These days, when you hear news reports about the daunting challenges facing the arts and culture world, it’s typically problems of the financial sort being discussed. For the Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, who plays Middle Eastern music with his Kinan Azmeh Quartet tonight at St. Peter’s Church, it’s just one of many challenges he faces. (He wrote a song, “Airports,” as a response to his experience of international traveling with a Syrian passport.) Azmeh, born in Damascus in 1976, trained in Damascus and at Juilliard; he moves fluidly between classical, jazz, and traditional Syrian styles, and he performs frequently in the Middle East and in the West. His September 2008 performance at Merkin Hall got a rave review from Vivien Schweitzer in The New York Times. Azmeh has just come from Washington, D.C., where he was one of many artists to perform in “Arabesque,” the Kennedy Center’s three-week theater/dance/music festival celebrating Arab culture.
This week’s concert, “Music for Peace,” is part of a “Day for Peace” that includes poetry and prayers and is presented by Musicians For Harmony, Saint Peter’s Church, and Midtown Arts Common. The concert is a fundraiser for the Iraqi Student Project, which helps young Iraqi students get an education at American colleges; pianist Karam Salem, an Indiana University student sponsored by ISP, will also perform Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31, at the concert. The peace day was timed to mark the sixth anniversary of the war in Iraq. read more
Earlier this December, I took the number 1 subway up to 125th Street to catch a daytime performance by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at the Apollo Theater http://www.apollotheater.org/ for schoolchildren. The program, “What is American Music? NYC: The Great Migration and Ellis Island,” focused on twentieth-century migration to the United states, through the music of Aaron Copland (Fanfare for the Common Man), Dvorak (the “New World” Symphony), Bohuslav Martinu (“Charleston” from La Revue de Cuisine, Suite for Orchestra), William Grant Still (Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American”), Scott Joplin (“The Entertainer”), and George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue). Conductor Damon Gupton (who has also worked as an actor) led the orchestra, and the young Brooklyn pianist Simone Dinnerstein was the soloist in the Gershwin.
Also attracting notice in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was Romie de Guise-Langlois, a young clarinetist playing up a storm in the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, who came to New York a year and a half ago from her home city of Montreal to become a Fellow in The Academy, a joint program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. read more
In April, Esquire magazine did a photo spread called “Symphony in Black,” profiling some on-the-rise musicians on today’s classical scene. All were young, talented, hip. One musician I was surprised to see didn’t make it into that piece is José Franch-Ballester, a 27-year-old clarinet whiz who is a native of Moncofa, Spain. New Yorkers take note: Franch-Ballester is giving a recital (free!) on July 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University. The concert is part of the summer-long series of free events in lower Manhattan called the River to River Festival.
There’s absolutely nothing bad-boy about Franch-Ballester (pronounced FrAHnk Bai-yess-TAIR), who judging from my recent conversation with him is completely down to earth and rather endearingly modest, considering his accomplishments and talent. He only mentions in passing that at age 27 he is simultaneously on the roster of three of the most prestigious … read more
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