Just a reminder, slightly late, that Bard Music West's annual festival is this weekend, and this year's featured composer is the Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz.
I went to the first concert last night despite having been up, more or less, since 2 a.m. California time and despite a cross-country flight. The music was splendid, and the performances electrifying.
Here's today's schedule:
3 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. - Screening of The World Only Sees My Cheerful Face
4 p.m. to 6 p.m. - Concert, From War to Warsaw Autumn
8 p.m. to 10 p.m. - Concert, Evolution and Persistence
Noe Valley Ministry
1021 Sanchez
SF, CA
Yesterday's composers were Bacewicz, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Paderewski, N. Boulanger, Debussy, and Monteverdi. I'm not terribly happy about the spoken program notes (not my thing) and I was even less happy about the uncritical comments on Boulanger, who was anti-Semitic and a dictatorial teacher.
Today's composers are Bacewicz, Clapies, Baird, A. Panufnik, Zubel, Berg, Lutosławski, Ptaszyńska, Kulenty, and Zielinska.
Deepest thanks to Allegra Chapman and Laura Gaynon for this amazing programming, an in-depth look at a terrific composer, the sound-world in which she flourished, and the Polish composers who came after her.
Showing posts with label Bard Music West. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bard Music West. Show all posts
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Friday, September 13, 2019
The World of Grażyna Bacewicz
Grażyna Bacewicz
The intrepid folks at Bard Music West have just announced the details of their upcoming weekend of concerts, The World of Grażyna Bacewicz, which will focus on the great Polish composer, her contemporaries, and her successors. The programming is fantastic, to the point that maybe I will swap my Figaro ticket.
October 18 and 19, 2019
Noe Valley Ministry
1021 Sanchez St., San Francisco
Single tickets $20-$50. Ticket packages also available. www.bardmusicwest.org/tickets
Friday, October 18, 7:30pm
1: A Rising Star
Grażyna Bacewicz: String Quartet No. 1
Igor Stravinsky: Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet
Nadia Boulanger: Vers la vie nouvelle (Toward the new life)
Karol Szymanowski: Mazurkas, Op. 50 (selections)
Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Nocturne in B-flat Major
Claude Debussy: Études for Piano (selections)
Claudio Monteverdi: Nine Madrigals (selections)
Bacewicz: Piano Quintet No. 1
Saturday, October 19, 4pm
2: From War to Warsaw Autumn
Bacewicz: Polish Capriccio
Mélanie Clapiès: String Trio world premiere of commissioned work
Tadeusz Baird: Suita Liryczna (Lyric Suite) (Julian Tuwim) (selections)
Andrzej Panufnik: Warszawskie dzieci (Children of Warsaw)
Panufnik: Hommage à Chopin – Five Vocalises for Soprano and Piano (selections)
Grażyna Bacewicz: selected songs for soprano and piano
Bacewicz: Partita for violin and piano
Bacewicz: Piano Sonata No. 2
Bacewicz: String Quartet No. 4
Saturday, October 19, 8pm
3: Evolution and Persistence – Her Legacy
Witold Lutosławski: Dance Preludes for Clarinet and Piano (selections)
Agata Zubel: Cadenza for solo violin
Alban Berg: Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5
Marta Ptaszyńska: Katarynka for glockenspiel
Witold Lutosławski (“Derwid”): “I don’t expect anyone today” for soprano and piano (interpretation inspired by Agata Zubel’s improvisation)
Grażyna Bacewicz: Quartet for Four Cellos
Bacewicz: String Quartet No. 7
Hanna Kulenty: Van for Piano Four Hands
Lidia Zielinska: Expandata for Snare Drum and Tape
Bacewicz: Four Caprices for Violin (arranged for viola)
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Bard Music West in 2019
Bard Music West has a banner year coming up.
First, there's a new concert series, to be held in March, when I will inconveniently be doing jujitsu in Chicago (but the trip with include Hamilton and a certain SFS music director designate at the CSO in Strauss and Bartok):
DATES Unless otherwise noted, all concerts are “pay what you can” at the door.
Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8pm Center for New Music 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco
Friday, March 29, 2019, 7:30pm Palo Alto (venue TBA)
Saturday, March 30, 2019, 1pm Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) 2155 Center Street, Berkeley Free with museum admission
Sunday, March 31, 2019, 2:30pm Residence of Composer Vivian Fung
Please contact Bard Music West to RSVP for address at 415-857-1632 or info@bardmusicwest.org.
PROGRAM more program details to be announced in February
Danny Clay – String Quartet + Toy Piano, for string quartet and toy piano
Clay – Playbook for flexible instrumentation
Gabriella Smith – Carrot Revolution for string quartet
Works by Phyllis Chen, Joseph Haydn, and others
Then there's the Bard Music West Festival, which this year will be The World of Grazyna Bacewicz!!!
On October 18-19, 2019 at Noe Valley Ministry, Bard Music West will present its third festival celebrating Polish composer and virtuoso violinist/pianist Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969). The festival will illuminate Bacewicz’s incredibly rich body of work and, in the fiftieth year since her death, make a case for her inclusion among the great composers of the twentieth-century. Three concerts and a talk will dive into her life, music, inspirations, and contemporaries.
“Witold Lutoslawski called Bacewicz ‘one of the foremost women composers of all time,’ but we believe that she was one of the great composers of the twentieth century, period. While she is well- known in her native Poland, she is rarely played in the United States. 2019 marks fifty years since her death and so it seems the right time to make a case for her inclusion in the canon of great twentieth- century composers. Our festival will be a rare opportunity to be immersed in her music which ranges from pure virtuosic fun to terribly moving statements on humanity. We also look forward to exploring her contemporaries from around World War II and its aftermath, many of whom are overlooked in their own right.” —Allegra Chapman, Artistic Codirector and Executive Director, Bard Music West
A virtuoso violinist and pianist, Bacewicz wrote over two hundred pieces of chamber music, virtuosic solo showpieces, concerti, and works for chamber orchestra and large-scale orchestra. Born in Poland, she studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and violin with André Touret and Carl Flesch. She was concertmaster of the Polish Radio Orchestra in the 1930s. During World War II, she continued to compose, giving secret underground concerts in Warsaw. Bacewicz won numerous awards for her compositions, and spent the last fifteen years of her life devoted solely to composition.
First, there's a new concert series, to be held in March, when I will inconveniently be doing jujitsu in Chicago (but the trip with include Hamilton and a certain SFS music director designate at the CSO in Strauss and Bartok):
DATES Unless otherwise noted, all concerts are “pay what you can” at the door.
Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8pm Center for New Music 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco
Friday, March 29, 2019, 7:30pm Palo Alto (venue TBA)
Saturday, March 30, 2019, 1pm Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) 2155 Center Street, Berkeley Free with museum admission
Sunday, March 31, 2019, 2:30pm Residence of Composer Vivian Fung
Please contact Bard Music West to RSVP for address at 415-857-1632 or info@bardmusicwest.org.
PROGRAM more program details to be announced in February
Danny Clay – String Quartet + Toy Piano, for string quartet and toy piano
Clay – Playbook for flexible instrumentation
Gabriella Smith – Carrot Revolution for string quartet
Works by Phyllis Chen, Joseph Haydn, and others
Then there's the Bard Music West Festival, which this year will be The World of Grazyna Bacewicz!!!
On October 18-19, 2019 at Noe Valley Ministry, Bard Music West will present its third festival celebrating Polish composer and virtuoso violinist/pianist Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969). The festival will illuminate Bacewicz’s incredibly rich body of work and, in the fiftieth year since her death, make a case for her inclusion among the great composers of the twentieth-century. Three concerts and a talk will dive into her life, music, inspirations, and contemporaries.
“Witold Lutoslawski called Bacewicz ‘one of the foremost women composers of all time,’ but we believe that she was one of the great composers of the twentieth century, period. While she is well- known in her native Poland, she is rarely played in the United States. 2019 marks fifty years since her death and so it seems the right time to make a case for her inclusion in the canon of great twentieth- century composers. Our festival will be a rare opportunity to be immersed in her music which ranges from pure virtuosic fun to terribly moving statements on humanity. We also look forward to exploring her contemporaries from around World War II and its aftermath, many of whom are overlooked in their own right.” —Allegra Chapman, Artistic Codirector and Executive Director, Bard Music West
A virtuoso violinist and pianist, Bacewicz wrote over two hundred pieces of chamber music, virtuosic solo showpieces, concerti, and works for chamber orchestra and large-scale orchestra. Born in Poland, she studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and violin with André Touret and Carl Flesch. She was concertmaster of the Polish Radio Orchestra in the 1930s. During World War II, she continued to compose, giving secret underground concerts in Warsaw. Bacewicz won numerous awards for her compositions, and spent the last fifteen years of her life devoted solely to composition.
To reiterate the important dates:
Concerts:
Thursday, March 28-Sunday, March 31, 2019, in various locations.
The World of Grazing Bacewicz:
October 18-19, 2019
Noe Valley Ministry
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