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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) celebrates the 90th birthday of its Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Pierre Boulez this month with several concerts that pay tribute to his life and work as a composer, conductor and mentor. The revolutionary and visionary musician turns 90 on March 26, 2015.
In addition to live performances, the CSO's recent Beyond the Score presentation that honors Boulez, entitled A Pierre Dream, can now be viewed on demand online at CSO Sounds & Stories. The celebration also includes a CSO Radio Series broadcast on March 22 of Boulez conducting the CSO in 2007 and 2010 in music by Janá?ek, Bartók, Haydn and Bernard Rands. The radio broadcast can be heard locally on WFMT 98.7 FM, on WFMT radio network stations across the country, and on CSO Sounds & Stories.
Boulez: The Piano Works
Symphony Center Presents (SCP) offers a special recital performance on Sunday, March 15 at 3 p.m., in honor of Boulez's birthday. Pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard-a close associate and longtime collaborator of Boulez-and Tamara Stefanovich, perform Pierre Boulez's seven keyboard works for one and two pianos. The program includes Notations(1945, with revisions to multiple movements in later years), Sonatas No. 1 (1946) and 2 (1948), movements from Sonata No. 3, Incises (1994/2001), une page d'ephemeride (2005) and Structures, Book II (1961).
Aimard made history when, at age 19, he was appointed the first solo pianist and a founding member of Boulez's Ensemble intercontemporain-Boulez's IRCAM-based chamber orchestra-at the composer-conductor's invitation. He played with the group for many years, participating in a number of important premieres. Together with pianist Tamara Stefanovich, Aimard and Boulez were honored with a Grammy nomination for their recording of Bartók's Concerto for Two Pianos. When Aimard and Stefanovich played Boulez's piano works together in London, the Independent declared their performance "as definitive as it gets." Aimard last appeared at Symphony Center in 2012 as part of the CSO's Beyond the Score® exploration of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire and in recital on the Symphony Center Presents Piano series in 2014.
Boulez's Workshop
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's (CSO) acclaimed MusicNOW series-dedicated to showcasing contemporary music through an innovative concert experience-continues its 2014/15 season on Monday, March 23 at 7 p.m. at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park (205 E. Randolph Dr., Chicago). The third program in this season's series is a tribute to Boulez in the week of his 90th birthday on March 26. Dérive 2, a seminal work by Boulez, is the featured piece on this program. The 45-minute work scored for 11 instruments, was written in honor of Elliott Carter's 80th birthday in 1988, and revised by Boulez in 2006 and 2009.
Opening the concert is the world premiere of a new work by Anna Clyne-a setting of the enigmatic poetry of Emily Dickinson-entitled Postponeless Creatures. Mason Bates' Indigo Workshop, a showpiece for solo piano exploring three different vices in sardonic, moving and virtuosic fashion, completes the program. MusicNOW Principal Conductor Cliff Colnot leads the program.
Mason Bates and Anna Clyne, who have served as curators of the MusicNOW series since their appointment by CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti as CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence in 2010, mark their fifth and final year in this role this season. Bates and Clyne have continued to shape the series throughout their tenures, overseeing the adoption of interactive elements such as creative stage and lighting choices, as well as projected program notes and video interviews with featured composers that enhance the live concert experience.
One of the hallmarks of the MusicNOW series is its innovative concert format. Pre- and post-concert DJ sets are performed by artists from Chicago DJ collective illmeasures, and projected program notes featuring video messages from each composer take the place of a traditional program booklet. After the concert, there is a reception in the public spaces of the Harris Theater with complimentary pizza and beer offering concertgoers a chance to mingle with the musicians, guest artists and composers.
Beyond the Score® on Sounds & Stories-A Pierre Dream
Robin Lough's new filmed version of the CSO's 2014 production of A Pierre Dream, a Beyond the Score multimedia salute to Boulez's life and work, can now be streamed on CSO Sounds & Stories, the CSO's web magazine which features interviews, articles, program notes and on-demand viewing of audio and audio/video content.
About this production, CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti remarked, "When I think of Pierre Boulez, I immediately think of him as a man of great culture. In honor of his 90th birthday, we are creating a tribute to him that will enable audiences to hear Pierre Boulez guide us through his music. To hear in his voice how he thought about each work as he created it, and also after he had time to reflect, is to understand how music is created and then re-created with every performance."
A Pierre Dream received its world premiere by the CSO in November 2014, was conceived and directed by CSO Artistic Advisor Gerard McBurney, with stage design by Frank Gehry, projection design by Mike Tutaj and lighting design by Jason Brown. Boulez himself was closely involved in the creation of this special production.
This production will be presented in June 2015 at the Ojai Music Festival in California, the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, at Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Aldeburgh Festival in the U.K.
Grammy® Lifetime Achievement Award
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association congratulates Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Pierre Boulez on receiving a 2015 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The recognition is given to "performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording." With 26 Grammy Awards to his credit, Boulez was honored at a special ceremony in Los Angeles on February 7, 2015, as well as during the Grammy Awards telecast on Sunday, February 8, 2015.
CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti said, "Dear Maestro, The news that you are the recipient of the 2015 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award makes me and the entire Chicago Symphony Orchestra family extremely happy and proud. You are a giant in the musical world, and we are all so grateful for your great contribution to Music. Congratulations with great admiration, affection, and friendship."
CSO bass Stephen Lester, chairman of the Members Committee, added, "The Musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are very pleased that Pierre Boulez has been given this special Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy. He is one of the most important and influential musicians and composers of our time. We in Chicago are proud to have had a rewarding and meaningful relationship with him for over thirty years. His contribution to music in Chicago, as well as the world, is important in many ways, helping to open all of our minds, and ears, at every opportunity. Congratulations, Maestro Boulez!"
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