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Halls CD a finalist in BBC music awards
Fans can vote in the awards, which present 21 nominations over seven categories, selected by a jury of BBC Music Magazine critics from almost 300 five-star recordings reviewed during 2011. The disc of 12 Purcell Sonatas displays the composer’s innate ability at blending influences from French, Italian and English music; exotic dissonances can be heard alongside the unique use of counterpoint to create these exceptional works. It features Retrospect’s four Baroque instrumentalist super stars—Sophie Gent (violin), Matthew Truscott (violin), Jonathan Manson (bass viol) and Halls (harpsichord/organ). The magazine praised it as a CD of the month, observing that the musicians “speak the language of Purcell as if it was their mother tongue.” Preview tracks or a download of the CD are available from the Linn Records website. To vote in the magazine contest, visit the awards website, complete a simple online form, listen to extracts from each recording or DVD, and then vote for your choices. Voters are eligible to win prizes, including a Kemble centennial piano and copies of all the nominated CDs and DVDs. Online voting takes place now through February 29. Winners will be selected at random. OBF audiences can enjoy the work of Matthew Halls at the harpsichord July 9 during a Bach recital at the 2012 OBF. Joshua Bell headlines Festival opener
Bell’s OBF debut was announced at the January 22 annual meeting of the Friends of the Festival. The Festival also announced a return of Juilliard-trained, piano-playing siblings The 5 Browns, headlining a July 12 musical tribute to Hollywood in Eugene’s Silva Concert Hall. Bell and the Browns join a lineup that already includes harpsichordist/conductor Matthew Halls, keyboardist Angela Hewitt, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, organist John Scott, and pop orchestra Pink Martini. Based at the University of Oregon in Eugene with a four-concert series in Portland, the OBF expands to five other Oregon cities and thirty ticketed concerts in 2012—the broadest reach in its history. A recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize and the newly named Music Director of The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Bell will perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, the composer’s most celebrated contribution to orchestral music. Bell takes Mendelssohn one daring step further by performing his own cadenza—the work’s climactic extended solo. The Italian Symphony and the rousing choral spectacle Die Erste Walpurgisnacht complete the program.  Helmuth Rilling conducts Mendelssohn, Bach motets, and the St. Matthew Passion. Photo: Michael Latz Mendelssohn has long been credited with jump-starting a 19th century Bach revival. The work that sparked that revival, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, is firmly at the heart of this year’s Festival. Rilling will conduct the Passion as the grand finale in Eugene, and also lead four lecture-concerts that fully explore the monumental work. The St. Matthew lecture concerts will be filmed in high definition as a 2013 installment on the OBF’s innovative DigitalBach.com website, produced in association with the Hinkle Charitable Foundation. Rilling will also lead a Beall Hall concert of Bach motets and concerti, featuring harpsichordist Boris Kleiner. More than two hundred years after the St. Matthew Passion, British composer Michael Tippett translated its structure and emotional impact into the modern classic A Child of Our Time. Compelled by events preceding the Nazi Kristallnacht attacks, Tippett focused his work on the story of a young man’s attempt to seek justice. Tippett integrated American spirituals in place of the Passion’s chorales, furthering the work’s symbolic, universal, and deeply humanistic effect.  Matthew Halls conducts A Child of our Time and performs a Bach harpsichord recital. Photo: Eric Richmond British conductor Matthew Halls, who succeeds Rilling as the Festival’s artistic director after the 2013 season, will conduct A Child of our Time, opening the concert with Bach’s celebratory Lutheran Mass in G Major. An acclaimed keyboardist as a soloist and with his own London-based Retrospect Ensemble, Halls will also Bach keyboard concerti on harpsichord in a Beall Hall concert. Bach’s Goldberg Variations weave through the fabric of the Festival in concerts and events that mark the major birth and death anniversaries of Glenn Gould, the enigmatic genius closely associated with the work.
Beyond the major threads, the 2012 OBF schedule includes
The OBF Gold Ticket, a season pass to Eugene concerts, goes on sale February 13, while tickets for the full schedule go on sale Bach’s birthday, March 21. Salzburg soloists destined for Beall
Soprano Karine Polverelli joins the group for Britten’s Les Illuminations, a setting of poems by Arthur Rimbaud. Perpetuating the legacy of Mozart, the ensemble is a regular performer in its home city as well as a powerful force in frequent world tours. The 16-piece orchestra was founded in 1991 by the Brazilian-born Skou-Larsen and a handful of colleagues with the aim performing orchestral chamber music with the freedom of soloists. Their inspiration was Sandor Végh, the Hungarian violinist and conductor who was a colleague of many of the members. Polverelli studied at the Boston Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music. Based in Europe, she has performed in Brussels with guitarist Denis Sung-Hô at the Flagey Festival and with pianist David Miller at the Midis-Minimes Festival. Cheers to TQ, now a retired bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff sings jazz at the OBF's 40th anniversary gala in 2010, backed by Dave Williamson. Photo: Jon Meyers The news traveled swiftly today—from a story in the New York Times, to a blog by Norman Lebrecht, a call from David Stabler, then via email and Facebook—that Thomas Quasthoff has decided to say farewell to the concert stage, ending his performance career. All of us at the OBF, and certainly audiences in Eugene, have fond memories of a singer who made his American debut here in 1995 as an unknown, amazing us as a soloist in the St. John Passion, Mozart Requiem, Dvorak Stabat Mater, and the Britten War Requiem—all in a two-week period. He returned five more years, in such memorable nights as Beall Hall recitals of Schubert and Schumann, Penderecki’s Credo in 1998, his jazzy night of Sinatra songs with Jeff Kahane and Rick Todd in 2000, and our gala 40th anniversary year in 2010, jamming with Bobby McFerrin, singing Die Schone Mullerin in Silva Hall, and performing a fiery interpretation of Elijah to conclude that year’s OBF. “Of course it’s a sad moment to accept that Thomas will never again perform in the Festival,” John Evans, our executive director said today. “However, it’s also a time to consider ourselves blessed to have heard such a wonderful artist, so many times over the years, and to have him as a member of our festival family. We wish him the very best.” In the press release, Thomas says, “After almost 40 years, I have decided to retire from concert life. My health no longer allows me to live up to the high standard that I have always set for my art and myself. I owe a lot to this wonderful profession and leave without a trace of bitterness. On the contrary, I am looking forward to the new challenges that will now enter my life. I would like to thank all my fellow musicians and colleagues, with whom I stood together on stage, all the organizers, and my audience for their loyalty.” CMB welcomes Cypress Jan 22ChamberMusic@Beall, a joint production of the OBF and UO School of Music and Dance, resumes its season Sunday, January 22, at 3 pm with the Cypress String Quartet, appearing with pianist Jon Nakamatsu. Tickets range from $17-$37, and the concert is part of the Hult Center’s $10 College Tix program. Known for their elegant performances, the Cypress String Quartet has been described as possessing “artistry of uncommon insight and cohesion” by Gramophone, and their sound has been described as “beautifully proportioned and powerful” by The Washington Post. The concert program includes Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 76, No. 4, “Sunrise”; Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 95; and Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34. One of the country’s most popular ensembles, the San Francisco-based Cypress has recently made appearances on concert series and in venues including Cal Performances, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Stanford Lively Arts, Krannert Center and the Ravinia Festival. Their collaborators include artists such as Leon Fleisher, Awadagin Pratt, Gary Hoffman, Atar Arad, James Dunham, and Zuill Bailey. The members of the Cypress Quartet play exceptional instruments including violins by Antonio Stradivarius (1681) and Carlos Bergonzi (1733), a viola by Vittorio Bellarosa (1947), and a cello by Hieronymus Amati II (1701). The Cypress Quartet takes its name from the set of twelve love songs for string quartet, The Cypresses, by Antonin Dvorák.
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Superstar violinist Joshua Bell will be featured when the 2012 Oregon Bach Festival opens Friday, June 29 in Eugene and June 30 in Portland with three masterworks by Felix Mendelssohn. Helmuth Rilling, in his 42nd and penultimate year as artistic director, conducts both concerts.
