A Birthday: Sir Neville Marriner
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Sir Neville Marriner, born eighty years ago today and knighted in 1985, founded the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields chamber orchestra, which we hear him conduct this evening.
Proving his ranged as an interpreter, Marriner will bring alive for us music by Boccherini, Ponchielli, Respighi, and Fauré. The Respighi “Ancient Airs and Dances” Suite No. 2 is played by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, but all the others are performed by Marriner’s own band.
Michael Kamen’s “Mr. Holland’s Opus” originated as the score to the movie about a composer and public-school music teacher for which Richard Dreyfuss received an Oscar nomination. Kamen was so moved by working on the film that he founded the not-for-profit Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, an organization whose mission is to provide instruments for needy music students. A portion of the profits from the recording we hear this evening (Leonard Slatkin conducting the BBC Symphony and various soloists) go to support that foundation. By the way, Kamen, who died two years ago, was also born this day (1948).
Proving his ranged as an interpreter, Marriner will bring alive for us music by Boccherini, Ponchielli, Respighi, and Fauré. The Respighi “Ancient Airs and Dances” Suite No. 2 is played by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, but all the others are performed by Marriner’s own band.
Michael Kamen’s “Mr. Holland’s Opus” originated as the score to the movie about a composer and public-school music teacher for which Richard Dreyfuss received an Oscar nomination. Kamen was so moved by working on the film that he founded the not-for-profit Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, an organization whose mission is to provide instruments for needy music students. A portion of the profits from the recording we hear this evening (Leonard Slatkin conducting the BBC Symphony and various soloists) go to support that foundation. By the way, Kamen, who died two years ago, was also born this day (1948).
