CCM Welcomes Graham Johnson for Public Lecture and Master Class on March 26

Acclaimed vocal accompanist Graham Johnson will in residence at CCM from March 25 – 30, 2014.

CCM welcomes distinguished pianist and Benjamin Britten scholar Graham Johnson for a public lecture and open master class beginning at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26, in Robert J. Werner Recital Hall.

Johnson will provide a lecture on Britten’s life and solo vocal works for approximately one hour, followed by a 90 minute master class with three teams of CCM students. This event is free and open to the general public.

Recognized as one of the world’s leading vocal accompanists, Johnson will be in residence at CCM throughout the week as a part of this season’s Benjamin Britten Centenary Celebration.

About Graham Johnson
Graham Johnson is recognized as one of the world’s leading vocal accompanists. Born in Rhodesia, he came to London to study in 1967. After leaving the Royal Academy of Music his teachers included Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons. In 1972 he was the official pianist at Peter Pears’ first master classes at The Maltings, Snape which brought him into contact with Benjamin Britten—a link which strengthened his determination to accompany. In 1976 he formed the Songmakers’ Almanac to explore neglected areas of piano-accompanied vocal music; the founder singers were Dame Felicity Lott, Ann Murray DBE, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Richard Jackson—artists with whom he has established long and fruitful collaborations both on the concert platform and the recording studio. Some two hundred and fifty Songmakers’ programmes were presented over the years.

CCM’s Britten Centenary Celebration Culminates with Birthday Concert on Nov. 22

Britten rehearsing ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Op. 64, in Jubilee Hall in 1960. Image courtesy of http://www.britten100.org

CCM commemorates the 100th anniversary of the birth of composer, conductor and pianist Benjamin Britten with a celebratory concert on Friday, Nov. 22.

Under the baton of Mark Gibson, Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Studies, the CCM Philharmonia will present Britten’s orchestral showpiece The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, narrated by special guest Santa J. Ono, President of the University of Cincinnati.

One of Britten’s best-known pieces, The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34 (1946), is a musical composition that was originally commissioned for an educational  documentary film called Instruments of the Orchestra, directed by Muir Mathieson and featuring the London Symphony. It is one of the three popularly used scores in children’s music education, along with Saint Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.

Audience members may recognize this showpiece from the 2012 Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom. Music drawn from Britten’s opera for children, Noye’s Fludde, and his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, played an integral role in the movie’s conception and can be heard throughout the film. Watch Anderson discuss Britten’s influence here.

The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra is not only one of Britten’s most played pieces but — in its original, 1940s film version — was a highly significant attempt to use the media of the day to introduce children to classical music. View a newly animated version of the showpiece below:

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The evening will also feature Britten’s Violin Concerto, Op. 15 (1939), a highly original piece that foreshadows the composer’s work on the famed opera Peter Grimes (1945).

In addition, the program includes Sir Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the work that brought him to national prominence upon its production by Hans Richter at St. James’ Hall, London, in June of 1899. Like Britten, Elgar holds a place at the helm of his respective generation of British composers.

CCM Presents Cincinnati Premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Opera ‘Owen Wingrave,’ Nov. 21-24

From left to right: Edward Nelson as Owen Wingrave and Jason Weisinger as General Sir Phillip Wingrave in ‘Owen Wingrave.’ Photography by Mark Lyons.

CCM’s celebration of Benjamin Britten at 100 continues with the Cincinnati premiere of the composer’s penultimate opera Owen Wingrave, running Nov. 21-24 in Patricia Corbett Theater. CCM welcomes guest artist and alumnus Johannes Müller-Stosch to the podium for this Mainstage Series production, which features stage direction by CCM Professor of Voice Kenneth Shaw. The opera will be sung in English with supertitles.

Based on the 1893 Henry James short story of the same name and commissioned by the BBC in 1966, Owen Wingrave was completed for television in 1970. With music by Britten and a libretto by his frequent collaborator Myfanwy Piper, Shaw suggests that the opera offers “both drama and a touch of lightness, horror and hope, mystery and atmosphere, grandeur and intimacy.”

Owen Wingrave is often regarded as one of Britten’s most powerful scores. According to Shaw, the music of Owen Wingrave is exceptionally challenging, making it ideal for training students. The opera story is equally compelling and is centered on the titular Owen Wingrave, a pacifist born into a long line of military heroes who struggles to prove his inner strength to his disapproving family, even if it leads to his own mysterious end. “A secret is something that has resonance for all of us,” Shaw explains. “We keep secrets, and secrets are kept from us. For the Wingrave family, their secret doesn’t really have a full answer – it is a mystery.”