Symphony's Come and Play

Come and Play, the Richmond Symphony’s annual concert with community musicians, this year joined the Virginia Commonwealth University pep band The Peppas, will be staged on Nov. 22 in the Verizon Wireless Arena of VCU’s Siegel Center, Broad and Harrison streets.

Rehearsal will run from 2:30-5 p.m., with the concert at 6 p.m. Admission to the concert is free.

Past Come and Play events have attracted more than 700 musicians, creating the largest orchestra performing in Virginia.

Registration for community musicians is open through Nov. 13. Violin and flute registration is closed as those sections have reached capacity. The registration fee is $10. Parts are available for musicians at all levels.

For more information, call (804) 788-4717.

To register online, go to:

www.richmondsymphony.com

Neighbors

George Frideric Handel lived on Brook Street in London’s Mayfair district in the mid-18th century. Two hundred years later, Jimi Hendrix lived in an adjacent building.

So, what was a Handel museum is now a Handel & Hendrix museum, The New York Times reports:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/handel-museum-opens-a-hendrix-half/

Letter V Classical Radio this week

Oct. 29
10 a.m.-1 p.m. EDT
1400-1700 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org

J.S. Bach: Lute Suite in E minor, BWV 996
Sharon Isbin, guitar (Erato)

Bloch: Concerto Grosso No. 1
Bienne Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Rösner (Atma Classique)

Vivaldi: Concerto in A minor,
RV 397
Rachel Barton Pine,
viola d’amore
Ars Antigua (Cedille)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor
Emanuel Ax, piano
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra/
Michael Tilson Thomas
(SFS Media)

Past Masters:
Mozart: Symphony
No. 25 in G minor, K. 183
English Chamber Orchestra/
Benjamin Britten
(Decca)
(recorded 1971)

Jan Jirásek: “Missa Propria”
Boni Pueri Boys Choir/Jiři Skopal (Catalyst)

Kodály: “Variations on a Hungarian Folksong”
(“The Peacock”)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Neeme Järvi (Chandos)

Ligeti: “Six Bagatelles”
Jacques Zoon, flute
Douglas Boyd, oboe
Richard Horsford, clarinet
James Somerville, bassoon
Matthew Wilkie, French horn
(Deutsche Grammophon)

'Jump out and try something smaller'

Norman Lebrecht, the British author, critic and sometime “jeremiah” of classical music, discusses the decline of the art form’s historically dominant institutions and advocates smaller, more flexible and portable ensembles and performing formats, in a talk at the Peabody Institute of the John Hopkins University in Baltimore:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/76309411

Juilliard Quartet reviewed

My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of the Juilliard String Quartet’s Oct. 24 performance at Virginia Commonwealth University:

http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/article_f841bce3-91ce-537a-8014-53eb0589d5ad.html

Symphony Rush Hour reviewed

My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of the Richmond Symphony’s first Rush Hour concert at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery:

http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/article_aa97ef17-b5f5-5f64-ae4d-2f24feab9592.html

eighth blackbird, museum piece

In addition to its residencies at the University of Richmond and the University of Chicago, the new-music sextet eighth blackbird also is spending this season as a “living art installation,” using a gallery at
the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago as a studio and rehearsal room, working in public view and sometimes with listener interaction.

The group also will present two regular concerts – if “regular” is an adequate term for eighth blackbird’s unique performance style – as part of the residency.

The Chicago Tribune’s John von Rhein reports on the ensemble’s museum gig:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/vonrhein/ct-ent-1021-classical-blackbirds-20151020-column.html

(via www.artsjournal.com)