NEWS
Rising Stars in Classical Music to Perform Innovative Program – Melissa White and Pallavi Mahidhara Recital May 4
If violinist Melissa White and pianist Pallavi Mahidhara are the future of classical music, then the future is bright! Award-winning artists and longtime friends, they combine their talents for a recital at the Sarah Ball Allis Art Museum on Thursday, May 4, 2023 at 7:30 pm. Concert Conversations at 6:30 pm.…
Urban Milwaukee
Review: Melissa White Plays Florence Price Violin Concerto No. 2 with NatPhil
Since Er-Gene Kahng’s groundbreaking 2018 recording of Florence Price’s violin concertos, it has been incredibly heartening to witness these works become regular concert hall staples. Dr. Khang still performs these concerti, and we are so fortunate to have three additional prominent exponents of these works. Kelly Hall-Tompkins has presented the second concerto with orchestras across the United States regularly since 2019, Randall Goosby has committed recordings of both concerti to a disc scheduled for a May 2023 release, and Melissa White continues performing both, with her 2022/2023 schedule having included an appearance as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra…
Violinist.com
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra welcomes spring with resounding Mozart festival
“But it was White’s performance of the Violin Concerto No. 3, “Strasbourg,” that left the deepest impression. The gifted violinist, who was a first-prize laureate of the Sphinx Competition and holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory, made a notable subscription concert debut.
From first note to last, she projected a big, gleaming tone on her American-made violin (commissioned as part of a Sphinx artist grant by violin maker Ryan Soltis). Her playing was elegant and thoughtful, and she navigated technical difficulties with an easy virtuosity. Most memorable was her phrasing in the slow movement. She took her time in the cadenza, as if to revel in her violin’s magnificent sound.”
Cincinnati Business Courier
The National Philharmonic Featuring ‘Melissa White’ at Strathmore
This Black History Month, the National Philharmonic took its first big step towards diversity and inclusion with a special Saturday evening showcase of four black composers in classical music: Wynton Marsalis, Florence Price, George Walker, and William Grant Still.
Maestro Piotr Gajewski started the night by recognizing how white-and male-dominated classical music is, how hard it is for black or brown composers and musicians to break through barriers, and what the National Philharmonic will do to keep the momentum going beyond Saturday’s concert.
White’s playing was absolutely breathtaking. I have no other words for the grace, precision, and warmth she brought to the stage.
MD Theater Guide
The National Philharmonic presents and proposes music of black composers
On Saturday at Strathmore, the National Philharmonic and conductor Piotr Gajewski marked Black History Month with a concert of “Black Classical Music Pioneers,” featuring African American composers past and present. The program offered intriguing stylistic variety. Sometimes, it challenged the orchestra. In the end, it occasioned a wish for freer movement across classical music’s historical and institutional borders.
The Washington Post
National Philharmonic Salutes Black Classical Composers
African-American violinist Melissa White, while an anomaly to some, continues to enchant audiences around the world as both a soloist and a chamber musician.
And to illustrate that she’s deserving of the many accolades showered upon her, White, a winner of the prestigious Sphinx Competition, will be a featured soloist with the National Philharmonic Orchestra in an exciting Black History Month celebration, “Black Classical Music Pioneers.”
The Washington Informer
Meeting Halfway
In what may be seen as a clever gesture of economy, this spring Strathmore’s National Philharmonic is commemorating two composers for whom major anniversaries flank this anno Domini 2019: Leonard Bernstein (who would have turned 100 last year) and Beethoven (born in 1770); Saturday’s concert was the first of two, the second to follow in June, to pair a major Beethoven symphony with one of the “serious” works of Bernstein, whose popular reputation as a composer, as he himself noted with chagrin, was based more on his film and theater music than on his works for the concert-hall. Bernstein’s 1949 Second Symphony, with which the program began, is not quite a masterpiece, which probably accounts for its more-or-less peripheral place in the standard orchestral repertoire; Walter Piston’s somewhat unjustly neglected Second Symphony, predating the Bernstein work by just a few years, probably represents a more structurally cohesive exposition of the jazz-tinted idiom, basically modern harmonically but not devoid of melodic warmth, that Bernstein mines here.
The Classical Music Network
Interview with Violinist Melissa White: Sphinx, Harlem Quartet and Yoga
Earlier this month, when the Sphinx Organization announced the winners in its 22nd annual competition, I could not help but think about the long-term effect this organization has had on encouraging diversity in classical music.
One reason I thought about this was a wonderful interview that I had last fall with violinist Melissa White, who actually participated in the very first Sphinx Competition in 1997 and was one of its early first-prize winners. I crossed paths with White when she was in town to perform the Barber Violin Concerto with the Pasadena Symphony (where I was playing the concert as a proud member of the second violin section!) It was an utterly enjoyable collaboration, and great ride through the Barber (that last movement!).
Violinist.com
Arch of triumph
“Keep your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds,” we are told. Thursday’s Lansing Symphony season opener took this useful cliché to sublime extremes.
An evening-length arch of triumph began at ground level, with earthy, Spanish-style stomps, airlifted into the violin-osphere somewhere over Paris with soloist Melissa White, and slammed back to Earth with Roman legions whose relentless march into the sunrise made “Spartacus” look like “Mary Poppins.”
City Pulse