In Defense of Vivaldi | Vivaldi védelmében

It’s not like Vivaldi needs defending, but it works nicely as a blog entry title. Jokes aside, I conducted Vivaldi’s complete The Four Seasons early November with Amy Schwartz Moretti
https://www.music.mercer.edu
and the Huntsville Symphony as the first who’s in our Fall Fest concert series. It is true, that you must re-learn everything you conduct, no matter how many times you have done the piece before. This is not only necessary because of a new soloist or a different orchestra, or perhaps a different hall with unusual acoustics, but because every time you perform something your own interpretation should be different. That is the greatest thing about classical music, your own knowledge and experience influences your reading of the score, therefore it influences your interpretation of the musical piece. This time what I have discovered for myself (I have, of course, read about this many times before, but it is a whole new level to actually get a sense of it for yourself) is how Vivaldi constructed the different string parts in his concerti to fit players with different level of experience and skills. Also no matter how simple a part is, there is always something to play, and to keep yourself, as a player, occupied. This is nothing short of a genius.
Two weeks later, for the second program of Fall Fest, we have performed the original, 13 player version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite and Haydn’s Piano Concert in D. The soloist was the young and talented Aleksandra Kasman.
https://www.classicalmpr.org
We wrapped up the program with a brass-percussion arrangement of official armed services songs, called Military Might, and the powerful Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland.
Huntsville audiences and our musicians alike were very grateful for the fact, that the Huntsville Symphony Association decided to maintain a real presence in the community by providing live music in front of a live audience. Live broadcast, streaming, recordings do not make up for lost live experience. We decided to implement all the COVID-19 safety regulations necessary to be able to do live shows at the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall of the Von Braun Center. Our Fall Fest concerts were about one hour long with no intermission. We played every program twice to accommodate as many people in the auditorium as possible.
We will closely monitor the COVID situation and continue our season with a New Year’s Eve Pops program, also live.

After the second two concerts of Fall Fest I returned to Hungary and spent one week with composing and arranging. Tomorrow I will be joining the singers and musicians of the Budapest Opera at the Eiffel Art Studios to conduct the rehearsals of our ‘The Coronation of Poppea’ production, that was premiered in October.

Since Hungarian Authorities put a stop to live performances until at least December 11, we will be filming our production for two days to broadcast the full opera at a later date in 2020. It will be wonderful to return to work with my colleagues and to conduct music written by Monteverdi, and re-imagined by young Hungarian composer, Mate Bella.

Keep safe and keep in touch!

Nem mintha Vivaldi védelemre szorulna, de igaz ami igaz, az ember újból és újból felfedezi magának azokat a darabokat, amiket már többször vezényelt. Ezúttal Amy Schwartz Moretti
https://www.music.mercer.edu
és a Huntsville Symphony élén vezényelhettem a komplett ‘Le quatro stagioni’-t. Most (talán újra, mindenesetre frissen hatott…) felfedezhettem magamnak a komponista zsenialitását, amely a különböző szólamok technikai és zenei nehézségének átgondolt elosztását illeti. Pontosan kiolvasható a kottából, hogy melyik szólam előadója mennyit tudott, miközben a legegyszerűbb zenei anyagban is van a játékos számára inspiráló kihívás.
A Huntsville Symphony Association döntése alapján zenekarom a COVID szituáció ellenére az élő koncertek folytatása mellett döntött. Fall Fest elnevezésű két hétvégés eseményünkön egy félidős koncerteket játszottunk kétszer limitált közönség előtt. A második program Aaron Copland Appalachian Spring szvitjét és Fanfare for the Common Man című darabját, valamint Haydn D-dúr zongoraversenye mellett — a helyi veteránokat és aktív szolgálatban lévő egyenruhásokat ünneplendő — a Military Might című induló gyűjteményt játszottuk. A Haydn versenymű szólistája a fiatal és tehetséges Aleksandra Kasman volt.
https://www.classicalmpr.org
Mind a zenészek, mind pedig a közönség lelkesedése visszaigazolta döntésünk helyességét. Újévi koncertünkkel folytatjuk majd — a hivatalos COVID biztonsági előírásoknak mindenben megfelelő — élő koncertjeink sorát. Amilyen hamar a pandémiás körülmények engedik, visszatérünk a teljes nézőtér előtti, két félidős koncertekhez.

A Huntsville-ben eltöltött három hét után visszatértem Budapestre, és egy hét komponálás után, a következő pár napban az októberi Poppea megkoronázása produkciónk filmfelvételét fogom vezényelni az Operaház Eiffel Stúdiójában.

A következő viszontlátásig: mindenki vigyázzon magára!

Fresh Coat of Copland

We are ready for our third Casual Classics concert this afternoon at University of Alabama Huntsville’s Roberts Hall.
Local artist, Pamela Willis is joining the musicians of the Huntsville Symphony to create a painting live, in front of the eyes of the audience in three stages “choreographed” to the music of Aaron Copland. The painting will be auctioned out to benefit the Huntsville Symphony.
On the all Copland program we’ll be presenting
Quiet City for English Horn, Trumpet and strings
Nonet for strings
Appalachian Spring (original version)

I am especially proud of us playing the rarely performed Nonet for strings, a late composition by Copland known mostly for his Americana music. Along with two late, and well-known orchestral pieces, Connotations and Inscape, the style of ‘Nonet’ is not at all like that of Appalachian Spring or Rodeo. This music is more ‘avant-garde’, more contemplative and at points more sinister than the all sunny Copland we all know and admire. Nonet for strings was commissioned by the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library (same as in ‘Dumbarton Oaks Concerto’ by Stravinsky) and is dedicated to Nadia Boulanger “after forty years of friendship.”

Come and join us in an hour at Roberts Hall, and come back to the VBC next weekend to hear our Classical 5 concert with music by Ligeti, Bartok and Beethoven!

https://www.hso.org

Banjo And Paradise

Happy New Year Everyone! I am looking forward to an extremely busy January. My year starts with a historical concert. The “Bela Fleck Banjo Concerto” show with the Huntsville Symphony marks the highest ever single ticket sales for a classical series concert in the history of the orchestra. We are 80 some tickets short of a sell out (we’ve got one more day to go) and we are expecting a great crowd for the Saturday morning open dress rehearsal. On the program (all kind of “folk music-inspired” pieces)
Zoltan Kodaly: Variations on a Hungarian Folk Song (“The Peacock”)
Aaron Copland: El Salon Mexico
Bela Fleck: The Impostor (Concerto for Banjo and Orchestra)

Go to Bela’s website to see and hear some of the concerto (recorded with the Nashville Symphony)
http://www.belafleck.com

I am sure the audience is going to stick around for some more of Bela’s solo banjo playing at the end of the concert! Well, yes, and I am glad that the same audience is going to have the chance to listen to Kodaly and Copland.

Right after the concert I am leaving for Budapest, Hungary to dive into an exciting new opera-project. Peter Eotvos (I wrote about him and his 70th Birthday earlier) wrote an opera called Paradise Reloaded (Lilith) which was premiered in Vienna, Austria in October 2013. With the cooperation of MTVA (the mother company of the Hungarian Radio Symphony) and The Palace of The Arts (MUPA) in Budapest we are presenting the Hungarian premiere of the opera as part of the so called “Mini Festival” on January 23. Before the staged performance I get to be the conductor of the first ever studio recording of the opera (sung in German). The story is about Lilith, first wife of Adam (yes, an apocryphal story from biblical times) and the Journey of Adam, Eve with the help of Lucifer. More info here:
http://www.eotvospeter.com