KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

10. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato returned to her hometown of Kansas City for a recital of French and Italian art songs, celebrating her birthday on the eve of Valentine’s Day with Haydn and Rossini for the Harriman-Jewell Series. Memorable moments included DiDonato’s display of full spectrum virtuosity in Haydn’s Scena di Bernice, an encore of Rossini’s “Tanti Affetti in tal momento” from La donna del Iago, and a surprise birthday cake presented by HJ Series Director Clark Morris as the audience of a thousand sang “Happy Birthday” to the world-renowned opera star. (February 2011)

9. Guest pianist Ingrid Fliter’s performance of Ravel’s Concerto in G Major showcased alternate spans of poetic lyricism and electrifying, nimble virtuosity. It was a collaborative effort for the Kansas City Symphony and the Argentine-born soloist, with Fliter attaining an incredible iridescent energy in the final moments of the first movement that guest conductor Larry Rachleff effectively transferred to the rest of the ensemble. The wind playing in the second and third movements was particularly memorable. (March 2011)

8. Dark Matter’s Orbit was the most unique show of the season, pairing the unlikely partners of science and music in celestial harmony. Live, contemporary, electroacoustic music composed by Daniel Eichenbaum and Richard Johnson and performed by clarinetist Cheryl Melfi and flutist Rebecca Ashe was paired with impressive, realistic animations of the Earth and the solar system. In between these multimedia pieces, astronomer Bob Riddle offered engaging, succinct overviews of star constellations and the hundreds of known objects in our solar system. (February 2011)

7. 25-year-old pianist Rafał Blechacz offered an airy, nuanced rendition of Mozart’s Variations in C Major, K. 264 in his appearance in the Friends of Chamber Music Master Pianists Series last season. His l’Isle joyeuse was a satisfying stream-of-consciousness take on the Debussy staple, while the International Chopin Competition prize-winner’s Ballades in G Minor and F Major were two of the most stunning Chopin Ballades one could ever hear. (February 2011)

6. Pianist Garrick Ohlsson also appeared in last season’s Master Pianists Series for Friends of Chamber Music with a recital of Chopin and Granados. I was particularly taken with Granados’ Goyescas: Los majos enamorados. If Chopin had written fandangos and boleros instead of mazurkas and polonaises one might end up these Granados selections. My favorite of the set, “Quéjas, ó la Maja y el Ruiseñor” depicted a maiden confiding her secrets to a nightingale, who remains silent for most of the movement. Towards the end, the music erupts in a flurry of activity, depicting the nightingale’s character confiding its own secrets to the maiden. (March 2011)

5. The Bach Aria Soloists’ Night of Tango was a wonderful celebration of Astor Piazzolla’s music featuring guest artists, Hector del Curto and Gustavo Casenave. In my favorite selection from the program, Casenave’s lengthy improvised piano introduction in Adios Nonino was embellished with florid arpeggios and brilliantly fast, descending chromatic scales that brought to mind Ravel and Liszt. The rest of the ensemble joined roughly five minutes in, continuing the massive piece that ran the gamut of moods, emotions, and tempi. (February 2011)

4. Pianist Natasha Paremski proved that you didn’t have to spend a fortune to see an amazing concert. In the Harriman-Jewell Series’ free Discovery Concert, the 23-year-old played Chopin and Brahms staples, but it was the Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives and Piano Sonata No. 7 and Gabriel Kahane’s Sonata written for Paremski that were the most thrilling. In the Kahane, the beautiful second movement of the eclectic singer/songwriter’s sonata brought to mind esoteric moments in Thom Yorke compositions. Prokofiev’s second “War Sonata” displayed a brilliant understanding of the human element of the piece struggling against the confines of the militaristic structures of the piece.  (March 2011)

3. André Watts’ performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto was one of the best concerti I’ve heard in a long while. The opening was supremely powerful with the repeated pedal tone reverberating rich, fortissimo overtones throughout the hall. Watts’ best attributes as a pianist were most certainly a strong, beautiful bass sound and his singing, sustained melodies. An audience of one thousand was rapt at the more delicate, introspective moments of the second movement while the climax of the third movement was especially captivating. (January 2011)

2. Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s program of all Liszt music was another highlight to the season. I was excited to hear one of my favorite Liszt pieces, Les Jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este, where depictions of the Villa d’Este’s many fountains were abound in swirling thirty-second-note arpeggios and bubbling four-note trills. In Thibaudet’s hands these gestures were delicate and pristine and I was struck by the regularity of the gossamer-like gestures. Saving arguably the biggest showpiece for last, Thibaudet dove into the Tarantella from the Venezia e Napoli set where scales and arpeggios in octaves, fourths, sixths, and even tritones were abound at both pianissimo and fortissimo volumes. The pianist offered a beautiful, obscure Liszt piece, The Tolling Bell, as one of his encores. Though many expected a nearly full program of virtuosic display, the audience seemed won over by the end of the program, appreciating Thibaudet’s offering of the profound The Tolling Bell encore as much some of the showier program pieces. (January 2011)

1. Soprano Renée Fleming’s sold-out recital performance for the Harriman-Jewell Series was definitely one of the highlights of my musical life. The opera star had prepared a sophisticated and nuanced program for her Kansas City audience. The first of four selections from Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!” (“I breathed a gentle scent!”) was a surprisingly intimate offering that defied expectations of the kind of singing one would expect to hear from one of the world’s most powerful operatic voices. I also loved the selections composed for Fleming by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau from poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. The last of the set, “Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you,” began with what sounded like a dark, deconstructed Tori Amos piano ballad. I was enamored with the sets’ stretches of beautiful, yet very fleeting melodies. The nuanced and contemplative program ended with five encores where the celebrated singer performed some of the more popular repertoire that brought her fame. (October 2010)

Top Photo: Joyce DiDonato

By Topher Levin

Classical Editor and Contributor

Christopher (Topher) Levin is a composer, pianist, music theorist, and music blogger based in Kansas City, MO. His compositions have been performed at music festivals across the US and in Europe. He has spent two summers in Paris, France studying music at the Ecole Normale de Musique through the EAMA program. His trio for clarinet, piano, and percussion is published in the SCI Journal of Scores.

Topher holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.M.) in music theory and (M.M.) in composition and from James Madison University in Virginia (B.M.) in composition. Primary composition teachers have included John S. Hilliard, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Claude Baker, Narcis Bonet, Michel Merlet, and João Pedro Oliveira. His piano teachers have included Patricia Brady and Karen Kushner. Topher maintains a piano studio of 22 students.

Having recently completed a Master's thesis on the beautiful complexities of Chinary Ung's trio, Spiral I, Topher turned his writing attention to the more informal blogging medium. He has taken to it quite well, sharing posts on strange and wonderful music and art found across the web with a modest but growing number of blog followers. He looks forward to writing for KCM and sharing with its readers the stories of all the amazing musicians performing in Kansas City.