Crossover

Tango is the dance of love, of passion, and of a world that transports you to another plane. So say the tango lovers and novices who have re-discovered this emotional and passionate dance expression.

Join Jill for a conversation with Meredith Klein, director of the the Philadelphia Argentine Dance School, and organizer of the Third Annual Philadelphia International Tango Festival, which takes place from May 24th through May 27th. Twenty-two workshops with world-renowned dancers/teachers, five milongas (social dances) and outstanding performers will teach, perform, and work with those who live and breathe tango and those who have had no prior exposure or experience to it.

Tango, unlike other dances, has a mystique surrounding it that is deeply felt and absorbed by the participant, and is also a new world for the novice to discover. Internationally renowned couples, directly from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Javier Antar & Kara Wenham and Guillermo Cerneaz and Marina Kenny will teach workshops for intermediate and advanced dancers and perform at nightly social dances. Tangueros from around the United States are planning to travel to Philadelphia to study with these celebrated masters.

Most events will take place in the upstairs ballroom of the beautiful RUBA Club in Northern Liberties (414 Green Street, Philadelphia), which is reminiscent of some of the elegant and sometimes edgy tango spaces in Buenos Aires. A therapeutic yoga class is available daily taught by Argentine yogi and tango aficionada Monica Moya. More information here.

There are a ton of great jazz vocalists in the world, but there's only one Dianne Reeves. Since age 11, she's been singing her heart out, garnering three Grammy awards for three consecutive CDs - the only vocal recording artist in any category to do that. And to top that off, she won yet another Grammy for her work on the soundtrack for George Clooney's 2005 film, Good Night and Good Luck.

This week on Crossover, violin virtuoso Maria Bachmann returns to update us on her recent happenings since her last visit in the fall of 2010.

A student of Ivan Galamian and Szymon Goldberg at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, she was awarded the school's Fritz Kreisler Prize for outstanding graduating violinist. Bachmann made her professional debut in New York in 1987 after placing first in the Fritz Kreisler International Violin Competition in Vienna. She has since established herself as a leading concert and recital hall artist worldwide.

Bachmann is perhaps best-known for her performances of new music by George Rochberg, Leon  Kirchner, Albert Glinsky and Paul Moravec. Her debut recording on BMG, released in 1993, featured works from the 20th century, accompanied by award-winning pianist Jon Klibonoff. But her musical interests are wider than just new music.  Another BMG release of the Beethoven and Mendelssohn violin concertos was very well received.    

In 2010, she gave the world premiere performance of Moravec's Violin Concerto at the Kimmel Center with Philly's Orchestra 2001. She repeated that performance this past March with South Jersey's Symphony in C, under Rossen Milanov, which was recently broadcast on WRTI.  We'll hear an excerpt from that performance on this show. Moravec has written fourteen solo and chamber works specifically for Bachmann.    

Bachmann is also known for her chamber music performances, having appeared in concert and on recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She founded the Bachmann-Klibonoff-Fridman Piano Trio in 1993, which for a time was the resident ensemble at WQXR Radio in New York. In 2001, she formed Trio Solisti, comprised of Bachmann, Klibonoff, and cellist Alexis Gerlach. Bachmann is also artistic director of the Telluride Music Festival, for which Trio Solisti is the founding ensemble.  

Bachmann performs on a 1782 violin by Nicolo Gagliano.  

We'll hear the aforementioned excerpt of the Moravec violin concerto on the show, plus music from her new Bridge release called, French Fantasy. Bachmann is accompanied by pianist Adam Neiman on the disc, performing works of Debussey, Franck, and Saint-Saens.  

Listen for Jill's conversation with violin virtuoso Maria Bachmann on Crossover, Saturday morning, March 23rd at 11:30 am on WRTI-FM, with an encore the following Friday evening at 7 pm on HD-2 and the All-Classical web stream at wrti.org.

This week's Crossover guest is one of the most well-known pianists in classical music - Emanuel Ax.  Mr. Ax is a multiple Grammy winner in both solo and chamber performances, and has enjoyed a career that has spanned over four decades.

Emanuel Ax was born in Lviv in western Ukraine in the summer of 1948, and raised in Poland.  His first piano teacher was his father, who started him on the keyboard at age 6.  At 7, he started official studies at the Miodowa School in Warsaw, eventually winding up in Winnipeg, in Manitoba, Canada when the family moved there two years later.  There he studied piano in school, and as a member of the Junior Music Club of Winnipeg.

In 1961, the family moved once again to New York City, where Mr. Ax began studies at Juilliard under Mieczyslaw Munz, eventually winning the Young Artists Award in 1973.  He came to prominence in 1974, after winning the first Arthur Rubenstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv.  He followed that in 1975 with the Michaels Award for Young Artists, and the Avery Fisher Prize in 1979.  From there, he has embarked on a career that has taken him around the world, performing solo, and with some of the most prominent chamber ensembles and orchestras in classical music.

Since 1973, Mr. Ax has been Yo-Yo Ma's main duo recital partner.  He also formed a quartet with Ma, Jaime Laredo and Issac Stern, releasing several CD's for Sony/CBS before Stern's death in 2001 adjourned the ensemble.

Emanuel Ax's latest CD is called, "Variations: Haydn, Beethoven and Schumann," on the Sony Classics label.  The pianist points out that each of these sets of Variations is unusual, “each revolutionary in its own way.” He has also discovered that they go very well together in a concert program. Now, surely to the worldwide delight of fans of virtuoso classical piano performance, he presents them together on a recording as well.  In the world of the pianist, says Mr. Ax, “we’re so centered on the sonata style. What’s nice sometimes is to look at other ways to deal with structure, other ways to deal with expression, other ways to deal with forming your thoughts.” 

Emanuel Ax will perform on Tuesday March 19th at 8 pm at the Leffler Performance Center at Elizabethtown College, as part of the Gretna Music series.  Tickets and information here or call 717-361-1508.

Listen for Jill's conversation with pianist Emanuel Ax, and music from his latest CD, "Variations: Haydn, Beethoven and Schumann," on Crossover, Saturday morning at 11:30 am on WRTI-FM, with an encore the following Friday evening at 7 pm on HD-2 and the All-Classical web stream at wrti.org.

Last week's guest on Crossover was Turkish Bass Burak Bilgili. Turkish? Not necessarily the first nationality that comes to mind when you think "opera singer." But, wait till you hear that voice!

A 2004 graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Bilgili made his international debut in 2002 - while still a student at AVA - as Duke Alfonso in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at La Scala. His Metropolitan Opera debut was May 7, 2004, when he sang Leporello without either a full-stage or orchestra rehearsal in the final performance of Don Giovanni that season. When he took his solo bow at the end of the performance, the audience roared in appreciation. He returned to the company in 2009 as Ferrando in Il trovatore.

Starting Saturday evening, March 2nd, Bilgili will appear in the lead role in the Academy of Vocal Arts' production of Don Quichotte. Performances run through March 9th at AVA, and March 12th and 14th at Haverford's Centennial Hall. The production will also be heard as a Sunday Opera Special on March 10th at 3 pm on WRTI and the all-classical stream at wrti.org.

One of the world's foremost and most prolific artists returns to Crossover this week. But the Australian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder isn't just a virtuoso. He's a really interesting person as well. One who loves life just as much as music.

  Sony Classical's new disc featuring the venerable Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (ASMF) will be released on Feb. 12th; but this outing is different from any other ASMF recording. It's violinist Joshua Bell's first recorded appearance with the Academy as it's new music director.  

This week on Crossover, Jill premieres this recording of Beethoven's 4th and 7th symphonies, and speaks with Josh about his role as music director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

This week, Jill speaks with a returning favorite guest, acclaimed Canadian violinist Angele Dubeau. Dubeau and her all-female string ensemble, La Pieta, recently released an album dedicated to the music of the movies. Silence, on joue! A Time for Us, gets its subtitle from the Nino Rota composition used in the Franco Zefirelli film, Romeo and Juliet. The ensemble effortlessly glides through movie music from John Williams to Erich Korngold, from Cinema Paradiso to the Lord of the Rings, and much more, with the same attention to performance as it gives to Bartok, Vivaldi, Glass, Cage, and others.

Listen to Crossover on Saturday mornings at 11:30 am on WRTI-FM, with an encore Friday evening at 7 pm on WRTI's all-classical web stream and HD-2.