By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • April 7, 2012

The concert by the adventurous young Janus Trio at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on Thursday had all the makings of a high-voltage evening. The players — flutist Amanda Baker, Beth Meyers on viola and Nuiko Wadden on harp — are seasoned virtuosos and key players in New York’s new-music scene, and the program was made up almost entirely of hip, new pieces from hip, young composers. Moreover, the Atlas may be the best place in town to get up close and personal with new music.

So why, then, was the evening such a dud?

Maybe it was the half-empty hall, which can dampen any group’s mojo. Or it may have been the odd-slash-lofty thesis of the evening, which, as Baker explained, was to “explore the static of one’s mind to discover what really exists” (a tricky game, as we know). But probably it was just the general sense, as the evening wore on, of self-involved music being played without much passion or discernible fire.

Angelica Negron’s “Drawings for Meyoko,” for example, opened promisingly with crumpling paper and an amplified banjo over a pulsing electronic track, but the trio played it so diffidently that you worried the musicians might fall asleep. Jason Treuting’s “I Am Not (Blank)” followed and, while not entirely (blank), came pretty close: a work whose surface simplicity masked an inner lack of powerful ideas. The group shook off its torpor in Barbara White’s “Gather,” providing the accompaniment to a grainy, jittery black-and-white film projected behind it, and the music was intriguing at first, both well crafted and full of life. But you got the point in a minute or two, and from then on, both music and film went round and round in circles, exploring the compulsive repetition of a meaningless task (you know: commentary on modern existence, et cetera) until the static in this particular mind began leaking out the ears.

Things did pick up after intermission; Martin Matalon’s “Formas de Arena” was a wonderfully engaging work, full of colorful textures and an alert sense of purpose, and Wadden’s superb, dancelike playing on the harp was a joy to hear. Paul Clift’s “How Do You Express X?” had a compelling, otherworldly melancholy to it, and “New Gates” from the brilliant Kaija Saariaho provided some of the most sophisticated and imaginative music of the evening. Alas, it was too little, too late: The concert closed with a smattering of applause, a collective shrug and a hasty rush to the doors.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • April 6, 2012

The young Japanese soprano Maki Mori arrived at the Terrace Theater on Wednesday night, launching a week-long series of concerts commemorating Tokyo’s 1912 gift of the thousands of cherry trees that now line the Tidal Basin.  It was a fitting choice.  The tiny, delicately-featured Mori is something of a blossom herself — dressed in a billowing concoction of ruffles and pink swirls, you worried she might be carried off in the next breeze — and she picked a program that blended East and West with easy confidence.

Placido Domingo discovered Mori in Japan a decade ago and brought her over to sing with the Washington National Opera, and from the first notes of the program it was clear why he sprung for the ticket. Mori has a wonderfully clear, silvery voice and a virtually immaculate technique, and in a range of familiar arias from Gounod, Mahler, Rossini, Verdi and Mascagni she displayed pinpoint accuracy and agility, undermined only by a sometimes awkward sense of drama. The most satisfying works of the evening, in fact, were not the European operatic dazzlers, but more inward-looking songs by contemporary Japanese composers.  Nakada Yoshinao’s “Cherry Blossom Alley” and Kunihiko Murai’s “When the Swallows Return” were both captivating, atmospheric works tinged with a particularly Japanese flavor of melancholy, and Mori seemed more naturally at home with them than with the other works on the program.  

Given the occasion, in fact, you sensed a missed opportunity.  A program that balanced more 20th Century Japanese vocal music (heard all too rarely here) with a thoughtful selection of American song (which was strikingly absent all evening) might have made a much more distinctive and apropos recital. But as a showcase for Mori’s gifts, it was a fully enjoyable evening — and a good introduction to a rising young star. 

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 23, 2012

It would have been a heart-stopping moment for any violinist. Midway through the last movement of Leonard Bernstein’s wildly difficult “Serenade” — with Bernstein himself conducting the orchestra — the tiny, doll-like soloist Midori suddenly felt the E string on her violin snap. She calmly turned to the concertmaster, who handed her his own instrument (which was much larger than hers), and she picked up where she had left off — until the E string on that violin snapped as well. Midori didn’t miss a beat. She turned back to the concertmaster to borrow a second violin and finished the piece flawlessly.

The crowd at the Tanglewood Music Festival exploded to its feet, and Bernstein swept her up in a tearful hug as the orchestra broke out in cheers. The headline in the New York Times the next day summed it up: “Girl, 14, conquers Tanglewood with 3 violins.”

Since that remarkable evening in 1986, Midori — perhaps the most celebrated child prodigy of modern times — has become one of the world’s most sought-after violinists, and her appearances on March 31 and April 1 with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (which she calls “one of the most beautiful pieces ever written”), will be a key violin event of the season.

But Midori won’t be spending the coming week in rehearsals. Instead, she’ll be in high school classrooms around Alexandria and Arlington, helping young musicians prepare for their own performances with the ASO. It’s part of her Orchestra Residencies Program, one of several programs that the virtuoso has established to support young players and youth orchestras — and that reflect, she says, her driving purpose in life.

“I am passionate about education and music education in particular,” says the violinist, now 40 and — for someone who had to endure being labeled a “miracle” at the tender age of 10 — refreshingly down to earth. Performing still takes up the bulk of her time, she says; she gives between 90 and 100 concerts a year, often with other superstars of the classical world, and she practices at least several hours a day.

But over the past several decades, Midori has been making an impressive impact as a teacher and a philanthropist as well. She heads the string department at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, and in addition to the Orchestra Residencies Program, she’s launched Partners in Performance to promote chamber music in underserved areas; the Japan-based Music Sharing program; and Midori & Friends, which underwrites music education in New York City.

“She’s devoted to the cultivation of young talent,” says Kim Allen Kluge, who is music director of the Alexandria Symphony and whose new work, “Meibuki,” will be premiered by the orchestra with students under Midori’s coaching. “And she’s an exquisitely refined player. Working with someone who is so exacting will be an unforgettable experience for the young musicians.”

Midori’s intense involvement with children may not be surprising, given her strange and all-too-brief childhood. Born in Japan in 1971 as Midori Goto (she dropped her last name when her parents divorced), she had a talent that was quickly noticed by her violinist mother, who gave the child a tiny violin on her third birthday. Her progress was spectacular by any standard; she gave her first recital at 6, and two years later a recording of her playing found its way to Dorothy DeLay, perhaps the leading violin teacher in the world. DeLay, impressed, invited the girl in 1981 to come to the United States to perform at the prestigious Aspen Summer Music Festival.

Her childhood would never be the same. Arriving at Aspen with a stuffed animal under her arm, Midori played Bela Bartok’s fiendishly difficult and emotionally complex Second Violin Concerto, astonishing the audience and even bringing some to tears. She played “like only a few people in the universe can do at any time,” violinist Pinchas Zuckerman said then. “I’ve just witnessed a miracle.”

With the spotlight suddenly on her, Midori’s life shifted into high gear. Her mother divorced and — though she had no money, and neither of them spoke English — moved to New York the next year so the girl could begin studies with DeLay. Midori mastered the repertoire with uncanny speed, began concertizing and at 16 became a full-time professional, squeezing in schoolwork between performances and daily seven-hour practice sessions.

But the strains, inevitably, began to show. Prodigies face unthinkable pressures, from expectations about their careers to living out the public personas that their managers construct for them. In 1987, Midori rebelled. She unexpectedly quit her mentor DeLay under emotional circumstances (her mother had become involved with one of DeLay’s associates, a man who later became her stepfather) and took charge of her own career. Observers noted that she seemed to be subsisting on salads and thin air, and at her Carnegie Hall debut two years later, she weighed about 90 pounds — worrying even for someone who is only 4-foot-11.

Then, in September 1994, she suddenly canceled her concerts and withdrew completely from public view.

Rumors flew. It was reported that she had a “digestive disorder,” but talk was rife of a mental breakdown, of crushing pressure from a controlling mother, of incessant demands from her management. The truth, as she admitted in an interview a decade later, was that she was deep in the kind of medical crisis often found in stressed-out perfectionists. “I was severely anorexic,” she told the Toronto Globe and Mail. “That wasn’t my only experience in the hospital — but it was the longest, and that was the first time I was given the official diagnosis.”

The crisis passed and may have marked a turning point. As an adult in her 20s, freed of the burden of being a prodigy, Midori seemed finally able to forge a more normal life. While continuing to perform, she enrolled in New York University to study psychology — for a while she considered it as an alternative career — and began what she calls her “mission” of working with children.

“Going through the transition to become an adult master has informed her passion for helping young people,” says the ASO’s Kluge.

But for Midori herself, the issue is less complex.

“I’m happy,” she says simply, “when I’m surrounded by my students.”

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 23, 2012

It takes a certain gutsiness to open a concert with not just one, but two big and brassy fanfares — you had better follow through with something worth the buildup. But no one’s ever accused Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductor Marin Alsop of not having guts, and on Thursday night at the Music Center at Strathmore she pulled out all the stops and delivered two huge, spectacular works — including a percussion concerto by Jennifer Higdon that may be one of the most exciting orchestral works of the past decade.

The fanfares themselves were agreeable enough. Aaron Copland’s much-loved “Fanfare for the Common Man” was paired back to back with Joan Tower’s less well known “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” and they made a cute couple: Where Copland paints in broad, simple and masculine strokes, Tower rushes busily here and there, generating lots of energy if not the same luminous and stately power as Copland.

It wasn’t clear whether the fanfares’ titles were meant to refer directly to the next two composers on the program — you would have a tough time selling Tchaikovsky as “the common man,” after all — but “uncommon woman” fits ­Higdon perfectly. One of the most imaginative and uninhibited composers on the American scene, she embued her Percussion Concerto of 2005 with so much kinetic vitality and colorful invention that it sounded at times like the entire orchestra was tumbling gleefully downhill. The half-hour work was a tour de force for percussion virtuoso Colin Currie, who bounded back and forth across the stage while manning a small arsenal of instruments — evoking everything from tribal rhythms to Buddy Rich — as Alsop led the orchestra through a musical landscape of strange and almost unearthly beauty. A brilliant performance, and huge fun, any way you cut it.

Alsop also managed a minor miracle in the program’s second half, which was devoted to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. Yes, it’s a tired old war horse. And yes, it’s awash in musty 19th-century themes of Fate and Hope and Despair and whatnot. And yes, it ends in a fit of over-the-top fist-pumping that’s caused millions of eyes to roll since its premiere in 1888. But Alsop treated it all with great respect, turning in a big-boned, perfectly paced reading that achieved both grandeur and a sense of deep human tenderness; a genuinely profound, personal and very moving performance.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 18, 2012

The early 17th century was an exciting, even pathbreaking time for women in music, not least due to the achievements of Francesca Caccini, a famous singer in the Medici court who — far more significantly — was also a composer of remarkable imagination and skill. The Folger Consort turned a spotlight on Caccini on Friday night with “The Songbird,” a collection of works by Caccini and others of her time that showcased the fine young soprano Michele Kennedy, and the ensemble made a good case that Caccini may be the most interesting composer you’ve never heard of.

Michele KennedyThe concert, held in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elizabethan Theatre, opened with “Dal mi permesso,” an aria from Claudio Monteverdi’s infinitely influential opera “L’Orfeo.” The ensemble (Consort founders Robert Eisenstein on violin and Christopher Kendall on theorbo, with harpsichordist Joseph Gascho and Risa Browder on violin) took the work at a languid pace, and Kennedy approached it with quiet reserve, favoring beauty and sweetness over drama and depth.

It quickly became clear that Kennedy has a lovely voice, well controlled and agreeably warm. But as she showed throughout the evening, it’s the gentle warmth of spring rather than the burning heat of summer. Five complex and varied songs from Caccini’s 1618 collection, “Il Primo Libro delle Musiche,” were laced through the program, and though the music was fascinating, Kennedy approached each piece rather politely, substituting mild melancholy for probing drama and polishing every edge to softness. You longed to hear her dig to the music’s core: Even wrenching songs such as Barbara Strozzi’s “L’Eraclito Amoroso” (“Every sadness assails me / Every sorrow lasts eternally”) left only a vague sense of pleasantness in the ears.

Edge came in spades, though, in the instrumental playing. Harpsichordist Gascho turned in a superb reading of a toccata by Girolamo Frescobaldi, and Eisenstein performed the same composer’s “Canzona per basso solo” with great wit on the viol. But the most flavorful and expressive musicianship of the evening came from violinist Browder. Dressed in an artfully ragged outfit — she looked as if she’d just been attacked by a herd of cats — Browder brought real fire to Marco Uccellini’s “Sonata per violino,” and her account of Giovanni Baptista Fontana’s “Sonata per due violini” (in which she was joined by Eisenstein) provided some of the most electrifying moments of the evening.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 12, 2012

Maybe it wasn’t too surprising that the Terrace Theater was virtually empty Sunday night. The Kennedy Center had been presenting a chamber music “marathon” all afternoon, and by 8 o’clock the rich smorgasbord of Beethoven, Dvorak and Dohnanyi had clearly sated most listeners’ appetites, the crowd thinning to a true hard-core. Maybe that was for the best; the closing concert of the day, by the Paris-based Thymos Quartet, was an intense and challenging event, full of some of the most pathbreaking string quartet music of the early-20th century. And it was played brilliantly, detailed down to the last atom and overflowing with human experience, from the suffering of war to the eternal torments of love.

Most quartets open with a pleasant ear-settler (Haydn is a perennial favorite), but the young Thymos players are made of gutsier stuff. They launched immediately into Anton Webern’s Five Pieces for String Quartet, Op.5, a set of highly-compressed miniatures which — more than a century after they were written — continue to sound as if they came from some distant and highly advanced civilization. The quartet gave them an almost hyper-alert reading, shimmering with a kind of sensuous electricity, yet deeply and warmly human. It was Webern as we too rarely see him: with a heart.

But it was in the next work on the program that the Thymos players displayed their powers to fullest effect. Bela Bartok’s String Quartet No.2 was written during World War I, and it shows; it’s a seething powerhouse of tension and dark, roiling currents, bursting wildly alive in the second movement before ending as quietly as the last light of the day in a melancholy and eerily peaceful Lento movement. The Thymos gave it an exceptionally vivid and high-powered reading, memorable in every way.

More Webern followed in a beautiful performance of the lush “Langsamer Satz” from the composer’s early romantic years, and the evening closed with an eloquent account of Janacek’s String Quartet No.1 (the “Kreutzer Sonata”) from 1923. Both were brilliant — this is an ensemble of exceptional musical imagination and skill — and won the group a standing ovation from the thin but appreciative crowd.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 11, 2012

Pity the offspring of Johann Sebastian Bach: Lavishly gifted as musicians, they’ve never been able to escape the vast shadow of their father. That’s certainly the case of second son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who broke from the formal musical herd of the time to develop a distinctive and highly influential “Empfindsamer” (or “sentimental”) style, full of sudden shifts in rhythm and harmony, overheated emotionalism and a kind of quirky, almost operatic drama. It’s fascinating stuff but not widely heard anymore, so it was a treat to hear soprano Julianne Baird, with Preethi de Silva on harpsichord and pianoforte, offer up a program on Friday night at the Library of Congress that made a strong case for a revival of this intriguing composer.

The Sri Lanka-born de Silva opened the evening with Bach’s “Fantasia in A Major, H. 278.” It’s a quintessentially “Empfindsamer” work with a free, almost improvisatory feel, full of unexpected contrasts and mercurial changes of tone. Yet de Silva, though she handled its technical challenges admirably — she’s a superb technician at the keyboard — gave it a rather distant, almost clinical treatment, with little fire or passion to bring it alive. The “Sonata in G minor, H. 47” that followed received a similar treatment: technically precise but played as if it were on Prozac.

Things warmed up considerably, though, when Baird took the stage for three arias by Handel. Baird is as warm as de Silva is cool; her voice has a seductive softness around the edges that makes it irresistible, and she has an utterly natural sense of dramatic phrasing. As an accompanist, de Silva pushed matters along at an often-ferocious clip, but Baird handled it all — particularly the coloratura passages in “Scherza in mar la navicella” (from Handel’s opera “Lotario”) — with real beauty and insight.

The evening continued in that vein, as vocal and keyboard music by Bach alternated with works by composers influenced by him, and even de Silva seemed to warm up by the closing work, Haydn’s cantata “Arianna a Naxos.” The two turned in an absolutely compelling account that made the evening: a stirring mini-drama full of subtle and deftly observed emotions.