Latest News

KRCB interview

Wed, 08 May 2013 23:16:27 GMT

In advance of my performances last week in Sonama County, CA, I was interviewed on KRCB Radio's Curtain Call, a weeky show presented by Charles Sepos--who, I was really happy to learn, had studied harpsichord with Eiji Hashimoto at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. How fortuitous!

Click here to listen to the interview: http://media.krcb.org/podcasts/curtain_call/Curtain_Call_20130503.mp3

(I start at about 15', following a strange juxtaposition with Young Frankenstein--the musical!)

Pictured on the cover of the 2013 Early Music America Directory of Members

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 01:30:00 GMT

Cienniwa chooses French works for Sunday recital

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:04:23 GMT

The New Bedford Standard-Times
March 07, 2013 12:00 AM

At 3 p.m. Sunday, Paul Cienniwa, a favorite local musician and choral conductor, will be the featured recitalist in the Music at St. Anthony's program.

Complimentary tea and refreshments will be served after the recital at a reception to meet the organist in the church hall. Freewill donations are collected during the event, and patrons are encouraged to "Adopt an Organ Part" to help the fundraising.

For the first time in the recital series, a limited number of seats in the organ loft will be offered for a $25 donation to the fund. Although there are four flights of stairs to the loft, the climb will be well worth it to be able to view a master at his craft.

Cienniwa plans a program specifically to use the special features of this organ. He plans to start with Liebermann's evocative and spooky "De Profundis," then incorporate French baroque (some of his all-time favorite periods in music), with works by Correte and Dandrieu, allowing him to explore this instrument's French accent. He will include the small chancel instrument — engaging it as the "echo" in Sweelink's "Fantasia," and conclude the program with a final French work, by the Alsatian Boellmann, the Toccata from a four-movement suite.

A resident of Fall River, Cienniwa leads an active life in Southeastern Massachusetts and the Boston/Providence regions as an organist, harpsichordist, and conductor. He recently rehearsed the New Bedford Symphony Chorus for its December 2012 concert, and accompanied in the symphony on harpsichord at St. Anthony's.

The March 10 recital is part of the fundraising series for the restoration of the now 100-year-old Casavant Pipe organ.

For more information, call the rectory at (508) 993-1691.

Assumption College recital in review

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:34:08 GMT

Harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa pays Assumption a visit
by Matt Doherty, Staff Writer
Le Provocateur
February 28, 2013

A once silent room quickly filled with applause as harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa approached the front of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit Community Room. He stood poised in a navy blazer and collared white shirt as he introduced the first piece he would play for the anticipated crowd. He then proceeded to sit down at the 20th century harpsichord, close his eyes, and let his fingers fill the room with the music of Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti’s “Sonata in C major.”

Cienniwa has a flourishing career as a soloist, recording artist and ensemble player. His recording with Grammy Award-winning uilleann piper Jerry O’Sullivan was called “drop dead gorgeous” and named one of the top ten Irish traditional albums of 2010 by The Irish Echo. He is also featured on a two-CD set of music by composer Larry Thomas Bell titled “In a Garden of Dreamers” (Albany Records). Cienniwa has also appeared on various radio stations across the country and leads an active musical life in southeastern Massachusetts.

He has been awarded Belgian American Educational Foundation and Fulbright grants and his musicological articles and reviews have appeared in American and European journals, including Early Music, Ad Parnassum and Early Music America. As an educator, he has taught at the Yale University School of Music, Salve Regina University and Mount Ida College. He continues to teach at UMass-Dartmouth and Framingham State University.

The Assumption College HumanArts Series held the concert on February 15. Cienniwa played three different pieces of classical music, capturing sounds that were both fast and slow with various harmonic changes that kept each listener intrigued.

“It’s an unusual sonata in Scarlatti’s works,” Cienniwa said before his first performance. “Scarlatti’s [works] tend to be one speed throughout the whole piece but this one starts out slow and moves along getting faster.”

He sat upright in his chair before the harpsichord and slowly let his fingers dance along the keyboard. As the tempo sped up and his hands moved quicker, he simply closed his eyes and played the complex melodies without breaking a sweat.

“That’s great stuff; I should’ve ended with it,” he laughed after finishing the fast paced Sonata.

Before playing J.S. Bach’s “Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C minor,” Cienniwa took a brief moment to explain the next bit of music.

“The next piece, the ‘Fugue,’ is probably the most familiar piece; it was sung by the Count on Sesame Street,” he laughed.

As he finished playing the rhythmic piece, he mentioned how great it is for people to hear this music live on a harpsichord.

“Especially this piece which is played so frequently by pianists,” he says. “I don’t want to say it is the instrument for which it was intended, but it’s something much more close in the harpsichord.”

Cienniwa is very fond of the final piece of the performance, “Suite no. 7 in G minor.” It contains six movements that all have such unique rhythms and sounds. Cienniwa explained how this 20-minute piece of music first captured his interest before sitting down again to play.

“I originally learned the Suite because I liked the last movement so much; the pasacaille,” he said. “It’s a really fun movement to play and it ends the entire Suite.”

Each movement has a distinct sound that differs from the rest. It begins with a series of chords and as Cienniwa progresses through the piece, it pleasantly surprised the listener from how different each movement sounds as it moves to the next. From the jumpy andante to the guitar-like sarabande, the audience is exposed to the wonderful variety that this piece has to offer.

As he got up and took his final bow, the crowd gave a loud round of applause. Although the concert was short, it was impactful.

Haydn's The Creation (New Bedford Symphony Orchestra/Providence Singers) in review

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:15:57 GMT

NBSO, Providence Singers give sublime performance
by Laurie Robertson-Lorant, contributing writer
The New Bedford Standard-Times
February 13, 2013

On Monday evening, as outside the auditorium the blizzard-blasted world of the past weekend was slowly melting away, inside the Zeiterion Theatre, the wonderful world of Haydn's "Creation" came to vibrant life in a marvelous performance by the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, the Providence Singers and soloists Matthew Anderson, Paul Guttry and Teresa Wakim, all under the inspired direction of Maestro David MacKenzie. The three soloists were outstanding, as were the Providence Singers, and the orchestra once again displayed its energy and superb musicianship, with special notice going to the horns and woodwinds, harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa and principal cellist Leo Eguchi for his ravishing solo.

The Choir of First Church in Boston in Concert

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:55:44 GMT

"Choir Steps Out"

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:55:00 GMT

Choir Steps Out
by Joyce Painter Rice for The Boston Musical Intelligencer

Heretofore relegated to singing only at Sunday morning services, the Choir of First Church in Boston, composed of twelve professional singers, presented its first full concert on Sunday afternoon under conductor Paul Cienniwa, now in his seventh year as music director. This was a celebratory event, underwritten by the church’s Collins Family Memorial Concert Fund.

Cienniwa introduced each work on the program, often humorously citing the choir’s past associations. In keeping with the festive nature of the afternoon, the program included each singer’s biography: there are composers, numerous opera and lieder singers, solo concert artists, choral conductors, oratorio society soloists and a pianist.

Sung a cappella, except for the last work, the program opened with the tour de force Three Songs for Chorus by Philip Glass. First Church Choir beautifully handled Glass’s minimalist, repetitive figures, which were prominent though not overwhelming in these songs. This was perhaps the finest ensemble singing of the concert. Glass’s three songs were commissioned by the Québec Festival in 1984, and they are his only a cappella writing for choir. The texts are poems by three different North American poets: Leonard Cohen’s “There Are Some Men”, Raymond Lévesque’s “Quand les Hommes Vivront d’Amour”, and Octavio Paz’s“Pierre de Soleil”.

Schubert’s setting of the 92nd Psalm, “Lied für den Sabbath” D. 952 for baritone solo and chorus followed, with choir member William Thorpe as baritone soloist in the cantor’s role. Understandably, the choir was not as secure with the Hebrew text as they were with the two French songs by Glass, and more Schubertian expressiveness, lingering and longing would have been desirable.

Continuing with a 1963 arrangement by Parker/Shaw of the African-American spiritual Sometimes I Feel (like a Moanin’ Dove), mezzo-soprano Christina English soloed in the pensive, emotional lead with tonal warmth and richness. There is a stylistic connection between this piece and the Glass Three Songs in how sections of the choir often create sound environments by repeating chords and words in the background.

Acclaimed composer and teacher of composition, Larry Thomas Bell was present for the concert premiere of his Emersonia, Op. 113, composed for the First Church choir to poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The Rhodora”, “Two Rivers”, “Give all to Love” and “Concord Hymn”. With straightforwardness, often word-painting the text (including simultaneous melisma in all parts), the effective use of “lead and follow” between sections of the choir and a chordal style that sometimes bears similarities to Anglican chant, these pieces deserve to become standards in the choral repertoire.

Another well-known Boston composer, Karl Henning (who also sang in the concert), was represented with the concert premiere of his Love is the Spirit of this Church, Op. 85, No. 3. Henning used a contrapuntal, Renaissance motet style for this familiar text recited weekly in many Unitarian-Universalist churches. The style became strikingly but gently homophonic on the words “together in peace” and the conclusion was an extended, contrapuntal “Amen”.

Palestrina’s Isti sunt detoured us to the Italian Renaissance and conveyed a quiet timelessness that was a joy to hear.

Paul Cienniwa himself composed the next piece, Late October, to a text by Maya Angelou, and it too was a concert premiere, featuring chant-like chords, sometimes in speech rhythm, and often reveling in a rich texture which seemed to have expanded harmony to six or eight parts.

Leaves of Grass, Op. 100, by Paul Creston (1906-1985), with words from Walt Whitman, concluded the program. Composed in 1970, Leaves of Grass paired well with Bell’s new work, Emersonia. Indeed, Emerson had a high regard for Whitman, who was sixteen years his junior, and as transcendentalists, both had connections with Boston Unitarianism; furthermore, Emerson’s father was minister of First Church from 1799-1811. In the performance, Bob Winkley played the often-elaborate piano accompaniment in this five-section work. James Liu was the fine baritone soloist in the second movement, extolling the magnificent wonders of nature and creation; and Larry Thomas Bell was the reader in the third, a lament about war with chorus in the background. The fourth movement was a sweet ode to the Earth and the fifth, a jubilant song of personal strength and exultation.

Your reviewer wishes to muse a bit about First Church and acoustic aspects of this concert. Paul Randolph, who also was architect for the Jewett Art Center of Wellesley College and the Government Service Center in Boston, designed the current structure, which replaces the 1867 Ware and Van Brundt church that burned in 1968, leaving only the tower and East facade. I first attended organ recitals at First Church when it was new, and it remains a compelling, challenging structure to me personally. Once inside, having decided with no little uncertainty which door to enter, one next questions how to find the sanctuary. There is humor, quest and reward here—perhaps mirroring life. Upon entering the sanctuary one sees a panoply of walls, balconies and ceilings at jaunty angles and elevations, giving much to contemplate.

In this a cappella concert, it would have been an additional treat had the choir sung from some of these different locations. From whatever position, the choir’s sound would seemingly have been clearer had they all faced the same direction, rather than standing in a half circle.

Another musing after Sunday’s concert is that this close-knit, spirited choir could refine its forte sound to be as beautiful as its piano sound, exercising care not to “over” sing, and giving special attention to the tone as the group crescendos. Since First Church uses recording and video media extensively, this choir has a marvelous opportunity to explore together their sound in this landmark building.

The audience expressed its sincere appreciation for this excellent “first” concert and your reviewer repeats the thank you to First Church members, their choir and Paul Cienniwa. May this concert become an annual event!

"Harpsichord was the electric guitar of the 17th century"

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 23:38:10 GMT

Harpsichord was the electric guitar of the 17th century
By TERESA SANTOSKI Staff Writer, Encore Buzz in The Nashua Telegraph

Teenage rebellion never really goes away – it just manifests itself differently as we grow older.

Simply ask Paul Cienniwa, who played thrash guitar with a punk band during his teen years and has since settled down with a perhaps even more unconventional instrument: the harpsichord.

Cienniwa will give a free concert at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Amherst Town Library at 14 Main St.

For more information, visit www.amherst.lib.nh.us or call 673-2288. To hear Cienniwa’s music, visit www.paulcienniwa.com.

“I have a consistent rebellious streak,” said Cienniwa, a resident of Fall River, Mass. “If I were really traditional, I’d be playing the piano.”

Classical music and punk are similar, he explained, in that both are niches within the music world. Historically considered mainstream, classical music has become even more of a niche in recent years.

“It’s harder to find today, radio and live performances of classical music, than it is to find anything else,” Cienniwa said.

And the harpsichord?

“The harpsichord is a niche within that niche,” he said, describing the instrument as being on the fringes of the classical music scene.

Although Cienniwa started piano lessons when he was 6, it wasn’t until his high school years, when he was preparing to go to college to study music, that he began to take a more active interest in classical music.

At that time, Cienniwa would often blast his favorite rock ’n’ roll and punk songs while he was driving. It wasn’t long before his studies brought an even more eclectic playlist to his car’s sound system.

“To be even more rebellious, why not blast Wagner?” he said.

His rebellion took a different turn when, two years into his college piano program, he laid hands on a harpsichord for the first time.

“I just loved the sound and the feel of the instrument,” Cienniwa said, adding that in terms of the quality of its sound, the harpsichord has some similarity to the electric guitar.

The discovery of the harpsichord led to a difficult period, he recalled. He was experiencing a measure of success with the piano and didn’t want to fully devote himself to the harpsichord.

“If you really want to do it well, it’s hard to do both at the same time,” he said.

A decision had to be made, and Cienniwa chose to take the road less traveled.

“That was the break with the piano, and I’ve never looked back,” he said.

Cienniwa does still play the piano from time to time, as well as the pipe organ. Both instruments are sometimes necessary in his roles as the music director of First Church in Boston and chorus master for the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, among numerous other musical activities.

The harpsichord is his main instrument, however.

The program for his library concert will feature “the three greatest composers born in 1685,” Cienniwa said – Bach, Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, who is best known for his 555 keyboard sonatas.

Although the composers are all from the same era, “There’s a whole lot of variety in the program,” Cienniwa said. “The only similarity is that they’re all being played on the same instrument.”

Cienniwa’s concerts often include him taking the harpsichord apart and explaining the inner workings of the instrument at the request of the audience.

“Most people don’t really know how they work,” he said. “Unlike a piano, the strings are plucked.”

Cienniwa hopes people will attend the concert even if they’re unsure as to whether they like the harpsichord.

Because it’s an unfamiliar instrument, he said, people will hear the harpsichord once and assume that’s how it’s supposed to sound. If they find the sound unappealing, they might not take into account that they may have heard a subpar performance or a poor-quality harpsichord.

“To diminish it based on one bad experience, or no experience at all, would be unfortunate,” Cienniwa said. “It’s so rare today that people can hear this music live.”

His inner rebel once again reared its head as he joked, “Stop being so conservative and come have a good time.”

"Harpsichord Music for a Thin Place" featured in Yale Alumni Magazine

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 23:20:00 GMT

Yale Alumni Magazine, Vol LXXVI, No 3, Jan/Feb 2013 "Harpsichordist Cienniwa defines a “thin place” as the “threshold between the ordinary and the spiritual.” The delicate, plucked tones of this instrument, Cienniwa’s sure but understated execution of works by Bach, Rameau, Couperin, and Bell, and the recording’s venue—the St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Massachusetts—all combine to transport the listener to that meditative and soothing locale. Listen to it by the fireside on a dark winter’s night."

"Harpsichord Music for a Thin Place" reviewed in Early Music America

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 03:05:00 GMT

Early Music America, Vol. 18, No. 4, Winter 2012
by Lance Hulme

A "thin place" is an ancient Celtic spiritual concept currently enjoying revival within Catholic and Protestant Christianity. Thin places are where the dividing line between the earthly and the divine seems to diminish, allowing for healing presence. Music has always been a means of spiritual communion, and, with such practices as the Taizé liturgy in France, is also receiving renewed emphasis as a thin place in the contemplative life.

Yale-trained harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa presents slower, meditative works from a variety of composers as his personal thin place. I strongly suspect that the performance of these works is for him a form of spiritual meditation and that Cienniwa is giving us a glimpse into a very personal space. In our present culture, coarsened by irony and incessant competition, I find this rather gutsy.

His choice of works spans the Renaissance to the late Baroque, and includes selections from Byrd, Sweelinck, Froberger, Couperin (François and Louis), Rameau, Bach, and others. The one outlier is a new Saraband by Larry Thomas Bell (b. 1952), whose use of hanging dissonances and ninth-chords creates a poignant frisson in among the older masters. The choices are eclectic and personal without becoming a grab-bag, and a steady arc of rhapsodic contemplation connects each work. Cienniwa displays a fine clarity of line and phrasing, and he shapes each work well. The harpsichord is somewhat closely recorded; I agree with his suggestion to listen to the recording at a rather low volume.

NBSO Messiah in review

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 03:06:02 GMT

published in the Standard-Times (New Bedford)

NBSO, singers launch season on wave of glorious music
by Laurie Robertson-Lorant, contributing writer

On Sunday, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra brought the Thanksgiving weekend to a glorious close with a performance of George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" (Part I and the "Hallelujah Chorus") and Franz Schubert's less well-known "Magnificat in C," a spirited celebration of the Annunciation written in 1815.

Both pieces featured singers from no less than six local choruses — Mastersingers by the Sea, Sine Nomine Choral Ensemble, The Greater New Bedford Choral Society, The Greater Tiverton Community Chorus, The Sippican Choral Society and The South Coast Community Chorale — and four brilliant young soloists: soprano Kristen Watson, alto Deborah Rentz-Moore, tenor Matthew Anderson and bass Andrew Garland, all of whom sang even the most demanding coloratura runs and trills beautifully.

One of the delights of solo singing is the ease with which a soloist can produce subtle variations of dynamics as well as variations of vocal tone and phrasing. Anderson delivered the opening recitative, "Comfort Ye" and the aria "Every valley shall be exalted" with exquisitely modulated vocal tones and perfect clarity of diction, and when he reached the aria's highest notes, he sounded like the angel Gabriel himself. I only wish Handel had written more arias for this outstanding tenor soloist.

The other three soloists sang their much larger allotment of recitatives and arias very beautifully, with alto Rentz-Moore executing the daring slide and ethereal trills demanded by the first aria very gracefully and soprano Watson reaching celestial heights with cloudlike softness and no shrillness. Bass Garland's warm, resonant voice effortlessly brought out the drama inherent in the aria "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." Although at times it was difficult to understand all of the words sung by these three soloists, the words of soprano Watson's recitative "There were shepherds abiding in the field" were perfectly clear, as were the words of alto Rentz-Moore's "Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened" and the alto portion of the aria "He shall feed his flock." The soprano portion of the same aria featured lovely bell-like trills.

Concertmaster Jesse Holstein played the trills Handel wrote for "Glory to God" with spirited sweetness, and the chorus made Handel's opera-inspired arias sound loving and reverent, not portentous. Flawless throughout the performance, the chorus triumphed in "For Unto Us A Child is Born," which was by far the most dramatic and exuberant aria in the entire oratorio. When they sang the word "Wonderful!" it sparkled, and when they sang "And the government shall be upon his shoulders" with proper attention to the dotted rhythm that made the ascending notes seem to be climbing a steep cliff, I couldn't help thinking how the Sisyphean nature of earthly governments (think "fiscal cliff") contrasts with the promised heavenly governance Handel celebrates in this hymn to the Christ Child.

Following a tradition said to date back to the first performance of the oratorio in London, when King George II suddenly rose to his feet as the opening bars of the "Hallelujah Chorus" were played, the audience in New Bedford's gorgeous St. Anthony's "cathedral" rose and remained standing for a sing-along performance of the familiar chorus. Dr. MacKenzie conducted facing the audience and clearly enjoying our enthusiasm for the piece. Although I couldn't tell how many other audience members were singing in addition to my friend and myself, I am sure Sunday's concertgoers were delighted and moved by the performance and very appreciative of St. Anthony's Church, which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its dedication this week.

Fortunately, we don't need to wait a year to be thankful for the talent and hard work of the orchestra and chorus and the talent, hard work and inspired leadership of Music Director MacKenzie and Chorus Master Paul Cienniwa, who is also a master harpsichordist. Overall, this was a performance that made the almost too-familiar "Messiah" sound fresh and new, thanks to the superb musicianship of the conductor, the instrumentalists and the singers.

Featured on WGBH's Baroque in Boston

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 21:30:00 GMT

I just learned that my new CD, "Harpsichord Music for a Thin Place," will be featured on the Sunday, November 18 edition of Baroque in Boston, airing from 7-11am. Click here for the Classical New England page, with information on channels and streaming. Click here for more information on the program. And speaking of radio, I'll also be live on WERS 88.9 at 11am, as I am every Sunday with the weekly service and choir of First Church in Boston.

Cienniwa Named Chorus Master

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:36:22 GMT

News from the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra

Paul Cienniwa has been named NBSO Chorus Master for the 2012-13 season. He will be working extensively with local choral groups in preparation for the NBSO's upcoming "Handel's Messiah" concert which will be performed at St. Anthony's Church on November 25 at 3:00pm. In addition to his Chorus Master duties, Cienniwa recently performed to rave reviews as harpsichord soloist on Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 at the NBSO's "A Concert of Concertos" at Wickenden Chapel.

This year, the NBSO's 4th annual performance of the Christmas portion of Handel's Messiah will also feature Schubert's majestic Magnificat. The NBSO Chorus is made up of over 125 members from area choirs, including Mastersingers by the Sea (David MacKenzie, director), Sine Nomine choral ensemble (Paul Cienniwa, director), the Greater New Bedford Choral Society (Gerald Dyck, director), the Greater Tiverton Community Chorus (Beth Armstrong, director), the South Coast Community Chorus (Frank Wilhelm, director), the Sippican Choral Society (Brian Roderick, director), and the Spirit of St. Anthony Choir (David Touchette, director).

A resident of Fall River, Massachusetts, Cienniwa leads an active musical life in southeastern Massachusetts and the Boston/Providence regions as a conductor and soloist. He is director of Sine Nomine choral ensemble and choral director at Framingham State University. As organist and conductor, he is music director at First Church in Boston, where he leads the fully professional First Church Choir and can be heard weekly on WERS (88.9 FM) Boston. As a harpsichordist, Cienniwa has a burgeoning career as a soloist, recording artist, and ensemble player. He performs extensively and has been cited by the Huffington Post for his "inner sense of creative flow, fueled by an abundance of musical imagination and desire."

Cienniwa started his undergraduate studies as a pianist in the studio of Michael Ruiz at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago and completed his bachelor's degree at DePaul University. In 2003, he was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University. He been awarded Belgian American Educational Foundation and Fulbright grants, and his musicological articles and reviews have appeared in American and European journals, including Early Music, Ad Parnassum and Early Music America. He has taught at the Yale University School of Music, Salve Regina University, and Mount Ida College. He continues to teach at UMass-Dartmouth and Framingham State University.

Concert preview of Sine Nomine choral ensemble's "Saint Hildegard" in the Standard-Times

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 18:20:00 GMT

published in the Standard-Times (New Bedford, MA)

Sine Nomine concerts will honor St. Hildegard
by Keith Powers, contributing writer

She was a composer. An author. An herbalist. A lexicographer. Something of a community organizer. A mystic, and a visionary. And now she's a saint.

Hildegard von Bingen lived a thousand years ago, but thanks to dozens of recordings from groups like Kronos Quartet, Sequentia and Anonymous 4, coupled with multiple new-age interpretations of her simple but provocative vocal lines, this Renaissance woman — who actually lived about eight centuries before the Renaissance — is a musical superstar. And with the October decree from Pope Benedict XVI making it official, she is now a saint.

The Fall River-based choral group Sine Nomine, led by Paul Cienniwa, will celebrate Hildegard's sainthood in the most appropriate fashion next weekend with a program that includes her own compositions, music throughout the years that was inspired by her music, and contemporary compositions and improvisations.

"I knew right away I didn't want to do just Hildegard's music," says Cienniwa, talking about preparing the concert celebration. "It's extremely hard to perform by a soloist or small ensemble, since the music is monophonic (a single vocal line sung in unison) and without accompaniment.

"So we came up with the idea of using some of her music, but also some of the music from around her, and music inspired by her."

Besides Saint Hildegard's compositions, the program includes alto sax improvisations in her style by Marcus Monteiro, a new work, "O virtus Sapientiae," by Sine Nomine choir member Jennifer Charleson (as well as Charleson's arrangement of a work with the same name by Hildegard, sung by soprano Eva Toma), and medieval works by Willaert and Gabrieli.

"Hildegard was a medieval person but a Renaissance woman," Cienniwa says. "She started her own monastery. She wrote several mystical books, invented her own alphabet, and created a kind of herbology as well. More importantly to us, she was a female composer who was recognized as a composer. Even much later on, you had Clara Schumann, who was a concert pianist and great composer, but she had to publish her music under her husband's name. Hildegard was able to create her music freely because of the love of education in that female monastic community."

Hildegard's "resurrection" as a composer of note after a thousand years had mainly to do with two things: the advent of feminist scholarship, and the burgeoning popularity of chant and medieval music in general.

"Her music was copied down and carried on, so it wasn't lost," Cienniwa says. "Because of female led musicology, more and more topics have been reached out to and studied. But it's not just about musicology; her music has a general mystical and very spiritual aura to it, and you can get lost in it. And even though she wrote in the chant style, polyphony was developing, and that's why I included some later works that were influenced by her.

"And the notion of sainthood — well, the labyrinthine ways of the Vatican are impossible to figure out," he says. "It appears that there were four other times in history when they tried to make her a saint, and to make it even more confusing she was actually called a saint back in the 16th century. Now it's official. We don't care that much about that, especially for someone who was so important in the musical world. But now we can pay homage to Saint Hildegard."

Click here for more information and tickets.

Brandenburg 5 with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra in review

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 19:45:00 GMT

published in the Standard-Times (New Bedford)

NBSO Offers Sparkling Concertos
by Keith Powers, contributing writer

In a cleverly programmed concert with historical underpinnings, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra offered a series of concertos Saturday evening in Wickenden Chapel at Tabor Academy in Marion.

Maestro David MacKenzie included music of J.S. Bach, Boccherini, Corelli and Stravinsky, each with a unique relationship to the concerto form. The works alternately pitted individual soloists, duos and small sections against the larger ensemble, culminating in Stravinsky's "Pulcinella Suite," a more modern work drawn out of the composer's love for Baroque forms.

Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 5" is a hybrid, at once using the harpsichord as a continuo instrument — holding down the basic rhythm for the rest of the group — but then letting it emerge spectacularly as a soloist. Paul Cienniwa sat at the double manual harpsichord, elaborating the extensive solo cadenza in the first movement with graceful phrasing.

He was not the only soloist: the Fifth also features individual excursions for violin (concertmaster Jesse Holstein) and flute (Tim Macri). That duo played with insight as well, especially in an unaccompanied section that opens the second movement. Their playing was precise, alert to each other's phrases, all carefully articulated; it was troubled somewhat by dead air between those phrases, and a tempo that might have been charged more vigorously.

The most traditional concerto on the program showcased the talents of cellist Jonah Ellsworth. A first year student at the prestigious Curtis School of Music, the 18-year-old already has garnered several competition awards. He played Boccherini's "Concerto No. 9 in B-flat," a work of considerable difficulty both in its original version and in the composite created by German cellist Friedrich Grutzmacher in the late 19th century, which Ellsworth performed. The work makes technical demands in its scope of attack — it covers nearly the entire range and all the fingering positions of the instrument — as well as in its two extensive cadenzas, in the first movement "Allegro moderato" and in the concluding "Rondo."

Ellsworth has the gift: his playing was decisive and attentive to his stage-mates, and, especially in the second cadenza, with its insistent triplet figure and multiple double stops, he showed sophisticated technique. He may wish for a few pitches back, but the overall reading was alert and well conceived.

Maestro MacKenzie was sharp to mold the attack, unifying soloist and ensemble, especially in alternating phrases. After intermission, Corelli's "Concerto grosso in D, Op. 6, No. 4," taken from the well known set of twelve in that opus, showed off the earliest version of the form. The concerto grosso pits a small ensemble of soloists (in this case, duo violins, cello and harpsichord) against the ensemble. Corelli was an early innovator for the violin, and even though the fingerings in this concerto are simple, the melodies are infectious.

The final movement, with a tremolo figure reminiscent of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," had a particularly driving energy. There were two Stravinskys, both geniuses. The first: the young composer steeped in Russian folklore, who created new trends with works like "Firebird" and "Rite of Spring."

The second, on display here, explored his love for Baroque forms, creating equally wonderful works like the ballet "Pulcinella." From the score of that ballet Stravinsky derived several orchestral works, including his "Pulcinella Suite," eight movements of great orchestral complexity. Stravinsky did not deconstruct the early forms that he used: his movements are all affectionately genuine, the early forms intact, but with invigorated orchestration and harmonies freshened for the modern ear.

Everyone onstage gets thoroughly involved, and as such the work presented the most difficulties and the most rewards. Solo sections abound: Holstein figured boldly in many, as did Macri, trombonist Zachary Guiles, and most distinctly oboist Laura Shamu, whose "Serenata" duet with Holstein was exquisite. Instead of building in intensity, it mellows to a muted, breathtaking climax. There were multiple soft entrances and muddied passages, but the overall reading was energized.

The sound in the Chapel, which was generally unforgiving for soloists playing against the orchestra, seemed more generous to the constant variety that the suite offered.

"Harpsichord Music for a Thin Place" gets fantastic review in UHF Magazine!

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:00:00 GMT

Harpsichord Music For a Thin Place
Paul Cienniwa
Balaena WCS 059
reviewed by Gerard Rejskind, Fall 2012
http://www.uhfmag.com/Issue92/UHF92.pdf (pp. 70-71)

There’s no mystery why the harpsichord fell out of favor in the late 18th Century and was replaced by the piano. The harpsichord produces sound by strumming its strings, rather like a guitar, and it lacked the loudness to compete with the ever larger orchestras in the new and bigger concert halls. It had another disadvantage too. Unlike the organ, whose repertoire it was expected to play, the harpsichord plays each note at the same volume, narrowing its range of emotional expression. Though Bach played and wrote for the harpsichord (or “the keyboard,” which could mean organ or harpsichord), the great pianist Glenn Gould argued that he would have preferred the piano had he had access to it.

And yet there is something special about the sound of the harpsichord, even to our ears so jaded by the infinite variety of electronic instruments. Unlike the piano, the harpsichord produces notes with a discreet fundamental tone, which is however rich in harmonics. It cannot be confused with any other instrument. That very richness, however, make it challenging to record, and to reproduce. Pretty much any reproduction system has difficulty with higher frequencies, and that goes double for digital. Few instruments other than the modern flute have such harmonics, and they’re a challenge. The result is that many harpsichord recordings are difficult to listen to for long, because they trigger major listener fatigue.

This recording is a major exception.

To capture at once the delicacy and the richness of the instrument, engineer Walter Klimasewski used a single pair of Schoeps CMC 64 microphones, with neither equalization nor compression. Avoidingcompression and volume limiting usually means leaving plenty of headroom, but in fact there is a lot of volume on this CD. All the bits are used, yet there is no trace of overload.

Why the odd title? Paul Cienniwa says that the “thin place” is the threshold between the ordinary and the spiritual. “It is my desire,” he says, “to bring my audience to a thin place through the beautiful stately elegance of the harpsichord’s most introspective repertoire.”

The pieces he has chosen are mostly French (the Couperins, both Louis and François) Rameau, and Forqueray, as well as Sweelinck, Byrd and Bach. I’ve heard some of this music sound rather deadly, especially that of Louis Couperin. Cienniwa gives it life, not by accelerating the tempo, but because he has a feel for its innate beauty. No listener fatigue here. Not many music lovers, even lovers of the Baroque and the Renaissance, have large collections of music for solo harpsichord, but this fine recording belongs in the collection of those who just love music.

Another concert preview on YouTube

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:49:10 GMT

The New Bedford Symphony hosts a regular series of concert previews titled "Classical Coffee." This is the second one in a series promoting this weekend's Brandenburg V performances (among other things). http://youtu.be/sduyPowNepw

Concert preview on YouTube

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The New Bedford Symphony hosts a regular series of concert previews titled "Classical Coffee." This is the first one in a series promoting this weekend's Brandenburg V performances (among other things).

Paul Cienniwa performs J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in c minor, BWV 847 (WTC I)

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 02:50:00 GMT

click here

First Church in Boston's Early Music Thursdays featured in the Boston Musical Intelligencer

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 17:10:00 GMT

The concert series I direct is featured in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. Click here to read.