Lera Auerbach Part 1: Early Years

Posted on April 22, 2019

This series of blog entries will focus on different facets of Lera Auerbach’s life and ever-expanding universe of artistic creation. 

Lera Auerbach seems just to live more than a plain everyday human.  Here are a few of the things she’s done in the past six weeks: the world premiere of a massive work for piano, choir and orchestra (including literal cracking ice as part... Read More ›

Lera Auerbach Part 2: “Chimera”—The Backstory (1)

Posted on April 19, 2019

Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash

“Chimera”:  The Backstory

Commissioned by the Dusseldorf Symphony, John Fiore conductor.  Premiered 11/10/2006.

MOVEMENTS

1. Aegri somnia (The sick man’s dream) 2. Post tenebras lux (After darkness, light) 3. Gargoyles 4. Et in Arcadia ego (I [death] am here, even in the perfect countryside) 5. Siste, viator (Halt, traveler) 6. Humum mandere (To bite the dust) 7. Requiem for Icarus

chi·me·ra /kīˈmirə,kəˈmirə/  Noun

1. (in Greek mythology) a... Read More ›

Lera Auerbach Part 3: “Chimera”—The Backstory (2)

Posted on April 17, 2019

from Lera Auerbach, “Rooforisms” (reproduced in Excess of Being).  Photo used with permission of auerbach.studio © All rights reserved.

An abundance of associative ‘connective tissue’ joins the characters of Mermaid, Chimera, and Icarus; all of them are, in different ways, more-than-natural, impossible beings.  While Chimera is a mythical mix of species, both Mermaid and Icarus try to escape the natural forms which imprison them, re-form themselves... Read More ›

Lera Auerbach Part 4: “Chimera”: The Music

Posted on April 15, 2019

According to DeStella, the symphony is “a ‘chimera’ of two different versions of The Little Mermaid: the original 3-hour version that premiered in Copenhagen, and the 2.5-hour version done in Hamburg, conducted by the late Klauspieter Seibel.  Certain parts cut to make the Hamburg version later found their way into the symphony. Seibel also conducted the US Premiere of “Chimera” in New Orleans with his... Read More ›

PROGRAM NOTES: JACQUES OFFENBACH’s Overture to ‘La Belle Hélène’

Posted on April 12, 2019

Photo from the BBC

Paris in the 1860s, the home stretch of the brief, eighteen-year Second Empire, between two bloody wars: Haussmann’s boulevards bringing light and fresh air into the city; industrial and infrastructure growth, along with the first department stores and investment banks, leading to the birth of the bourgeoisie; the everyday landscapes and still lifes of Manet and Monet shaking... Read More ›

PROGRAM NOTES: BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ‘s Concerto for Oboe

Posted on April 10, 2019

Photo from the BBC

PYP alumnus (2008) Max Blair, now Associate Principal Oboe with the Pittsburgh Symphony, returns to Portland to perform Martinů’s beautiful Oboe Concerto with PYP on Sunday, May 5, 2019, in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

Bohuslav Martinů wrote his Oboe Concerto in 1955 at the request of Czech oboist Jiri Tancibudek. Like other composers, most notably Richard Strauss, Martinů... Read More ›