STUDENT ARTISTS COLLABORATE WITH COMPOSER By Mary K. VanGieson, Number: Inc.
Photo By: Lauren Flynn
Date: 11/9/12The exhibition currently on view at the Germantown Performing Arts Center is a collaboration between composer/musician Anna Clyne and 26 Houston high school Advanced Placement and Art IV visual arts students. The works are based on Clyne’s written text, snippets of music from her website and the student /teacher discussions held in class and reference Clyne’s most recent composition entitled, Prince of Clouds. Clyne states on her website that while composing the piece she “was contemplating the presence of musical linage – a family-tree of sorts that passes from generation to generation.”
Working under the direction of arts instructors Amanda McKnight and Bobby Spillman, students created paintings and sculptures based on their impressions of Clyne’s written thoughts and previous compositions. The works in the show range from a black & white ink drawing of a nest of hornets to a layered cloak-like garment to a ribbon painted violin. All demonstrate great imagination in giving a visual interpretation to creative musical thoughts.
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IRIS ORCHESTRA'S PLANTING ROOTS
By Kim Brukardt, Jewish Scene
Photo By: Kim Brukardt
Date: 11/8/12In October, IRIS Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Michael Stern, IRIS musicians and staff braved the elements as the rain stopped just in time for the first iris bulb planting at Germantown Performing Arts Centre (GPAC) in Germantown, Tenn. The group moved on to the Germantown Charity Horse Arena and had to forgo the last planting at Hutchison School due to the weather, which delayed the first planting.
Now in its 13th season in residence at Germantown Performing Arts Centre (GPAC), IRIS Orchestra takes time to celebrate the roots it has put down in the Germantown/Memphis community not only through music but also through its host-family program and its extensive involvement in area schools. Michael Stern and members of IRIS Orchestra, alongside volunteers and supporters of IRIS, will spend the day planting iris bulbs purchased from the West Tennessee Iris Society during its recent fundraiser. In addition, the host families who house IRIS musicians during concert weeks will receive IRIS rhizomes for their own gardens as a token of the orchestra’s appreciation of unfailing generosity.
STRINGS EXCEL IN IRIS PERFORMANCE IN GERMANTOWN By Jon W. Sparks, The Commercial Appeal
Photo By: Janette Beckman
Date: 11/4/12It's enough for some orchestras to simply perform familiar and comforting tunes, taking no chances and sending audiences home with fading satisfaction.
Not so the IRIS Orchestra, which aims to cultivate a sense of excitement not only in fine performances but in bold programming. Maestro Michael Stern pulled it together again Saturday night in a concert that premiered a work by versatile rising composer Anna Clyne, showed the virtuosity of two of the world's top violinists and showcased a robust string section.
The Clyne composition — "Prince of Clouds" — was co-commissioned by IRIS and is part of a remarkable program initiated by the evening's guest performers, Jaime Laredo and Jennifer Koh.
The project titled Two x Four features the two violinists performing four double violin pieces. Two of the works were performed Saturday at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre — Clyne's "Prince of Clouds" and Bach's well-loved Double Concerto for Two Violins. (The other works are Philip Glass's "Echorus" and a new piece by David Ludwig first performed in May).
REVIEW: GERMANTOWN'S IRIS OPENS SEASON WITH GORGEOUS VIVALDI CONCERTO By Jon W. Sparks, The Commercial Appeal
Date: 10/14/12The IRIS Orchestra opened its season Saturday night with a slightly different bit of programming. There was no guest artist as such, but there were four featured soloists from the ranks of the orchestra itself.
It proved to be an inspired decision with Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in B minor, Op. 3, No. 10, providing a spotlight for four regulars. The violinists — Carolyn Huebl, Stephen Miahky, Miho Saegusa and Jonathan Swartz — are each exceptional and all have served as concertmaster at various times for IRIS.
The concert, playing to a full house at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre, was what listeners have come to expect from maestro Michael Stern and his merry band of players from all over the country. The performances were consistently excellent in technique and expressiveness.
Stern actually was not on stage for the Vivaldi, a work done without conductor and the four fiddlers setting the pace. Vivaldi and violins are somewhat like grits and gravy — a natural and sometimes supernatural match. The performers brought different styles while fully exploiting the eloquence of Vivaldi in the piece, the only flaw of which that it was too short.
IRIS WINDS UP SEASON WITH CLASS By Jon W. Sparks, The Commercial Appeal
Photo By: Steve J. Sherman
Date: 05/07/12IRIS Orchestra ended its season Saturday night with what has become its usual mix of intriguing programming and stellar talent.
The guest performer was pianist Andre Watts, who has been a highly regarded artist in the 45 years since he burst on the scene as a 16-year-old prodigy, impressing the likes of Leonard Bernstein and wowing orchestras around the world with his virtuosity.
That skill was beautifully on display at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre in his performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 ("Emperor"), a piece grand and soaring in itself, but given a particularly sensitive emotive interpretation by Watts.
SHORTER SEASON FOR IRIS By Jon W. Sparks, The Commercial Appeal
Photo By: Janette Beckman
Date: 04/30/12The 13th season of IRIS Orchestra promises to be bold and beautiful, but it's also going to be the shortest one ever.
The four-concert 2012-2013 schedule is down from six this season, but the guest artists and programming are alluring.
In November, Jaime Laredo and Jennifer Koh perform Bach's Double Violin Concerto as well as the premiere of a work written for the two acclaimed violinists by American composer Anna Clyne.
In February, violinist Gil Shaham returns to IRIS for the third time to perform the Brahms Violin Concerto. Shaham's popularity continues to grow, particularly in Memphis where he has made numerous appearances since his prodigy days two decades ago.
Pianist Jeffrey Kahane stars in May 2013, performing several pieces, including Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto.
The first concert of the season in October puts the spotlight on violinists in the orchestra, setting a theme for the season that will highlight various musicians in the group each concert.
Since its inception in 2000, IRIS musicians selected by artistic director and principal conductor Michael Stern have come from around the country to perform at the concerts, usually held at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre.
The four-concert schedule is the shortest IRIS has offered. In the early years it offered as many as eight concerts annually. As the economy waned, it cut back, having only five events in the 2009-2010 season but has had six concerts in the two seasons since.
But the economy is still taking a toll on performing groups, so the cutback in number of performances was necessary, said executive director and percussionist David DePeters.
"We always look at how to present the best concerts we can in an affordable way," he said. "We've cut back before based on how we anticipate things will go in the next year. That's one of our strengths, that we can have a flexible schedule and still provide great performances and guest artists as well as continuing our community outreach efforts."
IRIS, GUEST CELLIST LEAD PLEASANTRIES By redric Koeppel, The Commercial Appeal
Photo By: Steve J. Sherman
Date: 04/23/12In Saturday night's concert at Germantown Performing Arts Centre, IRIS Orchestra didn't stray far from the confines of the 19th century.
Led with panache and commitment by artistic director and principal conductor Michael Stern, the group rendered three well-known crowd-pleasers with which the crowd was indeed well-pleased, and for good reason: Whether the required mood was merry wit or anguished introspection or folkloric exuberance, the orchestra -- and guest artist, Israeli cellist Amit Peled -- delivered the goods.
Merry wit came in the form of Gioachino Rossini's Overture to "La Cenerentola" ("Cinderella"), a sort of bonbon tossed to the audience before the more serious works. Rossini composed the fairy-tale-based opera early in 1817, just before it premiered in Rome at the end of January. He was 24, and already had the huge successes of "Tancredi" and "The Barber of Seville" behind him. The buoyantly melodic and diverting Overture is froth of the highest order, as is the opera it precedes, and IRIS Orchestra gave the piece its full measure of good cheer and vitality.
To turn to Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, called on a completely different setting of intention and mood. Composed in 1918-19, the four-movement work's solemn and passionate character reflects the psychological and historical devastation of World War I, the passing of the old order of European culture and the ill health of Elgar and his wife, who died in 1920. One would have to possess a heart of stone not to be moved by the sweeping, introspective theme of its opening section or by the sense of elegiac renunciation that dominates the Adagio.
Peled's approach produced a notably muscular attack and a deeply supple, even majestic sound, though slightly roughened; when he swayed into the notes, when he plucked the strings, you felt the vibration in your bones. Local audiences are far too prone to jump to their feet in ovation, even at the most standard renditions, but this performance from orchestra and soloist deserved the approbation.
After intermission, the orchestra returned with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, "Little Russian," composed in 1872-73 and revised in 1879-80. Stern elicited and commanded the collective power of IRIS for this metamorphic, heavily rhythmic and frequently exhilarating symphony.
IRIS ORCHESTRA'S 'TASTE OF HEAVEN' ELEVATES SPIRIT By Jon W. Sparks, The Commercial Appeal
Photo By: Jennifer Gasparian
Date: 01/09/12When Heidi Grant Murphy starts singing, you marvel at how a human voice can do what it does.
Murphy's sweet, subtle, crystalline vocals elevated the luminously performed works in Saturday night's IRIS Orchestra concert at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre.
Maestro Michael Stern programmed the evening, titled "A Taste of Heaven," around Mahler's "Symphony No. 4 in G major," a stunning work that culminates with a child's view of heaven in the song "Das himmlische Leben" ("Heaven's Life").
This is the first time IRIS performed a Mahler symphony, and there's no question that Stern chose well. Mahler's symphonies range from big to gargantuan, but the Fourth is not unwieldy. Yet it is both cerebral and transcendent, beautifully blending the human and the spiritual, and the orchestra played with exquisite passion.
The final movement featured Murphy's singing, her lustrous soprano layering on another dimension of gorgeousness to the piece that enthralled the audience.
