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NEWS & STORIES

TRANSATLANTIC REVIEW

WORKS BY SRAVINSKY, TAKEMITSU ET AL / BERLIN ACADEMY OF AMERICAN MUSIC / ONYX CLASSICS

A celebration of the love affair enjoyed between composers and America, this is a winning collection of works which demands repeated listening. Craig Urquhart’s Lamentaion for Flute and Orchestra is devastatingly beautiful, while Takemitsu’s Toward the Sea II captivates.

AUF DEUTSCH

Eine Hommage an die Liebesbeziehung zwischen Komponisten und Amerika. Dies ist eine erfolgreiche Sammlung von Werken, die wiederholtes Anhören erfordert. Craig Urquharts Lamentaion für Flöte und Orchester ist umwerfend schön, während Takemitsus Toward the Sea II fesselt.

TAGESSPIEGEL: DIRIGENT GARRETT KEAST - KLANGBRÜCKE ÜBER DEN ATLANTIK

A startup is what Garrett Keast calls this professional chamber orchestra. In the midst of the 2021 pandemic, the Berliner-by-choice has founded the Berlin Academy of American Music or (BAAM). "I'm American, born in Houston, I studied in New York," the conductor tells us, “but the music from my homeland hadn’t been the focus of my career."

 

Although he has been repeatedly engaged to conduct this repertoire—including a Bernstein gala with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin—it wasn't until lockdowns, when he could only ponder the scores (instead of performing them live ), that he realized how little people in Germany know about the historical as well as current musical life in the United States, that is, apart from a few well known standards like Gershwin's "Rhapsody in blue".

 

The concert

Garrett Keast will conduct the Berlin Academy of American Music on December 3. The concert will take place at the Siemensvilla in Lankwitz, Calandrellistraße 7.

The program includes works by Igor Stravinsky, Ursula Mamlok, Jonathan Dawe and Caroline Shaw. More info at www.baamorch.de

 

While the influence of American culture in the young Federal Republic was enormous in pop music, as well as in painting and literature, U.S. composers of “classical music” were never able to establish themselves in the repertoires of German orchestras and opera houses. This has remained the case to this day, despite that the scene there is just as diverse as in Europe.

 

Thus, for cultural ambassadors like Garrett Keast, who has lived in Prenzlauer Berg with his wife and two sons for 11 years, there is plenty to do, especially since it is particularly important to many American composers to write accessible music, works that speak directly to the audience.

 

A recording project made BAAM possible: "Transatlantic" is the name of the formation's debut album, which presents works by American composers, but also by Igor Stravinsky, who lived in the U.S. from 1940 until his death. "Our ensemble is as international as the other Berlin orchestras," Keast tells us. "That's why Aaron Copland's 'Appalachian Spring,' a classic in my home country, was new to almost all of the participants - and they were enthusiastic about the work."

 

Music designed to speak directly to the audience

On December 3, BAAM's next live performance will feature the world premiere of Jonathan Dawe's Violin Concerto and Stravinsky's "Danses Concertantes," as well as "Entr'acte," a piece by 41-year-old Caroline Shaw that is currently getting a lot of play in the United States. Additionally, the concert will include a work by Ursula Mamlok: born in Berlin in 1923, she fled with her Jewish family to Ecuador in 1938 and went to the U.S. as a 17-year-old to study and stayed. Only after the death of her husband did Ursula Mamlok move back to Berlin, where she died in 2016. The Berlin Academy of American Music will present her "Concerto for String Orchestra.

 

The location in which BAAM will perform also has an eventful history—the Correns country house in Lichterfelde, built in the 1910s. In 1925, the 80-room property on Calandrellistrasse became the property of Werner Ferdinand von Siemens, a classical music enthusiast, who had a private concert hall built there that is still regularly used as a recording studio to this day because of its excellent acoustics.

 

From 1941 to 1976, the Ibero-American Institute was housed in the villa, and the music archive of the German National Library was also housed here until twelve years ago. Concerts hardly ever take place since an investor purchased the house and grounds in 2010. Current tenants are the BSP Business School Berlin Potsdam and the MSB Medical School Berlin. However, because a musician from BAAM knows the owner, Garrett Keast can now conduct in the Siemens Villa on December 3.

 

The question—whether or not this is all very daring - the orchestra, the demanding program, the almost forgotten concert venue far from the City Centre - Garrett Keast parries with genuine American optimism. "Berlin audiences are so adventurous after all!"

AUF DEUTSCH

Mit seiner „Berlin Academy of American Music“ will der US-Dirigent Garrett Keast die Musik seiner Heimat in Berlin bekannter machen

Ein Startup nennt Garrett Keast sein Kammerorchester. Mitten in der Pandemie 2021 hat der Wahlberliner die „Berlin Academy of American Music“ (BAAM) gegründet. „Ich bin Amerikaner, geboren in Houston, studiert habe ich in New York studiert“, erzählt der 50-Jährige, „doch die Musik aus meiner Heimat stand bei meiner Karriere lange nicht im Fokus.“

Zwar wurde er immer wieder für diesen Repertoire-Bereich angefragt, dirigierte unter anderem eine Bernstein-Gala beim Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, doch erst als er durch den Lockdown gezwungen war, über Partituren nur nachzudenken statt sie live aufzuführen, wurde ihm klar, wie wenig man in Deutschland vom historischen wie aktuellen Musikleben in den USA weiß. Abgesehen von ein paar Hits wie Gershwins „Rhapsody in blue“.

 

Das Konzert

Garrett Keast dirigiert das Kammerorchester „Berlin Academy of American Music“ am 3. Dezember. Das Konzert findet in der Siemensvilla in Lankwitz statt, Calandrellistraße 7.

 

Auf dem Programm stehen Werke von Igor Strawinsky, Ursula Mamlok, Jonathan Dawe und Caroline Shaw. Weitere Infos unter www.baamorch.de

Während in der Popmusik, aber auch in der Malerei und der Literatur der Einfluss der amerikanischen Kultur in der jungen Bundesrepublik enorm war, konnten sich US-Komponisten der so genannten ersten Musik in den Spielplänen der deutschen Orchester und Opernhäuser nie durchsetzen. Das ist bis heute so geblieben, obwohl die Szene dort genauso vielfältig ist wie in Europa.

 

Für Kulturbotschafter wie Garrett Keast, der seit 11 Jahren mit seiner Frau und zwei Söhnen in Prenzlauer Berg lebt, gibt es also viel zu tun. Zumal es vielen amerikanischen Komponistinnen und Komponisten besonders wichtig ist, zugängliche Musik zu schreiben, Werke, die das Publikum unmittelbar ansprechen.

Ein Aufnahme-Projekt machte die BAAM möglich: „Transatlantik“ heißt das Debütalbum der Formation, das Werke von amerikanischen Komponisten präsentiert, aber auch von Igor Strawinsky, der ab 1940 bis zu seinem Tod in den USA gelebt hat. „Unser Ensemble ist genauso international besetzt wie die übrigen Berliner Orchester“, erzählt Keast. „Aaron Coplands ,Apalachian Spring‘, in meiner Heimat ein Klassiker, war darum für fast alle Mitwirkenden neu – und sie waren begeistert von dem Werk.“

 

Musik, die das Publikum unmittelbar ansprechen soll

Am 3. Dezember, beim nächsten Live-Auftritt der BAAM steht neben der Uraufführung von Jonathan Dawes Violinkonzert und Strawinskys „Danses Concertantes“ das Stück „Entr‘Act“ der 41-jährigen Caroline Shaw auf dem Programm, das in den USA gerade viel gespielt wird. Und mit Ursula Mamlok ist eine weitere Komponistin dabei: Geboren 1923 in Berlin, floh sie mit ihrer jüdischen Familie 1938 nach Ecuador und ging als 17-Jähirge zum Studium in die USA und blieb. Erst nach dem Tod ihres Mannes zog Ursula Mamlok zurück nach Berlin, wo sie 2016 starb. Die „Berlin Academy of American Music“ wird ihr „Konzert für Streichorchester vorstellen.

 

Eine bewegte Geschichte hat auch die Location, in der die BAAM auftritt: das in den 1910er-Jahren erbaute Landhaus Correns in Lichterfelde. Das Anwesen mit 80 Zimmern in der Calandrellistraße ging 1925 in den Besitz des klassikbegeisterten Werner Ferdinand von Siemens über, der sich hier einen privaten Konzertsaal einrichten ließ, der wegen seiner hervorragenden Akustik bis heute regelmäßig als Tonstudio für Aufnahmen genutzt wird.

Von 1941 bis 1976 kam das Ibero-Amerikanische Institut in der Villa unter, außerdem war bis vor zwölf Jahren das Musikarchiv der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek hier untergebracht. Konzerte finden kaum noch statt, seit ein Investor 2010 Haus und Grundstück erworben hat. Aktuelle Mieter sind die BSP Business School Berlin Potsdam und die MSB Medical School Berlin. Weil aber ein Musiker aus dem BAAM den Besitzer kennt, kann Garrett Keast jetzt am 3. Dezember in der Siemensvilla dirigieren.

 

Die Frage, ob das nicht alles sehr gewagt sei - das eigene Orchester, das anspruchsvolle Programm, der fast vergessener Konzertort weit vom City Centre - pariert Garrett Keast mit echtem amerikanischem Optimismus. „Das Berliner Publikum ist doch so abenteuerlustig!“

CONCERTI MAGAZINE - PORTRAIT GARRETT KEAST
Lighting a Beacon of Creativity and Ideas
Conductor and ensemble founder Garrett Keast carries the torch of American music across the Atlantic.

By Helge Birkelbach , June 3, 2023 - CONCERTI MAGAZINE

 

When Garrett Keast made his first appearance at the Opéra National de Paris, he was still relatively unknown internationally. But the orchestra was curious about the American born in Houston, Texas in 1971 and bombarded him with questions - until that memorable moment when a first violinist answered: "Maestro! You look like Joey from Friends!” That broke the ice immediately, Keast recalls enthusiastically. "They were really interested in me. At that moment I had the feeling that a dream career could come true.”

 

GARRETT KEAST: FROM NEW YORK VIA PARIS TO BERLIN

In his hometown he was initially mentored by Christoph Eschenbach , who conducted the Houston Symphony Orchestra. In 2000, Keast moved to New York and became Associate Conductor of the New York City Opera and Permanent Conductor of the Queens Symphony Orchestra. Then came the big leap across the Atlantic to Paris.

 

In 2011, Keast finally moved to the Deutsche Oper Berlin . In 2021 he founded the Berlin Academy of American Music, a chamber orchestra dedicated to works with North American references. "It is important for European audiences to recognize that great American music exists and that even in these difficult political times, the USA is still a beacon of creativity and ideas," explains the dedicated conductor and ensemble founder.

AUF DEUTSCH

Ein Leuchtfeuer der Kreativität und der Ideen entzünden

Dirigent und Ensemblegründer Garrett Keast trägt die Fackel der amerikanischen Musik über den Atlantik.

Von Helge Birkelbach, 3. Juni 2023

 

Als Garrett Keast seinen ersten Auftritt an der Opéra National de Paris absolvierte, galt er international noch als relativ unbekannt. Aber das Orchester war neugierig auf den 1971 in Houston, Texas geborenen Amerikaner und bestürmte ihn mit Fragen – bis zu jenem denkwürdigen Augenblick, als sich ein erster Geiger meldete: „Maestro! Sie sehen aus wie Joey aus Friends!“ Das habe sofort das Eis gebrochen, erinnert sich Keast begeistert. „Sie waren wirklich an mir interessiert. In dem Moment hatte ich das Gefühl, dass eine Traumkarriere wahr werden könnte.“

 

GARRETT KEAST: VON NEW YORK ÜBER PARIS NACH BERLIN

In seiner Heimatstadt stand ihm zunächst Christoph Eschenbach, der das Houston Symphony Orchestra leitete, als Mentor zur Seite. Im Jahr 2000 zog Keast nach New York und wurde stellvertretender Dirigent der New York City Opera sowie ständiger Dirigent des Queens Symphony Orchestra. Dann erfolgte der große Sprung über den Atlantik, nach Paris.

 

2011 wechselte Keast schließlich zur Deutschen Oper Berlin. 2021 gründete er die Berlin Academy of American Music, ein Kammerorchester, das sich Werken mit nordamerikanischen Bezügen widmet. „Für das europäische Publikum ist es wichtig zu erkennen, dass es großartige amerikanische Musik gibt und dass die USA selbst in diesen schwierigen politischen Zeiten immer noch ein Leuchtfeuer für Kreativität und Ideen sind“, erklärt der engagierte Dirigent und Ensemblegründer.

HOW A TEXAS CONDUCTOR BRINGS AMERICAN MUSIC TO EUROPEAN AUDIENCES

By Blane Bachelor, June 14, 2023 – GARDEN & GUN MAGAZINE

 

When he first moved to Berlin, Germany, in 2011, Garrett Keast, a classical music conductor who was born and raised in Houston, found himself feeling a tad self-conscious as “the American guy in Germany”—especially in highbrow fine arts circles.

 

“I remember when I first moved here, I did kind of hide my American accent a bit,” Keast says. “I spoke in a very clear, almost English-sounding kind of way.”

But these days, Keast is embracing the connection to his homeland more than ever—and not just in terms of an almost imperceptible Texas twang. The chamber orchestra Keast founded in 2020 that’s dedicated to performing an American repertoire, the Berlin Academy of American Music (BAAM), has hit a high note with a flurry of recent achievements, including its “most successful performance yet” on June 3 for a sold-out crowd at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany—one of the top concert houses in the world.

 

“Every last seat was filled, it was a great audience, and we really gave them a fantastic program,” Keast says. “It’s not stuffy at all. It’s fresh and fun and a really energetic orchestra on stage. We pack a punch. We come with a saxophone, a trombone, two horns, we have a drummer with a drum set—we’re not just a sweet little Mozart chamber orchestra.”

 

Keast founded BAAM when his regular conducting gigs were canceled because of the pandemic. (He’s been on the podium at revered concert halls like the Paris Opera; Berlin’s Konzerthaus and its Deutsche Oper; Concertgebouw Amsterdam; and the Atlanta Symphony, just to name a few.) With his newfound free time, Keast dug deep into the works of American composers like Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, and Aaron Copland, plus others—like Igor Stravinsky—who weren’t born in the United States but lived there and were strongly influenced by its culture. 

 

“It just hit me like a lightning bolt during the second or third month of the pandemic,” Keast says. “I started realizing I should really focus on American music and make this my niche, because it’s always been a niche I wanted to fulfill.”

 

BAAM performed its first concert in September 2020 to a masked audience in Berlin. The program included “You Have the Right to Remain Silent,” a 2010 composition by Pulitzer Prize–winning pianist and composer Anthony Davis that was inspired by his experience being racially profiled by a police officer in 1970s Boston.

 

Since then, BAAM has performed seven concerts, mostly in Germany, with another seven already booked for 2024. In October 2021, the orchestra released its first CD, Transcontinental, which received a glowing review and a five-star rating by BBC Music Magazine. Two more CDs are scheduled for recording in June and November 2024, along with a tour in the 2024/2025 season.

 

“What’s good about Germany and these really developed classical music audiences here is that they’re curious,” Keast says. “Some of the pieces that we present, they would hear occasionally, but not all together like our program. What I keep hearing people say is, ‘That’s a lot of great music that we don’t hear enough of.’”

Keast’s early career got a kickstart in Houston, where he met two of his most influential mentors: Stephen Stein, then the Houston Symphony’s conductor in residence, and Christoph Eschenbach, its music director from 1988 to 1999. “I was way too green at the time, but they just allowed me to be there and be kind of part of them,” says Keast, who was then an apprentice. “They hired me for little side jobs all the time, and I could watch rehearsals. And I worked in the Houston Symphony library as an unpaid intern for a couple years and just had access to all the scores I needed. It was a huge and amazing training ground.”

 

Keast’s parents still live in Houston, and he and his wife, Meghan, and their two young boys go back for a visit at least once a year; his parents’ pool, he says, is a big hit with the kids, while he and Meghan get their fix for Tex-Mex.

 

And back in Berlin, when Keast has a hankering for a taste of home, he’s immensely grateful for how far the city’s Mexican food scene has evolved from the “barren landscape” it was when he first arrived in Europe. “Now there are lots of places to pick from for good tacos, margaritas, salsas,” he says. “I’m from Texas, okay? We have freaking good salsa in the grocery store in Texas. And there’s starting to be good ones here too.”

FEATURE ON GET CLASSICAL: "TRANSATLANTIC MUSIC MAN"

By Ilona Oltuski, Get Classical - January 7, 2023
 

During the height of the Pandemic, American conductor Garrett Keast formed the Berlin Academy for American Music, a new chamber orchestra based in Berlin. BAAM's debut CD, titled: Transatlantic, brings together a group of diverse professional orchestral musicians that share his passion – uncover and explore the vast soundscape of American Music in Berlin's classical music scene – and beyond. Keast takes a post-pandemic moment to reflect on his life as a musician that bridges both continents' traditions and expands on the inclusive character of social justice with music that does not stop at national borders.
 

Praised for "leaving audiences hungry for more" (Basler Zeitung), the Berlin-based conductor is recognized for his broad repertoire. From Houston, Texas, he began his career in New York as an Associate Conductor of the New York City Opera before launching his career in Europe with engagements at the Paris Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Bonn, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra.
 

A student of Christoph Eschenbach at the Houston Symphony, he later became his assistant on international tours and opera productions at the Paris Opera, Vienna State Opera, NDR, and many others. Keast also studied at Aspen and Tanglewood and has received the Bruno Walter Career Development Grant. He regularly appears at venues including Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Brussel's BOZAR, the Staatsoper Hamburg, Aspen Music Festival, Theater an der Wien, and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden."
 

"As an American conductor, I am often asked to perform American repertoire. Here I often look to immigrant American composers or those who wrote music based on American ideals or stories. This makes for a fascinating repertoire and expands on the genre people expect to hear when they think of American Music. In Germany, many American composers' works – considered as American classics, take Copland, for example – are known but rarely performed. Or Stravinsky, for example, who became an American citizen in 1945. While his earlier works, especially his Ballet Russes in Paris, were connected to Russia and France rather than to American culture, his late works, written and inspired in America, must be seen as part of the American musical landscape. Going beyond the nationality of our borders, I seek to validate the inclusivity of all voices, regardless of race or gender, and open the stage to so many contemporary composers and those of previous decades, who still need to be explored in-depth, which I am very passionate about," he says.
 

Building on that passion and with time to spare to play for sheer joy during the pandemic lockdown of 2020, Keast brought together a group of musicians for some impromptu and distanced orchestral readings at a studio in Berlin's Kreuzberg district. The unique experience connected the diverse group of musicians, including some of Berlin's top orchestral professionals, with Keast, admired for the enthusiasm and synergy he builds with musicians and audiences, leading them through Copland and Stravinsky. What better way for the Texan to link both worlds than through music he loved here in Berlin, an epicenter of European music tradition with a large population of international artists? Beyond geographic borders, the Pandemic made it clear that we are but one world.
 

That same summer, Lamentation, a piece by the American composer Craig Urquhart for piano and flute, was written and premiered at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival by flutist Stathis Karapanos with Christopher Eschenbach. When Urquhart, and Karapanos, who had been recently honored with the Leonard Bernstein Award, started a conversation with Keast about an orchestrated version for a recording, things immediately came together.
 

Urquhart had been an assistant to Leonard Bernstein for many years. During Bernstein's time at the Schleswig-Holstein Summer Festival, the Von Reventlow family had hosted both the maestro and Urquhart during many summers at the historic Wulfshagen manor. As a result, a close friendship with the hostess, Jutta Gräfin von Reventlow, developed, lasting until her recent passing in January 2020. In her honor, Lamentation for flute and piano was written and performed during the festival, and its orchestrated version for string orchestra is now featured on the recording.
 

It was realizing the project's great potential and his knack for the historic kernels of the stories that often make programs work together that Keast, moved by Urquhart's music, looked to integrate the work into a broader context. With Transatlantic, that context was established through the newly founded ensemble's mission. In pairing Urquhart's premiere of Lamentation for flute and string orchestra with music by Copland, Stravinsky, Dorman, and Takemitsu, Urquhart's work became part of the bigger goal and common focus of the musicians of the newly founded Berlin Academy of American Music.
 

From its spontaneous beginnings to the strategic forming of the ensemble around the goal of recording the CD, defining the CD's artistic direction to integrate the work, in turn, enabled Keast to articulate the ensemble's goal better: To perform works and promote the careers of American and American immigrant composers. BAAM's artists seek to inspire a thought-provoking dialogue about social justice, as its mission statement underlines: "We acknowledge that the works of composers from all races and genders have a place on every stage. We believe new works hold just as much value as well-loved standard repertoire from the past." Conducted by Keast and recorded at the height of the Pandemic, the album was released on the ONYX Classical label in October 2021.
 

Transatlantic establishes the ensemble's first official joint venture as the newly formed Berlin Academy of American Music and features next to the Greek flutist Stathis Karapanos, Israeli soprano Chen Reiss, Berlin Philharmonic concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley, and Berlin Philharmonic harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet. In November 2021, BAAM performed its first concert in Berlin's Siemens Villa. In 2022 they performed at Villa Elisabeth, and this year's venue will be the Werner Otto Saal at Berlin's Konzerthaus. At Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, where Keast previously conducted the TONALi Orchestra, he performed a program of Bernstein, Caroline Shaw, Copland, Gershwin, Milhaud, and Stravinsky with BAAM.

CONCERTGEBOUW DEBUT: KEAST CONTDUCTS BROADWAY CLASSICS

Review for Bravo Broadway at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (July 2022, Musicaljournaal)​

 

For more than thirty years, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam has been celebrating the summer with music. The summer concert series in July and August has become one of the most visited festivals in our country. The Vriendenloterij Summer Concerts consists of a series of more than 70 concerts in all kinds of music genres, from classical concerts by new talents and established names to concerts with pop, film music and tributes. The Bravo Broadway concert was particularly interesting for musical lovers, which took place last Friday. In an almost sold-out Concertgebouw (and for the occasion can be viewed on life-size screens on Museumplein), two major Broadway stars (Alli Mauzey and Hugh Panaro) were accompanied by the Württembergische Philharmonie, conducted by the American conductor Garrett Keast.

 

Alli Mauzey made her Broadway debut as Brenda in  Hairspray , but was best known for her portrayal of Glinda in  Wicked. Hugh Panaro is best known for his role in  The Phantom of the Opera . He debuted in this musical as Raoul in 1991 and played the part of Phantom no less than 4 times, in 1999, 2003-2005, 2010-2013 and 2013-2014.

 

During the concert, pieces from Gypsy, Kiss Me Kate, The Wizard of Oz, My Fair Lady, Girl Crazy, West Side Story, Little Shop of Horrors, Frozen, Hairspray, My Fair Lady, Cabaret, Chicago, Les Miserables, Mamma Mia !  and  The Phantom of the Opera  .

The orchestra can safely be called the third star of the performance. What a pleasure to hear this beautiful music performed, without canned samples, but with a complete symphony orchestra, with strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion/percussion, harp and grand piano. Maestro Garrett Keast is energetic and throws himself completely into stirring up his orchestra.

 

We have already admired Alli Mauzey before, when she played the role of Glinda next to Willemijn Verkaik in Wicked on Broadway with astonishing playful ease. Her vocal qualities are exceptional and she seems to have the flute register continuously available on demand. She wears both the heavier pieces and the lighter work such as from Hairspray or Mamma Mia , without compromising on intelligibility or text experience. Hugh Panaro's comfort zone is The Phantom, Les Misérables and Sondheim's work. A zone in which it is not very busy; he moves effortlessly in it and combines this with an enormous stage presence.

 

The concert is a succession of highlights, in which the (utopian) desire that every great musical should have a large – onstage – orchestra cannot be suppressed. There is also the realization that a performance like The Phantom or The Opera has not been seen in the Netherlands for far too long. In view of the reactions in the Concertgebouw, the public is more than ready for that.

 

Musicaljournaal: Click to see original here

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