York has published my recent chamber, orchestral, and choral works.

Tell me about your process collaborating with Orli? How did you adapt the music, knowing that you were writing specifically for her? How did she influence your composition and story?

In May 2021, the Juilliard Pre-College commissioned me a solo piano piece to be premiered by Orli Shaham. During our Zoom meeting that month, I mentioned that I was working on a new piano collection featuring animals and asked if she would be interested. Orli shared that she had a dog named Milo and sent me a picture. After our meeting, the idea of "Orli the Witch" came to mind. I shared a picture of Orli and Milo with Tiphanie Beeke, and she created an adorable illustration. 

Working with Orli Shaham was a delightful and joyful experience. She demonstrated deep insight and wonderfully expressed the composer's intentions through her piano performance. She is a natural storyteller, and her piano playing effortlessly evokes emotions beautifully, which I believe is a rare talent among pianists. Her narration was also incredible.  

 What age level is the music for players? For listeners?

I hope people of all ages will enjoy playing and listening to The Adventures of Anya.

Chou Wen-chung at 100 - concert review

On March 21, 2024 professor Frank J. Oteri brought students from his class “Analyzing and Placing Music in Historical Context” at The New School College of Performing Arts to the Chou Wen-chung Centennial Concert at Miller Theatre in NYC. The students reviewed the concert for an assignment, this is one of those reviews.

Chou Wen-chung Centennial Concert Review

By Jaden Lewis-King
”Analyzing and Placing Music in Historical Context” Spring 2024
Professor Frank J. Oteri | The New School College of Performing Arts

The Chou Wen-Chung Centennial Concert “A Retrospective” on March 21, 2024 at Columbia University's Miller Theatre was a celebration of life, music and legacy. Chou’s music was performed by the Continuum group, Joel Sachs, conductor, which is an ensemble dedicated to the performance of works by live composers. Five different and distinct musical selections and a panel discussion held by his closest friends, historians and family members helped to put his life and legacy into perspective and humanize his music and point of view through firsthand accounts and stories. The panel was a lens which allowed the audience to see Chou’s impact on Chinese and Western music. 

The concert had five musical selections: In the Mode of Shang (1956), Yu Ko (1965), Twilight Colors (2007), The Willows are New (1957), and Ode to Eternal Pine (2009), followed by a repeat performance of In the Mode of Shang to close the concert. These selections highlighted pillar points in Chou Wen-Chung’s music and acted as a timeline for his life and compositional career.

Joel Sachs, an intimate friend and collaborator of Wen-Chung was perfect at leading from a place of tenderness and care and it showed in the response from the musicians right from the opening of In the Mode of Shang. Rightfully so, as In the Mode of Shang and The Willows are New were the foundations of the night. Luyen Chou, one of the composer’s two sons, described them as love songs.  The story however is overshadowed by grief, given that Chou dedicated In the Mode of Shang to his first wife, Katherine “Poyu” Chou, who died within months of their wedding. The work remained unpublished until after Chou’s death and the world premiere of the piece as Chou originally envisioned was given by the Xinghai Conservatory Orchestra conducted by Bing Chen in November 2023. The performance heard at the New York concert was only its second time being heard in its original orchestration (three times total, if you were to count the replay).

One of the main things touched upon on the panel was love being the impetus behind most of his works, and particularly In the Mode of Shang as the depiction of a man in love. For me this also showed the intricacies of Chou and his homogenization of traditional Chinese music and traditional Western contemporary music. What was so effective about most of his orchestration was the small size of the wind section (one player per instrument) which added a layer of transparency to the music. 

The Willows Are New, Chou’s sole piece for solo piano, had no dedication, but during the panel discussion, his son Luyen Chou mentioned it was inspired by his father’s chance meeting with pianist Chang Yi-An, whom Chou wen-Chung would ultimately marry. This composition is inspired by text about bonds and parting ways. It's safe to say that the emotions and symbolisms of this piece to his life and family history are prolific, and it has a nostalgic feel which Sachs enacted well with a lot of pace and emotion. There was a care to his notes and silence wasn't a fear but an ally in his performance. 

Highlights of the concert were some of Chou’s other works: Twilight Colors and Ode to Eternal Pine.  In Twilight Colors, Chou sought to capture the changing skies over the Hudson River, which has been a source of inspiration for many artists. Interestingly enough it brought him back to his past life as an architect where he was able to take artistic inspiration in a visual medium and turn it into the ambient, beautiful soundscape he created in this work. The piece was scored for double trio, and solos by the violin, English horn and cello were stand-outs. Ode to Eternal Pine was composed in the spirit and style of traditional Korean chong ak (upper class/higher class) music and is the only piece Chou composed with an Asian, but non-Chinese, inspiration. The ancient form of chamber music sought to express the range of human emotion inspired by natural phenomena which have inspired East Asian minds for centuries. The emphasis is on the fluidity of the concurrent flow of instrumental voices, characteristic of chong ak, rather than exploitation of novel instrumental colors. This piece was different than all the others in that the percussion (bells, cymbals, chimes, gong, drums) dominated. Although it wasn't my favorite piece its contrast was stark and needed.

The other piece on the program, Yü Ko, showed more of Chou’s interest in ancient Chinese traditions. Translated to “fisherman’s song”, it is a pure example of the tablature notation from the thirteenth century. The notation is similar to that used for lute and modern guitar music which indicates the actual placement of the fingers instead of showing the physical notes. Ending the night with a second performance of “In the Mode of Shang” felt redundant at first but as it went, the lyricism and beauty carried through and was a great way to end all that had been heard leaving nothing more to be desired.

Chou Wen-chung Centennial Concert Review

On March 21, 2024 professor Frank J. Oteri brought students from his class “Analyzing and Placing Music in Historical Context” at The New School College of Performing Arts to the Chou Wen-chung Centennial Concert at Miller Theatre in NYC. The students reviewed the concert for an assignment, this is one of those reviews.

Chou Wen-chung Centennial Concert Review

By Claire Coven
”Analyzing and Placing Music in Historical Context” Spring 2024
Professor Frank J. Oteri | The New School College of Performing Arts

The Miller Theatre at Columbia University was bustling with fans, friends, and family of Chou Wen-chung Thursday evening for his Centennial Concert. Performed by Continuum, led by Joel Sachs, the evening was exciting and enlightening for those who knew and were new to Chou Wen-chung and his music. 

The retrospective opened, and later closed, with the American premiere of In the Mode of Shang, composed in 1956. Continuum filled the stage as a complete ensemble and enraptured the audience throughout the seven-minute piece. One need not read the program notes–although they are illuminating–to appreciate how Chou developed the theme: he seamlessly alternated the melodic line between the entire ensemble and solos, duos, and trios from each section, building and changing the line with each pass. This became a defining characteristic of the work we heard Thursday evening: an avid calligrapher, Chou simultaneously drew melodies from and inspired by ancient Chinese techniques with those of the Western twentieth century, melding them just enough that something new is created while maintaining a distinct deference for each culture. 

Upon the first listen, In the Mode of Shang paints vivid scenes through the solo melody. The discernable sections of the piece were marked by the entire orchestra coming together before returning to solo or small ensembles continuously developing the theme. The final piccolo solo, singing like a bird with unrelenting melodious legato, left us just satisfied enough to end the piece, yet it felt as though the piece could have continued. Continuum’s vivid playing allowed us to experience Chou’s early musical landscape in those few minutes.

Next we heard Yü Ko. Composed in 1965, this piece was perhaps the most traditional in its use of ancient Chinese techniques we heard that evening. Performed by a smaller ensemble led by winds and brass, with piano, violin, and percussion, it was interesting to hear how Chou was able to achieve such authentic ancient Chinese idioms and colors from Western instruments alone. To produce this, he had both the violinist and pianist pluck strings, and had a mute on the trombone to manipulate the sound. Again, the theme was played by few and then all.

The first half of the concert closed with Twilight Colors. Composed in 2007 and scored for a double trio–one with flute, oboe, and clarinet and the other with violin, viola, and cello–this piece consisted of vignettes in four movements and a coda. “A Thread of Light” began the series with a deep cello drone solo that continued to penetrate when the other instruments joined in. “Colors of Dawn” followed without pause, employing both trios in chaotic bowing until they calmly unwound. Next, in “In the Mist,” Chou programmatically writes a thick layer of mist by having the strings repeat narrow, chromatic intervals that the flute and clarinet permeate. In “Mountain Peaks Rising,” the ensemble created a topography with ascending and descending intervals. After playing a chord together, each musician continued to play their own unique theme, creating at once unexpected harmony and juxtaposition. The penultimate movement concluded with a hauntingly beautiful woodwind trio, as if birds were flying out of and around the mountain peaks. “Coda” flourished in a full ensemble sound reminiscent of late-Romantic quartets. 

After intermission there was a panel discussion moderated by Kathryn Knight, music publisher and President of Edition Peters USA from 2019 to 2023, and included Chou’s sons Luyen and Sumin, and former students Lei Liang and Shyhji Pan. They spoke not only of the important mentor that Chou Wen-chung was, but also shared stories of his life that gave new meaning and insight to the pieces performed and his compositional process. Lei Liang said that Chou asked every student “When is a line not a line?” One can hear in his music that he taught by example, constantly asking himself the same question. Shyhji Pan synthesized Chou’s mission and technical philosophy stating that the “Confluence of East and West is what he dedicated his life to,” and that, “...technique lies in delicacy of details, that was consistent throughout his life.”  His sons provided insight about the posthumously-published In the Mode of Shang: Chou wrote the piece in 1956 for his first wife who died a few months after the first partial performance in 1957. Bereaved, this is perhaps why Chou never published this early work, and why works composed after this tragedy reflected his “profound grief.” Chou later married concert pianist Chang Yi-an in 1962. Luyen described that “big leaps of faith defined” both his parents’ lives, and that music saved his father’s life. 

Next we heard Joel Sachs perform The Willows Are New. Composed in 1957, this is Chou’s only composition for solo piano. At once dark with sprinkles of light, Sachs brought the single line to life through subtle and drastic dynamic shifts. After that we heard Ode to Eternal Pine, composed in 2009. Originally composed for an ensemble of traditional Korean instruments, we heard this piece performed on Western instruments. Notably, the piano was played in traditional Western style.  Despite the Western instrumentation, we could hear the inspiration of traditional Korean music in each movement. The ensemble was tight and attuned to each other, maintaining continuity through tough transitions.

Ending the program the way it began, the whole Continuum ensemble came out to play In the Mode of Shang once again. With the information from the panel discussion and from listening to pieces ranging throughout Chou's career, the piece had a new levity to it. This was especially so after Sumin Chou described how his father wrote this piece when he was young and full of hope, and before experiencing the profound grief of the death of his first wife. The ensemble played with a robust and infectious sense of excitement. It was a wonderful way to end a meaningful evening of inspiring music. 

Born in Yantai, China in 1923, Chou immigrated to the United States in 1946 leaving war-torn China to study architecture at Yale. However, it was on the ship that he realized he must pursue his passion for music, and upon arrival, gave up his fellowship at Yale. He subsequently began his music studies with Nicolas Slonimsky and Edgard Varèse in Boston, the latter of whom Chou became closest mentee and lifelong champion. Chou later studied at Columbia University where he became instrumental in the establishment of the Electronic Music Center (later revitalized into the Computer Music Center), the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music at Columbia, and the US-China Arts Exchange. Not only is Chou the first world-renowned Chinese-born composer, but he is also responsible for the success of the following generations of Chinese composers who he mentored through his US-China Arts Exchange. In his music you can hear the sounds of his childhood in China, adulthood studying with Varèse and other luminaries, and–above all–his dedication to fusing cultures of the East and West in harmony.

Insider Interview with classical accordionist Hanzhi Wang

On April 19, Baruch Performing Arts Center presents classical accordionist Hanzhi Wang in recital. Acclaimed for her “staggering virtuosity,” Ms. Wang is the only accordionist to ever win the Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions. Her wide-ranging recital features works by Piazzolla, Bach, Boulanger, Gubaidulina and others. We spoke with her about being a pioneer for her instrument, the differences between classical accordion and similar instruments, and the upcoming program at Baruch PAC. 

What first attracted you to the accordion? 

When I was around five years old, I had a chance encounter with an accordion while watching a classical Italian movie called "Cinema Paradiso" with my parents. The soundtrack immediately caught my attention and I noticed a unique sound that I had never heard before from any other classical musical instrument. I became intrigued and since then, I wanted to learn how to play the accordion.

How did you come to the unusual focus of classical music on your instrument?  Do you think of yourself as a classical musician who plays accordion, or as an accordionist who plays classical music? 

I consider myself a classical musician who plays the accordion. Unfortunately, the classical accordion is not yet commonly recognized in the US. I have noticed that the accordion is generally associated with folk music. However, the classical accordion has the potential to perform many types of music. The main difference between the classical accordion and the regular accordion is the left-hand part. While the regular accordion produces an "Oom-pa-pa" sound, the classical accordion has single tones in the left hand which allows us to perform polyphonic music such as Bach or any great classical composers.

What are the challenges of playing classical music on the accordion? How is your performance approach different from popular or folk music?

Playing the classical accordion can be quite challenging. The right-hand side has 107 buttons while the left-hand side has 120 buttons, none of which are visible while playing. Additionally, the player's left wrist and arm must control the compression and bellows turning. Therefore, there are technically three things going on simultaneously while performing.

Tell us about your instrument. Where's it from? What makes it unique? How long have you had it? 

For almost two decades, my accordion has been with me, its origins tracing back to the picturesque town of Castelfidardo in Italy - the "accordion city" situated along the stunning coast of Ancona. With every passing year, the sound of my instrument only gets better and better.

Pianist Inna Faliks: Insider Interview

The pianist Inna Faliks is gearing up for an action-packed year. Her forthcoming album Manuscripts Don’t Burn (Sono Luminus; rel. May 17, 2024) features world premiere recordings written for her by Clarice Assad, Mike Garson, Ljova Zhurbin, Maya Miro Johnson, and Veronika Krausas. Her memoir Weight in the Fingertips was released October 2023, and has been widely critically acclaimed, and this spring she performs the premiere of a piano concerto by Clarice Assad. We recently spoke to her about the forthcoming album, its connection to a cult Ukrainian novel, and more.

The centerpiece of the concept of your new album, Manuscripts Don’t Burn is the cult novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, which the album’s title work by Maya Miro Johnson is based on. What is the significance of the book to you? 

This book is about so many things, and has so many layers. It is, fundamentally, about the power of art to survive, transcend evil regimes, in this case Stalin's totalitarian murderous Soviet Union. It is about censorship, it is also a great love story, a retelling of Faust and the story of Christ, all in one book. It is a book that many Russian speakers are obsessed with.

I first read it at age 10 and brought it with me through immigration. It had been banned in the USSR, and my grandfather had typed it out on his typewriter, a "Samizdat" thing. I had memorized the book, because I read it so many times. It is also a burlesque, magnificently funny and whimsical. It, in some ways, continues Nikolai Gogol's literary tradition, as far as its fantasy elements go. Bulgakov was born in Ukraine, as, of course, was Gogol. 

When at 15, I had won the Illinois Young Performers Competition and played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, they made a short biographical clip about me , and in this clip,  I am reading the book out loud - and also playing Tchaikovsky Concerto # 1, 3rd movement, with Chicago Symphony.  

When my best friend from childhood, Misha, read the book as an adult, he remembered me. That made him want to find me. And now we are married and live in LA with our two kids. When my Mom had a stroke and I flew, during Covid, to help her regain language and movement skills (this was before we found out that she had brain cancer), I read the book to her out loud and she read it back to me.  

A film version of The Master and Margarita will be released in the US year. What do you make of that timing? 

It is completely coincidental but delightful. I had the luck to be at a screening and love what the director Michael Lockshin had done with the film - I think it is the first truly successful screen adaptation of the very complicated material. And, of course, politically it makes a stand. As the book did. 

How does the work by Johnson tie into the overall program of the new album?

It complements the other Master and Margarita piece on the disc - the Suite by Veronika Krausas. Maya's piece is wild, it imagines Margarita, the muse of the Master, in the moment that she has become a witch and is about to meet Woland the devil. The piece uses a lot of extended techniques and has me whisper a phrase from the novel, in Russian. In contrast, Veronika's Suite plays on the Baroque dance suite. It is very elegant, understated, extremely beautiful and evocative, powerful in its contained grace.

You recently premiered a piano concerto by Clarice Assad, called “Lilith” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Lilith is a primordial she-demon, and “The Master and Margarita” is essentially a retelling of Faust. Am I seeing a throughline? (Devil in literature, perhaps? Or, Famous Devils I have known?)

What can I say. Devils are fun! It somehow is a coincidence too, Lilith and Master and Margarita. In the novel, Satan actually saves the main character, the master. And, as Goethe says, "I am that power that always wishes for evil but ends up doing good." Bulgakov really plays on this phrase.

Praise for Orli Shaham's Complete Mozart Piano Sonatas

The internationally renowned concert pianist Orli Shaham released the final two volumes of her multi-year endeavor of recording all of Mozart’s piano sonatas in February 2024. Volumes 5 & 6 of "Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas" (Canary Classics CC24) is available on CD and on digital streaming and download platforms. The complete box set with all six volumes will be released in spring 2024. 

The set has been incredibly well received across North America, Europe and the United Kingdom. Here’s what the critics are saying:  

“A top-tier and consistently satisfying Mozart cycle.” – International Piano  

“a significant recording achievement for Mozarteans ... brilliantly handled ... it is time to mark this as one of the significant releases in the Mozart discography and now one can even listen through all the sonatas in chronological order, though the pairings throughout the series have been intelligently determined and help each sonata stand on its own well. Highly Recommended!" – Cinemusical 

"Shaham’s artistry... easily holds its own alongside some of my favourite modern-day Mozart sonata cycles" - Gramophone 

“Shaham avoids the common pitfall of painting Mozart's portrait as a dainty child prodigy, and instead brings out his free and youthful spirit, an essential feature of his melodic lines. ... Under her hands, this is not simply the music of cute little powdered-wig Wolfgang, but the music of a master of the keyboard who knew exactly how to make the piano sing and dance.” – Classical Music Sentinel 

"a remarkable set" - Classical Candor 

Visit OrliShaham-Mozart.com for streaming audio, liner notes, purchase links and critical acclaim.  

Orli Shaham interview on WWFM's "A Tempo"

Pianist Orli Shaham released the final volumes of her 6-disc recording cycle of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas in February 2024. In a recent interview with WWFM’s Rachel Katz, Shaham speaks about the recording project, Mozart’s longevity, championing women composers, and commissioning new works. Below are some excerpts from the interview.  

To listen to the full 30-minute interview “Finding Tradition and Cutting Edge in Mozart,” stream the program at WWFM.org.  

On Mozart:  

I spent a lot of time in my formative years studying historical musicology, especially with the wonderful Mozart scholar Elaine Sisman at Columbia University. It's something that one talks about with music of the Enlightenment and the logical distinctions between ideas that was so important at the time. Mozart’s sonatas were used as teaching tools to show not only how to play a sonata, but also how to decorate and embellish a sonata, as any good pianist was expected to be able to do on the spot.  

They really span his adult life, the piano sonatas. It's a wonderful way to look at Mozart’s entire development as a mature composer. He also had the incredible experience of living in a time that was the most exciting moment for keyboard instruments. The instruments couldn't possibly have been changing more. The invention of a pedal that you don't have to whack with your knees completely changed how he could sit at the keyboard, the kinds of sounds he could make, and the imagination that he could pour into it. He was clearly so inspired by these changes.  

On commissioning new works:  

I'm always thinking about the next project I'm doing with a living composer, and the next project I'm doing with a no longer living composer. This season I'm playing a new piano concerto which my husband, conductor David Robertson, wrote for me. I've also been working a lot with the composer Karen Tanaka. We premiered a piece of hers at Juilliard Pre-College last year, and I'm premiering another work of hers in April 2024.  

I really think the composers should be as free as possible to be creative and come up with whatever makes their heart excited. It's very important for a composer to write what they love, and so you get to know their writing. Once that happens, you have some idea that you can trust them, but you never know what's going to come out. 

On Clara Schumann and other overlooked composers:  

In the last couple of years, I've become obsessed with Clara Schumann, a woman not only worthy of our admiration, but also worthy of great study. She is a special, influential person in the whole of music history. She shaped at least two generations of pianists, and had a teaching legacy that lasted into a very, very long old age. As many as a third of Europe's pianists came to study with her. It's an enormous legacy for piano and pianism and how to interpret music at the instrument.  

In conjunction with these Clara Schumann-based programs, over the pandemic I discovered Amanda Röntgen-Maier. She composed a number of incredible chamber works, including a violin sonata, which I just think is the cat's pajamas. I'm thrilled that every violinist I have played it with says, “Where has this piece been all my life?” They're all putting it into their repertoire permanently. How wonderful for us that we live in a time when we can discover these overlooked composers. 

Listen to the full interview at wwfm.org 

Chromic Duo Insider Interview

On March 5, Baruch Performing Arts Center presents Chromic Duo. Blending classical music, keyboards (including toy piano) and electronics into compelling genre-fluid performances and installation the duo - Lucy Yao and Dorothy Chan - will perform music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Andy Akiho, Maurice Ravel and more. We spoke to them about their upcoming program, pushing genre, experimenting with multimedia, and more!

Classical Music Communications: How did you meet, and what prompted you to join together as a duo? 

Lucy Yao: We met in a hallway! I saw Dorothy carrying this huge case of what looked like a piano, except it was shrunken down. And from that day on, we started to ask ourselves, “why not?” and started to experiment with whatever instruments could make sound. From toy pianos, to electronics, to other art forms that weren’t as familiar to us, but could help us express ourselves, and collaborate to explore new ideas, like dance, film, and technology.

Dorothy Chan: Curiosity and our openness to experimentation really brought us together. In our journey we’ve found that the core of what makes us want to create and connect to the people and community is to look further inside. To find the little moments, the joys, the reckonings, and really capture and remember the importance of them. 

CMC: Why toy piano? What intrigues you about it? How do you manage the contrast in timbre and volume in a duet with toy piano and grand piano? 

DC: Did you know that toy pianos could be made out of a variety of materials, resulting in very different sounds and timbre? Metal rods, hollow rods, glass bars even (in the very early days), plastic hammers vs. wood hammers…It’s fascinating! The toy piano first captured my attention when I realized how this “toy” is considered an instrument and that there are numerous pieces written just for it. I was playing a lot of contemporary classical at the time, and discovering the toy piano was such a joyful moment — to see ‘serious’ music made on this ‘non-serious’ instrument, and how it breaks through traditional expectations and creates an accessibility through curiosity. 

LY: That is what’s really exciting for me! The fact that you can reimagine the things that you would find in your everyday life, into new possibilities. With that, what else can be reimagined into new possibilities? What other things might we have overlooked in our everyday lives? How can we see things in a new light? 

It’s these kinds of questions that guide us in our work -  it could be anything from a performance, to an installation, to community engagement, where we find real joy and meaning in collaborating and listening to the stories of the communities we work with, and reimagine empathy and curiosity together. 

CMC: Electronics are a mainstay of your programs. How do you create these sounds, and how are they incorporated with the sound of the pianos? How much improvisation is involved?  

Chromic Duo: We started experimenting much more with electronics when the pandemic hit. We realized the limitations posed by the pandemic could actually be a place of opportunity for us to expand. We found that with electronics, as well as technology, we could tap into a different way of telling stories. Just like our soundwalk “Listen to Chinatown”– we interviewed mural artists, small business owners and community members in Chinatown, and integrated their stories to the work using spoken words and poetry, bringing users to behind-the-scenes stories, inspirations, and even food recommendations. This work also exists as a concert piece “Homecoming”, where we program for concert hall goers, revealing hidden stories that deserve to be heard on platforms that traditionally do not include them.  Storytelling never fails to be the heart of our work, and through that, we can reshape and rethink conversations to make them as accessible as possible to reach a wider spectrum of audiences.

CMC: The program also includes one of your own compositions. Tell us about this work, and about your composition process as a duo.

Chromic Duo: “From Roots We Carry” explores the complex intergenerational legacies that live inside of us. We interviewed community members and asked them - What do you carry? What have we inherited through familial bonds from the past generation? What are the legacies that we want to keep, and what are some that we want to shed? 

We collaborated with artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya to create a monument and performance ritual, which invites audiences to reflect on their own bonds with their past – both the gifts given to us by our ancestors and the heights and weight of those expectations we feel obligated to reach - and to choose what we want to keep carrying, and what to leave behind. Trailer linked here.

CMC: This concert is part of a larger series that Baruch College has started since just last October. You are also Artists-in-Residence at the Silberman Residency where you will talk to students majoring in a huge variety of fields, who are curious about your process. Can you tell us about how you are approaching engaging with the students? And how does your creative process link to that? 

Chromic Duo: When we first started working together in 2019, we struggled for so long to “define ourselves”, as musicians and artists. Music school, especially, has taught us to internalize a rigid way of thinking– you’re either this or that, successful or not, musician or composer– when it’s really not only about those labels. 

We’ve since broken out of those labels, these boxes, and in our work, you can see that it expands from events like a concert, that is accessible and meets audiences where they are at, to interactive installations focused on student health and wellness (recently at Purdue University), to Augmented Reality soundwalks– the medium and genre are always changing and flexible. But one thing we do want to make clear, in both our creative process, and in our engagement with the students at Baruch, is that you can rely on collaboration – you don’t have to be everything. You also don’t have to be just one thing. We believe that it’s super important to acknowledge that your voice is something that can be heard and celebrated. 

The timely significance of Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2

On Wednesday, December 13, 2023, the pianist Orli Shaham joins members of the Vancouver Symphony (USA) for a concert of chamber music at the First Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, WA. Ms. Shaham, the Artist-in-Residence at the VSO has programmed works by Mozart and Poulenc alongside the Piano Trio No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Orli Shaham tells us how this program is especially relevant as awareness of anti-Semitism around the globe is acutely heightened. She writes:

In Shostakovich’s memoir, Testimony, the composer condemned anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and said this about Jewish music:

I think, if we speak of musical impressions, that Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it; it’s multifaceted; it can appear to be happy, while it is tragic. It’s almost always laughter through tears. This quality of Jewish music is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair. They expressed despair in dance music. All folk music is lovely, but I can say that Jewish folk music is unique.

Ian MacDonald, in his biography The New Shostakovich, wrote: “Horrified by stories that SS guards had made their victims dance beside their own graves, Shostakovich created a directly programmatic image of it in the Trio's final movement.”

“I can't think of a more appropriate work for the current moment,” says Orli Shaham. “Please join us for a performance of Shostakovich's Second Trio, Poulenc's remarkable Sextet and Mozart's breathtaking and tragic Sonata in E minor for violin and piano this Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, WA with the wonderful members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.” Details and tickets

Cassatt String Quartet interview with violinist Dominique Valenzuela

Since 2005, the world-renowned Cassatt String Quartet has come to West Texas for a bi-annual residency. Cassatt in the Basin has enriched the lives of adults and students in the community through concerts, workshops and other music events across the region. On October 29 at 3 pm, the quartet performs at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center in Midland, Texas. Admission is free, details are here.

One of the alumni of Cassatt in the Basin programs, the violinist Dominique Valenzuela, recently conducted an interview with CSQ’s cellist Gwen Krosnick. The interview was for a community engagement class that is part of Valenzuela’s Master’s degree program at Juilliard. He gave the quartet permission to share the interview with the public.

Dominique Valenzuela wrote in an email to Gwen Krosnick, “As I was giving my presentation it made me realize the impact that the Cassatt has had on my life. To give a presentation on your quartet at the Juilliard School… I could have never imagined that it would be possible, and I am grateful beyond doubt. I am so grateful to have such wonderful role models in my life.”

Here is the interview, edited for context and clarity.

Dominique Valenzuela: What is the Cassatt String Quartet’s philosophy in presenting chamber music to the community?

Gwen Krosnick: Sharing what we do with different communities - from elementary schools to assisted-living communities and beyond - is centrally meaningful to the Cassatt Quartet! We treat these concerts with the respect and love that we bring to every concert we play. At each one we curate a program of music that we hope will allow these audiences to connect to this music we love.

DV: How does the Cassatt String Quartet see chamber music as a vehicle for social change?

GK: Chamber music is very literally an art form that hinges on our ability to connect with other people who have different backgrounds and different perspectives than our own - often wildly so! Our rehearsals and our concerts, and the way we interact with each other and the communities we play for, are a microcosm of listening to the ideas of others with generosity, thoughtfulness, and joy. For communities to engage with chamber music - which includes a great range of music across hundreds of years through today, gives us access to catharsis, meaning, and inspiration. This can only deepen the connections and strength of those community ties.

DV: What kinds of concerts does the CSQ present in the community?

GK: The Cassatt String Quartet has been on the roster of the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA) for years. That funding and other major grants from sources throughout the states of New York, Maine and Texas (for which my colleagues brilliantly write applications!) allow us to focus our community partnerships in these areas.

These three states have special personal and professional meaning to us: New York is where the CSQ is based (the quartet itself, and all our members live in the greater NYC area). Maine is the site of the Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, at which the CSQ has been in residence every summer for 20 years. Texas is where Jennifer Leshnower, our second violinist, is from and where her non-profit organization, Cassatt in the Basin, brings us twice a year to work with string students in the Permian Basin.

In each of these areas - and very often at other series and residencies (such as through the Treetops Chamber Music Series in Stamford, CT, for instance) - we play concerts at assisted-living communities, schools, children's museums, community centers, and other venues that aren’t conventional spaces for live music-making.

DV: How do the Cassatts hope to impact communities in the future by building on your already-sturdy foundation?

GK: One thing I love about the CSQ is that we have built long-term relationships with the audiences and communities. I love playing for new audiences, too, in new places - we all do!

There is a real depth to the relationships built over time. This has been such an inspiration for me, both in West Texas with the string students and public school music teachers, and at retirement communities where the quartet plays every single summer in Maine. Returning again and again to places where the quartet has played for years has a deep resonance and opens a capacity for community-building that is even more meaningful.

DV: What is the Cassatt’s mission and hope for the world, especially given that the quartet is historically all-female?

GK: I'm not certain I can speak for the whole Cassatt String Quartet on a worldwide mission, given that I have been in the quartet for two years out of its forty! But I will say that my colleagues and I share a belief that art and music matter: that the arts provide something that the world and humanity need. The way music sparks conversation and gives us access to emotional places where we might not otherwise go is centrally and vitally important.

The fact that the Quartet, named for the 19th century American painter Mary Cassatt, has been comprised totally of women instrumentalists since 1985 is important to our story. We feel both a responsibility and a real pride in sharing music composed by a diverse range of American women. I hope that audiences will hear music by Dorothy Rudd Moore, Florence Price, Fanny Mendelssohn, Victoria Bond, Joan Tower, and Tania León (just a few of the women whose works we are performing this season!) and really understand that this art form of classical music, which has traditionally been so exclusionary and indeed prided itself on inaccessibility, in fact has the capacity to be wildly, celebratorily, and endlessly diverse. It is a living, breathing, ever-changing thing, chamber music!

The great music within the field of chamber music is made more profound by a wider and more diverse, passionate community of musicians, audiences, composers, and music lovers taking part in shaping its future.

DV: How do you curate a program for different audiences?

GK: For all our concerts, from our most convention and formal performances to outdoor parks and senior centers, we give our most passionate, personal playing. We offer repertoire that we cherish, including music that the audience may not have heard before, and we talk directly to audiences at each concert from the stage about what we love in the music we are about to share with them.

Sometimes presenters will ask for a specific piece, or for us to play with a specific collaborator, and of course that comes into our conversations about programming! But mainly we think about how different pieces of music will tell a story to an audience - an open-ended story so that each person can experience it in a different and personal way.

There are practical considerations, like how long is the concert at next week's assisted living community. How young are the kids at next month's childrens' concert - and therefore what are their attention spans? What works will be “in our fingers” for a given date, so that we can really play our best?. Once those factors are accounted for, we simply put together a program that we love, so that an audience member can feel the joy and love for this pouring off us and feel a connection to the music we share with them. I feel VERY strongly that this basic goal is not different for an elementary school audience or at the fanciest concert hall we play!

DV: How does engagement with audiences of various backgrounds further impact your greater mission as leader in the arts?

GK: In much the same way that we love playing chamber music BECAUSE of the access it gives us to different perspectives and different emotional places, it means a lot to us to play for audiences that show us – through their unique backgrounds and vantage points - new reactions, new insights, and new love for what we do and the music we play. For the Cassatt Quartet, getting to play for and connect with so many diverse kinds of audiences, each with its own energy, response, and chorus of reactions, makes us ever more motivated and committed to reflecting - in our programming, and in our mission - that diversity of energies, reactions, and voices. A musical field that reflects, echoes, and amplifies the communities for whom we play is more sustainable, more electrifying, and more profoundly meaningful as we step forward into the future.

Insider Interview with Georgina Rossi

The new album by violist Georgina Rossi and pianist Silvie Cheng is saturated with Brazil’s rich musical heritage. CHORINHO (Navona NV6537, released August 11, 2023) presents a slew of alluring yet under-recognized works for viola, including world-premiere recordings of works by João de Souza Lima, Lindembergue Cardoso, and Ernani Aguiar. We spoke with the violist about the recently released album, Brazilian music, and more.

The title of your album is Chorinho. What does it mean and why did you choose it?

The Choro (very roughly, lament) is a musical form that was developed organically in the streets of Rio in 19th century Brazil as musicians would gather to make music and improvise. They would draw on their own musical background and traditions but also were processing and stylizing multiple contemporary imported genres – waltz, tango, polka, ragtime. The choro’s character is usually melancholy, and improvisation is very key to its definition.

I chose the title Chorinho (little lament – after Souza Lima’s sole work for viola), because I wanted to clearly state “this is an album of viola music!”. We are so often the receivers of melancholia in music. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You represent seven different Brazilian composers on this album. What similarities do you notice among their styles? What, if anything, in their music collectively demonstrates a “Brazilian sound”?

Brazilian modernists were very conscientious and determined in their efforts to develop a distinct Brazilian sound and style. They were intellectuals and saw their work as a vital patriotic service. Curiously (to us today) modernism and nationalism went hand in hand for the Brazilian Nationalist School, at the center of which was Osvaldo Lacerda’s composition teacher, M. Camargo Guarnieri, who in turn was mentored by the revered Mario de Andrade.

The nationalist school was very successful, and you can certainly hear that on this record – not a single one of the pieces strays far from that path. However, it is important to mention that the work of the Second Viennese School did have a big impact on the project of modernism in Brazil. In fact, the tension was such between the two ideologies of composition that a feud, manifested in published letters, was carried out in the 1950’s. Insults abounded and the two camps of composition clearly divided!

Villa-Lobos’s massive global success of course strengthened the nationalist school’s campaign.

Some listeners are familiar with Heitor Villa-Lobos, but most of the other names in this collection are unfamiliar to North American audiences. Which of these Brazilian composers are well known in their home country? Which do you feel deserve wider recognition?

Brazil has very strong cultural institutions and does excellent work of archiving and celebrating the work it produces, so most composers on the record have been recognized and celebrated in their home. I would mention that Brenno Blauth is a bit of an outsider. He was never quite in the scene, and worked full time as a doctor for his entire life. I’m proud to have recorded his magnificent and very challenging viola sonata! As did the fabulous Barbara Westphal before me.

The final selection on the album is a song by Chiquinha Gonzaga, arranged by you and Silvie Cheng. What is significant about her, and why did you decide to include this particular song, Lua branca?

Chiquinha Gonzaga was a courageous musician in hostile circumstances– she abandoned an arranged marriage that threatened to forbid her musical activity and was disowned entirely by her family. But she was fearless and hard working and insanely talented. Her music–and she wrote a lot of it– was wildly successful, and with her financial success she fought for the abolitionist cause and worked to found the first artists copyright society.

Your previous recording with Silvie Cheng featured the music of Chile, this one Brazil. What’s next?

I have my eye on Argentina– and I want to focus more on contemporary works. I love the 20th century, but I’m very curious about what’s being written today for the viola in Buenos Aires.

Momenta Quartet Insider Interview - Momenta Festival VIII

On September 30-October 5 the Momenta Quartet presents the eighth edition of their annual Momenta Festival. Over four nights, each member curates a diverse chamber music program blending the old and new. In this insider interview, we spoke with each member of the quartet about highlights of the upcoming festival and what gets them excited about each of their programs.

“Looking Back” Curated by Michael Haas
September 30, 2023

Michael, your program is a collection of works that was inspired by the past. How does each piece achieve this?

The idea for this program came about last season when Momenta joined forces with composer Han Lash for a residency at the Eastman School of Music’s Institute for Music Leadership.

When we performed Han Lash’s Suite Remembered and Imagined last year, I was struck by how Lash uses their own 21st-century musical language to modernize a Baroque dance suite. I immediately saw a connection with a piece already in Momenta’s repertoire, More Venerable Canons by Matthew Greenbaum. In that piece, I have always seen parallels between its structure and that of suites by J. S. Bach.

Living composers are not the only ones who look back in time for inspiration! Haydn’s string quartet Op.  20 No. 5, while groundbreaking, concludes with a grand fugue, a style of writing that was no longer fashionable in Haydn’s lifetime.

The program concludes with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet, a composition which resulted from a burst of inspiration after he studied scores of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

“Earth and Ether” Curated by Emilie-Anne Gendron
October 1, 2023

Emilie, your program features the world premiere of a piece by Elizabeth Brown. Did you commission the work? How did this come about, and what would you like audiences to know about it in advance of the October 1 concert?

The formidably gifted and versatile composer-performer Elizabeth Brown is a longtime friend of Momenta, not to mention a Momenta Festival alumna as both a composer and performer. She is a professional flutist as well as a master of the shakuhachi, theremin, and dan bau; she teaches shakuhachi at Columbia University and Bard College, where she also teaches theremin.

I am excited to be giving the world premiere of her new solo violin work, "Firmament", on October 1. The piece came about a year ago when Elizabeth offered to write me a piece, as she had been mulling over several ideas by that point. Of course I was delighted and honored to be the recipient, and I knew just the right festival for the premiere.

Brown's musical inspiration often comes from literary sources, and this piece draws on two dystopian modern novels: The Wall (1963), by Austrian author Marlen Haushofer, in which a woman awakens while journeying in the wilderness to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall; and Good Morning, Midnight (2016) by American writer Lily Brooks-Dalton, tracing in parallel the paths of an Arctic researcher and an astronaut, for both of whom external communication has been cut off. Brown envisions the violin’s voice as the protagonist navigating these new, suspended realities--aware of both its solitude as well as the firmament eternally surrounding our world.

Not only is the piece beautifully written for the violin, but it shows the composer's mastery of every nuance of texture, mood, and atmosphere. I’d like to add that the composer and critic Kyle Gann described Elizabeth's music as “elegant, quiet, thoughtful, well-crafted...and as bizarre as hell." I can think of no better fit for a Momenta program!

Tell us about the other works on your program.

I titled my program "Earth and Ether", and the other pieces also explore, in their own ways, the joy and pain of the human experience while also contemplating what lies around us and beyond. In addition to Brown’s premiere, I'll be giving the New York premiere of a fiery solo violin work, "Another Prayer" (2012), by the British composer Julian Anderson, inspired by the colors and timbres of Eastern European folk music. The remainder of the program features the entire Momenta Quartet. Jeffrey Mumford's newest quartet, the vividly imagined ...amid still and floating depths (2019) was composed for a consortium of quartets including Momenta; and the Mexican composer Julián Carrillo's String Quartet No. 2 "à Debussy" (1926). It’s an epic journey!

“Momenta à la Mode” Curated by Stephanie Griffin
October 4 2023

Why did you decide to base an entire program on the concept of scales? How does the music of Julián Carrillo fit into that theme?

The impetus behind my Momenta Festival concert was to build a program around Robert Morris’ monumental Carnatic String Quartet (2020), which is based on all 72 melakarta scales in the Carnatic musical tradition of Southern India. Momenta premiered it last year, and this will be its first performance in New York City. I decided to present it in the context of other works in which scales are not simply building blocks, but are truly thematic. 

Interestingly, Morris warns against any attempt of the performers to make the piece sound "Indian," although he acknowledges that some sections definitely have a more "Eastern" sound and feel. The greatness of his music comes from the level of imagination he applies to making original and unexpected music within these modes and his ability to spin them into a cohesive whole. 

No program centered around scales would be complete without the music of Julián Carrillo (1875 - 1965), the Mexican composer, conductor, violinist, music theorist, and microtonal music pioneer. His music figures prominently in Momenta's repertoire as we recently embarked on the project to record all 13 of his string quartets for Naxos!

I presented an all-Carrillo program on last year's Momenta Festival, about which I wrote, “Carrillo’s most distinguishing characteristic is his absolute obsession with scales. They are not just sets of pitches from which to build melodies; they are the melodies themselves!” This is especially true of his String Quartet No. 12, in which he builds an entire four-movement piece from a single six-note scale, which is literally the main melody of this monothematic work. It is a testament to Carrillo's great skill and imagination that he can evoke such a rich variety of colors and emotions through such simple means.

This past summer, the Momenta Quartet was in residence at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute alongside my friends Arun Ramamurthy and Trina Basu, two Carnatic and avant-jazz violinists. They were working on a new piece based on raga Hemavathi, which is the 58th melakarta scale and forms the basis of a section of Robert Morris' string quartet. I hadn’t originally planned to present Morris' quartet in a specifically Indian context, it’s a special treat to join Arun and Trina in the world premiere of a new trio version of their piece on my Momenta Festival program!

"Szene am Bach" Curated by Alex Shiozaki
October 5, 2023

Alex, your program centers around nature. How does Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 18, No. 6 fit into the evening?

I had to give credit to Beethoven for providing me with the title to my evening: Szene am Bach, or “Scene by the Brook”. This phrase comes from the Sixth Symphony, where it is the title to the second movement. I already had two pieces in mind that painted the scene: Ileana Perez Velazquez's River of Life, and Somei Satoh's A White Heron. Also enjoying the “Bach” “bruch” play on words, I chose a violin solo that quotes a Bach partita: Eugène Ysaÿe's Sonata No. 2. 

Thus Beethoven’s Op. 18 No. 6 Quartet was last to the party, added on to the program to pay homage to the composer who graced us with this title. That said, it fits the bill. The exuberant first movement captures a scene full of life, and the many grace notes could be interpreted as the chirping of all sorts of birds. The tranquil second movement is closest in character to the symphonic Pastoral slow movement whose title we borrowed. The third movement is a scherzo with a real-world pulse, giving the illusion of steadiness while constantly skipping a beat from excitement--or panic! And the finale of the quartet--as well as of the evening and the entire Momenta Festival itself--begins with the famed “La Malinconia” (melancholy): a slow introduction that teases you with both sweetly consonant horn fifths and unexpected twists and turns of harmony. This brook moves both fast and slow, populated with small rapids and tranquil pools, with nature flitting and diving over and through its Classical waters. 

Yvonne Lam Insider Interview

Grammy Award-winner and former Eighth Blackbird violinist Yvonne Lam’s debut solo album features works for solo violin with electronics by six remarkable women. Released July 28, 2023 on Blue Griffin Recording, Watch Over Us has been praised for its “dazzling virtuosity and kaleidoscopic colors.” In our latest Insider Interview, we spoke with Lam about the recently released album and more.

You are best known for your work in the ensemble 8th Blackbird. How does that chamber ensemble experience compare with performing solo with electronic tape? How did it prepare you for this project?

It’s like apples and oranges. There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears invested into the music and business of running Eighth Blackbird. Working with five other musicians so closely for eight years was like being in a very intense family. Indeed, we saw more of each than we did our own families, and we got to know each other so well on many levels. We could adjust on the fly and almost knew what others were going to do musically before they did.

Performing solo with electronic tape is a little bit like trying to play with someone who can’t hear you. There’s zero “give” with fixed media, so you have to learn to adjust to it, to know where you have space and where you don’t. I was introduced to playing with tape during my time with Eighth Blackbird. That prepared me by helping me realize how much I didn’t know about the tech! Performing solo with tape live is always stressful because things can go wrong with the tech, but that’s not an issue when recording.

You specifically chose music by women for this collection. Were there other works by women that you had to leave out, for stylistic considerations, practical reasons, or time constraints?

I didn’t intentionally set out to choose only women composers. If you had asked me ten years ago to picture a composer who writes electronic music, it wouldn’t have been a woman. But in the process of discovering works, I kept running across fabulous composers who happened to be women. And then I had enough for an album.  

Were there one or more compositions by men that you considered including?

Oh, sure. There are so many great pieces out there! Maybe for the next album…

Tell us about your collaborations outside of classical music. For instance, your work with the jazz bassist and composer Matt Ulery, and with the exper­imental performance group Every House Has A Door.

Matt Ulery is a unique musician and a joy to collaborate with. I am not a jazz musician, not in the slightest, and working with Matt gave me such insight to just how different his skill set is. I keep telling myself that one day I will actually take lessons, but I do know that jazz is learned by doing, so I’ll have to commit myself to some serious doing.

Working with artists who aren’t musicians is illuminating. I love seeing performance through their eyes, which is often more holistic than the way musicians think. We don’t scrutinize our extra-musical movement, for example, or think about the intention our facial expression or eye focus projects. We also don’t place much importance on what happens in-between pieces, either, even though that’s still an integral part of the experience we shape for our audiences.

This fascinates me: When you first started playing violin as a young child, you thought it was a guitar. Why? And why was your interest in guitar so keen? Did you ever get to learn to play that instrument?

I wish I remembered what I was thinking at that age! My mother used to schlep me to my older sister’s piano lessons at a music store. While we waited for her, I would stare at the display cases, and my guess is I saw the violin but didn’t know the word “violin”. Or maybe I genuinely thought it was a guitar, since I had likely seen one on TV. No one near me played either instrument. In any case, I bugged her for a year (or so she says) before she finally gave in and found a teacher for me.

My husband, who is also a violinist, taught himself electric guitar before he started violin. So we have a couple of guitars in the house. I never learned to play, but not for lack of trying. I can play a few chords, but anything beyond that and my brain ties itself into knots.

CMC named Top Classical Music Blog

Classical Music Communications is delighted to be included in Feedspot’s “100 Best Classical Music Blogs” for the press releases we post. Great to see so many journalists and colleagues here, too, including Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review, I Care If You Listen, Night After Night, WholeNote, WWFM, Classical Source, EarRelevant, and more.

Read the full list here.