Lynn Harrell

A New Video Portfolio!

Lynn Harrell — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:07:09 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that the site recently underwent an upgrade and they tell me one of the new features is a brand new video portfolio. This means instead of scrolling through all of the videos on one looooong page, you can now browse through the entire lot or narrow down your search by type of video (solos, chamber, music, full orchestra, etc.). You can also leave comments to each individual video and I promise to do my best to respond to each one that comes in.

You can also view the exclusive videos of my Papal Concert performance of Kol Nidrei, which is only available here and not on YouTube.

Enjoy!

Visit the new video portfolio.

An Open Letter To The Los Angeles Unified School District

Lynn Harrell — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:55:23 +0000

I recently composed and sent the following letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District in response to the proposal that all art and music be eliminated from elementary education. Of course, if you’re here to begin with, you likely know why this is preposterous, regardless of budget demands. But I still felt I should publish my letter here as well and if you live in the LA area, please take a moment to contact your respective board member and encourage them to do the right thing.

Take Action: Keep Elementary Arts in LAUSD

As promised, here is a copy of my letter:

To The Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent and Board:

I recently learned about the news of the proposed funding cuts to the art and music programs in the LA District Elementary Schools and felt compelled to write this brief note.

As a professional musician and co-founder of HeartBeatsForChildren.org Foundation I have seen time and again the importance of the Arts in the personality development of children. The Arts are not entertainment nor are they some fringe luxury; they are essential for personal growth and wellbeing.

Arts are the protein that feeds imagination and creativity. Whoever sees a child without fantasy, dreams, imaginary games, etc. sees an emotionally malnourished and very unhappy child who runs a high risk of developing multiple social and personal problems.

Any parent knows children spend most of their day involved in healthy imagination oriented play and in turn, that play develops into creative critical thinking. Did nature and God make this attractive to children just because it’s fun?

No, no, no!

The Arts are necessary for growing minds and lifelong happiness. I implore those responsible for these decisions to keep art and music in the schools lest we risk dooming our children to lives of emotional despair.

Sincerely,
Lynn Harrell

WFMT Artist Of The Year

Lynn Harrell — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:49:50 +0000

What an honor it is to be named as one of the five finalists for WFMT’s 2011 artist of the year! You can listen to the segment which will include a special broadcast of a track from the upcoming HEARTbeats album today (Friday, December 30) starting at 4:00pm CT. The station asked me to write an introduction for the track so I thought it would be nice to include it here as well.

Our work with HEARTbeats Foundation, a non-profit organization that my wife, Helen Nightengale, and I set up for helping children around the world to better cope with the circumstances of their lives, is one of the most gratifying parts of my professional career that now is over 50 years in the running. It is particularly a joy that my relationship with WFMT in Chicago has been there for me for so many years as well; it was in 1966 that I first performed live for the station, and in a few weeks I will be going to Chicago to continue that tie with more music.

My friendship with great artists over the years has given me immense vital input to this human growth aspect of what music can and does mean: I have been changed in many ways to what our art is, and can mean to people. These friends’ excitement on joining us is truly amazing: The immeasurable talent of Christine Brewer, Randy Kerber’s remarkable arrangement of the great song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by Harold Arlen, and the great composer, John Williams, who took time to conduct this for us, was an amazing gift. By the way, when we were doing this recording we realized that we were in the same space, the same sound stage that was used in the late 30′s for Judy Garland’s recording of it for “The Wizard of Oz.” We all felt something very special indeed that afternoon: music can reach parts of our collective past that is, well, a religious experience.

I believe you can listen to the station online at their website, http://www.wfmt.com.

New HEARTbeats videos

Lynn Harrell — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:06:09 +0000

There’s nothing quite like working with good friends and when I have the chance to combine that with doing charitable work, it makes a good thing great! Several months ago, I had the pleasure of recording a very special arrangement by Randy Kerber of Somewhere Over the Rainbow that featured Christine Brewer and me. And if that weren’t enough, my good friend John Williams was gracious enough to conduct the orchestra and work with Randy on some last-minute fine tuning to the score. Fortunately, we had a film crew on hand to document the recording session and the video turned out great!

You can [fancy_link link="http://www.heartbeatsforchildren.org/" target="blank"]watch the video[/fancy_link]right from the HEARTbeats homepage, it’s the first slide so all you need to do is click it and the video will start. If you think everyone sounds great in this, just wait until you hear the final mix on the benefit album. Here’s a shot of all four of us in the booth during one of the breaks.

In addition to the session video, we also have a video documenting our time in Nepal from Last December working with the local children. That’s me in the background playing Bach!

Not one, but TWO terrific things happened today!

Lynn Harrell — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 21:14:36 +0000

My latest album, The Known Unknowns, went on sale today at Amazon and iTunes for its July 26, 2011 release. This has been a very special project for me and my wife, violinist Helen Nightengale, who is also the album’s producer. The album also features the Angeli Resemble, a spectacular group of colleagues and friends. I plan on writing much more about this in the near future and although you might not know it from the number of blog posts, I’ve actually been doing quite a bit of writing lately; in fact, I wrote all of The Known Unknown’s liner notes.

The Known Unknowns: Amazon

Even though one album release is terrific, I have another album being released today as well. This one features Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle symphony. This one is available to purchase or download now as a single track or entire album. I’m very pleased to see such a great initial response at the Amazon.com website!

Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1: Amazon

There’s an online catalog from Naxos that has all of the track listings and related info for both albums, which you can find here.