The Solar System-sized The Planets, and a classical music-sized Mozart piano concerto headline the Louisville Orchestra’s season-opening concert September 14 in Whitney Hall But it might be one of the orchestra’s original originals that grabs a slice of the limelight as it leads off the symphony’s 87th season Guest conductor Paolo Bortolameolli and French pianist David Fray performs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No the concert’s leadoff number is one of the five new music works commissioned and recorded by the Louisville Orchestra for its 1948-49 season That’s the year the symphony began championing new music by contemporary composers – and Darius Milhaud was the “name” composer the symphony sought and signed to add international interest to its new direction who grew up in Aix-en-Provence (the south of France city favored by painter Paul Cezanne) alternated musical seasons between the European music capital of Paris but a few graduate male students were admitted into its music program to study with Milhaud – including Stan Getz and Burt Bachrach where Latin rhythms danced naturally into his music Darius Milhaud would rank at the top of the wish list for Louisville Orchestra music director Robert Whitney — and Louisville mayor Charlie Farnsley a partner with Whitney in focusing on contemporary composers The pair was eager to include a Milhaud piece among the first five the L.O could boost interest in the symphony’s new direction Whitney met with executives of Columbia Records to talk radio and recording and with influential music critic/composer Virgil Thomson Milhaud accepted the same fee the orchestra offered each composer was below his standard $1,000 commission — but was happy to “help out” Whitney in his plans and in 1948 he told music writer Arthur Berger that he delighted in composing while traveling across country by train He said he had just received a commission from the Louisville Orchestra to compose a piece that he would he call Kentuckiana Southern Baptist Seminary graduate student Sandra Lee Fralin researched the era and in 2000 published a two-volume The Role of the Louisville Orchestra in the Fostering of New Music Milhaud very happily followed Whitney’s suggestion that the piece could contain some Louisville or Kentucky flair – if the composer liked Milhaud studied the published and unpublished music of the region and called his new piece Kentuckiana: Divertissement on Twenty Kentucky Airs “an overture in the French style on twenty Kentucky airs.” What were those “airs?” Fralin concluded that identifying the exact 20 tunes Milhaud referenced would be difficult And Courier-Journal critic Dwight Anderson who was also Dean of the University of Louisville School of Music dismissed the exercise as missing the point “The twenty tunes chosen by the composer are not developed or varied,” wrote Anderson sometimes heaped upon each other so prodigally that the ear can’t untangle them but before you can catch it another tumbles after “they spell Kentucky’s knobs or hills or mountains; together they race with panoramic speed from Mills Point to the Breaks of Sandy.” Listening to the Louisville Orchestra’s First Edition recording of Kentuckiana one finds the whole thing clattering along at a nice pace kind of like that train on which Milhaud composed The “sound” of the thing reminded me of an Aaron Copland cowboy piece commissioned composer.) Or Ferde Grofe at the “Rodeo.” It’s kind of a Bluegrass fields Louisville Public Media depends on donations from members – generous people like you – for the majority of our funding You can help make the next story possible with a donation of $10 or $20 We'll put your gift to work providing news and music for our diverse community The lost work of a famous French composer has been discovered and premiered in Wales Cardiff University School of Music academic Professor Caroline Rae discovered the unknown manuscript by composer Darius Milhaud in Brecon Together they mounted its world premiere performance at the University Concert Hall Darius Milhaud – famous as a member of the group Les Six – and the poet Jean Cocteau came together to provide a birthday present for their mutual friend Audrey Parr (1892-1940) She was a stage designer and glamorous young wife of a British diplomat whom Milhaud first met in Rio de Janeiro through the poet Paul Claudel Cocteau penned a wittily surreal poem which Milhaud set to music for soprano and seven instruments The work was found in Brecon at the home of Parr’s granddaughter Laetitia Jack a pianist and internationally-renowned specialist on twentieth-century French music  said: “It’s not every day an unknown work by a major French composer is discovered This wonderful piece is a real gem and shows Milhaud at his most inventive and experimental “It sheds new light on Milhaud’s stylistic development while demonstrating a real affection for Audrey Parr a forgotten figure of the interwar French avant-garde who undertook several collaborations with Milhaud and Claudel and was also the dedicatee of music by Poulenc “The discovery is a real coup for Cardiff University and I’m very grateful to Laetitia Jack for giving us permission to give the world premiere.” Laetitia Jack said: “We were amazed and very excited to find the manuscript after it had been lost for about 40 years We thought that we would never manage to get a group of musicians to ever play it and so we’re incredibly grateful to Caroline Rae and James Brookmyre for taking it on and I’m glad that this piece was composed for my granny.” The performers were drawn from colleagues at Cardiff University School of Music the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Bodman String Quartet: Clair Rowden (soprano) Claudine Cassidy (cello) and Jordan Williams (double bass) Professor Rae’s many publications include studies of Jolivet Ohana and Debussy as well as two monographs and three edited volumes She was appointed a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 2018 Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value" Connect with Nation.Cymru on Facebook and Twitter If you would like to donate to help keep Nation.Cymru running then you just need to click on the box below it will open a pop up window that will allow you to pay using your credit / debit card or paypal Enter your email address to receive instant notifications of new articles All information provided to Nation.Cymru will be handled sensitively and within the boundaries of the Data Protection Act 2018 In 2017 Nation.Cymru was launched after raising £5000 from a crowdfunding campaign Today it is one of the fastest growing news sites in the UK attracting over 1.5 million visitors a month We are not backed by billionaire owners or hidden behind a paywall but we depend on our readers' support to continue our work If everyone who visited the site over the course of a month donated at least £1 we would have enough funding for the next eight years To guarantee our future please consider making a donation today. The exhibition on show at the Musée d'Orsay offers an exploration of Céline Laguarde's photography reveals her intimate relationship with music Aside from her career as a photographer, Céline Laguarde was a renowned pianist and close friend of Darius Milhaud The program presents pieces which she played Natacha Kudritskaya has dual cultural heritage: Ukrainian and French She won the Rachmaninoff international youth piano competition in Novgorod (Russia) in 2000 and went on to study music in Paris at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique then at the Tchaikovsky Academy of Music in Kiev For this concert dedicated to Céline Laguarde « Céline Laguarde Photographe (1873-1961) » Cardiff University Concert Hall and OnlineLivestream at: www.tinyurl.com/dariusmilhaud and website in this browser for the next time I comment Music Collections in Leeds: From the Local to the Global School of Music, University of Leeds RMA French Music Study Group Inaugural Annual Conference French Music Study Group Music on the Move in Communist Europe University of Bristol More events... This week’s installment in our French composers’ names series is another member of Les Six: Darius Milhaud being puzzled by the spelling of his last name: the -lh- combination is very rare in French and somehow reminiscent of Brazilian spelling (did he have to compose his Saudades do Brasil (1920-1921) to confuse me even more?!) His last name is really easy to pronounce for English speakers: ME-Yo Here is a video of Milhaud’s Sonata for 2 violins and piano, Op.15 (excerpt) by Angela and Jennifer Chun httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXDezGFqVnQ Did you know that Milhaud had Philip Glass and Steve Reich as students Was then American Minimalism influenced by Les Six?! Just kidding… What is your favorite Milhaud piece Check out the entire French Composers’ Names series or suggest one we haven’t covered on Twitter at @icareifulisten Sign up for our newsletter and get a weekly round-up of I CARE IF YOU LISTEN content delivered straight to your inbox every Friday I CARE IF YOU LISTEN is an award-winning media platform for living music creators. It is a program of American Composers Forum, made possible thanks to generous donor and institutional support. You can support the work of ICIYL with a gift to ACF. Just off the Champs-Élysées and a stone’s throw from the Arc de triomphe the evening vibe has nothing to do with strobe lights or DJ sets just a festive atmosphere that oozes with irreverent panache… Welcome to the Bœuf sur le Toit the historic hotspot of the roaring twenties that remains the haunt of gourmets and fans of Parisian-style entertainment Since the legendary Bœuf sur le Toit was created in 1922 it has always been an icon of Paris nightlife You’d be forgiven for thinking the name (which means ‘the Ox on the Roof’) was inspired by a culinary speciality from the local region decided to write a French version of a tune he had enjoyed during his travels to Brazil This inspired Jean Cocteau to create a ballet which was performed on a regular basis at a superb cabaret venue in the 8th arrondissement the Boeuf sur le Toit was a key haunt for artists as well as illustrious intellectuals of the interwar years At a time when the Parisian nightlife was all about jazz singers and musicians would engage in famous musical jousting matches that continued into the early hours Those spontaneous concerts gave rise to a well-known French expression From the daily line-up of mainly cabaret acts you’re sure to find something you'll enjoy feasting your eyes on… As well as your tastebuds There’s even something for gourmet vegetarians such as truffle macaroni and confit of vegetables Want to prolong the pleasure? A few minutes away from the Bœuf sur le toit, at the inimitable Crazy Horse, you can see the ultimate Parisian show full of sensuality. To experience more crazy gourmet adventures, check out our selection of restaurants in the Paris Region Envisaged as a foil for The Meetingby Ukrainian painter Marie Bashkirtseff, the program for this Concert de midi trente highlights Ukrainian composers whose work is rarely performed leads this musical exploration. The concert will continue in the auditorium where listeners will have free access to a presentation of this portrait by a student from the École du Louvre A naturalist masterpiece, The Meeting painted by Ukrainian artist Marie Bashkirtseff may have a message that goes beyond the image itself Marie Bashkirtseff exhibited this painting in Paris at the Salon in 1884 in an era when the Fine Arts school was reserved for men Despite resounding praise from the public and the press Marie Bashkirtseff did not receive a single award the image of the little girl in the painting walking away from the group of young boys - if we also take into account the fact that the artist knew her condition was terminal - takes on an entirely new meaning and the painting goes far beyond merely depicting a scene Marie Bashkirtseff spent part of her life in Paris in the very same year that she exhibited this painting at the Salon the concert features Ukrainian composers whose work is rarely performed: Victoria Vita Poleva launched in order to preserve and promote Ukrainian music The Quatuor Bleu et Or was founded in 2022 by a group of Ukrainian musicians three of whom had been forced to leave Ukraine due to the war They then became temporary residents with the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre National de France as part of the Philharmonie de Paris mission project The Quatuor Bleu et Or makes Ukrainian repertoire accessible to all One of the interesting aspects of Milhaud’s music is his use of polytonality or the use of more than one key simultaneously "The bitonality helps to explain the organized chaos of this piece," Michael Stern says "there is this coming into being from nothingness That idea is made manifest in the music and he does it incredibly well." While you don’t quite hear the techniques in this piece that came to be associated with Schoenberg — serialism twelve-tone music — you can see that Schoenberg is taking tonality here pretty much as far as it can go "Verklärte Nacht is really the last hurrah of the 19th century," says Michael Stern "and yet this advanced harmonic map for the piece is pretty extraordinary to the point where [Schoenberg] was criticized for having 'broken the rules.'" Milhaud said he composed Le Bœuf sur le Toit as “fifteen minutes of music as a background to any Charlie Chaplin silent movie.” Milhaud had spent two years in Brazil in the French diplomatic service during the First World War and he was greatly influenced by its music You can hear sounds from nature in this piece including hunting horn calls and birdsongs played by various wind instruments Dvořák’s biographer Hanz-Hubert Schönzeler wrote “When one walks in those forests surrounding Dvořák’s country home on a sunny summer’s day with the birds singing and the leaves of trees rustling in a gentle breeze one can virtually hear the music.” Michael Stern hears an "elegiac Milhaud's starting point was a French translation of Aeschylus by his lifelong collaborator, the playwright Paul Claudel He began in 1913 by setting just a single scene of the first play as a relatively conventional musical interlude for soprano and chorus as part of a spoken stage performance His treatment of the second part of the triptych is much more ambitious; it requires an orchestra supplemented by 15 percussionists it incorporates rhythmically notated speech that at times weirdly anticipates the style of Peter Hall's famous National Theatre staging of the Oresteia of the 1980s is on a different scale entirely – its three acts last more than twice as long as the first two parts put together including quartets of saxophones and saxhorns – for music that is sometimes as strikingly original as anything by Stravinsky from the same period it's an operatic curiosity well worth investigating and musically it often turns out to be much more than that Inaugurated 40 years ago by Darius Milhaud the only Jewish cultural center in Aix-en-Provence is named after the famous composer and native son yeshiva and social club for a community growing exponentially thanks to waves of emigrants from North Africa the fabled fountain at the heart of the city it rests on the site of a former Jewish cemetery abandoned in the 19th century Le Centre Darius Milhaud acts as an intellectual magnet for overlapping generations of local Jews and non-Jews drawn to its secular approach to Jewish culture It also serves as a meeting space for some of the city’s secular groups such as the Women’s International Zionist Organization and B’nai B’rith International also oversees the city’s only kosher restaurant When it is not committed to feeding the students from EJAP the center depends on yearly grants from French regional and national state agencies including the Culture Ministry (equivalent to National Endowment for the Arts the two women submit their selections for state approval the center does not shirk from controversial topics A recent lecture featured a rabbi and imam part of a team that each summer tours French cities on a special publicity bus to spur contact with disaffected Muslim youths a top researcher at the Jerusalem think tank The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute visited the Centre Milhaud on the first leg of a series of conferences A Paris-born Orthodox rabbi and university professor in Israel he urged his audience to develop a vision that will engage young people in a “Judaïsme ouvert” (Judaism open to dialogue) and lead them away from the ghetto mentality of some religious groups If conviction is measured in applause decibels I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward American Jews need independent news they can trust At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S rising antisemitism and polarized discourse This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up Copyright © 2025 The Forward Association Back in the days before you could hear any orchestral piece you wanted at any time the piano was the central instrument in home music-making That’s the way you’d learn a Beethoven symphony for instance – play it in a four-hand arrangement at home In addition to two people sitting at one piano working out the storm sequence in the Pastoral Symphony there were any number of pieces for two pianos partly for homes with more than the usual complement of instruments and players and also of course for professionals looking to make a little more sonic impact This Sunday, pianists Mia Vassilev and Alan Mason will offer a two-piano tour of the music of France including pieces by Bizet (his Jeux d’Enfants) Saint-Saëns (an arrangement of Danse Macabre) Also on the program is the Two Pieces of Frank Martin Sunday at the Steinway Piano Gallery in Coral Gables Ravel and Saint-Saëns – are well-known classics of the literature that used to be well-known but which you don’t hear much these days That seems to be true of Milhaud’s music in general though I have heard La Creation du Monde in the past couple years The second movement is plain and beautiful is a kitschy but lively piece with plenty of the kind of impish color that today sounds salon-like but in its day (1937) was hugely popular and considered a smart stylish evocation of exotic South American color There are any number of performances by two-piano duets on YouTube, including one featuring Milhaud himself and Sunday’s concert will provide an opportunity for listeners to get reacquainted with the music of this fine composer and she plays with strength and fleet fingers writing about Milhaud and French music of the post-World War I period in his massive survey of Western music “The French music of the postwar period was a desacralized art a thing made pour plaire – “to please” – that is to exist in and adorn the lives of its users.” That’s what so much two-piano music was all about to begin with and it will be worth keeping in mind while listening to Sunday’s concert In the fall of 1920 Darius Milhaud had reason to be proud His symphonic suite Protee was to be performed at an important concert to share the program with a new work by Arthur Honegger The twenty-eight year-old Milhaud had his misgivings though The two compositions were lumped together under the heading of “Polytonality,” which Milhaud thought was an arbitrary label that might put the audience on edge Pierne devoted more than the usual amount of rehearsal time to Milhaud’s and Honegger’s pieces Milhaud invited his parents to Paris for the big event little expecting just what was in store for them Even before the overture of his suite was finished “Take it away!” Other made animal sounds with bravos and clapping — a show of support that just did more to drown out the music When the orchestra got to a particularly innovative fugue in the suite a battle erupted during which one audience member — a composer — slapped another — an organist — in the face The police arrived and started clearing out troublemakers Milhaud saw two policemen eject a prominent music critic Pierne made a speech defending his choice of music for the concert and the crowd settled down — briefly But before long they were at it again and drowned out the entire third part of Milhaud’s suite not because they doubted the value of his music The uproar had a surprising effect on Milhaud violent response gave me limitless confidence.” The way he saw it both noisy enthusiasm and vociferous protests are a proof that a composer’s work is alive Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board A previously unknown composition by French composer Darius Milhaud has been discovered in Brecon and was recently premiered at Cardiff University. The lost manuscript was found by Professor Caroline Rae, a pianist and expert in 20th century French music at Cardiff University’s School of Music The piece, composed in 1920, was a birthday gift from Milhaud and poet Jean Cocteau to their friend, Audrey Parr, a British diplomat's wife and stage designer. Cocteau wrote a wittily surreal poem, which Milhaud set to music for soprano and seven instruments. The manuscript was found at the Brecon home of Parr's granddaughter, Laetitia Jack. “It’s not every day an unknown work by a major French composer is discovered, let alone in Wales," said Professor Rae. "This wonderful piece is a real gem and shows Milhaud at his most inventive and experimental. It sheds new light on Milhaud’s stylistic development while demonstrating a real affection for Audrey Parr, a forgotten figure of the interwar French avant-garde who undertook several collaborations with Milhaud and Claudel and was also the dedicatee of music by Poulenc. "The discovery is a real coup for Cardiff University and I’m very grateful to Laetitia Jack, the manuscript owner, for giving us permission to give the world premiere." Professor Rae mounted the world premiere of the work, which took place at Cardiff University’s Concert Hall, alongsider her PhD student, James Brookmyre. The performance featuring musicians from Cardiff University, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the Bodman String Quartet. The performers for the world premiere of the lost work by Darius Milhaud were: Clair Rowden (soprano), Gabbi Alberti (flute), James Brookmyre (clarinet), Jaroslaw Augustyniak (bassoon), Robert Fokkens (violin), Charles Bodman-Whittaker (viola), Claudine Cassidy (cello) and Jordan Williams (double bass). “We were amazed and very excited to find the manuscript after it had been lost for about 40 years," said Laetitia Jack. "We thought that we would never manage to get a group of musicians to ever play it, and so we’re incredibly grateful to Caroline Rae and James Brookmyre for taking it on. It sounds wonderful. I can't believe it. We’re just so very excited and very happy, and I’m glad that this piece was composed for my granny.” Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of 'Les Six' and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality (simultaneous use of different keys). Milhaud is considered one of the key modernist composers, writing more than 400 pieces of symphonic, operatic, and chamber music over the course of his life. The other members of ‘Les Six’ were Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983). Their music represents a strong reaction against the heavy German Romanticism of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, as well as against the chromaticism and lush orchestration of Claude Debussy. Comments Tel: 01874 610111[email protected]Follow us Further Links Owned or licensed to Tindle Newspapers Ltd. | Independent Family-Owned Newspapers | Copyright & Trade Mark Notice & 2013 - 2025 The series is based on his 2014 album of Russian miniatures the violinist found in his family’s suitcase when they immigrated to the United States from Belarus the 35-year-old Bostonian Kutik pays tribute to his first teacher Russian violinist and teacher Zinaida Gilels she guided her young student to another Russian violinist and teacher succumbing to his mother’s acknowledged resolve structural signals gave way to an evened surface For Prokofiev’s fast-paced harmonic designs such an evening brought about unusual lucidity the duo concertized boldly in big embracing sounds showing extraordinary instrumental accomplishment and precision in every measure How much is there of his teacher in Kutik’s iteration of Prokofiev’s Sonata No He had mentioned Totenberg’s memories of growing up in 20th century Russia thinking back on Kutik’s tribute to these two teachers I wondered how other online listeners might also have wanted to have heard more about these connections and imagined that some former students of Totenberg might have offered some insight A student of Peter Serkin and Jerome Lowenthal Anna Polonsky joined Kutik for this brief appearance that began streaming Thursday evening While the opening Moderato of Prokofiev’s violin second sonata can tug at the heartstrings Kutik and Polonsky instead proposed less than intimate emotional involvement They shadowed Prokofiev’s march-leaning passages appearing more as observers A remarkable seriousness rang out in Shalin Liu hall captured through the lens of Director of Photography Jason La Chapelle with additional photography of Griffen Harrington It was straight-ahead determination carrying the Scherzo whose close came as sudden stop the overall direction of the movement not always apparent Accents in the Allegro con brio arrived uniformly “The Ox on the Roof,” along with some 30 choros or tunes are quoted in Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit  Rhythmic roominess by way of dance and noisy celebration by way of the composer’s polytonal writing have invited interpretation perhaps it was their teachers who may have pointed in another direction One can view the final installment beginning on March 11th HERE If you would like to contribute articles or reviews to the Intelligencer, please familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines.  Subscribe to the Intelligencer. Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker the Californian university has nurtured Steve Reich Laurie Anderson and more – and caused riots at its concerts In the late 1960s, Morton Subotnick’s groundbreaking electronic work Silver Apples of the Moon was both a bestselling classical record and an underground nightclub sensation since acknowledged as an influence by Frank Zappa and Four Tet alike the very first big public presentation of his work did not go quite so smoothly He’d written a piece for two people playing a single piano and Subotnick was convinced it was “really fresh” By the third movement they were already growing restless The players on stage practically had to stare them down Subotnick had just graduated from Mills College in Oakland, California Subotnick spies Milhaud in his seat with tears in his eyes and apologises for what he presumes to be his teacher’s disappointment Holly Herndon and the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh are among the alumni; John Cage Terry Riley and – the screams having subsided – Subotnick among the faculty But that legacy is under threat: in March last year the college announced that due to “declining enrolment and budget deficits” San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s a possible reprieve has come in the shape of a proposed merger with the much larger Northeastern University in Boston tells me that he is “trying to talk to the right people … But it’s a steep climb Read moreIt was the autumn of 1940 when Cage first started canvassing for the establishment of a centre for experimental music at Mills Hired as an accompanist in the college’s dance department earlier that year the 28-year-old composer wrote to everyone from famed conductor Leopold Stokowski to Walt Disney in order to drum up support for a new kind of music studio “in which there are no obligations or prohibitions But despite enthusiasm on the part of the college led at that time by the visionary peace and women’s rights activist Aurelia Henry Reinhardt Cage’s appeals would ultimately come to naught It was also where California native Donald Buchla developed one of the world’s first modular synthesisers a pioneering electronic instrument which would bring a futuristic swirl of sound to new age meditation tapes and Coke ads alike A debonair midwesterner with a penchant for silk scarves whose half-spoken “TV operas” of the 70s and 80s would transform the genre who took her MFA there in 1970 before joining the faculty a year later fondly recalls the “wonderful camaraderie” that Ashley insisted upon “He was always intent on developing a sense of community,” she says “It was all about personal responsibility and collaboration – both within and across disciplines.” That sensibility has persisted long after Ashley’s departure in 1981 – Roscoe Mitchell of the jazz unit Art Ensemble of Chicago, who joined the Mills faculty in 2007, sees Ashley as a “giant influence” – but Ashley was not always the most orthodox of educators. Acclaimed composer Sarah Davachi was told by one of her teachers at Mills “that public speaking made Ashley very anxious so before he taught a class he would go out on to the balcony of the Moog studio and get high to calm himself down” Roscoe Mitchell’s own tenure came amid increasing financial difficulty and tension: an attempt to oust him was met with a huge public outcry and he was finally reinstated “I was ready to go after that,” Mitchell tells me “It felt almost like being a rat on a sinking ship or something.” Sarah Davachi. Photograph: Dicky BahtoToday, Mills is even more precarious but she hopes they’ll be able to “continue with what the whole idea has been all these years: experimentation and collaboration if you don’t compose in the manner that the professor is composing in then you might be in trouble Davachi thinks back to her lecturer Alvin Lucier who made cornerstones of American avant garde composition such as I Am Sitting in a Room and who gave her “the greatest compliment I have ever received” She was lugging two pairs of huge speaker cabinets to her car and Lucier wrapped in a blanket,” waiting to deliver a lecture a piece for pipe organ and electronics requiring mathematically tuned notes in between the pitches of a piano keyboard “Wow,” Lucier responded just like Milhaud before him “that sounds just like what we used to do in the old days.” Hopefully there will be a future generation for Davachi to be amazed by The Music in the Fault Zone concert series begins 21 April at Mills College A photo caption was amended on 21 April 2022 News | Aug 30 Even those with no interest in classical music were aware during summers of the ’50s and ’60s The man’s size and immobility – the wide slicked-back hair – suggested something of the Buddha Through no overt gesture he radiated fulfillment Darius Milhaud’s physical gravity was hard to reconcile with his festive French composers of the ’20s inspired more by the quirky clarity of Erik Satie than by such immediate predecessors as Debussy and Ravel their music evokes an urban world of street vendors Milhaud’s popular ballet score for black dancers “La Création du monde,” uses the same my-dog-has-fleas motif with a blue note on fleas that recurs in Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” and “Rhapsody in Blue.” Another ballet score “Le Boeuf sur le toit,” portrays a cow trapped on the roof of a raffish bar on Montparnasse in a series of brief revolving romps that my neighbor refers to as The Boof on the Roof The history of high jinks made Milhaud’s 19-summer glide through Aspen the more enigmatic.There are two versions of how Milhaud first reached Aspen who was teaching composition in Santa Barbara with Milhaud in 1950 says the director of the music department at the Music Academy of the West wanted to move called on Festival founder Walter Paepcke in Chicago and sold him the Santa Barbara composition faculty “like a baseball team.” In a more genial version ran into Milhaud in Santa Barbara and said “I just came from this beautiful place in the mountains Why don’t you get involved in it?” Encouraged or not by Stravinsky Milhaud found that among Aspen’s seductions was a dry climate that alleviated his arthritis and he founded the Conference on Contemporary Music His wife Madeleine taught French diction in 1951 and went on to teach opera production and to stage numerous operas some by her husband – who had to be carried by students up the 54 steps of the Wheeler Opera House to attend productions of his own works.While the excuse for this remembrance is that Milhaud was born 100 years ago for me the real Milhaud summer occurred in 1962 At that time the Festival program was a one-page list of pieces rather than the square-bound glossy magazine it has become The Festival celebrated with music by Les Six progenitor Erik Satie Les Six members George Auric and Arthur Honegger Milhaud’s own “Le Boeuf sur le toit,” which the composer conducted from his wheelchair and ended with a piece by Milhaud’s predecessor in Aspen That evening the Wheeler Opera House offered a free program of Milhaud-related films In 1962 the Milhauds stayed in Aspen a few days after the Festival and I had the privilege of meeting them at the house of friends who allowed me to torture their Steinway a couple of hours a day then introduced me to her husband in perfect English My hand wasn’t met by Milhaud’s; it was surrounded by matter so boneless and vast it was like being engulfed by a decayed mushroom when the subject of unusual handshakes comes up I feel my hand being swamped by Darius Milhaud.What music was I practicing I indicated the “Mouvements perpetuels” on the piano composed at age 19 by his friend and fellow member of Les Six Francis Poulenc.”The second one is marvelous,” said Mme “How does it go?” he asked her “I can’t remember.”She sang the insolent seven-note phrase on which the short piece is built and which Poulenc asks you to play “indiférent.””Yes,” he murmured “wonderful,” then segued to the subject of music as background for nonmusical activities he asked a nurse about to give him the anesthetic to turn off the Muzak “But that’s supposed to soothe you “It’s not soothing me,” he exploded “it’s driving me wild.” On the other hand rolling once into an elevator during some Brahms he made the operator run the car up and down Inconsequential as such banter may have been memory has kept it – partly because it was the Milhauds’ partly because it showed their closeness as a couple and their total immersion in the musical life Rummaging through practice rooms afterward the way others walk under lifts when the snow melts It was the second book of the “Saudades do Brasil” – Nostalgia for Brazil – by Darius Milhaud Sleuthing revealed that these pieces were written in 1921 a time when some European countries gave ambassadorships rather than grants to their artists the French embassy in Brazil was run for several years by the French poet and playwright Paul Claudel with Darius Milhaud serving in 1917 and 1918 as his secretary I found them to be polytonal – unfolding in more than one key at once – by means that were more coloristic than systematic and habañeras of Brazilian dance music conventions so formulaic he may well have used them as they came and juxtaposed their elements in jarring collage superimposing chords conventionally heard in sequence Other passages combined chords a half-step apart By depriving simple material of the setting that made it stirring or trite each of the Saudades broke by unexpected means into consonance like the simple surprising solution to an intricate puzzle.Not all of Milhaud’s music was as playful and accessible as the Saudades and some tent-goers had less favorable reasons for preferring the last chord Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck honored his teacher by naming his son Darius Milhaud Brubeck thinking of the composer’s alleged caterwauling one Festival patron named her cat Darius Meow refer to him as Me Loud.Centenaries are occasions for the big picture a flare-up in a dentist’s chair and a forgotten score must resolve themselves in a face that masked Bruce Berger’s books include “The Telling Distance,” winner of the Western States Book Award and “Music in the Mountains,” a history of the Aspen Music Festival is from the forthcoming “The Complete Half-Aspenite,” to be released at the end of the summer Readers around Aspen and Snowmass Village make the Aspen Times’ work possible Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage are you considering any property transactions this spring View Results This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions Thousands of Kiwi secondary school musicians and composers perform together and enjoy the thrill of making music each year in the largest and longest running chamber music event of its kind The Chamber Music Contest is always an exciting event in Aotearoa's annual music calendar It is the largest and longest running youth chamber music competition in Aotearoa and many of its past participants have gone on to successful musical careers both here and overseas The adjudicators for the 2024 National Final are Bridget Douglas RNZ Concert’s Music Alive host Clarissa Dunn was the MC for the Contest Final Friday 2 August at Wellington's Michael Fowler Centre NZCT Chamber Music Finals First Place Winners - Shostos The Adjudicators praised their maturity beyond their years and a sense of tacking the listener on a special journey 'It was a complete performance in all respects' Helen Young Second Place Winners - Virtuoso Strings Octet The performance was incredibly engaging through its physical presence.' Joan Kerr National Third Place Winners - Milhaud à Rio and the National KBB Award (for non-strings or piano) were awarded to Milhaud à Rio (Auckland) Adjudicators Award Winners - The Thermann Violins Friedrich Hermann | Suite for Three Violins Op Friedrich Kuhlau | Trio in E minor for Three Flutes Op Craig Utting (NZ) | Four Scenes for Octet mvt See terms of use for easy access to all your favourite programmes Throughout his life, Scott Joplin sought to have his ragtime music accepted as American art rather than have it considered mere entertainment It was a losing battle against the racism and snobbishness of the times (he composed between 1895-1917) Although many white bands adopted “Maple Leaf Rag,” Joplin was not able to achieve his dream of having his pieces considered “serious music.” It would take many decades before ragtime was finally thought of as “respectable.” Joplin would have loved being included on Preludes a project on which the Symphonic Brass of London performs eight of his compositions next to 13 works by Claude Debussy four trombones (including a bass trombone) performs arrangements by their conductor Eric Clees a Joplin piece is followed by a classical work from the era that has some abstract connection showing that Debussy or Satie were clearly a bit influenced by some aspect of ragtime (at least briefly) hinting at ragtime during their own much more dissonant writing Sometimes there is only a slight connection and in most cases the Joplin rags sound absolutely jubilant compared to the more harmonically advanced classical pieces The CD gives one a rare chance to hear such pieces as Debussy’s “Golliwogg’s Cakewalk” and Satie’s Rag Time Parade” next to Joplin’s “Swipesy,” “The Strenuous Life,” and “Solace.” But even with the inventive arrangements for the brass ensemble some of the classical music is quite jarring Rags and Cakewalks is mostly recommended for listeners who have a strong interest in Debussy and Satie Preludes, Rags and Cakewalks (Mike Purton Recording Service MPR 005, 21 selections, TT = 77:12) www.mikepurtonrecording.com Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles He has written for many jazz and arts magazines He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz the New York City Jazz Record and other publications Join us at the Akustika Fair at the Nuremberg Exhibition Centre from April 4-6 Meet The Strad team at stand F08 and pick up a free copy of the magazine The Strad Directory Jobs This imaginatively planned CD begins and ends with nicely lilting performances of two of Milhaud’s Quatre visages its centrepiece being the composer’s First Viola Concerto Both compositions bring out the best qualities in Susanne van Els’s playing She suggests West Coast snugness in ‘La californienne’ and cosmopolitan chic in ‘La parisienne’ and manages to imbue the concerto’s bustling rhythms with a modicum of songful sweetness in the two unaccompanied pieces van Els is way too indulgent loading the music with a rubato that makes its shape very hard to understand This is a first recording of Ysaÿe’s Cello Sonata in a viola version (apparently the composer tried it out on the viola himself) Contemporaneous with Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonatas op.27 the piece breathes the same faux-Baroque air and uses similar hot-house harmonies Hindemith’s Sonata is taken at very slow speeds There are some sins of omission in the (in)famous ‘Wild’ movement and a glaring (but frequently encountered) misreading in the final one On the plus side is some eloquent playing by van Els on her beautiful-sounding Testore A parliamentary debate stemming from a successful online petition ended with MP Caroline Dinenage saying the idea was ‘not consistent with Brexit’ An album to seduce and thrill in equal measure A crack ensemble proves its mettle in highly varied fare Site powered by Webvision Cloud Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Although it was as the widow of the composer Darius Milhaud that Madeleine Milhaud became principally known after her husband's death in 1974, and she wished it that way, she had her own career as actress, producer and designer, and was perfectly familiar with everything to do with the stage and concert hall, so that when in her middle nineties she was invited once again to perform as a diseuse, she accepted the invitation without hesitation and received accolades. Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was the most prolific of that group of French composers that became known as Les Six and was, after Francis Poulenc, the most admired. Milhaud's career as a composer started just after the First World War, but he had been performing as a violinist from the age of eight, and his entire life, in spite of serious health problems, was professionally successful and personally happy. Madeleine's own interests often meant, after their marriage, being away from Darius, which he did not like. She also read poetry on the radio, usually being free to make her own choice of poets. Her understanding of music, which she had also studied, enabled her to perform speaking parts in musical works, such as Joan of Arc in Arthur Honegger's oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, and she also played Joan in different plays, mainly for the radio. When she was studying music in Paris, she also moved in literary circles, often attending readings at Adrienne Monnier's bookshop, which had Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Co across the street, so she met many writers of both languages. The Milhauds then travelled to Vienna to meet Schoenberg and Alban Berg and started a friendship which was to continue later when both the Schoenbergs and the Milhauds were refugees in Los Angeles during the Second World War. Throughout the Twenties, Madeleine gave recitals of the texts that her husband was setting to music and often composers also wrote for her. She had a particular success with Stravinsky's Persephone. Madeleine Milhaud, actress, director and producer: born Paris 22 March 1902; married 1925 Darius Milhaud (died 1974; one son); died Paris 17 January 2008. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies During the 21 years Olivier Milhaud has worked at LafargeHolcim the cement industry has changed a great deal “I’ve seen this industry transform very quickly It’s obviously improved a lot in terms of efficiency and compliance especially environmental compliance,” he explains Based in the UAE since 2015, Olivier first became CFO at LafargeHolcim’s Lafarge Emirates Cement and then transitioned to General Manager in January 2020 where he witnessed major shifts in how the industry operates but large groups have emerged and have built big factories,” he says “These companies are now relying on a strong economy as well as protecting the environment being of paramount significance when it comes to emissions.” Many countries across the world are following the transformation Olivier saw in China the cement industry is rapidly progressing towards meeting new challenges particularly with tackling environmental concerns One aspect he points to as a major innovation is the optimisation of energy consumption “There is a device that is now used often called Waste Heat Recovery where the hot gases of the production line are being used to run turbo generators which themselves produce electricity for the plant,” he shares product efficiency and management efficiency because we are in a commodity business Not only are these innovations benefiting Lafarge Emirates Cement they are proving to be extremely good for the economy and the environment While there is clearly more to achieve when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions “There are scientific projects designed to recycle CO2 [Carbon Capture Utilisation] and to incorporate it in products [carbon concrete] This is still at the experimental stage and our plant has been selected to run one of the trial studies,” Olivier adds When it comes to defining success at Lafarge Emirates Cement product efficiency and management efficiency because we are in a commodity business,” Olivier points out “The critical aspect is to be able to maximise the volume with the minimum cost at all stages of the production.” Securing business basics – such as maintaining solid relationships with customers and offering quality products – are also central ingredients to creating an industry leading company With an extensive network of export markets it’s especially important to ensure all products meet exacting standards as products are being tested at the time of loading and offloading the role of the quality team is critical to ensuring the success of the export business “We are exporting to different areas of the world – the Indian ocean the US market – and we have plans to export to India Sri Lanka and other destinations in the region,” he says In such a competitive and crowded industry Olivier believes that Lafarge Emirates Cement can thrive thanks to its strict level of compliance across many areas in the business From the way manufacturing plants are operated to upholding human rights compliance codes and having a prequalification of suppliers for health and safety a strong rules-based business environment helps ensure all stakeholders are happy “We know that the people we work with are quite demanding but we have selected our suppliers well and are confident that they will comply with our rules,” Olivier explains who are able to adapt to the diverse level of specifications and different norms One of the benefits of being part of a larger corporate group is the ability to learn best practices from staff across the diverse network of companies Unlike small-scale firms with a single location Lafarge Emirates Cement can provide mobility to its employees with the business benefiting from the best experiences that are being shared with others in the network In the years that Olivier has worked at Lafarge Emirates Cement he’s helped to foster close relationships with a range of suppliers These strategic partnerships have enabled the company to always rely on suppliers “The trusted suppliers of the company have an in-depth knowledge of our organisation and since these suppliers adapt their resources to our needs the business is thereby able to work at an optimised level There is no time wasted and we work in close cooperation – it’s helpful in terms of boosting efficiency,” he says who are able to adapt to the diverse level of specifications and different norms,” Olivier concludes “This really shows the rigour in our management – it’s a way to differentiate us from competitors.” The CEO Magazine is more than a business title; it’s a source of information inspiration and motivation for the world’s most successful leaders Learn all about The CEO Magazine at TheCEO.com ' + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.webview_notification_text + ' " + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.redirect_overlay_title + " " + scriptOptions._localizedStrings.redirect_overlay_text + " The result is an intriguing insight into the world of Les Six and the different attitudes of the composers would describe their compositional approaches thus "Auric and Poulenc followed ideas of Cocteau We begin with Georges Auric's Prelude from L'Album des Six perky and very much in a style which we can compare to the better-known piano music of Francis Poulenc and perhaps also we should consider the influence of Eric Satie Trois poems de Léon-Paul Fargue date from 1940 and set verses by the French poet Léon-Paul Fargue (1876-1947) Auric's style sometimes seem to evoke the music of 20 years earlier but there is also a neo-classicism to the music with an edge to the harmony and the final song 'Regrets' has an elegant simplicity Arthur Honegger's Sarabande from the album is charming evoking very much the world of the six in 1920 His songs Petit cours de morale from 1941 set five poems by playwright Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944) The title translates as A short lecture on morality and each song is named for its heroine the verse almost aphoristic yet hinting at moral dilemmas as befits the aphoristic character of the words Honegger intrigues with his combination of characterful piano writing with shapely vocal lines I rather enjoyed these songs and only in the first and last do we get a hint of Les Six Satie's Elegie was written in memory of Claude Debussy; it inhabits a similar world to the music of his protégés but with suitably darker His Quatre melodies from 1920 are again full of character veering between charming waltzes and cleary yet dissonant harmonies sometimes laughing at tradition and sometimes following it Darius Milhaud's Mazurka from the album was actually written in 1914 This is followed by his Trois chansons de Jean Cocteau from 1920 which are actually dedicated to Satie The three songs are the merest vignettes of contemporary life yet Milhaud makes them vivid and engaging with intriguing harmonies which demonstrate Milhaud's sense of musical independence Francis Poulenc's Valse in C from the album is full of energy and vivid rhythms two settings from 1938 of poems Paul Eluard (1895-1952) which Poulenc came across accidentally 'Tu vais le feu du soir' is slow and striking and Poulenc would say he took elements from this song for his 1953 opera Carmelites a torrent of angry words about an ex-lover Pastorale: Enjoue is full of strikingly busy yet delicate textures Her Six chansons francaises date from 1929 and were her first songs vigorous and slowly lyrical have an astringent edge to the harmony and a confident It is not hard to detect Tailleferre's own voice in the songs a wife whose husband tried to shoot her when he learned she was pregnant This is a striking disc which gives us a chance to look at the music of Les Six in a variety of different lights Heinzen and Mead bring out the real character of each short item (37 tracks lasting a whisker under 50 minutes) and the imaginative structure of the disc means that we never feel that this is a random assemblage of little morsels Georges Auric (1899–1983) - Prélude (1919)Georges Auric - Trois poèmes de Léon-Paul Fargue (1940)Louis Durey (1888–1979) - Romance sans paroles op 42 (1932)Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) - Sarabande H 26 (1920)Arthur Honegger - Petit cours de morale H 148 (1941)Erik Satie (1866–1925) - Premier Menuet (1920)Erik Satie - Quatres mélodies (1920)Darius Milhaud (1892–1974) - Mazurka (1914)Darius Milhaud - Trois chansons de Jean Cocteau (1920)Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) - Valse in C (1919)Francis Poulenc - Miroirs brûlants Paul Éluard (1938)Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983) - Pastorale Enjoué (1919)Germaine Tailleferre - Six chansons françaises (1929)Franziska Heinzen (soprano)Benjamin Mead (piano)Recorded at SRF Studio Zürich | Date: July 2020SOLO MUSICA SM351 1CD [49:44] The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Maya Koch (violin) Julian Milford (piano)Composer: Poulenc Sumptuously engineered and glowingly played The Poulenc Sonata (unaccountably neglected by comparison with its wind-instrument cousins) is often played very cool as though any hint of espressivo indulgence would ruin the effect Maya Koch and Julian Milford really have their fingers on the pulse tantalisingly infusing this glorious music with about as much warmth and interpretative vim it can take without losing its neo-Classical poise The opening movement is no faceless ‘non troppo’ but a true ‘con fuoco’ while the Presto finale is played ‘tragico’ It was a suggestion of Diaghilev’s that led to Stravinsky composing Pulcinella (1920) based on music that was then ostensibly thought to be by the Italian composer Pergolesi He later arranged a suite of the most popular movements for violin and piano as the Suite italienne Throughout Stravinsky’s love of piquant wind articulation is ever-present yet with so many wonderful melodies to wallow in it is difficult not to lapse into cantabile indulgence from time to time playing with an elegance and natural warmth that is delectable Milhaud’s Le boeuf sur le toit is one of the few pieces of music that really is genuinely ‘laugh-out-loud’ funny with a rollicking rondo theme that once heard is impossible to forget It is also fiendishly difficult (with a firecracker solo cadenza) yet Koch and Milford hardly seem to notice so infectious are their fine-honed musical responses Plenty to enjoy in a recital that explores a wide variety of French cello music Though Mother Courage And Her Children is one of the most widely produced Bertolt Brecht dramas in regional theatre a 1960 translation/adaptation of the work by Eric Bentley and Darius Milhaud 19 at Jean Cocteau Repertory in lower Manhattan the show has added several performances stretching past the original March 28 closing date The Cocteau Rep company will also do 4 shows -- April 11-13 Bentley had already translated the play once when he and Milhaud a member of the "Les Six" school of composers collaborated on a new English version incorporating ballads sea chanties and traditional melodies -- albeit with modern accompaniment Milhaud was teaching at the Aspen Music School He'd write songs to Bentley's lyrics and then send back piano-vocal reductions of the score for the librettist to work on colloquial version originally called for 14 musicians though Cocteau Rep's version will use only four (under the guidance of musical director who personally forwarded her husband's handwritten score Milhaud taught such composers/musicians as Philip Glass Fifty years separated his scholarly works "The Playwright As Thinker" and the recent "Thinking About The Playwright." In 1963 Bentley's first version of Mother Courage (with a score by Paul Dessau) was staged by Jerome Robbins on Broadway with Anne Bancroft Mother Courage makes its anti-war statement by examining an itinerant trader as she follows the carnage of Europe's Thirty Years War (1700s) in the hope of surviving and feeding her children Other works by Bertolt Brecht include The Caucasian Chalk Circle Galileo and The Three Penny Opera (with Kurt Weill) Performing in Mother Courage will be 15 Cocteau Rep regulars The show will run in repertory with Othello For tickets ($19-24) and information on Mother Courage which runs to May 18 at Cocteau Rep's home in the Bouwerie Lane Theatre at 330 Bowery so successful was the company's recent production of Joe Orton's satire the play will return to the repertory May 23-June 15 --By David Lefkowitz Gail Kriegel's new play follows a family affected by mental illness The Tony-winning Best Musical continues at the Walter Kerr Theatre Noah Himmelstein will direct Matthew Puckett's original musical Neumann is the Tony nominated choreographer behind Hadestown and Swept Away one Tony winner is playing the trumpet while the other is channeling Madame Rose Due to the expansive nature of Off-Broadway Thank You!You have now been added to the list Blocking belongson the stage,not on websites Our website is made possible bydisplaying online advertisements to our visitors Please consider supporting us bywhitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.Thank you though this disc aims at a wider appraisal of his work by placing both scores alongside some of his less familiar music and queasily depicting the so-called battle of the sexes in music that combines considerable wit with acerbic dissonances draws on early music to evoke the world of the troubadours and the medieval love-lyricists in the area round Aix with Jean-Claude Casadesus conducting the Orchestre National de Lille combine exuberance with scrupulous refinement is sleaze incarnate and one of the finest versions available on disc The Strad Issue: January 2013Musicians: Thomas Demenga (cello) Thomas Larcher (piano) Teodoro Anzellotti (accordion)Composer: Tsintsadze In this exceptionally clear and warm recording Thomas Demenga proves once again that he is a cellist adept at mixing the old with the new and at placing chestnuts alongside less familiar fare Among the new faces are two miniatures from his own pen one serving as an amusing encore piece that he wrote while still a student at Juilliard – the honking New York traffic imitated amusingly on the cello Eine kleine Erregung was inspired by Berg’s Violin Concerto and weaves themes from this work into the textures along with a telling reference to Bach’s chorale Es ist genug from the second movement of the Austrian composer’s instrumental requiem Liszt’s compellingly elegiac La lugubre gondola as do three Bach chorales that punctuate the programme (here an accordion accompanying the cello creates a sound which strongly resembles a pedal organ) Demenga’s programme also offers some irresistibly virtuosic showpieces such as Cassadó’s Danse du diable vert and Tsintsadze’s Chonguri – a pizzicato tour de force that imitates a Georgian long-necked lute – alongside Fauré’s enchanting Berceuse and Romance and two transcriptions of Chopin nocturnes All in all this carefully balanced and enormously varied collection of encores and smaller works is refreshingly free from any hint of self-regarding indulgence is the underlying musicianship that paints each item – in essence an astute ear for style and nuance within the phrase A fine addition to 2024’s Fauré celebrations Spirited arrangements from an innovative and idiomatic cellist but I also love their fearless way with Martinů’s jagged edges A multimedia collaboration between the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra Northern Kentucky University's Brad McCombs and Cincinnati Art Museum is an example of the growing importance of partnerships in the performing arts the Chamber Orchestra presents Darius Milhaud's jazzy "La Création du Monde" ("The Creation of the World") part of a program conducted and curated by Sarah Ioannides Schiff professor of art and coordinator for New Media Art at NKU has created a video to accompany the music "I think there’s a desire to be more collaborative and it coincided perfectly with our new School of the Arts at NKU," said McCombs whose own work spans the arts college and the cutting-edge College of Informatics on the NKU campus we see crossovers – not only by creating a new work of art that’s engaging different areas but also by exposing people to different disciplines." Milhaud's "Creation of the World" is the creation story based on African folk mythology one of the famous "French Six" in 1920s Paris was inspired by jazz he had heard in Harlem The result is one of the great fusions of classical and jazz of the early 20th century the piece seemed tailor-made for a visual element McCombs and Ioannides met at the Cincinnati Art Museum to "co-curate" art that would work for the video There are primitive African sculptures as well as the sculpture "Statue of Eve" by Hiram Powers Ioannides contributed several of her own paintings McCombs created work to accompany the Overture which describes "chaos," the period before creation Using cotton candy to form surreal peaks and valleys he photographed it using time-lapse technique as the substance slowly dissolved down to nothing in the air "Most of my work is focused on contemporary practice and is very conceptually-driven," said McCombs He has exhibited nationally and internationally including at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris "Adrift," was part of "Too Shallow for Diving: The Weight of Water," at the Aronoff Center’s Weston Art Gallery last year It is just one element of Ioannides’ ambitious program which includes the world premiere of "Caribbean Rhapsody," performed by saxophonist James Carter Carter will also play the prominent saxophone part in Milhaud’s “Creation of the World.” It was important that the visuals not overshadow the music "is to approach it in a way where there’s dialogue and collaboration happening so that everyone feels like they’re part of creating the piece and it doesn’t seem weighted one way or another." Ioannides gives the Prelude Talk at 7:15 p.m plus an art tour featuring art used in the video a group of young composers ushered in a bright new dawn To make sense of the collection of young French composers who in January 1920 were given the label Le Groupe des Six But ignoring Wagner, while not easy, could be done, as two younger composers, Maurice Ravel and Erik Satie managed to demonstrate with considerable success The compositional path Ravel marked out for himself led to masterpiece after masterpiece But the pre-war group of Jeunes Ravélites never amounted to much Ravel was ‘a bit too clever to be of much influence because you’ve got to be too good at it to actually do it.’ It’s accepted these days that Satie was not a great musical technician but his contribution to 20th-century music lies elsewhere in cleansing the sonorous palate of his time from the rich morsels left over from the 19th-century banquet Although not a trained musician, Cocteau was attracted by the idea of musical collaborations. Given the cold shoulder by Stravinsky he saw this young group bereft of intellectual leadership and between March and August 1919 used his column in the journal Paris-Midi to create a public for it Also grist to the mill was Cocteau’s 74-page pamphlet Le Coq et l’Arlequin published in spring 1918 and taking its cue from Satie’s 1917 Parade which had brought fresh air into the ballet scene A sample of quips from Le Coq gives a good idea of where the Nouveaux Jeunes were now heading: ‘knowing how far to go too far’ ‘a composer always has too many notes on his keyboard’ ‘build me music I can live in like a house’ ‘all music to be listened to head-in-hands is suspect’ down-to-earthness and lightheartedness were the new watchwords The first use of the name Les Six came in the collaborative composition of the Album des 6 for piano in the second half of 1919. There followed an article ‘Young French Composers’ by fellow French composer Albert Roussel in an English magazine that October, before the crucial one in the mainstream music journal Comoedia by Henri Collet, ‘Les Cinq Russes [a reference to The Mighty Handful] Les Six Français et Erik Satie’ on 16 January 1920 A follow-up article by Collet a week later used the short title Les Six two misconceptions need to be laid to rest that the group was in some sense ordained by fate felt that Roland-Manuel could easily have turned it into Les Sept as he subscribed in some degree to the same Coctelian aesthetic But then he started taking lessons from Ravel so The second misconception is that among the group’s members all was sweetness and light. Poulenc later explained that ‘we never had an aesthetic in common and our works were always different from each other. With us, likes and dislikes were always at odds. So, Honegger never liked the music of Satie, and [Florent] Schmitt, whom he admired Likewise Honegger’s oratorio King David, which in 1921 made a huge hit with the public, is written off by Milhaud as ‘full of clichés and fugal exercises from the classroom, thematic developments, chorales and reach-me-down formulae’ Poulenc and Auric are taxed with thinking only of immediate success to the point that the splash made by King David is making them both ill Before looking at the music of Les Six in a little more detail it may be useful to consider the social milieu they were working in The France of the early 1920s saw a questioning of the old assumptions of what it was to be French Some of this questioning arose directly from the First World War The heavy casualties (1.4 million killed) led in some quarters to a refusal to subscribe to the ancient notion of ‘la gloire’ Ideas about tradition and a stable hierarchy struggled against memories of a war that had seen too many instances of gross disobedience toward an officer class no longer commanding automatic respect The world of art could not expect to remain untouched by this cataclysm. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who died in 1918 from Spanish flu and war wounds to his head put it succinctly: ‘À la fin tu es las de ce monde ancien’ – ‘when it comes to it While ‘that ancient world’ could be identified as that of the Greeks and Romans with its head-in-hands obeisance before ‘high art’ and its catalogue of composers who were expected to wait their turn and perhaps become rich and famous in their fifties or sixties Les Six were lucky to be waiting in the wings of this life-enhancing change of heart France’s morale was low: what it needed was to be cheered up the six didn’t wait for Collet’s 1920 articles to respond to what Apollinaire defined as ‘l’esprit nouveau’ this would be accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ even though Poulenc had not the faintest idea of what black music sounded like Instead, he filled the piece with ‘forbidden’ consecutive fifths and a ‘primitive’ text (‘Kati moko polama!) made up and published by two pranksters he brought his score to a 54-year-old Conservatoire professor Satie was sympathetic: ‘Never mix “schools”: it leads to an explosion – quite understandably, in fact’. Poulenc followed this with a Sonata for two clarinets in which they gurgle delightfully and a Sonata for piano duet which starts with the primo player’s left hand below the left hand of the secondo player in his 1918 orchestral work Le Chant de Nigamon used three authentic American Indian tunes The work rivals Rapsodie nègre in deliberate brutality but far surpasses it in contrapuntal interest We find similar complexity in most of his Le Dit des Jeux du Monde takes its cue from Milhaud’s use of choir plus unpitched percussion in his opera Les Choéphores of 1915-16 – both passages speak of the charm of exotic cultures that was to mark Milhaud’s music over the next few years Between February 1917 and early ’19 he was in Rio de Janeiro as secretary to the playwright and diplomat Paul Claudel These influences fed into the ballets L’Homme et son désir and Le Boeuf sur le Toit of 1918 and 1919 and the Saudades do Brazil for piano of 1920 catchy tune Milhaud picked up in Rio and he enjoys himself presenting it in every one of the 12 major keys The Saudades proclaim the Cocteau message of simplicity their hummable melodies enlivened by South American rhythms and spiced with wrong notes – but not too many to cause alarm The final exotic influence on Milhaud was jazz His first taste of it came from black musicians in London but in 1922 he and a friend heard it in its native Harlem ‘The snobs and aesthetes had not yet discovered Harlem: we were the only whites there,' he later realled Under this impact, Milhaud wrote what many consider his masterpiece, the ballet La Création du monde, premiered in 1923. If the magical, bittersweet world of the opening saxophone solo can’t exactly be classed as cheering-up music, the toe-tapping, blue-note fugue and its subsequent development certainly can; the ending with the saxophone whispering a C-sharp against a D major chord on strings The three composers mentioned above - Poulenc Auric had his time in the sun through the three ballets commissioned from him in the 1920s by Diaghilev following the critical mauling of his 1932 Piano Sonata making a fortune out of his contribution to the 1952 film Moulin Rouge Germaine Tailleferre’s adherence to the ideals of the group was short-lived and apart from a brief experiment with serialism her music adhered very much to the graceful charming tradition the group claimed to supplant she placed herself ‘among the little masters of the 17th and 18th centuries’ But even she couldn’t deny the popularity of her 1923 ballet Marchand d’oiseaux which attracted ‘not just the élite and the snobs That’s real success.’ Louis Durey’s allegiance was even briefer since he parted company with his colleagues as early as 1921 over their joint venture Les mariés de la tour Eiffel and the rude comments they were currently making about Ravel ‘Of the many artistic conspiracies I’ve been involved in,’ said Cocteau years later Auric’s ballets, written in the 1920s for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes Graham Johnson (piano) (Hyperion CDA67257) Durey’s songs include settings of Apollinaire’s Le Bestiaire Bavarian Radio Symphony/Dutoit (Apex 2564626872) Covering over 30 years, these works show Honegger at his most inventive and energetic. Rugby is one of the most thrilling evocations of sport in music; Pacific 231 captures the speed and excitement of rail travel Milhaud turns jazz and Latin American popular tunes into music worthy of any concert hall Poulenc at 24 mastering grace and frivolity and at 52 penning a lament for a departed friend This work’s virtuoso solo piano part helps position it in a more traditional French category Philharmonia/Geoffrey Simon (Chandos CHAN 10290X) L’éventail is a slightly less crazy work by three of Les Six and five other composers Main image: Entente cordiale: a 1931 photo of (left to right) Poulenc Milhaud Honegger and a portrait for the absent Auric © Getty Images