Thursday, August 20, 2020

Streaming on FACEBOOK: Glendale Noon Concerts 9/2/20

Streaming on FACEBOOK: Glendale Noon Concerts 9/2/20  

Violinist ALEXANDER KNECHT


During the Covid-19 "Safer at Home" period,
Glendale Noon Concerts will bring our programs
to you via streaming on Facebook Live and Youtube:
The SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 program can be viewed at this link
beginning at 12:10 pm PDT:

Unbelievably, Facebook muted the Bach for copyright issues!

The entire concert can be heard on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8dK2uTZCtY

 The Ysaye is audible from 19'50'' in the video below:

https://www.facebook.com/xander.knecht/videos/10160213388393989/



Glendale City Church Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt6zEXA-8F7CPOixLDWxGBA


Facebook stream: GLENDALE NOON CONCERTS
Every FIRST & THIRD WEDNESDAY at 12:10 pm PDT
On Wednesday SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 at 12:10 pm PDT:

ALEXANDER KNECHT Solo Violin Recital

(Scroll down for artist bio & program notes) 

Program:

J.S. Bach: Partita no. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002

 

Allemanda / Double

Corrente / Double

Sarabande / Double

Bourree / Double

 



Eugène Ysaÿe: Sonata op. 27, no. 5

 

L'Aurore

Danse Rustique

 

Facebook  SEPTEMBER 2 event page

https://www.facebook.com/events/759488918174470/

Please keep checking the site below for updates.

A list of upcoming concerts will be posted soon.
Streaming on Wednesday SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 at 12:10-12:40 pm PDT:  
ADRIANA ZOPPO - viola d'amore
 
PLEASE HELP THESE CONCERTS TO CONTINUE 
WITH A DONATION:
Or by mailing it to 610 E California Ave, Glendale, CA 91206 to the Friends of Music.
The Glendale Noon Concerts series is presented by Glendale City Church every first & third Wednesday at 12:10-12:40 pm. www.glendalecitychurch.org
Glendale City Church also presents the Second Saturday Concert Series,
and sponsors the Caesura Youth Orchestra http://www.mycyo.org
Much appreciation to the Hennings-Fischer Foundation for their mission to support art & education and their generous grant to GNC.
RELAX DURING YOUR LUNCH HOUR WITH LIVE MUSIC


ARTIST BIO:

Alexander Cai Knecht, 29, from Loma Linda, CA, completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree under full scholarship at USC in 2018, where he studied with Bing Wang and Brian Chen. He holds a master's degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Masao Kawasaki, and bachelors' degrees in violin performance and mathematics from La Sierra University, where he studied with Jason Uyeyama.

 

In 2018, he became a member of the viola section of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. During the past year, he has served as a Teaching Artist for the Caesura Youth Orchestra at Columbus Elementary School in Glendale. This summer he also represented CYO as a Teaching Artist in the YOLA At Home Virtual Seminario in collaboration with El Sistema USA. Earlier this year he was invited as a guest violin sectional coach to Glendale High School. Last year he founded a free violin class outreach program at the Los Angeles Chinese Seventh-Day Adventist Church. He has been a mentor teaching strings in the CKC-Music community engagement program in San Bernardino since its founding in 2008, continuing to the present day through Zoom.

 

Last month he performed in an online celebration of the violin caprices of Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Grammaté, as part of a celebration of Canada Day hosted by Scott St. John of the Colburn School. He remains an active teacher and performer online, and is grateful for high-speed internet!

 

In past summers he has been a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, the Music Academy of the West, and the Gonggeng Music Festival in Zhejiang Province, China. He comes from a musical family of Chinese, Korean and Caucasian ancestry including three siblings, all of whom play and teach string instruments.

 

 

PROGRAM NOTES:

Johann Sebastian Bach's Six Violin Sonatas and Partitas date from his years under the patronage of Prince Leopold in Cöthen. Although only a minority of his oeuvre throughout his life did not consist of explicitly sacred music, the majority of his instrumental works dates from this period. All six of the sonatas are composed around patterns of Baroque dance music that were established in his day, but only this Partita preserves the antiquated practice of 'doubling' movements, or performing them with chords written out as separate notes and rhythms expanded into faster but more regular patterns.

 

Although the Second Partita in D minor also contains an Allemande, the one beginning the B minor Partita is distinctive in its dotted rhythmic pattern throughout resembling a French overture in contrast to all the other first movements among the Six Sonatas and Partitas. The thematic and harmonic resemblance between the movements and their respective doubles is noteworthy. For some listeners hearing this Partita for the first time, the first two movements in order with their doubles can even sound like one long movement progressing through faster and faster rhythmic patterns. The Sarabande contrasts to the other movements in that it never reaches a cadence in the mediant key of D major, breaking the harmonic parallel between all the other movements. The Bourree is the most intensively polyphonic movement in the Partita, often maintaining three and even four voices through the use of chords, even though none the Partitas contain the Fugue movements as do the three Sonatas. As a whole, this Partita is noteworthy in its length and stamina required in performance, but also in its rewards at all levels in repeated listening.

 

Eugene Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was one of the world's preeminent violinists in his lifetime. A personal friend and compatriot of Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, he was a benefactor of her generous patronage of the arts. In 1937, she established the Ysaÿe competition in his memory, which remains to this day under her name. In 1923, he composed his own six sonatas for solo violin, with obvious inspiration from J.S. Bach. Since their writing, they have become an established part of the repertoire to the extent that, in metaphorical terms, if Bach's Six Sonatas and Partitas are the Old Testament, violinists today would consider Ysaÿe's sonatas the New Testament.

 

The intricacies of left-hand technique to which the performer is called are incongruous considering Ysaÿe's physical size, at six feet tall. Not only are large stretches called for, but equally difficult are the contractions and contortions of the hand. The fingers always feel too thick, when they do not feel too small! Nevertheless, one develops a feeling for the writing after spending time with it, and eventually the feeling emerges that the sonatas show one how to play them, with Ysaÿe himself teaching the performer his proprietary secrets.

 

The fifth sonata stands out in its economy of thematic material compared to the other five. The first movement, "L'Aurore," is simply named after a sunrise. It begins the most quietly out of all six sonatas, with a perfect fifth on open strings, then a major sixth, then a major third. The rest of the first movement, through all of its variation, ornamentation and expansion of register, is constructed around this cell of thematic material. The second and concluding movement, "Danse Rustique," is constructed around a one-measure opening theme, first in a lively 5/4 time, but later in other rhythmic treatments. Beneath the surface harmonic language of whole-tone scales, parallel fifths and harmonic planing, there is a clear tonal and formal structure in which Bach would find himself at home.

Thursday, August 6, 2020

On FACEBOOK streaming: Glendale Noon Concerts 8/19/20

Streaming on FACEBOOK: Glendale Noon Concerts 8/19/20  

Pianist BRENDAN WHITE


During the Covid-19 "Safer at Home" period,
Glendale Noon Concerts will bring our programs
to you via streaming on Facebook Live and Youtube:
The AUGUST 19, 2020 program can be viewed at this link
beginning at 12:10 pm PDT:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=582798092378880
 

The concert is also available for viewing on Youtube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1zj_ZulD_o
 

Glendale City Church Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt6zEXA-8F7CPOixLDWxGBA


Facebook stream: GLENDALE NOON CONCERTS
Every FIRST & THIRD WEDNESDAY at 12:10 pm PDT
On Wednesday AUGUST 19, 2020 at 12:10 pm PDT:

BRENDAN WHITE - piano 


(Scroll down for artist bio & program notes) 

Program:

Eleanor Alberga

(b. 1949, Jamaican)

It's Time

 

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji 

(1942-1988, English)

Nocturne: Djâmî 

 

 

Facebook AUGUST 19 event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1481626115377872/

Please keep checking the site below for updates.
A list of upcoming concerts will be posted soon.

Streaming on Wednesday SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 at 12:10-12:40 pm PDT:
  
ALEXANDER KNECHT
SOLO VIOLIN RECITAL

Bach: Partita no. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002

Eugene Ysaÿe: Sonata op. 27 no. 5, "L'Aurore"
 
 
PLEASE HELP THESE CONCERTS TO CONTINUE 
WITH A DONATION:
Or by mailing it to 610 E California Ave, Glendale, CA 91206 to the Friends of Music.
The Glendale Noon Concerts series is presented by Glendale City Church every first & third Wednesday at 12:10-12:40 pm. www.glendalecitychurch.org
Glendale City Church also presents the Second Saturday Concert Series,
and sponsors the Caesura Youth Orchestra http://www.mycyo.org
Much appreciation to the Hennings-Fischer Foundation for their mission to support art & education and their generous grant to GNC.
RELAX DURING YOUR LUNCH HOUR WITH LIVE MUSIC
 
 

ARTIST BIO:

Pianist Brendan White has appeared as soloist with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Musica Nova (Eastman School of Music), Delta Symphony Orchestra, Crown City Symphony, and the Vicente Chamber Orchestra. White’s collaborations in Southern California have included the Mühlfeld Trio, which won the prestigious Beverly Hills Auditions, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, the Speakeasy Society, and Eighteen Squared. He is also a founding member of the Sunset ChamberFest in Los Angeles; www.sunsetchamberfest.com 

Local recital appearances include: Glendale Noon Concerts, Pasadena Presbyterian Music at Noon, Music@Mimoda, Mason Concerts, Emerging Artist Series Recital at Boston Court, Soundwaves series in Santa Monica.

White was born and raised in Tennessee before attending Eastman to study with Thomas Schumacher, and then, the University of Southern California, with Kevin Fitz-Gerald, where he was awarded Outstanding Master’s Graduate of the Thornton School of Music. As a devoted performer of new music, he has worked with notable composers and conductors including Thomas Adès, Donald Crockett, Alan Pierson, Steven Stucky and Jeffrey Milarsky.

 

PROGRAM NOTES & COMPOSER BIOS:

Eleanor Alberga

(b. 1949, Jamaican)

It's Time

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Alberga

 

https://africlassical.blogspot.com/2019/03/theartsdeskcom-eleanor-albergas-its.html

 

 

Eleanor Alberga has often worked with dance troupes. That grounding in the ever-shifting drama of rhythm and movement never feels far away in It’s Time – inspired by a poem by Pushkin. Repeated bass figures conjure an immersive, enveloping mood of anticipation, even threat. If the hypnotic and drone-like rumbles and snarls low down hint at some variety of minimalism, ethereal, bell-like harmonies above sometimes conjure the soundscapes of Debussy or even Messiaen. -Boyd Tonkin

Aleksandr Pushkin

"It's Time, My Friend..."

It's time, my friend, it's time! The peace is craved by hearts...  
Days flow after days -- each hour departs
A bit of life -- and both, you and I,
Plan a long life, but could abruptly die.
 
The world hasn't happiness, but there is freedom, peace.
And long have I daydreamed the life of bliss --
And long have planned, a tired slave, the flight
To the removed abode of labor and delight. 

***** *************************************************

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji 

(1942-1988, English)

Nocturne: Djâmî

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaikhosru_Shapurji_Sorabji

 http://www.sorabji-archive.co.uk/compositions/piece.php?pieceid=47

Sorabji wrote Djâmi in 1928; it is the first of his works explicitly designated ‘nocturne’, a genre to which he returned many times later in his career. It is also one of Sorabji’s first works to explicitly evoke Persian culture, something that became increasingly important to Sorabji not only as a source of inspiration for his music (evident in compositions such as Gulistān and the Jāmī Symphony) but as a means of discovering and engaging with his own cultural heritage as a Parsi. Djâmi bears the following quotation from the poem Yusuf and Zuleykhā by the poet Nuru’d-Dīn ‘Abdur-Rahmān Jāmī: “Be thou the thrall of love; make this thine object; For this one thing seemeth to wise men worthy. Be thou love’s thrall, that thou mayst win thy freedom, Bear on thy breast its brand, that thou mayst blithe be. Love’s wine will warm thee and will steal thy senses; All else is soulless stupor and self-seeking” (trans. E.G. Browne).
(notes: Jonathan Powell)