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SOUNDCHECK for all students
I just learned today that the Nashville Symphony has changed our program for student tickets to be inclusive of all students, from Kindergarten through university and graduate school. This program – called SOUNDCHECK – provides $10 tickets to Aegis Sciences Classical Series performances and has been in existence for years, but until this week the program has been limited to students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs.
Our Friend Sebastian
Anna Magdalena Bach’s autograph of Menuet in G, 1725
Today is the 330th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Like so many of us, I first encountered his music as a child. I don’t actually remember the first time I heard it – it might have been at church, it might have been in a piano lesson. I am pretty certain that the first piece that I became aware of and associated with his name was Menuet in G. It was only years later that I learned that scholars actually now believe this piece was written by Christian Petzold (1677-1733), but no matter. Sebastian is still credited as the composer in most piano books one will encounter, and if it was good enough for his children…
Something Old, Something New
The symphony is off for spring break, and there are two important musical events taking place in Nashville this week. Both of these concerts involve symphony musicians – as well as other outstanding artists both from our community and elsewhere – and considered together are a good example of the breadth of music-making happening in our city.
On Thursday evening, March 26 at 7:30 pm, intersection will present their debut performance at The Platform, a relatively new Nashville event venue. Led by Nashville Symphony Chorus Director and previous Associate Conductor Kelly Corcoran, intersection is a new Nashville ensemble dedicated to presenting 20th and 21st century music in innovative performances. For those who have been following this, it has been a long time coming, and it will be exciting to see what Kelly and the ensembles she has gathered share with us on Thursday night.
Thursday night’s performance is titled Transfiguration, and in addition to the music of five living composers – Arvo Pärt, Sean Shepherd, Jonathan Harvey, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Ned Rorem – also includes new choreography by Nashville dance collective New Dialect, and visual elements provided by Zeigeist Gallery. Nashville Scene’s more in-depth article on Transfiguration and intersection is here.
And then on Friday evening, March 27, Christ Church Cathedral presents the Ninth Annual BACHanalia, Nashville’s annual celebration of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Presented in the church’s sanctuary by local musicians, the music begins at 5 pm and continues without pause until 11. One of the musical highlights of the year, our annual Bach festival as usual features both traditional and unorthodox performances of Sebastian’s music. The full program may be viewed here.
The acoustics in the church’s beautiful sanctuary are particularly well-suited for this event, of which I have very fond memories (I participated in 2008 with a recorder quartet comprised of myself and three students – we played selections from The Art of Fugue – and again in 2014, when I led the Nashville School of the Arts Chamber Choir in a performance of Cantata 106, with soloists from Blair School of Music accompanied by musicians from the Nashville Symphony and Music City Baroque, with former NSA choir director Michael Graham at the harpsichord).
From 2009-2012 (at least), BACHanalia was presented on the same night as the Hume-Fogg Battle of the Bands, in which my son performed every year. Each of those years I would catch his band’s act, then run down to the cathedral for as much of Sebastian’s music as I could hear before running back to the school’s auditorium for the award presentation at the end of the night. Luckily they are only two blocks apart!
The church offers food and drink in their fellowship hall during the concert for those who need sustenance to last the night, the event is free, and listeners are encouraged to attend as much or as little as they wish.
Postscript: A Day at the Hall
March 19, 2015
6:27 am: as I drink my morning tea I check the Newschannel5 website to see if they have posted their story on the Suzuki program yet – Dave told me it was going to air yesterday but I didn’t have the opportunity to see it. It’s there!
School Patrol: Students Learn Suzuki Violin Method
I hastily put together a short postscript to my post from two weeks ago before I get off the couch and prepare for another day at the hall
This is a postscript to A Day at the Hall
The Contestants
They arrive at the hall separately. After checking in at the registration table, they sit at tables in the dimly lit lobby and wait. There is some hushed conversation murmuring amongst the pillars but it is mostly between those that accompanied them; the contestants do not talk to each other.
All are teenagers. The rules specify that contestants must be at least fourteen and no older than eighteen the day of the competition – no regulation regarding school grade levels was made this year, so although most of them are in high school, there are two contestants who are college freshmen, and at least one eighth grader. Of the twenty-one who completed the application and are scheduled to audition, exactly two-thirds are girls. Originally nine boys were scheduled to compete but two withdrew in the past week, one of them bowing out only last night.
Walter Bitner 