Mariño begins a series of concerts on Thursday, May 11th with the chamber music ensemble Camerata Pacifica. In their four concerts in Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Marino and Los Angeles, Mariño will perform Bach’s Non sa che sia dolore, BWV 209 and Pergolesi’s Salve Regina in C Minor.

Male sopranos are not common. You might be familiar with counter tenors like Anthony Roth Costanzo and Iestyn Davies. Perhaps you’ve seen the 1994 film Farinelli or Mark Rylance on stage in Farinelli and the King. Both told stories revolving around famed Italian castrato Carlo Broschi.

A true male soprano uses his chest voice, not his falsetto, to achieve the high vocal range required to be a soprano. Mariño’s voice only partially broke during puberty leaving him with a heavenly voice that led to a recording contract with Decca Classics and last year’s release of Sopranista.

I recently spoke with the Venezuela-born Mariño who was in Europe where he lives. We discussed the nature of his voice, the teacher who helped him find that voice and how much he brings to each and every performance. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To watch the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Almost a year ago when Sopranista was coming out, you said on your Instagram account, “‘All my dreams will shine.’ A perfect line to describe how I feel as my album is being so joyously welcomed by each one of you.” What are the dreams that you have for yourself in the short term and in the long term? And I already know that you want to sing Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. So let’s see what else you have up your sleeve.

Honestly my most sincere dream is to continue to give joy to the people. I really like to give joy to the people. That’s my goal in everything. I just want to entertain the people and I want to give something back, you know. I got so many things in my life. I have been very lucky. Of course, it’s a lot of hard work, but look at me. I come from Venezuela. I flew to France looking for a dream. I had €1,000 in my pocket and that’s all. Look at where I am today. So I have been very fortunate. I’m very lucky. And I feel like I just want to give something back. That’s my main dream and that’s what I want to do right now.

It’s great to give back, but you must also take care of yourself. How does music allow you to do that? 

Music is like an instrument for me to heal myself and also to heal others. Music really transports me to maybe other dimensions. It’s very difficult for me to describe this, like places where I am floating, where I am flying, where I feel so many different things when I sing and when I even listen to music. I just want to bring the audience with me. Fly with me! Let’s go to all the places!

Or they take me also to those places with them. Because sometimes it’s not only myself to take them to travel. I suppose I travel with them even if I’m singing the same aria or something like that. I want the reaction of the people and taking it to another level. Especially when there is big silence after I finish something. They don’t clap. They don’t do anything, just staying silent. That’s quite a magical experience.

Your first album, Care pupille, was on Orfeo Records in 2020. You have Sopranista on Decca Classics. Have you had a homecoming concert in Venezuela? 

Yes. Just before COVID I had two concerts in Venezuela. I was so nervous: it’s my home country, it’s my culture, it’s my people. Even if I moved very early to France – I have been living in Europe for ten years already – I cannot lie to them. I just cannot pretend anything. I just have to be myself. And I was so nervous. Really.

How did you feel at the end of the concert?

I felt empty, to be honest. I feel quite empty after every concert. But this one, I feel very empty emotionally because it gives me so many emotions. The audience were very happy that I was there. But after you have all this applause and sometimes all these people, I have all these music, all these notes. Then you come back home with, I don’t know, your partner or often alone. I come back to my hotel room and have all this energy, all this adrenaline. It’s just very difficult to come down.

The press release that Decca Classics put out at the time of your signing and announcing the album, they said “Mariño has been contacted by a number of musicologists eager for him to try his hands at arias written for male sopranos that had been neglected for centuries.” Has that process continued? What, if any, discoveries have you made about this forgotten material?

It is a very difficult process because very often the castrati arias have been tailored for the castrati. Like high up and low. The composer really takes advantage of every single capacity of the singer. I don’t have this capacity very often. Actually, I don’t have this capacity. So I just have to transform the aria into myself. I do have to put the music to Samuel Mariño, tailor the music to it for me. I’m not an easy job. Sometimes even I will say not healthy.

I say not healthy because sometimes it’s very often this repertoire of things go super high; no breathing. When you look at Cecilia Bartoli’s career, she released her first album dedicated to the Castrati [when] she was like 38, something like that. You need a solid technique to sing this kind of music. When I go to discover and people tell me, “Oh, let’s make this kind of thing,” I look at it very carefully because I have to keep my voice healthy. I would like to keep my instrument healthy. To sing carefully, even if castrato, is the main thing for me.

In the performances you’re going to be doing with Camerata Pacifica you’ll be doing works by Bach and Pergolesi – both baroque composers. That period of music showcased a lot of writing for male soprano. What did they know that you wish composers who followed them or even contemporary composers would know about what it is to write for a male soprano?

They just like write to the boys. I would like to work with a composer someday. I am very text person. I like to know what I am saying. That’s what I like about this Bach cantata because a lot of text is beautiful. The cantata is one of the few ones that he wrote in Italian. It’s beautiful, it’s super operatic and speaks very well. My voice is my personality. That’s what I would like to work with a composer. Something that can feed our personality and change our art together.

Countertenors seem to be embraced now in a way that they weren’t even 20 years ago in works by Nico Muhly and John Corigliano as just two examples. What do you think will need to happen for contemporary composers to start considering the male soprano? 

I think that they will like it because we have all this expansion. We are not that many today. I mean it’s quite rare. I was actually in an opera, but it was canceled during COVID in Paris. It was called Madame White Snake, written for male soprano Michael Maniaci.

[Note: Madame White Snake, composed by Zhou Long with a libretto by Celine Lims Jacobs, was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Music.]

How much of how you present yourself through fashion, hair and makeup is stuff that you are part of creating?

I do everything myself. Really. It’s really important for me because I don’t have this background, like many classical musicians, like my parents are musicians, so they play cello. My mother is a violin player. I don’t have that. I grew up listening Britney Spears and pop music and I was so amazed by it. When I look at these kind of shows, these pop artists still doing it today, Lady Gaga, for example, I get inspired by it. Why not bring that to opera? Of course, it’s a lot of work. Especially when it comes from one person.

People will never imagine all the work I have to do: looking online, being in contact with designers as well as working myself. I design, I draw myself my own outfits as well. Plus learning the music, traveling with the dog. But it’s an art form. As I said before, I like to give joy to the people and people have fun, look into my outfits and get excited about it. Classical audiences want to have the full show.

You grew up with all this pop music and then you got introduced to American lyric soprano Barbara Bonney, who I know was very important in your life. She told Bruce Duffie in a 1989 interview, when asked what advice she had for younger singers coming along, “Be really careful about your voice teachers.” What made her the right voice teacher for you and what did you learn from her that has most resonated with you and will guide you through the rest of your career?

I remember the first exercise that Barbara made me do. When I read to her it was like just singing and speaking. So I was like, [he demonstrates this vocally which can be seen in the video] “My name is Samuel and I like to drink earl grey with milk.” That’s how you start everything, just using my natural voice. After we listen to the real things of the voice, we can make your voice unique. Big singers [have] wonderful careers are great because they have a unique voice. 

Someone like Renée Fleming, you hear romance, you hear jazzy background. Cecilia Bartolil you hear immediately silver color in her voice. Barbara really [taught] me how to find my own color because you have to be sellable. If you sing like everyone else you will be just like everyone else. She was right. 

As a friend, as my musical mother, she also reminds me singing pays your bills. Even if it’s your passion, it pays your bills. So have a life, take care of constructing your own life and take care of your life. This is our passion. But we have to remember that it is our job as well.

Journalist Alexandra Coghlan in her review of Sopranista for Gramophone Magazine said “If Mariño is to have the mold-breaking career he clearly wants, then it has to be in the service of emotion and drama.” Last December you wrote on your Instagram account, “Pain is the hardest part of being a singer, apart from the technique, music, etc. It is very hard to come back to reality after the rollercoaster of emotions.” What role does your own life experience play in getting to where you need or want to be emotionally when you are performing and how much do you feel you have to learn to fully accomplish everything you want to with your performances?

That’s a very good question. You know, I believe there are two Samuels. There is that Samuel that you can see on a stage that maybe dresses fancy and everything. And there is a Samuel that is, at home, very shy. Super, super shy. Both Samuels have lived very deep experiences in their lives. So I 100% bring these emotions to stage.

I also live in the society. I am part of what is happening today in the world. I am aware of climate changes. I am conscious of climate changes. I am, like my millennial generation, suffering with anxiety because of climate change and these kind of things. So I don’t live in a bubble.

It is impossible for me to say something and not relate it to when I am living today or whatever I have lived in my past. My past is what I am today. I am what I am here. I am Samuel. You want to talk with me because of what happened before to me? Good and bad? I have a wonderful memory. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. I remember every single detail.

I bring that to the stage. It is not easy. It is very risky. I take a lot of risks because, as I say in that post, it’s very difficult to come back and say, that was part of your past. It’s very intense. But I want to do that because, well, first of all, I cannot do it another way. This is the only way I can do this. I have to be honest. And second of all, I want to make the audience feel with me. To have the pain or the joy with me. I want to make them accompany me. Like I am their friend. That I am with them now. That we are together because I am not the only one who lives in this kind of things. I am just like everyone. And I want to say to them we are together. We are living this together. 

To see the full interview with Samuel Mariño, please go here.

Main Photo: Samuel Mariño (Courtesy Samuel Mariño and Camerata Pacifica)

The post Bo23: Samuel Mariño Pushes Boundaries appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Camerata Pacifica is making many of these videos easy to watch at home. So for all you chamber music fans wondering how to pass time at home during our present crisis, these offerings are the cultural equivalent of a fine dining menu. You’ve got Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart. But you also get Golijov, Ives, Reich, Shaw and more from which to choose.

Take a look and have a listen. And don’t blame us if you find that hours have passed once you get started exploring.

Auerbach: F Major and D minor Preludes for Cello and Piano (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaXA_j65yXY&feature=youtu.be)

Bach: Fugue from BWV 1001, Ji Hye at SpeakEasy
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIbiTwS1cTg&feature=youtu.be)

Bach: Goldberg Variations for String Trio, arr. Sitkovetsky
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb3UbxdLvfk&feature=youtu.be)

Barber: Molto Adagio, from String Quartet, Op. 11
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuKxdBD05z8&feature=youtu.be)

Bax: Quintet for Oboe and Strings
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3unP7LDOpI&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: “Archduke” Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezRNLXBbB8Q&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: “Archduke” Trio, Op. 97 (Excerpt)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2xfFlPRgIU&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: Clarinet Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1QU3rOR4ek&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: Quintet for Piano & Winds, Op. 16, 2nd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IKEhUpR9X0&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRMn03R-Q1E&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: String Trio in G Major, Op. 9, No. 1
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-M8TrkXFyc&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: String Trio, Op. 9, No. 3, 2nd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcpev0cvIgE&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: Violin Sonata in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvzBD5JaRy0&feature=youtu.be)

Beethoven: Violin Sonata in G Major, Op. 96, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjsvXPDxwLo&feature=youtu.be)

Bennett: After Syrinx II
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgTNje8Fmio&feature=youtu.be)

Brahms: Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 38, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACrT2qsrFZs&feature=youtu.be)

Brahms: Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, Adagio
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJwVbkBeAjk&feature=youtu.be)

Brahms: Piano Quartet in A Major, Op. 26 (excerpt)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfhlFJel5NU&feature=youtu.be)

Brahms: Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8, 3rd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBxRosvVsOk&feature=youtu.be)

Brahms: Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8, 4th Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPxa8_O3svc&feature=youtu.be)

Brahms: String Quintet No. 3 in G Major, Op. 111, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8-MpbX7aX8&feature=youtu.be)

Britten: Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 6
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlxmyPzrYe8&feature=youtu.be)

Bruce: The Consolation of Rain
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to0tDlSIgHo&feature=youtu.be)

Bruce: Steampunk
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVowWXGXqrE&feature=youtu.be)

Caplet: Conte fantastique
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn9XidhQ8r0&feature=youtu.be)

Clarke: Viola sonata, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_vWlCsV0eg&feature=youtu.be)

Deane: Mourning Dove Sonnet
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O74R5Qe65QE&feature=youtu.be)

Debussy, Bennet, Xenakis, Takemitsu
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiZjrUXgFE8&feature=youtu.be)

Debussy: Violin Sonata
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rfnXyyJxgM&feature=youtu.be)

Destenay: Trio in B minor for Piano, Oboe, and Clarinet, Op. 27
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEguxmzEBGo&feature=youtu.be)

Dring: Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Piano, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAgu-E-jDnE&feature=youtu.be)

D’Rivera: Bandoneon
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3vYTo-Dxxk&feature=youtu.be)

Dvořák: F Minor Piano Trio, Op. 65, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A46GxwPu8Ho&feature=youtu.be)

Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRwoatWsrdM&feature=youtu.be)

Ginastera: Sonata para Piano No. 1, Op. 22
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5awsOew-RZg&feature=youtu.be)

Golijov: “Mariel”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tLcieXiH4&feature=youtu.be)

Gounod: Petite Symphonie
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFLaYc2_wKc&feature=youtu.be)

Grieg: Violin Sonata in C minor, Op. 45, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cO4oK3fFx4&feature=youtu.be)

Haas: Suite for Oboe and Piano, Op. 17
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9L79GJE4jk&feature=youtu.be)

Harbison: Songs America Loves to Sing
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icd047CxPak&feature=youtu.be)

Harbison: String Trio, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItX_ks3lyiA&feature=youtu.be)

Harbison: String Trio, World Premiere
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnNnhlSSQ0w&feature=youtu.be)

Harbison: Wind Quintet, Movements 2 & 3
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0-Y5LlXAY&feature=youtu.be)

Haydn: G Major Trio, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJczu0kWakg&feature=youtu.be)

Howell: Oboe Sonata
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzexHEVus7k&feature=youtu.be)

Ives: Piano Sonata No.2
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgMSSktwnEg&feature=youtu.be)

Janacek: Violin Sonata, 2nd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB7YTH2VQlo&feature=youtu.be)

Kraft: Encounters V, “In the Morning of the Winter Sea”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7aIPSNGBwA&feature=youtu.be)

Liszt: Transcendental Etude No. 1
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dNQ7I3yfZM&feature=youtu.be)

Liszt: Transcendental Etudes
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykmURwwchy8&feature=youtu.be)

Loeffler: 2 Rhapsodies
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gJCSle5UyQ&feature=youtu.be)

Loeffler: 4 Poems for Voice, Viola, and Piano
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yQ00n2rthw&feature=youtu.be)

Loeffler: Rhapsody, “L’Etang”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxBHoblKsCs&feature=youtu.be)

Louys: “Bilitis”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo89ELziZ38&feature=youtu.be)

Messiaen: Appel Interstellaire
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN8lZpBrIQ8&feature=youtu.be)

Mozart: Adagio for Cor Anglais and Strings, K 580a
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5L-cydVU50&feature=youtu.be)

Mozart: Divertimento in E-flat Major, K 563, 2nd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TlDd3j5RJc&feature=youtu.be)

Mozart: Divertimento in E-flat Major, K 563, 4th Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvJp2n9GVSI&feature=youtu.be)

Mozart: Duo for Violin and Viola in G Major, K. 423
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JdVBULKACg)

Mozart: “Kegelstatt” Trio
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvMwYKyo5IM&feature=youtu.be)

Mozart: Oboe Quartet
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAg_wJGqCZQ&feature=youtu.be)

Mozart: Serenade in C minor, K 388
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6iSGBNdqSw&feature=youtu.be(

Mozart: Violin Sonata in A, K. 526, 2nd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nz11qNjzPQ&feature=youtu.be)

Novacek: Four Rags for Two Jons
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmJ0PXgLUOY&feature=youtu.be)

Puts: And Legions Will Rise
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S72yr47IaRM&feature=youtu.be)

Rabl: Four Songs, Op. 5
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t7vXfEoSjw&feature=youtu.be)

Reich: Sextet
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zKgf3H5-Bo&feature=youtu.be)

Reinecke: Flute Sonata, “Undine”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TtJHBWtsLg&feature=youtu.be)

Richards: de Stamparare
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrbC0ou_8mI&feature=youtu.be)

Rubinstein: Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 49, 2nd Movement, Andante
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sZC-SXBM38&feature=youtu.be)

Ruo: To the 4 Corners, Scene 1
()

Ruo: To the 4 Corners, Scene 2 Pt. 1
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d_p7b84f08&feature=youtu.be)

Ruo: To the 4 Corners, Scene 2 Pt. 2
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc5XLEM21tI&feature=youtu.be)

Saint-Saens: Fantasie for Violin and Harp, Op. 124
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JdVBULKACg&feature=youtu.be)

Sarasate: Romanza Andaluza
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJXrpjlC-Qo&feature=youtu.be)

Schubert: Divertimento
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZO5wCp4eAc&feature=youtu.be)

Schubert: E-flat Major Piano Trio, D929, 2nd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqxzhRTCnJA&feature=youtu.be)

Shaw: “Boris Kerner”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iicAvn6oVls&feature=youtu.be)

Sheng: “Hot Pepper”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y7Sp1G4IMk&feature=youtu.be)

Stanford: 3 Intermezzi, Op. 13
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE49Swkyt38&feature=youtu.be)

Turina: Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 67, 1st Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMeKVr6nXNg&feature=youtu.be)

Turina: Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 67, 2nd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_kuyoPBCYo&feature=youtu.be)

Turina: Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 67, 3rd Movement
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3jcdQjegj4&feature=youtu.be)

Vine: Inner World
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAO5nkNRvy8&feature=youtu.be)

Wiegold: “Earth, Receive an Honoured Guest”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVtN1SG8zHg&feature=youtu.be)

Wilson: Dreamgarden
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rheRF2zeQ4&feature=youtu.be)

Wilson: Spilliaert’s Beach
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6OXTfTEAEI&feature=youtu.be)

Wolfgang: Vine Street Express
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTv1_uZJDqI&feature=youtu.be)

Ysaÿe: Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 27 “Georges Enescu”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJV__jdxI74&feature=youtu.be)

Zemlinksy: Lied for Cello and Piano
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13fcG8CH0_o&feature=youtu.be)

So what’s on your playlist?

Photo: Camerata Pacifica – Krisitin Lee, Jason Uyeyama, Ani Aznavoorian, Richard Yongjae O’Neill & Jose Franch-Ballester 3/9/18 MAW Hahn Hall (Courtesy of Camerata Pacifica)

The post Are You Missing Chamber Music? appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

To mark both anniversaries, Camerata Pacifica began a Why Beethoven? project last year. The two-year celebration concludes at the end of their just-started 2019-2020 season with a performance of the Beethoven String Quartet in B Flat Major, Op. 130 with its original ending. Last season concluded with the same quartet, but with its revised ending.

I recently spoke by phone with Spence about his original goals for Camerata Pacifica, where he sees the ensemble today and through it all I got insight into his views on classical music today and the role Los Angeles plays in its future.

How was Camerata Pacific carved a place for itself in the classical music world in Southern California?

What we’ve done much more generally is bring a mainstream audience into the 21st century with us. Our mission talks about affecting positively how people experience classical music. At the end of every season my goal is to make the audience more capable listeners than I had at the start of the season. I think we’ve done that. Over three decades this has become a well-honed audience. If you don’t want to come and lean in and listen, because I expect you to do that, don’t come. There are a whole bunch of other groups I can recommend to you.

What was your vision in 1989 and how does Camerata Pacifica today reflect what you envisioned?

I’m glad to say that we’re living the dream. You are a writer in the classical music business, you understand and this is no indictment of you personally, but no other industry writes so poorly about itself like the classical music industry. Tobacco does a better job and they kill people. I don’t think it is as bad as it was. This is the golden age. This is the second renaissance for classical music. 

We’re immersed in this whole Beethoven notion, but we’re still presenting concerts by rules established in 1800 and the wheels are coming off that machine. The large paradigm institutions have to make massive corrections. Filling a 3,000 person concert hall is a problem, particularly for regional symphony orchestras or operas. Filling smaller halls is being lead by chamber music and it offers a broader range of repertoire. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be a part of. If you can’t listen to Toru Takemitsu, then you’re not hearing Beethoven. That’s been an assertion of ours for 30 years.

How important is the pairing of well-known composers with lesser-known composers in order to grow appreciation of classical music?

I think it is critical for the audience. In the latter half of the 20th century you had a small number of white males deciding who was going to be listened to and what was recorded and broadcast and that’s all collapsed. And that’s fabulous. The arrival of the iPod shuffle is brilliant. Young people are not defined by genre. They listen to what they listen to with an open mind. Classical music is always going to be a minority participation sport because it requires greater participation. We’re never going to get a market share of 95% – it will always be 1 or 2 percent. But that share will always be there. There are always smart people who want to think for themselves. Whether Millennials or Gen X or what you want to call it, you are going to have smart curious people. If you have smart, curious people they can be brought to our product. We are stewards of this art form and we, too, as audience members, should be handing it off to the next generation better than we received it. This is what I think about every day.

You have a unique way of looking at what an audience is and/or should be.

I’m not interested in the music lover. A music lover has fairly rigid ideas of with they think is good or bad music. They are usually thinking of 18th or 19th century work written in a linear manner. What I’m interested in are the intellectually curious and it’s going to be Beethoven and George Crumb and Huang Ruo and they will ask “Why?” I want to reach those people. I believe there is a massive audience of intellectually curious who don’t come because they think of it as dusty or boring. Why the hell you’d drop 50 or 100 bucks on that I don’t know.

How would you describe the state of the arts in Los Angeles as we move into the 2020s?

Nobody has asked me that question before. I think Los Angeles is where it is at. I think the LA Philharmonic is doing a superb leadership job. The growing work done, particularly by Esa-Pekka Salonen, that was superb work that has helped create an audience whether happily or unhappily, they expect to be presented with new music on a regular basis.

I think the future of classical music is looking west into the Pacific. And I think Los Angeles and Southern California is poised to do that. Even in the time that we’ve been performing here there’s been an explosion of chamber music groups. You look at Yuval Sharon’s The Industry, some of the off-stage stuff LA Opera is doing – which is critical, Green Umbrella, Jacaradana, we’re trying to work together and show audiences what’s out there and present it collaboratively.

When you see so much going on – good ideas and bad ideas – whether  all these things survive, that’s the sign of a healthy artistic musical environment. Because that’s what you want – constant new ideas and most of them, by the nature of being, aren’t going to work. The more you have, the more that will work. That’s just simple. I think in Southern California we’re seeing that, which is exciting.

All photos courtesy of Camerata Pacifica

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Under the leadership of Artistic Director Adrian Spence, Camerata Pacifica continues its Why Beethoven? program this year, which also happens to be the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. During this season they will explore the composer’s chamber work and these first concerts are no exception.

The program opens with Lera Auerbach’s 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano. Auerbach was born in Russia in 1973. These preludes were composed in 1999. Camerata Pacifica has performed her work before and they gave the first performances of two works they commissioned: Dreammusik for cello and chamber orchestra which had its first performance in 2014 and 24 Preludes for Viola and Piano which had its debut during the 2017-2018 season.

The second half of the program finds the Beethoven Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97, “Archduke” being performed. Beethoven completed this work in 1811 and it had its first public performance in 1814 with the composer on the piano. He would play the piece one more time and that apparently marked the end of his public performances as his hearing loss was becoming worse.

This work has four movements:

1. Allegro moderato
2. Scherzo (Allegro)
3. Andante cantabile ma però con moto. Poco piu adagio, D major
4. Allegro moderato – Presto

This piece runs approximately 43 minutes. The musicians for these performances are: Paul Huang on violin; Ani Aznavoorian on cello and Gilles Vonsattel on piano.

On Thursday there is a performance of this program at Zipper Hall at The Colburn School.

On Friday there is a performance of this program at Hahn Hall at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

Check back for our interview with Adrian Spence later this week.

Photo of Lera Auerbach by N. Feller courtesy of her website.

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The concert schedule has a performance in San Marino on May 14th at Rothenberg Hall at the Huntington Library; another on May 16th at Zipper Hall at the Colburn School and a final performance May 17th at Hahn Hall in Santa Barbara.

The program for Beethoven & Brahms begins with performances of three of Beethoven’s 179 folk song arrangements.  They are The Kiss, Dear Maid, Thy Lip Has Left; The Return to Ulster and The Pulse of an Irishman. Andrew Garland will be the vocalist for these songs as well as Four Serious Songs by Brahms that will close the program. Tamara Sanikidze will be on the piano.

In between finds The Calder Quartet performing Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130 . There are two versions of this string quartet. The version being performed at these concerts finds the final movement being the final piece of music he ever wrote. He was encouraged to replace the original final movement  with the work being performed at these concerts.

During next season, and as a continuation of the Why Beethoven? project, The Calder Quartet will return to play the same string quartet, but with the original Grosse Fuge as the work’s final movement

The Calder Quartet features Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook on violin, Jonathan Moerschel on viola and Eric Byers on cello. The Quartet has played all over the world.

Tickets for all performances are $58.

Main photo by Autumn de Wilde

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