Pittsburgh New Music Net

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Heinz Hall

A force to be reckoned with, famed percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie unleashes her notable musicality and virtuosity in Steven Stucky’s Spirit Voices, described by the composer as an “inspiration from the diversity of spirits and other supernatural forces from cultures around the world who manifest their presence through sound.” Glennie seamlessly moves across the stage while performing on an impressive array of percussion instruments.

Steven Stucky discusses his piece Spirit Voices from Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Vimeo.

Heinz Hall
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The next Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Concert featuring Composer of the Year Steven Stucky takes place October 21 and 23. The program includes Stucky’s Radical Light along with Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Schumann’s Symphony No. 4.

Heinz Hall
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The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra introduces 2011–12 Composer of the Year Steven Stucky with a performance of Dreamwaltzes. The program also includes Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Tonight and tomorrow night at Heinz Hall.

Heinz Hall

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The PSO’s principal bassoonist Nancy Goeres will premiere a new concert by Alan Fletcher (former head of CMU’s School of Music). In a program that also includes Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin, Wagner’s Prelude to Lohengrin, and Ravel’s La Valse.

You can hit a concert every night over this weekend, starting tonight with the PSO premiering Joan Tower’s new work Stroke. That concert is tonight and tomorrow night and features pianist and wolf conservationist (how often to you get to type that phrase?) Hélène Grimaud performing Mozart’s Piano Concert No. 23, K. 488, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. Go to the Friday night show if you can so that…

You can catch Alia Musica Pittburgh’s second spring concert at Saturdany night at 7 p.m. (Synod Hall). And that’s not all! If you order now (or even if you don’t) you can hear ELCO’s “Mixtape” concert Sunday night at the Brewhouse, and as you would hope, there will be lots of Duquesne Pilsner on hand as part of the festivities (and coffee for the under 21 set.)

Whew! Are you ready?

So basically, I almost never give  a standing ovation. It just doesn’t seem to mean that much anymore, and classical music audiences tend to give them out for merely competent performances. I’ve even been at concerts where the soloist, though famous, gave a truly sub-par performance only to have the audience leap to their feet.

Friday night’s performance of Final Alice by the PSO was frought with technical difficulties, especially in the case of Hila Plitmann’s headset mic, which seemed to have a loose connection somewhere that led to very loud pops at random intervals and to a lot  flinching in the audience. Pittsburgh’s USDA Grade A classical music critics have already written about the tech issues here and here.

What I found particularly discouraging was not the tech problems, per se—tech fails, and usually at the worst possible time—but the length of time it took for the engineers to make a decision about how to address the situation. It was fully two thirds of the way through the piece before Plitmann was given a wireless handheld and the headset mic was turned off for good. During those two thirds of the piece I was stewing in my juices, thinking about how hard it is to get a good hearing of a contemporary work, and how any barrier makes that more difficult. So when  Final Alice came to a close and the crowd leapt to its feat in a thunderous and sustained ovation, I got off my curmudgeonly butt too. And it wasn’t one of those stand-clap-clap now let’s run to the parking garage before everyone else ovations that I’ve seen plenty of times; this felt like the real thing.

I found myself wondering why, with with the actual experience of Del Tredici’s work having been so degraded, did the audience respond so enthusiastically? One clear reason has got to be Plitmann’s astonishing performance of such a demanding piece. I think there was a certain amount of rallying around her and the orchestra, who were in no way to blame for the difficulties. What also stood out to me, was that Del Tredici’s work really is one of the masterpieces of the 20th-century orchestral lit, and not even botched sound reinforcement could hide that. I left wanting to spend more time with a piece that has many riches to offer.

Being an audio engineer is tough work. Everyone has an opinion, and you only get noticed when something goes wrong. That said, at the highest professional level, you don’t expect to see the kinds of problems Heinz Hall experienced on Friday night, and if those problems occur, you expect them to get worked out more quickly. It would have been fine with me if Slatkin had stopped ten minutes into the work once it was apparent that the problem wasn’t going away. Maybe there is something in the contract that says he’s not allowed to, but that would have been preferable to having so much of what was very apparently a brilliant performance by both soloist and orchestra disfigured by sound reinforcement issues. In any case, it’s a testament to the depth of the music and the strength of the performances that the we were able to get a glimpse of how great a work Final Alice is, and I heard that Sunday’s performance was technically flawless. Good news to be sure.

I gotta say, I’m very excited about hearing Hila Plitmann sing David Del Tredici’s Final Alice tonight. It’s hard for me to believe that it was 2002 when Plitmann and Del Tredici were here for Pitt’s Lehar Residency, but the performance and the music both stick out in my mind as outstanding.

The PSO also deserves a shoutout for some creative programming with Peter Leo’s revamped Peter and the Wolf, narrated by David Conrad, providing the other side of this program. It’s risky for a major orchestra to put a contemporary piece on a program without a warhorse or a top tier star to move tickets, but this is the kind of program that is really designed to expand the orchestra’s audience beyond the subscriber base and the programming and marketing teams deserve kudos for the effort. And don’t forget that PNMNet fans get a 20% discount! To order your discounted tickets, visit culturaldistrict.org and use promo codes “Twisted” or call 412.392.4819.

Another shout-out goes to Patrick Burke and the composer/performer collective NOW Ensemble. NOW releases their new CD Awake tonight at Le Poisson Rouge, so if you are in New York, check out this outstanding group.