Alex Ross's Blog, page 147

Tokyo Philharmonic at 100

Japan's oldest orchestra is celebrating its centennial with a world tour. It will make its American debut at Alice Tully Hall on March 11, playing two twentieth-century Japanese works — Toshiro Mayuzumi's Bugaku and Kiyoshige Koyama's Kobiki-uta — alongside the Rite of Spring. Eiji Oue conducts. Other highlights of the coming week at Night After Night.

Zubel sings Berio, Copland, Zubel

Temirkanov incident

Yuri Temirkanov, on tour with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, inspired a protest last night in San Francisco. The activist Michael Petrelis describes the incident and links to a video. Temirkanov seems to find it all very amusing. Evidence of the conductor's attitude toward women can be found here.

For Robert Ashley

The master of experimental opera died yesterday, at the age of eighty-three. Kyle Gann, author of a brilliant short book about Ashley, remembers him. Much of Ashley's work can readily be seen on YouTube and, especially, Vimeo, which has recent live renditions of Dust and That Morning Thing.

Segerstam at 70

Photo: Sami Kero, Helsingin Sanomat.

Back in 2004, in one of the first posts on this blog, I noted that Leif Segerstam, the merrily volcanic Finnish composer-conductor, was about to surpass Haydn by writing his 105th symphony. Segerstam is now celebrating his seventieth birthday, and, Vesa Sirén informs me, he is at work on Symphony No. 270 — a number unlikely to be challenged in the record books. Here is a Finnish-language interview by Sirén, with fun photos, and an accompanying video, in which Segerstam says, "I can see an eye, and a camera, but they are on the other side. That's why 'border crossing' is needed."

Szymański

Bezuidenhout!

The South African-born fortepianist gave a mesmerizing recital of C.P.E. Bach and Mozart at Zankel Hall last night. His big Mozart survey for Harmonia Mundi goes from strength to strength; may there be a similar series for Carl Philipp.

Cherished postcard

Off-topic recommendation*

I'm not sure there's ever been a book quite like Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch: a biography, a literary study, a memoir, a travelogue, a history of imaginary places becoming real. All told, it's a deep delight.

*George Eliot will, however, be very much a topic in Wagnerism.

Szymański's Qudsja Zaher

Drowned Sounds. The New Yorker, March 3, 2014.