Watch Live (and ondemand after) Ariadne Auf Naxos, Baden Baden, Fleming, Koch, Thielemann,

Broadcast live on Medici TV on : Feb. 25, 2012, 7:15 p.m (6:15 pm UK time). Follow the Link below for more details and to watch.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Philippe Arlaud stage director, set designer
Andrea Uhmann costume designer

Staatskapelle Dresde
Christian Thielemann music director
Eike Wilm Schulte (A music teacher)
Sophie Koch (The composer)
Renée Fleming (Ariadne / Prima donna)
Robert Dean Smith (Bacchus / The tenor)
Jane Archibald (Zerbinetta)
Nikolay Borchev (Harlequine)
Kenneth Roberson (Scaramuccio)
Steven Humes (Truffaldino)
Kevin Conners (Brighella)
Christian Baumgärtel (The dancing master)
Roman Grübner (Lackey)
David Jerusalem (Wigmaker)
Michael Ventow (Officer)
Christina Landshamer (Naiad)
Rachel Frenkel (Dryad)
Lenneke Ruiten (Echo)
René Kollo (Majordomo)



Movie director : Brian Large
Location : Festspielhaus Baden-Baden (Baden-Baden, Germany)
Broadcasting date : 02/25/2012
Production : A production of Unitel Classica in co-production with ZDF/3sat in cooperation with Festspielhaus BadenBaden.

20th Century Music from Cologne: Rautavaara, Prokofiev, Sibelius

Recorded live from the Cologne Philharmonie, features the City of Birmingham Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo perform Rautavaara's Isle of Bliss; Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Op. 26 with Olli Mustonen as the soloist; Sibelius's Symphony No. 5 in E flat Op. 82 and also, as an encore, the composer's Valse Triste Op. 44.

"Call it Anything": Miles Davis - Live at The Isle of Wight Festival (29-08-1970)

Luigi Nono: La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura

Luigi Nono was born in Venice on January 29, 1924. Gian-Francesco Malipiero was an early teacher. Nono detoured by way of a degree in criminal law from the University of Padua before he immersed himself in serious musical studies with Hermann Scherchen and Bruno Maderna. His star rose quickly. By the time he was 30, Nono, along with Stockhausen and Boulez, was a fixture at Darmstadt and one of serialism’s most charismatic proponents. He married Arnold Schoenberg’s daughter Nuria in 1955. A great deal of his early works reflect deeply felt political views, e.g., Il canto sospeso (1956), for vocal soloists, chorus, orchestra, piano and tape, the texts of which come from resistance fighters’ letters. With the 1980 string quartet Fragmente - Stille, An Diotima, his music grew increasingly enigmatic, fragmented and, most surprisingly, quieter. Still passionate about philosophy and music, Nono had embarked upon a quest to discover new sounds, especially those on the brink of inaudibility. Electronics became crucial to his work, as were close partnerships with performers and other composers. Nono died on May 8, 1990, in Venice.

“Caminantes, no hay caminos, hay que caminar”

Graffiti sparked Nono’s late works. In 1985, he sighted an inscription on a monastery wall in Toledo, Spain. Caminantes, no hay caminos, hay que caminar (Travelers, there are no paths, you must walk) became the motto for several late compositions: Caminantes … Ayacucho (1987), No hay caminos, hay que caminar … Andrej Tarkovskij (1987), La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, Madrigale per più “caminantes” con Gidon Kremer (1988/89) and “Hay que caminar” soñando (1989).

Poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939), whose texts Nono had used in “Ha venido” Canciones para Silvia (1960) and Canciones a Guiomar (1963), wrote similar lines: Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino….

La lontananza’s history

Nono and violinist Gidon Kremer met in 1987. It immediately became clear to each man that they had to work together. They committed to a fall 1988 performance date at the Berlin Festwochen. Nono invited Kremer to the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation in Freiburg. For several hours each day between the 15th and 19th of February 1988, the composer asked the violinist to improvise before the microphone. Nono analyzed Kremer’s playing. He electronically processed and manipulated the recordings, creating a final tape between June 19 and 25.

As the summer progressed, Kremer grew increasingly concerned. He had committed to the new work’s creation but had not yet received a single page of music. The violinist arrived in Berlin two days before the premiere. Still no music. Nono gradually delivered one page at a time. The music was close to indecipherable. Kremer worked feverishly to decode the extraordinarily high notes and precise expressive markings.

Even with the presence of Nono’s experienced colleagues from Freiburg, Hans Peter Haller, André Richard, Rudolf Strauss, and Alvise Vidolin, an eleventh-hour crisis loomed. The composer’s confidence evaporated. He doubted the tape’s content. The technical challenges required for playback appeared insurmountable. He wanted Kremer to play the 45-minute La lontananza nostalgica-futura unaccompanied. After much assuaging, Nono relented. The composition premiered with violin and tapes on September 3. A second performance followed in Milan on October 2 (paired with Busoni’s second sonata for violin and piano).

But Nono was not satisfied. He completely rewrote the solo part and altered its relationship to the tapes. The revisions were completed in January 1989. He even changed the title.

La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura

Ricordi, the music’s publisher, gives the complete title as La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, Madrigale per più “caminantes” con Gidon Kremer. The work is scored for solo violin, eight tapes, and eight to ten music stands. The score indicates 45 minutes; most recordings, at close to an hour, bear this note: “Production and electronic realization of the 8-track magnetic tape under the direction of Luigi Nono and Hans Peter Haller in the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation Südwestrundfunk Freiburg, Rudolf Strauss, sound engineer.”

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Maya Deren: A Retrospective (Includes audio interview)

I think most people are familiar with Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (in no small part perhaps to its seeming influence on later directors including David Lynch). But so much of her work still remains relatively obscure - or at least it did till the advent of youtube. What would we do without it?

Introduction taken from a MOMA exhibition upon Deren a few years ago:

Maya Deren (American, 1917–1961) was a visionary of American experimental film in the 1940s and 1950s. A precocious student, she studied poetry and literature at New York University and Smith College, where she became interested in the arts. While working for modern-dance choreographer Katherine Dunham, Deren met her future husband, filmmaker Alexander Hammid, who introduced her to European avant-garde film. In 1943, the couple collaborated on the short film Meshes of the Afternoon, which has since become one of the most widely influential films of the American experimental-film movement.

Deren, who received the first Guggenheim Foundation grant for “creative work in the field of motion pictures” and formed the Creative Film Foundation to broaden support for experimental film, continued making and self-distributing her own films and lecturing and writing about avant-garde cinema theory until her untimely death at the age of forty-four. Her pioneering formal innovations—performing in front of the camera, using semiautobiographical content, and meshing literary, psychological, and ethnographic disciplines with rigorous technique—inspired future generations of experimental filmmakers.

Einojuhani Rautavaara - Cantus Arcticus

Live-Aufnahme des 25. Internationalen Jazz-Festivals in St. Ingbert 

(Alte Schmelz, 25.03.2011)

Eine Hommage an Charlie "Bird" Parker

Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern

Chef-Dirigent: Christoph Poppen

(Versuchsweise) Gliederung des Musikstückes:

0:00 (Flöte)

1:18 (weitere Instrumente)

3:30 (Streicher, tiefe Instrumente)

4:46 (warme, helle Streicher)

7:37 (Ruhe, Vögel)

8:25 (Streicher)

11:26 (Ruhe, Vögel)

12:21 (Flöte, vom Anfang)

13:51 (Melodie von 3:30, tiefe Instrumente)

Festival-Programm am 25.03.2011:

- Cantus Arcticus

- Bird with Strings (Jazz-Arrangements für Orchester und Big Band)

- Bird on Fire (Oliver Strauch und Carolin Pook)