Classical Underground's own Eduardo Delgado is back home after a summer of performing and teaching in his native Argentina. The marvelously poetic and passionate pianist will be performing works of Albeniz and Mendelssohn on Sunday, Sept. 13 @ 4PM in Meng Concert Hall at Cal State Fullerton, wherehe is Professor of Piano. For ticket information, see http://www.fullerton.edu/arts/events/ or call 657-278-3371.
Tickets: $20 ($15 with advance titan discount) could be purchased online here. Free weekend parking.
I've just watched and listened to the film of Oscar Navarro's piano trio, and was thrilled by the work and the performance. Thank you for making this exciting work accessible to a wider audience.As a tribute to Navarro and his fine performers, I'm enclosing below a poem I wrote after another wonderful chamber music concert I attended. Viva Classical Underground!
Music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts. --T.S. Eliot, "The Dry Salvages"
The violinist is dying, the pianist is dying, all of us in this high-ceilinged room on our chairs are dying. The roses in the sunlight streaming through the windows are dying, though their scent is strong.
Outside a dog howls as the violin pours forth its intricate filigree, its amazing leaps and moans. Poor howling dog, howling for all of us sitting here on this Sunday afternoon in the teeth of time.
We are forever brothers and sisters, held together in this womb, birthed through the throes of the music into the sunlight. We howl with pain and joy.
This musk of mortality mixes with the fragrance of the roses. The moans and sobs of the violin are indistinguishable from the blood leaping in our veins on this Sunday afternoon in the kingdom of forever.
The cutting edge of time is essential to the ecstasy. The performers are our high priests, flinging themselves into the silence to bring back treasures for the tribe, which we devour in this ritual communion.
We ride their backs as if on dolphins, soaring into the sunlight scattering diamonds, plunging through the depths, lungs bursting, our exuberance edged with panic.
In this moment of alchemy, discipline is inseparable from freedom, fierceness from tenderness, focus from abandonment. The music is a lover with a hundred hands, and we are reeling with the sudden touch of sound after a moment of silence.
Worth it to be mortal on a day like this, with the sunlight, the roses, the music rising to heaven, swooping back to earth, our vehicle to eternity.
--Judith Searle from her book IN THE TEETH OF TIME
Our wonderful friend and unforgettable musician Moni Simeonov reports directly from the Tanglewood Music Festival:
"I was concertmaster for the Tanglewood Music Festival. The orchestra is the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the Choir is the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Conductor is James Levine, music director for both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera. The seven vocal soloists have all been with the Met opera for a long time.
It was a concert performance of Richard Wagner`s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. It took place in the Serge Kousevitsky Shed at Tanglewood, before over 4 thousand people. "
On April 20, 2009 concert, no one knew in the audience that the piano trio they just heard and liked so much was a world-premier performance. The announcement was very simple: Oscar Navarro piano trio performed by Regulo Martinez, Sergio Gamez and Joo Lee. People were wondering about the name for a moment, but were immediately grabbed by the music from the first note...
No one knew the composer was right there amoung us in the audience. Even when he stepped up to the "stage" for a moment, to thank demurely the wildly cheering audience, many still didn't quite realize what just happened.
That was Oscar Navarro, a young Spanish composer and musician, finishing his studies in LA.
"This trio " Things of Destiny " is a present for my Girlfriend Noelia Belijar. I wrote it thinking in the music that she loves, long melodies, colourful harmonies, and rithmic parts" ... - says Oscar Navarro. -
"The trio was writen for the Benefit Gala " Spanish Culture Figthing against Cancer " organized by the Spanish Coucelor D. Inocencio Arias.
The musicians are really amazing, both are my friends and I knew them at the University USC. Very talented people and passionate."
World premiere of a new piano trio by composer Oscar Navarro, performed in Los Angeles at Classical Underground on 4/20/09 filmed and edited by our Classical Underground operative and video wizz Julie Resh with the help of Vladimir Kulgeyko.
August Concert this comingMonday,the3rd at8:30pm music director M a k s i m V e l i c h k i n
It always feels good when lots of great things are happening and it is certainly true with our Classical Underground right now thanks to the wonderful collaborative spirit by the gang of magnificent talents in a subversive effort to serve the true ART within a jaded modern society. Our new website, the article in the Gramophone. We are also working on our first Classical Underground disc! Things are getting hot here in the studio in every sense with the current heat wave, but braving the elements, we are still having our illustrious gathering.
Whether it's freezing cold of a winter or a summer heat - the Arts still rule the day and we invite you to share this spirit with us as always. We will start at 8:30 p.m. to let the night bring us some fresh air and then again... Some Like it Hot!!!
