Mozart – News /news Tue, 24 Jan 2023 19:11:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.3 /wp-content/themes/b/bates-framework/styles/images/bates-favicon.png Mozart – News /news 32 32 College Choir to perform Mozart's final choral masterpiece /news/2010/03/24/mozart-requiem/ /news/2010/03/24/mozart-requiem/#respond Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:49:38 +0000 http://home.bates.edu/?p=23547 corrie-conducts

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem and other works will be performed by the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Choir, directed by John Corrie, at 8 p.m. Friday, April 2, and Saturday, April 3, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, 75 Russell St.

Admission is free, but tickets are required. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

Mozart was working his Requiem on his deathbed in 1791, leaving it for protégés to complete. A masterpiece of the choral repertoire, the work is “an unlikely but unforgettable alloy of ecclesiastical grandeur, Baroque fugue and the subtlest mood painting,” wrote a Portland Phoenix reviewer in 2001.

“Known for operatic music that can convey scene or character with a handful of notes, Mozart used that skill here to portray a believer facing death: feeling dread at the end of this life, anxiety at the prospect of judgment, abject yearning for forgiveness.”

The choir will be accompanied by an orchestra consisting of students and community members.

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Soprano Lisa Saffer, pianist Anastasia Antonacos to perform /news/2009/04/23/lisa-saffer/ /news/2009/04/23/lisa-saffer/#respond Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:03:51 +0000 http://batesviews.net/?p=3362 Lisa Saffer

Described by a Village Voice reviewer as “one of those special singers whose technique and blooming sound always serve sense and emotion,” world-renowned soprano Lisa Saffer sings at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Joining is pianist Anastasia Antonacos, an award-winning musician with a worldwide following. Admission is $10 for the general public and $4 for students and seniors. For tickets, visit . For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Saffer’s supreme musicality, stellar dramatic instincts and solid vocal technique have put her on opera stages around the world for roles as diverse as Berg’s Lulu and Handel’s Cleopatra. A Maine resident, she has sung with nearly every leading American orchestra and appeared throughout Europe. She received the Royal Philharmonic Society Award and was nominated for an Olivier Award, London’s equivalent of the Tony.

A member of the applied music faculty at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Antonacos has performed around the world as a solo recitalist and chamber musician. She won first place at the International Young Artist Music Competition in Bulgaria, and holds prizes from the Capdepera International Piano Competition in Mallorca and the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Competition.

Saffer first gained prominence for her performances of baroque opera. Soon she began appearing in a landmark series of Handel recordings on Harmonia Mundi USA. Saffer is now much in demand for Handel roles at venues including Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass, New York City Opera, the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, Germany, and Barcelona’s Gran Teatro del Liceu.

She is also sought after as a Mozart interpreter, acclaimed for her performances as Despina in “Così fan tutte” and Susanna in “Le Nozze di Figaro.”

Saffer is also widely recognized as an interpreter of modern and contemporary scores and is identified with the works of Oliver Knussen, several of which she has recorded for DGG. Her English National Opera performance as Lulu in Alban Berg’s opera of that name was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in opera in London, and honored with the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for best vocal performance.

Among other contemporary operas, Saffer is known particularly for her interpretation of the character Marie in Zimmermann’s “Die Soldaten,” which she has performed at ENO, Opera Bastille and New York City Opera.

Saffer’s many recordings appear on Harmonia Mundi USA, Virgin Classics, New World Records, DGG, Chandos and Telarc.

A native of Ann Arbor, she now lives in Portland. She is a voracious reader who also enjoys hiking, yoga and cooking.

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has played in the Netherlands, Greece, Russia, France and Belgium, as well as various places in the U.S., including New York and Washington, D.C., where she also testified for funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. She has made solo appearances with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra.

Antonacos has collaborated with members of the Vermeer, Cassatt and DaPonte string quartets, and with renowned pianists Leonard Hokanson and Edmund Battersby. She has been a chamber music coach at Bay Chamber Concerts’ Next Generation program for many years, and regularly serves as a master class teacher and adjudicator.

She is a founding member of the Bayside Trio and Harlequine, and teaches at the University of Southern Maine as well as ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

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ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Choir to perform works by Mozart and Fauré /news/2009/03/23/bates-college-choir/ /news/2009/03/23/bates-college-choir/#respond Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:03:22 +0000 http://batesviews.net/?p=2630 Choir director John Corrie

Directed by John Corrie, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Choir performs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Coronation Mass” and Gabriel Fauré’s “Requiem” in concerts at 8 p.m. Friday and Sunday, March 27 and 29, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission is free, but tickets are required. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Corrie is the artistic director of the and a member of the college music faculty. He has directed the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ choir since 1986.

The college choir has 75 singers, supported by an orchestra of 31 musicians. Soloists include senior sopranos Lisa McClellan of Glen Mills, Pa., and Erica Rogoff of Carlisle, Mass.; sophomore alto Erin Kintzing of Rensselaer, N.Y.; first-year tenor Segundo Guerrero of East Orange, N.J.; and three bass soloists: senior D.R. Richie of Wyomissing, Pa.; junior Richard McNeil of Lawrence, Mass.; and sophomore Andrew Bernard of Merchantville, N.J.

He chose the Fauré and Mozart, Corrie says, “because they are among the masterworks that the choir should have the opportunity to perform. These works begin an exploration of the musical vocabulary of these incredible composers.”

The college choir has performed these works in the past, and Corrie calls them “important enough to revisit on a regular basis.”

“Requiem” is the best-known of Fauré’s larger-format works. Composed between 1887 and 1890, it was first performed in the U.S. in 1931 at a student concert, and was performed at Fauré’s own funeral.

“Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem,” the composer said, “which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.”

Mozart’s “Coronation Mass,” composed in 1779, is one of the most popular 17 extant settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, texts in Roman Catholic practice that are used without variation in every Mass. The piece was performed at the coronations of Leopold II and Francis II of Austria.

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Pianist Jon Nakamatsu to perform with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Orchestra /news/2003/10/22/jon-nakamatsu-2/ /news/2003/10/22/jon-nakamatsu-2/#respond Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:01:40 +0000 http://home.bates.edu/?p=44529

Classical pianist Jon Nakamatsu

Classical pianist Jon Nakamatsu, gold medalist in the 10th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will perform Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Orchestra at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Works by Dvorák and Mozart round out this concert conducted by Philip Carlsen, a composer and lecturer in music at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Sponsored by the Mellon Learning Associates Program in the Humanities, the concert is open to the public at no charge.

Called “a major pianistic talent” by the Denver Post, Nakamatsu first performed at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in September 2002 in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Concert Series. A California native and former high school German teacher, he secured his place on the international scene in 1997 by winning the coveted Cliburn gold — the first American to have achieved this distinction since 1981.

Equally comfortable in solo recital, chamber ensemble or in front of an orchestra, Nakamatsu brings a formidable grasp of repertoire ranging from Bach to contemporary composers like Lukas Foss.

“Besides being an astounding technician,” wrote Chicago Tribune reviewer Dan Tucker, “Nakamatsu shows impeccable taste; he puts a high gloss on anything he plays.”  Nakamatsu will make a five-day visit to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ that culminates with the orchestral concert. “I’m quite excited about getting to know him better and all of us being on stage with him,” says Carlsen.

Composed in 1868, Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor (Op. 16) is a staple of the Romantic repertoire and is the work that first put this Norwegian composer on the international stage. Lively, tuneful and imaginative, the concerto is overtly indebted to Norwegian folk music and as such is an enduringly popular result of a 19th-century wave of musical nationalism.

The program also includes the Serenade in D minor, written for winds, cellos and basses by another composer associated with Romantic nationalism, Antonin Dvorák; and Wolfgang Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 (“Haffner”).

“We’re having a great time with the ‘Haffner,’ ” Carlsen says. “It’s a piece that helps the orchestra sound good — the students are working hard on it and enjoying it.” Numbering about 45 players, the orchestra will consist almost entirely of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students.

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Pianist Duncan J. Cumming performs /news/2001/02/01/duncan-cumming/ /news/2001/02/01/duncan-cumming/#respond Thu, 01 Feb 2001 18:14:45 +0000 http://home.bates.edu/?p=18213 Pianist Duncan J. Cumming ’93 returns to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ to perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 11 in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. The performance is free and open to the public. A Maine native, Cumming graduated Phi Beta Kappa from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College in 1993 and went on to study at the European Mozart Academy, the New England Conservatory and Boston University. Cumming received a full scholarship to the European Mozart Academy and studied and performed in Prague.

He also continues to perform in England where he has given recitals annually since 1992. He is currently on faculty at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and a member of the Cecelia Trio. Cumming was born in Aroostook County and grew up in Wiscassett.

The program will include excerpts from Fantasie in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sonata in C major, Op. 1, by Johannes Brahms, and Sports et Divertissements by Erik Satie, as well as works by Debussy and Chopin.

For more information, call the Olin Arts Center at 207-786-6135.

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Mozart's comic opera "Cosí fan tutte" to be performed at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ /news/1999/02/05/cosi-fan-tutte/ /news/1999/02/05/cosi-fan-tutte/#respond Fri, 05 Feb 1999 19:56:40 +0000 http://home.bates.edu/?p=30776 The Maine Chamber Ensemble and the Androscoggin Chorale will perform an unstaged concert of Mozart’s comic opera Cosí fan tutte (“They all do it!”) at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. Advance tickets are $15 for general admission, $14 for seniors and $7.50 for students. Children under 12 will be admitted free of charge. At the door, tickets are $17.50 for general admission and seniors and $8.50 for students. Call 207-782-1403 to purchase tickets.

Cosí fan tutte features two pairs of naive lovers who test love’s constancy, a temptation incited by two more worldly provacateurs and their own vanity. In this higher education of the heart, replete with masquerades and shenanigans, the lovers learn to accept their faults and frailties without losing their passion.

Soloing with the Maine Chamber Ensemble and the Androscoggin Chorale will be sopranos Bonnie Scarpelli and Christina Astrachan, mezzo-soprano Jean Strazdes, tenor Timothy Neill Johnson and baritones Peter Allen and John Murelle.

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