Chicago Symphony Orchestra Bernard Haitink
Now Playing: Mahler's Third Symphony
Topic: NEW CDs
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra can count many fine achievements under the recently concluded 15-year tenure of music director Daniel Barenboim. But an extensive discography isn't one of them.

CONSUMER INFO

As if to catch up on lost time, the venerable orchestra plans to record six live concert CDs over the next three years on its new in-house label. As if to signal the ambition of this endeavor, the orchestra has released this recording of Mahler's Third Symphony as the first in the series. Its new principal conductor, Bernard Haitink, conducted this October 2006 performance. Preview

Chamber orchestra version of Lowell Liebermann's opera comes to PHILLY...
Topic: NEWS composers

Lowell Liebermann's opera, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, premieres a new version with chamber orchestra, as presented by the Center City Opera Theater at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, PA...thru June 12th. The original version with large orchestra premiered in 1996 at L'Opera de Monte Carlo, and had its first U.S. performance in 1999 at Milwaukee's Florentine Opera.

Find out more: L LIEBERMANN | OperaTheater.Org

New operas by Thomas Pasatieri to premiere this summer
Topic: NEWS Industry

A much-anticipated new opera by Thomas Pasatieri [photo], his first in over 20 years, premieres in Fort Worth at the beginning of June. FRAU MARGOT, with libretto by Frank Corsaro, debuts in 3 performances at Fort Worth Opera, June 2nd, 8th, 10th. Later this summer, a second new opera, THE HOTEL CASABLANCA, will be premiered by the Merola Opera Program of the San Francisco Opera (August 3rd, 5th).

Find out more: PASATIERI | F W Opera | S F Opera

American Composer H Owen Reed, 97, on June 17th
Now Playing: Best wishes on his 97th birthday this JUNE 17th....
Topic: NEWS composers
Read about Reed

H OWEN REED ON COMPACT DISCS

H. Owen Reed was born in Odessa, Missouri, on June 17, 1910. He was a pupil of both Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers at the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music. He also studied with Roy Harris and Helen Gunderson. Beginning his long association with the Michigan State University in 1939, he served as professor of music and head of composition until his retirement in 1976. He is the author of several books on theory and composition. In the thirties, Reed traveled a good deal in the Americas and Europe, capturing the diversity of folk music he heard in Scandinavia, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands. His La Fiesta Mexicana, a suite for full wind ensemble has been transcribed for orchestra and premiered by the Detroit Symphony. In 1975, Reed won the Neil A. Kjos Memorial Award with his unorthodox band score, For the Unfortunate. Among his other compositions are the ballet The Masque of the Red Death, the opera Peter Homan's Dream, a symphony, concertos for violin and cello, and choral and chamber works.

La Fiesta Mexicana is one of Reed's most performed pieces...
Subtitled 'A Mexican Folk Song Symphony for Concert Band', this work was written in 1949, based on experiences gained during a five-month sojourn in Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship. The authentic folk tunes Reed used can be found in Chapala, Jalisco, and Guadalajara; other themes were borrowed from Gregorian motifs and Aztec dances.

(More links to Reed on the Web)

Classic radio program
Now Playing: this weekend on MUSIClassical CONCERT at LIVE365
Topic: MUSIClassical CONCERT
LISTEN LIVE LINK

In the mid 1930's many work projects were administered by the federal government, including the Art, Music, Theatre, and Writers' projects. Started for the creation and preservation of the nation's infrastructure by executive order of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on May 6, 1935. The WPA was a work relief program that provided jobs for many individuals who had become unemployed during the Depression. Listen to a rare symphonic orchestra music program of the Manhattan Concert Band from the Federal Music Project during the late 1930's. Plus more concert music favorites.

MUSIClassical CONCERT Radio new adds
Now Playing: on LIVE365.com
Topic: MUSIClassical CONCERT
LISTEN LIVE Playlist 920850 and other selections

TORROBA Cowboy's Dance; San Francisco Guitar Ensemble
ALBUM NOTES

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto #1 in b, Op 23; Andras Schiff, piano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Sir Georg Solti, cond.
ALBUM NOTES

DELIUS Dance Rhapsody #1; Welsh National Opera Orchestra; Sir Charles Mackerras, cond.
ALBUM NOTES

PROFILE of Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves
Topic: NEWS performers

In approximately two decades Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves has emerged as one of the most exciting operatic stars. It was her performance of Bizet's "Carmen" that brought her immediate international acclaim that followed with the title role of "Samson and Delilah".

See all stories on this topic | Chicago Defender - Chicago,IL,USA
denycegraves.com | READ about DENYCE GRAVES | GRAVES on CDs

REMEMBERING Jan Peerce -(1904-1984)
Now Playing: YouTube post
Topic: CLASSICAL VIDEOs
Singing "Questa O Quella" from "Rigoletto" by Giuseppe Verdi. Jan Peerce with Beersheba Chamber Orchestra, Mendi Rodan, conductor Recorded in 1982. Jan Peerce's birth name was Jacob Pincus Perelmuth, he grew up in New York and remained devoutly religious all his life. He was a trained violinist and also sang popular songs when it was discovered almost by accident, that he had an unusually good voice. This brought him an engagement with the Radio City Music Hall company from which he moved on to make his operatic debut in Philadelphia in 1938. He finally arrived at New York Metropolitan Opera in 1941. While his operatic home was to remain the Met, for just about all his career, he also sang abroad and was a sensation when he visited Russia in 1956. He enjoyed a particularly long career, singing well into his 70's. He was also brother-in-law of tenor Richard Tucker, with whom he shared an intensely personal and professional rivalry.

BIOGRAPHY
READ about JAN PEERCE | PEERCE on CD | PEERCE on DVD

Harpist WELLBAUM to strike last chords with CLEVELAND orchestra
Topic: NEWS performers

For the past 76 seasons, the principal harp chair in the Cleveland Orchestra has been occupied by only two musicians: Alice Chalifoux and Lisa Wellbaum. ... See all stories on this topic | Cleveland Plain Dealer - Cleveland,OH,USA

OUR STREAMING CONCERT PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
Now Playing: on LIVE365
Topic: MUSIClassical CONCERT

ELGAR Sympnony # 1 op 55; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Andre Previn, cond.
ALBUM NOTES Complete Symphonies of ELGAR | BOOKS about ELGAR
ELGAR BIO & CDiscography | ELGAR SOCIETY PAGES

Sir Edward Elgar was born 150 years ago on 2nd June 1857 at Broadheath, a village some three miles from the small city of Worcester in the English West Midlands. [d. 23 February 1934] ...

Hans Richter called Elgar's first symphony the "greatest symphony of modern times" and to my taste it's the most important symphony since Mozart's 40th. Elgar stumbled on a simple, noble theme, quite unlike the folk-song melodies of his younger contemporary, Vaughan Williams. This motto theme drives the whole symphony through to the last movement where it reappears, deconstructed with massive brass and percussion chords punctuating its marchlike theme, but decidedly off the beat like random thunder. First performed in 1908 just before the First World War, the symphony as a whole is like a tone picture of the Victorian/Edwardian era marching off into the sunset.