PYP News
AMY BEACH and THE “GAELIC” SYMPHONY (Part 4 of 9)
Posted on October 6, 2019
Maud Powell, from the cover of the biography by Karen Shaffer, and Amy Beach, around 1914, courtesy Library of Congress; with a handwritten dedication to Maud Powell.
PYP performed Amy Beach‘s Gaelic Symphony on Saturday, November 9, 2019, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Click here to watch our performance.
Amy and her contemporaries part 1
As Beach’s rebuttal to Dvorak’s “ladies” comment attests, Amy Beach... Read More ›
AMY BEACH and THE “GAELIC” SYMPHONY (Part 5 of 9)
Posted on October 5, 2019
Florence Price, Mary V. Dodge
PYP performed Amy Beach‘s Gaelic Symphony on Saturday, November 9, 2019, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Click here to watch our performance.
Amy and her contemporaries part 2
Florence Price (her maiden name was Smith) was born twenty very significant years later, in a then-racially integrated community in Little Rock, Arkansas, the same one where William Grant Still grew... Read More ›
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 ›
AUERBACH & MARTINŮ OBOE SOLOIST MAX BLAIR
Posted on April 8, 2019
PYP alumnus (2008) Max Blair, now Associate Principal Oboe with the Pittsburgh Symphony, returns to Portland to perform Bohuslav Martinů’s beautiful Oboe Concerto with PYP on Sunday, May 5, 2019, in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
Max’s appearance is sponsored by PYP alumna (1943) Vlasta Becvar Barber.
Max Blair joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Oboe in 2016. He has... Read More ›
Jeremiah Symphony Vocal Soloist Laura Beckel Thoreson
Posted on February 13, 2019
On Saturday, March 2, 2019, at 7:30 PM, PYP will perform Leonard Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony, sung in Hebrew by mezzo-soprano soloist Laura Beckel Thoreson.
Praised for her warm, rich tone quality, sensitive musicality, and compelling stage presence, mezzo-soprano Laura Beckel Thoreson is a rising presence in the opera and concert world.
Equally at home in the opera house, on the... Read More ›