The Berkshire Review for the Arts » Podcasts

An Interview with Wu Han and David Finckel: Life after the Emerson Quartet and an Upcoming Concert at South Mountain Concerts

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 04:56:27 +0000

Along with the retirement of the Tokyo String Quartet, the departure of David Finckel from the Emerson Quartet has been one of the most discussed events in the world of chamber music over the past eighteen months or so. As people who have heard their concerts know, both David Finckel and the Emerson Quartet, now with the British cellist, Paul Watkins, in place, are as rich as ever in their contributions to our well-being as humans. Wu Han and David Finckel spoke with me just today about their new post-Emerson life, which allows David to travel and play more regularly with Wu Han as a duo and as a trio with Emerson violinist Philip Setzer, who will join them at the venerable South Mountain Concerts on Sunday, September 29, 2013. They will play Beethoven Op. 1, No. 2, Shostakovich's Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67, and Dvořák's Trio in E Minor, Op. 90, the "Dumky."

I hope you enjoy our conversation about their past, present, and future as much as I did.

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Jonas Alber conducts the Staatsorchester Braunschweig in Franck’s D Minor Symphony—a Podcast.

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:08:47 +0000

Some months ago an email discussion arose among our writers and friends about César Franck’s D Minor Symphony. Steven Kruger, who heard the Chicago Symphony play the work under Riccardo Muti on a West Coast tour in February, was surprised to learn from Alex Ross’s review of their New York series in October (The New Yorker, Oct. 22, 2012) that the old warhorse, once performed at Carnegie Hall seven or eight times in a season, had become a rarity, played there only four times since 1988. Kruger observed: “I think senior conductors serve a function in recycling music that was popular forty-five years ago—in the same way that fashion does this. I've always noticed that sixty-five-year-olds in positions of power in the fashion industry see to it, perhaps unconsciously, that the styles they saw at age twenty make a return appearance. It is no accident that the women today look the way they did when I was 20. Somebody my age on "Seventh Avenue" is seeing to it that they do. Similarly, I'm delighted to have Muti bring us back to the pieces of our youth…” Ross quoted Muti, who said, “This fantastic symphony by Franck, it was played everywhere in Italy when I was young. Then, suddenly, it vanished. Why is this?”

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Ruth Reichl, Ellen Doré Watson, Patty Crane, Francine Prose, and Elizabeth Graver respond to Walker Evans’ “Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead” now posted on the new Gastronomica online..with interviews with Darra Goldstein and Hannah Fries

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:00:13 +0000

As part of the second annual Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, Orion and Gastronomica co-hosted a reading featuring renowned food writer Ruth Reichl, poets Ellen Doré Watson and Patty Crane, and fiction writers Francine Prose (finalist for the National Book Award) and Elizabeth Graver. Their contributions have now been posted on the new Gastronomica site as a Web exclusive.

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Interview with Judy Grunberg and Yehuda Hanani – PS21 presents the  7th Annual Paul Grunberg Memorial Bach Concert , Saturday, June 16, 7.30 pm: Yehuda Hanani, cello;  Emma Tahmizian, piano

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 06:23:35 +0000

Saturday, June 16, 7:30 pm
7th Annual Paul Grunberg Memorial Bach Concert
Yehuda Hanani, cello
Emma Tahmizian, piano
All Bach Program: Viola da Gamba Sonatas, Suite for Unaccompanied Cello, French Suite.
Yehuda Hanani’s charismatic playing and profound interpretations bring him acclaim and reengagements throughout Europe, North and South America, Asia and his native Israel.
Tahmizian’s international career was launched when she won the grand prize at the1977 Robert Schuman International Competition. She went on to win prizes in the Tchaikovsky, Leeds, Van Cliburn and Montreal competitions. She tours throughout the US and Europe in a wide variety of appearances.

The post Interview with Judy Grunberg and Yehuda Hanani – PS21 presents the  7th Annual Paul Grunberg Memorial Bach Concert , Saturday, June 16, 7.30 pm: Yehuda Hanani, cello;  Emma Tahmizian, piano appeared first on The Berkshire Review for the Arts.

Paula Robison talks to Michael Miller

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:18:01 +0000

On the day following her amazing recital with Katherine Chi at Jordan Hall, Paula Robison and I met at the house she shares with her husband, Scott Nickrenz, with its bird's eye view of Frederick Law Olmsted's house and garden. In the hour or so we talked we covered a lot of ground: the concert, her preparations for it, and some of the music she played...we talked about Sidney Lanier, the poet, linguist, and self-taught flute virtuoso, who died at 39 of tuberculosis contracted as a Confederate prisoner of war, and Charles T. Griffes, who died at 35 of the same disease, leaving behind a remarkable body of exploratory compositions, Paul Taffanel, the founder of modern flute playing and the teacher of Ms. Robison's teacher, the great Marcel Moyse.