Congratulations to Richard Danielpour and Christopher Theofanidis on their 2021 Grammy wins. Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua won Classical, Best Choral Performance and Theofanidis’ Concerto for Viola and Chamber Orchestra won for best classical instrumental solo.
The 63rd GRAMMY Awards were broadcast on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021.
Looking for something new to listen to during the pandemic? The Kansas City Symphony has posted a wonderful recording of Richard Danielpour’s Concerto for Clarinet (from the mountaintop) with soloist Anthony McGill. McGill is currently Principle Clarinet with the New York Philharmonic.
Scroll down to “Voices of Justice” to hear an interview with McGill, followed by the performance.
This work joins several that were written for McGill by Bill Holab Music composers, including Joel Puckett’s Concerto Duo, a double concerto for flute, clarinet and orchestra which was written for McGill to perform with his brother DeMarre, Principal Flute of the Seattle Symphony.
The 60th Grammy Award nominations were announced this week, and we are delighted to receive nominations for recordings by Richard Danielpour and Jake Heggie.
Best Engineered Album, Classical
Danielpour Songs of Solitude & War Songs
Production, Classical
Heggie It’s a Wonderful Life
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Danielpour Songs of Solitude
The awards will be telecast on Sunday, January 28.
The recordings are available on Amazon
Heggie It’s a Wonderful Life
Danielpour Songs of Solitude
Believing that the creation of art should mark every special occasion, OPERA America commissioned the OPERA America Songbook in celebration of the opening of the National Opera Center in September 2012. Composers with strong ties to the organization were invited to write a song for voice and piano on the theme of opening a new home, the joy of singing or the excitement of new beginnings. This collection of songs represents the distinctive voices of some of today’s most important established and emerging opera composers. Produced by OPERA America, the Songbook was recorded, edited and mastered at Gurari Studios in New York City in the summer of 2012.
Both audio recordings and a published collection are available for the Songbook.
Purchase recordings from ITunes.
Purchase sheet music from Hal Leonard.
Saratoga Performing Arts Center will pay tribute to the 150th Anniversary of Saratoga Race Course by presenting the World Premiere of an original orchestral composition by Grammy Award winning composer Richard Danielpour on August 8, 2013. The commission, sponsored by Saratoga 150 Committee Chair Charles Wait and his wife Candace, will be premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra as part of a special concert celebrating the milestone of the iconic race course. The news was announced today as part of SPAC’s “Building of a Season” initiative.
“Saratoga Springs’ owes so much of its remarkable history, development and success to the presence of Saratoga Race Course. The crown jewel of the racing world for 150 years, the track has helped grow Saratoga into a vibrant, unique and culturally rich community; the type of place where Saratoga Performing Arts Center could be envisioned, founded and sustained,” said Marcia J. White, SPAC’s President & Executive Director. “SPAC will mark this historic occasion with a celebratory program by The Philadelphia Orchestra, led by the world premiere of a commissioned work by award winning composer Richard Danielpour.”
“My warmest thanks go out to Charles and Candace Wait for their generous sponsorship of this commission. The Wait Family’s historic connection to SPAC and longtime leadership in the Saratoga community makes their role in this project particularly meaningful,” said White.
“It is a privilege to have the opportunity to create a work that honors the 150th Anniversary of Saratoga Race Course and the history, traditions and culture that are part of that milestone,” said composer Richard Danielpour. “I look forward to the challenge of capturing in music, the essence and vitality of that colorful heritage.”
The Saratoga 150 celebration marks the sesquicentennial of the inaugural thoroughbred meeting in Saratoga Springs in 1863. The four-day program was such a success that founder John Morrissey and his partners built Saratoga Race Course in 1864. Today, Saratoga Race Course is the oldest sporting venue in the country still in operation and was named one of the top 10 sporting venues in the world by Sports Illustrated. The Saratoga 150 Committee, chaired by Adirondack Trust President Charles V. Wait, is planning and organizing a five-month-long celebration from May to September that will feature more than 150 community events for residents and visitors to the region. Historical information and details on the 2013 celebration are available at saratoga150.com.
“I started writing these etudes in November of 2011, and I finished them in February 2012,” said the composer Richard Danielpour on Tuesday night at Ingram Hall. “That’s just four months, but in a sense these etudes have been 20 years in the making.”
Danielpour took inspiration for these pieces from Claude Debussy’s celebrated 12 Etudes for Piano, centering each of these 12 pieces around a different musical or technical challenge: One is centered around fast scales; another is composed of full-sounding chords; another is played with the left hand on the keys and the right hand inside the piano plucking the strings. Each of the 12 pieces is dedicated to a different pianist with whom Danielpour has been affiliated, including Leon Fleisher and Yefim Bronfman, and one apiece dedicated to Dorfman, Nies and Wait.
Commissioned by Vanderbilt University and given their premiere on Dec. 4, 2012 at the Blair School of Music, a trio of pianists divided the challenging works: Mark Wait, Craig Nies and Amy Dorfman. The new Etudes push the limits of piano technique and will be an important addition to the repertoire, nice compliments to Danielpour’s two collections of Preludes, entitled The Enchanted Garden [Book 1, Book 2].
Richard Danielpour has been commissioned to write three new concerti, each for very different virtuoso soloists.
Anthony McGill, the young star clarinetist who is currently principle with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra will premiere Danielpour’s new Clarinet Concerto. The work will be a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, written as a series of musical essays and remembrances of the period. Jointly commissioned by the Philadelphia group Orchestra 2001 and the New Jersey Symphony, the world premiere will take place in early 2014.
The 2013-14 season will also feature a new concerto for percussionist Lisa Pegher. This piece promises to be a new direction in Danielpour’s writing, for a consortium of orchestras that will be revealed soon!
Summer of 2013 will bring Danielpour’s new violoncello concerto for the Eastern Music Festival, Gerard Schwarz, conductor. The soloist will be the conductor’s son, Julian.
