Shchedrin’s “The Sealed Angel”

November 4th, 2009

Hello everybody,

I’ve been a very sporadic blogger but decided to remedy that because of all the lovely emails I’ve been receiving from concertgoers and people inquiring about my activities. Thank you all for following my music-making. Many of you are musicians and music students, and I hope that your season is going well.

This weekend, I had a memorable musical experience performing Rodion Shchedrin’s “The Sealed Angel” with the Bucks County Choral Society under the direction of Tom Lloyd in Lansdale, PA. It’s scored for the unusual combination of chorus, vocal soloists including a boy singer, solo flute, and we performed it with two dancers, and this performance was the Philadelphia area premiere. Shchedrin wrote the “The Sealed Angel” in 1988, in observance of the millenium of Russia’s conversion to Christianity in 988. It is loosely based on Leskov’s story of the same name, though it is closer to Russian liturgical music as its basis.

Two wonderful dancers, Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch and Tim Early, added a compelling visual element to the work. I had a lot of fun joining them during my solo flute movement and walking among them as they danced. It’s a very moving piece and I was thrilled to be part of it.

I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet and work with Shchedrin several years ago when I performed his “Three Shepherds” for flute, oboe, and clarinet with fellow Curtis students at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. This piece calls for choreography, and we were guided by Maya Plisetskaya, Shchedrin’s wife and former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi. I’ve performed the work since, including on my Dolce Suono series with oboist Geoff Deemer and clarinetist Samuel Caviezel last season, and having the great ballerina’s input and image in mind is very special.

Signing off for now,
Mimi

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Mimi on youtube.com

March 25th, 2008

Hello friends:

Please visit www.youtube.com/mimistillman. I’ve been getting emails asking me to post videos of me performing, and specifically of my duet with my teacher, the great Julius Baker, in Boston when I was 11 years old. It’s on there now. I feel so fortunate to have studied and gotten to know Mr. Baker and miss him very much.

Wishing you an enjoyable Spring!

Best,

Mimi

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2006-07 Season Wrap-Up: Part 1 Dolce Suono

July 18th, 2007

The 2006-07 season of Dolce Suono Chamber Music Concert Series was filled with exciting music at home in Philadelphia and on the road. It was our second season of Dolce Suono, which I founded in 2005 and of which I am artistic director. Our season included four concerts at the University of Pennsylvania, and two suburban concerts at the Glencairn Museum and the Bala Cynwyd Library.

Playing chamber music with consummate musicians and my good friends is one of life’s greatest joys, and ultimately why I founded Dolce Suono. Many of the players are fellow graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music, some of whom are members of The Philadelphia Orchestra, faculty members of Temple University, or affiliated with U. Pennsylvania. The Dolce Suono core ensemble includes some of the area’s most wonderful musicians – violinist Hirono Oka, violist Burchard Tang, cellist Yumi Kendall, pianists Charles Abramovic and Jeremy Gill, guitarist Allen Krantz, harpist Elizabeth Hainen.

The season included a performance by the Dolce Suono Trio, in which Yumi, Charlie, and I performed works by Haydn, Gaubert, Charlie’s own great “Beasts” piece, Kuhlau, and Villa-Lobos’s “The Jet Whistle” for flute and cello. Flute, cello, and piano is a great combination and the three of us are performing together more often, including on Dolce Suono’s upcoming season. Dolce Suono celebrated Mozart’s 250th birthday with our “Toasting Mozart” concert, in which I performed the composer’s glorious flute and harp concerto with Elizabeth Hainen, and music by Howard Hanson, Florent Schmitt, and Jennifer Higdon, prominent composer based in Philadelphia and fellow Curtis alumna.

You may ask, what is a chamber music series doing performing a concerto? Well, my vision for Dolce Suono involves innovative programming which pushes the boundaries between genres and styles. In Baroque music like Vivaldi’s Il Cardellino Concerto which we performed in our debut concert, the ensembles which originally performed Baroque concertos were quite small, and Baroque and Classical period pieces such as the Mozart flute and harp concerto are so intimate that they are well-suited to performance in chamber settings. At Dolce Suono, we explore the chamber elements of concertos and the solo elements of chamber music, creating a group dynamic that is electric and fresh, simultaneously intermixed and individual.

We have great fun trying new combinations of instruments and doing our own arrangements. Dolce Suono’s “Metal and Wood” concert for flute, guitar, viola, and double bass is a perfect example of an unusual combination. Guitarist Allen Krantz, double bassist Emilio Gravagno, and I performed a Handel sonata for flute and continuo, English songs by John Dowland and Robert Johnson, and tangos by Astor Piazzolla, for which we were joined by violist Burchard Tang. Allen is also a terrific composer and arranger and it was his fine instinct that told him the flute, bass, guitar combination would work for Renaissance and Baroque music. Indeed, the plucked textures of the guitar and bass recalled the lute stop on the harpsichord. In rehearsal, we enjoyed testing out different sound effects, like my switching to piccolo and Allen and Emilio beating rhythmically on their instruments in some of the Elizabethan songs to evoke a Renaissance fife-and-drum sonority. We also performed the Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff’s amazing Concertino for flute (and piccolo), viola, and double bass. I’ve always loved this piece and built the program around it - it is not very commonly performed because flute, viola, and double bass are rarely together. We were delighted with our great review in Philadelphia City Paper - www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/01/you-can-count-on-mimi.

Our final concert of the 2006-07 season, “Baroque Banquet” involved some rarely-heard instrumentations too, but not on purpose! The program was to include Bach Cantata #62 “Ich Habe Genug” with mezzo-soprano Donna Morein, a Philadelphia native who bases her international opera and concert career in Germany. Very sadly, Donna came down with laryngitis the day of our performance and was not able to sing. Not only did our audience miss out on hearing her beautiful voice, but my ensemble and I had to do some quick thinking. Everyone pulled together with great heart, and Yumi Kendall contributed a spur-of-the-moment, fantastic performance of a Bach cello suite. We went forward with Bach’s Trio Sonata from the Musical Offering as planned, with Jeremy Gill on harpsichord, Hirono Oka on violin, Yumi on cello, and me on flute. Then we moved our surprisingly non-Baroque encores into the program: “Night and Day” and “Begin the Beguine”. First time anyone had ever heard Cole Porter on harpsichord!

My fellow Dolce Suono musicians and I appreciate the enthusiastic feedback we’ve gotten from you, our audience.

Check out Dolce Suono’s 2007-08 season and join us at our concerts: www.dolcesuono.com

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Welcome!

June 28th, 2007

Dear friends:

Welcome to my blog. I’ll be posting my writings on music, my concerts and projects, as well as general pieces on culture and travel. I appreciate your emails and also welcome you to post comments here on my blog.

Happy summer!

Cheers,