Mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin has been blind since birth. However, this hasn’t stopped her from becoming not only a successful singer, but an author and arts administrator. In this segment, Laurie talks with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of http://notedendeavors.com about the birth of Ohana Arts, an organization Laurie started with her wife, Jenny Taira. It’s a great story. Watch for Laurie’s other segments, too – she’s such an inspiration!
In this wide-ranging interview, Mohammed Fairouz talks with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors about various issues facing musicians, the state of the world, and the aesthetics of being a successful composer. Thanks to Carnegie Hall for hosting!
Mohammed Fairouz, born in 1985, is one of the most frequently performed, commissioned, and recorded composers working today. By his early teens, the Arab-American composer had journeyed across five continents, immersing himself in new sounds and experiences. His catalog encompasses virtually every genre, including opera, symphonies, vocal and choral settings, chamber and solo works. His voice as a composer is personal, filled with imagination and surprises.
You’re just out of school – what do you do now? Super-commissioner, violist, and radio host Nadia Sirota offers her advice for what young, aspiring musicians should be doing for a healthy career (and for one’s sanity).
“A one-woman contemporary-classical commissioning machine” (Pitchfork), violist Nadia Sirota is best known for her singular sound and expressive execution, coaxing works and collaborations from the likes of Nico Muhly, Daníel Bjarnason, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Judd Greenstein, Marcos Balter, and Missy Mazzoli. Her debut album First Things First (New Amsterdam Records) was named a record of the year by The New York Times, and her follow-up Baroque (Bedroom Community and New Amsterdam) has been called “beautiful music of a higher order than anything else you will hear this year” by SPINMedia website PopMatters.
As the found of a successful record label (Oxingale), cellist Matt Haimovitz is intimately familiar with the problems posed by streaming music services. In this segment with Noted Endeavors founders, Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson, Matt posits that music should NOT be free as it degrades cultural appreciation. Music and art should be valued as much as “putting food on the table.”
Haimovitz made his debut in 1984, at the age of 13, as soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. At 17 he made his first recording with James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for Deutsche Grammophon. Haimovitz has since gone on to perform on the world’s most esteemed stages, with such orchestras and conductors as the Berlin Philharmonic with Levine, the New York Philharmonic with Mehta, the English Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim, the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra with Kent Nagano. Haimovitz made his Carnegie Hall debut when he substituted for his teacher, the legendary Leonard Rose, in Schubert’s String Quintet in C, alongside Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz, Pinchas Zukerman and Mstislav Rostropovich.
In 2000, he made waves with his Bach “Listening-Room” Tour, for which, to great acclaim, Haimovitz took Bach’s beloved cello suites out of the concert hall and into clubs across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Haimovitz’s 50-state Anthem tour in 2003 celebrated living American composers, and featured his own arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner.” He was the first classical artist to play at New York’s infamous CBGB club, in a performance filmed by ABC News for “Nightline UpClose.” Soon thereafter, Haimovitz launched Oxingale Records with his wife, composer Luna Pearl Woolf. Oxingale records have since received wide acclaim for its stunning recordings.
As Founder and Artistic Director of the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival, Linda Chesis is always on the lookout for artists to book for the festival. She talks with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors about what she looks for when deciding which musicians to book, while also suggesting what musicians can do to make themselves more appealing for booking.
