The Concert Companion was a hand-held device intended to enhance concert experiences by presenting information that complements the music while the music is being performed. Using wireless technology, the Concert Companion delivered explanatory text, program notes and video images in real time with the music. The Concert Companion was developed under the auspices of the Kansas City Symphony by former executive director Roland Valliere.
Testing of the Concert Companion took place with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Kansas City Symphony and Oakland East Bay Symphony. It was featured at The Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" executive conference in Carlsbad, California in June 2004, [1] and at the Association of British Orchestras Conference in Birmingham, England in February 2005.
Feature articles about the Concert Companion appeared across the United States in The New York Times , [2] [3] The Wall Street Journal , [4] USA Today , [5] San Francisco Classical Voice, [6] Orlando Sentinel, [7] Gizmodo, [8] The Baltimore Sun, [9] PC World Magazine, [10] and internationally in The Guardian, [11] and Heise Online. [12] Feature segments aired on National Public Radio All Things Considered , [13] and internationally on BBC News [14] and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Funding for the Concert Companion was received from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, [15] John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is one of the leading American orchestras popularly referred to as the "Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, located in New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The Berlin Philharmonic is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world.
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Greg Sandow is an American music critic and composer.
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Paris Opera. He is scheduled to become music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026.
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The Capriccio Italien, Op. 45, is a fantasy for orchestra composed between January and May 1880 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It premiered 18 December, 1880 in Moscow, conducted by Nikolay Rubinstein.
The Kansas City Symphony (KCS) is a United States symphony orchestra based in Kansas City, Missouri. The current music director is conductor Michael Stern. The Symphony performs at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, located at 1601 Broadway Boulevard.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, CC is a Canadian (Québécois) conductor and pianist. He is currently music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), the Metropolitan Opera, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was also principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 2008 to 2018.
Strike Up the Band is a 1927 musical with a book by Morrie Ryskind, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin. It first ran as a satirical show in Philadelphia that year, unsuccessfully, and on Broadway in 1930 after the original book by George S. Kaufman was revised by Ryskind. The show concerned a cheese manufacturer who sponsors a war against Switzerland because it will be named after him. Much of the satire of the 1927 version was replaced in the new version by silliness, leading Ryskind to recall, "What I had to do, in a sense, was to rewrite War and Peace for the Three Stooges." In the 1930 version the opening of Act I of the musical was reset from a cheese factory to a chocolate factory, and much of the work was a re-imagined as occurring during a dream sequence.
Yuja Wang is a Chinese pianist. Born in Beijing, she began learning the piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. By the age of 21, she was already an internationally recognized concert pianist and signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. She has since established herself as one of the leading artists of her generation. Wang currently lives in New York.
Conrad Yiwen Tao is an American composer and pianist and former violinist. Tao's piano and violin performances since childhood brought him early recognition at music festivals and competitions. At age 13, he was featured on the PBS TV series From the Top – Live from Carnegie Hall as violinist, pianist and composer. He won eight consecutive ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Among his compositions have been commissions by the New York Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony and Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Anna Sigríður Þorvaldsdóttir is an Icelandic composer. She has been called "one of Iceland's most celebrated composers", and was the 2012 winner of the Nordic Council Music Prize. Her music is frequently performed in Europe and in the United States, and is often influenced by landscapes and nature.
Missy Mazzoli is an American composer and pianist who is a member of the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music. She has received critical acclaim for her chamber, orchestral and operatic work. In 2018 she became one of the first two women to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera House. She is the founder and keyboardist for Victoire, an electro-acoustic band dedicated to performing her music. From 2012-2015 she was composer-in-residence at Opera Philadelphia, in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theater Group. Her music is published by G. Schirmer. Mazzoli received a 2015 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands, and in 2018 was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Composition. In 2018, Mazzoli was named for a two-season term as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Mazzoli was named the Bragg Artist-in-Residence at Mount Allison University beginning in 2022.
Let me tell you is a song cycle for soprano and orchestra by the Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen. The work was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic with support from the Danish Arts Foundation. It is based on the eponymous 2008 novel let me tell you by the writer Paul Griffiths. Its world premiere was given by the soprano Barbara Hannigan and the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Andris Nelsons on December 20, 2013.
Delta David Gier is an American conductor. Gier is Music Director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, following 15 seasons with the New York Philharmonic as an assistant conductor. He has directed most major orchestras in the United States and has worked extensively with orchestras across Central and South America, Europe, and Asia.