Violinist Stefan Jackiw performs the gorgeous Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy this weekend with the Oregon Symphony. You may remember that Jackiw performed with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 (Sydney, Australia) the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto:

Routenberg: Concerto for Jazz Violin and Orchestra (commissioned by Chien Tan)

Audio link:

Routenberg: Concerto For Jazz Violin and Orchestra 1. Blue Reel

Glenn Basham, violin
Michael Krajewski, conductor
Naples Philharmonic

Thank you, Herbie Hancock, for performing with the Oregon Symphony and inspiring me to revisit a concerto that I commissioned!

I admire musicians like Hancock who stretch their musical imagination and versatility. His contribution to jazz is amazing. And when he returned to his classical roots to play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, his take on it was fresh and unique.

A few years ago I dreamt of a contemporary violin concerto where musical boundaries blurred. I was tired of the stuffy stereotype of classical music and wanted to break away from it.  I met composer and jazz artist Scott Routenberg at the Henry Mancini Institute (Los Angeles) earlier and was drawn to his compositions. We kept in touch. One day I finally asked if he would be interested in this commission.

Scott Routenberg’s Concerto for Jazz Violin and Orchestra was completed in 2007 and was premiered by Glenn Basham, concertmaster of the Naples Philharmonic. Since then it’s been played in China, and is scheduled to be performed by Christian Howes in 2012.

1) It has a traditional classical structure, however,
2) The three movements are Blue Reel, Ballad, and Step Dance.
3) In lieu of cadenzas are jazz charts. This can be improvised or written out, depending on the soloist’s preference.
4) This piece would be suited to a pops concert.

I believe that many violinists can now easily perform alternative styles, compose, arrange and improvise. The Routenberg Concerto is in many ways what I envision about the evolution of violinists of the 21st century.

Herbie Hancock (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

A little secret:

Violinists preparing for national orchestra auditions are expected to play Don Juan (first violin part) and therefore they have spent years mastering it. I do not care to count how hours I’ve spent refining the piece, but I benefited greatly performing it for colleagues, and especially concertmasters while in college.

All of the tenure-tracked violinists who have joined the Oregon Symphony since 2000 have played Don Juan as part of their audition. They probably can play the first page of Don Juan memorized in their sleep!

Violinist Karen Gomyo

Some random tidbits about Karen:

About the Beethoven Violin Concerto: I tried to stay away from the Beethoven Violin Concerto when I was younger. I learned it (went through a phase learning all the major concertos) and performed it a few times but quickly felt that I wanted to leave it and put it off to the side and come back to it when I was a little older. That’s what’s happening now. It has been a little over five years since years since I last played it.

It’s a masterpiece that you just take your time, you can spend a lifetime experiencing the piece, constantly seeing something new about it. Now that I am practicing it again, I am noticing the challenges the piece brings. Even studying the urtext score there’s several different versions… it’s so wonderfully monumental. This is the kind of challenge that keeps an artist forever curious and interested in music.

Special nuevo tango project:  I grew up in Montreal where I heard a lot of Spanish around me. I spent a lot of time with my teen babysitter, my best friend in elementary school and their families who all spoke Spanish. I heard Piazzolla for the first time when I was 14. My mother and her friends once heard Piazzolla live at a smoky bar when he came to Montreal and she just really enjoyed the performance. She picked up Piazzolla’s CD Zero Hour for me, which Piazzolla claimed to be his best recording accomplishment. It was the first time I heard Piazzolla’s music and I absolutely fell in love with it. I was fascinated by the complexity, actually, because up until then, the Latin music I heard was really fun, but not the type of music you actually sit down and listen to. A few years later, I was at a summer festival to perform some of Piazzolla’s arrangements with other musicians. And when I saw Pablo Ziegler himself walk on stage my jaw fell to the floor. He and I connected and spoke about doing some project. We’re finally embarking on this project in 2012.

How Karen chose the violin: I’m from a non-musical family. But my mom, a visual artist, enjoyed jazz piano.  I was humming tunes before I could speak words, so she considered music for me. Because she didn’t know so much about music and instruments she thought the piano would be the most expensive instrument because of its size and the amount of wood it uses. So she started considering smaller instruments. Around the same time fourteen-year old Midori came to town to play with the Montreal Symphony. My mother brought me to that concert. Of course I was blown away by that performance and I decided that I wanted to play the violin.

On chemistry between the player and violin instrument: I’ve had the Strad violin for ten years. I don’t own it. A generous sponsor gave me a budget to look for a violin. Prior to this violin, I never had my own instrument. I had to constantly skip from one borrowed violin, to the next (sometimes every week or every other week). I didn’t know what it meant to get to know an instrument.

Chemistry that the player and instrument has is so obvious when it does happen. One Strad worked really well in someone else’s hands but it didn’t work well for me. You realize that it’s like dealing with people. They (violins) might all be very good people, but you might connect with one over the another.

About the Strad Karen uses: There’s no history of an important player playing it, but in the last century it’s been in the hands of two owners. So it’s well protected and sheltered and very well-loved. This is the feeling that I got when I first played this instrument. It hadn’t been played that much. It’s a completely different violin than it was ten years ago. It’s a special experience to grow with an instrument on a daily basis. It really is complex it has its very strong personality and quirks. Sometimes it really tells you what it wants.

Natasha Paremski, pianist/photo credit: Andrea Joynt

Quick post to say that pianist Natasha Paremski, the heroine who got the call with less than 48 hours notice to step in for the indisposed Yefim Bronfman, is playing the youthful Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1  splendidly. When I asked Paremski what her reaction was when she got the call to play last-minute, she was actually enthusiastic.  Her agent broke the news to her at the end of an hour-long conference call. (Maybe it was one of those “Yay Team! rah-rah” call, leading up to the news?) Paremski showed up at the Schnitzer hall ready to rehearse with conductor Rossen Milanov, and the Oregon Symphony Friday morning.

If her name sounds familiar, it’s because Paremski performed her Oregon Symphony debut last April with the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 1 in April, with last-minute conductor replacement Michael Francis.

This weekend’s concert information is here.

Just heard that Rick Steves, that famous American traveler who is frequently on public television, will partner with the Cascade Symphony in Edmonds, WA for a symphonic journey that is sure to be enjoyable.

What a great idea! But it gets better. The performances will be filmed, edited and aired on public television. The resulting DVD will hopefully be a fundraiser for both the symphony and public television, a win-win. According to Steves’ website:

In this special concert, attendees will join Steves, music director Michael Miropolsky, and the Cascade Symphony Orchestra on a musical tour that begins in the USA, then touches down in seven different European countries. For each stop, Rick will paint the cultural context in words, and then the orchestra will play stirring popular favorites —Grieg for Norway, Smetana for the Czech Republic, Strauss for Austria, Berlioz for France, Elgar for England, Wagner for Germany, and Verdi for Italy—accompanied by a big-screen video montage from each location. Each selection will celebrate a particular nationality, while the finale, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (Europe’s official anthem), will celebrate a continent whose motto is, “United in diversity.”

And if you love to travel (more) like me, this will grab you:

At each performance, a lucky audience member will be selected at random to receive a Rick Steves seven-day European city tour for two of his/her choice! It could be you!

I am seriously considering coming up to hear the performance. And a chance, you know, of spending time in Europe with one of the most famous travel guides around. Then I’d take my younger brother along, who a couple years ago actually bumped into that guy in Italy while fumbling through one of his guidebooks.

Since Elina Vähälä is coming to Portland this week, I decided to feature Ana Chumachenko, one of Vähälä’s violin mentors.  Chumachenko is an active soloist, recitalist and chamber musician who also teaches at the illustrious Kronberg Academy Masters in Germany. Those who attended Chamber Music Northwest concerts this year should note that violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Gary Hoffman are among the professors at Kronberg.

From YouTube: masterclass of the cadenza of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 given by Chumachenko, with Eldbjorg Hemsing playing. The full masterclass is available on DVD from www.masterclassfoundation.org .

Violinist Elina Vähälä

We warmly welcome back violinist Elina Vähälä for her third appearance with the Oregon Symphony (Carlos Kalmar, conducting) September 24, 25, 26 to open our classical 2011-2012 concert season. Born in the United States and raised in Finland, Vähälä’s Oregon Symphony debut in 2007 playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was met with great enthusiasm. In 2010, Vähälä’s total command of the instrument took the Portland audience and musicians alike on an mesmerizing, emotional ride, evoking lament and requiem in Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto for the fallen soldiers of the Spanish Civil War. In addition to performing worldwide, she is a professor of violin at Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany.

In September you will perform Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Oregon Symphony. How would you describe this music to someone rather new to classical music?

EV: This violin concerto is a great example of Prokofiev’s very original musical language, clear, intelligent yet highly emotional but never sentimental. He is a master orchestrator, so the tonal colors are magnificent. The second movement has an incredibly beautiful tune with such long phrases that they create almost a breathless atmosphere. The final movement is very exciting with a special mixture of moods, dancing, but at the same time there is a threatening drive. You can also find a bit of Peter and the Wolf there!

Violinmasterclass.com

While it is not intended to replace a violin teacher, it provides important concepts and offers a chance to observe a great violin pedagogue, Kurt Sassmannshaus, and students. I studied with Mr. Sassmannshaus one summer when he was an assistant to Dorothy DeLay. Many ideas that DeLay herself taught are found on the website, which can now be viewed online for free.

Need help on improving technique? Can’t get that bow to spiccato evenly? How about checking the Quicktime videos? Look under “Master Classes”, then choose “Right Hand, “Spiccato” and “Exercises”. The exercises are demonstrated at all levels from beginner to advanced. Select the level that’s best for you. One caveat: those students demonstrating have largely polished the technique. It is not their first try!

If you think you need to slave away for hours each day working on some specific technique, think again. You need a practice strategy. How about three minutes a day? This is possible if you follow “The Power of Virtuous Moments” which emphasize that the most important lessons in our lives happen in short moments. Organizing 20 virtuous moments in a one hour practice session, each lasting three minutes, will maximize your time. A practice schedule, timer and a metronome are required.

You can even book a virtual lesson as video exchanges and in real time.

Kurt Sassmannshaus and student demonstrating spiccato.

R. Todd Ehle, AKA Professor V

http://www.toddehle.com/

Todd Ehle has nearly 22000 subscribers on YouTube, and numerous videos on violin playing that are helpful. The Professor V link above will land you to his subscriber page and you can browse on the lower right hand corner for videos that may interest you.

Or, to access his links to video playlists as arranged by technique go to http://www.toddehle.com/id71.html

A sample of Professor V’s video tutorials:

There are numerous online tutorials out there, so if you happen to know one that you highly recommend, let me know. Some day I hope to have time and quiet space to make a couple of tutorials.