Partial Concert Schedule

Steven Spielberg Joins John Williams at Tanglewood 
"A Place in the Sun"  ... The poignant alto saxophone solo, to a score by Franz Waxman, was performed by Kenneth Radnovsky.  Berkshire Fine Arts July 2008
 
'Indy' Flair at Film Night
John Williams likes to surprise his audience and to keep his Boston Pops 'Film Night at Tanglewood' extravaganza fresh and exciting.  No phoning it home...Guest artist Kenneth Radnovsky contributed a suitably moody and proficient alto-sax solo.        Berkshire Eagle, July 28, 2008

Ringing in the year with orchestral chestnuts

...especially the winds and brass. Thomas Rolfs's recurring trumpet solos were bright, clear, and ringing; Ken Radnofsky played the saxophone solos with an admirably warm and delicately inflected tone.

Source: Boston Globe|Date: Jan 4, 2008|By: Jeremy Eichler

 

Rise and fall

By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 13, 2007  |  

It's hard to imagine two better collaborators for her than tenor Frank Kelley (a slim but sinister Fatty the Bookkeeper) and huge but graceful bass Phillip Lima (Trinity Moses). Jimmy's friends were also outstanding: tenor Matthew DiBattista as Jack O'Brien, who eats himself to death; baritone Tom O'Toole as Alaska Wolf Joe, who's killed by Trinity Moses in their boxing match; and baritone Stephen Salters as Bank Account Bill, who betrays his friend and ends up with Jenny. The small chorus of prostitutes and pleasure seekers was another significant asset. The superb orchestra included master saxophonist Ken Radnofsky and John Damian on guitar and banjo.
Source-Boston Phoenix

 

BSO glows playing dark Henze piece

...tremendous -- 8 percussionists had their hands full, and there are poignant solos for saxophone, cello, and bassoon, expressively played by Ken Radnofsky, Jules Eskin and Richard Ranti, respectively.

Source: Boston Globe|Date: Apr 28, 2006 By: Richard Dyer

 

 

Kenneth Radnofsky, Faculty, and Friends Perform Music of Our Time

by David Cleary Tuesday, February 22, 2005, 8:00 PM
Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston , MA

Even by Kenneth Radnofsky's usual generous standards, his presentation of four pieces created under the auspices of his landmark World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund proved remarkably bountiful.   It's a pleasure to report that all the beneficent composers produced worthy responses.

Plum Blossoms (2004) for alto sax and piano shows Shih-Hui Chen deftly handling a sound world that mixes Atlantic Seaboard grit and Oriental idioms such as pentatonic and whole-tone scales.   A keen ear for timbral variety and felicitous delineation of a non-prescriptive binary structure further cast this work as a winner.   For saxophone quartet and piano, Armand Qualliotine's Fantasia on B.A.C.H. (2004) shows that an East Coast approach can be downright lovely in the right hands.   This piece takes full advantage of the delicious, romantic qualities one can conjure up from such a scoring.   And the work's motivic economy, derived from the tetrachord alluded to in the title, provides sturdy pillars to buttress this beautiful exterior.

The Jester, the Artist, and the Little Lion (2004), scored for cello, piano, and alto sax, is one of Howard Frazin's best works.   Elegant and attractive, it inhabits a lightly clouded tonal world that ably weds aspects of Leonard Bernstein and Olivier Messiaen .   There's plenty of intricate textural detail that pleases, too-it's charming without being lightweight.   John McDonald's Transcriptions, Op. 397 (2004), for string quartet and alto sax, is unlike anything else your reviewer has ever heard by this tonemeister .   Shot through with obsessively circular string ostinati , twisted sax cantilena lines, and fractiously granitic formal outlines, this is stark, nihilist music that truly disturbs.   McDonald risks all here on an entity which some may think a mistake, while others (this critic included) consider it an evocative, remarkable work.

The other recent selection encountered this evening also saw the largest number of players mount the stage.   Big Epithalamium (1997) by Charles Wuorinen splits its sixteen alto saxophone performers into two antiphonal octets, parceling out close canonic fragments among them and framing it all with an opening and closing octave punctuation.   It's brief and plenty strange, but definitely worth hearing.

Performances were uniformly excellent.   Radnofsky participated in all but Wuorinen's opus, showing excellent control of tone and fingers as well as an accomplished ear for phrasing.   As part of the Radnofsky Quartet, he proved a sensitive complement to the formidable talents of Philipp A. Staeudlin (soprano sax), Eliot Gattegno (tenor sax), and Eric Hewitt (baritone sax).   Hewitt also ably conducted Big Epithalamium , while pianist McDonald and members of the string foursome Sound Factory (Olivia DePrato and Chris Otto on violins, Beth Guterman on viola, and Lauren Radnofsky on cello) assisted splendidly elsewhere.

 

MUSIC REVIEW

Williams celebration has a surprise ending

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff  |  August 17, 2004

LENOX -- The celebrations of John Williams's 25-year association with the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops closed Saturday night with a dressed-up reprise of his wonderful "Evening at Pops" tribute to two film composers: his mentor, Bernard Herrmann, and his friend, Henry Mancini.
This time there were two special guests, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Scorsese hosted the Herrmann half of the program -- Herrmann's final film score was for Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." The director recalled telephoning Herrmann to ask him to participate. The famously gruff composer replied: "I don't do pictures about cabbies." But he did, writing in a jazz style and emphasizing the brass. Scorsese wanted one special sonic effect; Herrmann obliged, but it wasn't quite what Scorsese had in mind. "Play it backwards," Herrmann said as he left the room, and he was exactly right. He died later that night.
The musical performances emphasized the moody, melancholy characteristics of Herrmann's work; Herrmann was an extraordinary musician, entirely familiar with the entire classical literature and with the avant-garde of his day. Saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky contributed a piercingly sad solo to the "Taxi Driver" sequence.

 
REVIEW
Kenneth Radnofsky, alto saxophone; New England Conservatory Sym. Orch./Richard Hoenich, conductor, New England Conservatory Opera Department, Chorus, & Repertory Orchestra/Lorna Cooke deVaron, conductor

This recording of the Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (1987) and the Paradiso Choruses (1974) represents an important addition to the Martino discography in that it makes available for the first time on CD two of Donald Martino's large-scaled works, virtually none of which are currently in the catalog.

“... The work [Cto. for Alto Saxophone] is in three movements, which are played without break to form a twenty-three minute stretch of lyrical and ever-fascinating music. Martino is a romantic, in his gestures and his sounds, but not a champion of or contributor to modish “New Romanticism”... The concerto impresses one first by its exuberance of invention. The soloist begins with a beautiful, singable twelve-note melody, and then proceeds to show his instrument's ability to deck a tune with Chopinesque tracery ... Composers versed in jazz enjoy its [the saxophone's] vivacity and velocity and its protean voice. It can sparkle, and it can sing emotionally without becoming “oily.” Martino uses it in this way, with poetry and grace. His scoring, for a medium-sized orchestra, including piano, is iridiscent, imaginative, unusual ... This is a captivating piece, richly but elegantly wrought...”
— The New Yorker (from a review of a concert performance) 

The Boston Globe
Friday, March 10, 2000
Music Section

NEC Festival Entertains with Terrific Sax Pieces
By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff

Yesterday noon's concert in the New England Conservatory's festival of Music Boston in the 1990's was devoted to music for saxophone - three of the festival's leading composers, Gunther Schuller, John Harbison, and Daniel Pinkham have written works for this instrument and for a particular performer, Kenneth Radnofsky, whose students played them. In addition there was a Sonatina by John McDonald, which was also written for Radnofsky.

In the context of saluting Boston's composers of the 90's the festival has also indirectly honored some of Boston's principal composers of their own time and place and for whom so many of these works were written. Radnofsky has been one of them, of course; one admired his sense of adventure and his generosity in handing over "his" pieces to the next generation.

All four pieces were terrific, and together they made an entertaining and varied program. McDonald's piece, "Big Crunch," was written in honor of Stephen Hawking's visit to Tuft's University last year;" the music responds to major images in Hawking's work- "the uncertainty principle" and the "singularity at the end of the universe." The music has color, drama, rhythmic drive, and imagination.

Schuller composed a superb concerto for Radnofsky a few years ago; the Saxophone Sonata dates from last year. The first movement is calmly lyrical. A saxophone "cadenza," which includes a yearning statement of the generating tone row, links this to its finale that mingles jazzy melancholy. It is a very strong work with a powerful emotional undertow beneath its plaid surface.

John Harbison's "San Antonio" Sonata has become one of his greatest hits. Each of the three movements is a contrasting dance propelled by Latin rhythms. Thoroughly actual, here and now, the sonata as a whole also tells a little story about a romantic little "might have been" evoked with a shiver of reminiscent excitement at the end. Harbison has been an amazingly prolific composer, and not by taking the easy road- he never repeats himself.

Pinkham's "Up at Dawn" is a piquant little march, originally written for trombone quartet but rearranged for saxophone quartet with the composer's characteristic practical resourcefulness. It is a genuinely witty piece, and part-writing becomes part of its delightful rhythm.

The three pianists were first-class - McDonald himself charging at the instrument with characteristic brio; Sarah Bobb, poised in the Schuller; Jen Komatsu responding to Harbison's demands with charismatic attack and infectious rhythm. The saxophonists, all of them well-trained students of Radnofsky, were on the same high level - Brian Mackintosh in the McDonald; Eric Hewitt, summoning the qualities of a bel canto singer like Sinatra from his instrument in the Schuller; Chien-Kwan Lin displaying spirit, stamina, and chops in the Harbison. Each played so well one was convinced that he would have brought something equally individual to the other pieces.

A Persuasive Argument for the Classical Sax

Music Review, by Richard Buell, Globe Correspondent

CAMBRIDGE- as a means of observing Kenneth Radnofsky's 30 years of teaching the saxophone, this concert presented nine works by living composers. In all of these Radnofsky was playing the saxophone. The occasion was also a gathering of friends, many composers included, and not (the cynical take note) just those whose music was being performed, either.

You might think that gathered up in one place, that number of new or newish pieces might be offering just as many answers to the question of what a saxophone piece might be. That was the case. Radnofsky seems the type who'd be ready to take on practically anything.

And not at all incidentally, what a display of fluent, elegant, self-possessed wind playing it all amounted to. Brought to mind was the idea, not an uncommon or far-fetched one when it was newly invented, that the saxophone might eventually join the ranks of standard orchestral instruments. There's a weight and dignity to the sound, as well as a capacity for blending that… well, think what a master orchestrator like Duke Ellington, in his world, brought about.

"The classical saxophone exists!" this recital asserted defiantly. How close the usages came to familiar jazz and popular ones depended on what you were hearing. In Lei Liang's candidly titled "Peking Opera Soliloquy" the sounds were pretty much the same in-your-face, barnyardlike aspirates you hear from the Peking Opera recordings. The 42 measures of Michael Colgrass's "Preview" put the instrument through its paces, exhaustively, meanwhile coming that close (but not quite) to being a tango. Jakov Jakoulov's "Bernstein 'Anniversary' " tried its hand, all at once, at being a concerto movement (cadenza included), turbulent "modern' music, and evocation of the Mahler ("Das Lied von der Erde") that Bernstein loved.

How many layers of irony played around about John Harbison's "San Antonio" Sonata - was this sometimes-serious light music or Harbisonian gravitas deceptively wreathed in smiles? Among the workout pieces, the improvisatory - sounding element in David Amram's might have come any which way, whereas Donald Martino's was terse, spiky, purposeful. John McDonald's Sonata scored for animal high spirits, Gunther Schuller's Sonata for seasoned compositional craft, Pasquale Tassone's Divertimento for the varied kinds of animated conversation the saxophone and piano struck up during its course. Not a dud in the lot, one will notice; aural proof that Radnofsky chooses his friends wisely.

American Record Guide
July/August 1998

Music Review

by Kilpatrick

Martino: Saxophone Concerto; Paradiso Choruses
Kenneth Radnofsky; New England Conservatory / Richard Hoenich; Lorna Cooke de Varon
New World 80529 (Albany) 51 minutes

Donald Martino is a clarinetist and avid jazz composer (May/June 1996), so it is something of a surprise to learn that an Alto Saxophone Concerto (1987) is his first work for the instrument. Predictably atonal and complex, it is given a first-rate reading by Kenneth Radnofsky, whose pitch is true and tone quality warm even in the high register and whose virtuoso technical skills are of the highest rank. The New England Conservatory Symphony, chamber-orchestra size here, sounds quite good.

Paradiso Choruses was recorded and edited in 1975. Composed in honor of Lorna Cooke de Varon's 25th year of choral conducting at NEC, the 28-minute work is in three parts and alternates between tonality (heaven), atonality (hell), and "a transitional Purgatory". It is a monumental work for huge forces: nine soloists, a seven-woman solo group, a very large chorus augmented by boy and youth choirs, and a big orchestra. We hear the soloists up close, the orchestra nearby, and the choir at some distance. The hall is large, and this is a concert performance (texts and translations included). Regardless of our opinion of rambling work, we cannot help but be touched by the sense that an entire community is striving to elevate itself and us through an uplifting artistic statement.

Score, New England Conservatory News
Volume 11, Number 14
March 24, 1997

NEC Musicians in Cyberspace
by Evelyne Tiersky

March 13, 12:20 p.m. At WGBH 89.7 FM's studios, the Sumner Gerstein Theater is packed. Feels like Election Night at Studio Central. A cyberspace music premiere is about to happen. NEC saxophone faculty Kenneth Radnofsky with pianist/composer Larry Thomas Bell (of NEC's Extension Division faculty) and cellist Pamela Frame are preparing to perform live with "Classical Performances" host Richard Knisely as part of MOTET, an innovative live cyber performance initiative to teach music appreciation. Larry Bell's Mabler in Blue Light received its world premiere at NEC's Jordan Hall in December, and is about to be re-premiered on the Internet. Carried live on WBGH radio locally, the performance is also being broadcast live to National School Network Exchange schools and a worldwide audience on the Internet at nsn.bbn.com using Real Audio TM technology and desktop videoconferencing.

12:45 p.m. Cables everywhere, computers, telephones, photographers, a television crew, lights, action! Projected on a large screen from one of the four computer terminals, the performance, coming live from the studio across the street, unfolds in its multimedia form. Pictures in evolution, images in constant resolution, the focus shifts between the three performers. In small inset frame on the blown-up screen, Richard Kindly listens in through headphones, and concludes this special edition of "Classical Performances" by inviting listeners to tune in now on the Internet.

1:15 p.m. The performers have now re-entered real space and joined us in the theater to conduct the live online chat with students of the 20 National School Network Exchange schools. One by one, schools are now "coming in" to the virtual classroom, from Campbell Drive Florida, to the Rundle School in Massachusetts, with schools in Connecticut, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, D.C., Arkansas, New Jersey. One school in Germany is listening!

1:25 p.m. Close-ups on younger kids and teenagers as they approach the microphone or keyboard. Questions are pouring in, ranging from "were you pressured by your parents to study music?" to "how and why did you choose the saxophone?" More pointed questions turn to the structure of the piece and what mouthpiece to use.
Answers are immediate, instantaneously typed in (on the ichat line) or spoken through a microphone (on CuSeeMe): candid, direct, always encouraging. "At school they gave me the sax because I liked the color and it fit my buck teeth." "We're always looking to reach new audiences in all possible venues and mediums."
"Perhaps this is the way we will hear live concerts in the future," concludes Larry Bell. He hopes this enterprise will help put more emphasis on music in public schools, as "there is always the problem of whether we can afford to teach music in the schools, but people in politics and education have no trouble justifying the technology."