Let's Hear It

The Battle Creek Symphony's next concert, "Russian Romance," is at 7:30 pm Saturday, April 3. It's a free concert that can be streamed by filling out reservation form at the Battle Creek Symphony website.  

Friedrich Gulda's 1980 cello concerto has to be heard to be believed. Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra music director Julian Kuerti and principal cellist Igor Cetkovic joined Cara Lieurance to preview the one-of-a-kind concerto as well as two other works on the program: Kurt Weill's suite from The Threepenny Opera and Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik serenade. It will be streamed at 7 pm Friday, Mar 26.

It's known under many names - "gypsy jazz," "jazz manouche," "hot club," or "Django jazz" - and refers to the popular music of 1930s Parisian clubs and cafés, pioneered by Romani musician Django Reinhardt and others.  The appeal for musicians and listeners alike is a strong as ever - the music is melodic, danceable, humorous, virtuosic and a little subversive. WMUK contributor Craig Freeman spent an hour in WMUK's Takeda studio with Kalamazoo-based  musicians The Birdseed Salesmen:  Helen Yee on violin, Nathan Tabor on lead guitar, and Jay Gavan on rhythm guitar. 

Tabor says the group's name is a reference to the film Sweet And Lowdown, which followed the story of a fictional Django-era guitarist. The Birdseed Salesmen play Reinhardt's own "Nuages," and "Douce Ambiance," Lew Pollack's "Two Cigarettes in the Dark," and "Tchavolo Swing" by Tchavolo Schmidt.

A concert of works for two pianos is set for 7:30 pm Wednesday, Jan 15 in the Dalton Center Recital Hall at WMU. School of Music professors Lori Sims and Yu-Lien The will play Ravel's Rhapsodie espagnole, Debussy's En blanc et noir, and Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (arr. John Musto). They talk to Cara Lieurance about the ease of their chemistry and their choice to situate the pianos side-by-side, rather than facing the other. 

Weiyin Chen, a Juilliard-trained pianist and longtime friend of conductor Andrew Koehler, makes her third appearance with the Kalamazoo Philharmonia at 7:30 pm Saturday, Nov 16 by giving her first performance of Tchaikovsky's monumental Piano Concerto No. 1 . Chen and Koehler join Cara Lieurance to preview the concert and highlight the other works on the program: Overture by Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz and Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations.