A Gaggle of Pianists: Alexei Volodin with Members of the New York Philharmonic,
Nikolai Lugansky Rounding Out the PianoForte Series, and The 5 Browns –
Also, a Chat with Renée Fleming, and a Performance by Dan Zanes & Friends
For tickets, call the Concerts & Lectures Department at 212-570-3949, or visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets, where updated schedules and programs are available.
Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open
Tuesday-Saturday 10-5:00, and Sunday noon-5:00.
Student and group discount tickets are available for some events; call 212-570-3949.
Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance.
Saturday, May 1, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. - The 5 Browns
The 5 Browns – Deondra, Desirae, Gregory, Melody, and Ryan – the piano-playing siblings perform a concert of arrangements for piano (various numbers of hands): Beethoven Symphony No. 5, first movement; Gottschalk's Grande Tarantelle; Brahms's Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2; Rachmaninoff's La Valse; Suite No. 2, Op. 17; 18th Variation, "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini"; and Valse and Romance; Prokofieff's Toccata, Op. 11; Holst's "Mars," "Neptune," and "Jupiter" from The Planets; Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu, Op. 66; Milhaud's "Scaramouche" from Brasileira, Op. 165b; and "Fêtes" from Nocturnes by Debussy transcribed by Ravel. The event, the group's only New York concert of the season, will include a conversation with The 5 Browns after intermission.
A youthful, all-American quintet of brothers and sisters, each a virtuoso concert pianist, The 5 Browns swept the classical world in 2005 with the release of their self-titled first recording for RCA Red Seal, which landed them at the top of the weekly Billboard charts and, at the end of the year, as one of the publication's Top Classical Artists of 2005. The "Fab Five" – as People magazine headlined its profile of Ryan, 24 years old; Melody, 25; Gregory, 27; Deondra, 29; and Desirae, 31 – bring together five distinctive and discriminating keyboard talents, honed at New York's Juilliard School, where for five consecutive years they studied simultaneously. With the advice and direction of their manager and their parents, they hit on the idea of casting their lot together as a unique quintet of classical pianists, performing on five pianos and in various ensemble combinations.
With their 2007 CD, Browns In Blue, the 5 Browns extend their individual and collective mastery of the piano and their command of classical repertoire through a series of emotionally complex works by Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns (featuring violin virtuoso Gil Shaham) to the jazz-influenced contemporary masterpieces of Gershwin (with special guest performance by trumpeter Chris Botti), W.C. Handy, and Piazzolla.. The 5 Browns round out Browns In Blue with a newly-commissioned five-piano piece by John Novacek.
Playing in schools and civic auditoriums, where the tickets are affordable and families can attend together (often three generations at once); the group plays to capacity audiences. The Browns have discovered that almost a third of their audience has seldom, if ever, attended a concert of classical music, and another third is college-age or younger. Critics and concertgoers alike agree that The 5 Browns' fresh approach brings newcomers to the classical music genre, but they also hail the pianists' playing as "nothing less than wondrous," while offering "an accessible and exhilarating journey into the world of classical music." Their have performed internationally, in the UK and Germany, as well as Japan.
Tickets: $25
Friday, May 7, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. - Musicians from Marlboro
The Marlboro Music School and Festival has been nurturing great artists since 1951, and since 1970 the Marlboro alumni – of all generations – have been performing concerts at the Metropolitan Museum as Musicians from Marlboro.
This series has been made possible by the Xerox Foundation.
On this second of the season's two programs, David Bowlin and Hiroko Yajima, violin; Rebecca Albers, viola; Amir Eldan, cello; and Marcy Rosen, cello, perform Boccherini's String Quintet in F Major, Op. 20, No. 33; Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet; and Schubert's String Quintet in C Major, K. 956, Op. 163.
Musicians from Marlboro offers exceptional young musicians from the summer festival together with seasoned artists in chamber music programs of rarely heard works and masterpieces of varied instrumentation. The program has introduced many of today's leading solo and chamber music artists to American audiences; among them are pianists Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, and András Schiff, violinists Pamela Frank, Jaime Laredo, and Shlomo Mintz, flutist Paula Robison, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and soprano Benita Valente. In addition to the performances at the Metropolitan Museum, each year more than 25 outstanding artists take time from their regular activities to bring Musicians from Marlboro concerts to venues throughout the country.
Tickets: $40
Saturday, May 8, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. - Dan Zanes & Friends
Dan Zanes & Friends present a family concert of "homemade family music." The Grammy Award–winner is joined by his "beautifully scruffy, harmonically precise, spirited, and better-than-ever band"; they will sing songs in both English and Spanish in their own homespun style, "giving you the feeling that a bunch of wildly talented friends and neighbors just got together to throw a party."
Zanes is a self-described 21st-century version of the guy who in the old days used to conduct the town band from the gazebo, though instead of a gazebo he's playing places like Carnegie Hall and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. He is a ringmaster, introducing new songs and reconnecting people to songs that have always been there, and still are – it's just that people forgot about them.
Take, for example, Dan Zanes and Friends' Catch That Train!, the 2007 Grammy Award winner for Best Musical Album for Children (co-released with Starbucks/Hear Music). It is the one CD in America today that brings together the Kronos Quartet, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Father Goose, Zanes' mother-in-law, and the children of South Africa's Agape Orphanage to sing Zulu folk songs, an old labor organizing tune, a song about the joys of farming the English countryside, and of course a few train songs—all in an instrumental mix that highlights cuatros and lap steels and does not in any way discourage the use of trombone.
One of Zanes' favorite recording projects is ¡Nueva York!, or what he is often heard calling his "pro-immigration CD." While the debate about who is eligible to live in the United States rages on, Zanes has been having a rocking time with new musical friends from the Latino world, celebrating some of the vibrant culture that comes with immigration. The result: a collection of songs from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and other parts of the Spanish-speaking Americas which was released in the summer of 2008.
Tickets: $25
Sunday, May 9, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. - Alexei Volodin, Piano
Members of the New York Philharmonic
Alexei Volodin and New York Philharmonic members Glenn Dicterow and Lisa E. Kim, violin; Robert Rinehart, viola; and Eileen Moon, cello, perform a program to include Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 and Shostakovich's Piano Quintet. Volodin performs Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Valery Gergiev, as part of the orchestras The Russian Stravinsky festival, on May 7 & 8, 2010.
In the 2009-2010 season, Alexei Volodin's Shostakovich chamber music project with the Cuarteto Casals will lead him to Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Milano, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg. Alexei Volodin collaborates regularly with conductor Valery Gergiev, touring the United States, Germany, Spain, and Japan with both the London Symphony and the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, with the conductor. Other orchestral engagements include the complete cycle of Beethoven's concerti with Lawrence Foster in Lisbon, and concerts with Sebastian Weigle in Frankfurt and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos in Dresden.
Alexei Volodin, born in July 1977 in St. Petersburg, Russia, began studying piano at the age of nine. A year later he moved to Moscow, where he studied at the Gnessin Music School. In 1994 he enrolled in the Moscow Conservatoire and studied with Professor Elisso Virsaladze. From 2001 to 2002, he studied at the Theo Lieven International Piano Foundation in Como. Followed by a year of study at the Theo Lieven International Piano Foundation, in 2003 he won the First Prize at the Ninth Géza Anda Competition in Zurich, an award that launched his international career.
Alexei Volodin has performed with such major orchestras as the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Filarmonica della Scala, SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, Orchestre National de France, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Orchestra, NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphony, and Tonhalle of Zurich. He has worked with conductors including Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Marek Janowski, Tugan Sokhiev, Myung Whun Chung, Gerd Albrecht, Zoltán Kocsis, Leopold Hager, David Zinman, and Vladimir Fedoseyev, among others.
Tickets: $45
Thursday, May 13, 2010, at 6:00 p.m. - A Chat with Renée Fleming
Lecturer and writer Nimet Habachy hosts a conversation with opera star Renée Fleming about her extraordinary career as an internationally renowned stage performer and recording artist. Sharing memories of her travels and behind-the-scenes accounts of the opera houses and performances she has most enjoyed, Fleming will also talk about what lies ahead in her career. The event will feature audio and video performance clips.
This event is supported by the Mrs. Donald Oenslager Fund.
One of the most beloved and celebrated musical ambassadors of our time, soprano Renée Fleming captivates audiences with her sumptuous voice, consummate artistry, and compelling stage presence. Having been called "the people's diva," she continues to grace the world's greatest opera stages and concert halls, now extending her reach to include other media. Renée Fleming's 2009-2010 operatic season at the Metropolitan Opera includes performances of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (October 2009; January 2010), and continues with a new production of Rossini's Armida (April/May 2010), which is a Metropolitan Opera premiere. She also appears at the Vienna State Opera in performances of Strauss's Capriccio (June 2010) and at the Zurich Opera in Verdi's La Traviata and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (June/July 2010).
Tickets: $25
Sunday, May 23, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. - Nikolai Lugansky, Piano
Nikolai Lugansky returns to the Metropolitan Museum to perform his only New York recital of the season, a program of Debussy's Suite Bergamasque; works by Granados, Goyescas No. 4, "La Maja" and "El Ruisenor," and El Pelele"; "Evocation" and "Triana" from Iberia by Albéniz; Prokofieff's Sonata No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 29; and Rachmaninoff's Etudes Tableaux, Op. 33.
Nikolaï Lugansky, already a major artist, has been hailed as the "next" in a line of great Russian pianists by his former teacher, the renowned pedagogue, Tatiana Nikolaeva. He has been described as "a pianistic phenomenon of exceptional class" by the Netherlands' NRC Handelsblad and as "riveting" by London's Telegraph.
Known for his superb interpretations of Rachmaninoff, Mr. Lugansky has been a prizewinner in several international competitions, including the International Bach Competition in Leipzig in 1988, the All-Union Rachmaninoff Competition in 1990, and the Tchaikovsky International Competition in 1994. He made his American debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 1996 as a part of a tour with the Kirov Orchestra and Valery Gergiev. He has appeared with major orchestras worldwide, including the Orchestre National de France; the Orchestre de Paris; the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Russian National orchestras; the Berlin, Milan, City of Birmingham, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; the Monte Carlo, Dresden, Los Angeles, Munich, Rotterdam, St. Petersburg and Tokyo philharmonics; and the Royal Concertgebouw – in repertoire as diverse as Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Grieg, Chopin, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and Liszt.
The list of distinguished conductors with whom he has worked includes Paavo Berglund, Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Marek Janowski, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Emmanuel Krivine, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Sakari Oramo, Mikhail Pletnev, Jukka Pekka Saraste, and Yuri Temirkanov.
In the coming seasons, Nikolaï Lugansky will appear at the Berlin Philharmonie under Janowski, in Birmingham under Oramo, in Dresden under Jurowski (Ravel Piano Concerto for the left hand), in London under Saraste (Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2), at the Musikverein in Vienna under Temirkanov (Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 1) and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris with the Philharmonia under Ashkenazy as a part of a European tour. During the 2009-2010 season he makes return visits to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra having made his debut at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in summer 2008. Most recently Mr. Lugansky has appeared with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Marek Janowski both in Pittsburgh and on tour in Europe, with the San Francisco Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in both Cincinnati and on tour in Europe, as well as in solo recital in the United States and Canada.
Tickets: $45
Also in May 2010: The following music lecture:
Tuesday, May 4, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. - The Sound of Broadway:
Richard Rodgers, America's Waltz King
The best of Broadway returns with a two-part series on the great waltzes of Richard Rodgers. Each session features conversations with well-known performers and Rodgers experts, plus live performances, special guest appearances, and multimedia presentations. Featured speakers include pianist/conductor Gerald Steichen of the New York City Opera.
April 27: Rodgers and Hart in 3/4 Time
May 4: Rodgers with Hammerstein and Sondheim: Do You Hear a Waltz?
Tickets $23 (Series: $40)
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