By Nancy Plum

The Westminster Community Orchestra performed a veritable potpourri of instrumental and vocal music this past weekend. Sunday afternoon’s concert in Richardson Auditorium had something for everyone, from operatic excerpts to a world premiere to traditional Chinese music. Led by conductor Ruth Ochs, the 55-member ensemble showcased several student winners of the Orchestra’s Concerto Competition, as well as one of Rider University’s choruses. Taking a pep rally approach to drawing the audience into the performance, Ochs brought an additionally festive atmosphere to the afternoon.

The Community Orchestra displayed its own capabilities opening with Carl Maria von Weber’s “Overture” to his 1821 opera Der Freischütz. Considered the first German Romantic opera, Weber’s work was revolutionary in its folklore roots and unearthly portrayal of the supernatural. Ochs and the Orchestra began the work with a slow, dark, and mysterious introduction, as a quartet of horns set the Wolf’s Glen scene. The string sound was well balanced, with the second section of the “Overture” fully symphonic and martial. Clarinetists Russell Labe and Pamela Kotula provided graceful lines coloring the music well. more

By Nancy Plum

Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a collective of players from around the world, has been heard in Princeton in the past, dating back to before the pandemic. Last weekend, Princeton University Concerts presented the renowned ensemble in a ground-breaking format of an immersive virtual installation. For four days, the public had the opportunity to be part of a multi-dimensional orchestral world as the Chamber Orchestra presented works of Mozart, Ives, and Mendelssohn, conveyed to listeners via headsets including a display screen, stereo sound, and sensors. The 45-minute concert was part of the Chamber Orchestra’s “Future Presence” project, a virtual reality initiative to enable fluid dynamic interaction among listeners, music, and performers.  more

By Nancy Plum

Princeton Symphony Orchestra continued this season’s focus on composers and musicians associated with Princeton this past weekend with performances of works by Princeton-educated composers, one sung by a University graduate now an opera superstar. On Saturday night and Sunday afternoon in Richardson Auditorium, Princeton Symphony Music Director Rossen Milanov led the musicians in an imaginative program of music ranging from the 18th century to current times. 

Princeton University’s compositional Ph.D. program has launched some of the most innovative creators of new music working today. Nina Shekhar, currently a Ph.D. candidate in music composition at the University, has already achieved acclaim and awards for her work. The one-movement orchestral Lumina, performed by Princeton Symphony in this weekend’s concerts, well demonstrated Shekhar’s inventive approach to instrumental music. Beginning with long notes from bowed xylophone and glockenspiel, followed by periods of silence in which the residual sound echoed through the hall, Lumina was full of suspense and contrasts between light and dark. Shekhar used the full orchestra in the instrumentation, with solos from clarinetist Pascal Archer and flutist Scott Kemsley emerging from the orchestral palette. Shekhar’s piece possessed a pulsating feel, both from natural acoustics and musical effects, and was rich in majestic symphonic sound.  more

By Nancy Plum

New Jersey Symphony returned to Richardson Auditorium this past weekend for the ensemble’s annual presentation of George Frideric Handel’s always-popular oratorio Messiah. Conducted by noted baroque specialist Nicholas McGegan, the spirited performance last Friday night brought together a stylistic chamber orchestra, youthful chorus, and four vocal soloists.

Messiah is comprised of nearly 50 choruses, recitatives, and solos or duets tracing the life of Christ in three distinct parts. McGegan, known for the speed and clarity of his baroque music performances, led the Symphony and Montclair State University Singers in all but a handful of the numbers in a concise 2½ hours of buoyant instrumental playing, clean choral singing, and lyrical vocal solos. His approach to the work, which he has conducted many times, emphasized the theatricality of the biblical story, as well as the charm and elegance of the 18th century.

As with most oratorios of its era, Messiah opened with an instrumental “Overture.” In Friday night’s performance, the musicians maintained crisp rhythms, with sharply-played double-dotted notes keeping the pace of the music moving forward. McGegan maintained a quick but unhurried tempo, with a lean orchestral fugue setting the stage for what was to come. more

By Nancy Plum

The Princeton University Orchestra and Glee Club joined forces this past weekend at Richardson Auditorium to present an unusual gem of a concerto from one of the most creative periods of French musical history. Orchestra conductor Michael Pratt and Glee Club director Gabriel Crouch brought together the two ensembles to perform a concerto for two pianos, multiple saxophones, orchestra and chorus by 20th-century composer Germaine Tailleferre, whose compositional output has remained largely unexplored until recent decades. Combined with the music of Brahms and Mozart, the Tailleferre work created a solid anchor for the Orchestra’s annual tribute to former University faculty member and composer Peter Westergaard.

The University Orchestra opened Friday night’s concert (the performance was repeated Saturday evening) with one of the University music department’s talented students leading the ensemble. Senior Aster Zhang has performed extensively as a cellist both nationally and worldwide and is also trained as a conductor. For her portion of the program, Zhang led the Orchestra in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Overture” to The Magic Flute. Conducting without a baton, Zhang was poised and professional from the outset, leading a stately opening and smooth transition to the quick-moving passages. The string sound was consistently light, and musical punctuation clear. Taking her time in slower sections, Zhang showed Mozart’s drama well, aided by elegant wind solos. more

By Nancy Plum

Princeton Symphony Orchestra returned choral music to its repertory this past weekend with a performance of a newly-reimagined edition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s popular Requiem. Since Mozart’s untimely death in 1791 left the work incomplete, scholars have attempted to second-guess the composer and provide an alternative completion adhering to Mozart’s intent and historical character. Conductor Rossen Milanov and Princeton Symphony Orchestra brought this rendition of Mozart’s immortal masterpiece to Richardson Auditorium this past weekend, with composer Gregory Spears’ addition of three new movements to the mass for the dead. Joining the Orchestra for Saturday night’s performance (the concert was repeated Sunday afternoon) were four vocal soloists and Westminster Symphonic Choir.

Princeton Symphony Orchestra paired the Requiem with a 21st-century work inspired by a string quartet of Mozart contemporary Franz Joseph Haydn. Caroline Shaw’s 2011 Entr’acte for string orchestra incorporated contemporary musical effects into a classically-structured piece, including passages reminiscent of J.S. Bach. Milanov led the Orchestra in a feathery opening to Shaw’s one-movement work, allowing the music to quickly become powerful while maintaining a lean quality. Concertmaster Basia Danilow and principal cellist Alistair MacRae played an intense duet against relentless pizzicati of the other players, and MacRae’s graceful lute-like playing delicately brought Shaw’s unique and appealing work to a close.  more

By Nancy Plum

When choruses choose to perform the oratorios of George Frideric Handel, it is usually the popular Messiah which draws in audiences. However, Handel composed close to 30 oratorios, essentially perfecting the genre when interest in Italian opera waned in 18th-century England. Sung in English, oratorios had great audience appeal, retaining the solo vocal fireworks popular in opera but adding complex choral numbers which served a narrative function and provided commentary on the action.

Handel looked to biblical sources for subject matter to create his familiar oratorios, with works based on the stories of Saul, Samson, and Judas Maccabeus. Lesser known is the 1748 Solomon, which depicts the life of the monarch of ancient Israel in 63 arias, recitatives, and choruses. Handel’s choral/orchestral works are tailor-made for the more than 100-member Princeton Pro Musica, which brought a production of Solomon to Richardson Auditorium this past Sunday afternoon. Led by Pro Musica Artistic Director Ryan J. Brandau and joined by the period orchestra New York Baroque Incorporated and five vocal soloists, Pro Musica presented a spirited performance of Handel’s animated work. more

By Nancy Plum

McCarter Theatre is well into a season of diverse presentations, including the well-respected Classical Music Series. Last week, two renowned specialist Baroque performing ensembles came to Princeton for an evening of Johann Sebastian Bach. The London-based Monteverdi Choir and its companion English Baroque Soloists orchestra took the stage at Richardson Auditorium last Monday night to perform Bach’s 1749 Mass in B Minor, the 18th-century master’s extended setting of liturgical text.

Completed just a year before Bach’s death, Mass in B Minor was comprised of more than 25 choral movements, solos and duets, and was unique in its time for including the five major sections of the mass text, rather than the customary “Kyrie” and “Gloria.” Likely never performed in Bach’s lifetime, this piece has become one of the composer’s most enduring choral works. It is also one of the most difficult to perform, requiring a great deal of vocal stamina, and is an example of Bach’s innate tendency to write instrumentally, even for the voice.

There are as many ways to perform Bach’s music as there are ensembles worldwide. The evolution of choral societies in the 19th century led to massive choirs singing Bach with large orchestras and Romantic musical effects. The mid-20th century brought a renewed interest in presenting this music in the manner in which the music was originally conceived, an approach especially popular among European performers. The Monteverdi Choir, on the verge of its 60th anniversary, was founded to specialize in historically-inspired projects, with the Choir’s umbrella organization home to the younger but equally as influential English Baroque Soloists period instrumental orchestra. Dinis Sousa, associate conductor of the Monteverdi ensembles, led both the Choir and Baroque Soloists in their presentation of Bach’s towering work last Monday night. more

By Nancy Plum

New Jersey Symphony has long provided a showcase for up-and-coming artists destined for the forefront of the performing arena. The Symphony’s opening concert of its Princeton series this past Friday night at Richardson Auditorium brought together a conductor and solo cellist currently relatively unknown, but not for long. Conductor Joseph Young, music director of the Berkeley Symphony and director of ensembles at Peabody Conservatory, led the Symphony musicians in a program of Robert Schumann, Edward Elgar, and the Princeton University-connected Jessie Montgomery, and featured in the Schumann Cello Concerto was a definite future star in cellist Sterling Elliott, currently pursuing an artist diploma at The Juilliard School. The three pieces performed in Friday night’s concert highlighted unique instrumentation, rich orchestral colors, and a touch of virtuosity.

American composer Jessie Montgomery has had a partnership with Princeton University as a graduate fellow in music composition and has been making a name for herself creating musical works for ensembles nationwide. Among her most recent commissions was Snapshots, co-commissioned by several orchestras, including New Jersey Symphony. Friday night’s performance represented the East Coast premiere of Montgomery’s four-movement work, which Montgomery has described as a set of vignettes of her time studying film music. more

By Nancy Plum

Princeton University Concerts launched its 130th season this past week with a total immersion experience provided by a renowned professional chorus enjoying a visit to the University. The San Francisco-based vocal ensemble Chanticleer, led by music director and University graduate Tim Keeler, came to Princeton for a collaboration with the University Glee Club, currently under the direction of conductor Gabriel Crouch. Following days of joint rehearsals, a “Chamber Jam” and a “Live Music Meditation,” the two ensembles presented a concert this past Thursday night at Richardson Auditorium to close out their successful partnership. Typical of Chanticleer’s performances, the program featured repertoire ranging from the very traditional Max Reger and Heinrich Isaac to Hoagy Carmichael and Joni Mitchell, as well as a contemporary work by another Princeton University graduate.  more

By Nancy Plum

Fall always brings lively audiences to Richardson Auditorium for the University’s ensemble concerts, with anticipation of the new academic year and students cheering each other on. Princeton University Orchestra began its 2023-24 season this past weekend with two performances in Richardson featuring both the newest Orchestra roster of talented students and one student musician in particular who successfully tackled one of the most difficult works in the repertory.

Led by conductor Michael Pratt, Friday night’s performance (the concert was repeated Saturday night) continued the ensemble’s multi-year tradition of paying tribute to Ukraine with the playing of Elegie by Ukrainian composer and ethnomusicologist Mykola Lysenko. The Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff works which comprised the bulk of Friday’s program showcased the full capabilities of the Orchestra, and Pratt felt that for this season opener, the voice of Ukraine should also be heard. Lysenko originally composed Elegie as a solo piano piece, and the instrumental version played by the Orchestra was created by composer Vsevolod Sirenko and one of Princeton’s own — Class of 1983 graduate Hobart Earle, currently conductor of Ukraine’s Odesa Regional Philharmonic. This arrangement preserved Lysenko’s keyboard charm while reflecting the composer’s desire to retain Ukraine’s distinct identity within the country’s Russian historical influence. more

By Nancy Plum

Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts closed its 56th season last week with a performance by Dalí Quartet, an ensemble of four string players committed to high-quality performance of classical and romantic repertoire, as well as a particular focus on works of Latin America. Violinists Ari Isaacman-Beck and Carlos Rubio, violist Adriana Linares, and cellist Jesús Morales came to Princeton’s Nassau Presbyterian Church last Wednesday night to present a concert of chamber music by Franz Schubert, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and renowned 20th-century Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla. Founded in 2004 and currently based in Philadelphia, Dalí Quartet showed in this concert the well-blended sound and combined technical facility these musicians have achieved over the past 10 years. more

By Nancy Plum

There is a tremendous amount of music for string trios and quartets, but repertoire for two wind instruments and piano is much more limited. The ensemble Poulenc Trio, currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, has been redefining the wind trio genre through performance and commissioning of works for oboe, bassoon, and piano. Oboist Alexander Vvedenskiy, bassoonist Bryan Young and pianist Irina Kaplan Lande came to Princeton last week to present a program of French music from the 19th through the 21st centuries. Whether a standard from a master or a newly-commissioned piece inspired by the French chamber tradition, the concert performed on Wednesday night’s concert at Nassau Presbyterian Church made for a refreshing summer evening. more

By Nancy Plum

A new music festival has set down roots in Princeton this summer. The John Perry Academy of Music, previously based in Los Angeles, has relocated to this area and launched its summer activities this past weekend. Bracketing 12 days of master classes, lectures, and private lessons for musicians are two piano recitals, the first of which took place this past Sunday evening. Russian pianist Mikhail Voskresensky, who left his homeland in 2022 in protest of the invasion of Ukraine, opened the festival with a concert of 18th- and 19th-century piano music at Mayo Hall on the campus of The College of New Jersey.

Voskresensky’s concert Sunday evening began with two musical gumdrops from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Like others of Mozart’s works, Fantasy in d minor for piano was unfinished at the time of his death. In a type of musical fan fiction, Mozart’s widow turned to colleagues and friends to finish a number of these pieces. The last 10 measures of the Fantasy were thought to be written by German composer and organist August Müller, and his added fugal coda fit well with Mozart’s baroque intents in this short piece. Voskresensky paired this work with Mozart’s Fantasy in c minor, also left unfinished at the time of the composer’s death. The 28-bar original fragment was completed by composer and priest Abbé Maximilian Stadler, who titled the piece a fantasia and maintained the same baroque flavor that Mozart had begun. more

By Nancy Plum

The story of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk is one of the most tragic in American politics. Known as “The Mayor of Castro Street,” Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California and was assassinated (along with the city’s mayor) in November 1978 by Dan White, a former supervisor who had been refused reinstatement to office. The aftermath of the untimely deaths of these individuals changed the face of San Francisco politics, and White’s subsequent suicide created a trinity of loss of both life and potential. more

By Nancy Plum

Princeton Festival has arrived in the community, with recitals, lectures, and full concerts in a range of venues throughout town. Under the umbrella of Princeton Symphony Orchestra, the Festival has always included full operas in the performance schedule, and this past Friday night saw the opening of the first of the Festival’s two mainstage productions. Under a tented pavilion at Morven Museum & Garden, the Festival presented Gioachino Rossini’s farcical The Barber of Seville, recalling to the stage two singers who excelled last season and introducing new outstanding voices to Princet+on audiences.

Rossini’s 1816 Barber of Seville was part of an operatic tradition of composing for not much more than a handful of principal performers, with strong contrasting characters and complex and intricate ensemble numbers. Each of the singers in Princeton Festival’s production needed to be able to carry the stage and hold their own in duets and trios which could fall apart with one slip-up. Led by Princeton Symphony Orchestra Music Director Rossen Milanov and presented in Italian with English titles, this Barber of Seville was musically precise and clearly focused on physical comedy as well as top-notch singing. more

By Nancy Plum

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) introduced a new violin star to Princeton audiences this past weekend in a performance also including a world premiere. Led by Music Director Xian Zhang, the Orchestra presented a concert in Richardson Auditorium Friday night featuring music commissioned for the Orchestra’s Centennial celebration, well as a beloved violin concerto performed by an up-and-coming superstar.

As part of its Centennial Anniversary, NJSO commissioned an orchestral piece from Chinese-American composer Chen Yi. Yi’s compositions are rooted in her upbringing during China’s Cultural Revolution, and she describes her works as a fusion of Chinese lore and Western form and techniques. The one-movement Landscape Impression, commissioned by NJSO and premiered in this past weekend’s concert, was inspired by two poems by the 11th-century writer Su Dong-Po.  more