The Chopin Currency - March 8, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, and Previews:

Music and 'the Man'

In-depth profile of pianist Byron Janis, who describes his affinity for Chopin:

But it was a Polish composer who may have had the greatest influence: Chopin was always a favorite, and Janis returned the favor, credited with discovering two once-lost Chopin waltzes, a find called "the most dramatic musical discovery of our age."

At 80, Janis reflects: "It was a defining moment of my life; I felt like I was being led to them."

He has taken the lead since that 1967 discovery of the 1832 waltz works, which Chopin had written "for a lady friend; how he loved the women."
Jewish Exponent - Philadelphia,PA,USA
And Chopin has touched his lively life in many ways. The McKeesport, Pa., kid of Russian-Jewish heritage who was born Byron Yanks is a Yankee Doodle Dandy ...
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Two-Part Tribute to Byron Janis Begins March 8

More on Byron Janis....

Playbill.com - New York,NY,USA
At 6 PM March 10, "An Evening of Song with Pianist as Composer with a Touch of Chopin" will be offered. The concert will feature a host of theatre ...
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Room for improvement

Fascinating discussion on a music-instruction blogsite using a Chopin Etude to illustrate the teaching of harmony...

By Alan Coady
It’s of Chopin’s Etude Op 10 No 1. There are more professional performances of this on YouTube but many are so fast that it’s difficult to hear the detail. This one, although not entirely error-free does have a certain tenderness about ...
Alan Coady's Musical Blog - http://edubuzz.org/blogs/alancoady

Chopin
By That Canadian Guy(That Canadian Guy)
So apparently there is a videogame based loosely on Chopin's life. It's called 'Eternal Sonata'. Chopin is actually a playable character, and his music is found throughout. The character looks like Chopin as well. ...
Life, Love, and Everything In Between - http://madman-ramblings.blogspot.com/

Chopin in the Videosphere:

YouTube - Yundi Li plays Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2

Ignore the incorrectly-embedded title of it being "Op. 66"



Yundi Plays Chopin! ... Related Videos. Maurizio Pollini plays Chopin Nocturne no. 8 op. 27 no. 2. 04:43 From: joynes89. Views: 366648 ...

The Chopin Currency - Feb. 21, 2008

Chopin News, Reviews, & Previews:

Byron Janis Celebrates 80th Birthday 3/10 in Concert with Hensley ...

Celebrated Chopin interpreter (and more recently, composer of Broadway songs) Byron Janis is set to present two shows - celebrating his 80th birthday (and Chopin's 198th!) in March at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza in New York....

Broadway World - New York,NY,USA
The birthday festivities continue with "An Evening of Song with Pianist as Composer with a Touch of Chopin," a concert on Monday, March 10 at 8pm where he ...
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Pianist follows own jazz road

Previewing an appearance in Detroit's Orchestra hall, notes about the classical roots of jazz pianist Jacky Terrasson...
DetNews.com - Detroit,MI,USA
... to a French father and an American mother, the classically trained pianist says he still loves to work his fingers in Bach and Chopin. ...
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Chopin Photos

Chopin's family church

Nice photo of medieval Polish village church where Chopin's parents were married. “28.06.1806. I, Ignacy Marzański, the curate of this church, having delivered three banns on Sundays and not having found any canonical obstacles, this legal marriage of Mr Mikolaj Chopin, tutor in Zelezowa Wola, a bachelor and Ms Justyna Krzyzanowska..."
Church of St. Roch and st. John the Baptist in the village of Brochów, close to the village of...
TrekEarth - Europe Travel Photo Gallery - http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/

Chopin in the Blogosphere:

Thursday Thirteen #25

13 things to know about Chopin, part of an entertaining series from a Southern California blogger. "#13 -- It was not 'love at first sight' for Frederick and Georg [Sand]. "Something about her repels me," he wrote his family. Sand, however, in a letter to a friend in June, 1837, debated whether she should end a current affair to begin one with Chopin -- repelled be damned! -- even though she knew he was reportedly engaged to a woman named Maria Wodzińska."

By Lara Angelina(Lara Angelina)
We were big faves of Frederick Chopin as I was growing up and I've carried that love into my adult life. My mother and I would watch "A Song To Remember" (Cornel Wilde played a robust Frederick and Merle Oberon played a beautiful Georg ...
Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing - http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/

Tudor and Limon Celebrated

From the excellent blog danceviewtimes, a review of an American Ballet Theatre 100th birthday retrospective on the works of Anthony Tudor and Jose Limon:

This "Suite from 'Mazurkas,'" staged by veteran Limón dancer Sarah Stackhouse, includes eight of the work's twelve sections. In a post-performance discussion, she explained that the work was inspired by the company's visit to Poland as part of a 1957 European tour, during which they paid a visit to Chopin's home. She described the individual sections as "little gifts" from the choreogrpaher to each dancer who had been on that tour. Certainly Limón can be seen as being ahead of the curve in creating a Chopin piano ballet, something that became a more familiar type of dance about a decade later.

By Susan Reiter
Limón's 1958 "Mazurkas," which served as the evening's appetizer, is an uncomplicated and sweetly open-hearted piano ballet to Chopin, and thus quite different from what one generally associated with the choreographer. ...
danceviewtimes - http://www.danceviewtimes.com/