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Authored by Society president George Meiser IX |
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TWO News-Bits of Reading-Berks historical
interest..... ============================================ 1- Schuylkill Canal maps, photos, lock plans, charts, etc. online 2- Music buffs: World Premiere of "Concerto Nicolo" at Rajah/SPAC ============================================ 1- Those of you interested in the Schuylkill Navigation Co., the Schuylkill Canal, and all that goes with it...charts, maps, architectural drawings, photos, etc., check the following: http://www.racc.edu/library/canal/index.html This information was provided on this venue about a year or so ago, but there are about 800 more of you since that time. Be aware, the Reading Area Community College's powers-that-be were kind enough to give the Historical Society a duplicate set of the CD's that contain all this material. The collection IS extraordinarily valuable historically. RAAC, like Albright College, has an impressive collection of materials of interest to Berks County history buffs. ============================================== 2- The following is a press release...the WHOLE thing! It's being forwarded because one of the musical works being given is a world premiere, which will occur in Reading. If you're a music buff, read on.... THE CURTIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA TO GIVE THE WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCES OF CONCERTO NICOLÒ BY STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI, CONDUCTED BY THE COMPOSER, WITH GARY GRAFFMAN, PIANO The Concerto, commissioned by Dr. Herbert Axelrod in honor of Gary Graffman and based on Nicolo Paganini’s 24th Caprice, will also be performed and recorded by the Minnesota Orchestra at a later time. The Curtis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, will perform the world premiere performances the conductor’s Concerto Nicolò, in the Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading, Pa., on Sunday, February 9 at 3 p.m. with Curtis President/Director Gary Graffman as soloist. Commissioned by Dr. Herbert Axelrod in honor of Gary Graffman, the concerto is named for Nicolò Paganini and is based on the famous theme from that composer’s 24th Caprice. Dr. Axelrod and Mr. Graffman both have strong associations with Paganini: Dr. Axelrod co-authored a definitive biography on the composer with Leslie Sheppard, published by Paganiniana Publications in 1979, and Mr. Graffman has recorded Brahms’ Paganini Variations and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini on the CBS Records label as well as Six Paganini-Lizst Études on the RCA Records label. Mr. Graffman will perform the concerto with the Minnesota Orchestra, also conducted by Mr. Skrowaczewski, on March 27. The concert program will also include Rossini’s Overture to "Il viaggio a Reims" and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique.” Single tickets for the February 9 performance at the Sovereign Performing Arts Center, which is made possible with support from the Gertrude Sternbergh Concert Fund of the Reading Musical Foundation, are priced $26, $36 and $41 (student rush tickets at $15 are available the day of the concert with valid ID). Visit www.starseries.org/cso.htm, call 610-898-7299 or Ticketmaster at 215-336-2000. A regular guest of the major international orchestras for over 35 years, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski is one of today's pre-eminent conductors. He has received the Gold Medal of the Mahler-Bruckner Society for his interpretations of Bruckner symphonies and five 'ASCAP' awards for his programming of contemporary music. Born in Poland, Mr. Skrowaczewski began piano and violin studies at the age of four, composed his first symphonic work at seven, gave his first public piano recital at 11 and conducted Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto when he was 13. In 1946 he became conductor of the Wroclaw (Breslau) Philharmonic; subsequent positions include music directorship of Katowice Philharmonic (1949-54), Krakow Philharmonic (1954-56) and Warsaw Philharmonic (1956-59). In 1956 he won the International Competition for Conductors in Rome and, invited by George Szell, made his American debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1958. This led to engagements with New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati symphonies and, in 1960, to his appointment as music director of Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (Minnesota Orchestra). From 1984-91, following 19 years in Minneapolis he was principal conductor of Britain's Hallé Orchestra. Mr. Skrowaczewski has conducted all the major American orchestras and has toured with the Philadelphia Orchestra to South America and with the Cleveland Orchestra to Australia. Guest conducting engagements take him regularly to the continents of both North and South America, Australasia, Scandinavia and in Europe to Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, London, Paris and Vienna. In Japan he works regularly with both the NHK Symphony and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. Many acclaimed early records for Mercury, Vox and RCA/BMG from his extensive discography are now being re-released on compact disc, and recent recordings of Shostakovich, Brahms and particularly Bruckner have received the highest praise. The recently released complete edition of Bruckner symphonies with the Saarlaendischer Rundfunk (Arte Nova), where he is principal guest conductor, won the Cannes 2002 Award for Best Orchestral Recording of 18th/19th Century Orchestral Work. Gary Graffman’s 65-year association with the all-scholarship Curtis Institute of Music began when he was accepted as a piano student in 1936, at the age of seven. Exactly 50 years later, in 1986, he was appointed director of this world-renowned conservatory, following such illustrious predecessors as Josef Hofmann, Efrem Zimbalist and Rudolf Serkin. Mr. Graffman's administrative duties at the school are balanced by his teaching and coaching activities. He has three piano students, with whom he works weekly; informally coaches most of the other Curtis piano students; and often coaches and plays with student chamber music groups. Gary Graffman was born in New York on October 14, 1928, of Russian parents, and first climbed to the piano bench at the age of three. His violinist father had given him a small fiddle, but the instrument proved too cumbersome and piano lessons were substituted "temporarily." Mr. Graffman began 10 years of study with the renowned Isabelle Vengerova when he entered Curtis, and subsequently worked intensively for several years with Vladimir Horowitz and, in the summers, at the Marlboro Music Festival with Rudolf Serkin. His international career was launched in 1949 when he won the prestigious Leventritt Award. For the next three decades, Mr. Graffman toured constantly, playing the most demanding works in the piano literature with the world's finest orchestras and in recital. His recordings on the CBS and RCA labels include concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky with the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York and Philadelphia, and with such conductors as Bernstein, Mehta, Ormandy and Szell. The Symphony Orchestra of The Curtis Institute of Music is composed of over 100 players aged 15 to 26 and is under the direction of Otto-Werner Mueller, head of the Curtis conducting department, and David Hayes, music director of The Philadelphia Singers. The Orchestra has been featured in recent years on two commercial recordings: On the EMI label in a performance of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Symphony No. 5 conducted by André Previn, whose own work, Reflections, is also included on the disc; and on the New World label in a performance of the Piano Concerto for Left Hand and Orchestra by Ned Rorem (’44), also conducted by Mr. Previn, with Gary Graffman, piano, (’46). The piano concerto by Skrowaczewski will join a number of world premieres performed by the Orchestra in recent years. The Orchestra has been broadcast nationally on the CBS network’s Kennedy Center Honors show and CBS Sunday Morning, as well as on PBS as part of WHYY’s Philadelphia Performs series. On the radio, the Orchestra’s broadcast history began back in 1926 and includes national broadcasts on the Columbia and National broadcasting networks in the late 1920s through the 1930s; more recent broadcasts have included NPR’s Performance Today, the Voice of America and WHYY’s Philadelphia Performs. ============================ end |
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