Enrique Diemecke, music director of the Flint Symphony Orchestra, recently received his fourth Jean Fontaine Orpheus d'Or Gold medal for his recording of Jules Massenet's opera, 'Le Jongleur de Notre Dame.' Spanish-language news agency EFE announced Diemecke's Orpheus award, an international grand prize for "best vocal music recording" by the French Academy of Lyric Recordings.
The opera - 'The Juggler of Notre Dame' was performed in 2007 with internationally renowned tenor Roberto Alagna and the Orchestra National de Montpellier in France. It was released as a CD in France by Deutsche Grammophon in the fall of 2009.
The International Grand Prize of the French Academy of Lyric Recordings was presented at the Olivier Messiaen Amphitheatre of the Bastille Opera. Diemecke spoke with EFE just minutes after accepting the award, "This prize is a very special thing; a commendation that opera and lyric experts give to the year's most outstanding recordings, and to be a nominee or to win it means a great deal to me," he said.
Diemecke's presence at the awards ceremony was serendipitous. Diemecke was on break from conducting duties with the Orchestra of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, "It was pure luck that I had the good fortune to be here," he said, speaking of UNAM's decision to suspend classes for a week in observance of May holidays. In fact, this was the first time Diemecke was present to accept one of his four Orpheus prizes.
As it happens, the recording itself seemed guided by luck. Alagna was scheduled to give a recital in Montpellier, France when "All of a sudden they got the idea to do an opera, and he chose 'The Juggler,' in which the main character is a tenor. They called me to conduct the orchestra, it was recorded live, and the CD was the result," Diemecke told EFE.
In addition to his conducting duties with the Flint Symphony Orchestra, Diemecke is also Artistic Director of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra in the Teatro Colón and the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, in Long Beach California. He is also a full professor in the Graduate School of Music of the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City.
How FSO Musican Mark Flegg Prepares for a Classical Concert
When I was first approached about being a guest blogger here at the FSO blog, several topic ideas were brought up, and I was given free reign to mull them over and decide what I wanted to write about. So, I mulled for a while, thinking of the various ideas and what I might write, but each time I gravitated to the topic of how I prepare for an upcoming FSO concert. Especially with our Planets concert coming up in less than a week, this really seemed appropriate!
The trouble with this topic is that when I sat down to start writing, the answer to the question "How do you prepare for an upcoming concert" turned out to be "I don't do much." This may come as a surprise to some of our listeners, but it really is true. Sort of. As with many things, the real answer is a bit more complicated: "I don't do much that is different than what I do every day anyway."
Over the years I have found that, for me, the single most important thing I can do to prepare for any particular performance is to maintain my general skills (what we call "technique" in the music world) on the trumpet at the highest level I can. Additionally, I need to maintain my "chop strength" and endurance. On trumpet this is of paramount importance, as one of the biggest difficulties we have is marshaling the physical strength required to get all the way through a piece and still have a good sound on loud, soft, high and low passages. Composers almost always leave the highest, loudest, most strenuous work for the trumpets until the end of the concert! To maintain and build my strength and endurance, every morning I play through a special "warm-up" routine. This routine takes me about half an hour, and mostly involves playing short passages, around 30 seconds in length, over and over again at different pitch levels. It is not exciting to play. It is not pretty to listen to. But, it gets results! It is a very rare day when I skip doing this.. I would guess no more than 10 days in a year, tops.
I typically rest for at least 45 minutes after my warm-up. Then my next practice session is all about technique. I start with scales. These are the fundamental building blocks of technique on pretty much every instrument, and I almost never miss a day of practicing them. I cycle through different types of scales each day, so if today is major scale day, then tomorrow will probably be harmonic minor scale day, and so on. After scales, I move on to "technical exercises." These are very short passages that isolate specific technical challenges of trumpet playing. Technical exercises can be very tedious to work on, so I cycle through these as well.. some days I work on articulation (how I begin and end notes), some days finger dexterity, other days lip flexibility (which is necessary for playing passages that move from high to low or low to high - a challenge to do well on the trumpet), etc.
After the technical exercises, I move on to "etudes." Etudes are pieces that are written specifically to exercise all the various technical skills in the context of real music. They are typically a page or two in length, and last around 3-8 minutes. Some are really hard, some are really beautiful, some are both. I have a large collection of etude books and try to cycle through at least one or two etudes each week.
So, you may be asking yourself by now, "does he ever practice any music?" YES!! Finally, after all my warm-ups and technical exercises and etudes, I get to work on real music! As a full-time freelance trumpeter, I have the music for 4-6 upcoming concerts in my bag at any given time, plus long-term musical projects like recitals or other solo performances. How much time any particular piece gets in the practice room varies very widely. January's FSO concert, which featured Gustav Mahler's 7th Symphony, got a large amount of practice time over several weeks. February's concert, with baritone soloist Isaac Grier, was fairly light on trumpet parts, so it got only a little time, maybe one or two days. A full solo recital will get an hour or more of my attention every day for several months.
Our upcoming concert consists of two pieces, Samuel Barber's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Gustav Holst's The Planets. Both are wonderful pieces and present some real challenges for the trumpets. Luckily for me I've performed both pieces before, so I already know them fairly well. I will probably spend 4 days or so with them in the practice room before our first rehearsal. I like to do this spaced out over a longer period, but because this is a busy time of year (I've been playing with the Ann Arbor Symphony all this week and had several other gigs before that) I have to do this one back to back over four calendar days.
In addition to practicing the music with trumpet in hand, I also listen to recordings of other orchestras performing pieces that I'm going to be performing. I spend a lot of time in the car, so much of my listening takes place while driving, but I also try to get a few sessions in where I can listen and follow along on either the trumpet part or a full score. My listening regimen for the current concert has been a little unorthodox, because one of my favorite recordings of The Planets is not the original orchestral version that we're playing. I've actually spent quite a bit of time listening to a version of the piece created by electronic musician Isao Tomita. Produced in the mid-seventies, "The Tomita Planets" is a really playful and fun take on the music done entirely electronically. I highly recommend giving it a listen if you ever have the chance. http://s0.ilike.com/play#Tomita:The+Planets%2FJupiter%2C+The+Bringer+of+Jollity%2FSaturn%2C+The+Bringer+of+Old+Age:103319900:m30427755
All this writing about practicing is reminding me that I really need to get my trumpets out and do some actual practicing!
FSO Guest Artist Ian Parker's Take on Performing Barber's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, op. 38
Wow!I will finally perform Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto.This is a piece of music I became familiar with in the mid 90’s while I was in high school in Vancouver, B.C.I found an old recording of it on a cassette tape and played it almost everyday in my car on the way to school.My friends at the time, who usually listened to rap and heavy metal, looked at me with intrigue when they heard this and wondered what this music was.It doesn’t share the same level of fame as Barber’s Adagio for Strings, but is every bit ingenious as a piece of music.I have always wanted to play this Concerto, and when I got the call last year that the Flint Symphony Orchestra invited me to celebrate Barber’s 100th birthday with his Piano Concerto, I said YES!!!
It is such and exciting Concerto.What makes it so electrifying is the syncopated rhythm and its powerfully complicated harmonies.At first it may seem a little abstract, but within no time it all starts making sense.Emotions and color explode as the first mvt. starts off with a solo-piano cadenza, which is rather unusual.Most cadenzas come later in a movement to showcase the soloist, but his this case, Barber wrote two—one to start, and an even more epic one in the middle.The music is melancholic, at times playful, and very powerful.The second movement, features some of the most beautiful melody writing, and rich but delicate layers of sound and harmonies throughout.The feel overall is melancholic but still gives off an incredible beauty.In the final movement, Barber takes rhythm to a whole new level!It is so much fun to feel these syncopations and accents, but they must come from the gut!One cannot think these rhythms.This is the most playful movement and displays amazing interplay with piano and orchestra.While I was practicing the middle section of the final movement, a colleague of mine said to me, “that sounds like 1970’s computer/robot music!”
Barber cleverly features all the instruments in the orchestra, featuring melodic and playful solos, which basically makes this a large-scale piece of chamber music.I’m sure it is most exciting for the conductor as well!
I grew up in a home full of pianos, with both parents teaching piano all day long!You can imagine how much repertoire passed through the house on a weekly basis.I can say for sure, I never heard the Barber Concerto.I probably heard Tchaikovsky’s first Concerto at least once week among other favorites.Practicing was always a funny subject in the house!Once my father told me a had to be up at 8am on a Saturday morning and practice, but I knew he would be out of the house at 6am to teach at his studio.I then decided to start practicing closer to 12 noon.When I got to the piano, I saw a sticky note on my music that said, “Ian, phone me at my studio before you start practicing...Dad.”He always knew how to check on me.
I encourage everyone to embrace this Composer’s music the same way one would interpret mid-twentieth century art.It is powerful and sometimes a little abstract, but look and listen deeper to the amazingly strong emotions that ooze from this piece of musical art.It is beautiful.It is awesome.See you in the hall…
Vocalists compete in Byrd Young Artists Competition at the FIM
A field of 28 vocalists from across the United States and Canada will compete in this year's William C. Byrd Competition Saturday, March 6 at the Flint Institute of Music. The winner will perform as a featured artist at April 16, 2011 Flint Symphony Orchestra Classical Concert.
Preliminary competition begins at 8am and runs throughout the day at the Flint Institute of Music. Five finalists will be chosen to perform at a 7:30pm concert in the MacArthur Recital Hall. The public is invited free of charge to the concert and afterglow that will follow the announcement of the winning vocalist.
In addition to the FSO concert appearance, the winner will receicve a cash award of $6,000. A second prize of $2,500 will be aawarded and the three other finalists will each receive $1,000.
The late William C. Byrd was a conductor of the Flint Symphony Orchestra with a unique devotion to the artistic growth and development of young musicians. The competition named in his honor is sponsored by the St. Cecilia Society, an association of musicians and music lovers who meet regularly, and by the Flint Institute of Music and the Flint Symphony Orchestra. The competition consists of four categories rotating annually: Voice - 2010; Piano - 2011; Strings - 2012; Winds & Brass - 2013.
Isaac Grier grew up in a musical family right here in Flint. His entire family sang in the church choir and his mother Robbie was the church organist. He recalls that his family would often spontaneously break into song, mostly gospel, at the drop of a hat. So, it’s no surprise that he was naturally drawn to a career in music.
Grier attended the Flint Summer Music Academy in 1985 and was exposed to and fell in love with the genre of classical music. He credits choral directors Carolyn Mawby and Mary Alice Stollak with influencing him and nurturing his musical abilities. As a student attending Flint Central High School, Fritz Petrich, choir director, taught him about the order in singing and how to listen to the other voices in an a cappella choir to create a more uniform, harmonious sound.
A “lightning bolt” moment occurred in 1991 when he attended the Northwestern University Summer Music Camp as he heard professional vocalists rehearsing and got a true understanding of solo classical performance. It was shortly after this that he gave up playing saxophone to devote himself full-time to singing.
After graduating from Flint Central, class of ’93, Mr. Grier went on to earn his Bachelor of Music from Xavier University and his Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music. While at Xavier, Grier performed leading roles in Amahl and the Night Visitors by Menotti and Trial by Jury by Gilbert and Sullivan. At the Manhattan School of Music, Grier was featured in numerous productions, most notably Madame Butterfly by Puccini and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten.
The opera dream role for Isaac is Frère Laurent (Friar Laurence) in Romeo et Julietteby Charles Gounod, which he performed with the dell’Arte Opera Ensemble in the summer of 2008. He loves the opera for its romantic qualities, and identifies with Laurent because the character mirrors Grier’s real life qualities; calm and gentle-hearted, with a desire to bring balance to everyday life.
Currently, Grier is a performer with the dell’Arte Opera Ensemble in New York City, where he continues to hone his craft while learning everything he can about the opera business from administration to lighting and make-up.
Grier will be fulfilling a life goal when he performs with the Flint Symphony Orchestra before his hometown audience of family, friends and eager listeners. Yes, he is a little nervous, but he knows that once he begins to sing, the anxiety will disappear, as it always does.
Isaac Grier, baritone, is the Guest Artist at the February 20 FSO Classical Concert, which is part of the Black Classical Music Family Festival, held each year as part of the Flint Institute of Music’s celebration of Black History Month.
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Enrique Diemecke, music director of the Flint Symphony Orchestra, recently received his fourth Jean Fontaine Orpheus d'Or Gold medal for his recording of Jules Massenet's opera, 'Le Jongleur de Notre Dame.' Spanish-language news agency EFE announced Diemecke's Orpheus award, an international grand prize for "best vocal music recording" by the French Academy of Lyric Recordings.
When I was first approached about being a guest blogger here at the FSO blog, several topic ideas were brought up, and I was given free reign to mull them over and decide what I wanted to write about. So, I mulled for a while, thinking of the various ideas and what I might write, but each time I gravitated to the topic of how I prepare for an upcoming FSO concert. Especially with our Planets concert coming up in less than a week, this really seemed appropriate!
C. Byrd Competition
Isaac Grier grew up in a musical family right here in Flint. His entire family sang in the church choir and his mother Robbie was the church organist. He recalls that his family would often spontaneously break into song, mostly gospel, at the drop of a hat. So, it’s no surprise that he was naturally drawn to a career in music.