According to my records, in this brave new world of streamed concerts, my attention to the Longy School of Music of Bard College has been limited to recitals by Longy’s Faculty Ensemble-in-Residence, the Neave Trio of violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura. That attention seems to have earned me a place on the Longy mailing list, which has afforded me a broader view of the institution’s online offerings. Since I cannot yet return to the “business as usual” that confines me to the San Francisco city limits, it seemed reasonable to account for events in the April calendar that may be worth following.
To be fair, the amount of detail provided for most of these offerings tends to be limited. Also, those interested in checking out the full Longy calendar should be advised that the institution is on Eastern time. For my own summary, I shall translate to Pacific time, which may make for odd concert times for some readers. Nevertheless, here is what I have managed to harvest from the available information (with hyperlinks to the specific event pages):
Saturday, April 3, 11 a.m.: Orchestra FLEX will begin the month with a full-length concert given the rather prankish title Ether/Or. The overall theme of the program is described as “a musical voyage through dreams, reveries, and nostalgia” (which, in my own humble opinion, is sufficient to play fast and loose with the writings of Søren Kierkegaard). A full program has not yet been provided; but some of the composers included will be Jessie Montgomery, Aaron Copland, Claude Debussy, Hildegard of Bingen, Tawnie Olsen, and Florence Price.
Saturday, April 3, 4:30 p.m.: This is one of those cases where two different sources present two different programs to be performed by the Neave Trio. The hyperlink on the date leads to the online source that gives the title of the program as Her Story, which is the title of their Chandos Records album surveying music by Louise Farrenc, Amy Beach, and Rebecca Clarke. It appears that the Farrenc offering, her Opus 33 (first) piano trio in E-flat major, will be the only selection taken from the album. They will also play music by Lili Boulanger and give a world premiere performance of music by Elena Ruehr. This will be a ticketed event, and tickets are being managed through an Eventbrite Web page. While there is no charge for the tickets themselves, donations will be applied to Longy’s Sistema Side-by-Side program.
Thursday, April 15, and Friday, April 16, 4:30 p.m.: Continuing attention to women composers, the spring opera will be Cenrillon, a chamber opera with dialogue in three acts by Pauline Viardot. The composer was 83 years old when this opera was first performed at a Paris salon. The fairy tale is sufficiently familiar that the libretto should be easy to follow. Each of the performances will have its own video stream as indicated by the two hyperlinks on the dates.
Wednesday, April 21, 4:30 p.m.: One of the ways in which the Nazi Party rose to enough power to take over Germany in the 1930s was by appealing to the general public that modernism in both art and music was “degenerate” (entartete). That adjective tended to be applied to both Jews and those with Communist sympathies; but the more general motto was, “If I can’t understand it, it must be degenerate.” This program will feature the music of composers tainted by the “degenerate” label, not only Jews such as Arnold Schoenberg and Kurt Weill, but also “good Christian Germans,” such as Paul Hindemith, simply because he had a soft spot for jazz and other forms of modernism.
Poster for a 1938 “degenerate music” exhibition (from Wikipedia, qualified as fair use under United States copyright law)
Sunday, April 25, noon: As the above poster makes clear, it goes without saying that the Nazis dismissed anyone not of the Caucasian race as “degenerate.” (Indeed, the poster is drawn in such a way that the jazz musician looks more simian than anthropoid. Note, also, the Jewish star on the lapel.) Castle of Our Skins is a chamber ensemble, whose Artistic and Executive Director is violist Ashleigh Gordon. Clarinetist Rane Moore is one of the two Artistic Directors of Dream-Visions. Both of these organizations focus on promoting compositions and performances by African Americans. Gordon and Moore are also Longy faculty members; and they will present the world premiere of David Sanford’s composition, which happens to be entitled “Dream-Visions.” The program will also include a clarinet quintet (clarinet and string quartet) by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Hannah Kendall’s “Vera.” This will be a ticketed event, and tickets are being managed through an Eventbrite Web page. While there is no charge for the tickets themselves, donations will be applied to Longy’s Sistema Side-by-Side program.
Friday, April 30, 4:40 p.m: The month will conclude with a special performance by the Horszowski Trio, whose members are pianist Rieko Aizawa (Mieczysław Horszowski’s last pupil at the Curtis Institute of Music), violinist Jesse Mills, and cellist Ole Akahoshi. The entire program will be devoted to Morton Feldman’s “Trio,” which consists of a single movement with a duration of about 80 minutes. Feldman was consistently annoyed by listeners that lacked the power of concentration, and Universal Edition claims he wrote this piece to get even with them! This will be a ticketed event, and tickets are being managed through an Eventbrite Web page. While there is no charge for the tickets themselves, donations will be applied to Longy’s Sistema Side-by-Side program.
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