Latest news with #SymphonicDances
Times
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
RLPO/Hindoyan review — an orchestra and conductor in their element
Piercing audience whooping-up was much in evidence as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic ended this riotous Barbican concert, the last stop in its spring tour of England and Ireland. And I fully understood why. The wind section alone of the RLPO, so immaculately tailored, so pungently coloured, must be the best in all of the UK's top orchestras. Its players were at their finest in the second chunk of the first of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, the chunk centred on that suavely heart-tugging alto saxophone solo (thank you, Carl Raven).Another good reason for the whoops was the Venezuelan Domingo Hindoyan, described by a passing audience member as 'a total dude' and now comfortably in his fourth year as the orchestra's chief conductor. He's clearly in his
Irish Post
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Post
Cormac Henry's return to Dublin with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has ‘particular poignance'
FLAUTIST Cormac Henry is preparing to return to the venue where he gave his very first performance as a member of the national youth orchestra of Ireland. The Kerry native, who took up the flute aged seven, began has studies at the Kerry School of Music before moving on to study in Dublin and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2002 he joined the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as principal flute and it is with them that he will perform at Dublin's National Concert Hall this Thursday, May 15. 'It's always a pleasure to be back performing in Ireland, but this visit has a particular poignance for me as we are performing Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances,' Henry said this week. 'This was the first piece of music I ever played as Principal Flute of the national youth orchestra of Ireland and knowing I will be back sitting in the same seat playing the same piece in the Concert Hall as I did 30 years ago feels very special.' Henry admits that the Irish capital has a 'special place' in his heart. 'Although from Kerry, Dublin has a special place in my heart, both of my parents were from Dublin and it was where I really started to believe I could be a musician,' he explained. 'My uncle was Lord Mayor for a year in the 80s and I have fond memories of riding bikes around the bedrooms (and down the stairs!) of the mansion house when my family used to visit.' The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK's oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra, the origins of which date back to the formation of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society by a group of Liverpool music lovers in 1840. See More: Cormac Henry, Dublin, Kerry, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Leader Live
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Wrexham Symphony Orchestra to perform at William Aston Hall
Final rehearsals are currently underway as the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra prepares to deliver a special concert at the venue. The concert, titled Symphonic Steps, will take place on Saturday, May 3, at 7.30pm. The event is described as 'a journey through life with tempo and grace' and will feature an array of musical works. This includes the Overture from Benvenuto Cellini by Berlioz, Violin Concerto No. 3 by Saint-Saëns, and Symphonic Dances by Rachmaninoff. The orchestra will be joined by guest conductor Richard Howarth and violinist Kiana Chan. Matthew Ellis, chairman of Wrexham Symphony Orchestra, said: "We are delighted to welcome Richard Howarth back to the podium as the conductor for our concert at the William Aston Hall, Wrexham, on the 3rd May 2025. "We are also thrilled to welcome talented violinist Kiana Chan, who will perform Camille Saint Säens's wonderful Violin Concerto No. 3." Mr Howarth has led and directed orchestras for more than 30 years. He has worked with both professional and amateur groups, serving as principal conductor for orchestras far and wide. These include the Sale Chamber Orchestra, Westmorland Orchestra, and Blackburn Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Amman Symphony Orchestra in Jordan. He has also worked as an educator at colleges, universities, and schools, including the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham's School of Music in Manchester. Mr Howarth regularly conducts the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra, including a memorable performance of Mahler's 2nd Symphony at Bridgewater Hall. Violinist Kiana Chan was born in Hong Kong and is currently honing her musical skills at the Royal College of London as a Noel Croucher Scholar under the guidance of Professor Alexander Gilman. Ms Chan is a current member of the world-renowned ensemble, LGT Young Soloists, which has propelled her onto stages worldwide. READ MORE: Wrexham businesses temporarily closed in clampdown over illegal tobacco and vapes She first debuted as a soloist at the age of 11 when she performed Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole as a soloist with the Shanghai Philharmonic in 2014. Appearances continued with solo performances of Saint-Säens Violin Concerto No. 3 alongside the Hong Kong City Chamber Orchestra in 2015 and the Shanghai Baroque Orchestra in 2016. In 2022, Ms Chan made her debut in the UK as a soloist, performing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the Alderley Edge Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Richard Howarth. For more information, you can visit where tickets can be booked online.
New York Times
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: Two Star Pianists, Thrillingly Side by Side
When two pianists appear together in concert, the usual setup is for the curves of their instruments to hug in a yin-yang formation. The musicians face off across the expanse, some nine feet apart. But when Vikingur Olafsson and Yuja Wang brought their starry duo tour to Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening, just inches separated them. They sat side by side, their pianos splayed out in opposite directions like the wings of a butterfly, with the players in the middle. Olafsson and Wang didn't look at each other much during the performance, and Wang, who was closer to the audience throughout, did feel like the dominant presence and sound in this duet. But their physical closeness registered in a consistently unified approach to their richly enjoyable program. There was balanced transparency in even the most fiery moments of Schubert's Fantasy in F minor. Olafsson and Wang's rubato — their expressive flexibility with tempo — felt both spontaneously poetic and precisely shared in the passage when serenity takes over in the first movement of Rachmaninoff's 'Symphonic Dances,' with the yearning melody that's given to the alto saxophone in the work's fully orchestrated version. Their styles were distinguishable, even if subtly. In sumptuously vibrating chords in the first movement of Schubert's Fantasy, Olafsson's touch was a little wetter and more muted, Wang's percussive and as coolly etched as a polygraph. Cool, yes, but she could also be lyrical, as in the delicate beginning of Luciano Berio's 'Wasserklavier,' which opened the concert. Short, gentle, spare pieces by Berio, John Cage (the early 'Experiences No. 1') and Arvo Part ('Hymn to a Great City') gave the program a meditative spine. Those were interspersed with three substantial anchors: the 'Symphonic Dances,' which Rachmaninoff set for two pianos as he was writing the orchestral version; the Schubert Fantasy; and John Adams's 'Hallelujah Junction.' An arrangement by Thomas Adès of Conlon Nancarrow's Study No. 6, one of his ingenious player-piano exercises, somehow transformed complex rhythmic layerings into a blithe, tipsy rumba. Like the concert as a whole, it made virtuosity seem like pure fun. Olafsson and Wang cleverly knit the pieces together. They moved without pause from the Berio into the Schubert, and opened the Fantasy in the same mood of soft mystery as 'Wasserklavier,' the music only gradually taking on shape and definition. Nancarrow's delirious polyrhythms were the perfect teaser for the four-against-three beats of 'Hallelujah Junction,' which began with Olafsson saturating the mix until Wang's line could eventually be glimpsed through the textures. In the second section, they set washes of sound against pinpricks, and by the final section, the two were in a grand, sometimes stormy groove, swelling to organized chaos — later echoed in the half-crazed waltzes and climactic darkness-versus-light battle of the 'Symphonic Dances.' This being a Yuja Wang recital, even if only in part, there was a slew of encores: two graceful Brahms waltzes and one of his 'Hungarian Dances,' one of Dvorak's 'Slavonic Dances' and Schubert's cheerful 'Marche Militaire.' But even if it came well before the end of the program, the music that felt like an ideal encore was 'Hymn to a Great City.' Part dedicated the score to two fellow Estonian émigrés with whom he stayed on a trip to the United States in 1984, when the piece was premiered at Lincoln Center. It's not quite clear whether the composer meant for the city in the title to refer definitively, or solely, to New York, and Wang and Olafsson have been playing it all over in recent months. But on Wednesday, with these two superb players sending out filigree flourishes like sparklers amid the calm, it had the concentrated sweetness of a local love letter.
