December 9, 2007

It’s this week in classical music, an update on what’s happenning in the classical music world, I’m Randy Kinkel.

The Grammies have benn announced, and the Best classical Album Nominees are led by several American Artists and orchestras, including Charles Bruffy and the Phoenix Bach Choir, nominated for their recording of : Grechaninov, Passion Week, Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale and the Phoenix Bach Choir, (Chandos):

 Other contenders include:

Joan Tower’s “Made In America”, Leonard Slatkin, nashville Symphony (Naxos)

Lorraine Hunt Leiberson sings Peter Leiberson: Neruda Songs, James Levine, Boston Symphony orchestra, Nonesuch;

Renee Fleming, “Homage: The Age of the Diva:, Decca,

Cherubini’s Missa Solemnis in E  with The bavarian Radio Symphony orchestra and Riccardo Muti; (EMI)

Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, in addition to being nominated for a grammy this week, has also won the 2008 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. The work, a group of songs based on five love poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, was chosen for the $200,000 prize among 140 entries from around the world.

Lieberson began writing the song cycle in 2003 for his wife, the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. In 2005, she learned that she was ill with cancer. She performed it with the organizations that jointly commissioned it, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Boston Symphony, before she died in 2006. Shortly after her death, Nonesuch issued a CD of Neruda Songs, recorded from a live performance by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson with the Boston Symphony conducted by James Levine.

Each song represents a different stage of love, from first passion to the end of life, according to Marc Satterwhite, a UofL music professor who directs the award program. "The piece has beauty and surface simplicity, but great emotional depth and intellectual rigor as well," he said.

Toyota has unveliled a violin-playing robot… while no threat to Itzak Perlman, the five foot tall white robot did manage to use its mechanical fingers to press the strings and bow through a respectable (for a robot) version of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance march” during a press conference recently.   Toyota’s President Katsuaki Watanabe Said Robotics would be a core business for the company in coming Years; no word on whether Robot fiddlers and cellists will be seen anytime soon in an orchestra near you.

For more information on these and other items and events go to the website, kbaq,org, be listening every week at this time for another update, and join me at noon each weekday for the Mozart Buffet, an hour-long journey through the world of Mozart and his contemporaries; I’m Randy Kinkel for KBAQ’s This week in classical music, on 89-five all-classical KBAQ, K-B-A-Q phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.