Arthur Fiedler News
American conductor (1894-1979)
Commemorations 2024 (Birth: Arthur Fiedler)
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2024-04-24
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2021-10-12 09:07:56
A chance to hear Alfredo Casella's Concerto for Orchestra next week, performed by the Kensington Symphony Orchestra
Alfredo Casella The Italian composer, pianist and conductor Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) had a remarkably varied career. He was one of the generazione dell'ottanta (generation of '80), which included Casella himself, Malipiero, Respighi, Pizzetti, and Alfano; composers born around 1880, the post-Puccini generation who concentrated on writing instrumental works, rather than operas. Coming from a musical family (his cellist grandfather was a friend of Paganini, his father, mother and brothers were all musicians) he studied composition at the Paris Conservatoire with Faure, where Enescu and Ravel were fellow students and he became acquainted with Debussy, Stravinsky and Falla. From 1927-1929 he as the principal conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra (to be succeeded by Arthur Fiedler whose name is indelibly linked to the Boston Pops). As a composer his biggest success was with his ballet La Giara to a scenario by Pirandello! And his organisation of a Vivaldi Week in 1939 helped to kick-start […]
2021-05-14 00:42:00
TheBerkshireEdge.com: Sculptures "inspired composer William Grant Still to write his Suite for Violin and Piano"
[…] music only on “Negro Day.”) Despite this, the young composer made a name for himself as a purveyor of music that audiences enjoyed listening to, and this was fine for radio, film, theater, and the dance hall. But the classical music concert hall was a different matter. Nevertheless, at a time when conservatories were already championing the who-cares-if-you-listen ethos that would reach its zenith in the 1950s, Arthur Fiedler programmed, and the Boston Pops Orchestra performed, William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, “Afro-American.” He enjoyed much popularity with concert audiences and became one of the most frequently performed composers — Black or otherwise — in his lifetime. William Grant Still may have been a Black Leonard Bernstein. But there is no white William Grant Still. Outside the classical world, Grant Still arranged music for innumerable popular […]
Norman Lebrecht - Slipped disc
2020-09-08 09:47:04
First lady of the tuba has died, aged 88
Connie Weldon, who has died in Miami, was the first woman to play tuba in world-class orchestras. In 1954, she played under Leonard Bernstein’s baton at Tanglewood Music Festival and never looked back. Next stop was Arthur Fiedler with the Boston Pops. After a stint in the North Carolina Symphony she won a Fulbright Fellowship […]
2020-03-31 08:24:00
Young, gifted and black but still forgotten
[…] Grant Still. After the concert the influential critic Virgil Thomson wrote of her Symphony "It is in every way as interesting as the symphonies Mozart wrote at the same age". But despite a limited number of high profile concerts in front of white audiences Philippa's popular appeal remained limited to the African American community. In a Look magazine profile she was described as "The Shirley Temple of American negroes" and her appearance with Arthur Fiedler in Boston was in the classical ghetto of the "Colored American night at the Pops". Philippa later wrote that it was in the late 1940s that she became truly aware of America's racial prejudice. Her insecurity was further fuelled by the realisation that her mother viewed her simply as a genetic and behavourial experiment whose success was due to nutrition and training rather than natural talent. In 1950 Philippa's search for new audiences took […]
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