 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Carter Lawrence Larsen is an American classical pianist and composer, known mostly for his European performances in the 1980s. He focuses on piano and orchestra composition and has composed more than 600 pieces, including work for film scores. [1]
Larsen was born in San Francisco, California. He began piano studies at the age of six and started composing music in his teens. He graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and pursued a career as composer and pianist. He studied composition under John Adams and piano under Milton Salkind (Conservatory president) and Mack McCray. After studying at Conservatory, he worked with Peter Feuchtwanger and Ruth Nye in London, and Vlado Perlemuter in Paris.
Larsen is credited with having created a new style of 21st-century romanticism, which combined 19th-century romanticism with 20th century influences such as jazz, minimalism and world music. He is deemed a prolific composer, with more than 600 piano and orchestra works including Fantasia Suite, The Cosmos Symphonic Suite and Symphonies on The Lake to his name. [2]
Andrea Van de Kamp, Chairman Emeritus of the Music Center in Los Angeles, said “Fantasia Suite" was "the music of the future." She described Larsen's 21st century, Neo-Romantic approach as a "breakthrough", and said he had embraced the best of classical culture while exploring other forms of creativity. Scott Epstein complimented Larsen's music, describing it as "personal, deeply felt and sophisticated", and said Larsen had resisted conventional labels and pursued his own path. [3] Larsen's approach to the piano, though modern and individual, has been influential in the compositions of classical and romantic composers.
Larsen became known in Europe for his piano performances of the High Romantics. His interpretations of Liszt, Grieg, Rachmaninoff and Saint-Saëns won acclaim from audiences and critics. [4] [5] [6] He both conducted and performed as a soloist in major concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra [7] and the London Symphony Orchestra. [8] In 1986, his performance in London of Chopin's music was broadcast on BBC Television's "Omnibus " program. [9] He performed several world premieres and recordings of previously unknown works of Liszt and Saint-Saëns. In 1989, he became the first pianist to make a complete CD recording of Saint-Saëns' solo piano music. He established himself as a composer, and premiered four original compositions alongside the classics, which were first broadcast in 1994 on the UK's Classic FM "Platform Live". He served as conductor in the 70th Academy Awards.
Larsen performed in China at the Shanghai Grand Theatre during Shanghai Expo 2010. At the closing night of the International Film Festival and the Shanghai Music Festival, he performed classics, original compositions and improvisations. The concert was covered by two television stations broadcasting to a total estimated audience of 500 million, and was the first time CNN had interviewed an artist for the Grand Theatre. The Shanghai International Channel and the Shanghai Arts Channel filmed a documentary of the concert. [10]
Since 1973, Larsen has written over 600 piano and orchestra works in Fantasia Suite and The Cosmos Symphonic Suite.
Larsen has written film and television scores, including music for major Hollywood studios. He composed music for various films, including Paramount's Star Trek,Nosferatu,Masterpiece Theatre, and The Mark of Zorro. Larsen's films "Innocents Mission" and Love Bytes premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and his feature Big Shots premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Fantasia Suite
The Cosmos Symphonic Suite
Symphonies on The Lake
Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer, most famous for his 37-year tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Sinfonia concertante is an orchestral work, normally in several movements, in which one or more solo instruments contrast with the full orchestra. It emerged as a musical form during the Classical period of Western music from the Baroque concerto grosso. Sinfonia concertante encompasses the symphony and the concerto genres, a concerto in that soloists are on prominent display, and a symphony in that the soloists are nonetheless discernibly a part of the total ensemble and not preeminent. Sinfonia concertante is the ancestor of the double and triple concerti of the Romantic period corresponding approximately to the 19th century.
Hilding Constantin Rosenberg was a Swedish composer and conductor. He is commonly regarded as the first Swedish modernist composer, and one of the most influential figures in 20th-century classical music in Sweden.
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 by Camille Saint-Saëns was composed in 1868 and is probably Saint-Saëns' most popular piano concerto. It was dedicated to Madame A. de Villers. At the première on 13 May the composer was the soloist and Anton Rubinstein conducted the orchestra. Saint-Saëns wrote the concerto in three weeks and had very little time to prepare for the première; consequently, the piece was not initially successful. The capricious changes in style provoked Zygmunt Stojowski to quip that it "begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach."
Erkki Gustaf Melartin was a Finnish composer, conductor, and teacher of the late-Romantic and early-modern periods. Melartin is generally considered to be one of Finland's most significant national Romantic composers, although his music—then and now—largely has been overshadowed by that of his contemporary, Jean Sibelius, the country's most famous composer. The core of Melartin's oeuvre consists of a set of six (completed) symphonies, as well as is his opera, Aino, based on a story from the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, but nevertheless in the style of Richard Wagner.
Eugen Suchoň was one of the most important Slovak composers of the 20th century.
Discography for the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Edwin York Bowen was an English composer and pianist. Bowen's musical career spanned more than fifty years during which time he wrote over 160 works. As well as being a pianist and composer, Bowen was a talented conductor, organist, violist and horn player. Despite achieving considerable success during his lifetime, many of the composer's works remained unpublished and unperformed until after his death in 1961. Bowen's compositional style is widely considered ‘Romantic’ and his works are often characterized by their rich harmonic language.
Ragnar Søderlind is a Norwegian composer. He has written ballets and operas, and for the concert hall, programmatic works based on poems.
William Brocklesby Wordsworth was an English composer. His works, which number over 100, were tonal and romantic in style in the widest sense and include eight symphonies and six string quartets.
Viktor Kalabis was a Czech composer, music editor, musicologist, and husband of harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G, Op. 55 in 1884, writing it concurrently with his Concert Fantasia in G, Op. 56, for piano and orchestra. The originally intended opening movement of the suite, Contrastes, instead became the closing movement of the fantasia. Both works were also intended initially as more mainstream compositions than they became; the fantasia was intended as a piano concerto, while the suite was conceived as a symphony.
Karl Höller was a German composer of the late Romantic tradition.
Ross Pople is a New Zealand-born British conductor. He is the principal conductor of the London Festival Orchestra. He has worked with Yehudi Menuhin, Clifford Curzon, David Oistrakh, Kentner, George Malcolm, Sir Adrian Boult, Rudolf Kempe, Benjamin Britten, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Michael Tippett, Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein, George Benjamin, John Casken, Edwin Roxburgh, Luciano Berio, John Tavener, Malcolm Arnold, Pierre Boulez as well as many other major orchestras, choirs and soloists.
Wang Xilin is a Chinese composer.
Vassily Primakov is a Russian concert pianist and recording artist known for his interpretations of Chopin.
Michael Garrett was a British composer, born in Leicestershire. He was active in composing and performing for more than fifty years. His many works extend across a wide range of styles.
Ján Zimmer was a Slovak post-romantic composer and pianist.
Edouard Silas who was born in Amsterdam and died in London, was a Dutch composer and organist.