SEASON 95 GRADUATING SENIORS

Posted on June 14, 2019

Thanks to all of you for your commitment to PYP. We wish you the best on all of your adventures ahead, and hope you will keep in touch with us!

Special thanks to the seniors who shared their plans for next year.

Sydney Thomas, viola in PYP’s Conservatory Orchestra

Sydney will attend Portland State University to... Read More ›

DAVID HATTNER’S MAY PLAYLIST

Posted on May 3, 2019

PYP Musical Director David Hattner shares what’s currently on his playlist. Revamp your own playlist with selections from our PYP Playlist on his Twitter every #MusicMonday.

This month, I would like to present some recordings by Leopold Stokowski, one of the most fascinating of all great conductors. Perhaps no other musician has had as much pure conducting talent as Leopold Stokowski. Everywhere... 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 ›

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 ›