This Week in Classical Music-November 9, 2008

November 09, 2008

Salonen
Salonen

( Phoenix )
•LA Phil launches Salonen microsite
•Early Shostakovich score heard

This week in Classical Music 11/09/08

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

The Los Angeles Philharmonic is paying tribute to outgoing music director Esa Pekka Salonen in his last season with the orchestra by launching an extensive micro site on the web. Called “Celebrate Salonen”, the site explores the conductor’s 17 years with the Orchestra, and includes Images, text, on demand audio and video components. The Site is structured around an interactive timeline featuring 90 points in Salonen’s career with the LA Philharmonic. Users can access more than 100 images, 4 hours of audio interviews, 3 hours of video and 15 hours of music. Deborah Borda, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association said, “It is part of our gift to him and to his many fans as we embark on his final season as our Music Director. Esa-Pekka has steered a blazing path to the future with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This micro site captures the history of his many accomplishments with this orchestra in a manner accessible and in-tune with today. It will be a favorite bookmark for many!” you can find it at www.celebratesalonen.com.

As one of its main events this year, the Russian Film Festival will present a screening of the 1929 silent film “New Babylon”, which features music written by a young Dmitri Shostakovich. It was the first movie that Shostakovich ever wrote music for. It is thought to be only the sixth time the movie and the full musical score will be brought together. The Premiere of the film was a disaster, as the Soviet Censors slashed whole scenes from the movie, but no one told Shostakovich, whose 88-minute score no longer made any sense; that’s one explanation for the neglect of this Shostakovich score; another is that the directors found the Composer’s radical music Didn’t match the original director’s artistic vision. The SBS Youth Orchestra will play the score along with the movie. Conductor Krel calls the music “Very Difficult Technically” and says he admires Shostakovich’s skill in infusing pastiche and politics into the music. The music will be played along with the film today at 4 pm Russian time.

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website kbaq.org; be listening each week at this time for another update, and join me every weekday at noon for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel, for this week in Classical music, on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, A service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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