Monday, May 30, 2011
Boris Brott sings Flanders & Swann's Ill Wind
Boris Brott sings Flanders & Swann's "Ill Wind" to the tune of Mozart's Fourth Horn Concerto at a celebration of . Philippe Menard conducts the National Academy Orchestra of Canada at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada to celebrate the donation of the Boris Brott Archives to its library.
Toute une journée (What a Day), by the MCO
Excerpts of "Toute un journée" (What a Day)
Composed by Maxime Goulet www.maximegoulet.com
Performed by Boris Brott and the McGill Chamber Orchetsra www.ocm-mco.org
Filmed during the premiere by Patrick Peris on May 9th 2011 www.patrickperis.com
What a day, a four-movement work for string orchestra, outlines the parallels between a day and a life, as if one were the microcosm of the other. The first movement "Joyful Morning", embodies a busy morning and a child coming to life. The second movement, "A Long Day at Work" is characterized by the accumulation of many repeated motifs representing the daily hours spent at work or in school. "Tête-à-tête Evening" is a duet between the solo violin and solo cello accompanied by the orchestra. The melodic dialogue symbolizes a romantic evening or the life shared by a couple. The last movement, "Serene Night", uses all the melodies from the previous movements. Like a dream at the end of the day or at the end of a life, it offers a retrospective. To better stimulate the auditor's imagination, lighting effects and small objects are incorporated to the piece, such as an alarm clock and the beginning of the day, a punch clock at work, a pendulum clock at night... The piece is dedicated to The Beatles and and their song A Day in the Life.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Brott’s storied legacy takes root at Mac
Boris puts his baton down... momentarily to sing Flanders & Swann's Ill Wind, sung to the tune of Mozart's Fourth Horn Concerto
by Leonard Turnevicius
Special to the Spectator
Want to know everything there is to know about Boris Brott’s career? Well, now you won’t have to go any further than Hamilton’s McMaster University to find out.
Last night, a ceremony held at Mac’s Convocation Hall formally marked the university’s reception of Brott’s donated archives.
“My hometown is Hamilton now. I’ve lived here for over 42 years,” said the Montreal-born Brott in an interview with The Spectator. “It was McMaster who gave me my honorary doctorate (in 1988).”
Brott explained that there had been offers from other institutions such as the University of Calgary, as well as Ottawa’s Library and Archives Canada which house the papers of his late father, Alexander Brott. Yet, when the call came from McMaster about his archives, Brott accepted at the drop of a hat.
“I wanted to have close touch also with what I was giving,” said Brott. “There are several books that I want to write, and I’ll do the research at Mac.”
Among his archives is correspondence with some of the crème de la crème of the classical music world from the 1960s onward: Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Monteux, Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Leonard Rose, Glenn Gould and many others.
Brott’s sizeable archives also consist of numerous recordings, photos, posters, and files dating from his early life as a child prodigy to the present. As such, they cover literally every facet of his international musical and entrepreneurial career including, of course, the years 1969 to 1990 when he led the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.
“Both my mom (Lotte, who passed away in 1998) and dad were pack rats,” said Brott. “And they did teach me to keep everything. And I did. But it was just getting scary, to be quite frank, with all of this stuff at my home. I thought, ‘What if there was a fire? What if there was a flood?’ It was just too valuable to have that (happen).”
Brott began delivering his archives in lots to the university about eight or nine months ago. Archivists at Mac’s William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections are currently cataloguing the material. Brott also hopes to one day gift his very large library of scores as well as about 50 of his children’s concerts scripts to Mac.
Last evening’s event was emceed by Hamilton native and TVO host Steve Paikin and included the requisite official remarks and thank-yous from Mac librarian Jeff Trzeciak, and president Patrick Deane. Professor emeritus Dr. Alan Walker, an internationally acclaimed scholar and biographer of Franz Liszt and Hans von Bülow, spoke on Contemplating Boris Brott. Also on hand were Brott’s wife, Ardyth, two of their three children, David and Alexandra, plus mother-in-law Betty Webster, staff from the Brott Music Festival, and more than 150 invited guests.
But all was not dry, formal back-patting. Brott and his National Academy Orchestra performed the final movement from Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony, nicknamed the Italian, an obvious tip of the hat to the country where Brott’s opera conducting career is currently on an upswing. That was followed by the instrumental version of Alexander Brott’s Cradle Song composed for Boris in 1944, the year of his birth.
Pianist Valerie Tryon, a longtime musical collaborator with Brott and perennial guest at his summertime festival, performed Chopin’s Andante spianato et Grand polonaise accompanied by Brott and the NAO.
Thereafter, Brott ceded the podium duties to NAO apprentice conductor Philippe Ménard in order to sing (yes, you read that correctly) Ill Wind, a Flanders and Swann drollery set to the last movement of Mozart’s Third Horn Concerto. F&S’s lyrics, “I practised the horn and was longing to play it but somebody took it away,” served as a witty wink at Brott’s French horn playing days.
Brott’s archives will be available at McMaster’s Mills Memorial Library alongside numerous other international and Canadian collections.
Leonard Turnevicius writes on classical music for The Spectator.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Congratulations to NAO Alumnus Andrew Dunsmore
Congratulations to Andrew Dunsmore (NAO percussion '06-'07) who recently won a position with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra! He wrote this lovely letter to Boris:
Dear Maestro Brott,
A few weeks ago Emily and I traveled to Montreal with a car full of percussion instruments. The purpose of the trip was for me to audition for the OSM. After 19 players, 5 semi-finalists and 2 rounds I was the last person standing for the 3rd and final round in their percussion audition. After what Emily assured me was an eternity of time they announced that I had won the audition and they would be hiring me for their 2011-2012 season!
I start with the orchestra in August, which could not have been better planned for us as we are getting married in July. Furthermore they are going to Edinburgh straight away, so we will enjoy a honeymoon in Paris after their brief tour of Scotland.
Thank you so much to you and the National Academy Orchestra. I learned so much about orchestral playing, repertoire and professionalism while working with the NAO - knowledge that will no doubt continue to serve me well in my new post as Section Percussion in the OSM. I often tell my colleagues what a wonderful opportunity playing in the NAO is and I will certainly continue to do so in Montreal.
Thank you so much,
Andrew
Mr & Mrs. Brott Go To Washington
That's Boris and Ardyth with guest of honour Paloma Picasso this past weekend at a reception hosted by the Ambassador of Morocco in Washington D.C.
Monday, April 11, 2011
From the Globe and Mail: Former NAO Apprentice "follows his own path"
Julian Kuerti following his ‘individual path’
COLIN EATOCK
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published
In February, conductor Julian Kuerti was back in his hometown of Toronto for a concert. At 34, he’s still a “young” conductor – but on stage at Koerner Hall, standing before the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, there was confidence in his bearing and experience in his hands.
The biggest challenge on the program was Stravinsky’s Petrushka Suite, a work that demands strong leadership from the podium. Kuerti’s gestures were precise and clear – an open-handed invitation to the contrabassoon, an abrupt karate chop in the air for the violins – as he steered his orchestra through the score’s tricky changes in tempo and dynamics.
“Every conductor has an individual path,” Kuerti points out. “First, you have to somehow convince a bunch of people to sit in front of you while you hack your way through something. Then you have to somehow gain enough confidence and credibility to make a step up to the next ensemble, and a piece that’s more complex than what you’ve just done.”
Further complicating things, in Kuerti’s case, is the fact that he was a late starter. The son of the Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti (and there’s a striking family resemblance), Julian comes from an intensely musical family – but this wasn’t necessarily a stepping-stone to a musical career.
“When I was growing up in Toronto,” he recalls, “my parents dissuaded me from music. They said don’t be a musician unless it’s the only thing you can do.” Heeding this advice, he completed a degree in engineering science. But music was always part of his life. “I had scores to Beethoven symphonies open on top of my physics textbook, when I was supposed to be studying for my exams.”
A tour to Brazil as a violinist in a world-music band called Kahana, followed by a season with the New-York based Jupiter Symphony Orchestra, convinced him that music was his calling. When Kuerti returned to Toronto, he decided to reboot his career and get serious about conducting. Already 24, he felt he had lost a lot of time.
He spent the next five years studying music in Berlin, followed by a stint as assistant conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Returning to North America, he scored a big opportunity when he was appointed assistant conductor to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2007, working closely with renowned maestro James Levine for three years.
Levine has been in the news lately for ongoing health problems that recently forced him to quit the BSO and reduce his workload at the Metropolitan Opera. But Levine’s frequent cancellations opened up a world of opportunity for Kuerti. On several occasions, the 34-year-old stepped in to conduct the Boston Symphony, earning glowing reviews for his efforts. “Kuerti rose to the occasion and pulled off a triumphant concert,” declared The Boston Globe. “This was easily his finest hour.”
Kuerti can’t say enough good things about his time with the BSO. As he tells it, what he learned from Levine extended beyond mechanical techniques to the realm of psychology. “He’d rarely tell people, ‘No, it’s not right’ – he’d use language and musical gesture to get at something from the positive side. He would depend on the orchestra and trust them.”
Since September, Kuerti has been a free agent. He’s signed up with a prestigious New York manager, and has a full slate of guest-conducting engagements for a year. Over the next 12 months, he faces a trial by fire, leading orchestras in Atlanta; Phoenix; Cincinnati, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wis.; Halifax; Ottawa; Victoria; Kitchener, Ont.; Edmonton and Montreal – many for the first time.
Fortunately, he has his survival strategy all worked out. “One of the things I make sure of when I’m putting together a program,” he explains, “is that one piece is something I’ve done before. If every week is an entirely new program, it’s maddening. It’ll burn you out, and you’ll half-bake everything.”
Guest conducting is all well and good – but what Kuerti really wants is an orchestra to call his own. “As a guest conductor,” he points out, “you have the chance to change things on the surface: You can change a sound, or ask for a different tempo. But you never get as close to what you really want as you do with an orchestra you work with all the time, that knows your body language well.”
The ambitious conductor may soon get his wish: He hints that he’s currently involved in a few music-director searches. Are any of these orchestras in Canada? “Maybe,” is his coy answer to that question.
In the meantime, he’ll spend the next year living out of a suitcase and racking up air miles.
Special to The Globe and Mail
Monday, March 21, 2011
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