during a perform of Bach and later dies ...
He went doing what he loved to do says wife who
witness the incident the heart attack

Conductor dies after collapsing during Bach performance

A classical music conductor collapsed Friday during a performance of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" at a concert in Colorado. He later died, officials said.

Vincent LaGuardia, 68, was the longtime conductor of the Arapahoe Philharmonic, a small classical group in Littleton, Colo.

LaGuardia collapsed about two-thirds of the way through the Bach piece, a well-known organ composition, and members of the orchestra and audience attempted to help the conductor. He was taken to a hospital, where he died Friday night. Officials said the apparent cause of death was a heart attack.

LaGuardia's wife, Tracy, is a violinist with the orchestra. She told the Associated Press that her husband "was doing what he loved. ... I looked up and he leaned into the front stand and he fell onto his nose. ... He never came to."

Friday's concert took place at Mission Hills Church in Littleton. Tracy LaGuardia told the AP that her husband had suffered a massive heart attack in 1997, also during a concert, and that he had not been feeling well the week of the concert.

The orchestra is making plans for a farewell concert.

The annals of classical music contain a
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Florence Symphony Orchestra spring concert features competition winners

FLORENCE, S.C. --

The Florence Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Dr. Terry Roberts, will perform a Spring Concert March 26, 2012 at the FMU Performing Arts Center. This concert will feature three talented young artists and winners of the FSO’s 1st Annual Youth Piano Competition: first-place winner Gabe Smallwood, second-place winner John Gibson, and third-place winner Kristy Liao.

Young artist Gabe Smallwood is a student at Wilson High School and has been studying piano for 11 years. He also has been composing for four years. In February, he performed a commissioned piece he wrote for the Carmina Burana Choral Project at Carnegie Hall.

John Gibson is a student of West Florence High School and a student of piano for 10 years. He has received an honorable mention in 2011 SCMTA State (Division 3) and is also a winner of the Junior Division of DOME Young Artists Competition.

Kristy Liao is a student of Wilson High School and has been studying piano for 10 years. She has also been an Honors Recitalist in the Florence Piano Festival and the SC Piano Festival Competition for six years running.

The Florence Symphony Orchestra will be performing Symphony No. 3 in Eb major, op 55 (Eroica) by Beethoven. The rest of the evening FSO Piano Competition winners will perform their competition winning pieces with the orchestra. Gabe Smallwood will perform Mozart’s Concerto no. 23 in A major, K 488, movt. I., then John Gibson and Kristy Liao will perform Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, opus 25, movt. I.

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Classical Music: San Francisco Symphony will debut concert version of Bernstein's 'West Side Story'

Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony plan to take their 2012-2013 Season audiences on an exhilarating musical journey beginning on Sept. 5 with a series of nine performances conducted by Semyon Bychkov, followed by an official opening gala on Sept. 19 featuring violinist Joshua Bell as soloist. Alina Pogostkina will assume the soloist slot for the repeat concerts on Sept. 20 and 23. The ensuing year's music will represent a last hurrah for the orchestra's first century of life as well as the birth pangs into its second.

A feast of commissioned new works will be served up, as well as a fascinating resuscitation of early or little-known works by some of the core "classical" composers. In addition, the orchestra will present some surprising new stagings of established works that originated in venues other than orchestral concert halls.

In this latter category, SFS will be the first orchestra to present Leonard Bernstein's complete music from his great 1957 Broadway musical, "West Side Story" in concert form during June and July in 2013. Brent Assink, the orchestra's executive director, notes that the symphony had to obtain permission from all four of the famous musical's rights-holders to make the concert happen. MTT had an inside track; he met Bernstein shortly after the musical's premiere, and Bernstein became one of his mentors. Since Bernstein's death in 1990, MTT has become a champion of his works, having
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led an acclaimed staged version of the composer's "On the Town," as well as the Bernstein Celebration Gala broadcast on PBS to open Carnegie Hall's 2008 Season.

New look at 'Peer Gynt'

Another intriguing presentation during the coming season will be a fresh concert staging of Norwegian author Henrick Ibsen's 19th-century epic play "Peer Gynt." Scheduled for January of 2013, the work will feature the highly pictorial incidental music Edvard Grieg composed for Ibsen's original, through which related compositions by English composer Robin Holloway, the Russian Alfred Schnittke, and others, will be interwoven.

A number of new works will also premiere throughout the season. Among these will be a pairing of Mahler's Symphony No. 5 with "Drift and Providence," by young Samuel Carl Adams, the son of John Adams, in late September concerts. Mid-October will bring the U.S. premiere of a special arrangement of Prokofiev's "Ivan the Terrible" by Levon Atovmyan, Prokofiev's assistant, in concerts that will include works by Scriabin and Rachmaninoff. "Ivan" will also feature soloists, a narrator, and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus.

November's world premiere originates from the midst of the San Francisco Symphony itself with "Pandora," a work penned by one of its own, assistant concertmaster Mark Volkert. German composer and clarinetist Jorg Widmann is responsible for December's new work as the symphony presents the U.S. premiere of his Piano Concerto,

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Orchestra and gives some background and just who is listing to this.

From His youtube page

Jorge Quintero is a young up-and-coming producer and owner of Holy Music Productions. He discovered this musical talent at the age of sixteen, when he came across FI Studio software. Being intrigued by the idea of making his own music, he dedicated himself to music that entire summer, learning about the software and developing his abilities. One year later, he produced the track that would jumpstart his public exposure all over the country. At the young age of seventeen, he produced the hit single, "300 Violin Orchestra."

After releasing his second album on iTunes, "Hip Hop and RnB Instrumentals," "300 Violin Orchestra" was discovered on his YouTube channel by Fox Sports' associate producer, Andy Cavanaugh. The track was used as the background music for a teaser video to introduce the first MLB game of the 2009 season.

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Critic’s picks: Classical music

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Christoph Eschenbach returns to lead an all-French program, with Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique’’ and Overture to “Benvenuto Cellini’’ alongside Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with soloist Cedric Tiberghien. March 2-3. Symphony Hall. 617-266-1200, www.bso.org

BOSTON BAROQUE Martin Pearlman conducts an all-Mozart program with husband and wife fortepianists Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang. March 2-3. Jordan Hall. 617-484-9200, www.bostonbaroque.org

‘WAR REQUIEM’ Chorus Pro Musica, the Providence Singers, and Boston Children’s Chorus all join Richard Pittman’s New England Philharmonic to perform Britten’s great “War Requiem,’’ with soloists Sarah Pelletier, Frank Kelley, and Sumner Thompson. 8 p.m., March 3, Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston; 3:30 p.m., March 4, Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Providence. www.nephilharmonic.org, www.providencesingers.org

BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL The medieval music ensemble Sequentia returns to Boston with a program titled “Fragments for the End of Time.’’ 8 p.m., March 3. Houghton Chapel, Wellesley College. 617-661-1812, www.bemf.org

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Young classical musicians shine at concert

CLASSICAL FACTOR: Budding performers showcased their skills at a Young Musician of the Year concert.

Children from seven schools and colleges had competed for the chance to take part in the final at Wolstanton High School.

They performed pieces of their choice in front of Manchester Camerata, a world class chamber orchestra, to secure their spot.

John Johnson, assistant headteacher said: "It is an opportunity for those kids who are good at classical music who can't take part in the usual X-Factor type talent shows."

Pictured are, from left, Hannah Pugh, aged 15, Rachel Revell, aged 12, Emma McLauchlan, aged 14 and Hannah Revell, aged 15.
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Purely Classical: Alessandrini conducts the SF Symphony

Being at the symphony during the day makes me feel like a kid cutting school. Morning rehearsals are great, but there’s the small matter of fighting the traffic up the 101, which feels a bit too much like work. Better still are the rare 2:00 PM concerts, which are late enough to put in a meaningful chunk of time at the day job before heading out to blissful freedom. This Thursday’s concert was purely classical program of Mozart and Haydn conducted by the charismatic Rinaldo Alessandrini, with Oliver Cavé on piano.

The concert opened with Haydn’s Symphony No 104 in D Major. A stirring piece, packed with colorful pyrotechnics, this work opened with three warning shots, repeated multiple times with timpani before launching into the theme which repeated them in a infinite delicacy on strings. This idea of the warning shot unified the program, as it recurred in other works. The second movement, a stately andante, was a perfect counterbalance. Alessandrini brought the final movement home with an intensity and focus entirely missing from the multiple recordings I’ve listened to. When the first theme recurs in this final movement, it seems like an old friend.

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Sandwiched between the two symphonies was Mozart piano concerto No. 25, K 503, a piece which balances the piano as a solo instrument, against the piano as an accompaniment. I lost count of the number of piano solos in the first movement after the fifth, in part because the transitions between the two were so subtle. Oliver Cave played with an expressive fluidity that made his performance look easy.

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The Classical Music Hall Of Fame  inductees

quick run down is :

-Conductor George Solti
-Chicago Symphony Orchestra
-John Corigliano
-Gregor Piatigorsky
-Charles Wadsworth
-Chorus America

Classical hall of fame inducts 6

Corigliano, Solti among honorees

The Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer John Corigliano, the distinguished conductor Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are among the six honorees being inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.

The honorees for 2011 also include Charles Wadworth, the founding artistic director of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the legendary cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and Chorus America, the service organization for hundreds of choruses throughout North America.

The six will join more than 100 other distinguished musical stars, composers, conductors, philanthropists, institutions and educators inducted by the Cincinnati-based Hall of Fame since its inaugural ceremony in 1998.

John Corigliano’s many scores include three symphonies, eight concertos and more than 100 chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral works. He will receive his Hall of Fame medallion during a performance of his opera, “The Ghosts of Versailles,” on April 25 in New York.

Georg Solti (1912-97), one of the greatest maestros of the 20th century, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his many legendary recordings for Decca. He was music director of the Chicago Symphony, which is also being honored, from 1969 to 1991.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1891 under Theodore Thomas. Its recordings have won 62 Grammy Awards.

Charles Wadsworth is an acclaimed pianist and champion of chamber music, who founded Midday Concerts in the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy in 1960. For more than three decades, he presided over the Spoleto Festival USA’s chamber music series in Charleston, S.C.

The Russian-born American cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-76) was principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic and a renowned touring

 

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Classically ambitious

Andrs Schiff’s piano recitals are daring in their scope

Very few pianists follow a full recital program with a 20-minute encore.

Very few, as in one: András Schiff, the Hungarian pianist who comes to Macky Auditorium as part of the University of Colorado’s CU Presents series at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27.

Last fall Schiff, esteemed equally for uncompromising musical integrity and an unwavering sense of social responsibility, played the same challenging program that he brings to Boulder in New York’s legendary Carnegie Hall. And for an encore, rather than a showy bagatelle, he sat down and played a complete Beethoven piano sonata, Op. 109 in E major.

Schiff was rewarded for his taxing audacity with an unusually glowing New York Times review.

“Master is a term applied too loosely in classical music,” wrote Anthony Tommasini. “But somehow you know one when you hear one, as was clear on Monday night when the pianist András Schiff played a recital before a full house of rapt listeners at Carnegie Hall.”

Tommasini went on to single out the encore as “the most affecting demonstration of mastery,” and then to ask, “How did he have the focus and sheer energy for such an eloquent, calmly authoritative performance of the sonata after his demanding program?” Apparently, it’s all part of being András Schiff: taking on daunting tasks has become an almost routine part of his career. Most pianists find playing all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas once a major undertaking; Schiff played the full cycle 20 times from 2004 to 2009. Cycles of works by one or two composers would fill most performers’ repertoires; Schiff has undertaken cycles of major works by Bach (a particular specialty), Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and his fellow-countryman, Bartók.

Reviews show that Schiff manages such marathon tasks with no sacrifice of quality.

“Schiff stands with perhaps only a handful of pianists in his total achievement,“ wrote a critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, while a New York Times critic observed that “There is nothing more reliable in the world of classical music today than pianist András Schiff playing Bach.”

Schiff has also gained praise for his political courage. In January 2011 he wrote a letter to the Washington Post deploring the political environment in his native Hungary.

“The latest news is indeed alarming,” he wrote.

“Tolerance levels are extremely low. Racism, discrimination against the Roma, antisemitism, xenophobia, chauvinism and reactionary nationalism — these symptoms are deeply worrying. They evoke memories that we have hoped were long forgotten.”

This was no empty gesture. Schiff was subjected to threats — including one posted online to cut off his hands — and he now doubts that he will return to Hungary anytime soon. “It’s not that I’m afraid,” he has said in the past, “but I don’t want to take the risk.”

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This set draws together three different areas of his composition, performed by different guitarists. Tullia Cartoni presents a dozen Scottish and Irish airs: "Coming Through the Rye" sounds stilted, though "The Bluebells of Scotland" strikes a better balance between the folksy and the genteelly technical.

Played by Elena Càsoli, the études are teaching exercises possessed of a lilting formality that lends itself perfectly to the instrument.
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