News & Performances
Christopher Rouse Named Musical America's Composer of the Year Christopher Rouse has been named Composer of the Year by Musical America for 2009. Also recognized at the 2009 Musical America Awards at Lincoln Center next month will be Yo-Yo Ma as Musician of the Year, Marin Alsop as Conductor of the Year, Stephanie Blythe as Vocalist of the Year, and the Pacifica Quartet as Ensemble of the Year. Musical America writes of Rouse in the current issue, "Few composers have written as skillfully for orchestra as Christopher Rouse. His off-the-wall inventiveness has thrilled audiences worldwide, perhaps most especially in the award-winning First Symphony and series of concertos for trombone (Pulitzer), cello (Grammys), violin, percussion, guitar (Grammy), flute, piano, clarinet, and oboe. He is currently at work on a New York Philharmonic commission." Rouse is celebrating his 60th birthday this season with performances around the globe, including the February 5 world premiere of his Oboe Concerto, led by Osmo Vänskä with the Minnesota Orchestra and soloist Basil Reeve. The composer will be in Minnesota to celebrate the premiere, which takes place just prior to his actual birthday (February 15). Best known for his masterful orchestral scores, Rouse has made a remarkable contribution to the repertoire with twenty-four symphonic works to date. His latest piece, the Concerto for Orchestra (which premiered at the Cabrillo Festival this past summer and will enjoy an East Coast premiere in Baltimore this Friday, November 21, led by Conductor of the Year Marin Alsop), marks RouseÕs eleventh concerto. His works have been performed by several orchestras this year including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (Der gerettete Alberich), Dallas Symphony Orchestra (Symphony No. 2), Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Richmond Symphony (Trombone Concerto), and the New York Philharmonic (Rapture). Upcoming engagements include the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (Rapture), the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Friandises), the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (Der gerettete Alberich) and Aspen Music Festival (Oboe Concerto). A Baltimore native, Rouse currently resides in his hometown and teaches composition at The Juilliard School as well as serving as Visiting Composer at the Peabody Institute. With this award he joins previous Musical America Composers of the Year from Boosey & Hawkes: Elliott Carter (1993), John Adams (1997), Ned Rorem (1998), and Steve Reich (2001). Christopher Rouse at Cabrillo: Concerto for Orchestra receives World Premiere The 2008-2009 season begins with the world premiere of his latest work, Concerto for Orchestra, at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Commissioned by the Festival, Concerto for Orchestra is dedicated to long-time champion Marin Alsop in honor of the Festival's administrative leadership, Ellen Primack and Tom Fredericks. Alsop will lead the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra in the premiere performance at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium in California on August 1. Best known for his masterful orchestral writing, Rouse has gained particular attention in recent decades for his concerti. Concerto for Orchestra marks Rouse's twenty-fourth orchestral work to date, eleven of which are concerti. Scored for standard orchestra, Concerto for Orchestra places focus on the skill of ensemble members, with soloistic passages ranging from sweeping lyricism to challenging virtuosity. Rouse departs from standard practice with the work's form, however. Says Rouse: "I decided to divide the concerto into connected halves... The first half would be made up of five rather brief sections — fast, slow, fast, slow, fast — in which the fast parts would share and develop the same musical material, while the slow ones would share and explore different material. The second half would consist of two sections, a slow one and a fast one, each meant to represent a sort of 'full blossoming' of the related ideas from their counterparts earlier on. My hope was to draw the listener in more and more as the work progressed, with the final allegro building to a frenzied, almost hysterical, climax." Concerto for Orchestra will follow Alsop's baton to Baltimore for an East Coast premiere on November 21 by Rouse's hometown players, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Around the globe, Rouse's birthday season unfolds with performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Saint Louis Symphony (Der gerettete Alberich), Dallas Symphony Orchestra (Symphony No. 2), Singapore Symphony Orchestra (Trombone Concerto), the New York Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Rapture), the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Friandises), and the Minnesota Orchestra performing the world premiere of Rouse's Oboe Concerto on February 5. Rouse will be in Minnesota to celebrate the premiere which takes place just prior to his February 15 birthday. For complete program notes for Christopher Rouse's Concerto for Orchestra click here. For more information on the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music click here. World Premiere Recording of Karolju on Sony
American conductor David Zinman turns to the joyful sounds of the holidays with the RCA Red Seal release Karolju: Christmas Music From Rouse, Lutoslawski and Rodrigo. Featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic Chorus, the recording, to be released on November 6, demonstrates Zinman's deep commitment to new music. The CD's centerpiece is Christopher Rouse's work Karolju, commissioned by Zinman during his time as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and inspired by the festive season. Witold Lutoslawski's Polish Christmas Carols and Joaquin Rodrigo's Retablo de Navidad round out the recording. The CD is 17 years in the making: "The idea to record Christmas music of Rouse, Lutoslawski and Rodrigo came to me not long after I had done the first performances of the Rouse in 1991," writes Zinman in the recording's liner notes. "Not that there wasn't enough holiday music on the market — every record company brings out at least two to three Christmas records each yuletide — but truly contemporary settings of carols are comparatively rare, and the uniqueness of Karolju spurred me on." The Grammy®-winning American composer's work struck an immediate chord with audiences. In Zinman's words, "After Karolju's first performances a strange phenomenon began to manifest itself. I began to receive hundreds of letters from audience members asking where they might be able to get a recording of Karolju. We had indeed made a recording for our radio broadcast series, but the rules of the Musicians Union prevented it's dissemination. Later, when Karolju was broadcast and then re-broadcast, many, many more fans wrote to ask if there was a commercial recording available. I asked the recording contacts I had at the time if they had any interest in recording Karolju. They all turned me down. Either they couldn't find the money, or they didn't think it was commercially viable. I began to despair. Fast forward 17 years... Perhaps patience is truly a virtue. My dream of recording Karolju has become a reality." The work was influenced by several elements. As the Baltimore-based Rouse describes it, "Two paths led to the composition of Karolju. The first was the great body of Christmas carols written over the centuries, a collection I value as highly for its spiritual meaning as for its glorious music. The second was Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, which made an unforgettable impression upon me when I first heard it in March of 1963. "In the early 1980s, I conceived of a plan to compose a collection of Christmas carols couched in an overall form similar to that of Carmina Burana, but it was not until 1989, when the work was commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, that I was able to begin serious work on it, though I had composed several of the carols in my mind over the preceding years... I decided to compose my own texts in a variety of languages (Latin, Swedish, French, Spanish, Russian, Czech, German, and Italian) which, although making reference to words and phrases appropriate to the Christmas season, would not be intelligibly translatable as complete entities. It was rather my intent to match the sound of the language to the musical style of the carol to which it was applied. I resultantly selected words often more for the quality of their sound and the extent to which such sound typified the language of their origin than for their cognitive "meaning" per se... I hope Karolju will help instill in listeners the same special joy which I feel for the season it celebrates." Other upcoming releases of Christopher Rouse works on CD include his first symphony, clarinet concerto, and Iscariot on BIS; Wolf Rounds on Naxos; and his two string quartets, and Compline on Koch.
World Premiere of Wolf Rounds at Carnegie Hall The University of Miami's Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music will present the world premiere of Christopher Rouse's Wolf Rounds, performed by The Frost Wind Ensemble, Gary Green, Conductor, on Thursday March 29, 2007 at 8 PM at the Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall in New York City. Wolf Rounds, a tour de force for winds, was commissioned by the Abraham Frost Commission Series which supports the school's ongoing commitment to the creation of new works by today's prominent composers. For more information, visit the Frost Ensemble's website: http://www.music.miami.edu/carnegiehall/ To purchase tickets, visit Carnegie Hall's box office. Phoenix Symphony features Rouse in 2006-07 "Composer Narrative" Music Director Michael Christie and the Phoenix Symphony are introducing a unifying thread throughout the 2006-07 Classics Series in the form of Composer Narratives. The Composer Narratives feature a special focus on the lives and music of three composers — Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Christopher Rouse. The works of Christopher Rouse that will be performed include his Symphony No. 2, Rapture, Iscariot and Concerto for Flute and Orchestra. For tickets and more information, visit the Phoenix Symphony's website: http://www.phoenixsymphony.org Los Angeles Master Chorale to debut Rouse's Requiem The Los Angeles Times' Chris Pasles reports that "the world premiere of a requiem by Pulitzer Prize-winner Christopher Rouse...will highlight the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 2006-07 season, which was announced Tuesday." Rouse's Requiem will be performed March 25, 2007, with baritone Sanford Sylvan, the Los Angeles Children's Chorus and the Master Chorale Orchestra. For tickets and more information, visit the Master Chorale's website: http://www.lamc.org/concerts/0607/070325_awaken.cfm |
DAVID ZINMAN, THE BBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA & PHILHARMONIA CHORUS CELEBRATE THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS WITH THE WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING OF CHRISTOPHER ROUSE'S KAROLJU — RELEASE DATE NOVEMBER 6, 2007
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