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Violin Concerto (Barber)
Samuel Barber completed his Violin Concerto, Op. 14, in 1939. It is a work in three movements, lasting about 22 minutes. History In 1939, Philadelphia industrialist Samuel Simeon Fels commissioned Barber to write a violin concerto for his ward, Iso Briselli, a graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music the same year as Barber, 1934. The Barber biographies written by Nathan Broder (1954) and Barbara B. Heyman (1992) discuss the genesis of the concerto during the period of its commission and the subsequent year leading up to the first performance. Heyman interviewed Briselli and others familiar with the history in her publication. In late 2010, previously unpublished letters written by Fels, Barber, and Albert Meiff (Briselli's violin coach in that period) from the Samuel Simeon Fels Papers archived at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania became available to the public. Barber accepted Fels's advance and went to Switzerland to work on the concerto. Barber started working on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor (music), conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the mid-20th century. Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of Modernism (music), musical modernism in favor of traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure embracing lyricism and emotional expression. However, he adopted elements of modernism after 1940 in some of his compositions, such as an increased use of dissonance and chromaticism in the ''Cello Concerto (Barber), Cello Concerto'' (1945) and ''Medea's Dance of Vengeance'' (1955); and the use of tonal ambiguity and a narrow use of serialism in his ''Piano Sonata (Barber), Piano Sonata'' (1949), ''Prayers of Kierkegaard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Of Music (Philadelphia)
The Academy of Music, also known as American Academy of Music, is a concert hall and opera house located at 240 S. Broad Street (Philadelphia), Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Despite its name, the Academy has never contained a music school. It is located between Locust Street, Locust and Manning Streets in the Avenue of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Avenue of the Arts area of Center City, Philadelphia, Center City. The hall was built in 1855–57 and is the oldest opera house in the United States that is still used for its original purpose. Known as the "Grand Old Lady of Locust Street," the venue is the home of the Philadelphia Ballet and Opera Philadelphia. It was also home to the Philadelphia Orchestra from its inception in 1900 until 2001, when the orchestra moved to the new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The Philadelphia Orchestra still retains ownership of the Academy, in partnership with Ensemble Arts. The hall was designated a National His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilary Hahn
Hilary Hahn (born November 27, 1979) is an American violinist. A three-time Grammy Award winner, she has performed throughout the world as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors, and as a recitalist. She is an avid supporter of contemporary classical music, and several composers have written works for her, including concerti by Edgar Meyer and Jennifer Higdon, partitas by Antón García Abril, two serenades for violin and orchestra by Einojuhani Rautavaara, and a violin and piano sonata by Lera Auerbach. Early life and education Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia, on November 27, 1979, and grew up in the Baltimore, Maryland, area. Her father, Steve Hahn, was a journalist and librarian; her paternal great-grandmother was from Bad Dürkheim in Germany. Her mother, Anne, was an accountant. A musically precocious child, Hahn began playing the violin one month before her fourth birthday in the Suzuki Program of Baltimore's Peabody Institute. She studied using the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Ehnes
James Ehnes (born January 27, 1976) is a Canadian- American concert violinist and violist. Early life Ehnes was born in Brandon, Manitoba, the son of Alan Ehnes, long time trumpet professor at Brandon University (Canada), and Barbara Withey Ehnes, former ballerina with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ruth Page's International Ballet, and Chicago Ballet, and former director of the Brandon School of Dance. Ehnes began his violin studies at the age of four and at age nine became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin. He studied with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music and from 1993 to 1997 at The Juilliard School, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music upon his graduation. James Ehnes toured with Jeunesses Musicales Canada during the 1992–1993 season, when he was only 16 years old. Career Ehnes has performed with all of the major orchestras in North America including the New York Philharmonic Orche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giora Schmidt
Giora Schmidt () is an American/Israeli violinist. Biography Giora Schmidt was born into a family of musicians in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents emigrated from Israel in 1978 and played with the Philadelphia Opera Company Orchestra. His mother, Michal Schmidt is a cellist and pianist and is on the faculty of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges and the University of Pennsylvania. His father, Dov Schmidt, is a violinist and businessman. Schmidt began his violin studies at the age of four, and by 12 was commuting between Philadelphia and New York to study with Patinka Kopec and Pinchas Zukerman at the Manhattan School of Music. Schmidt did not truly become serious until the age of 14 when he began spending summers at the Perlman Music Program in Shelter Island, NY. There he met Itzhak Perlman who invited Schmidt to study with him and the late violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard Pre-College. In between his lessons in New York, Schmidt worked intensely with violin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joshua Bell
Joshua David Bell (born December 9, 1967) is an American violinist and conductor. He is currently music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Early life and education Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, one of four children of Shirley Bell, a therapist, and Alan P. Bell, a psychologist and professor at Indiana University (IU), and former Kinsey researcher. His father was of Scottish descent and his mother was Jewish (her father was born in Mandatory Palestine and her mother was from Minsk). Bell began playing the violin at age four after his mother discovered that he had taken rubber bands from around the house and stretched them across the handles of his nine dresser drawers to pluck out music he had heard her play on the piano. His parents got a scaled-to-size violin for him when he was five and started giving him lessons. Bell took to the instrument but had an otherwise normal Indiana childhood, playing video games and excelling at sports, especially tennis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Akiko Meyers
Anne Akiko Meyers (born May 15, 1970, in San Diego) is an American violinist. She has been called “the Wonder Woman of commissioning” by The Strad. Her album ''Fandango'', was awarded two Latin GRAMMY Latin Grammy's for Best Classical Album and Best Contemporary Composition at the 25th Latin Grammy Awards in Miami. She also received two GRAMMY nominations. ''Fandango'' features the live world premiere recording of Arturo Márquez's new concerto for violin and orchestra by the same name, written for Meyers, with the L.A. Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. She was the top-selling classical instrumentalist of 2014 on Billboard's traditional classical charts. Meyers appeared on NPR's Tiny Desk on September 7, 2023. In 2024, she served as the Artistic Director for the Laguna Beach Music Festival, a multi-day series of classical and contemporary concerts, community engagement programs, and dynamic special events. Meyers was inducted into 2024 Asian Hall of Fame. Early life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonid Kogan
Leonid Borisovich Kogan (; ; 14 November 1924 – 17 December 1982) was a preeminent Soviet violinist during the 20th century. Many consider him to be among the greatest violinists of the 20th century. In particular, he is considered to have been one of the greatest representatives of the Soviet School of violin playing. Life and career Kogan was born to a Jewish family in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro), the son of a photographer. After he showed an early interest and ability for violin playing, his family moved to Moscow, where he was able to further his studies. From age ten he studied there with the noted violin pedagogue Abram Yampolsky. In 1934, Jascha Heifetz played concerts in Moscow. "I attended every one," Kogan later said, "and can remember until now every note he played. He was the ideal artist for me." When Kogan was 12, Jacques Thibaud was in Moscow and heard him play. The French virtuoso predicted a great future for Kogan. Kogan studied at the Central Music School in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elmar Oliveira
Elmar Oliveira (born June 28, 1950) is an American violinist. Early life The son of Portuguese immigrants, Elmar Oliveira was born in Naugatuck, Connecticut. Oliveira was nine when he began studying the violin with his brother John. At age 16 he appeared in a nationally-televised concert from Lincoln Center of child prodigy performers hosted by Leonard Bernstein, as part of Bernstein's Young People's Concerts series. He later studied with Ariana Bronne and Raphael Bronstein at the Hartt College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. In 1978 he won (ex aequo together with Ilya Grubert) the first prize at the Tchaikowsky Competition in Moscow. Career He was a Grammy nominee for his 1990 CD of the Barber Concerto with Leonard Slatkin and the Saint Louis Symphony. His recorded works for Artek, Angel, Sony Masterworks, Vox, Delos, IMP, Naxos, Ondine, Élan, and Melodiya range widely from works by Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary composers. His best-selling 1997 recording of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruggiero Ricci
Ruggiero Ricci (24 July 1918 – 5 August 2012) was an American violinist known for performances and recordings of the works of Paganini. Biography He was born in San Bruno, California, the son of Italian immigrants who first named him Woodrow Wilson Rich. His brother was cellist George Ricci (1923–2010), originally named George Washington Rich. His sister Emma played violin with the New York Metropolitan Opera. His father first taught him to play the violin. At age seven, Ricci studied with Louis Persinger and Elizabeth Lackey. Persinger would become his piano accompanist for many recitals and recordings. Ricci gave his first public performance in 1928 at the age of 10 in San Francisco where he played works by Wieniawski and Vieuxtemps. He gained a reputation for being a child prodigy. At the age of 11, he gave his first orchestral performance, playing the Mendelssohn concerto, and soon after he had his highly successful debut at Carnegie Hall. In the 1930s Ricci stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Kaufman
Louis Kaufman (May 10, 1905 – February 9, 1994) was an American violinist. He played on the soundtrack of as many as 500 movies and made over 100 musical recordings. He is also credited with reviving the music of Antonio Vivaldi with his recording of '' The Four Seasons'' in 1947, which won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1950, was elected to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002, and in 2003 was selected for the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. Life and career Kaufman was born in Portland, Oregon. His parents were Romanian Jews, from a remarkable beneficent culture. With the recommendation of Maud Powell and Efrem Zimbalist, he started at the age of 13 to study with Franz Kneisel in New York City at the Institute of Musical Art, now Juilliard. He played the viola with the Musical Art Quartet from 1926 to 1933. His solo recital debut at New York's Town Hall in 1928 was under the auspices of the Naumburg Award. Subsequently, he performed chamber music with Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustin Hadelich
Augustin Hadelich (born April 4, 1984) is an Italian-German-American Grammy-winning classical violinist. Early life and education Augustin Hadelich was born in Cecina, Italy, to German parents. His two older brothers were already playing cello and piano when Hadelich (age 5) began his studies on the violin with his father, an agriculturalist and amateur cellist. In his early musical development, Hadelich progressed in his studies through irregular lessons and masterclasses from violinists traveling near the Hadelich farm in rural Tuscany, including Uto Ughi, Christoph Poppen, Igor Ozim, and Norbert Brainin. Hadelich enjoyed a blossoming career as a wunderkind violinist, pianist, and composer in Germany. In 1999, Hadelich was injured in a fire on his family's farm in Italy, and was airlifted to be treated in Germany. After his recovery, Hadelich graduated summa cum laude from the Istituto Mascagni in Livorno, Italy, and successfully auditioned for admission to The Juilliard S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
