John Pierce News
American operatic tenor
- tenor
- United States of America
- opera singer, music teacher
Last update
2024-04-24
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2024-04-04 03:30:00
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini; Respighi: Toccata for Piano and Orchestra; Casella: Partita for Piano and Orchestra (CD Review)
by Ryan RossJoshua Pierce, piano; Anton Nanüt, conductor; RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. MSR 1839 This disc’s program notes by Eric Salzman state that all the works on it are “modernist pieces with strong connections to tradition,” and “can be regarded as neo-classical.” While he qualifies the latter label for each in turn, these claims seem variably strained to me. Despite the fact that two of the pieces are by Italian contemporaries, it would be truer to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the music here and gladly stick to that. (As an aside, I am thoroughly exasperated by the looseness with which the term “modernism” is thrown around these days.) What really strikes me about this offering is not only how much each work should be considered on its own terms, but also how easily the familiarity and accessibility of the Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody can impede fair […]
2024-03-25 08:15:00
Lush romanticism was a long way away: an immersive contemporary interpretation of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater from Figure
Our Mother - Rowan Pierce, Emma Kirkby, Alexandra Achillea Pouta - Figure at Stone Nest (Photo: Kristina Allen)Our Mother: Pergolesi: Stabat Mater with interludes by Alex Mills; Emma Kirkby, Catherine Carby, Rowan Pierce, Alexandra Achillea Pouta, Nadya Pickup, Figure, Frederick Waxman, Sophie Daneman; Stone NestReviewed 23 March 2024An abstract, immersive staging, concentrating on dramatising the emotional arc of Pergolesi's work interleaved with impressive new interludes from young composer Alex MillsHistorical performance group, Figure, music director Frederick Waxman, has become known for its fascinatingly staged interpretation of classics and recent work has included Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Opera Holland Park and This is my Body, an immersive staging of Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri [see my review]. For their latest project, Our Mother at Stone Nest (seen 23 March 2024), Figure performed Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with new interludes by composer Alex Mills. The soloists were Dame Emma Kirkby, Catherine Carby, Rowan Pierce, Alexandra Achillea Pouta and Nadya Pickup, […]
2024-02-08 08:14:00
Sitting in a concert hall is not a great place to have a musical experience: Frederick Waxman introduces Our Mother, Figure's dramatic staging of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater
This is my body Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri from Figure at the Swiss Church in 2023The ensemble Figure, co-artistic directors Frederick Waxman and Philip Barrett, has had some considerable success with its stagings at Opera Holland Park of Handel's Serse (in 2022) and Shakespeare/Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream (in 2023), but last year the company also created a remarkable immersive staging Buxtehude's sacred cantata sequence Membra Jesu Nostri [see my review].From 20 to 23 March 2024 they will be presenting Our Mother at Stone Nest. This will be a dramatised staging of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with additional music by Alex Mills. Directed by Sophie Daneman, the staging will be performed by women of multiple generations, Dame Emma Kirkby, Catherine Carby, Rowan Pierce and Katie MacDonald.When I chatted to Frederick Waxman about the production he commented that whilst everyone knows the first 20 seconds or so of Pergolesi's music, they wanted to […]
2024-02-04 20:56:00
[…] mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg. Also on the program:Ecstatic Meditations – Aaron Jay Kernis’s spectacular settings of four texts, also from Mechthildof Magdeburg, in Jane Hirshfield’s translation.All Shall Be Well – Joanna Marsh sets text from “Revelations of Divine Love” by another medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich – believed to be the earliest surviving English-language writings by a woman.Into Being – Ingrid Stölzel’s setting of the Sanskrit Mantra “So ham ham sa.”Sohbet of the Rare Small Bird – Forrest Pierce sets Sufi reflections on spiritual teaching and learning, from ancient Persian texts.Natural History – Emma O’Halloran meditates on the thousands of species discovered by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and described in his book “The Malay Peninsula.”Tickets range in price from $15 to $50 and can be purchased online through www/VoltiSF.org or at the door.
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