Author archive for leonard slatkin

  • Slatkin Returns to MSM for Second Annual Conductors’ Project

    October 24, 2017

    Leonard Slatkin is in New York City for the second annual Manhattan School of Music/Detroit Symphony Orchestra Conductors’ Project. Two recent MSM conducting graduates—Malcolm J. Merriweather and Yoon Sang Timothy Cho—are the selected conducting fellows for the project.

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  • For 2018 Grammy Consideration: Three of Leonard Slatkin’s Naxos Recordings

    October 23, 2017

    Members of the Recording Academy are voting in the 60th Annual GRAMMY Awards, and three of Leonard Slatkin’s recordings have been submitted for consideration.

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  • DSO Principal Viola and Principal Cello to Perform as Featured Soloists

    October 18, 2017

    DSO Principal Viola Eric Nowlin and Principal Cello Wei Yu will be featured soloists for concerts conducted by Music Director Leonard Slatkin, October 20-21. The program includes a world premiere by Loren Loiacono titled Smothered by Sky, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Berlioz’s Harold in Italy.

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  • Leonard Slatkin’s Conducting School, Lesson Thirteen: Stop and Hold

    October 15, 2017

    In October’s conducting lesson, Maestro Slatkin addresses how to cut off the orchestra. He also introduces the fermata symbol and its effect on the ending of a piece, using score examples from Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 and Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony.

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  • Screening of “Samuel Barber, Absolute Beauty,” Featuring Leonard Slatkin

    October 10, 2017

    Maestro Slatkin will attend a screening of the new documentary Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty, in which he is featured, at the Royal Starr Film Festival at Emagine Royal Oak on Saturday, October 14, at 1 p.m. After the film he will participate in a Q&A session with the filmmaker and sign copies of Leading Tones.

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  • DSO Opens 2017-18 Classical Season with Pianist Olga Kern

    October 9, 2017

    The Detroit Symphony Orchestra will kick off a season-long celebration of Music Director Leonard Slatkin’s 10th anniversary and the 2017-18 Classical Series with concerts featuring special guest pianist Olga Kern.

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  • OCTOBER 2017

    About a two-hour train ride from Paris to the east lies a city that even many French people don’t know about. But for seventy years, Besançon has been the home to a two-week music festival that attracts a good number of listeners. Every other year there is a conducting competition that has produced a number of outstanding winners, including Seiji Ozawa.

    When I began my conducting studies at Juilliard, we were only a class of four students. One of them was Catherine Comet, a French woman who had won first prize in 1963. She would go on to be the first female to ever head up an American orchestra and served as my assistant in St. Louis for two seasons. When Cindy and I met up with some of the people who would assist during the week, we were given the full festival brochure. And in it was Catherine’s picture from more than fifty years ago. I understand that she retired and now lives in Wyoming.

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  • Leonard Slatkin’s Conducting School, Lesson Twelve: Clef Notes

    September 15, 2017

    Maestro Slatkin uses the Beethoven String Quartet No. 12 to introduce the clefs conductors encounter in their scores, and he explains the importance of transpositions to understanding how the notes sound and fit together.

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  • Just Released: “Leading Tones,” by Leonard Slatkin

    September 12, 2017

    NOW AVAILABLE: Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry

    Purchase Leonard Slatkin’s new book at Hal Leonard Online today!

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  • SEPTEMBER 2017

    Finally, a relatively quiet month. I did not conduct one note, write a piece of music or play anything on the piano. Okay, there was some studying, as a few new works are on the horizon, but a real vacation was in order, and I took advantage of this rare occurrence.

    After the success of the DSO’s Asia Tour, Cindy and I headed out to California. My wife was one of the featured composers at this year’s adventurous Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Their new music director, Cristian Măcelaru, scheduled one of her works in each of the festival’s two weeks. It was strange being in the audience, as I had never before heard any of her music conducted by anyone other than myself.

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