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Douglas Masek Saxophone Recital
2018-07-31

with Neal Stulberg (piano)

31 July 2018

Odeion

19:30

The Los Angeles-based duo, in the country for the SANNSS, is touring the major South African cities. Both Masek and Stulberg, leaders in their respective fields, are internationally acclaimed soloists. The duo performs rarely heard selections from the concert saxophone repertoire in major cities around the country. Their program includes music by well-known composers such as Astor Piazzolla, David Heath, and even the South African composer, Allan Stephenson.

Internationally renowned saxophonist DOUGLAS MASEK, whose performances emphasize his versatility in a wide range of musical styles, from classical and contemporary to jazz, has consistently garnered critical acclaim. : The Los Angeles Times writes, (Masek’s) “...playing is smooth, sinuous, stunning, stylish, dazzling, and glowing with the requisite rich color.” In South Africa, The Argus describes “Masek’s tone: beautiful and pure” and the Cape Times adds “dynamic and magical.” With extensive concert touring in the United States, Europe, Asia, South Africa, and South America, he has also performed as a soloist at numerous festivals. He has performed with notable conductors, including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano, Placido Domingo, John Mauceri, Andre Previn, Michael-Tilson Thomas, James Conlan, Gustavo Dudamel, Valery Gergiev, Giselle Ben-Dor, Rachael Worby, JoAnn Falletta, Arthur Rubinstein, Grant Gershon, Carlo Franci, Hubert Soudant, Paul Freeman, Allan Stephenson and Bernhard Gueller. He has also worked on motion picture sounds tracks for John Williams, Randy Newman, David Newman and others, for Sony, Warner, Paramount, Universal, Disney and 20th Century, along with television and radio broadcasts. Masek's discography includes seven solo CD collections; Distant Memories, Windwood, Recrudescence, Saxvoir Faire, Saxtronic Soundscape, Saxophone Alternative, and EclectSax. He has recorded for Centaur, Albany, Cambria, Atlantic, Navona, Koch International, Stereophile, Summit and Philips Classics recording companies. Masek completed his academic education with a D.M.A. from the University of Southern California. Currently Professor of Saxophone at UCLA, Douglas is also a Vandoren Elite Artist and Conn-Selmer Artist.

www.dougmasek.com

Although an acclaimed pianist in his own right, it is as an orchestral conductor that NEAL STULBERG has been heralded by the Los Angeles Times as "…a shining example of podium authority and musical enlightenment," Stulberg has garnered consistent international acclaim for performances of clarity, insight, and conviction. Since 2005, he has served as Director of Orchestral Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and currently serves as both Professor and Chair of the UCLA Department of Music. Stulberg has already led numerous North American orchestras, and international engagements have included the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Korea Philharmonic (KBS), Queensland, Adelaide and West Australian Symphonies, to name but a few. Behind the keyboard, Stulberg appears as recitalist, chamber musician and with major orchestras and at international festivals as pianist/conductor. His performances of Mozart concertos conducted from the keyboard are uniformly praised for their buoyant virtuosity and interpretive vigour. He has recorded for West German Radio, Donemus, Yarlung Records, Sono Luminus and the Composers Voice label. Stulberg is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Michigan and the Juilliard School. He studied conducting with Franco Ferrara at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), piano with Leonard Shure, Theodore Lettvin, William Masselos and Mischa Kottler, and viola with Ara Zerounia.

PROGRAMME:

  • Melvin Solomon (b.1947): ‘a la Mozart’
  • Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992): Café 1930 (arr. Isoda/Sugawa)
  • Maria Grenfell (b.1969): Time Transfixed
  • Allan Stephenson (b.1949): Introduction and Allegro
  • Maria Newman (b.1962): Parens (Ancestors)
  • Bill Cunliffe (b.1956): Bechet
  • David Heath (b. 1956): Coltrane (solo saxophone)
  • Pedro Iturralde (b.1929): Suite Hellenique
  • John Boswell (b.1960): Waterfall
  • John Boswell: Kindred Spirits

ADMISSION

  • R140 (adults)
  • *R100 (pensioners)
  • *R80 (UFS staff)
  • *R60 (students, learners and block bookings of 10+)

Tickets available at Computicket or online at http://online.computicket.com/web/

*Please note that tickets for pensioners, students, learners and UFS staff can only be purchased at a Computicket outlet (Shoprite Checkers) or at the doors since a valid card or ID has to be presented to qualify for the above-mentioned discount.

ENQUIRIES

Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 401 2504)


Back
CHOPIN IN AFRICA – Warsaw to Bloemfontein

Lunch Hour Concert

15 November

13:00

Odeion


Ensemble from POLAND:

Maria Pomianowska ~Katarzyna Gacek-Duda ~ Gwidon Modest Cybulski

Karolina Matuszkiewicz ~ Wojciech Lubertowicz

together with

Nicol Viljoen (piano) & Chris van Zyl (cello)

Entrance Free

We can promise you this: you haven’t heard anything like it. Unless, that is, you’ve written an ethnomusicology dissertation on Polish folk music or have access to a functioning time machine.

Alexander Varty: Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly

Maria Pomianowska (Professor of Folk Music at the prestigious Kraków Academy of Music in Poland) and her a quintet of fellow musicians will present a lunch hour concert at the Odeion School of Music on 15 November at the Odeion. This concert is entitled Chopin On 5 Continents – Africa. Pomianowska and her ensemble will join forces with Prof Nicol Viljoen (pianist) and cellist Chris van Zyl (BMus Performance) studying under the tutelage of Prof Anmari van der Westhuizen.

Pomianowska and her ensemble will mainly play on string folk music instruments known as sukas. Aesthetically and proportionally a suka closely resembles an ancient violin, but is played vertically like a cello and positioned on the lap.

Pomianowska literally revived the suka from obsolescence with only a dusty painting as the as a point of reference. She was curious to research the connection between her Polish heritage with the South and Central Asian instruments she was studying as part of her own ethnomusicological research.

Pomianowska remarked: “I reconstructed the instrument and rediscovered the performance technique in collaboration with the musicologist Ewa Dahlig-Turek and the late luthier Andrzej Kuczkowski. “We reconstructed the instrument, which had not existed for 100 years in our culture. The last generation of suka musicians became extinct during the beginning of the 20th century, and the only information we had available was from ethnographical sources.”

The suka is played with a bow, and by stopping the strings with the nails - not the fleshy pads - of the left hand fingers. It is a seemingly awkward technique, but one that Pomianowska says produces a uniquely vocal timbre.

It is not enough to play Chopin’s music as written, Pomianowska contends, noting that her famous countryman was also renowned as an improviser. “We want to share with him that creation moment,” she says, “to connect on these different levels of emotion and imagination.”

So what does this have to do with Frédéric Chopin? The Warsaw-born, Paris-trained, composer was a keen student of folk music, and almost certainly heard the suka during summer vacations in his native land. Unlike later musicologist-composers Béla Bartok and Leoš Janácek, Chopin didn’t transcribe folk melodies note for note, but fragments of rural tunes appear in many of his best-loved compositions, and the mazurka was one of his compositional staples. He wrote at least 59 works for piano based on its lively barn dance beat.

She is also preparing to take Chopin far beyond his ethnic origins she has transcribed several of Chopin’s mazurkas for her touring quintet, which will be amplified by local artists, pianist Nicol Viljoen and cellist Chris van Zyl, and encapsulate the concert with a distinct South African flavour. Viljoen has a remarkable favour for the Chopin Mazurkas and gave a memorable recital in Krakow in 2015.

Pomianowska and her ensemble’s concert tour to South Africa is taking place in celebration of Poland’s membership of the UN’s security. The concert at the Odeion School of Music is positioned with the incentive to serve as a catalyst of the planned bi-lateral agreement between the Academy of Music in Kraków and the OSM, which is currently in process.

This event is fully sponsored by the Embassy of Poland in South Africa and the OSM and the University of the Free State would like to extend their gratitude to the Embassy of Poland for this initiative.

Inquiries:

Ninette Pretorius
Officer: Professional Services & Concert coordinator
Odeion School of Music
pretoriusn@ufs.ac.za

or

Marius Coetzee
Innovation & Development Manager Odeion School of Music
coetzee@ufs.ac.za

Grazyna Koornhof
Political & Economic Section
Embassy of the Republic of Poland Pretoria South Africa
grazyna.koornhof@msz.gov.pl

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