January 28th, 2007

by: Randy Kinkel

January 28, 2007

Steve Reich

This Week in Classical Music

( Phoenix, AZ )
•Reich Wins Polar Music Prize
•Requiem for Darfur in Carnegie Hall
•Domingo sing baritone in Boccanegra

It's KBAQ's "This week in classical music" -- an update on what's happening in the classical music world... I'm Randy Kinkel.

American Musician/composer Steve Reich is a winner of the Polar Music prize award for 2007. the formal announcement came Thursday January 25th at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm.. each winner receives about $140,000. in the citation, the award committee said, "Inspired by different musical traditions, Steve Reich has transferred questions of Faith, society, and philosophy into a hypnotic sounding music that has inspired musicians and composers of all Genres." Also a winner of this years' prize was jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins.

AN all-star cast of musicians and celebrities took the stage for a benefit performance of Verdi's "Requiem" this past Monday night in Carnegie Hall. The event, titled "Requiem For Darfur", was a benefit for the country devastated by famine and war. The host was Mia farrow, who has visited the Sudan as a goodwill ambassador for Unicef. Photographs she had taken on her trips to the area were shown as a backdrop to Verdi's music. Among the musicians involved were members of the New York philharmonic, the Emerson and Guarneri String Quartets, and the Met and Philadelphia orchestras.

Placido Domingo is making the jump from Tenor to Baritone. The 66-year-old will sing the title role in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra" for the first time in Berlin in 2009 and repeat the role in Milan and London. Domingo has sung the tenor role in the opera, Gabriel Adorno, but said in 2005 that one of his final ambitions was to sing the Baritone role in Boccanegra.

For more information on these and other items and events, go to the KBAQ website at KBAQ.org... be listening every week at this time for another update, and join me at noon every weekday for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I'm Randy Kinkel, for KBAQ's "This week in Classical Music" on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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