Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Yo-Yo Ma , Itzhak Perlman , Anthony McGill & Gabriela Montero at the Obama Inauguration
www.InauguralTickets.cn God Bless this Country & Let this classical piece exemplify Hope & Prosperity for this Great Land, The United States of America! Thank You Mr. President!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Yo-Yo Ma , Itzhak Perlman , Anthony McGill & Gabriela Montero at the Obama Inauguration
www.InauguralTickets.cn God Bless this Country & Let this classical piece exemplify Hope & Prosperity for this Great Land, The United States of America! Thank You Mr. President!
Anthony McGill -- raised in the Chatham neighborhood and, at age 29, principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra -- will appear as part of a quartet that includes cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Gabriela Montero. They will play a short piece written for the ceremony by John Williams, composer of dozens of film scores ranging from "E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial" to "Star Wars."' (The inauguration's musical lineup also includes Aretha Franklin, the U.S. Army Marine Band, children's choruses from San Francisco and a contingent from the U.S. Navy Band.)
McGill has been a standout musician since his days as a grade-schooler studying clarinet on Saturdays and after school at the Merit School of Music in the South Loop. But when Yo-Yo Ma's office called in mid-December about appearing with him at an upcoming concert, McGill had no idea it would mean a spot on the Obama inauguration program.
"The first call came out of the blue,'' said McGill, who performed Olivier Messiaen's demanding "Quartet for the End of Time" with Ma several years ago as a young clarinetist touring Europe with a chamber ensemble led by the distinguished pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the Brentano String Quartet. McGill was happy to perform with Ma again, but "when Yo-Yo's manager called back and told me what the concert would be,'' he said, "at first I thought it was a joke.''
"He was extremely excited," said his father, Demarre McGill Sr., recalling his son's phone call relaying the news. "He asked me if I was sitting down."
When Anthony and his older brother, Demarre McGill Jr., were little boys starting music lessons at the Merit School, nobody in the family expected them to become professional musicians.
"Our goal was to expose them to as much artistic endeavor and culture as possible,'' said McGill, "just to keep them busy along with their school work. We didn't want them to [get involved] with all kinds of things that are out there on the street in Chicago. We had them in everything -- tennis, tae kwon do, swimming, basketball, visual arts, music. And lo and behold, they really had an affinity for music. They sort of chose music themselves.''
Today, Demarre McGill Jr. is principal flute with the San Diego Symphony, a position he also held with the Florida Philharmonic and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. Before joining the Met in 2004, Anthony was associate principal clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Both studied at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and both have won highly coveted Avery Fisher Career Grants.
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Perlman was born in Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel, where he first became interested in the violin when he heard a classical music performance on the radio. He studied at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv before moving to the United States to study at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963 and won the prestigious Leventritt Competition in 1964. Soon afterward he began to tour extensively. In addition to an extensive recording career, he has made occasional guest appearances on American television, starting in the 1970s on shows such as The Tonight Show and Sesame Street, as well as playing at a number of functions at the White House.
Perlman contracted polio at the age of four. He made a good recovery, learning to walk with the use of crutches. Today, he generally uses crutches or an Amigo POV/Scooter for mobility and plays the violin while seated.
Although he has never been billed or marketed as a singer, he sang the role of "Un carceriere" ("a jailer") on a 1981 EMI recording of Puccini's Tosca which featured Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, and Renato Bruson, with James Levine conducting. He had earlier sung the role in an excerpt from the opera on a 1980 Pension Fund Benefit Concert telecast as part of the Live from Lincoln Center series, with Luciano Pavarotti as Cavaradossi, and Zubin Mehta conducting the New York Philharmonic. Perlman is a basso.
In 1987, he joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for their concerts in Warsaw and Budapest, as well as other Eastern bloc countries. He toured with the IPO in the spring of 1990 for their first-ever performance in the USSR, with concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, and toured with the IPO again in 1994, performing in China and India.
While primarily a solo artist, Perlman has performed with a number of other notable musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman and Yuri Temirkanov at the 150th anniversary celebration of Tchaikovsky in Leningrad in December 1990. He has also performed (and recorded) with good friend and fellow Israeli violinist Pinchas Zukerman on numerous occasions over the years.
As well as playing and recording the classical music for which he is best known, Perlman has also played jazz, including an album made with jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and klezmer. Perlman has been a soloist for a number of movie scores, notably the score of the 1993 film Schindler's List by John Williams, which subsequently won an Academy Award for best score. More recently, he was the violin soloist for the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha, along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Perlman played selections from the musical scores of the movies nominated for "Best Original Score" at the 73rd Academy Awards with Yo-Yo Ma, and at the 78th Academy Awards.
Perlman plays on the antique Soil Stradivarius violin of 1714, considered to be one of the finest violins made during Stradivari's "golden period", as well as the Sauret Guarneri del Gesu of c.1743.
In recent years, Perlman has also begun to conduct, taking the post of principal guest conductor at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He served as music advisor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2002-2004. In November, 2007, the Westchester Philharmonic announced the appointment of Perlman as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. He debuted as the orchestra's leader on October 11, 2008, conducting an all-Beethoven program featuring pianist Leon Fleisher performing the Emperor Concerto.
Perlman also teaches, and in 1975 took a faculty post at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College. In 2003, Mr. Perlman was named the holder of the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Chair in Violin Studies at the Juilliard School, succeeding his teacher, Dorothy DeLay.
Perlman played during the entertainment at the state dinner attended by Queen Elizabeth II on May 7, 2007, in the East Room at the White House.[1]
He performed at the 2009 Inauguration Ceremony for Barack Obama along with Yo-Yo Ma (Cello), Gabriela Montero (Piano) and Anthony McGill (Clarinet).
Itzhak Perlman resides in New York City with his wife, Toby, also a classically trained violinist. They have five children, Noah, Navah, Leora, Rami (of the rock band, Something for Rockets) and Ariella. In 1995, the Perlmans founded the Perlman Music Program in Shelter Island, New York, offering gifted young string players a summer residential course in chamber music.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris to Chinese parents and had a musical upbringing. His mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a professor of music. His family moved to New York when he was four years old.
At a very young age, Ma began studying violin, and later viola, before taking up the cello in 1960 at age four. The child prodigy began performing before audiences at age five, and performed for President John F. Kennedy when he was seven.[2] At age eight, he appeared on American television in a concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. By fifteen years of age, Ma had graduated from Trinity School in New York and appeared as a soloist with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra in a performance of the Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations.
Ma studied at the Juilliard School of Music with Leonard Rose, and attended Columbia University, before enrolling at Harvard University, but began questioning whether he should continue his studies until, in the 1970s, Pablo Casals's performances inspired him.[citation needed]
However, even before that time he had steadily gained fame and had performed with most of the world's major orchestras. His recordings and performances of the Johann Sebastian Bach: Cello Suites recorded in 1983 and again in 1994-1997 are particularly acclaimed. He has also played a good deal of chamber music, often with the pianist Emanuel Ax with whom he has a close friendship back from their days together at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1976.[3] In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard.[4]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gabriela Montero's visionary interpretations and unique improvisational gifts have won her a quickly expanding audience and devoted following around the world. Born in Caracas Venezuela, Gabriela gave her first public performance at the age of five. Aged eight she made her concerto debut with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra conducted by Jose Antonio Abreu and was granted a scholarship from the Venezuelan Government to study in the USA.
From her first contact with a piano, Gabriela has always improvised and she decided to make it public at the behest of Martha Argerich who told her not to be afraid whether people would find it improper or not.
In both recital and after performing a concerto, Gabriela often invites her audience to participate in asking for a melody for improvisations. They ask for themes from a Mozart Symphony to Star Wars and at times, even the orchestra have a chance to suggest a theme if they so wish. "When improvising," Gabriela says, "I connect to my audience in a completely unique way - and they connect with me. Because improvisation is such a huge part of who I am, it is the most natural and spontaneous way I can express myself. I have been improvising since my hands first touched the keyboard, but for many years I kept this aspect of my playing secret. Then Martha Argerich overheard me improvising one day and was ecstatic. In fact, it was Martha who persuaded me that it was possible to combine my career as a serious 'classical' artist with the side of me that is rather unique."
Gabriela's engagements include her acclaimed performances with the New York Philharmonic debut with Lorin Maazel, LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, Rotterdam Philharmonic and with the UBS Verbier Chamber Orchestra at the Tuscan Sun Festival with Antonio Pappano and in recital at the Edinburgh Festival, Verbier Festival, Wigmore Hall, Klavier Festival Ruhr, Koln Philharmonie, Tonhalle Dusseldorf, Istanbul International Festival, Kennedy Centre Washington DC, National Arts Centre Ottawa, Orchard Hall Tokyo and at the 'Progetto Martha Argerich' Festival in Lugano where she is invited annually.
Anthony McGill -- raised in the Chatham neighborhood and, at age 29, principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra -- will appear as part of a quartet that includes cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Gabriela Montero. They will play a short piece written for the ceremony by John Williams, composer of dozens of film scores ranging from "E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial" to "Star Wars."' (The inauguration's musical lineup also includes Aretha Franklin, the U.S. Army Marine Band, children's choruses from San Francisco and a contingent from the U.S. Navy Band.)
McGill has been a standout musician since his days as a grade-schooler studying clarinet on Saturdays and after school at the Merit School of Music in the South Loop. But when Yo-Yo Ma's office called in mid-December about appearing with him at an upcoming concert, McGill had no idea it would mean a spot on the Obama inauguration program.
"The first call came out of the blue,'' said McGill, who performed Olivier Messiaen's demanding "Quartet for the End of Time" with Ma several years ago as a young clarinetist touring Europe with a chamber ensemble led by the distinguished pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the Brentano String Quartet. McGill was happy to perform with Ma again, but "when Yo-Yo's manager called back and told me what the concert would be,'' he said, "at first I thought it was a joke.''
"He was extremely excited," said his father, Demarre McGill Sr., recalling his son's phone call relaying the news. "He asked me if I was sitting down."
When Anthony and his older brother, Demarre McGill Jr., were little boys starting music lessons at the Merit School, nobody in the family expected them to become professional musicians.
"Our goal was to expose them to as much artistic endeavor and culture as possible,'' said McGill, "just to keep them busy along with their school work. We didn't want them to [get involved] with all kinds of things that are out there on the street in Chicago. We had them in everything -- tennis, tae kwon do, swimming, basketball, visual arts, music. And lo and behold, they really had an affinity for music. They sort of chose music themselves.''
Today, Demarre McGill Jr. is principal flute with the San Diego Symphony, a position he also held with the Florida Philharmonic and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. Before joining the Met in 2004, Anthony was associate principal clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Both studied at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and both have won highly coveted Avery Fisher Career Grants.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perlman was born in Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel, where he first became interested in the violin when he heard a classical music performance on the radio. He studied at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv before moving to the United States to study at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963 and won the prestigious Leventritt Competition in 1964. Soon afterward he began to tour extensively. In addition to an extensive recording career, he has made occasional guest appearances on American television, starting in the 1970s on shows such as The Tonight Show and Sesame Street, as well as playing at a number of functions at the White House.
Perlman contracted polio at the age of four. He made a good recovery, learning to walk with the use of crutches. Today, he generally uses crutches or an Amigo POV/Scooter for mobility and plays the violin while seated.
Although he has never been billed or marketed as a singer, he sang the role of "Un carceriere" ("a jailer") on a 1981 EMI recording of Puccini's Tosca which featured Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, and Renato Bruson, with James Levine conducting. He had earlier sung the role in an excerpt from the opera on a 1980 Pension Fund Benefit Concert telecast as part of the Live from Lincoln Center series, with Luciano Pavarotti as Cavaradossi, and Zubin Mehta conducting the New York Philharmonic. Perlman is a basso.
In 1987, he joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for their concerts in Warsaw and Budapest, as well as other Eastern bloc countries. He toured with the IPO in the spring of 1990 for their first-ever performance in the USSR, with concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, and toured with the IPO again in 1994, performing in China and India.
While primarily a solo artist, Perlman has performed with a number of other notable musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman and Yuri Temirkanov at the 150th anniversary celebration of Tchaikovsky in Leningrad in December 1990. He has also performed (and recorded) with good friend and fellow Israeli violinist Pinchas Zukerman on numerous occasions over the years.
As well as playing and recording the classical music for which he is best known, Perlman has also played jazz, including an album made with jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and klezmer. Perlman has been a soloist for a number of movie scores, notably the score of the 1993 film Schindler's List by John Williams, which subsequently won an Academy Award for best score. More recently, he was the violin soloist for the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha, along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Perlman played selections from the musical scores of the movies nominated for "Best Original Score" at the 73rd Academy Awards with Yo-Yo Ma, and at the 78th Academy Awards.
Perlman plays on the antique Soil Stradivarius violin of 1714, considered to be one of the finest violins made during Stradivari's "golden period", as well as the Sauret Guarneri del Gesu of c.1743.
In recent years, Perlman has also begun to conduct, taking the post of principal guest conductor at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He served as music advisor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2002-2004. In November, 2007, the Westchester Philharmonic announced the appointment of Perlman as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. He debuted as the orchestra's leader on October 11, 2008, conducting an all-Beethoven program featuring pianist Leon Fleisher performing the Emperor Concerto.
Perlman also teaches, and in 1975 took a faculty post at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College. In 2003, Mr. Perlman was named the holder of the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Chair in Violin Studies at the Juilliard School, succeeding his teacher, Dorothy DeLay.
Perlman played during the entertainment at the state dinner attended by Queen Elizabeth II on May 7, 2007, in the East Room at the White House.[1]
He performed at the 2009 Inauguration Ceremony for Barack Obama along with Yo-Yo Ma (Cello), Gabriela Montero (Piano) and Anthony McGill (Clarinet).
Itzhak Perlman resides in New York City with his wife, Toby, also a classically trained violinist. They have five children, Noah, Navah, Leora, Rami (of the rock band, Something for Rockets) and Ariella. In 1995, the Perlmans founded the Perlman Music Program in Shelter Island, New York, offering gifted young string players a summer residential course in chamber music.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris to Chinese parents and had a musical upbringing. His mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a professor of music. His family moved to New York when he was four years old.
At a very young age, Ma began studying violin, and later viola, before taking up the cello in 1960 at age four. The child prodigy began performing before audiences at age five, and performed for President John F. Kennedy when he was seven.[2] At age eight, he appeared on American television in a concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. By fifteen years of age, Ma had graduated from Trinity School in New York and appeared as a soloist with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra in a performance of the Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations.
Ma studied at the Juilliard School of Music with Leonard Rose, and attended Columbia University, before enrolling at Harvard University, but began questioning whether he should continue his studies until, in the 1970s, Pablo Casals's performances inspired him.[citation needed]
However, even before that time he had steadily gained fame and had performed with most of the world's major orchestras. His recordings and performances of the Johann Sebastian Bach: Cello Suites recorded in 1983 and again in 1994-1997 are particularly acclaimed. He has also played a good deal of chamber music, often with the pianist Emanuel Ax with whom he has a close friendship back from their days together at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1976.[3] In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard.[4]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gabriela Montero's visionary interpretations and unique improvisational gifts have won her a quickly expanding audience and devoted following around the world. Born in Caracas Venezuela, Gabriela gave her first public performance at the age of five. Aged eight she made her concerto debut with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra conducted by Jose Antonio Abreu and was granted a scholarship from the Venezuelan Government to study in the USA.
From her first contact with a piano, Gabriela has always improvised and she decided to make it public at the behest of Martha Argerich who told her not to be afraid whether people would find it improper or not.
In both recital and after performing a concerto, Gabriela often invites her audience to participate in asking for a melody for improvisations. They ask for themes from a Mozart Symphony to Star Wars and at times, even the orchestra have a chance to suggest a theme if they so wish. "When improvising," Gabriela says, "I connect to my audience in a completely unique way - and they connect with me. Because improvisation is such a huge part of who I am, it is the most natural and spontaneous way I can express myself. I have been improvising since my hands first touched the keyboard, but for many years I kept this aspect of my playing secret. Then Martha Argerich overheard me improvising one day and was ecstatic. In fact, it was Martha who persuaded me that it was possible to combine my career as a serious 'classical' artist with the side of me that is rather unique."
Gabriela's engagements include her acclaimed performances with the New York Philharmonic debut with Lorin Maazel, LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, Rotterdam Philharmonic and with the UBS Verbier Chamber Orchestra at the Tuscan Sun Festival with Antonio Pappano and in recital at the Edinburgh Festival, Verbier Festival, Wigmore Hall, Klavier Festival Ruhr, Koln Philharmonie, Tonhalle Dusseldorf, Istanbul International Festival, Kennedy Centre Washington DC, National Arts Centre Ottawa, Orchard Hall Tokyo and at the 'Progetto Martha Argerich' Festival in Lugano where she is invited annually.
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