Streaming on FACEBOOK & YouTube/Glendale Noon Concerts 5/5/21

 

Streaming on FACEBOOK & YouTube
Glendale Noon Concerts  5/5/21

Ken Aiso – violin

Valeria Morgovskaya - piano

 

During the Covid-19 "Safer at Home" period,
Glendale Noon Concerts will bring our programs
to you via streaming on Facebook and YouTube:
The MAY 5, 2021 program can be viewed at this link
beginning at 12:10 pm PT. (VIDEO will be available ongoing)

LINKS TO VIEW THE CONCERT:

On Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/102903054696946/videos/144774174283034

On YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdG205Z-Wx8

The program will be archived on the

Glendale City Church Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt6zEXA-8F7CPOixLDWxGBA
 

Watch previous Glendale Noon Concerts streams: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oAfaPgGGMw&list=PLms1LJpnTpJzK7Yf6ryh2zyFMlkl7qC2z

Read about the previous programs:   

http://glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com

 

Facebook stream: GLENDALE NOON CONCERTS
Every FIRST & THIRD WEDNESDAY at 12:10 pm PT
On Wednesday MAY 5, 2021 at 12:10 pm PT:

DUO RECITAL

Ken Aiso - violin

Valeria Morgovskaya - piano

 

PROGRAM:

Karen Tanaka 

"Ocean":

1-East Beach

2-Hendry's Beach-Sunset

3-Butterfly Beach

 

Joseph Achron 

"Suite Bizarre" op.41

Etincelles

Quasi Valse

 

Ernest Chausson

Poeme 

 

(scroll down for artist bios & program notes) 

 

Please keep checking the site below for updates & upcoming concerts:

http://glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com

Streaming on Wednesday MAY 19, 2021 at 12:10-12:40 pm PT:

(This program was rescheduled from 2/17/21)

Brendan White - piano

Alexander Scriabin - Prelude Op. 37, No. 1

 

George Gershwin - Three Preludes

 

Brendan White - Prelude

 

Chad Latta - War Fantasy

 

Johann Sebastian Bach - Prelude and Fugue in C Major from WTC Book I  

 

Alexander Scriabin - Sonata No. 10, Op. 70

 

 

PLEASE HELP THESE CONCERTS TO CONTINUE WITH A DONATION: 

https://adventistgiving.org/#/org/ANPPGL/envelope/start 

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

Concert schedule: www.glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com

Glendale City Church also presents the Second Saturday Concert Series,

http://glendalecitychurch.org/index.php/ministries/second-saturday-concert-series.html  

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 BIOS:

 

Internationally acclaimed violinist/violist Ken Aiso has performed worldwide as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. Ken graduated form the Royal Academy of Music in London studying with Erich Gruenberg. His other teachers include Eduard Schmieder and Chikashi Tanaka. Equally at home with modern and period instruments, Ken has appeared as principal violin with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the London Philharmonic, the Hallé and the Scottish Chamber Orchestras.

He has been invited to renowned music festivals in UK, France, Sweden, Switzerland, India, Georgia, Bolivia and Kazakhstan, and has taught at Montecito Summer Music Festival since 2008. Ken is a laureate of Long-Thibaud International Competition in Paris and International Music Competition of Japan, and was elected Associate of Royal Academy of Music in London. He received Shimousa Kan-ichi Music Award in his native Japan in 2018. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2015, Ken has been serving as faculty at Loyola Marymount and La Sierra Universities, and performs with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

 

Valeria Morgovskaya, pianist, graduated from the Kiev State Conservatory. Since her immigration to the US in 1990, Ms Morgovskaya has been in high demand as accompanist for singers and all orchestral instrumentalists. She has been an official accompanist to festivals and courses such as Piatigorsky Cello Seminar and Beverley Hills Music Festival, and has performed throughout the US, Germany and Japan, as well as on numerous radio broadcast. She has provided accompaniment for many national and international competitions, and was an official accompanist at Schoenfeld International String Competition in Hong Kong (2013) and Harbin (2014). Ms. Morgovskaya is currently staff accompanist at Loyola Marymount University and UCLA, and is often engaged in that capacity at USC, Cal State Long Beach, Colburn School, Montecito International Music Festival, Academy of the West and Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts.

PROGRAM NOTES:

Ocean was inspired by the scenery and landscapes of the coastlines near Santa
Barbara, California. My intention was to transform images of waves reflecting light
and blue/orange colored sky into the sound texture. It consists of three pieces.
1. East Beach
2. Hendry's Beach - Sunset
3. Butterfly Beach
It was commissioned by the Autunnale Festival in Bergen, Norway.
Karen Tanaka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Tanaka

 

Suite bizarre 'Cycles des rythmes, Suite No 4' Op 41

In 1913 Joseph Achron took up a post at the Kharkov Conservatory in Ukraine, returning to Petrograd (as it was by this time called) in 1916, whilst also serving in the Russian Army music corps during World War I. This was a period of stylistic experimentation, as shown in his orchestral Epitaph, Op 38 (in memoriam Scriabin), and the progressively avant-garde Suite bizarre, Op 41 (subtitled ‘Cycles des rythmes’), composed in 1916. This title suits the Suite’s unusual irregular rhythm and phrasing, redolent of Bartók and Stravinsky, and its Scriabinesque chromatic harmony, extremes of register and complex instrumental interactions. Yet each movement also displays the discipline of a study, elaborating a single technical and structural idea with leonine violinistic demands.

The first movement, Étincelles, fizzes along with its chirpy dotted theme and quirky phrase lengths. It unfolds with arpeggio motifs and trills, rising higher like the sparks of the title, garbed in expressionistic chromaticism. Impressionistic modernism pervades Quasi valse, the lilting theme perhaps ironically recalling Strauss’s ‘Blue Danube’. Its transformation in different guises and registers is inflected with some giddy dissonances, emphasizing its yearning character. 

 

from notes by Malcolm Miller © 2012

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

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A8me_(Chausson)

 

Streaming on FACEBOOK & YouTube/Glendale Noon Concerts 4/21/21

Streaming on FACEBOOK & YouTube
Glendale Noon Concerts  4/21/21

Alexander Knecht – viola

 

During the Covid-19 "Safer at Home" period,
Glendale Noon Concerts will bring our programs
to you via streaming on Facebook and YouTube:
The APRIL 21, 2021 program can be viewed at this link
beginning at 12:10 pm PT. (VIDEO will be available ongoing)

 

LINKS TO VIEW THE CONCERT:

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/xander.knecht/videos/10160915498988989/

On YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJC7dhGjkgM

 

PROGRAM:

J.S. BACH

Viola da Gamba Sonata no. 1, BWV 1027: 

Andante

 

Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV 1011:

Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande,

Gavottes 1 & 2, Gigue

Alexander Knecht, viola, keyboard and production

(Scroll down for artist bio and program notes)

Facebook APR 21 event page: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/2950619431850370

 

 

Please keep checking the site below for updates.

http://glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com

Streaming on Wednesday MAY 5, 2021 at 12:10-12:40 pm PT:

Ken Aiso - violin

Valeria Morgovskaya - piano

KAREN TANAKA  Ocean 

JOSEPH ACHRON Suite Bizarre, Op.41: Etincelles, Quasi Valse

ERNEST CHAUSSON Poeme

PLEASE HELP THESE CONCERTS TO CONTINUE WITH A DONATION

https://adventistgiving.org/#/org/ANPPGL/envelope/start 

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

Concert schedule: www.glendalenoonconcerts.blogspot.com

Glendale City Church also presents the Second Saturday Concert Series,

http://glendalecitychurch.org/index.php/ministries/second-saturday-concert-series.html  

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, completed a DMA under full scholarship at USC in 2018, where he studied with Brian Chen. He holds a master's degree from Juilliard, where he studied with Masao Kawasaki, and bachelors' degrees  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. Since 2019, he has served as a Teaching Artist for the Caesura Youth Orchestra at Columbus Elementary School in Glendale. In 2019, he founded a free violin class outreach program at the Los Angeles Chinese Seventh-Day Adventist Church. He is a regular participant as a violinist in the liturgical music at St. Joseph the Worker parish in Loma Linda. 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.

This year he was featured in a live performance on AM 870 in Glendale, on the Impassioned Angels program.. Last summer 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.

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:

Throughout his life, J.S. Bach occupied himself principally as a composer of sacred music for the Lutheran Church, producing a wealth of vocal and organ music for which he is still known. However, the years 1717 to 1723 were a notable exception in that he was instead employed in the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, who was a Calvinist. Since the Reformed Church at the time only permitted Calvinist psalms to be sung at worship, notably from the Genevan Psalter, there was no need for sacred music to be composed, including organ music. However, Prince Leopold employed a chamber orchestra and was himself an amateur instrumentalist. Bach thus occupied these years primarily with the composition of secular instrumental music, including the six unaccompanied cello suites and the six unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for solo violin, as well as possibly the three viola da gamba sonatas.

The viola da gamba is a member of a family of instruments related to the violin family, but now largely extinct aside from historical performance communities. The viola da gamba is played between the legs like a modern cello, though it is smaller, and it has frets and a different shape. Like typical baroque trio sonatas, Bach's viola da gamba sonatas are composed in three staves, so as to be playable by the solo instrument with either a keyboard or another solo instrument with the keyboard player realizing the figured bass line. In the interests of time, this performance only features one movement from the first of the sonatas, with the viola accompanied by a harpsichord. This Andante movement features a theme that alternates freely among the top two staves, over a simple bass pattern. Simple though the movement may be, its fugal writing from the beginning reveals Bach’s mastery of counterpoint, transposing the theme by various intervals and allowing both top lines alternately to take the lead. The chromatic descent in the bass leads to unexpected harmonies and key areas throughout, ending on a half cadence.

The fifth solo cello suite is known to be the most serious of all six suites, due among many factors to its musical characteristics, length, key, and difficulty. It was originally written for a cello with the A string, the highest, lowered by a whole step to G, though in this performance the standard tuning for viola is used, as is still a common practice.

Its Prelude is the longest out of all six suites, and the only one to comprise two parts, performed continuously. It is harmonically memorable out of all six suites for its artful use of highly dissonant intervals arising from seventh chords, in some instances even over a tonic pedal tone, including at the opening.

The remaining movements alternate between fast and slow, as traditional. The Courante and first Gavotte are the most polyphonic of all the movements in their intricate voicing, and the Gigue brings the suite to a somewhat lighter conclusion.