Arnold Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw from BU School of Music on Vimeo.

I am pleased to announce the launch of our newest web initiative, BU’s Virtual Concert Hall.

We have decided to coincide the launch with the release of the video production of our most recent concert at Symphony Hall, which featured a great pre-concert talk by STH/SOM faculty member Andrew Shenton, Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw conducted by David Hoose and narrated by Frank Kelley, as well as Verdi’s Messa da Requiem which was conducted by Ann Howard Jones and featured our renowned alumni soloists Michelle Johnson, soprano, Daveda Karanas, mezzo-soprano, Clay Hilley, tenor, and Morris Robinson, bass.

As new projects come up, they will be featured in this area, and projects will be continually archived under the Concert Archive section.

The concert was recorded in 5.1 surround sound and full HD video.

Giacomo Puccini 1858-1924. Wikimedia Image.

This morning, I attended a symposium sponsored by the College of Fine Arts and the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center on the centenary of the world premiere of Puccini’s opera, La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West). CFA Professor Deborah Burton joined scholars from other institutions in speaking on the composer and the opera.

Walfredo Toscanini, grandson of Arturo Toscanini, was in attendance.  Toscanini and Puccini were collaborators and sometime rivals.

The Gotlieb Center will place original manuscripts, photographs, and scores on exhibit beginning today.

I look forward to seeing La Fanciulla del West later this week in New York at The Metropolitan Opera.

Puccini Centenary Celebration website

College of Fine Arts Freshman Piano student Leon Bernsdorf at the Liszt Competition

The Central Music School in Moscow of the famous Tchaikovsky Conservatory held their Second International Liszt Piano Competition this past week.  The School, founded in 1935 is recognized as a leading institution for musically gifted children. Many outstanding artists like Mstislav Rostropovich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Natalia Gutman, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and many more studied there.

Under the remarkable leadership of Alexander Yakupov, the School now has new facilities, dorms, classrooms and four concert halls.  Young students from all over the world come to study here.

The competition had an outstanding artistic quality and we are very happy to report that our own Leon Bernsdorf, a student of Professor Boaz Sharon, won the Second Prize with a remarkable performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, the School’s orchestra conducted by Maestro Yakupov was extraordinary in it’s quality,  commitment and enthusiasm.  Young Russian musicians were invited to come to the BU Tanglewood Institute next year; one of them will come for the second time and is very interested in joining BU’s School of Music. More soon…

Franz Joseph Haydn

Though I was unable to attend this concert due to travel, I did attend the rehearsal.  I am therefore confident that the audience at Old South Church had a wonderful evening.  Congratulations to Professor Ann Howard Jones and all the artists who worked on this event.

Hadyn’s Paukenmasse (Mass in a Time of War) has always reminded me of my student days at the California Institute of the Arts in the 1960s.  Like a lot of American campuses at that time, protests of American involvement in  the Vietnam War were a regular occurrence there and in nearby Los Angeles.  I recall seeing Jane Fonda at one and also a man who claimed to be Carlos Castaneda at another of the protests.   It was around this time that I sang part of the Paukenmasse at a concert in Griffith Park.  I cannot confirm that either Jane Fonda or Carlos Castaneda attended that performance!

Peter Zazofsky, solo violin; David Hoose, conductor. Photograph: Michael Lutch

On The Road

By the time you read this, I will be in Russia with School of Music director, Robert Dodson and Piano department chair, Boaz Sharon.   Among other activities, we will meet with officials from the Moscow Conservatory on possible collaborations between our schools.

Even though I am 4,500 miles away, I am thinking of all of you who helped create a memorable evening at Symphony Hall in honor of Roman Totenberg.  Thank you.

According to the Boston Globe, this was the first concert to be webcast from Symphony Hall (see article link below). My wife Marisa, watched it via webcast from Mexico City and a friend watched from Paris.

If you don’t already know of the rich career and life of Roman Totenberg, who continues to inspire us, the Globe article provides fascinating details.

A Symphony Hall Tribute to Violinist Totenberg’s Century

Photograph by Kalman Zabarsky

Roman Totenberg

I hope you will join me and the entire Boston University community at Symphony Hall on Sunday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m. to honor our own Roman Totenberg in celebration of his 100th birthday and the countless contributions he has made to music.

Each time a former student raises a bow in one of the world’s concert halls, Professor Totenberg’s impact on music is felt and heard.  Please join us.

Boston University Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall
David Hoose, conductor
Peter Zazofsky, violin

Ludwig van Beethoven Prometheus Overture
Béla Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2
Edward Elgar Symphony No. 1 in A-flat
With a special tribute emceed by political commentator Cokie Roberts

Once again BU offered a full cultural menu last night.   I attended a concert and talk by tenor, Ronan Tynan, at the Tsai Center sponsored by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.  Many know of Tynan as one of the Irish Tenors but there is a lot more to this talented and hardworking artist.  He is a champion equestrian,  18-time Paralymbics Gold medalist, and a medical doctor.  Tynan is the embodyment of a happy fusion of art and science.

Boston University Baroque Orchestra

Professor Martin Pearlman. Image from Bostonbaroque.org

I then ran to Marsh Chapel to hear the Boston University Baroque Orchestra conducted by Professor Martin Pearlman, music director of the acclaimed Boston Baroque.  It was a marvelous evening.