Tag Archives: Unique voice

Perfection vs Feeling – Making Music in Your Own Voice

How does a musician balance a pursuit of perfection with the infusion of energy? In this segment with Noted Endeavors’ Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson, pianist Bruce Levingston talks about that balance in musicians past and present.

Bruce Levingston is a concert pianist and one of the country’s leading figures in contemporary classical music. He is known for his “extraordinary gifts as a colorist and a performer who can hold attention rapt with the softest playing” (MusicWeb International). Many of the world’s most important composers have written works for him, and his Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center world premiere performances have won notable critical acclaim. The New York Times has praised his “mastery of color and nuance” and called him one of “today’s most adventurous musicians”; the New Yorker has called him “a force for new music” and “a poetic pianist with a gift for inventive — and glamorous — programming.”

For more about Bruce, go to:
brucelevingston.com

Advice for young composers—Find your most honest, genuine, uncompromised voice

Pulitzer Prize winning composer Kevin Puts offers advice for young composers: find out who you are and do that. Tune out the noise. It’s an inspiring segment that all young composers should watch!

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his debut opera Silent Night, Kevin Puts has been hailed as one of the most important composers of his generation. Critically acclaimed for his distinctive and richly colored musical voice, Puts’ impressive body of work includes four symphonies as well as several concertos written for some of today’s top soloists. His newest work, The City (Symphony No. 5), co-commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in honor of its 100th anniversary and by Carnegie Hall in honor of their 125th anniversary, will receive its premiere in Baltimore and New York in April 2016.

For more about Kevin, go to:
kevinputs.com

Matt Haimovitz: The Birth of Alternative Performance Spaces

Matt Haimovitz is redefining what it means to be a musician in the twenty-first century. In this segment with Noted Endeavors founders, Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson, Matt tells the story of how he started the movement of classical musicians performing at alternative venues.

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.

To learn more about Matt, go to:
matthaimovitz.com

Young Composers Need a Unique Personal Voice

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.

For more about Mohammed Fairouz, go to:
MohammedFairouz.com

Thanks to Carnegie Hall for hosting the interview!