Jeffrey Tate, conductor; Francesco Tristano, piano; Daniel Landau, filmmaker.
PROGRAM: Messiaen Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars) (1971-74).
The University Musical Society (UMS) presents the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Messiaen’s From the Canyons to the Stars, featuring an original art film by contemporary artist Daniel Landau on Sunday, January 29, at 4 p.m. in Ann Arbor’s Hill Auditorium (825 North University Avenue). The young, innovative pianist Francesco Tristano (age 29) joins the orchestra for this performance.
Composed by Olivier Messiaen in 1971, From the Canyons to the Stars was originally commissioned by Alice Tully, the New York philanthropist most widely known for her contribution to Lincoln Center, in commemoration of America’s bicentennial. What struck Messiaen most about the United States was his sonic impressions of our nation’s last untouched frontier: the American West.
Jeffrey Tate and the Hamburg Symphony, in collaboration with Israeli artist and filmmaker Daniel Landau, bring Messiaen’s fascination with the natural world alive with a new cinematic installation. In Landau’s film, images of man’s impact on the environment create a counterpoint to sounds of untouched nature. The film will unfold on three large screens upstage of the orchestra, creating a truly unique multi-sensory experience.
The Hamburg Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1957. The first principal conductor of the Orchestra was Robert Heger; Jeffrey Tate has served as the orchestra’s chief conductor since 2008.
The Hamburg Symphony Orchestra has worked with conductors such as Charles Mackerras, Christian Thielemann, Peter Ruzicka, Horst Stein, Ralf Weikert, and Sebastian Weigle. Some of the world’s finest soloists, such as Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Edita Gruberova, Placido Domingo, and Grace Bumbry, have made guest appearances with the orchestra in recent years.
The Hamburg Symphony regularly plays some 20 operas and ballets each season at the Hamburg State Opera House. The Orchestra has gained a sound international reputation on numerous tours to countries including Great Britain, Italy, France, Spain, Scandinavia, Poland, and Turkey. Recordings with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra have appeared on Dabringshaus und Grimm, edel classics and Deutsche Grammophon (Deutscher Schallplattenpreis ECHO Klassik).
Dr. Jeffrey Tate originally studied medicine at the University of Cambridge and practiced for three years as an eye surgeon in London before he started his professional artistic career by joining the music staff at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1970. He assisted Sir Georg Solti in London, Sir John Pritchard in Cologne, Pierre Boulez for the centenary Ring at the Bayreuth Festival, and Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg. After his conducting debut with Carmen at Gothenburg Opera in 1978, he rapidly rose to international fame. Maestro Tate has since worked with every major orchestra in the world. He has maintained lasting musical partnerships with some of the finest musicians of our time with an impressive discography. He regularly conducts in the world's leading opera houses and festivals. He is one of the world’s preeminent conductors of the music of Wagner and Strauss, core classical and romantic repertoire, British music of the late 19th and 20th centuries, and classical modern and contemporary music.
Tate's international conducting début was with the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1979. Six years later, he was appointed the first principal conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra. He was named to the position of principal conductor of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in September 1986, the first person in the House's history to have that title, and also served as principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 1991-1995. In 2005, he was appointed music director of the San Carlo Theatre of Naples. Dr. Jeffrey Tate has been the chief conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra since 2008.
Jeffrey Tate was born with spina bifida, which makes his extraordinarily successful career even more astounding. As he himself has commented in interview, “If people had told me that I would have the stamina to conduct Ring cycles, I would have been amazed... I still am.” Tate has been president of UK Spina Bifida charity ASBAH since 1989.
At 29, Francesco Tristano is a young musician and composer who is causing a stir in both the club scene and classical concert venues. When he and his trio, Aufgang, began to play techno from sheets, his puzzled audience shuffled in their seats. Experienced concert audiences and classical music lovers may feel equally baffled when they hear a pianist blend and mix his own composition – just like a DJ – into a piece by Frescobaldi. Tristano discovered the piano at the age of five. Aged 13, he played his first concert, presenting his own compositions. He later toured both as a soloist and with renowned orchestras, such as the Russian National Orchestra, the French National Orchestra of Lille, and the Philharmonie Luxembourg. Tristano founded the chamber ensemble The New Bach Players, with whom he has also performed as a conductor. This ensemble consciously breaks with conventions, using a Steinway grand piano and old, vibratoless bows on contemporary string instruments.
Tristano is one of the last students at New York’s Juilliard School to complete Bach legend Rosalyn Tureck’s master class. He studied at the music academies in Brussels, Riga, Paris, and Luxembourg, as well as the esmuc in Barcelona. In 2004, he won the first prize at the international piano competition for contemporary music in Orléans, France. Tristano has released 12 albums, among them recordings of Bach Goldberg Variations and complete keyboard concertos, Luciano Berio complete piano works, and Girolamo Frescobaldi Toccatas. Not for Piano (2007) presented his own compositions as well as versions of techno classics at the piano. Idiosynkrasia, his third album on the label inFiné, recorded at Carl Craig’s Planet E-communications in Detroit, was released to critical acclaim in 2010. More recently, Tristano has signed with Universal Classics & Jazz. His first project, bachCage, produced by Moritz von Oswald, was released on Deutsche Grammophon in March 2011.
Daniel Landau is a contemporary artist/filmmaker currently living and working in Tel Aviv. He spends his time producing and developing performance and film work, teaching and co-raising two children with his wife Michal O. Landau. Daniel completed his second degree in music composition and new media at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague. He lived and worked for more than a decade in Amsterdam, where he co-founded the art collective BZAZ-Foundation. In this period he produced several full-length music-theater performances receiving critical acclaim from both public and media.
Using diverse media in his film and performance work, Landau explores the convergence of documentary and fiction and their interchangeable qualities.
His work has been performed by major ensembles and orchestras, including The New Ensemble, The Netherlands Philharmonic, Orkest De Volharding, Percussion Group Den Haag and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. He has performed in major festivals and venues worldwide, including the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Paradiso, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Opéra National de Paris, the Festival Centro Historico in Mexico City, Sitges International Film Festival in Spain, the Bath International Music Festival in England, and the Bartók Festival in Hungary.
Get the Ann Arbor RSS Feed
AnnArbor.com