Podcasts about akron symphony orchestra

A concert Saturday will merge tradition with technology, as the Akron Symphony Orchestra collaborates with Akron's EarthQuaker Devices to add electronic effects to musicians' acoustic instruments.

In the final episode of our series on the Akron Symphony Chorus, we sit down with Chorus Director Chris Albanese and special guests Chuck Myricks Jr. and Jesse Ayers about There's a Stirrin' in the Water, which they co-composed in 2016. The episode includes selections of There's a Stirrin' in the Water from the November 2016 performance by the Akron Symphony Orchestra and Akron Symphony Chorus, as well as a performance by the Akron Symphony Chorus in May 2021 from the parking lot of the First United Methodist Church in Akron. As a pioneering participant in Akron's Gospel Meets Symphony concerts, Chuck Myricks has had several of his compositions performed by the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the Tuscarawas Philharmonic. In 2000, he was commissioned by Akron's First Night to write the new Millennium Theme Song for the city-wide celebration. His 2004 collaboration with the Ohio Ballet led to the premier of Transformation, a ballet featuring music composed by Chuck and performed by Divine Hope. He also has written a musical, The Miracle of Love, and an opera, Paul: A Musical Journey. Jesse Ayers was the winner of the inaugural American Prize for Orchestral Composition in 2011, and winner of the first Opera Kansas Zepick Modern Opera Composition Competition in 2016. Recent honors include the 2020 Governor's Award for Ohio's Outstanding Individual Artist, the 2019 Ohio Music Teachers Association Composer of the Year Commission, two Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Excellence Awards, the 2011 Dayton Ballet “New Music for New Dance” award, a 2010 MacDowell Fellowship, and seven “Finalist” awards from the American Prize. His music has twice been selected to represent the United States at the prestigious World Music Days festival. Learn more at his website.

In the second episode of our four-part series on the Akron Symphony Chorus, we sit down with Chorus Director Chris Albanese, Music Director Christopher Wilkins and special guest Betsy Burleigh to discuss Haydn's towering masterpiece, The Creation. The episode includes selections of The Creation by the Akron Symphony Orchestra and Akron Symphony Chorus, featuring guest artists Joyce Guyer, soprano, Karl Dent, tenor, and Timothy Jones, bass-baritone from April 2008; along with the Akron Symphony Chorus' recording from May 2021 in the parking lot of the First United Methodist Church in Akron. Betsy Burleigh is the Thomas R. Kasdorf Professor of Choral Conducting and chair of the Choral Conducting Department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She served as director of the Akron Symphony Chorus from 1997 to 2002. She has also served as music director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, been a guest conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Akron Symphony, Canton Symphony, and Handel Society of Dartmouth College, was chorus master for Cleveland Opera, assistant director of choruses for The Cleveland Orchestra, and director of Boston's Chorus pro Musica, the Providence Singers in Rhode Island, Canton Symphony Chorus, and the Mastersingers of Lexington, Mass. (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

In the fifth episode of Deep River: The Legacy of the Spirituals, we are joined by Dr. Raymond Wise for a discussion about the development of spirituals and their influence on his own creative career. The episode, We're Marching to Zion: A Visit with Dr. Raymond Wise, includes two performances from his acclaimed recording 21 Spirituals for the 21st Century featuring the Raise Chorale: We're Marching to Zion and I'll Stand. Dr. Raymond Wise is the Professor of Practice of African American and African Diaspora Studies and Director of the African American Choral Ensemble at Indiana University. He has also served as the musical director for more than 30 choirs and has prepared choirs to perform for national recording artists such as Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross, Yolanda Adams, Tramaine Hawkins, Wintley Phipps, and others. He has been a guest soloist, conductor, and composer with the Nashville, Littleton, Ithaca College, and Czech National Symphonies, and has appeared twice as guest conductor with the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the Gospel Meets Symphony Choir.

In the fourth episode of Deep River: The Legacy of the Spirituals, Jonathon Turner, the ASO's Gospel Meets Symphony Choirmaster, and Brenda Justice, Coordinator of Choral Programs, join co-hosts Christopher and Tom to discuss Nathaniel Dett, a composer, choir leader, pianist, teacher, poet, writer, and seminal figure in bringing spirituals to a classical setting. The episode concludes with a performance of Dett's The Chariot Jubilee by the Akron Symphony Orchestra, Akron Symphony Chorus and tenor Kennedy Jones from November 18, 2016. (Photo by R. Nathaniel Dett Collection - Sibley Music Library - Eastman School of Music)

In this episode, we sit down with Music Director Christopher Wilkins to talk about the Akron Symphony Orchestra's return to the concert stage after 16 months with the Outside Voices Concert Series. The six-concert series will be presented free of charge throughout the Akron community this summer, and focus on the music of under-represented composers who are “outside” of the standard repertoire, along with numerous audience favorites. The full concert concert schedule, along with other information about the series, is available on the Akron Symphony's website.

In this episode, we sit down with Heidi Aufdenkamp Peck, a clarinet player with the Akron Symphony Orchestra since 1994, to talk about her career in music, her tenure with the ASO, what she has been working on during the past year, and more as part of our ASO Conversation series. Heidi Aufdenkamp Peck is a professional clarinet player in the Akron Symphony Orchestra and private lesson teacher.  Heidi earned her master's degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Fred Ormand. Her bachelor's degree is from The University of Akron, where she studied with David Bell. While attending Louisville High School, she studied with Dan Roberdeau. Other teachers include Mark Nuccio, Ron Samuels, and John Weigand. Heidi's performing groups have included a tour with Barry Manilow and the Youngstown Symphony in 2012, a soloist with the University of Pittsburgh Chamber Orchestra, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, and the woodwind quintet Cincopation. Learn more about Heidi at her website or on her YouTube channel. To learn more about all the ways that you can experience the Akron Symphony, visit our ASO at Home page. There you will find musical performances, musician interviews, podcast episodes, and a variety of educational resources.

In this episode, we sit down with Pablo Sánchez-Pazos, a violinist with the Akron Symphony Orchestra, to talk about his career in music, his first season with the ASO, what he has been working on during the past year, and more as part of our ASO Conversation series. The episode concludes with Pablo's solo performance of Bach's Chaconne from Partita No. 2. Pablo Sánchez-Pazos is a violinist based in Cleveland. Born and raised in Montemorelos, México, Pablo began his studies at a young age as a student at the Conservatory of Music in Montemorelos, during which time he was a prize winner of the national Tomás Ruiz Ovalle competition in Zacatecas, México. As an avid chamber music player, Pablo enjoys playing chamber music with his quartet,  Antares, and has received instruction from members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as well as members of the Takácks, Euclid and Latinoamericano string quartets. Pablo has received fellowships to attend the Aspen Music Festival and the Rocky Ridge Music Festival. Pablo is a graduate student at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he studies under Stephen Rose, as well as having chamber music sessions with numerous coaches, including Ilya Kaler, Keith Robinson and Si-Yan Darren Li. To learn more about all the ways that you can experience the Akron Symphony, visit our ASO at Home page. There you will find musical performances, musician interviews, podcast episodes, and a variety of educational resources.

In this episode, Tom is joined by special co-host Jerry Miskell for an interview with author Stephen Johnson about his latest work, The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910, which was named one of the best books about classical music in 2020 by the BBC. In the book, Stephen recounts the far-reaching effect of Mahler's 8th Symphony on composers, conductors and writers of the time. Stephen re-assesses Mahler's thoughts in the context of the prevailing thought of his age, not only in relation to the artistic and intellectual movements of the time, but through consideration of political climate and historical background, and on into science, medicine, technology, mass entertainment, and even the development of modern PR. Stephen Johnson is an author, composer and broadcaster, and has been called “The authoritative British voice of classical music.” He has been a frequent broadcaster for BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and World Service, and has written regularly for the Independent, the Guardian, BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone. (Learn more at Stephen's website.) Jerry Miskell is a viola player with the Akron Symphony Orchestra and chair of the music department at Mount Union University, where among his many duties he teaches an advanced class called Hearing Heaven: Death, Dying and Afterlife in the Music of Gustav Mahler. The 8th Symphony remains Jerry's favorite work by Mahler, although it remains just one of the two he has not performed professionally. To learn more about all the ways that you can experience the Akron Symphony, visit our ASO at Home page. There you will find musical performances, musician interviews, podcast episodes, and a variety of educational resources.

In Episode 6 of Unorchestrated, co-hosts Christopher and Tom talk with poet Rita Dove about Joseph Haydn's arrival in London, with readings from her book, Sonata Mulattica.  This is the sixth episode in our 14-part series, Sonata Mulattica with Rita Dove. The episode closes with a performance of the finale from Haydn's Symphony No. 95 in C minor by the Akron Symphony Orchestra. Rita Dove is a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, and the only poet honored with both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. An Akron native, she is currently Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Christopher Wilkins, Music Director and Conductor of the Akron Symphony Orchestra, talks with Liz and Chris about this weekend’s performance of "Carmina burana," which will combine music and dance and feature collaborations with a number of local dance groups, like GroundWorks Dance Theater, Dance Institute, Ballet Excel Ohio and other young dancers from Northeast Ohio, as well as the Akron Symphony Chorus. Christopher also talks about how he shares his time between Akron and Boston and his own background in music. Oh, and Liza used to play the viola! "Carmina burana" takes place Saturday, May 7 at 8 p.m. at EJ Thomas Hall. Visit www.akronsymphony.org. 

Y8BB6 Post show - discussion around the big event in Akron OH featuring the Y8BB6 party and two Todd Rundgren with the Akron Symphony Orchestra concerts.  

Paul Ferguson is the composer that is creating the charts for the 14 new songs Todd has never performed with an orchestra but will be this Labor Day weekend with the Akron Symphony Orchestra in Akron, OH (RundgrenWithASO.com).  Paul has been director of Jazz Studies at Case Western Reserve University since 1988. A graduate of the University of Akron and the Eastman School of Music, Paul has traveled with the Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller bands as lead trombonist and arranger and currently fills those functions with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra. Paul was principal trombonist of the Canton Symphony from 1989-98 and at various times has also performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Opera, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Apollos’s Fire, the Cleveland Chamber Brass, the New Hampshire Festival Orchestra and various groups across Northeast Ohio. In 1995, Paul was the recipient of the Gil Evans Fellowship in Jazz Composition.  He has two recordings–”Blue Highways”, recorded with the RIAS Big Band of Berlin, and “Friends”, recorded with his own orchestra. Last summer, Paul taught at an International Jazz Seminar in Zarautz, Spain, wrote three arrangements for the Glenn Miller Orchestra and wrote three arrangements for the Cleveland Pops for use on the Drew Carey show.

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Special guest Luis Echeverria - one of the students and concert performers (keyboards) when Todd Rundgren was an "Artist In Residence" at Columbia College in Chicago. Find out how the entire week went from the mind of one of the students! Plenty of other things to discuss including Toddstock II which begins in 13 days! State shows, "Hits" shows, Orchestra show, and more tonight on RR!