Ursula Oppens and Robert Levin Perform the Music of Bernard Rands at Symphony Space Tonight
By: BWW News Desk Dec. 05, 2013
Two distinguished American pianists-Ursula Oppens and Robert Levin-will team up to perform selections of piano works by the celebrated British-American composer Bernard Rands this evening, December 5th at 7:30 p.m. at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, New York, NY.
Rands: Tre Espressioni (1960) (Ursula Oppens) Preludes (2007) (Robert Levin)
2. Ostinato 3. Bordone 4. Elegia
11. Istampita
Impromptu (2011) (Robert Levin)
Tickets are $32, $27 for members, $20 for 30 and under (with valid ID) and can be purchased by visiting www.symphonyspaceorg or by calling 212-864-5400.
Ursula Oppens has long been recognized as the leading champion of contemporary American piano music. In addition her original and perceptive readings of other music, old and new, have earned her a place among the elect of today's performing musicians.
In February Ms. Oppens will return to Symphony Space with the Cassatt Quartet to perform the world premiere of a piece by Tania Leon. Ms. Oppens will also perform, on February 14, with the JACK Quartet at the Library of Congress, and later in the year she will return to the Library of Congress to perform with cellist Fred Sherry. Other recital engagements will take Ms. Oppens to Portugal for the Festival de Mu?sica dos Ac?ores / Jazzores, and to Sa?o Paulo, Brazil.
Notable among Ms. Oppens' engagements for the 2012-13 season were solo performances and her participation with other distinguished musicians in a series of memorial concerts devoted to the music of the late Elliott Carter. In January Ms. Oppens devoted an entire program to the complete piano works of Carter at Symphony Space.
Also in January Ms. Oppens participated in an all-Carter program at Le Poisson Rouge with modernist luminaries cellist Fred Sherry, clarinetist Charles Neidich, violinist Rolf Schulte and singer Tony Arnold and the Ensemble LPR. In February she was also heard at the CUNY Graduate Center's Elebash Recital Hall in a Carter program where she played his Duo for Violin and Piano (1974) with violinist Rolf Schulte. On May 22, 2013 Ms. Oppens was heard at a Juilliasrd School Memorial concert at Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater celebrating in particular Carter's composition of more than 60 works after the age of 90. Ms. Oppens performed Carter's final work, Epigrams, with violinist Rolf Schulte and cellist Fred Sherry.
Ms. Oppens participated in the "Music of Now Marathon" at Symphony Space in New York, performing "Memo 5" by Bernard Rands, which Steve Smith of The New York Times found to be "a formidable strain of high modernism , expressed in in leaping intervals and tumultuous rhythmic bursts. Exulting in sheer technique, the rigorously wrought music sounded positively spontaneous, ... amiable and inviting " (February 6, 2013)
No During 2012-13 Ms. Oppens captured a Grammy Award nomination-her fourth to date-in the coveted category of "Best Classical Instrumental Solo" for the highly praised album Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano, released in April 2011 on Cedille Records. The disc features the world premiere recording of John Corigliano's work of the same name, which had its debut performance by Ms. Oppens at New York's Symphony Space in May 2009. Other works on the album, all by Mr. Corigliano, include Chiaroscuro (1997), Fantasia on an Ostinato (1985), Kaleidoscope for two pianos (1959), and Etude Fantasy (1976). Ms. Oppens is joined on the recording by veteran pianist Jerome Lowenthal for Kaleidoscope. Journalist Tom Huizenga from The Washington Post praised Ms. Oppens's interpretation: "Her rigorous, unforced performances again prove that few pianists of any era can claim a hold on contemporary piano music as she does" (August 2011).
Earlier Grammy nominations were for Oppens Plays Carter; a recording of the complete piano works of Elliott Carter for Cedille Records (which also was named a "Best of the Year" selection by The New York Times long-time music critic Allan Kozinn); her Piano Music of Our Time featuring compositions by John Adams, Elliott Carter, Julius Hemphill, and Conlon Nancarrow for the Music and Arts label, and her legendary cult classic The People United Will Never Be Defeated by Frederic Rzewski on Vanguard. Ms. Oppens recently added to her extensive discography by releasing a two-piano CD for Cedille Records devoted to Visions de l'Amen of Oliver Messiaen and Debussy's En blanc et noir performed with pianist Jerome Lowenthal.
The 2011-2012 season found Ms. Oppens appearing in recital at the House of Composers in St Petersburg, Russia with a program of Corigliano, Carter and Rzewski. She was also heard as soloist with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic conducted by Jeffery Meyer where she performed the world premiere of Laura Kaminsky's Piano Concerto, as well as Leonid Rezetdinov's Feuerwerk-Hana-Bi for piano and orchestra. During the 13th Festival Slowind 2011 at the Slovenska Filharmonija of Ljubljana (Slovenia) Ms. Oppens played works by Elliott Carter and Witold Lutoslawski. In February 2012, she performed Amy Williams's "Three Pieces for Piano," as part of the 8-hour Music of Now Marathon at Symphony Space. Other engagements included Mills College in Oakland (CA), and Pittsburgh (PA). In July 2012 Ms. Oppens also returned to the Music Mountain Festival in Falls Village (CT).
Over the years, Ms. Oppens has premiered works by such leading composers as Luciano Berio, William Bolcom, John Harbison, Julius Hemphill, Tania Leon, Gyo?rgy Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski, Harold Meltzer, Conlon Nancarrow, Tobias Picker, Frederic Rzewski, Joan Tower, Amy Williams, Christian Wolff, Amnon Wolman, and Charles Wuorinen. As orchestral guest soloist Mr. Oppens has performed with virtually all of the world's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, and the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco and Milwaukee. Abroad, she has appeared with such ensembles as the Berlin Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Deutsche Symphonie, the Scottish BBC, and the London Philharmonic Orchestras. Ms. Oppens is also an avid chamber musician and has performed with the Arditti, Juilliard, Pacifica, and Rosetti quartets, among other chamber ensembles.
In October 2010, Ms. Oppens performed the New York premiere of Alvin Singleton's Blueskoncert with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall.
One of the most riveting experiences of Ms. Oppens's entire career came in Lisbon on April 25, 2011, the 37th anniversary of Portugal's Carnation Revolution which saw the overthrow of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, when she caused a furor of approval by playing the Portugese national anthem as part of her performance of Frederic Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated.
Ursula Oppens is a Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York in New York City, a position she took up in 2008 after serving as John Evans Distinguished Professor of Music at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL since 1994. Ms. Oppens lives in New York City.
Pianist Robert Levin has been heard throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia, in recital, as soloist, and in chamber concerts. His solo engagements include the orchestras of Atlanta, Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, La Scala, Los Angeles, Montreal, Philadelphia, Toronto, Utah and Vienna on the Steinway with conductors Semyon Bychkov, James Conlon, Bernard Haitink, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Joseph Silverstein. On period pianos he has appeared with the Academy of Ancient Music, La Chambre Philharmonique, the English Baroque Soloists, the Handel & Haydn Society, the London Classical Players, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Orchestre Re?volutionnaire et Romantique, and Philharmonia Baroque, with Christopher Hogwood, Emmanuel Krivine, Sir Charles Mackerras, Nicholas McGegan, Sir Roger Norrington, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. He has performed frequently at such festivals as Sarasota, Oregon Bach, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Bremen, Lockenhaus, and the Mozartwoche in Salzburg. As a chamber musician he has a long association with violist Kim Kashkashian and appears frequently with his wife, pianist Ya-Fei Chuang, in duo recitals and with orchestra. After more than a quarter century as an artist faculty member at the Sarasota Music Festival he succeeded Paul Wolfe as Artistic Director in 2007.
Robert Levin is renowned for his restoration of the Classical period practice of improvised embellishments and cadenzas; his Mozart and Beethoven performances have been hailed for their active mastery of the Classical musical language. He has made recordings for DG Archiv, CRI, Decca/Oiseau-Lyre, Deutsche Grammophon, ECM, Klavierfestival Ruhr, New York Philomusica, Nonesuch, Philips, and Sony Classical. Among these are the complete Bach concertos with Helmuth Rilling as well as the English Suites and the Well-Tempered Clavier (on five keyboard instruments) for Ha?nssler's 172-CD Edition Bach- akademie. Other recordings include a Beethoven concerto cycle with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Re?volutionnaire et Romantique for Archiv, a Mozart concerto cycle with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music for Decca/ Oiseau-Lyre, Mozart sonatas for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, and the complete piano music of Dutilleux for ECM. A passionate advocate of new music, Robert Levin has commissioned and premiered a large number of works, including Joshua Fineberg's Veils (2001), John Harbison's Second Sonata (2003), Yehudi Wyner's piano concerto Chiavi in mano (Pulitzer Prize, 2006), Bernard Rands' Preludes (2007), Thomas Oboe Lee's Piano Concerto (2007) and Hans Peter Tu?rk's Tra?ume (2012).
Robert Levin studied piano with Louis Martin and composition with Stefan Wolpe in New York He worked with Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau and Paris while still in high school, afterwards attending Harvard. Upon graduation he was invited by Rudolf Serkin to head the theory department of the Curtis Institute of Music, a post he left after five years to take up a professorship at the School of the Arts, SUNY Purchase, outside of New York City. In 1979 he was Resident Director of the Conservatoire ame?ricain in Fontainebleau, France, at the request of Nadia Boulanger, and taught there from 1979 to 1983. From 1986 to 1993 he was professor of piano at the Staatliche Hochschule fu?r Musik in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. President of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.
In addition to his performing career, Robert Levin is a noted theorist and Mozart scholar, and is the author of a number of articles and essays on Mozart. A member of the Akademie fu?r Mozartforschung, his completions of Mozart fragments are published by Ba?renreiter, Breitkopf & Ha?rtel, Carus, Peters, and Wiener Urtext Edition, and have been recorded and performed throughout the world. Levin's cadenzas to the Mozart violin concertos were recorded by Gidon Kremer with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammophon and published by Universal-Edition. Henle has issued his cadenzas to the flute, flute and harp, oboe, horn and bassoon concertos and to the Beethoven violin concerto. His reconstruction of the Symphonie concertante in E-flat major for four winds and orchestra, K.297B, was premie?red by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Mozartwoche in Salzburg, and has subsequently been performed worldwide. The first of the many recordings of the work, by Philips, won the 1985 Grand Prix International du Disque.
In August 1991 Robert Levin's completion of the Mozart Requiem was premie?red by Helmuth Rilling at the European Music Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, to a standing ovation. His completion of the Mozart Mass in C minor, K. 427, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, was premiered by Rilling in New York in January 2005 and in Europe two months later. Both works have been performed worldwide and are published by Carus-Verlag.
Through more than a hundred published works and many recordings, Bernard Rands is established as a major figure in contemporary music. His work Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize in Music. His large orchestral suites Le Tambourin won the 1986 Kennedy Center Friedheim Award. Conductors including Barenboim, Boulez, Berio, Maazel, Maderna, Marriner, Mehta, Muti, Ozawa, Rilling, Salonen, Sawallisch, Schiff, Schuller, Schwarz, Silverstein, Sinopoli, Slatkin, von Dohnanyi, and Zinman, among many others, have programmed his music. Rands served as Composer in Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra for seven years. The first three years were funded by the Meet the Composer Residency Program, with four years continued funding by The Philadelphia Orchestra. Through this residency Rands made a wonderful and dedicated contribution to the music of our time.
Rands' works are widely performed and frequently commercially recorded. His work Canti d'Amor, recorded by Chanticleer, won a Grammy Award in 2000. Born in England, Rands emigrated to the United States in 1975, becoming an American citizen in 1983. He has been honored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; Broadcast Music, Inc.; the Guggenheim Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; Meet The Composer; the Barlow, Fromm, and Koussevitzky Foundations, among many others. In 2004, Rands was inducted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Recent commissions have come from the Suntory Concert Hall in Tokyo, the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Internationale Bach Akademie, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Many chamber works have resulted from commissions from major ensembles and festivals from around the world. His chamber opera, Belladonna, was commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival and School for its fiftieth anniversary in 1999.
Rands is currently composing a full-scale opera, Vincent, based on the life and work of Van Gogh, with poet J.D. McClatchy.
A dedicated and passionate teacher, Rands has been guest composer at many international festivals and Composer in Residence at the Aspen and Tanglewood festivals. Rands is the Walter Bigelow Rosen Research Professor of Music at Harvard. He has received honorary degrees from several American and European universities.
The originality and distinctive character of his music have been variously described as 'plangent lyricism' with a 'dramatic intensity' and a 'musicality and clarity of idea allied to a sophisticated and elegant technical mastery' - qualities developed from his studies with Dallapiccola and Berio.
Musical America has referred to Rands as "a composer with a poet's sensibility and a painterly love of color and line."
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