Results tagged “nso”

Erich Kunzel, who was familiar to Washingtonians from his regular appearances at the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra Pops at annual Independence Day and Memorial Day concerts on the Capitol Lawn, died this morning near his home in Maine. He was 74.

A few American orchestras have been experimenting with ways to engage the digital generation during their concerts, with interactive program notes that appear in real time through the hand-held or seat-back devices normally used for showing translations of foreign-language operas. As related by Baltimore Sun classical music critic Tim Smith over at his blog, the National Symphony Orchestra will be attempting something along those lines during its concert at Wolf Trap on July 30.

The appointment of Christoph Eschenbach to head the National Symphony Orchestra may have had some unintended consequences. As Anne Midgette wondered in the Post yesterday, has the Eschenbach news deflated the significance of the first concerts led by Iván Fischer (pictured) as the NSO's Principal Conductor? Fischer may have felt odd seeing Eschenbach's picture on the marquees outside the Kennedy Center this week — the new Music Director will not actually conduct the orchestra again until 2010 — but fans of Fischer's Mahler, on disc and live with the NSO, filled the Concert Hall last night, to hear him conduct Mahler's third symphony.

The financial news is far from rosy, but there is good news this morning for the city's classical music lovers. It looked to be a rudderless, vanilla season for the National Symphony Orchestra, without a Music Director since the departure of Leonard Slatkin at the end of last season. But the NSO has just announced a September surprise: veteran conductor Christoph Eschenbach (pictured), most recently of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will be appointed Music Director for the 2010-11 season. He will also hold the position of Music Director of the Kennedy Center, working with that organization's president, Michael Kaiser, on concert and festival programming.

As you can read in a preview article by Stephen Brookes in the Post, the performance will be "spoken and sung by an amplified soprano (the remarkable Hila Plitmann, in her NSO debut) who at one point sings through a bullhorn." You may remember Plitmann's disembodied voice from Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for The Da Vinci Code, but don't hold that against her. Brookes also writes that Final Alice "calls for a gargantuan orchestra augmented by sirens, a theremin and an amplified 'folk group' of saxophones, a mandolin, a banjo and an accordion." In other words, this is not going to be your average evening at the symphony.