DrexelCast
Philadelphia Orchestra Concert Broadcast Presentations in HD
The Music & Entertainment Technology Lab, in partnership with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Specticast, will host five orchestra concert broadcast presentations on Drexel campus throughout the 2009-2010 performance season. These internet-based broadcasts are presented in HD in the Mitchell Auditorium and are free and open to the public.
The DrexelCast presentations are sponsored by the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, the Pennoni Honors College, and the College of Engineering.
Next DrexelCast: Saturday, November 21 at 8pm; Mahler's Seventh Symphony
Full presentation schedule
Sunday, October 4th at 2pm: Bronfman, Bartók, and Brahms
Charles Dutoit - Conductor
Yefim Bronfman - Piano
BARTÓK - The Miraculous Mandarin (complete)
BRAHMS - Piano Concerto No. 2
Bartók set the European theater world on edge with the controversial The Miraculous Mandarin, a brilliantly-hued expressionist nightmare in which a Chinese magician visits a prostitute only to be stabbed by thieves and left to die. But in this ballet-pantomime, heard in its entirety here, the Mandarin cannot die until the young lady embraces him one last time. The music is as shocking today as it was at its scandalous 1926 Cologne premiere-after which it was banned. Maestro Dutoit has balanced Bartók's modernist crackle with Brahms's symphonic Second Piano Concerto, a product of the composer's ripest maturity. Up for the challenge is pianist Yefim Bronfman, whose power and poetry have made him into one of the most sought-after artists of our time.
Saturday, November 21st at 8pm (LIVE):Mahler's Seventh Symphony
Christoph Eschenbach - Conductor
MAHLER - Symphony No. 7
Maestro Eschenbach''s multi-season traversal of the Mahler symphonies comes to a close with the nocturnal Seventh, an elusive, freewheeling masterpiece too infrequently heard. Composed in 1904-05, it flanks a ghostly central scherzo with two ethereal slow movements called Nachtmusik (Night Music). Scored for a sizeable orchestra that includes mandolin and guitar, this harrowing symphonic journey contains some of the most scintillating instrumental effects of Mahler''s output, and it sports a boisterous finale that Mahler scholar Henri-Louis de La Grange called "the most insane, most ''deviant'' and most provocative of all his final movements."
Friday, January 8th at 8pm (LIVE): Morales Plays Mozart
Bernard Labadie - Conductor
Ricardo Morales - Clarinet
HANDEL - Music for the Royal Fireworks
MOZART - Clarinet Concerto
BACH - Orchestral Suite No. 3
HAYDN - Symphony No. 94 ("Surprise")
Majesty is the order of the day for The Philadelphia Orchestra's first concerts of 2010, with Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks and Bach's grand Third Orchestral Suite, which includes the "Air on the G string." And just for equilibrium, Principal Clarinet Ricardo Morales performs one of Mozart's most popular works the lyrical Clarinet Concerto, in between. Topping it off is Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony, whose slow movement lulls the listener into believing that a gentle Andante is in store then (spoiler alert!) serves up a fortissimo crash that stirs dust from the rafters. With his remarkable Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Qu&eacture;bec, the Canadian Bernard Labadie has established a reputation as a premier conductor of Baroque and Classical music.
Sunday, February 28th at 2pm (LIVE): Brahms's Violin Concerto
Charles Dutoit - Conductor
Janine Jansen - Violin
BRAHMS - Violin Concerto
SHOSTAKOVICH - Symphony No. 11 ("The Year 1905")
Maestro Dutoit invites the magnificent Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, one of the most "downloaded" classical recording artists of all time, for performances of Brahms's Violin Concerto-a piece with equal parts drama and cheer. Shostakovich's blistering, cinematic Symphony No. 11 takes its subtitle ("The Year 1905") from a critical moment in Russian revolutionary history - the year the Tsar's guards killed hundreds of unarmed workers, including children, in the Imperial Palace Square. The date of its composition (1957) has caused some to suspect Shostakovich wrote it as a secret protest against the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Sunday, June 6th at 2pm (LIVE): Dutoit Conducts Strauss
Charles Dutoit - Conductor
Arabella Steinbacher - Violin
Choong-Jin Chang - Viola
Arto Noras - Cello
STRAUSS - Don Juan
MOZART - Violin Concerto No. 5
STRAUSS - Don Quixote
A pair of off-the-hook noblemen and a Turkish rondo mark Maestro Dutoit's penultimate concert set of the season, as electric Munich-born violinist Arabella Steinbacher makes her Philadelphia Orchestra subscription debut. She'll play Mozart's Fifth Concerto, known for its torchy Turkish finale, and Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Viola Choong-Jin Chang will join cellist Arto Noras for Strauss's heart-on-the-sleeve musical retelling of Cervantes's Don Quixote-with Chang "playing" Sancho Panza to Noras's Quixote. Strauss's high-octane but ultimately tragic Don Juan opens the program with orchestral fireworks and virtuosic panache.
MORE INFO TO COME...
For more info on the Philadelphia Orchestra: http://www.philorch.org/
For more info on Specticast: http://www.specticast.com/