Showing posts with label Kimberly Reighley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kimberly Reighley. Show all posts

Friday, November 2, 2018

DSO Opens Chamber Series with Woodwind Program

By Christine Facciolo

In a commendable change of pace, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra (DSO) opened its Chamber Concert Series with a a memorable evening of music for woodwinds.

The DSO Woodwind Quintet proved to be exciting and dynamic performers by offering a program that was both eclectic and entertaining.

Playing works that were stylistically distinct the five musicians in the group — Kimberly Reighley, flute; Lloyd Shorter, oboe; Charles Salinger, clarinet; Jon Gaarder, bassoon and Karen Schubert, horn — showed the diversity of the woodwind quintet despite the paucity of repertoire for it.

The ensemble warmed up with expertly crafted works by notable French flutist and teacher Claude-Paul Taffanel's Wind Quintet in G minor and his contemporary Charles Lefebvre's Suite for Winds No. 1, Op. 57. The latter is a standard of the wind quintet repertoire, demonstrating a superior understanding of how to orchestrate for these five instruments.

Taffanel’s Suite for Winds is thoroughly French and late Romantic in style with rapidly changing moods.

The most interesting piece in the concert was Paquito D’Rivera’s Aires Tropicales, written in 1994. This charmer of a piece contains a wealth of melodic traditions, playful inventions and enticing rhythms. Noteworthy movements included “Dizzyness,” a tribute to the late, great Dizzy Gillespie, Habanera, a trio for flute, clarinet and bassoon in the style of Ravel, Contradanza, an upbeat Cuban dance honoring Ernesto Lecuonar. Vals Venezolano, a lively Venezuelan waltz and Afro, an energetic dance over an African ostinato.

The evening of varied music concluded with a performance of Aria and Quodlibet for Woodwind Quintet by clarinetist Arne Running (1943-2016). The Aria contains a chorale in the low winds, the repetition of which features Shorter’s oboe singing high above the melodic line. The Quodlibet is sheer fun; a pastiche of tunes from virtually every corner of the musical world.


Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Mélomanie Opens Season with New Venue, New Music

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie welcomed a new season on Sunday, October 7, with a new venue, a new cellist and a couple of eclectic works new to Delaware audiences.

The award-winning ensemble, known for its provocative pairings of early and contemporary works, has established a relationship with the Delaware Historical Society, which will host its Wilmington performances at Old Town Hall adjacent to the organization’s museum on North Market Street in downtown Wilmington.

Mélomanie also welcomed the addition of Ismar Gomes, award-winning cellist who has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe as soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.

The ensemble performs Christopher Cook's piece, Hubble's Eye. Photo by Tim Bayard.
The season-opening concert also served to introduce first-time audience members to the ensemble’s repertoire as well as the individual talents of its musicians as each performed a solo work showcasing his or her capabilities.

The entire ensemble opened the program with a technically accomplished and courtly rendering of Couperin’s La Sultane, one of the composer’s most colorful instrumental works.

Two members of the ensemble chose to perform works by contemporary composers writing in the “old style.” Violinist Christof Richter captured the fragile delicacy of Alfred Schnittke’s Pantomime, a piece that despite its charming melody features bare, exposed rhythms, striking pizzicati and searing dissonance.

Gomes offered some very impressive playing in works by Benjamin Britten and Luciano Berio. Berio’s Les mots sont alles for solo cello uses as its foundation Britten’s Tema Sacher, a musical rendering of Swiss conductor Paul Sacher’s last name. Gomes’ handling of this complex miniature masterpiece was riveting.

Gomes joined with gambist Donna Fournier for a performance of Jean Daniel Braun’s Sonata Sesta in D major for two bass instruments. It’s not often that two such instruments get paired in a composition, so this was a rare treat indeed. Their beautiful burnished tones produced goosebumps, especially in the slower movements.

Fournier gave a splendid performance of Telemann’s intimate but technically difficult Fantasia in G minor, one of 12 works discovered in 2015.

Harpsichordist and Mélomanie co-artistic director Tracy Richardson gave a spot-on reading of Jacques Duphly’s finely wrought and thoroughly enjoyable Courante (from Book 1) for solo harpsichord.

Flutist Kimberly Reighley (also co-artistic director) offered one of the most interesting pieces of the afternoon. Le Vent a Travers Les Ruines by Yuko Uebayashi. Reighley’s pristine tone and perfect intonation underscored the placid, non-judgmental character of the work, the later stages of which explore the instrument’s lower register as it moves to bring this intriguing work to an understated conclusion.

The ensemble (sans cello) regrouped for the Delaware Premiere of Christopher Cook’s ethereal Hubble’s Eye, a multimedia musical interpretation of the jaw-dropping images taken by the Hubble space telescope.

While one might be tempted to draw comparisons with Holst’s The Planets, Cook has undoubtedly imbued this seven-movement work with his own voice. Saturn is mysterious yet delicate. Mars is definitely a strong character with decisive rhythms and emphatic chords but hardly bellicose. The work exhibits some programmatic elements as well: the harpsichord “climbs and descends” the Mystic Mountain of the Carina Nebula, while the Supernova Bubble is buoyant and whimsical.

The trio of Reighley, Richter and Richardson concluded the event with another Delaware Premiere, Café au Triolet by Cynthia Folio. Folio, a Temple University music professor, wrote the work for Ensemble Triolet, which premiered it in 2016 at the National Flute Association Convention.

The first movement (Caramel Macchiato) takes the instruments out of their comfort zones to explore the full range of their capabilities. Special attention is given to the harpsichord, which Folio says she got to know up close and personal in the harpsichord room at Temple’s Boyer School of Music. The second movement (Café do Brazil) is a lively fugue spiced with Brazilian rhythms and harmonies.

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Delaware Ensemble ‘Launches' to Space for Opening Season Performance


This post content comes from a release from Melomanie...

Mélomanie — the Delaware music ensemble known for ‘provocative pairings’ of baroque and contemporary works — celebrates its 26th season with a Launch Party & Concert on Sunday, October 7, at 3:00pm in their new performance home, Old Town Hall of the Delaware Historical Society in downtown Wilmington.

The event, which leads off at 2:00pm with a wine & cheese reception and tours of the Delaware Historical Society, will feature the Delaware Premiere of two pieces — Hubble's Eye by Christopher Cook and Café au Triolet by Cynthia Folio. Hubble’s Eye will be performed with accompanying video projection of photos taken by the Hubble Deep Space Telescope.

Additional music on the program includes baroque works Sonata Sesta in D Major by Jean-Daniel Braun and La Sultane for baroque ensemble by François Couperin.

Tickets for the performance are $25; $15 students age 16 & older; youth through age 15 are admitted free. Tickets can be purchased at melomanie.org or at the door via cash or credit. The Delaware Historical Society is located at 505 N. Market Street in downtown Wilmington.

This season, Mélomanie will present new music by composers Suzanne Sorkin, Richard Belcastro, Roberto Pace, Christopher Cook and Larry Nelson. From the baroque era, they will perform works of Couperin, Telemann, Abel and Rameau throughout the season. Also new this year is a special collaboration with Delaware jazz composer Jonathan Whitney and his quintet

Mélomanie was founded in 1993 by co-artistic directors and ensemble members, Kimberly Reighley and Tracy Richardson. Mélomanie has delighted audiences throughout the East Coast and internationally with their brand of musical 'provocative pairings'. Mélomanie is: Donna Fournier, viola da gamba; Ismar Gomes, cellos; Kimberly Reighley, flutes; Tracy Richardson, harpsichords; and Christof Richter, violins. Mélomanie's artists also appear as soloists and with orchestras and ensembles in the region, including the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Reading Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, OperaDelaware, Tempesta di Mare, La Bernardinia Baroque Ensemble, and Le Triomphe de l’Amour. In 2014, Mélomanie was invited to Rio de Janeiro to perform in Compositores de Hoje (Composers of Today), an international festival of contemporary music. Mélomanie has recorded works of Telemann on Lyrichord Discs and can be heard on Winterthur's benefit CD, Playing in the Garden: Musical Inspirations from the Winterthur Garden (2008). Their contemporary music CDs, Florescence (2011) and Excursions (2014) from Meyer Media, each feature five pieces written for and premiered by Mélomanie. The ensemble is currently recording their next CD project.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Mélomanie Starts the New Year with World Premiere

By Christine Facciolo
Mélomanie returned to The Delaware Contemporary on Sunday, January 14, 2018 with a concert that included a World Premiere, selections from the French baroque and a contemporary tribute to an early French composer.

Mélomanie performs with guest soprano, Clara Rottsolk. 
The first half of the program featured early music, opening with a performance of the Suite 1 in C Major from Pieces en trio 1692 by Marin Marais. Marais’s Pieces en trio have taken second place behind his solo viol works, but these trios are exquisitely crafted miniatures requiring the same care and stylistic sensitivity as his solo virtuosic repertory. 
Mélomanie’s performance showed mastery of the idiom, as it relished Marais’s rich harmonic language while making the most of its musical rhetoric.

Guest soloist Clara Rottsolk then joined the ensemble for a performance of the cantata Leandre et Hero by Louis-Nicolas Clerambault (1676-1749), the master of the genre in France. The instrumentalists introduced the work with sensitivity and style, after which Rottsolk entered with a quiet Recit. Rottsolk’s diction was impeccable. Her soprano soared with clarity and control, although at times her high notes were somewhat jarring. But her capacity for dramatic expression was superb, and she held the audience in rapt attention until the story concluded with the joyful reunion of the young lovers.

Contemporary works filled the second half of the program beginning with — appropriately enough — Tombeau de Marin Marais, a tribute to the Baroque French composer by 20th Century French composer Max Pinchard (1928-2009). Gambist Donna Fournier took the lead with a compelling yet delicate performance. Flutist Kimberly Reighley and violinist Christof Richter provided contrasting color with modern instruments.

The concert concluded with the World Premiere of the cantata Lenten is Comen/Worldes Blis by Thomas Whitman. Whitman, chair of the department of music and dance at Swarthmore College, and his colleague Craig Williamson, gave a lively and informative introduction to the piece with a discussion on the language and spirit of the two poems that form the basis of the composition. (Williamson also participated in a post-concert Q&A session, gave a primer on his years of linguistic research with some interesting examples for members of the audience who stayed on.)

Rottsolk was accompanied by members of Mélomanie on baroque instruments as well as guest Naomi Gray on baroque cello. Rottsolk captured the contrasting moods of the text — the exuberance of spring, the melancholy of a loveless life — with the nuances of her voice. Whitman’s music was melodic and mysterious, joyful and foreboding punctuated with some interesting harmonies for the instrumentalists. The second poem was sung unadorned in its original setting. The audience was left with thoughts of the coming spring on this frigid January day “in bleak midwinter.”

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Mélomanie Welcomes the Holiday Season with Music

By Christine Facciolo
Mélomanie welcomed winter with a program of some very tuneful music on Sunday, December 3, at The Delaware Historical Society in downtown Wilmington.

Sonatas, a traditional air, Christmas music, and of course, contemporary offerings were exquisitely performed by flutist Kimberly Reighley, gambist Donna Fournier and harpsichordist Tracy Richardson.

Reighley and Richardson opened the program with a performance of the Sonata 4 in A major from Il Pasto Fido by Nicolais Chedeville, a Vivaldi contemporary who published the work under the more famous composer’s name. Reighley brought plenty of pastoral charm to the music with clearly shaped and articulated phrases and effective embellishments. Richardson offered strong support.

The Sonata in D major by Boismortier found all three musicians playing sensitively. The phrasing was attractive with long, arching lines contrasted with taut, short ones.

The harpsichord emerged from its role as “utility” instrument with Richardson giving energetic readings of Dupuis’ Rondo and Courante.

Fournier offered a gentle and sensitive interpretation of the typically melancholy Greensleeves.

Mélomanie’s contemporary side was represented by works of David Schelat and Mark Hagerty. Reighley and Richardson reprised Schelat’s Just a Regular Child, which was written for the ensemble in 2016. Schelat captured the whimsy of his childhood in Ohio in three movements: Rough and Tumble, Dreaming and Full of the Old Nick. Jangling harmonies of the third movement conveyed the mischievous nature of a young boy, while the soaring melody of the middle movement recalled endless days of daydreaming. Perhaps Schelat was looking to the day when he would become the virtuoso organist and composer that he is.

Fournier’s gamba and Richardson’s harpsichord contrasted nicely in Arias, a movement from Hagerty’s Civilisation. That work was a recasting of the composer’s Clavier Book I, a work for harpsichord which explored what might have been had the music of the late Renaissance and Baroque not given way to what he terms the “less ambitious” Rococo and early classical styles.

The three musicians concluded the concert with a performance of LaLande’s Noels en Trio, celebrating the Nativity and the upcoming holiday season.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Mélomanie Premiere Celebrates a Milestone for Local Couple

By Christine Facciolo
Mélomanie celebrated its 25th anniversary at its season-opening concert at The Delaware Contemporary on Sunday, October 29, 2017.

And what better way to mark a Silver Anniversary than with a World Premiere of a composition commissioned to commemorate the Golden Anniversary of a couple known for their devotion to Mélomanie. But more about that later...

Flutist and Mélomanie co-artistic director Kimberly Reighley opened the program with the shimmering notes and flowing contours of Ingrid Arauco’s Silver (Variation diabellique). This was a fitting choice for this particular occasion, as the Delaware-based Arauco composed the piece to mark the 25th anniversary of another ensemble, Philadelphia’s Network for New Music.

Reighley was then joined by Mélomanie harpsichordist and co-artistic director Tracy
Richardson for a talk about the ensemble’s beginnings and accomplishments with Jennifer Margaret Barker, professor of music theory and composition at the University of Delaware.

Reighley and Richardson then came together in a lovely performance of the Sonata in G Minor attributed to J.S. Bach but now believed to be by his son C.P.E. This is a charming work that features a true interplay between flute and harpsichord. The lilting Adagio gives much melodic interest to the harpsichord while the flute plays long notes. The last movement features an extended harpsichord solo which gave listeners the opportunity to hear Richardson’s consummate technique and clear, crisp sound.

Equally charming was Abel’s Quartet in G Minor. This work 
 scored for flute, violin, viola da gamba and cello  is one of a collection of 10 quartets for this instrumentation. Published in 1794, it is the only quartet to have survived with this specific scoring.

This two-movement work typifies the sort of music one might have heard in the intimate setting of the home of a patron. The performance was very smooth. The players exhibited a fine sensitivity to each other, creating a nice set of interactions that brought out the nuances of this delicately wrought music.

The second half of the program was taken up with the World Premiere of Up to the Light by Mark Hagerty. This was Hagerty’s fourth commission for Mélomanie and one of his most interesting and inventive. The 25-minute work was commissioned by Mona Bayard for her husband Tim Bayard in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary. Tim is a founding board member of Mélomanie, and both he and Mona are active supporters of and volunteers in the arts and education.

Up to the Light is a work scored for flute, violin, viola da gamba, cello, harpsichord and vibraphone. Hagerty included the vibraphone in a nod to Tim Bayard’s deep appreciation of jazz. Here it was played by guest percussionist, Chris Hanning.

Up to the Light is a musical description of a journey from a troubling experience to one of a positive feeling, all the while retaining the pain of the earlier trauma. In this work, sonorities (i.e., specific harmonies and their arrangements and tone colors), rather than traditional melodies, convey the emotion experienced during the journey.

The work presents three major statements of these sonorities, at the opening, the midpoint and the end. Sandwiched between these statements are passacaglias — sometimes strict, sometimes informal 
 based on a melody introduced by the flute.

Especially effective was the incorporation of a single orchestral bell, which added a somber or joyous tone, depending on the musical context.

Hagerty indulged Tim Bayard’s love of jazz by skillfully folding the timbre of the vibraphone into the texture and by the subtle introduction of jazz-influenced harmonies into the tonal fabric of the work.

See www.melomanie.org

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

OPENING NIGHT: Delaware Symphony Orchestra

By Christine Facciolo

Delaware Symphony Orchestra
Photo by Joe del Tufo/Moonloop Photography
Classical music devotees savored a Fifth of Beethoven at The Grand Friday, September 15, as the Delaware Symphony Orchestra kicked off what promises to be one of the most ambitious seasons in its 111-year history.

But before the orchestra rolled up its sleeves for the Beethoven, it offered up some lighter fare, courtesy of Prokofiev and Mozart.

Prokofiev subtitled his Symphony No. 1 (1917) the “Classical Symphony,” in homage to Haydn. Prokofiev’s ability to blend his 20th Century voice with the style of the great classicist is indeed remarkable, making this one of his most popular works.
  
The piece is usually performed by a large modern orchestra. But here, the orchestra was pared down appropriately, giving the music a lighter texture. The string work throughout was captivating. The Gavotte proceeded with its dislocated tune and plodding rhythm, while the final movement bubbled along at an exhilarating pace, producing many admiring smiles and enthusiastic applause.

Mozart’s Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra (K.299/297c) was the companion piece on the first half, an apt choice, since Haydn influenced Mozart as well as Prokofiev. Amado partnered DSO principals Kimberly Reighley (flute) and Sara Fuller (harp) who gave a poised yet exuberant reading of this finely wrought work. The orchestra carried out its supporting role with as much commitment as if it were center-stage, befitting the intimate nature of the piece, especially the flowing Andantino.

After intermission, Amado and the orchestra got down to business with a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth, certainly the most well-known – possibly the most beloved – work ever created.

Familiarity can breed contempt but not in this case. As Amado pointed out, there is always something new and interesting to discover in Beethoven’s Fifth. First, were those introductory notes really the hammer blows of fate knocking at the composer’s door? Probably not. A theory developed in the 1990s holds that those famous fortissimo phrases were influenced by Luigi Cherubini’s “Hymn du Pantheon.” Cherubini was a prominent composer during the French Revolution. Beethoven was a passionate supporter of the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.
  
Amado also pointed out the symmetry within the symphony’s first eight notes as well as the thematic and harmonic relationships between its movements.
  
If you listen to the Fifth largely on recordings, it’s easy to forget host thrilling a live performance ca be. This was a beautifully focused, fully energized performance of the Fifth with all the necessary elements in place: sonorous strings, flawless brass playing, full-bodied winds and above, a sense of drama and grandeur. The insistent C on the timpani had a palpable presence here, offering am effective set-up for the glorious, fortissimo rising chords that usher in the finale. 

For full season info, see www.delawaresymphony.org

Monday, April 10, 2017

NYC Composer's Work Highlight of Diverse Repertoire from Mélomanie

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie, the critically acclaimed ensemble known for its provocative pairings of early and contemporary works, capped off its 2016-17 season with a program tilted a bit more toward the contemporary than usual.

Joining regulars Kimberly Reighley, flute; Christof Richter, violin; Donna Fournier, viola da gamba; and Tracy Richardson, harpsichord were guest artists Naomi Gray, cello and Joshua Kovach, clarinet.

Mélomanie performs at The Delaware Contemporary near the Wilmington Waterfront.
Photo by Tim Bayard.
Mélomanie also welcomed flutist/composer Bonnie McAlvin whose work Sandstone Peak received its World Premiere at this concert. McAlvin explained how her fascination with mountains — in this case the highest peak of the Santa Monica Mountains — inspired the composition. The work is in four movements: Illusion, Conversation, Throne of Sand and Everywhere at Once, throwing a nod to Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

McAlvin is a clever composer who skillfully adapts the serial technique to tell a story of illusion, erosion and feeling exposed. Throughout the composition, the row becomes dismantled and recombined reappearing in each movement in various guises and instrumental textures. The effect is one of fantasy and vulnerability.

Gray and Kovach combined their talents to perform Private Games by Israeli composer Shulamit Ran and Night Music by Parisian Nicolas Bacri. The former is a brief, jagged work full of disjointed gestures that somehow manages to convey a lyrical underpinning. The duo — both as an entity and as individuals — tossed off the fiendishly difficult passages with grace and ease.  They convincingly brought out the chill in Night Music, a non-lyrical piece that glumly muses suggestions of inimical fate.

Richardson, Reighley and Kovach collaborated in a charming performance of the Sonatine en Trio, Op. 85 by Florent Schmitt, the most important French composer you probably never heard of, according to self-styled Schmitt expert Phillip Nones, who offered his thoughts on the composer and the work.

Schmitt (1870-1958) had no affinity for atonality or neo-classicism. Instead, he composed lushly lyrical music bursting with a profusion of ideas. Nones noted that this particular work has also been scored for flute, clarinet and piano as well as violin, cello and piano. But the musicians noted, in a post-concert discussion, that the harpsichord gave the work a lighter, brighter tone.

The flute and clarinet combined to produce another interesting aural feature. At times they seemed to blend so thoroughly that resulting sound was neither that of flute nor that of clarinet but a seemingly altogether different instrument with a sound all its own.

Vittorio Rieti’s Variations for Flute, Clarinet, Violin and Cello on When From My Love by John Bartlet was written in 1964 and dedicated to the memory of composer Paul Hindemith. This was a charming performance of this delightful little work consisting of nine variations and a code. It was an apropos selection for a Mélomanie program, as it combined the baroque with the contemporary.

The musicians of Mélomanie gave a nod to the Baroque with a performance of Marin Marais’ Suite 6 n C minor (from Pieces en Trio 1692) which preceded the two halves of the program.


The ensemble’s final performance for the 2016-17 season will be a special Mother’s Day Brunch and Concert on Sunday, May 14. Tickets are available at www.melomanie.org

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Mélomanie Opens Wilmington Series at The Delaware Contemporary

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie opened its 2016-17 Wilmington concert series at The Delaware Contemporary on Sunday, October 9 with a program that was both demanding and fascinatingly varied.

The program started off with a delightful rendering of Telemann’s Paris Quartet 3 in G Major. A description of the performance can be found in the titles of the movements themselves: Gracieusement, Vite, Gai. Gracious and spirited are exactly the qualities this music requires 
— and what the ensemble delivered.

Flutist Kimberly Reighley played a magical Baroque flute, rich in tone with spot-on intonation. She blended perfectly with Christof Richter’s violin, making their intertwining lines an endless source of listening pleasure. Gambist Donna Fournier supplied a judicious bass line: prominent where needed yet merging seamlessly with Tracy Richardson’s sublimely supportive harpsichord.

In a rare treat, Richardson soloed in a World Premiere of Michael Stambaugh’s Suite for Harpsichord. Stambaugh is a rising young (b.1990) Philadelphia-based composer whose unfettered imagination shows that an 18th Century instrument has just as much to say in the 21st Century.

The work — written during the summer — unfolds in four short movements (a fifth is being reworked): The Machine Comes to Life, A Mischievous Prelude, A Light Dance and Invention. Opening with a blizzard of notes and fluctuant harmonies and rhythms, the piece is a whimsical mélange of jazz, rock, heavy metal and funk which, oddly enough, did not seem so far removed from the 17th Century. One audience member thought it quasi-programmatic, as it followed the path of a machine from its “birth” to its taking on human characteristics and capabilities 
 a notion that surprised and intrigued the composer.

The playing was often difficult and taxing, but Richardson was superb and her efforts were appreciatively received by the audience.

The history of Western music is littered with tales of lost masterpieces and what-might-have-beens. Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714) became one of those unfortunates when in 1736 when all but 70 of his 1000 compositions were destroyed in a fire at the court library at Rudolstadt.

The Sonata 5 in E Minor is just one of six sonatas to survive. As was common for the time, it was scored for violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo. But Erlebach’s sonatas differ from those of his contemporaries in that he gives the viola da gamba a genuinely independent part. In addition, Erlebach aims for a mixture of German, Italian and French styles: the dance movements being mainly Italian while German polyphony dominates the opening and closing movements.

Violinist Richter and gambist Fournier exhibited a deep appreciation for the strong character of this sonata, and their performance offered a pleasing and effective balance in their dialogues.

The concert closed with the Promenades for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. Written between 1937 and 1944, the piece reflects the composer’s reaction to the horrors of World War II. The work opens calmly enough with a Bach-like allegro and air but then morphs into a sinister scherzo and a bitter, edgy finale. Reighley is impressive, playing with the precision and pristine quality she’s noted for, yet somehow managing to deliver a strident tone the music demanded.

See www.melomanie.org.

Monday, April 11, 2016

An Much-Welcomed 'Spring Night' Courtesy of Delaware Symphony Orchestra

By Christine Facciolo

Myth, legend and a concerto featuring a most unlikely instrument filled the bill last weekend as the Delaware Symphony Orchestra (DSO) performed its Classic Series “Spring Night” at the Laird Performing Arts Center at The Tatnall School in Greenville.

This was also the occasion to honor Christopher Theofanidis, this year’s recipient of the DSO’s A.I. duPont Composer’s Award. Theofanidis, Professor of Composition at Yale University School of Music, is one of today’s most celebrated and sought-after composers. His orchestra concert work Rainbow Body is one of the most performed new orchestral works of the last 10 years, having been performed by more than 100 orchestras worldwide.

The concert opened with a performance of Theofanidis’s Dreamtime Ancestors, a 17-minute tone poem based on Australian aboriginal creation myths. Theofanidis, who spent time in Western Australia, developed a fondness for these stories while working on his oratorio “Creation/Creator” in 2015.

The stories hold that we are connected to our ancestors past and future through the land. Our ancestors made the land leaving behind remnants of their existence. That is why we feel connected to a certain place. Theofanidis’s tone poem calls the dream state an “all-at-once-time,” where there is no past present or future. He read a tone poem to introduce the audience to these concepts before his composition was performed.

The work unfolds in three movements. The first is called “Songlines.” These are the things our ancestors left on Earth, such as rivers and mountain ranges. The second movement is called “Rainbow Serpent.” This mythical character is common to all aboriginal tribes in Australia. As the serpent moved along the Earth, it left a rainbow in its wake. Its light represents the source of the sun. The closing movement “Earth Stone Speaks a Poem” tells us that even so-called dead objects have something to say.

Dreamtime Ancestors is a romantically lyrical piece of music with no sharp edges, a perfect vehicle for DSO players. Theofanidis has crafted a work that is both accessible yet rhythmically, melodically and texturally complex.

The piece opens with a horn fanfare followed by layers of strings punctuated by cymbal crashes. The initial theme recurs throughout the movement which concludes with a drum roll, cymbal crash as the strings fade out.

The strings own the second movement as their lingering sounds recall the halo effect left by the serpent as it slithered along the Earth. The energetic final movement opens with a clapboard sound (provided by principal percussionist William Kerrigan) after which the strings, then horns and winds join in. Principal flutist Kimberly Reighley offers a strong passage and the movement comes to a close with a resounding crash.

Dreamtime Ancestors was matched with a deserving rarity, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Tuba Concerto of 1954. The tuba did not gain membership in the symphonic orchestra until valves were perfected in the second decade of the 19th Century. Composers welcomed its profound timbre, but Vaughan Williams tapped into the soul of the instrument.

This is a serious concerto in three movements, complete with cadenzas in the first and third movements. In his pre-concert remarks, DSO Principal Tubist Brian Brown revealed he had studied with John Fletcher who made the seminal recording of the work under the baton of Andre Previn in 1972.

Brown delivered a performance that proved him a worthy successor. His tone was big, fat and buttery yet deft and delicate. The opening movement with its run-filled cadenza and the rapid finale were convincing even as they had their share of humor. But it was in the second movement, Romanza: Andante sostenuto, where Vaughan Williams is at his most pastoral and for those few minutes Brown made you believe his instrument is the most beautiful in the orchestra. To be moved to tears by a tuba was indeed a rare pleasure.

After intermission, the orchestra took up works by Modest Mussorgsky (1839-81) and Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971).

Mussorgsky (1839-81) was one Russian committed to making music based on his country’s folklore, rather than the refined manners of 18th Century France or Italy. His Night on Bald Mountain, composed in 1867, evokes a witches’ Sabbath on Mount Tiglav, near Kiev. So violent and strident were its harmonies and instrumentation that it shocked fellow Russian nationalist Rimsky-Korsakov, who felt compelled to purge the score of those atrocities following Mussorgsky’s death. He even tacked on a conclusion designed to bring the work into line with contemporary standards of piety.

Nothing got lost in this performance, though, as DSO Music Director David Amado drew out the shocking elements retained in the score. There was nothing refined or stylized about this performance. This was pure Mussorgsky. Punctuation by one of the Bells of Remembrance just added to the authenticity of the performance.

Furthermore, if not for Rimsky-Korsakov’s serene conclusion, we would have been deprived of Charles Salinger’s superb clarinet solo and Kimberly Reighley’s mesmerizing flute solo in the composition’s closing minutes.

Following was a knockout performance of Stravinsky’s Petroushka. This centerpiece of ballets written for Serge Diaghilev tells the story of the lonely of the sad puppet Petroushka and his said demise.

Amado led an extraordinary performance that brought out all the colors of Stravinsky’s kaleidoscopic score: the hectic opening of the Shrovetide Fair in all its exuberance; Petroushka’s pathos and his rage against the machine; the Moor’s bizarre dance with the ballerina and the eerie code with the ghost of Petroushka thumbing his nose at the magician.

Especially noteworthy were contributions from (again) flutist Reighley, trumpet Brian Kuszyk, clarinetist Salinger and pianist Lura Johnson.

See www.delawaresymphony.org

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Mélomanie Delivered Musical Treats for Wilmington Valentines

Mélomanie performed at The Delaware Contemporary on Feb. 14.
By Christine Facciolo
Music lovers who braved Sunday’s frigid temps got treated to a concert of sweet musical morsels from Mélomanie.

The program was an eclectic one, featuring the works of the definitely Baroque Telemann, the stylistically fluid Ibert and neo-Baroque contemporary Kile Smith.

The program featured a reprise performance of Smith’s The Nobility of Women, which was commissioned by 
Mélomanie and premiered in 2012. Mélomanie Co-Artistic Director Tracy Richardson commented that the ensemble gave Smith the choice of an additional instrument to be played by a guest artist. He chose the oboe — an instrument not uncoincidentally played by his daughter, Priscilla Herreid. Herreid reprised her role as guest soloist for this concert.

Smith’s composition proves that musical styles never really disappear, they just go out of fashion until inspiration or musical necessity spark their resurrection. Smith took his cue for this eight-movement work from the name of the 16th Century dance manual Nobilita di Dame by Fabritia Caroso. Each movement bears the name of a Baroque dance form: Allemande, Sarabande, Musette, Ciaccona.

The work is a pretty staid affair until Richardson breaks out with a dazzling harpsichord solo in the third movement. Herreid did herself proud, soloing in the Sarabande, which features a delicate italianate melody of great beauty. The Ciaccona served as a fitting finale, packed with interesting flourishes.

Smith’s work paired quite nicely with Telemann’s Quartet in G Major from the “Tafelmusik” collection. “Tafelmusik” — literally meaning table music — is a mid-16th Century term for music played at banquets. 
Mélomanie imbued the piece with a vigor and flourish that would compel anyone to put down their fork and defer to the music.

The program also featured the Two Interludes for flute, violin and harpsichord by 20th Century French composer, Jacques Ibert. The first interlude was slow and stately, in triple meter, reminiscent of a Baroque sarabande. The second was fast with swirls of color and a Spanish flavor thanks to inflections of the Phrygian mode. Both pieces were rich in tone yet balanced a perfection union of lushness of Impressionism and the clarity of Classicism. Flutist Kimberly Reighley, violinist Christof Richter and harpsichordist Richardson strike the perfect balance between lushness and clarity of tone and texture.

Rounding out the program were selections by two all-but-forgotten French composers: Louis-Antoine Dornel, a contemporary of J.S. Bach and Benoit Guilemant, an 18th Century flutist.

Herreid once again showed her mastery of the Baroque oboe — a notoriously difficult beast to tame — in the former’s Sonata n G Major, which featured a lively interplay between soloist and bass.

Cellist Douglas McNames and gambist Donna Fournier — this time on cello collaborated on a lively performance of the latter’s melodic Sonata No. 4 in C Major, Op. 3.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Mélomanie Opens with Two World Premieres & One Breathtaking "Stage"

By Guest Blogger, Christine Facciolo
Christine holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Music and continues to apply her voice to all genres of music. An arts lover since childhood, she currently works as a freelance writer.


Mélomanie opened its 2015-2016 season at The Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts on Sunday, September 13, with a celebration of the artistry of flutist Kimberly Reighley. The concert was held in the DCCA's Carol Bieber and Marc Ham Gallery, where the musicians performed directly underneath artist Amie Potsic's beautifully flowing piece, Endangered Seasons.

Reighley  co-artistic director (along with Tracy Richardson) of the ensemble known for its provocative pairings of baroque and contemporary music  was this year’s recipient of the coveted Masters Award for Solo Recital from the Delaware Division of the Arts. The award required her to perform a solo concert.

I once asked a flutist friend if the instrument was tough to play. She responded by saying it was easy to learn but hard to master. Anyone who hears Reighley’s incredibly beautiful playing will soon realize that she is a complete master of the flute.

The program featured various flutes — the piccolo, baroque, modern and alto —demonstrating the range of expression the instrument possesses and the skill Reighley brings to each.

The program was a mostly contemporary one, including the World Premieres of two works composed especially for the occasion: Two Moods by Chuck Holdeman and The Four Gifts of God by the Brazilian composer Sergio Roberto de Oliveira.

Holdeman is one of an increasing number of composers writing for solo piccolo. As its name suggests, Two Moods explores the acoustic possibilities of the instrument. The first employs the “whistle” tones demonstrating how an almost inaudible instrument can still make music. The second returns the instrument to its familiar sprightly self.

Reighley handled this often unpredictable little instrument with precision and grace. Especially impressive were her high notes, which can be difficult for the average flutist to sustain given the need for greater wind speed.

The Four Gifts of God paired Reighley on baroque flute with Richardson on harpsichord. Composer de Oliveira got the idea to identify four elements: common to all religions. He came up with the gifts of Breath, Light, Creation and Action. Reighley mined the instrument’s capacity for otherworldly tones in the primal character of the first section, quickly switching gears for the brighter musical ideas of Light and Action. Of special interest was the Creation movement, where the composer paid tribute to seven of his favorite composers, including Richardson’s husband, composer Mark Hagerty.

Speaking of Hagerty, his contribution to the program was a work titled Sea Level. Written especially for Reighley, the piece offers a soundscape of the burgeoning plant and animal life in and around the canals of the Dutch countryside during an unusually warm April. This work showcased Reighley’s mastery of the alto flute whose mysterious, picturesque tones ably conveyed the score’s changing colors and textures.

Reighley took up the standard concert flute accompanied by Richardson on harpsichord for Jennifer Margaret Barker’s Dumgoyne and Ingrid Arauco’s Florescence. Both demand the soloist to delineate the sharply contrasting musical ideas. Dumgoyne describes Barker’s childhood memories of the sights and sounds of her native Scotland’s most famous hill. Reighley’s playing effectively conveyed the experience of a climb culminating with the calm and peace of a lyrical Scottish song.

Arauco’s work is more abstract than Dumgoyne but nevertheless requires the flutist to engage some pretty aggressive rhythmic patterns as in the second movement which the composer describes as flowing in “an energetic stream of steady sixteenths punctuated by occasionally by assertive, rhythmically jagged figures.”

It wouldn’t be a 
Mélomanie concert without a Baroque offering, and Reighley and Richardson paired to offer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier’s Sonata II in G Minor.

The concert concluded with an encore performance by Richardson and Reighley of Hagerty’s Contexts, a short piece that looks at what can happen to a simple repeating motif when the harmony and other musical elements change around it.

The full ensemble returns to the DCCA for their next performance on October 18, where they will premiere a piece by guitarist and composer, Kevin J. Cope.

See www.melomanie.org.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Mélomanie at the DCCA with La Bernardinia Baroque Ensemble


Night Watch by Dan Jackson
A grey Sunday in February brought an overflow crowd to the DuPont 1 Gallery of the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. The big crowd was made to order to create the most wonderful acoustic effect in the small room with the cold hard stone floor, so that Mattheson’s Sonata in G Minor for two harpsichords played by Marcia Kravis and Tracy Richardson sounded clear, crisp, rounded and exciting. Swirls of sounds flew as they traded fast scales and flying double thirds.

After the harpsichord duo, guest artists La Bernadinia Baroque (Donna Fournier, Rainer Beckmann and Marcia Kravis) performed the Ciacona allegro, also a Baroque piece by Benedetto Marcello –Following this, the entire Mélomanie ensemble playing Menuet-Fantaisie – a modern musical interpretation of Baroque music with a recurring motif passed from instrument to instrument, which they had commissioned Anthony Mosakowski to write in 2012. The composer, who introduced the piece, seemed as pleased as the rest of the audience.

The delightful and melodic Allemande and Sarabande, from a different harpsichord duo suite by Mattheson, brought us back to Baroque comfort and lute stops until we were blasted into the 21st century by Tracy Richardson and Rainer Beckman in their interpretation of Liduino Pitombeira’s Sonata for recorder and harpsichord no. 2, Opus 156. Mr. Beckman, who knows Brazil and the composer, introduced the piece and showed that he can make the alto recorder leap forward a few centuries to create a sound reminiscent to honor Stravinsky, Boulez and Bartok.

And, following that tradition of lulling us with Baroque delights and then rocking us out of chairs with modern sounds on Baroque instruments, the two groups played a delightful rendition of a Vivaldi's Concerto in G Minor, RV 107 in which the alto flute (Kim Reighley), soprano and alto recorders (Rainer Beckman) and Baroque violin (Christof Richter) performed as soli and Doug McNames (cello), Donna Fournier (viola da gamba) and Tracy Richardson and Marcia Kravis on harpsichords performed the orchestral continuo.

After the raucous applause for the great sound of the Vivaldi, the larger ensemble played an encore of a Chaconne by Jean Baptiste Lully. The experience was heightened by the surrealistic art of Dan Jackson on display in the gallery – the faces in his works so photographically alive and vivid that they seemed to have been listening as well.

See melomanie.org.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

An Afternoon of Colorful Music with Mélomanie

By Guest Blogger, Chuck Holdeman
Chuck is a regional composer of lyrical, contemporary classical music, including opera, orchestral music, songs, chamber music, music for film, and music for educational purposes. www.chuckholdeman.com.

 
On Sunday afternoon, March 9 at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Mélomanie, Delaware's half-and-half chamber group (half baroque, half new music) played its third performance of its third program of the season. Themed "Ultraviolet," the program celebrated beloved longtime Wilmington Friends School music teacher Violet Richmond with the premiere of Ultraviolet, written in her honor by local composer Mark Hagerty. His piece Context also received its premiere, along with music by 18th Century composers G.P. Telemann and Anna Bon and 20th Century American composer, Alec Wilder. The virtuoso guest percussionist was Chris Hanning — a star in the international drumming firmament, and who, like Mélomanie flutist Kim Reighley, is on the faculty of West Chester University. Reighley also had a big day, performing in all five works on the program. 

Anna Bon di Venezia traveled with her parents as a prodigy, attended the music school where Vivaldi taught, and became a professional in the court in Bayreuth, Germany. While containing few surprises, her D major flute sonata is an extremely well-crafted example of the gallant style, which sounded beautiful on Reighley's wooden baroque flute, balanced so well with its harpsichord and baroque 'cello accompaniment. Telemann's A minor Paris Quartet, which opened the second half, was full of charming surprises, especially in its Coulant (flowing) middle movement — basically a set of variations interspersed with a beautiful ritornello. The unaccompanied flute and violin duet was striking, as was a solo variation, performed by Christof Richter on baroque violin. Viola de gamba player Donna Fournier also got a feature, and the tasteful continuo was provided by harpsichordist Tracy Richardson and Douglas McNames, baroque 'cello.


It was a rare treat to hear two new works by Mark Hagerty, a composer who has contributed so much to Mélomanie's repertoire, including his gorgeous Trois Rivieres, featured on the group's Florescence CD. I confess I'm a fan of Hagerty's work and have poured over his fascinating recordings. So it was a special pleasure to hear two works in which he seems to have broken new ground, also distinguished by the fact that Context and Ultraviolet have a virtually opposite point of view. Both use modern instruments, the former for alto flute and harpsichord, and the latter for the entire Mélomanie quintet with the addition of percussion. 

While Context is slow, meditative, with a limited though arresting arpeggiated harmonic palette, enhanced by the lovely timbres of the two instrumentalists, Ultraviolet has many highly contrasted episodes, and a completely unbuttoned point of view, including a rock-out drum solo, thrillingly improvised by Chris Hanning. But that is only one end of the spectrum, because the work begins and ends with the most delicate sounds of the ocean drum — John Cage would have enjoyed that these sounds balanced well with the building's ventilation system. In between there were numerous well-graded explorations, including a quiet shimmer of strings, delicately accented by metal interjections from a flute, a harpsichord string, or a bowed crotale. How surprising it was when a poetic harpsichord cadenza suddenly morphs into an uptempo ensemble romp, or when Reighley picked up her alto flute for a sensuous duet with the middle eastern doumbek drum. And since the theme was color — or anyway the imagined nuances of light frequencies normally invisible — Hagerty managed to excel with a succession of colorful instrumental combinations, often quasi static, but then bursting into rhythmic complexity. Bravo Mark! 

The program concluded with Alec Wilder's Flute and Bongos 1 and 2, composed in 1958, and still fresh and vital. Wilder wrote jazz standards as well as lots of classical chamber music, and we could hear his sophistication in both worlds. Reighley was virtuosic and Hanning's elaborate bongo drum accompaniment was apt and arresting. The drum part was so together with the flute, and so complicated, that I assumed it was all written out and then executed to perfection. Just now I read the program notes and found that Hanning was improvising — wow!

Mélomanie's next program at DCCA is Sunday, May 11, at 3:00pm. 


See www.melomanie.org