What I Hear: Bernard Rands (NEC/BSO Collaboration)

Yehudi Wyner | Into the Evening Air (2013)

Yehudi Wyner

Awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for his Piano Concerto, Chiavi in mano, Yehudi Wyner is one of America's most distinguished musicians. His compositions include over 100 works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo voice and solo instruments, piano, chorus, and music for the theater, as well as liturgical services for worship. He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic, The Library of Congress, The Ford Foundation, Koussevitzky Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Fromm Foundation, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Worldwide Concurrent Premieres among others.  His recording, The Mirror, on Naxos won a 2005 Grammy Award, his Piano Concerto, Chiavi in Mano on Bridge Records was nominated for a 2009 Grammy, and his Horntrio (1997) was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
        Other honors received include two Guggenheim Fellowships, The Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the Rome Prize, the Brandeis Creative Arts Award, and the Elise Stoeger Prize given by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for “lifetime contribution to chamber music.” He currently serving as President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
        Yehudi Wyner has also had an active career as a solo pianist, chamber musician collaborating with notable vocal and instrumental colleagues, teacher, director of two opera companies, and conductor of numerous chamber and vocal ensembles in a wide range of repertory. Keyboard artist of the Bach Aria Group since 1968, he has played and conducted many of the Bach cantatas, concertos and motets. He was on the chamber music faculty of the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood Music Center from 1975-97.
        Mr. Wyner was a Professor at the Yale University School of Music from 1963-1977 where he also served as Chairman of the Composition faculty. He became Dean of the Music Division at State University of New York, Purchase, in 1978, where he was a Professor for twelve years. A guest Professor at Cornell University in 1988, Mr. Wyner has also been a frequent Visiting Professor at Harvard University since 1991. From 1991-2005, he held the Walter W. Naumburg Chair of Composition at Brandeis University, where he is now Professor Emeritus.
        Born in Western Canada, Yehudi Wyner grew up in New York City. He came into a musical family and was trained early as pianist and composer.  His father, Lazar Weiner, was the preeminent composer of Yiddish Art Song as well as a notable creator of liturgical music for the modern synagogue. After graduating from the Juilliard School with a Diploma in piano, Yehudi Wyner went on to study at Yale and Harvard Universities with composers Paul Hindemith, Richard Donovan, and Walter Piston.  In 1953, he won the Rome Prize in Composition enabling him to live for the next three years at the American Academy in Rome, composing, playing, and traveling.
        Recordings of his music can be found on Naxos, Bridge, New World, Albany, Pro Arte, CRI, 4Tay, and Columbia Records. His Bridge release, Orchestra Music of Yehudi Wyner, was chosen by American Record guide as one of the Ten Best Recordings of 2009.
        Mr. Wyner’s music is published by Associated Music Publishers, Inc. (G. Schirmer). He is married to conductor and former soprano Susan Davenny Wyner. 

Bernard Rands | Four Impromptus for Solo Piano (2017)

Impromptu No. 1
     Ariel Mo '22

Impromptu No. 2
     Motti Fang-Bentov '22 MM

Impromptu No. 3
     Evren Ozel '23 MM

Impromptu No. 4
     Jie Zhou '23 MM
    

Bernard Rands | Music for Shoko - Aubade (2017)

Bernard Rands

Through a catalog of more than a hundred published works and many recordings, Bernard Rands is established as a major figure in contemporary music. His work Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize in Music. His large orchestral suites Le Tambourin, won the 1986 Kennedy Center Friedheim Award. His work Canti d'Amor, recorded by Chanticleer, won a Grammy award in 2000.
        Born in Sheffield, England in 1934, Rands emigrated to the United States in 1975, becoming an American citizen in 1983. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004 and into the Illinois Lincoln Academy in 2014.  In 2014 his 80th birthday was marked internationally by upward of one hundred concert performances, radio and television broadcasts of his music.
        Conductors who have programmed his music include Barenboim, Boulez, Berio, Davis, Eschenbach, Maazel, Marriner, Mehta, Muti, Ozawa, Rilling, Salonen, Sawallisch, Schiff, Schuller, Schwarz, Silverstein, Slatkin, Spano, von Dohnányi, and Zinman, among many others. Rands served as Composer in Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra for seven years.  Working with Riccardo Muti through this residency, he made a wonderful and dedicated contribution to the music of our time.
        Recent commissions have come from the Suntory Concert Hall in Tokyo, the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Internationale Bach Akademie, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. Many chamber works have resulted from commissions from major ensembles and festivals from around the world. His chamber opera, Belladonna, was commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival and School for its fiftieth anniversary in 1999. His full-scale opera Vincent, with libretto by J.D. McClatchy, was commissioned by Indiana University Opera School and produced there in 2012 to critical acclaim.
        Rands' most recent large-scale work, Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the composer's 80th birthday, received its premiere performances in Boston in April 2014 with Jonathan Biss soloist, conducted by Robert Spano. The European premiere performances were in May 2014, in Leipzig by the Gewandhausorchester—also with Biss as soloist—conducted by Sir Andrew Davis followed by a performance at the BBC Proms, London in August 2014 with the BBC Scottish Orchestra conducted by Markus Stenz.  In June, 2014, the BBC's three-day FOCUS festival was entirely dedicated to Rands' music with many orchestra and chamber concerts live and broadcast throughout the European Union. Since the Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, he has composed Folk Songs, which was commissioned by the Tanglewood Festival where it received its premiere in July, 2014.
        In December 2013, Bridge Records released a cd of fifty years of Rands' piano music: Bernard Rands—Piano Music 1960–2010, performed by Ursula Oppens and Robert Levin.
        A dedicated and passionate teacher, Bernard Rands has been guest composer at many international festivals and Composer in Residence at the Aspen and Tanglewood festivals. He is the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor Emeritus Harvard and has received honorary degrees from several American and European universities.
        Rands lives in Chicago with his wife, composer Augusta Read Thomas.