Английская Википедия:Alex Prior
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:EngvarB Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:BLP sources
Alexander Prior (born 5 October 1992) is a British composer and conductor who studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was Chief Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2022, appointed at the age of 23.[1] His tenure with the Edmonton Symphony has been described as leaving "a considerable legacy. First and foremost, he has brought the orchestra to a new level of playing, whether eliciting a true pianissimo from the strings, new shadings of expression and phrasing, or greater depth of emotional feeling... ...Prior knows that the best classical music is not just about entertainment, not just about him or the orchestra or the soloists, but about us all experiencing something profound about the human condition itself. And that’s the legacy of great conductors.” [2]
As a conductor Prior has a broad repertoire, but with a special focus on and passion for American music, especially the music of Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, and John Adams; and has emerged as an authority on the music of Wagner, Bruckner[3], Tchaikovsky[4], Nielsen, and Sibelius[5]. He has also had a particular focus on the music of Rimsky-Korsakov[6], Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Alfred Schnittke, Janáček, Dvořák[7], Vaughan Williams, and Richard Strauss[8]. Alex has also been a champion of music by younger living composers - especially the music of Nicole Lizée[9], Gabriella Smith, Vivian Fung, and Alissa Cheung.
He is also known to be an avid fan of Country Music[10], and especially the music of Corb Lund, Blake Shelton, and Paul Brandt. In September 2022 the Edmonton Symphony and Prior released a video of Ian Tyson's Four Strong Winds - Alberta's unofficial anthem.
His YouTube channel has a significant following, having reached well over 300,000 followers, and many millions of views[11].
Life and career
Prior was born in London to a British father and a Russian-Ukrainian mother, who is a direct descendant of Konstantin Stanislavski.[12] Prior began composing at the age of eight and by his early teens had written 40 works, including symphonies, concertos, two ballets, two operas, and a Requiem for the children of Beslan. At an early age, he began piano lessons. He later enrolled in the junior department of the Royal College of Music. At 13, he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory where he studied composition with Boris Tishchenko and opera and symphonic conducting with Alexander Alexeev (a pupil of Hans Swarowsky). In 2009, at age 17, he graduated with distinction, with two masters degrees in symphonic and operatic conducting, and in composition from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, a feet previously accomplished only by Sergei Prokofiev.[13]
Prior has conducted many of the world orchestras and ensembles, including the San Francisco, Detroit, Dallas, Toledo, Seattle, Queensland, Düsseldorf, and Houston Symphony Orchestras. Further collaborations include performances with the Brevard Festival Orchestra, the New World Symphony, Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid/Orchestra of Teatro Reál, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Spanish Radio Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Badische Staatskapelle Karslsruhe, the Deustche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the German Radio Orchestra in Saarbrücken, Camerata Salzburg, the Estonian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Polish National Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the Copenhagen and Calgary Philharmonic orchestras, and the Kristiansand, Helsingborg, and Aarhus Symphony Orchestras.
He was appointed as Chief Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at just 23 years of age (with a designate season prior to commencing his full tenure in 2017). Prior invested greatly in the artistic output and community outreach of the orchestra - championing new music[15], with a focus on programming which reflects the rich diversity and cultural history of the region. By his third season every masters' series concert featured music by female composers.
Other operatic engagements include Martinu's Mirandolina at the Bayerische Staatsoper, La Traviata with Leipzig Opera[16], Rusalka at the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl[17], Hänsel und Gretel at Vancouver Opera[18], and two productions of Richard Strauss's Elektra - one with Edmonton Opera[8] and the other with Theater Erfurt[19], where he also led a critically acclaimed production of Weingartner’s epic opera “Orestes” - the first performance of this opera in well over 100 years[20], as well as a completely sold out production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman[21]. At Frankfurt Opera, where he has a long-lasting ongoing relationship with the orchestra and the company, he has conducted Verdi's Rigoletto, Martinu's Julietta[22], and in their symphonic series Holst’s The Planets[23]. A planned production of Holländer in 2021 was sadly cancelled due to the COVID19 pandemic. Following his debut with Mozart's The Magic Flute[24] at Staatstheater Braunschweig he was invited back to conduct a new production of Verdi's Rigoletto, after which the orchestra awarded him their prestigious and rare ‘Louis-Spohr-Medal’[25].
Prior's Piano Concerto No. 1 was premiered at the V International Piano Festival in St. Petersburg in September 2006. Prior was runner-up in the 2008 International Prokofiev Composers Competition – his Piano Concerto No. 2 Northern Dances was performed by the State Academic Symphony of St. Petersburg in the Great Philharmonic Hall. In 2006, Prior's ballet Mowgli (based on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book) was commissioned by choreographers Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vassilev of the Moscow State Classical Ballet. The official premiere took place at the Kremlin Theatre in Moscow in February 2008.
In November 2008 he conducted a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride in St. Petersburg, followed by a performance of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker in January 2009.
On 8 January 2010, the Seattle Symphony appointed Prior as an Assistant Conductor.[26][27]
In Summer 2010. he was a conducting fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center.
In August 2011, he conducted the world premiere of his Triple Concerto, entitled "That which must forever remain unspoken", with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.[13][28]
In 2011, Prior was the principal conductor for the Northwest Mahler Festival in Seattle.[29]
In December 2011, Prior made his debut with the Royal Danish Orchestra and Royal Danish Ballet performing The Nutcracker at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen.[13] He has subsequently reinvited to conduct Carmen at the Royal Danish Theatre. [30]
Reviews
***** “Alexander Prior is 25-years-old. Currently the Chief Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra as well as a highly commissioned composer, he conducted An Emotional Rollercoaster with the visionary insight and polished skill of superstar veterans like Simon Rattle. Prior’s synergy with the orchestra was inspired. His command of Debussy’s Prelude a’ L’Apres-midi d’un faune revelled in the music’s dreamy ambience, elastic rhythms, lightly nuanced strings and moments of repose. Debussy’s symphonic poem unfolded with a refreshing and seductive spontaneity. In top form, the strings, French horns and woodwind excelled in highlighting the composer’s impressionistic wash of vibrant colour. Brahms Symphony No 4 in E minor, Op. 98, showed Prior’s flair for shaping grand architecture, his inventive, meaningful phrasing and attention to detail. The first theme in the Allegro non troppo had an infectious lilt and spring and the conductor coaxed amazing crescendos that grew and grew and kept on giving. All sections played with crystal clarity. The woodwinds’ extroverted lyricism impressed and the strings sang beautifully throughout. Solo horn in the Andante Moderato was world-class and viola champions must have been charmed by Imants Larsens’ melting viola solo in the third movement. High standards are expected from professional orchestras and concerto soloists but this concert was unforgettable, a stunner. Perhaps the event should have been dubbed Dynamic Trio because conductor, soloist and orchestra excelled in executing this program of contrasts and extremes and wowed the crowd.”[31]
Gillian Wills, Limelight Magazine (Australia)
"Anyone who is in the habit of leaning back and taking a deep breath in the concert hall didn't have much of an opportunity on Friday evening at the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie. There was a real Sir to be admired, one of the great masterpieces of piano music, and a young, heartwarming conductor.
It started without a hitch with Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83. The horn began an arc that spanned the movement, culminating in the overwhelmingly beautiful melody of the first movement. On stage Sir Stephen Hough on the piano, Alexander Prior on the podium - and of course the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie. In the language of today one could call it a musical double-boom. Speaking more simply it was a rousing, always-exciting performance of the highest quality that brought this virtuoso 60-minute work to life.
Under his hands, together with the 30-year-old Prior who lead the Philharmonic in an extremely warm sound, it is possible to hear one strong line: from the powerful first movement in which the piano energetically dominates, the second movement with its powerful Brahms melody to the rich finale with Hungarian charm. The pianist creates the Andante together with the solo cello for one of those special concert moments where time stands still. The Schumann encore was also magical.
The conductor talked from the stage about Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's suite from the opera "The Night Before Christmas" as one of his "favourite pieces". His routs are half British, and one quarter each Russian and Ukrainian. In these destructive times, Prior creates in equal measure heartwarming words and sounds. His whole being seems to embrace music and people.
And with the Philharmonic he indeed succeeds in turning the Suite into a fairytale winter wonderland, carried by a colourful yet crystal-clear sound, with excellent soloists in the orchestra, and rousing, rhythmic tuttis again and again. A delightful pleasure. "Music is perhaps the most beautiful part of humanity," says Prior. One wishes to add nothing more."[32]
“Accompanying these images (stage: Martina Segna) are brilliant sounds from the orchestra pit: The 27-year-old Alexander Prior confirmed his reputation as an insider-tip. With subtle small gestures he submerged the music down to invisibility, and then ignited storms of sound with furious large gestures. The orchestra of the Tiroler Festspiel followed: there was playful natural magic from the harp and woodwinds to reveling in the choir’s proud trumpeting (rehearsal: Olga Yanum) simultaneous to calls to damnation for Rusalka, who roared like a “dies irae” doomsday, thoughtfully planned and musically gripping.” [1]
Wolf Dieter Peter, Abendzeitung München
“The British conductor (and composer) Alexander Prior made his debut as the new General Music Director of Theater Erfurt with "Elektra". The just 30-year-old made the orchestra flourish in many colors and shades with rich gestures and visible physical exertion, and always very quickly fixed any minor mistakes that happened in the orchestra with regard to the sometimes very tricky tempi.
In the end the maestro was not only enthusiastically celebrated by the audience, but also by the visibly enthusiastic singers and orchestra, who proved to be perfectly up to the enormous challenges of this complex opera. In the end the monumental orchestral sound, the extremely difficult vocal parts, and the profound storytelling flowed together inseparably.”[33]
MDR Germany
"Weingartner's score is written for a large orchestra, and with that spirit the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra bolstered by the Thuringia Philharmonic play, under the musical direction of Chief Conductor Alexander Prior. With great passion and precision, the musicians bring the incredibly colourful, complex sounds to life. And Prior creates suspense and arcs that make the three hours fly by." "With this ingenious production Theater Erfurt and Guy Montavon have given the opera world back a work that has all the strength to endure."'[34]
Jan Krobot, The Online Marker
"At the dress rehearsal of" Rusalka ", the first impression is of the all-encompassing beauty of the sound-world of the music. (...) Alexander Prior savors the yearning and poetry in the opera, but also the huge dramatic surges, the festival orchestra follows him with great ease”[35]
Egbert Tholl, Süddeutsche Zeitung
"The British conductor (and composer) Alexander Prior made his debut as the new General Music Director of Theater Erfurt with "Elektra". The just 30-year-old made the orchestra flourish in many colors and shades with rich gestures and visible physical exertion, and always very quickly fixed any minor mistakes that happened in the orchestra with regard to the sometimes very tricky tempi. In the end the maestro was not only enthusiastically celebrated by the audience, but also by the visibly enthusiastic singers and orchestra, who proved to be perfectly up to the enormous challenges of this complex opera. In the end the monumental orchestral sound, the extremely difficult vocal parts, and the profound storytelling flowed together inseparably.”
Michael Ernst, MDR[36]
“What really did come across was the playing of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. This was Prior’s Canadian operatic debut, and he not only paced the opera very effectively, but secured some wonderfully powerful and taut playing from the orchestra in a score that is beyond their normal comfort zone.” [37]
Mark Morris, Edmonton Journal
“This was a superlative performance, one of the best in the (Sibelius) Festival, confirming that Prior is a Sibelius conductor to be reckoned with. Tapiola is very much music of shades and layers – regularly surging up from the leaf mould of the forest floor, with bass colours (such as that of the contra-bassoon) emphasized. This entirely suits Prior’s approach, as again he graduated the dynamics in sections of the orchestra to bring out those different layers (as he also did in the Symphony No.2 later in the concert). He treated it very much as a 20th-century work, with its fleeting touches of polytonality, in its unsettled harmonies, in the tense chatter of some of the massed violin writing – indeed, he found here the tension that was a bit subdued in the earlier concerts. His approach really works, and at the end I heard from the audience member behind me a fully deserved but involuntary sotto voce “Wow!”
It was followed by Prior’s own selection of 11 movements from the 19 in total found in the two Tempest suites, also written in 1926. He omitted the overture, and instead opened with the sparse Northern landscape painting of the ‘Oak Tree’ – here was decidedly a Tempest of a northern island, somewhere twixt the Faroes and the Åland Islands, without a vestige of a Caribbean surf, or indeed, a Mediterranean sun. Four more joyful movements followed, but even Caliban’s song is a kind of Hebridean dance with exotic tinges. Ariel’s song led us back to misty landscapes, and to the sense of resignation that somehow permeates the suite. The storm was next, but this is a storm of bitter cold winds and ice in the rigging, of fog horns in the brass – the kind of storm that one might associate more with Pullman’s Golden Compass than the start of Shakespeare’s play. Two more dance-like movements followed, culminating in an ending that reverted to the quiet northern landscape of the beginning. This, too, is music that looks towards the modern as much as back to the Romantics – Rautavaara is one of the inheritors, and there is even a Khachaturian-like moment in the Intrada that leads into the Berceuse (Suite No.1 VII). The performance was a winning one, with a tremendous but remorseless, controlled storm, and a very sensible placement of the harp right at the front and side of the stage, to allow the instrument to sing out in two of the movements.
These two late works both contrasted and complimented each other, and were a reminder that in the first Finnish performance of Tapiola it was paired with the overture to The Tempest, followed by Sibelius’ final symphony, the Seventh. Here, though, the Festival ended with his most popular symphony, the Second. The orchestra had clearly got the measure of what Prior was looking for in his interpretation, especially in those layered dynamics (this is where extra rehearsal pays such dividends). For he concentrated on the shape of the symphony, crisp and with no sentimentality in the opening movement, and a very slow build-up dynamically in the second movement. The virtues of this performance were the very deliberate and even tempi – those with a Romantic leaning might have wished for more flashy accelerandi, rallentandi, and crescendi, but that remorseless deliberation seemed to me to show the unfolding of the symphony a new, and very effective, light. It was almost as if the symphony were in one whole movement, rather than four. This makes sense, as those four movements share the organic growth of germ material, and similar contrasts of mood, and the difference in tone between them is not nearly as marked as in many symphonies.
And so the isle was now empty of those sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. The thousand twangling instruments had ceased their humming, and the Festival was over.” [38]
Mark Morris, Edmonton Classical Review
Prior has received some positive reviews for his early concerto Velesslavitsa, both as a composer and a conductor.[39]
"But Prior was the real star. In his fourth year at the St Petersburg Conservatoire, he is in essence a Russian composer, and it was no surprise that Velesslavitsa sounded like an exuberant apotheosis, in concerto-grosso form, of Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and other Russian Romantics – the kind of over-the-top music a 16-year-old should be writing. At 47 minutes the structure could be tighter, but it has drama, colour and excitement in abundance.
And Prior the conductor is an absolute professional, clear in his gestures, authoritative in manner, supportive of his soloists. No longer a Wunderkind, he's well on the way to being a Wunder-adult."
"Prior certainly knows how to compose, and certainly has a bright future..." The Times
Awards
- 2nd prize at the Leeds conducting competition at the age of 16[13][29]
- International Prokofiev Composition Competition[40]
- In Russia he was awarded the order of The Blue Cross, for his contribution to the national and international arts scene, and for his charitable work within music.[40]
Selected compositions
"Horizons: An American Crescendo for Four Soloists and Orchestra" dedicated to John Adams.
Concertos
- 3 Piano concertos St. Petersburg Dances of the North and No.3
- Concerto for 4 soloists and orchestra Velesslavitsa
- Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello "That which must forever remain unspoken"
Symphonies
- No.1 Karelian
- No.2
- No.3 "Northern"
- No.4 "Gogol"
Operas
- The Desert based on Alexander Pushkin's tales.
Ballets
- Mowgli[41]
Choral
- All Night Vigil
- Sounds of the Homeland
- At the North for SATB Choir on Ivan Bunin's poetry
Piano Solo
- 10 preludes
- Evenings on the Farm near Dikanka
References
External links
- Gallafent, Alex, "Child prodigy composes ballet", The World program, PRI Radio, 19 June 2007
- "UK teen conducts Moscow ballet", BBC News, Tuesday, 19 June 2007
- Alex Prior on classicalx.com
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 8,0 8,1 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Citation
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 13,0 13,1 13,2 13,3 Cf. Alex Prior website.
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ https://oper-frankfurt.de/media/pdf/Julietta.pdf
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Bingham, John, "British teenage 'prodigy' Alexander Prior joins Seattle Symphony Orchestra: Alexander Prior, a British teenager hailed as a musical prodigy, has taken up a conducting appointment with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra", The Telegraph (UK), 11 January 2010
- ↑ "Prodigies From Around the World", City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, July 2011
- ↑ 29,0 29,1 "The 2011 Northwest Mahler Festival Principal Conductor: Alex Prior" Шаблон:Webarchive, Northwest Mahler Festiaval
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 40,0 40,1 "Biography: Alex Prior" – Seattle Symphony Orchestra biography
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- Английская Википедия
- Страницы с неработающими файловыми ссылками
- 1992 births
- Living people
- Child classical musicians
- British male classical composers
- British opera composers
- Male opera composers
- British ballet composers
- English people of Russian descent
- British classical composers
- 21st-century classical composers
- 21st-century British conductors (music)
- British male conductors (music)
- Musicians from London
- 21st-century British male musicians
- Страницы, где используется шаблон "Навигационная таблица/Телепорт"
- Страницы с телепортом
- Википедия
- Статья из Википедии
- Статья из Английской Википедии
