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Mozart – Clarinet Concerto, Adagio – mp3
WCFSO – April 2010
For your Saturday listening pleasure, a recent performance of the most sublime music ever written for the clarinet. [I am playing and conducting.] Apologies about the less than perfect sound quality – we didn’t have our normal recording set-up available for this concert.
Comment on this music at my SoundCloud.
My 2009 performance of Mahler 5 with the WCFSO will air this evening at 8pm EST on Iowa Public Radio [link is an mp3 stream]. We took a unique approach to presenting the piece, mixing multimedia with live music and offering insights from orchestra members into the experience of playing Mahler. The image above is one of several views of the event by WCFSO photographer Noah Henscheid. [You may notice me holding my iPhone in some of the other shots – I was using it to cue slides and video live onstage.]
In the event that you get to this post after the stream ends, a re-embed and download of the first movement is below; please feel free to grab the code from the player and share on your blog as well.
Mahler - Symphony no. 5, Trauermarsch
WCFSO – November 2009
‘Whenever I have crossed the Pampa or have lived in it for a time, my spirit felt itself inundated by changing impressions, now joyful, now melancholy, some full of euphoria and others replete with a profound tranquility, produced by its limitless immensity and by the transformation that the countryside undergoes in the course of a day.’ Alberto Ginastera, on the Argentinian plains that inspired his ballet Estancia.
Ginastera – Estancia, Danza del Trigo [Wheat Dance]
WCFSO – March 2010
[Click the arrow to download]
The A-Train
Gary Kelley, 2009
George Gershwin claimed that he conceived the ‘metropolitan madness’ of Rhapsody in Blue ‘on a train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang.’ That same raw rhythmic inspiration was at the heart of our recent period-orchestra rendition at the WCFSO with pianist Genadi Zagor. The image by Gary Kelley is one of a series commissioned for this concert and shown in a narrative video piece alongside the performance.
Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue with Genadi Zagor
WCFSO - February 2010
Click the arrow on the right side of the audio player to download.
That’s what blues, jazz, hip hop and orchestral music do this weekend in Iowa.
Interview with Hollis Monroe – mp3
Iowa Public Radio – February 2010
This weekend the WCFSO will perform the 1920s theater orchestra version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, on a special concert tracing the paths that African American musics have taken into the concert hall. But the influence of Gershwin’s own compositions on subsequent generations of musicians of all ethnic and aesthetic backgrounds is also striking to behold. If you have any doubt as to the composer’s massive influence in American musical culture, check out just how many artists trace their musical roots back to him:
Fascinatin’ Rhythm: A Tribute to George Gershwin, part 1 – mp3
APM American Routes – January 2, 2008
Fascinatin’ Rhythm: A Tribute to George Gershwin, part 2 – mp3
APM American Routes – January 2, 2008
Ever since I first came across the unforgettable clarinet wail that opens Rhapsody – and even more so after playing and conducting the piece a few times since then – I’ve been intoxicated by the uniquely American blend of infectious rhythm and multicultural reference that pervades Gershwin’s music. Clearly I’m not the only conductor who feels this way:
Marin Alsop’s Shared Musical Roots – mp3
NPR Weekend Edition – November 14, 2009
[American Routes program originally linked here the last time I performed Rhapsody.]
On the occasion of Mozart’s 254th birthday, the buoyant dance movement of his last and most exuberant symphony:
Mozart – Symphony K551, Menuetto-Trio
WCFSO – November 2007
More Mozart from this blog here.
