Author: bfc-admin

The first of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s new three-concert PRINCETON POPS series co-produced by the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, “An Evening with Sutton Foster,” took place on November 8 at the McCarter Theatre Center’s Matthews Theatre. Guest conductor John Devlin led the program with Foster, a Broadway vocalist and actor, who performed numbers including “Anything Goes,” “C’est Magnifique,” “Down with Love,” “I Get a Kick out of You,” “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” and “Singing in the Rain” with the orchestra. Devlin is a former Princeton Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor and current music director of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra in West Virginia. Remaining concerts in the series include “The Big Time” (January 31, 2020), a concert reading of playwright Douglas Carter Beane’s new musical comedy with composer Douglas J. Cohen; and “The Art of the Movie Score” (May 9, 2020) conducted by Music Director Rossen Milanov and featuring violinist Daniel Rowland in film music from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Vertigo, and La La Land.

Posted November 12, 2019

“The news that the godfather of classical music in Queensland is dead has plunged the local music world into mourning. John Curro, 86, died on Wednesday afternoon,” writes Phil Brown in Friday’s (11/8) Courier-Mail (Australia). “He founded Queensland Youth Orchestras (QYO) in 1966, an organization that led to music careers worldwide for artists such as composer and viola player Brett Dean, Diana Doherty, who is principal oboe with Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Warwick Adeney, who is concert master with Queensland Symphony Orchestra. He also mentored rising stars such as young soprano Xenia Puskarz Thomas, who started out playing violin with the QYO, has sung with the orchestras and is being touted as an opera star of the future. Curro, who was awarded both an MBE and an AM, was hugely respected and served as director of music and conductor of the Queensland Youth Symphony, the QYO’s leading orchestra, until his death…. Curro completed 13 international tours with the Queensland Youth Symphony and he received many honors in his lifetime [and] had a huge impact on Queensland families through his work with young musicians.… Curro is survived by his wife, Carmel, and their five children.”

Posted November 12, 2019

“ ‘Go to a river,’ begins the text score for Annea Lockwood’s ‘Water Meditations,’ from 1973, writes Kerry O’Brien in Friday’s (11/8) New York Times. “It’s not the typical instruction one expects from a musical score, but it is characteristic of Ms. Lockwood … a composer of audacious experimental works on the border of musical performance and conceptual art … Ms. Lockwood turned 80 in July, and she is being celebrated on Thursday with a Composer Portrait concert at the Miller Theater at Columbia University. Featuring a premiere by the piano-percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, the event is a tribute to Ms. Lockwood’s devotion to collaboration and her reverence for sound’s potential to move people, particularly in a time of environmental crisis…. [In] the mid-1960s, she began assembling a ‘River Archive,’ soliciting recordings from around the globe. She began corresponding with the like-minded composer Pauline Oliveros…. Her [2016] work ‘bayou-borne (for Pauline)’ [is] dedicated to Oliveros. The graphic score is a map, depicting six bayous that converge in Oliveros’s hometown, Houston. Weeks before the September 2017 premiere, Hurricane Harvey struck…. Her new piece for Yarn/Wire, ‘Into the Vanishing Point,’ originated as a reflection on the climate crisis.”

Posted November 12, 2019

“Canton Symphony Orchestra has received a grant from the PNC Foundation … to offer free orchestra tickets to families in Stark County,” writes Necole Sims in Sunday’s (11/10) Repository (Canton, OH). “The program, called CSO Free Pass, is in its second year. The free pass program allows adults with low to moderate income to attend orchestra concerts for free. Concert tickets for students under the age of 18 are always free. ‘Most young students can’t get to the Symphony without an accompanying adult, and those tickets have been too costly for many families. The Free Pass eliminates that problem,’ said Michelle Mullaly, president and CEO of the Canton Symphony Orchestra. ‘We are so grateful for the support from PNC through Free Pass for increasing accessibility to the orchestra and classical music to Stark County kids and families regardless of one’s ability to pay.’ … ‘PNC believes everyone should be able to enjoy these creative and enriching programs in our community,’ said Kevin Thompson, PNC regional president for Akron. ‘We’re proud to increase access to the Symphony Orchestra for Canton residents.’ Last season, 240 people participated in the program… Participants must attend a school or be a resident of Stark County.”

Posted November 12, 2019

“Just as actors and dancers are experts in communicating with their anatomy, orchestra conductors also extensively train in nonverbal communication, as their primary role is to beat time and use their bodies to direct emotional intensity and nuance during a performance,” writes Jeremy Reynolds in Sunday’s (11/10) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “When Manfred Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, sets his feet wide, furrows his brow and flings his arms out, this essentially boils down to ‘play louder.’ … His smoother, smaller movements generally imply softer melodies and phrases…. In Pittsburgh, Lauren Tan, 28 … a certified body language expert … reviewed footage of several conductors…. When Mr. Honeck began conducting, she zeroed in on moments when he leaned toward the musicians. ‘I tell businessmen … it’s a good way to indicate agreement and say, “Hey, I’m on your side.” ’ … Ms. Tan noted that [Leonard Bernstein] consistently nodded to his musicians, which … builds conscious and subconscious rapport…. Mr. Honeck has spent years training his hands to move in certain ways to cue musicians for specific kinds of sounds…. ‘I train with my hands not because of technical things but because I want to have a special sound,’ he said.”

Posted November 12, 2019

At the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural 2019 Women in Classical Music Symposium from November 6 to 9, “topics included ‘Changing the Script of Women in Classical Music,’ ‘Pathways for Change’ and the ‘Practical Next Steps,’ ” reads an unsigned Wednesday (11/7) Violin Channel article that includes an interview with Dallas Symphony President and CEO Kim Noltemy. “Q: Where did this idea come from to host a gathering—specifically for women currently working in the classical music industry? Noltemy: We are committing to elevating and supporting talented women as an integral part of our artistic and management vision…. We felt that we should offer artists, managers, students, administrators, conductors and composers a chance to connect and talk about important matters. Q: What are the major inequalities you feel are present today in the classical music industry? Noltemy: The podium is still very male dominated, especially in the role of music director…. Gender equity is lacking in many aspects of the management of orchestras. Q: What do you feel is required to keep this momentum progressing post the symposium? Noltemy: The Symposium will be an annual event. We plan to keep in touch with the attendees … and create a more formal network.”

Posted November 12, 2019

In photo: A panel discussion about employability and career development at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Women in Classical Music Symposium from November 6 to 9, 2019. From left to right: moderator Kim Noltemy, president and CEO, Dallas Symphony Orchestra; Mark Volpe, president and chief executive officer, Boston Symphony; Cathy Hernandez, executive director, Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra; Alecia Lawyer, founder and artistic director, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO); Katie Wyatt, executive director, El Sistema USA; Jennifer Barlament, executive director, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Sylvia Elzafon

The Santa Rosa Symphony Board of Directors has ratified a new five-year collective bargaining agreement with the Musicians Union Local 6 of the American Federation of Musicians, through June 30, 2024. The new contract calls for increases in base pay ranging from 2 to 3 percent annually for rehearsals and concerts, plus increases in minimum guaranteed number of services, pension, and other areas of musician compensation. “I deeply appreciated that our negotiations with the Union leadership were collaborative, professional and respectful, resulting in a five-year contract that will benefit both our musicians and the organization overall,” said President and CEO Alan Silow. Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong said, “Beginning my first full season here, I am delighted that we have a contract settled for another five years, allowing us to focus solely on creating great music that matters for our audiences.”

Posted November 11, 2019

“For years Esa-Pekka Salonen has been gingerly circumnavigating ‘The Ring,’ ” writes Mark Swed in Tuesday’s (11/5) Los Angeles Times. “He has programmed the occasional orchestral and vocal excerpts of Wagner’s four-opera colossus with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and elsewhere…. The L.A. Phil conductor laureate has joined the faculty of the Colburn School, and on Sunday afternoon at … Segerstrom Concert Hall, he led the Colburn Orchestra in an electrifying concert performance of the first act of Walküre. Before that, Salonen led a characterful reading of Mathis der Maler.… After warming up, Simon O’Neill [as Siegmund] … rang out splendidly. James Creswell … was a convincingly threatening Hunding…. Waltraud Meier, one of the great Wagner singers of our day … sang the last Sieglinde of her career. It is a role she has owned for more than a quarter century. Obviously, she can’t be Sieglinde forever, but firm vocal control isn’t everything…. She has a sense of what a phrase means, and what is behind the sentiments…. You can easily tell Colburn is a student orchestra by the players’ youth. You can’t tell so easily if you close your eyes. Salonen sought out, and got, myriad Wagnerian sound worlds.”

Posted November 11, 2019