DAVID HATTNER’S FEBRUARY PLAYLIST

Posted on February 4, 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.

Here are some old favorite performances I have enjoyed.

Vladimir Horowitz was unique among the pianists of his era. Even during his career, his playing was a throwback to another era. He was never better than in... Read More ›

MEET KIRA WANG, WINNER OF THE 2018-19 PYP CONCERTO COMPETITION

Posted on February 1, 2019

Kira Wang is the winner of the 2018-2019 PYP Concerto Competition. She will perform Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo with PYP on Saturday, March 2, 2019, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

Kira Wang is a 14-year-old freshman at Catlin Gabel.  She began playing cello at the age of four, and has been studying with Dr. Valdine Mishkin for the past 9 years, with recent... Read More ›

Avshalomov/Bernstein 1: Introduction

Posted on January 28, 2019

Bernstein: 1918-1990

Avshalomov: 1919-2013

Leonard Bernstein and Jacob Avshalomov: one shot like a rocket into the international classical music stratosphere; the other wound his way through the world and built his reputation year by year.  A year apart in age, both were part of the legendary post-WWII mid-twentieth-century American composers’ “circuit,” as Avshalomov put it.  Both their similarities and their differences informed their different... Read More ›

Avshalomov/Bernstein 2: Bernstein’s early years

Posted on January 28, 2019

As a young man, Leonard Bernstein’s Orthodox Jewish father emigrated from a shtetl in the Ukrainian area of the “Pale of Settlement”, where the Imperial Russian government allowed Jews to live, to New York and eventually to Lawrence, Massachusetts.  Leonard grew up in a tightly disciplined, observant Jewish family with two siblings, was drawn to piano before he could walk, and... Read More ›

Avshalomov/Bernstein 3: Avshalomov’s early years

Posted on January 28, 2019

Avshalomov’s path, in contrast, was much more circuitous, as illustrated by the title and preface of his perfectly-named intergenerational autobiography, Avshalomovs’ Winding Way:

“This is a tale essentially about my Father, Aaron, and myself—in and out of China, in and out of music.  It shows what we had to do to survive while pursuing creative aims and clinging to our ideals.  Although we were... Read More ›

Avshalomov/Bernstein 4: Avshalomov’s early years part 2

Posted on January 28, 2019

original oil portrait of Jacob Avshalomov at Reed, artist unknown; courtesy Doris Avshalomov

With the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, however, Jacob and his mother decided to return to the US for good.  Jacob’s father would have decades of trouble getting a visa because he was a native Russian, not an American citizen, as Jacob’s mother was, and she lodged testimony against him... Read More ›