Joining the ranks of some of the UK’s most illustrious citizens past and present, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s longtime  music director, Nicholas McGegan was made an Officer of the British Empire on this year’s Queen’s Birthday Hounors List.  I asked PBO’s PR guy, Sasha Hnatkovich if this meant we get to call him “Sir” Nic.  Sasha said no, he is now officially Nicholas McGegan, OBE- but stay tuned!

Congrats Nic!

An orchestra of laptops?  Why not?  At Stanford, Professor Ge Wang runs the CCRMA, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. Is this the wave of the future?  Computers are precise, can produce just about any sound and they don’t get tired like, say, a trumpeter.  Add people to the mix and you add emotion, intention, and expressiveness.  Wang says, “You pull these elements together and then see where the intersection is”.  Click here to listen to Slork which is an acronym for Stanford Laptop Orchestra.

During his 4 month residency at Recology San Francisco back in 2007, young Bay Area composer Nathaniel Stookey was inspired to write Junkestra, a 3-movement piece for percussion instruments improvised from stuff he found at the dump! Stookey assembled what he called “a sonorous collection of pipes, pans, bottles, deck railings, bike wheels, bathroom fixtures and shopping carts”.  Junkestra has already been performed many times to great acclaim and you can hear it next when members of the SF Symphony take up these, uh, instruments to play it on May 9 at 2pm.  Click here for more.

Stookey

That’s the nickname for a beautiful gilded harpsichord built especially for Philharmonia Baroque’s maestro, Nicholas McGegan.  One of the cool things about this instrument is that it has two sets of legs so it can be one height when Nic is playing sitting down and higher when he is playing and conducting.  Here’s a photo:

Hope you’ll be able to join us for our next KDFC at Yoshi’s SF concert.  This time we welcome pianist Jon Nakamatsu to the casual nightclub setting of Yoshi’s.  A native of the Peninsula, Jon won the 1997 Van Cliburn Competition and since then has become one of today’s most sought-after performers.  When he was here for a KDFC Casual Concert, we had a great time and discovered that he is not only incredibly talented as a musician but super articulate, funny, and approachable.  All those things will be on offer Monday, May 3rd at 8pm.  Get your tickets here and check out Jon’s website there.

Jon Nakamatsu

The Vienna Philharmonic has announced that it has appointed a woman as concertmaster of the orchestra.  The leader of the violin section also traditionally serves as a kind of second-in-command of the orchestra.  It’s the first time a woman has risen to this level in the Vienna Philharmonic.  In fact, they only began allowing women into their ranks in any capacity as recently as the 1980’s but only on a provisional basis.  Full membership in the Philharmonic Society was not granted to women until 1997!  The Vienna Phil is one of the world’s top 5 orchestras, with positions often passed from father to son for generations.  Well, all I can say is it’s about time!

Albena Danailova

Stayed up late watching the men’s figure skating on TV last night.  Had to switch away when the performances were too heart-breaking to watch.  Some of these guys chose to skate to classical music.  Did you hear the Concierto de Aranjuez, The Firebird, and the William Tell Overture?  Fun stuff although the Jimi Hendrix wasn’t half bad!

Johnny Weir

Reading the New York Times’ description of Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andnes’ recent performance at New York’s big Apple Store at Lincoln Center, I couldn’t help but think of our KDFC Casual Concerts.  Leif played for about 50 minutes, chatting between pieces with a small but appreciative audience. That’s exactly the format for our in-lobby concerts with some of the world’s finest musicians.  The setting was the very cool glass-enclosed store in the city’s performing arts nexus.  A classical concert in an unexpected venue?  Again, sounds like us!  See KDFC at Yoshi’s concert series news below.

How does a child hear music?  Through her ears, I know.  What I mean is, do children hear music without pre-conceived ideas about it?  I think they do and it’s a delight to see them embrace classical music with their whole minds and bodies.  My real introduction to classical music was a set of LPs that I bought with my own money after seeing them advertised on TV by the old-time conductor of the Boston Pops, Arthur Fielder.  Something like “The World’s Greatest Music of All Time”.  Anyway, I spent hours as a kid listening to them and can still remember that my favorites included Scheherazade and The Swan by Saint-Saens.  (I even remember listening to KDFC when I was young.)   What are your kids’ favorites? Here’s a list compiled by the BBC:

Kids’ top 10 classical music

1 John Williams Harry Potter

2 Howard Blake Walking in the Air (The Snowman)

3 Sergei Prokofiev Peter’s Theme (Peter and the Wolf)

4 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker)

5 Sergei Prokofiev The Duck Scene (Peter and the Wolf)

6 Paul Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Fantasia)

7 Edward Elgar Pomp and Circumstance Op. 39, No. 4 (Fantasia)

8 Johann Pachelbel Canon

9 Sergei Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet

10 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Flight of the Bumblebee

If Peter and the Wolf is a big favorite with your kids too, listen for my Prize @ 5 trivia this week to win tickets to hear Linda Ronstadt narrate it with the SFS Youth Orchestra on December 13th.

The wonderful pianist Yefim Bronfman joins the SFS this Tuesday on KDFC performing the Brahms Piano Concerto #1.  But who knew that the classical star is a foodie extradinaire?  He will be judging an episode of Iron Chef this Sunday night on the Food Network.  “Fima”, who hails from Uzbekistan originally, says that food and wine have become a hobby for him as he travels around the world performing.