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Physics strikes the right note with classical musicians

Contact: Michael Bishop
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Institute of Physics
Physics strikes the right note with classical musicians

The combination of physics and music might usually prompt images of Brian Cox playing keyboards for D:Ream, but a new trio, consisting of a professor of physics, an internationally renowned composer and an award-winning violinist, are bringing particle physics to life through a series of classical compositions.

An insight into their work, aptly named "Particle Partitas", is revealed in an exclusive video report on physicsworld.com [http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/multimedia/47845], where the trio show the creative processes at work and tentatively attempt to play a few bars for the first time.

Jack Liebeck, a Classical BRIT award winner, and Brian Foster, a particle physicist at the University of Oxford, are no strangers to the fusion of physics and music: for the last six years they have been touring a self-created "musical lecture" that explores Einstein's legacy to physics.

Their newly recruited composer, Edward Cowie, is also aware of the crossover between the two disciplines, having originally studied physics at Imperial College London.

"The music is shaped by the activity of particle physics. In terms of the way subatomic particles are observable in their collisions, in their traces, in their impacts, music can do the same thing. You can make music that has a device into which it is forced to impact – fragments fly off it and they have behaviours, which can parallel," explains Cowie in the video.

This new series of 20 short musical pieces, documenting the history of particle physics from the late 19th century through to the present day, will be accompanied by short lectures on the topic given by Foster. It will debut in the UK in June 2012 and Foster also hopes to take the show abroad to particle physicists at CERN.

Article first appeared in Physics Week.

 
Jeremy Denk Headlines “Ives Project,” Makes Chicago Symphony Debut, Returns to Carnegie Hall, and More

Jeremy Denk Headlines “Ives Project,” Makes Chicago Symphony Debut, Returns to Carnegie Hall, and More

 

 

“Denk, clearly, is a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs, in whatever combination — both for his penetrating intellectual engagement with the music and for the generosity of his playing.” — New York Times

 

When Jeremy Denk paired Charles Ives’s “Concord” Sonata with Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata for a sold-out recital at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times was awed to find that “he played these daunting scores, each about 45 minutes, from memory, bringing a rare combination of command and spontaneity to his dynamic performances.” Now the pianist reprises this same formidable pairing for the “Ives Project” at the Music Center at Strathmore (MD) on a program that incorporates readings from the iconic New England literary figures – Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and the Alcotts – to whom the four movements of Ives’s monumental sonata are dedicated (Nov 4). Beethoven also features in Denk’s next major solo recital of the season, when he couples the Op. 111 C-minor Sonata and the “Eroica” Variations with music by Brahms and Ligeti at New York’s 92nd Street Y (Dec 3). Denk showcases Beethoven again in two key orchestral appearances, playing the Third Concerto in his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut with Michael Tilson Thomas (Dec 8–10) and the First Concerto at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St Luke’s under Sir Roger Norrington (Feb 16). Upcoming season highlights also find the versatile pianist returning to the 92nd Street Y to resume his ongoing collaboration with cellist Steven Isserlis for the latest in a series of family concerts, introducing the life and music of Mozart (March 4).

If there is one composer in whose works Denk has inspired universal and heartfelt praise, it is thorny American experimentalist Charles Ives, and it is with the notorious Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860” (c.1915), comprising philosophical portraits of Ives’s four famous New England transcendentalist friends, that Denk established himself as a leading exponent of the composer’s work. Released last fall on his own Think Denk Media label, Denk’s debut solo album – Jeremy Denk Plays Ives – was afforded a rapturously warm welcome. The pioneering composer’s music has traditionally been considered challenging by all but the most die-hard of new-music lovers. Yet in Denk’s hands, Ives’s two piano sonatas were rendered “downright seductive” (Washington Post), winning a place on end-of-year top-ten lists and holiday gift guides from the nation’s most trusted and influential media, including the New Yorker, New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post. According to New York magazine, in which the disc was the only recording to make the “Year in Classical Music” top-ten list, “Denk’s balance of passion and precision makes [the “Concord” Sonata’s] strange beauty come suddenly clear, without losing any of its improvisational radicalism.”

In tribute to Ives’s lifelong admiration for Beethoven – whose symphonies he called “perfect truths” and whose Fifth Symphony is quoted in the “Concord” Sonata – the Music Center at Strathmore program concludes with Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata. Also featuring readings by William Sharp, this November 4 concert serves as the centerpiece of the “Ives Project,” a three-day exploration and celebration of the composer, to which Denk also contributes an already sold-out master class on November 3, before participating in a chamber concert that evening.

This engagement is the first of numerous solo recitals in the pianist’s current lineup, which includes a December 3 appearance at the prestigious 92nd Street Y, with a program boasting two signature works for which he has consistently won praise. His account of Beethoven’s mystical final C-minor Sonata at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival was “alive to every suggestion and nuance in the score…an absolute joy to witness,” while after his rendition of Ligeti’s Études at Zankel Hall, MusicWeb International observed: “This was a monumental performance. Mr. Denk clearly set a benchmark for the Ligeti.” For his December 3 recital, these works will follow two sets of variations: Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Schumann and Beethoven’s “Eroica” Variations, which take as their basis the same theme from the famous Third Symphony.

Beethoven also features in Denk’s orchestral programming this season. For his hotly-anticipated debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Denk undertakes Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto – the composer’s first in a minor key and the one that marked his break with the Classical style – for three performances on December 8–10, under the direction of guest conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. It was with Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto that Denk made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut this past March, stepping in at the eleventh hour to replace Martha Argerich, under conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The Los Angeles Times found his performance “riveting”; afterwards, “the audience erupted in applause and wouldn’t let Denk go” (Huffington Post). Likewise, the Detroit Free Press found his to be “the most viscerally exciting, emotionally absorbing, and intellectually rich account of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto that [the reviewer had] ever heard in concert.” The pianist reprises the work for his return to Carnegie Hall’s main stage with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s on February 16, 2012, led by famed British conductor Sir Roger Norrington.

In addition to his work as recital and orchestral soloist, Denk looks forward to resuming two of his long-term chamber partnerships. First he joins violinist Joshua Bell for duo recitals in Boston and on a European tour; he then returns to the 92nd Street Y for a sixth season of Family Music with Steven Isserlis. Denk has previously collaborated with the British cellist on many family chamber concerts, each of which offers an introduction to the life and music of one of the great composers; in last December’s “Hardboiled Genius,” he served as guest artistic director to introduce the life and work of Stravinsky. On March 4, supported by violinists Daniel Philips and Pamela Frank and narration by Judy Kuhn, Denk and Isserlis join forces to present “The Prodigy and the Ponytail: The Life and Music of Mozart”: a family-friendly introduction to the astonishing child prodigy who is among the most beloved composers of all time.

A list of Denk’s upcoming engagements follows below, and much additional information is available at his web site: www.jeremydenk.net. The site includes the versatile pianist’s blog, Think Denk, which has earned plaudits among the cognoscenti; the New Yorker’s Alex Ross calls Denk “one of the most interesting writers I know.”

Jeremy Denk’s 2011-12 engagements

November 3

North Bethesda, MD

Music Center at Strathmore

Master Class / Chamber Concert

November 4

North Bethesda, MD

Music Center at Strathmore

Solo Recital

With William Sharp, reader

Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860”

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier”

November 13

Scottsdale, AZ

Virginia G. Piper Theater – Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts

Beethoven: 15 Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme, Op. 35, “Eroica”

Brahms: Klavierstücke, Op. 119

Ligeti: Études

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A, Op. 101

November 25–27

St. Paul, MN

St. Paul Chamber Orchestra / Douglas Boyd

Brett Dean: Pastoral Symphony

Brahms: Serenade No. 2 in A, Op. 16

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15

December 2

Schenectady, NY

Memorial Chapel – Union College

Recital

December 3

New York, NY

92nd Street Y

Solo recital

Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Schumann, Op. 9

Beethoven: 15 Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme, Op. 35, “Eroica”

Ligeti: Études, Book I

Beethoven: Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

December 8–10

Chicago, IL

Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Michael Tilson Thomas

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37

January 12

Boston, MA

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Concerts with Joshua Bell

Bach: Partita No. 5 in G, BWV 829

Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C minor, Op. 45

January 15

Beacon, NY

Howland Cultural Center

Recital

Mozart

January 19 and 20

Oberlin, OH

Oberlin Conservatory of Music

Performance / Master Class

February 2

Birmingham, AL

Samford University

Performance / master class

February 7

Philadelphia, PA

Perelman Theater – Kimmel Center

Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

February 12

Beacon, NY

Howland Cultural Center

Recital

Mozart

February 16

New York, NY

Carnegie Hall

Orchestra of St. Luke’s / Sir Roger Norrington

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15

February 23

Scranton, PA

Mellow Theater

Community Concerts at Lackawanna College

February 25

Des Moines, IA

Sheslow Auditorium

Drake University

February 27

Fort Worth, TX

Bass Performance Hall

Van Cliburn Foundation

February 29

Schenectady, NY

Memorial Chapel – Union College

Union College Concerts

March 4

New York, NY

92nd Street Y

Family Program: “The Prodigy With The Ponytail”: The Life and Music of Mozart

March 11

San Francisco, CA

American Mavericks

Cowell: Piano Concerto

Chamber music with members of the San Francisco Symphony

March 22

Ann Arbor, MI

Hill Auditorium

American Mavericks

San Francisco Symphony / Michael Tilson Thomas

March 30

New York, NY

Zankel Hall

American Mavericks

Members of the San Francisco Symphony

April 19 and 21

St. Paul, MN

Music Room at SPCO Center

Kagel: Morceau de Concours for two trumpets

Ives: Largo for violin, clarinet and piano

Ligeti: Selected Études

Ives: Piano Trio

April 20 and 22

St. Paul, MN

Music Room at SPCO Center

Elgar: Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84

May 8–14

European recital tour with Joshua Bell

May 8: Madrid

May 9: London

May 10: Paris

May 14: Berlin

May 19

Washington, DC

Washington Performing Arts Society

June 3

Chicago, IL

Chicago Symphony presents “The Collaborative Pianist”

June 21–23

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra / Michael Tilson Thomas

Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat

July 18

College Park, MD

Gildenhorn Recital Hall

University of Maryland

Kapell Competition

jeremydenk.net

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Guitar Frets: Environmental Enforcement Leaves Musicians in Fear

Guitar Frets: Environmental Enforcement Leaves Musicians in Fear
By ERIC FELTEN

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

It isn't the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian's ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms."

The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. And if Gibson did knowingly import illegally harvested ebony from Madagascar, that wouldn't be a negligible offense. Peter Lowry, ebony and rosewood expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, calls the Madagascar wood trade the "equivalent of Africa's blood diamonds." But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.

It isn't just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next.

If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.

John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar."

The tangled intersection of international laws is enforced through a thicket of paperwork. Recent revisions to 1900's Lacey Act require that anyone crossing the U.S. border declare every bit of flora or fauna being brought into the country. One is under "strict liability" to fill out the paperwork—and without any mistakes.

It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration."

Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny.

There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling.

Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.

Given the risks, why don't musicians just settle for the safety of carbon fiber? Some do—when concert pianist Jeffrey Sharkey moved to England two decades ago, he had Steinway replace the ivories on his piano with plastic.

Still, musicians cling to the old materials. Last year, Dick Boak, director of artist relations for C.F. Martin & Co., complained to Mother Nature News about the difficulty of getting elite guitarists to switch to instruments made from sustainable materials. "Surprisingly, musicians, who represent some of the most savvy, ecologically minded people around, are resistant to anything about changing the tone of their guitars," he said.

You could mark that up to hypocrisy—artsy do-gooders only too eager to tell others what kind of light bulbs they have to buy won't make sacrifices when it comes to their own passions. Then again, maybe it isn't hypocrisy to recognize that art makes claims significant enough to compete with environmentalists' agendas.


—Write to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

 
New York Philomusica Chamber Ensemble concert - May 5th 2011

New York Philomusica Chamber Ensemble’s last concert of the season!!

Joseph Haydn: Divertimento in D, Hob. IV:11 for flute or violin, violin, 2 violas & ’cello
Felix Mendelssohn: Quintet in B-flat, Op. 87 for 2 violins, 2 violas & ’cello
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Quintet in D, K. 593

Featuring
Naoko Tanaka, Kyu Young Kim, Cyrus Beroukhim, violins;
Helena Baillie and Daniel Panner, violas; and Gerry Appleman, ’cello

Artistic Director A. Robert Johnson will host a free Meet-the-Artists interview preceding the concert at 7:30 p.m. A reception for audience and musicians will follow the performance.

Tickets $30 ($25 seniors, $10 students). For information or tickets, call New York Philomusica at (212) 580-9933, or visit www.nyphilomusica.org

 
Lost in Love...and sometimes Lust! – Czech Russian Salon/Italian Salon

Who: Off Centre Music Salon

What: Lost in Love...and sometimes Lust! – Czech Russian Salon/Italian Salon

When: Sunday, May 8, 2011

2:00 p.m.

Where: Glenn Gould Studio

250 Front Street West

Admission: $50.00 Seniors/Students

$60.00 Adults

The first 50 ticket orders will receive an additional complimentary ticket.

To purchase advance tickets call 416-466-1870 or log on to www.offcentremusic.com

Off Centre Music Salon presents Lost in Love… and sometimes Lust!, a special Mother’s Day concert at Glenn Gould Studio on Sunday, May 8, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. This Czech Russian and Italian Salon features the work of Czech composer Leoš Janáček, including his celebrated song-cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared, considered to be one of the composer’s most sensual – even perverse compositions.

This song cycle is based on a setting of the poems of Ozef Kalda, a railway official who had a knack for fiction writing – detailing a young farm boy’s infactuation with a gypsy girl. It is also inspired by Janáček’s own passion-filled relationship with the young wife of an antique dealer.

This recital, conveying tips on love, longing and lust features performances by tenor Colin Ainsworth, baritone Peter McGillivray, and sopranos Rachel Cleland-Ainsworth and Lucia Cesaroni, together with pianists and artistic directors Inna Perks and Boris Zarankin.

Since its foundation in 1994, Off Centre has been creating holistic musical and artistic experiences - chances to hear and play vocal, chamber and solo repertoire in an atmosphere that evokes a 19th century European salon. Enter a musical experience that will transport you to an era when music was a form of intimate conversation as well as entertainment.

For more information on this and other concerts, please visit www.offcentremusic.com

For media information contact:

Ciarlo Communications

Tel:       416-763-3783

Cell:     416-458-5090

Email:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 
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