HEAR IT - Humanity's Expressive Artists Reveal & Illuminate Truth

José Luis Gomez , conductor Homero Cerón , marimba Chris Herman , marimba Fred Morgan , marimba Matthew Timman , marimba -------------------------------------------- Séjourné : Concerto for Four Marimbas and Strings, “Gotan” Beethoven : Symphony No. 4 in B♭ Major REVIEW:  Tucson Symphony Orchestra  Masterworks  Saturday, 5 October 2019 'War and Peace' , Leo Tolstoy's mammoth, multi-faceted representation, reflection and philosophical analysis of Russian society in the face of the slogging Napoleonic Wars, was once aptly described as a "loose, baggy, monster". Celebrating the ideals of the French Revolution, and originally dedicated to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Beethoven's 3rd Symphony is a similarly sprawling affair, written by an artist soon disgusted with Napoleon's warring ways. Beethoven's Third is his 'War and Peace'... And of course, penned only a few years later, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is a singular all...

"What is beautiful in science is the same thing that is beautiful in Beethoven. There’s a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It expresses a complex of human concerns that goes deeply to you, that connects things that were always in you that were never put together before." ~ Victor Weisskopf "What can you do with Beethoven's 7th Symphony? It’s like a lot of yaks jumping about."  ~  Sir Thomas Beecham Yekwon Sunwoo REVIEW:  Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Opening Night,  20 September 2019         Beethoven is the all-time most performed symphonist by American orchestras -- and still is today. He is the most performed symphonist in world history. At some point, one might think that he and his music would become 'passe'. In Tucson Arizona, 249 years after his birth, that is not happening! S uper energized by setting their sights on performing  the whole Beethoven symphony cycle  this season, the sheer rapture of the ...

A quintet of reeds! (R to L) Jackie Glazier, Charles Du Preez, Melissa Olegario, Edward Goodman, Sara Fraker 'REFRACTION' - Faculty Recital, Jackie Glazier Fred Fox University of Arizona School of Music 12 September 2019 - Crowder Hall We were tempted by a program of new music -- four compositions from living composers, and a fifth, by Karlheinz Stockhausen -- groundbreaking exploratory composer of the mid-20th Century. As well, each piece had a strong visual element, and the last work, a heavily pop-influence number. A colorful refraction indeed, of Western chamber music for clarinet! Kay He 's 'Heat It Up!' , commissioned this year by Jackie Glazier , was remarkable and memorable. For clarinet and piano, this music was being electronically manipulated with synthesized ring modulator, digital delay, and other filters and distortions, all controlled by pedals fed into a laptop on stage, and executed by the composer, He (pronounced "Hu...

Michael Stern , Guest Conductor Tucson Symphony Orchestra THE TOP NINE reasons to be @ TCC Music Hall @ 2:00 P.M. (or1:00 P.M.) on Sunday, 7 April 2019 9) TSO Guest Conductor, MICHAEL STERN, the esteemed Music Director of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, is a dedicated, deep-thinking, passionate, and articulate proponent and practitioner of musical art at its highest level. His pre-concert talk (one hour beforehand) shows a director intimately familiar with the music, the composers' personal lives, and the concurrent social and political forces affecting the work of these great artists. He backed up his knowledge and passion with great vision and skill guiding the TSO to excellent performances of this unusual program. 8) The BRAHMS 'SCHICKSALSLIED' (Song of Destiny) is masterly symphonic choral writing; beautifully balanced, in Brahms generous, mature harmonic language, and deeply expressive. 7) You need a midday break from all of your Spring GARDENING chores ...

MAHLER'S FIFTH SYMPHONY Tucson Symphony Orchestra José Luis Gomez, conductor Joyce Yang, piano Conrad Jones, trumpet Program Giuseppe Martucci: Notturno Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1 Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 Friday, 15 March 2019 This was a spectacularly conceived and executed concert. Innocently enough, Martucci's oh-so-mellow and harmonious 'Notturno', from 1888, opened the action; waves of carefully crafted smooth sonorities, gathering just enough momentum to gently crest, roll, and release into the shoreline... This was the beautiful calm before the onrushing high Russian comedy, and the full Viennese  Sturm und Drang  to follow. BLOKE WITH A JOKE If you were never a Shostakovich fan before, you are a Shostakovich fan now! And if you knew nothing about Joyce Yang's expressive skills, her ability to react in the moment to the inanity of some incredibly difficult piano writing, and to fully act out the dominant dramatic role w...

TSO Chamber Strings, soloists José Luis Gomez, Ann Weaver, James Karrer, and Lauren Roth (photo by Alexander Lipay) José Luis Gomez Plays Mozart Tucson Symphony Orchestra Catalina Foothills HS Auditorium Friday, 8 March 2019 SO TONIGHT WE'RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT'S 1799! The first half of this evening's program, the 'Wind Serenade in #12, in C Minor' and the 'String Serenade #6, in D Major' proved once again that, "Most of the best music ever written, was composed by Mozart." What a THRILL to have an octet of TSO principal and second Oboe, Bassoon, Horn, and Clarinet players take on a rather serious Serenade by that musical genius / wildman of the late 18th Century, and in a venue that well-favors chamber music -- WOW. The oboe and clarinet dominate the melodic writing, yet the bassoon and horn parts are fully integral to this ensemble, and only rarely do the doubled instruments double each others lines. Follow the driving repeated...

Barry Douglas, Piano TSO Music Director, José Luis Gomez 15 February 2019 -- Tucson, Arizona. Tucson Community Center Music Hall, To call Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto a war horse, is rather an understatement. Though initially rated as garbage by the piano virtuoso, Nikolai Rubinstein, for whom Pyotr had intended the premier, it has long been one of the most popular concertos in the literature. Barry Douglas won over the world performing this work in 1986, capping his Tchaikovsky Piano Competition  Gold Medal . How would he, Maestro José Luis Gomez, and the TSO fare with it, 30+ years later? With flair, power, precision, and delicate moments of introspection. Douglas, steady as a rock in both stage presence and musicality, pressed out the giant musical statements with power and grace. Then immediately, his genius of judgement was on display. The tempo and tone adjustments required to highlight and communicate the precious, less strident solos and lightly acco...