dB's Blog: NY Phil Plays Russian Composers

Thursday, July 28, 2011

NY Phil Plays Russian Composers

NY Phil gets a Standing “O” at Vail!

The New York Philharmonic took the stage again tonight in Vail to play some great Russian music. The show’s highlight was a performance of the overplayed Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1, although tonight featured a nice interpretation by Kirill Gerstein, who avoided the bombastic nature of the first movement and instead focussed on the subtlety of the second and third movements, playing quite beautifully. He also played a nice encore of Russian-American George Gerwhin’s “Embraceable You.” (Gershwin’s Concerto in F had been commissioned for the NY Phil.)

Conductor Bramwell Tovey has grown on me. The first two appearances I saw at the Hollywood Bowl did not wow me, but he has been much better at the Vail festival. He conducted quite beautifully on Khatchaturian’s Waltz from Masquerade Suite, knowing when to step aside and let the orchestra lead. The Glazunov Concert Waltz #2 was also quite nice.

The program finale was Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances. This was not a worthy finale for this concert, it might have been nicer to finish with the concerto. But that is a minor quibble. The thrill of hearing this orchestra in one of the most beautiful settings in the world makes it all worthwhile.

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About Me

David Bondelevitch, MPSE, CAS is an Associate Professor in the Music & Entertainment Industry Studies Recording Arts Program at the University of Colorado, Denver's College of Arts & Media.

David is a music & dialogue editor and re-recording mixer. His most recent projects include mixing the documentary Southwest of Salem, which recently won a Peabody Award. He also mixed the cult comedy Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero. Previously, he mixed Driven to Ride, about women who ride motorcycles, and Above the Ashes, about a devastating fire near Boulder, which destroyed over 100 homes. The film aired on PBS. Bondelevitch won a Heartland Emmy as Associate Producer on the film. He was also nominated for Audio (as Sound Designer). The film was also nominated for an MPSE Golden Reel Award.

He also recently completed work on the the mini-series Mile High Jungle, a National Geographic series about the Wild Animal Sanctuary near Denver, and their efforts to rescue abused circus lions from Panama and Bolivia. He was also music editor for the the independent feature film The Six Wives of Henry Lefay (starring Tim Allen) and the Lifetime series State of Mind, starring Lily Taylor.

He won a Primetime Emmy in 2000 for Sound Editing on the TNT movie The Hunley. He has also won MPSE Golden Reel Awards for his work on the Showtime musical Ruby’s and the Imax documentary film Island of the Sharks. He has been nominated for Golden Reel Awards a record twenty-two times.

He is Past President of the Motion Picture Sound Editors and is currently Secretary of the Cinema Audio Society. He was also co-editor of the CAS Quarterly.

He was also an Assistant Professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he was faculty from 1993 - 2008.

He holds a B.S. in Art and Design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and he holds a separate B. Mus. from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He also holds an M.F.A. in film production from USC.

David is a member the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the American Federation of Musicians (Local 47), the Audio Engineering Society, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Film Independent, the International Documentary Association, and BMI (Broadcast Music, Incorporated) as a writer/publisher.

His complete bio, including his complete musical background, can be read here.