October 14, 2008
ZUILL BAILEY - A SCHEDULE TO RECKON WITH
Delos InsiderKeeping you up-to-date with the live performance schedule of Delos recording artists is usually relatively easy. A call to their management normally results in an orderly response with ten to twenty dates outlined for the next season.
Not so with Zuill Bailey, the dynamic cello virtuoso, whose Delos releases helped debut his spectacular career. From this October 2008 until next August 2009 he is signed up for 50 (and counting) concerts and recital dates. The travelling required is mind-boggling and must result in thousands of airline bonus miles. Cities and locales range from Santa Barbara CA, San Francisco CA, Napa Valley CA, El Paso TX, the Hudson Valley, Washington DC, Portsmouth VA, Columbia SC, Las Cruces NM, Troy NY, Raleigh NC, Shreveport LA, Las Vegas NV, Phoenix AZ, Palm Springs, CA, Anchorage AK (in February!), Victoria TX, Stillwater MN, Chatanooga TN, Atlanta GA, Spartanburg SC, Danville VA, Lake Charles LA, Erie PA, Beacon NY, New York NY, Orlando FL, and then off to Townsville Australia! Repertoire with orchestras includes the Beethoven Triple Concerto, cello concertos by Elgar, Haydn, Dvorak, and Saint-Saëns, plus Strauss's Don Quixote and Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and Pezzo Capriccioso. Chamber music and recital dates feature pieces by Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn, Massenet, Paganini, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Casals, and Shostakovich. For exact information in your area check Zuill's website www.ZuillBailey.com/tour.
Closest to us are his appearances in Santa Barbara, whiere he helps to inaugurate the new season of the Santa Barbara Symphony in its new home, the grandly restored Granada Theater. Concerts are on October 25 and 26. Zuill plays the cello part in Beethoven's Triple Concerto with pianist Navah Perlman and violinist Giora Schmidt.
To hear what makes Zuill so special, try any or all of Delos' Zuill Bailey releases:
Zuill Bailey Debut Album (DE 3326) with pianist Simone Dinnerstein in pieces by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Francoeur, and Vieuxtemps.
Janos Starker Celebration (DE 3344) in which Zuill joins the master in the great Schubert Quintet in C, and the Boccherini Quintet in C. Also with violinists Kurt Nikkanen and Soovin Kim, and violist Kirten Johnson.
Beethoven Cello Sonatas 1-3 (DE 3368) with pianist Simone Dinnerstein.
Saint-Saëns Cello Concertos 1 & 2 (DE 3378) a glorious collaboration with David Wiley and the Roanoke Symphony.
Arensky & Dohnányi with cellist Lynn Harrell (DE 1040) Live from El Paso Pro-Musica, with violinists Soovin Kim and Giora Schmidt and violist Kirsten Johnson.
October 10, 2008
GUITAR LOVER'S ALERT!
Delos InsiderGOOD THINGS COME IN FOURS
The Brazilian Guitar Quartet has become world-renowned in a very short time. Currently featuring Everton Gloeden and Luis Mantovani (8-string guitars), and Tadeu do Amaral and Edson Lopes (6-string guitars), the group has deeply impressed guitar fanciers and music lovers everywhere with its musicianship, virtuosity and the sophistication of its repertoire.
Delos has released four recordings by this outstanding ensemble, each unique in range and beauty. First came Essência do Brasil (DE 3245), a wonderful introduction to the group and to many Brazilian composers, among them Villa Lobos, Guarnieri, Mignone and Gomes. Then, their second recording Bach: Four Orchestral Suites (DE 3254), proved a triumph of classical transcription. As Billboard said “…the Suites sound as if they were meant for this arrangement all along, with the players bringing out not only the rich counterpoint but the vibrant color of the works.”
Returning to their origins, the Quartet’s third Delos release Encantamento (DE 3302) revealed even more fine music from Brazilian composers Mignone, Guarnieri, Santoro, Miranda and Oswald.
A recent fourth CD is the most ambitious of all, a complete transcription for guitar quartet of Isaac Albeniz’s piano suite Iberia (DE 3364). This world-premiere recording amazes with the knowledge, skill and aptness that the Quartet’s Iberia demonstrates in convincing you that this is what Albeniz had in mind and wanted to hear when he composed these 12 evocative and eloquent tone pictures of cities and provinces of Spain.
On their American tour this month the group will be giving concerts on Saturday Oct. 11 in Troy, New York; Thursday Oct. 16 at the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; Sunday Oct. 19 at the First Southern Baptist Church in Hemet, California; Wednesday Oct. 22 at the National Gallery in Washington, DC; and finally on Thursday Oct. 23 at the American Theatre in Hampton, Virginia. Check your local news sources for exact details. Programs will vary from place to place but all will feature Brazilian music by Villa-Lobos, Miranda, Mignone, Santoro and Guarnieri, as well as Bach and generous samplings of Iberia. Many of these selections are featured on the BGQ’s Delos recordings, which will be available at all venues (except for the National Gallery).
October 09, 2008
Watch For These Dates!
Delos Insider
One of the gems of the Delos catalog is DE 3333, “The Sound of the Italian Saxophone Quartet,” Although well-known internationally, this virtuoso foursome of musicians (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones), has appeared less frequently in the Los Angeles area and the US generally. Soon we’ll have a chance to hear them in person, and what a revelation it will be for an audience not accustomed to the beautiful sound produced by this wonderful quartet. Federico Mondelci (soprano sax), Marco Gerboni (alto sax), Mario Marzi (tenor sax), and Massimo Mazzoni (baritone sax) are all superb Italian musicians. They have been playing together as a quartet since 1982. With a repertoire of brilliant transcriptions and other compositions written especially for them, they cover a wide range of music from Bach and Scarlatti to Gershwin and Françaix.
October US dates include concerts at Arts Northwest, Hult Center, Eugene OR on Wednesday Oct. 15; Sundays Live at the Los Angeles County Museum on Sunday, Oct. 19; Community Concert Assn., Bishop CA on Tuesday Oct. 22; The Ohio Presenters Showcase in Elyria OH (near Cleveland) on Monday, Oct. 27; and the Gainsville GA ProMusica on Tuesday Oct. 28.
Their live concert in the Los Angeles area will take placed on Sunday October 19 at 6pm in the Leo S. Bing Theater of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). It will feature music by Scarlatti, Bach, Shostakovich, Glazunov and Françaix and promises to be a highlight of the season. As part of the Sunday Live/2008 series it is free to the public. A reminder for Delos CD fans… the album The Sound of the Italian Saxophone Quartet (DE 3333) will be available after the program — and at many others on the tour. It includes several of the number heard in the concert.
The soprano saxophonist, Federico Mondelci, holds a special place as a featured soloist in other Delos recordings. One of the finest exponents of his art, he has played on a number of Moscow Chamber Orchestra recordings conducted by Constantine Orbelian. The most recent Favorite Italian Movie Music (DE 3337) is especially beguiling with saxophone and orchestra arrangements of film music by Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota and Roberto Molinelli.
The other irresistible Delos album in which Mondelci, Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra play together is Piazzolla Tangos - arranged for saxophone and orchestra (DE 3252) a true classic in the catalog.
As FANFARE MAGAZINE’s review said “Federico Mondelci’s work is outstanding in its sublety, beauty of tone production and idiomatic ease. One quickly becomes aware not merely of an instrument purporting to be a human voice but of all emotions that voice conveys.”
September 27, 2008
Ewa Podles Triumphs at the Met
Delos InsiderWe knew it was bound to happen! The long overdue return to New York’s Metropolitan Opera of Ewa Podles — the uniquely talented contralto and Delos recording artist — was a triumph!
On Wednesday night, September 24th, two days into its new season, the Met revived its venerable production of Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, principally for celebrated soprano Deborah Voigt and mezzo Olga Borodina. Nowadays this opera, for all its luscious arias, is seldom staged unless the company can muster a galaxy of great singers. In addition to the soprano and mezzo roles Gioconda needs a first rate tenor, baritone and bass. And, finally, there’s a relatively short but demanding role for contralto, “La Cieca,” Gioconda’s blind mother, who has limited stage time to make a big impression.
As we knew she would, Ewa Podles grabbed the role and ran with it and, in the process, got the best reviews of the evening and a five-minute ovation.
Here is a quote from the review in the New York Sun:
“As for Madame Podles, many of us have been lobbying for her reappearance at the Met for many years (she last sang here in 1984). No matter how often I hear her remarkably subterranean contralto, the first time that she opens her mouth in a given performance is a shocking moment. Singing the role of La Cieca, the blind mother of Gioconda, she delivered such an otherworldly “Figlia, che reggi il tremolo pie” that for the first time I thought that maybe, just maybe she actually was a witch. Take note Mr. Gelb: the ovation for her lasted longer than all of the others for the whole cast of singers for the entire evening combined.”
Confirming this opinion, we quote the distinguished critic George Loomis of MusicalAmerica.com: “Podles’ La Cieca in the season premiere of Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda” was the Polish contralto’s first appearance at the Met since she sang two performances of the title role of Handel’s “Rinaldo” (plus two in the parks) in 1984.”
In this Gioconda “Podles was the vocal standout [although] La Cieca is not one of the opera’s juiciest roles. But it does have, in the aria “Voce di donna,” one of the juiciest melodies, or even two when you count the “rosario” theme the aria blossoms into … the concentrated intensity and power of her singing have a way of ratcheting up the emotional content of what she undertakes, and so it was with her “Voce di donna,” a heartfelt expression of thanks by a blind woman to the noble woman who rescued her from a charge of witchcraft. It is not that Podles necessarily sings louder than other singers, but that she shapes phrases, colors vowels and releases the full power of the voice so as to lift the music up to a higher communicative plane.”
Finally, Loomis concludes: “Podles’ performance has vindicated the many fans that have long pushed for her return to the Met. Let’s hope that her appearances this season are not just a flash in the pan but the first of several over the next few years. A heroic Handel role would prove her to be a worthy successor to Marilyn Horne, for whom she served as cover those many years ago.”
To sample Ewa Podles’ art listen to Delos’ Handel Arias from Rinaldo and Orlando (DE 3253), and Russian Arias (DE 3298).