In advance of the Ensemble's first Bay Area performances, Philharmonia Baroque will return to the local radio airwaves on Sunday, September 11, at 9 p.m. with the first broadcast of a new series of monthly programs on KDFC. The first broadcast features the music of Mozart, with performances and interviews recorded last season with pianist Robert Levin and Music Director Nicholas McGegan. And on September 13, Philharmonia Baroque Productions will release an all-Vivaldi disc featuring Philharmonia Baroque Concertmaster Elizabeth Blumenstock, the third disc in the new project marking the institution's return to commercial recording.
Conducted by Mark Morris, the Orchestra and Chorale's first performances in the Bay Area take place September 16, 17, and 18 at Zellerbach Hall with the Mark Morris Dance Group in of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas featuring mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and baritone Philip Cutlip.
Music Director Nicholas McGegan, who begins his twenty-sixth season as Music Director, leads the Orchestra in five of the seven concert sets in addition performances of Handel's Messiah in Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and at Disney Hall in Los Angeles. Five artists make their debuts in the 2011-2012 season including internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe in Dido and Aeneas; Italian conductor Ottavio Dantone, music director of Ravenna's Accademia Bizantina; British conductor and harpsichordist Richard Egarr, who serves as music director of the Academy of Ancient Music; mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux in a program featuring arias written for famed castrato Farinelli; and Houston tenor James Taylor, currently one of the most sought after tenors for Baroque music.
Nicholas McGegan is known for innovative programming and a passionate commitment to discovering new and rarely performed works from the Baroque repertoire. Of the forty works scheduled for performance during the 2011-2012 season, more than half will be first performances by the ensemble. Musical highlights of the season include a newly completed Mozart Horn Concerto featuring Principal Horn player R.J. Kelley; an orchestral suite from Rameau's La Guirlande, a one-act ballet that spurred the current Rameau revival when performed in 1903; the return of internationally acclaimed recorder specialist Marion Verbruggen in concertos by Vivaldi and Sammartini for alto and soprano recorder, respectively; Bach's monumental B Minor Mass, conducted by Nicholas McGegan for the first time with Philharmonia Baroque; an English Baroque program featuring theater music of native sons Matthew Locke, Henry Purcell, Thomas Arne, and William Lawes in addition to England's beloved imported son, George Frideric Handel; and the return of acclaimed cellist Steven Isserlis in a musical program that confirms Philharmonia Baroque's embrace of music beyond the confines of the 17th and 18th centuries, including Schumann's Cello Concerto, Mendelssohn's The Fair Melusine, and Brahms' Serenade No. 2. The season will end with Handel's rarely performed masterpiece Alexander's Feast, also known as "The Power of Music," conducted by Nicholas McGegan and featuring the Philharmonia Baroque Chorale and soloists Dominique LaBelle, James Taylor, and Philip Cutlip.
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra has a presence throughout the Bay Area with regular season performances at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre, Berkeley's First Congregational Church, and at two venues on the Peninsula: The Menlo/Atherton Performing Arts Center in Atherton, and the First United Methodist Church in Palo Alto. Single tickets to Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra are now on sale through City Box Office: www.cityboxoffice.com, (415) 392-4400.
To subscribe to Philharmonia Baroque or to request a season brochure, call 415-252-1288 or e-mail brochure@philharmonia.org.
--Karen Ames, Philharmonia Baroque
Paul McCartney Announces Ocean's Kingdom, His First Orchestral Score for Dance to be Released October 4, 2011
Marking his first foray into the world of dance, Paul McCartney has announced the general release of Ocean's Kingdom, commissioned by the New York City Ballet. The recording will be released by Hear Music/Telarc in US on Oct. 4 and by Decca in UK on Oct. 3, and is conducted by John Wilson, produced by John Fraser and performed by the London Classical Orchestra.
Ocean's Kingdom is the first time Paul has written an original orchestral score or any kind of music for dance and is the result of a collaboration between Paul and New York City Ballet's Master in Chief Peter Martins, who have worked together to present the world premiere of a new ballet for the company's 2011/2012 season this September.
Though the work is Paul's first ballet, he approached the project in the same way he writes all other music, driven by his heart rather than his head and inspired by feeling rather than specific technical knowledge. While this may have been another new turn for his staggeringly varied career to take, Paul knew it had to be influenced by his own personal experience and that he needed to create a story the audience would find equally compelling and moving.
An hour-long score featuring four stunning movements--"Ocean's Kingdom," "Hall of Dance," "Imprisonment," and "Moonrise"--the ballet tells of a love story within the story of an underwater world whose people are threatened by the humans of Earth. A potently expressive and richly varied work, the score is Paul's most challenging and emotionally complex yet. As he explains: "What was interesting was writing music that meant something expressively rather than just writing a song. Trying to write something that expressed an emotion--so you have fear, love, anger, sadness to play with--and I found that exciting and challenging."
The premiere of the ballet Ocean's Kingdom will take place at NYCB's Fall Gala on Thursday, September 22, 2011, while the release of the orchestral score will follow on October 4, available digitally, on CD, and on vinyl. It was recorded in June in London.
--Amanda Sweet, Concord Music Group
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