Glyndebourne powerhouse passes on

Brian Dickie of the Chicago Opera Theater has reported on his blog the death of the pianist Martin Isepp, who for some 40 years was an absolute stalwart of the Glyndebourne music staff. He was head of music at the National Opera Studio from 1978 to 1995. And much, much more besides. I well remember meeting him at Glyndebourne some 10-12 years ago. His jolly, unaffected, unassuming character with an unmistakeable twinkle and a ready smile was a front for a powerhouse of operatic understanding and pianistic knowhow. He died on Christmas Day.




Above, Martin coaching tenor Ryan MacPherson in 2001.

Here is his biography from the National Opera Studio's website:



Martin Isepp ARCM, was born in Vienna and came to England in 1938. He studied piano mainly with Professor Leonie Gombrich, pupil and assistant of Leschetitsky, before reading Music at Oxford University and studying further at the Royal College of Music, London. He began his career in the vocal studio of his mother Helene Isepp, and went on to partner such singers as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Söderström, Dame Janet Baker, Jessye Norman, Hughes Cuenod and John Shirley-Quirk in recitals throughout Europe and the USA. In 1965 he was awarded the Carroll Donner Stuchell Medal for Accompanying by the Harriet Cohen International Musical Foundation.
At the same time he has pursued a parallel career in the operatic field, first with Benjamin Britten’s English Opera Group (where he created the piano part in The Turn of the Screw), and then at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, which he joined as a member of the Music Staff in 1957, where he was Head of Music Staff from 1978-93, and for which he is a visiting Guest Chief Coach. From 1973-77 he was Head of Opera Training at the Juilliard School, New York before returning to London to become Head of Music at the newly-formed National Opera Studio from 1978-1995.
He travels widely to give Master Classes in Lieder and Opera and to conduct young singers in performance. He has been invited to the Central Opera and Conservatory in Beijing to work on Mozart roles and to the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. He has been Head of the Academy of Singing at the School of the Arts at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada for many years and has given many master classes at the Britten-Pears School, Aldeburgh. He visits the Metropolitan Opera annually, often as Assistant Conductor. Five years ago, he took over two performances of Così from the indisposed James Levine to critical acclaim. He has conducted productions for the Canadian Opera Company, Washington Opera, and Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and has featured as Continuo Harpsichordist on a number of recordings. He has also adjudicated for such competitions as the Met Final Auditions, the Naumburg Awards and the Kathleen Ferrier Competition in London.
Martin Isepp recently conducted the Orchestre de Picardie, France in Performances ofAriadne auf Naxos and the students of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore in a production of Così fan tutte, as well as giving Master Classes at l’Atelier Lyrique de l’Opera de Montreal, the Ensemble of the Canadian Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Northwestern University School of Music, RAM, The Paris Conservatoire, and the Merola Program of San Francisco Opera. He is the first recipient of the Stratton Distinguished Visitor Medal given by the University of Toronto Music Department. He was recently awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Music by Wake Forest University, North Carolina.







Posted in Classical Pit

Music=Life

musicnote Music=LifeI love music. My alarm is set to play music instead of the annoying beep of regular alarms. When the music starts playing it makes me want to dance. I am not sure if that is because I have taken dance my whole life or what. I then proceed to the bathroom to shower-I plug my iPod into the dock and blare it! No matter if I am sad, happy or nervous music is always there for me.

This has to be one of my all time favorite songs. It is so up beat and makes me want to take on the day.

And this song by Noah and the Whale is a song that I could listen to any day at any moment. I think it has a great message and a great beat.

Posted in Music is my Life | Tagged as:

Lyrics : Find the Words To Your Favorite Songs

singing in car Lyrics : Find the Words To Your Favorite SongsHave you ever been singing along with the radio but you aren't quite sure what words are being sung by the pop star or musical group? This happens to me all the time! I recently found a website that will find pretty much any song and it gives you the lyrics. Lyrics.com , pretty straight forward website, huh? I have found it very useful over the past few months. Just type the artist or the song and POOF you will instantly know the words!

 

Another way to find lyrics to your favorite songs is through YouTube.

The "old school" way of finding lyrics to your favorite song is by buying the CD. Yes, the round thing that plays music. Usually the lyrics are in the inside of the case. And this way works just as well!

 

Posted in Music is my Life | Tagged as:

He had everything. Absolutely everything.

We're all saddened by the news that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau passed away yesterday, aged 86. His voice is one of the chief ingredients of the musical bread that generations have fed upon: I certainly got to know and love the baritone Lieder repertoire from his recordings. One eternal favourite is the Schumann Dichterliebe, recorded with Christoph Eschenbach at the piano; I had the LP and nearly wore it out.

Tributes around the web are many and varied. Here is the obituary from The Telegraph. And below our chosen songs - including 'Im wunderschoenen Monat Mai', of course, from that Dichterliebe - is a transcript of an interview that Dame Janet Baker gave on BBC R3's In Tune yesterday in which she gives her personal memories of this great man and towering artist.

On Music Matters today (at 12.15) you can hear Tom Service interviewing the mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig and the pianist Murray Perahia about him, and another chance to hear two interviews with "DFD" himself.
  
Roger Wright, Controller of BBC Radio 3 and Director of the BBC Proms, offers us a tribute of his own:   
“The loss of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau brings to a close a significant era in classical music. His unique artistry was wide-ranging and above all his singing defined the art of lieder performance and set new standards for future generations."




Dame Janet Baker: “Some people say ‘Is there anything in your life you regret?’. There is something that I felt very sad about at the time: he asked me to do the female Schubert songs when he recorded all the Schubert songs. He wanted to bring in a woman’s voice to do certain songs and I was contracted very firmly to my own recording company in this country and they didn’t feel that it was right or possible for me to do that. Artistically speaking, that was a great disappointment for me because I would have loved to have been on that label with him.”

Sean Rafferty: Is it Impossible to analyse his talent? 
Dame Janet Baker: “I think you used the word unique a minute ago and that again is a word that one can apply. We’re all singing the same repertoire - presumably on a certain level we are all singing very well. The thing that sets us apart, like all human beings, is the personality of the human being behind all this and there are never two of us totally alike. And so the great artist brings that sense of uniqueness to everything they do and it’s unmatchable. It’s why I think there should never be any jealousy between singers, because, no matter what we do, we are all quite different from one another.”

Sean Rafferty: What was it like to work together?
Dame Janet Baker: “He was quite a formal man and there was a - not a distance, not at all, he was friendly - but as we got to know each other better he showed his light-hearted, humorous, warm, human side. And to know him at that level was a sort of bonus, quite apart from his great musicality, and he became a friend.  That doesn’t mean to say that one was ever blasé about his status, so to speak, and his great artistry, one never forgets that for a moment, but it was a very special privilege to know him at a different level.”

Sean Rafferty: How would you describe his legacy?
Dame Janet Baker: “I think it is probably a bit like Kathleen Ferrier. An artist of that magnitude doesn’t cast a shadow over the ones coming after, not at all, but it is something to emulate. I always measured his voice category by what he did and that’s quite tough for younger people to cope with, I think, but nevertheless the benchmark is important - and, as you say, he had everything. Absolutely everything.”


Posted in Classical Pit

Cornell’s Glee Club

Scott Tucker, the newest Artistic Director at the Choral Arts Society will be heading to Cornell in July where Cornell's Glee Club will be competing in the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod. Later this year Tucker will be replacing Norman Scribner as the new Artistic Director at the Choral Arts Society.

Posted in General

Scott Tucker Conducts at the Ithaca Mayfest

scott tucker2 1 Scott Tucker Conducts at the Ithaca Mayfest

Mayfest Concert for Director Scott Tucker

According to http://www.gleeclub.com/uk-tour.html Scott Tucker, the newest Director of Choral Arts Society in Washington DC will be conducting Cornell's Chorus and Glee club as they play selected pieces of Sergei Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil ('Vespers').

The Mayfest concert will be somewhat bitter-sweet for Tucker, who is leaving Cornell after 17 years.  Tucker will join the Choral Arts Society in Washington DC in September.

 

 

 

Posted in Choral Music

JDCMB Exclusive: 15% off Medici TV subscriptions

JDCMB has teamed up with the online performing arts channel Medici TV to bring you an exclusive special offer: a significant reduction on the cost of access to their Aladdin's Cave of live-streamed or on-demand video. 

Medici's catalogue stretches to about 1000 titles, featuring world-class opera, concerts, dance and arts documentaries, adding a couple of new VODs plus two or three live concerts every week. In summer the channel usually live-streams most of the concerts from the Verbier Festival. 

Now readers of JDCMB can save 15% on a subscription to Medici TV. Here's the range of options (prices in Euros - Medici is based in Paris):

-       One-month Classic subscription at 5.9 instead of 6.9 for your first month
-         One-month Classic+ subscription at 9 instead of 10.85 for your first month
-         One-year Classic subscription at 59 instead of 69
-         One-year Classic+ subscription at 90  instead of 109

All you need to do to claim your discount is go to the Medici subscriptions page, choose your option and enter the word JESSICAMUSIC in the promotional code box.

As a taster, here is an extract from Medici's latest addition: from the Royal Ballet here in London, it is Kenneth MacMillan's Manon (known in Europe as L'histoire de Manon) starring no less a team than Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta. It was filmed at the Royal Opera House in 2008.


The tale, based on a terse 18th-century thriller by the Abbé Prévost, depicts the fall of the heroine from innocent convent girl to tragically abused deportee - her fatal flaw is allowing herself to be seduced away from true love by the lure of wealth. By the time she learns that love is the only way, it is too late... The book may be centuries old and the ballet decades, yet the story and their characters can seem all too contemporary right now.

Manon is much enriched by MacMillan's knack for conveying through choreography emotional nuances that you might never expect dance to be able to reflect. And its high points are its several magnificent pas de deux for Manon and Des Grieux, modelled in the original cast of 1974 on the legendary duo of Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell. The score is a carefully wrought kaleidoscope drawn from extracts of Massenet by Leighton Lucas. 

As the invaluable Kenneth MacMillan website tells, us, Manon herself is a gift for a ballerina with dramatic bent to put her own slant on the character:
Antoinette Sibley saw her as a girl ‘who allowed it all to happen to her . . .I don’t think she’s a schemer - she only makes decisions when she has to’. Lynn Seymour made her more ruthless: she and her brother are ‘cut from the same cloth, both bandits, using all they have to achieve what they want . . . she broke the rules and the punishment crushed her’. Natalia Makarova understood her as an instinctive creature who lives for the moment, ‘extracting from it all the excitement she can. At the same time she fully knows that the day will come when she must pay the price…. for the pleasure of living fully’. Sylvie Guillem’s guileful Manon used her sexual allure to survive in a male-dominated world. Des Grieux’s misfortune was to have strayed into her path just as she was discovering her power. Where other Manons die as desperate victims, limp as rags, Guillem fought on, defying death itself.
You can see the whole thing on Medici, of course, which released the video last week, on 12 May - Jules Massenet's birthday. This year marks both the 170th anniversary of the composer's birth and the centenary of his death. 

Happy viewing!

Posted in Classical Pit

Addendum

In the Young Musician of the Year post I forgot to plug my novel ALICIA'S GIFT, in which the heroine wins this contest, among other things. You have to plug your books if you have a blog, so here it is.
Posted in Classical Pit

Bourne again: Swan Lake in 3D



Swan Lake is making a splash again - this time in 3D. The other week I trotted off to Islington where Matthew Bourne's dance company New Adventures was in rehearsal. It was April, but felt like December... so Matthew and I huddled beside a gas heater in the back room and had a good talk about that Swan Lake and how he and Ross MacGibbon went about turning it into the 3D movie that hits cinemas worldwide from today. Besides, I always wondered what made him think up the concept. And now we know - and it's good. My feature is in The Independent today.

Happy 25th birthday to the company! Don't miss them at Sadler's Wells in the "Early Adventures" triple bill from 21 May. Full info on Swan Lake in 3D and the cinema screenings here.


Posted in Classical Pit

There can only be one BBC Young Musician of the Year…


Thought for Monday: for every musician whose lifelong public career is launched in the arena of BBC Young Musicians, there are maybe 100 more, at least, who vanish. And if there's one thing more dangerous than that, it is to be the BBC Young Musician of the Year - and find you are still BBC Young Musician of the Year when you're 40.



(Above, l to r, this year's "semi-finalists": Charlotte, Alexander, Laura, Yuanfan, Hyun-gi) 

If the BBC YM 2012 contest has left me a tad underwhelmed, that is not the fault of the YMs. Certain other commentators have been applauding the fact that there weren't any screaming audiences and other commodities wheeled out for TV talent shows. But really, the polite, packed, Sage audience aside, the resemblance to The Apprentice was all too obvious.

"...but there can only be one BBC Young Musician of the Year..." Sounds familiar?

Now, look. The Tchaikovsky and Chopin International Competitions manage it. They don't award a first prize if nobody merits it. They sometimes give two silver medals instead of a gold and a silver. Very occasionally they've given a joint gold. Even Dragon's Den lets more than one contestant get an investment. There can be more than one winner; there can be no winner. Someone makes the rules. Perhaps someone can remake them.

And obviously someone already has, because all five section winners of BBCYM used to play a concerto. This time, they had to do a semi-final "play-off". "...but now they must compete against each other!...Two of them will be going home today..." So the final only contained three concertos instead of five, and was...er, shorter.

The trombonist Alexander Kelly and percussionist Hyun-gi Lee had no business being kicked out. They were both fabulous. As purveyors of niche instruments on which a solo career is rare, perhaps they started off at a disadvantage. Occasionally a brass instrument or a percussionist does win BBCYM. Just not very often.

The most daring choice as outright winner would have been Charlotte Barbour-Condini, who made history by being the first recorder player ever to reach the final. Talk about a natural musician: Charlotte has everything - charisma, confidence, tremendous musicality, the bearing and spirit of a mature artist. At least she can reap the benefits now of national TV exposure without the pressures of having won outright; she is apparently just as good at the piano and the violin (!), so she has a little time to choose her direction. Yesterday was her 16th birthday. She will be fine - and will probably remain the most interesting of them all.

Another finalist clearly couldn't wait to get out there and deliver the goods, and was assured enough to perform a (rather engaging) composition of his own in the semis, then, for the big final, the Grieg Piano Concerto, which he seemed to find a piece of cake. I first encountered Yuanfan Yang in 2007 when he was all of ten. He was in the Chetham's International Piano Competition for Young Musicians and he'd already attracted considerable attention. He will be fine, too, no matter what happened yesterday. He'll probably be in the Royal Festival Hall before you can blink.

The 15-year-old cellist Laura Van Der Heijden from Forest Row scooped the award, playing the Walton Cello Concerto. She's lovely, of course: advanced, mature and aware for her age, and that Walton is no small ask. But is she "ready"? When Nicky Benedetti won the prize aged 16, she was "ready" to the point that she'd already been signed up by IMG. Laura has tremendous potential, but it bothers me - through issues such as occasionally insecure intonation - that she may be where she is two years too soon? Time will tell, though, everyone seems to have adored her, and we wish them all the very, very best of luck.

This competition, as Norman Lebrecht has already noted, has failed to ignite attention in the national press. Would it have done so if, instead of being shoe-horned into that Apprentice-like style, it had stayed truer to the nature of its beast within? Then it could have retained, just like a recorder player, its individual niche. But by repositioning itself in too much the vein of other "reality" shows, it's landed itself as a fringe member of a club that doesn't really want to admit it, instead of holding the centre ground of that rare phenomenon, classical music on mainstream TV. 

Next time, please, a reconsideration of what BBCYM really is; and of what it is not; and of how it can maximise its power to assist these gifted young people. You can watch the final for the next 6 days here (UK only).

Posted in Classical Pit

Singing for their supper picnic…

May? It'll soon be Glyndebourne.

I had a nose about the new season that left me wondering - given the nature of their poster - who the black sheep of the Glynditz family could possibly be. Well, blow me down - it's Ravel? Seems that people don't want to eat something that they can't pronounce. I asked general manager David Pickard how it's all going in these hard times, and also had a chat with Melly Still about her new production of The Cunning Little Vixen - you remember, she was the director of Glyndebourne's utterly magical Rusalka a couple of years ago. Read all about it in my piece for today's Independent.

Meanwhile, Glyndebourne is currently offering a free streaming on its website of On Such a Night. It's a wonderfully 1950s film directed by Anthony Asquith, designed to introduce audiences, and Americans in particular, to the delights of English country house opera. Catch it here.

And if you're heading to Trafalgar Square this evening to hear the LSO, guess what? The sun is out. Is there nothing that Valery Gergiev can't fix?




Posted in Classical Pit

Friday catch-up and Friday historical…

Busy patch. Here are some highlights of days past and the weekend ahead.

>> I was on BBC Radio 4's Front Row the other day, in discussion with Klaus Heymann, founder of Naxos Records, about the way the record industry has changed since the company launched 25 years ago. If you missed it, you can catch it on the BBC iPlayer until Tuesday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01h75d9#p00s959x

>> Pianist Anthony Hewitt, "The Olympianist", has set off on his big ride from Land's End to John O'Groats and was lucky enough to encounter a strong west tail wind to get things started. He made it from kick-off to Truro in three hours, with his trusty BeethoVan close behind. Follow his progress via his website here. He's already raised more than £4000 for his seven musical and sporting charities.

>> The Royal Philharmonic Society Awards ceremony was held on Tuesday night at the Dorchester. Highlights included a gold medal for Mitsuko Uchida, whose speech was as vivid and genuine as her playing. So was Gareth Malone's - as keynote speaker he was gloriously positive. We are representing the best music in the world, so let's celebrate that! He stopped short of getting us all to sing, though. Maurizio Pollini was Instrumentalist of the Year and Claudio Abbado scooped the Conductor prize. Cellist Olly Coates was selected as Young Artist, heading off extraordinary competition from a shortlist that also included Benjamin Grosvenor and Sophie Bevan. It was an extremely good night for ENO, which won the Opera award for its Eugene Onegin. With them was Toby Spence, who won Singer of the Year, a prize that incidentally was decided upon well before the distressing news reached anybody that he has been having treatment for thyroid cancer. He tells me he is on the mend, supported by a superb team of doctors and vocal coaches. And he was wearing some spectacular leopard-print shoes. A fine time was had by one and all. Full list of winners here. A Radio 3 broadcast is coming up on

>> I've just attended a special screening of John Bridcut's new documentary about Delius. It's fabulous. Exquisitely shot, full of insights and containing one or two considerable surprises - not least, some unfamiliar music that has no business being as neglected as it is. A few familiar faces on board, too (hello, Aarhus!). Don't miss it. It will be on BBC4 on 25 May.

>> My latest piece for The Spectator Arts Blog is about the unstoppable rise of the modern counter-tenor. I asked Iestyn Davies to explain to us how That Voice works. Read the whole thing here.

>> Tomorrow the LSO is giving a free concert in Trafalgar Square, complete with Valery Gergiev on the podium. Expect lots of Stravinsky, big screens and a London backdrop second to none. And the weather forecast says that, for once, it is NOT going to rain. Even Prince Charles will tell you so. Apparently he's always wanted to be a weatherman. Now his guest appearance on BBC Scotland has gone viral...

>> On Sunday Roxanna Panufnik has the world premiere of her new choral piece Love Endureth at Westminster Cathedral, during Vespers, 3.30pm. You don't have to be Catholic to go in. Here's an interview with her about this multi-faith project that I wrote a few weeks back - for the JC.

>> Apparently Roman Polanski is making a film about the Dreyfus Case. In the Guardian he comments: "one can show its absolute relevance to what is happening in today's world – the age-old spectacle of the witch hunt on a minority group, security paranoia, secret military tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, governmental cover-ups and a rabid press." (Quite.)

And so to Friday Historical. Tomorrow is Gabriel Fauré's birthday. Here is Samson François playing the Nocturne No.6 in D flat.



Posted in Classical Pit

Friday catch-up and Friday historical…

Busy patch. Here are some highlights of days past and the weekend ahead.

>> I was on BBC Radio 4's Front Row the other day, in discussion with Klaus Heymann, founder of Naxos Records, about the way the record industry has changed since the company launched 25 years ago. If you missed it, you can catch it on the BBC iPlayer until Tuesday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01h75d9#p00s959x

>> Pianist Anthony Hewitt, "The Olympianist", has set off on his big ride from Land's End to John O'Groats and was lucky enough to encounter a strong west tail wind to get things started. He made it from kick-off to Truro in three hours, with his trusty BeethoVan close behind. Follow his progress via his website here. He's already raised more than £4000 for his seven musical and sporting charities.

>> The Royal Philharmonic Society Awards ceremony was held on Tuesday night at the Dorchester. Highlights included a gold medal for Mitsuko Uchida, whose speech was as vivid and genuine as her playing. So was Gareth Malone's - as keynote speaker he was gloriously positive. We are representing the best music in the world, so let's celebrate that! He stopped short of getting us all to sing, though. Maurizio Pollini was Instrumentalist of the Year and Claudio Abbado scooped the Conductor prize. Cellist Olly Coates was selected as Young Artist, heading off extraordinary competition from a shortlist that also included Benjamin Grosvenor and Sophie Bevan. It was an extremely good night for ENO, which won the Opera award for its Eugene Onegin. With them was Toby Spence, who won Singer of the Year, a prize that incidentally was decided upon well before the distressing news reached anybody that he has been having treatment for thyroid cancer. He tells me he is on the mend, supported by a superb team of doctors and vocal coaches. And he was wearing some spectacular leopard-print shoes. A fine time was had by one and all. Full list of winners here. A Radio 3 broadcast is coming up on

>> I've just attended a special screening of John Bridcut's new documentary about Delius. It's fabulous. Exquisitely shot, full of insights and containing one or two considerable surprises - not least, some unfamiliar music that has no business being as neglected as it is. A few familiar faces on board, too (hello, Aarhus!). Don't miss it. It will be on BBC4 on 25 May.

>> My latest piece for The Spectator Arts Blog is about the unstoppable rise of the modern counter-tenor. I asked Iestyn Davies to explain to us how That Voice works. Read the whole thing here.

>> Tomorrow the LSO is giving a free concert in Trafalgar Square, complete with Valery Gergiev on the podium. Expect lots of Stravinsky, big screens and a London backdrop second to none. And the weather forecast says that, for once, it is NOT going to rain. Even Prince Charles will tell you so. Apparently he's always wanted to be a weatherman. Now his guest appearance on BBC Scotland has gone viral...

>> On Sunday Roxanna Panufnik has the world premiere of her new choral piece Love Endureth at Westminster Cathedral, during Vespers, 3.30pm. You don't have to be Catholic to go in. Here's an interview with her about this multi-faith project that I wrote a few weeks back - for the JC.

>> Apparently Roman Polanski is making a film about the Dreyfus Case. In the Guardian he comments: "one can show its absolute relevance to what is happening in today's world – the age-old spectacle of the witch hunt on a minority group, security paranoia, secret military tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, governmental cover-ups and a rabid press." (Quite.)

And so to Friday Historical. Tomorrow is Gabriel Fauré's birthday. Here is Samson François playing the Nocturne No.6 in D flat.



Posted in Classical Pit