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Threepenny Concert

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If you subscribed to one of our concert series (3 concerts each) in the 2013-14 season you got a concert for free. The “free” concert of one of the series’ is happening tomorrow at the newly renovated Franz Liszt Academy of Music.
I designed the program to let every section of the Hungarian Radio Symphony and individual players to shine.

Kurt Weill: Little Threepenny Music
(for woodwinds, brass, banjo, piano, accordion and percussion)
Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
(the title says it all ☺)
Hindemith: Concert Music for Brass and Strings Op. 50
(this one is a great showpiece orchestrated for 12 brass instruments and strings [no 2nd violin!] in the duration of 20 some minutes)
Ravel: Bolero
(no explanation needed I hope, this is definitely the piece to prove that you are the master of your own instrument)

These four pieces were written between 1928 and 1936. By this time or soon three of the four composers were living in the United States. Europe was marching towards WWII dragging the entire world along. As almost always in the time of massive changes art was thriving. I wanted to put together a program with 4 completely different yet equally energetic and powerful compositions from this era. As usual you can listen to the concert live at
http://www.radio.hu
at 1:30PM EST tomorrow (Friday) or stream it later for another two weeks.
On Saturday afternoon my orchestra and I will be spending a couple of hours in Studio 6 of the Hungarian Radio to present the Bartok piece with some entertaining and informative talk by musicologist Sandor Kovacs in front of a live audience. This episode of the series “Musically Speaking” will be aired at a later time on Radio Bartok (all in Hungarian of course ☺)

Pre-Super Bowl Brass Attack

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As Renee Fleming was warming up to make history as the first ever opera singer to perform the National Anthem at the Super Bowl the players of the Huntsville Symphony and myself were doing our share in history making. Seven brass players, Terry Cornett -principal percussion and myself as 2nd percussion performed the US Premiere of a piece by Peter Eotvos called ‘Brass. The Metal Space’. The special venue for our second Casual Classics concert was the Round House at the Huntsville Depot. This ‘action piece’ or ‘instrumental theater’ is a cool way to entertain audiences and educate them at the same time. The concert was all about sound and space (with a very cool glass wall in the background through which you could see an old engine outdoors), about the acoustics of a room and how a contemporary composition enables audience members to re-discover the real meaning of LISTENING. Musicians and audiences alike had a blast this afternoon, and yes, everybody made it home to watch the Super Bowl.

Yesterday evening I led the Huntsville Symphony in another US premiere. We performed ‘The Gliding of The Eagle in the Skies’ (commissioned by the Basque National Symphony) by Peter Eotvos TWICE in one concert! For the pre-concert talk I did a live Skype interview with the composer himself (another historic event for the HSO!), translating his words live to the audience. At the top of the show I introduced his orchestral piece with some demos then played it. At the top of the second half I told everyone in the hall what a great audience they were and made them listen to the Eotvos piece one more time. The Huntsville Symphony is indeed fortunate to have a sophisticated and receptive audience. People listened for the second time and from many comments I know that they appreciated the idea.
The rest of our Classical 4 concert had Alexander Korsantia playing Rachmaninov’s popular Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. It was a highly charged, very touching and beautifully executed performance. We concluded the concert with Symphony #5 by Sibelius. This is the symphony with the musical depiction of high flying swans at the end. It was an effective ending to the show and created a nice arch with the opening “Eagle in the Skies”. Birds as symbols of freedom put into music.

Reloaded

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I have had two extremely busy weeks. On Monday the wonderful cast of Viennese production of Paradise Reloaded (Lilith), the Hungarian Radio Symphony (MR Symphony) and myself have finished a week long recording session. Right after the session we started the orchestra-stage rehearsals (the dress rehearsal was tonight) for the opening night of the Mini Festival at the Palace of the Arts (MUPA) in Budapest. We are ready to rock the house tomorrow evening! We are expecting a sold out house. In the meantime (last SUnday) I did a concert with the New Hungarian Chamber Orchestra with the following program:
Grieg: Two Elegiac Melodies, Miklos Kocsar: Serenata per Archi (the composer himself was present, celebrating his 80th Birthday with us), Grieg: Aus Holbergs Zeit, Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht
There were two days when I had a double service recording day with a three hour rehearsal for the other concert afterwards. I have done days like this before (mostly for Summer Festivals in many different roles) and I am happy that I can still do it.
As for tomorrw: the Hungarian Radio Orchestra sounds great, the singers are wonderful, the staging is exciting and we get to celebrat Peter Eotvos’ 70th Birthday with a great production.
I feel like I am “reloaded” and ready for a great year. 2014 is definitely up to a good start. I feel energized and enjoying every minute of every day spent with music.

Radio Christmas

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Two more concerts left for this year. Tonight I am conducting part of the now traditional year end Christmas Concert of the musical groups of the Hungarian Radio. Here is the program with some links:
Miklos Kocsar: Hungarian Christmas
http://info.bmc.hu
I studied with Mr. Kocsar for a year as a composer student back in the 90s. He is 80yo this year and his Birthday is just two days after the concert. This piece is a wonderful arrangement of traditional Hungarian Christmas songs.
Respighi: Lauda per la Natività del Signore
http://www.osscs.org/notes
Britten: A Ceremony of Carols
Bruckner: Scherzo from Symphony #1
Bruckner: Te Deum
http://en.wikipedia.org

The first and the third pieces are sung by the MR Children’s Choir and conducted by its two choral masters. I get to conduct the charming Respighi and the celebratory, joyous Bruckner compositions. The entire concert is part of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) Christmas broadcast. As always you can listen to the concert at
http://www.mr3-bartok.hu/
live [19:30 local time] or stream it on your computer for two more weeks.

On December 23 I will conduct my first concert at the newly remodeled Franz Liszt Academy of Music. On the program three brand new Christmas Cantatas by young Hungarian composers. Just like earlier this season I am the member of the jury for a composers’ competition and the conductor of the final round. Two Christmas themed texts by Hungarian writer Geza Gardonyi was selected for the competitors to put into music. Three finalists were selected by the pre-screening committee and my orchestra and the MR Symphonic Choir will perform their compositions in front of a live audience. This concert can also be heard on the radio.

Let me wish Merry Christmas, a Wonderful Holiday Season and a Very Happy New Year to all my blog readers and music lovers out there! Come back and visit my site in 2014, too!

Eine Kleine Stravinsky

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Symphony Silicon Valley invited me to conduct an interesting “pasticcio”-program this week at the beautiful California Theater in San Jose, CA.
Two concerts, one on Saturday evening and one on Sunday afternoon start with Mozart’s “way-too-well-known” Serenade in G K.525 nicknamed ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’. It is a challenge to do music that is always on the “Your Favorite Classical Music” selection at your local radio station or can be found on a Holiday CD for $2 each at Walmart. The only thing a conductor can do is to read the score with fresh eyes and concentrate purely on the musical information on the sheet music. Knowing and loving Mozart’s genius and work also helps. I spent a long hour rethinking phrasing, articulation, tempi and ornaments for this lively piece of string orchestra music. As always I am having fun with the challenge.
The second piece on the program is Symphony in C (Symphonie en ut as the score says in French) by Igor Stravinsky (or Strawinsky according to Edition Schott). This is a 28 minute long so called “neo-classical” composition written in 1940 for a medium size Beethoven orchestra. I don’t want to go into details here about the intricacies of orchestration, chord-engineering or thematic development. Let me just say one thing. There is no 20th Century composer who can dress up a seemingly simple chord or motive like Stravinsky can. This piece shows great mastery of pretend-simplicity and gives us a captivating musical portrait of the “Key C” in all its glory.
Read the program notes by Phillip Huscher here:
https://cso.org
In the second half of the program I get to be the musical partner of Mayuko Kamio
http://www.dispeker.com
in her colorful and imaginative interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

To The Moaning And The Groaning Of The Bells

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Last Friday I conducted the concert version of Puccini’s La Boheme with the Huntsville Symphony, the Community and Children’s Chorus and a wonderful cast at the Von Braun Center. This was the first time ever in my life when I started a dress rehearsal with not all the principals present. Due to an unforeseen illness we needed to hire a replacement Mimi. She drove 4 hours from Atlanta and was just pulling into the parking lot as I started Act One (5 minutes late). She just walked on stage about 10 minutes into the act (Mimi’s first appearance) and did a wonderful job. See names and more read more details in FaceBook posts by Huntsville Symphony and myself. No matter in what format you are doing opera, the usual “operatic excitements” always do occur.
From the happy morning bells of Act 3 in La Boheme I have arrived to some very different bells in Budapest, Hungary. As part of the Hungarian Radio Symphony’s (MR Symphony) 70th Anniversary season concert series I am conducting a concert at the Palace of the Arts (MUPA) this Saturday. On the program:
Andras Szollosy (a great composer, often remembered as “The Great Third Master” with Gyorgy Ligeti and Gyorgy Kurtag): TRASFIGURAZIONI
Stravinsky: SYMPHONY OF PSALMS
Rachmaninov: THE BELLS

Fro the lyrics of the latter composition (a great symphony for orchestra, chorus and solo voices) see the following link
http://www.recmusic.org

I designed the entire concert program around “The Bells” theme. Andras Szollosy (FYI the letter “SZ” next to Bartok’s compositions refers to his name, since he was the one -a composer AND a musicologist- who put together the chronological order of Bela Bartok’s works) was obsessed with the sound of the bells. In this energetic and very much “Rite of Spring”-like piece (16 minutes of music) has a lot of great bell-effects masterfully orchestrated for a group of triple woodwinds, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 3 (!) violin sections, violas, celli and basses (note that the lack of percussion instruments including any type of bells here!) Szollosy was a big fan of Igor Stravinsky and his music. Needless to say, that the unmistakable Russian bell sound plays a big part in this unique and captivating composition entitled Symphony of Psalms. Here is the unusual orchestration of this piece:
5 flutes (incl. piccolo), 5 oboes (incl. English Horn), 4 bassoons (incl. Contrabassoon) 4 horns, 5 trumpets (incl. Piccolo Trumpet), 3 trombones, tuba, timpani + percussion, two pianos, celli and basses. Yes, you read it right, while the Szollosy piece has three violin sections this piece has NO violins or violas whatsoever.
The Psalms used by Stravinsky for the three movements are:
Psalm 38, verses 13&14
Psalm 39, verses 2,3 & 4
Psalm 150 (complete)

Here are the words for Psalm 150

1 Praise the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.

“Z” recordings

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In the last couple of days I have been doing two so called “Z” recordings with the MR Symphony (Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra) and Chorus. Letter “Z” stands for “Zene” which in English simply means Music. In the good old days they used to mark the tapes with a letter Z (versus radio talk shows and other non-musical recordings) for easier cataloging. In Studio 6 at the historic Hungarian Radio building, downtown Budapest we recorded two compositions. Ernst von Dohnanyi’s lively Symphonic Minutes and a contemporary composition called Requiem, Symphony #3 by young Hungarian composer Peter Zombola. Check out his website here:
http://zombolapeter.uw.hu
Zombola’s Requiem (Symphony #3) was named Classical Contemporary Composition of the Year in 2012 by the Hungarian Copyright Office, Artisjus. As for the Dohnanyi piece we recorded it for a very interesting project. Since my orchestra is celebrating its 70th anniversary season the Hungarian Radio is preparing a series of radio programs to celebrate our work. One of them is a show about how radio recording technology developed since the beginnings. They are using different recordings of Symphonic Minutes made throughout decades to demonstrate the progress. We also made a video spot for the European Broadcasting Union (including an archival news footage of Dohnanyi himself conducting the last movement of Symphonic minutes in the same Studio 6 where we did it!) that will be available on our website soon. Stay tuned!

Welcome to my new site!

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Happy New Year Everyone! As a New Year Resolution I decided to create a new blog-site. I have been working on it for a while but there is always a shortage of time in my life. Since a site like this is constantly under construction, I finally decided to launch it. I hope you will return from time to time to check out what is happening with me. See you around! Cheers Gregory