Author: bfc-admin

“Italy had the Renaissance. Cleveland had the four years from 1915 to 1918,” writes Zachary Lewis in Sunday’s (1/8) Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH). “During that historic period, four of Cleveland’s greatest cultural treasures came into being … the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Metroparks, the Cleveland Orchestra, and what would become Karamu House,” a center for African American artists. “A major milestone lies just ahead for the Cleveland Orchestra. Founded in 1918 by Adella Prentiss Hughes, the ensemble is rapidly nearing its centennial…. The group with music director Franz Welser-Möst looks forward while continuing to benefit from a legacy of great conductors and guests and a treasury of recordings, world premieres, and other honors…. Nikolai Sokoloff got the group started, handing off to Artur Rodzinski in 1933.… The group moved in 1931 from Gray’s Armory and Masonic Auditorium … to Severance Hall, its current home, a lavish and acoustically ideal gift.… Welser-Möst has presided over dramatic change. In recent years, the orchestra has set up shop in Miami, forged ties in Europe, cultivated local residencies, and overhauled its audience at home. Along with its peers from the early 20th century, the Cleveland Orchestra remains a steady source of civic pride.”

Posted January 10, 2017

Pictured: The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst at home in Severance Hall

Longtime artist manager Mary Lynn Fixler died on December 17 in Connecticut. She was 85. Her death was reported by Stuart Wolferman, a longtime colleague at Herbert Barrett Management. Fixler worked in classical music management for her entire career, first for Columbia Artists Management, Inc. with Arthur Judson and Ruth O’Neill, and then with William Judd. When Judd left CAMI and formed his own management in 1969, she became his main sales representative. She joined Herbert Barrett Management in 1987 and retired June 2016. Born in New Brunswick, N.J. in October 1931, she graduated from Immaculata College in Washington, D.C. before serving in the U.S. Air Force. Among the artists she worked with were Rudolf Serkin, Earl Wild, André Watts, the Guarneri String Quartet, John Aler, Yevgeny Sudbin, Vadim Gluzman, Alessio Bax, and Marietta Simpson. She is survived by her two siblings, Nancy Fixler Houseworth and Herbert B. Fixler, six nieces and nephews, and nine grandnieces and grandnephews. A memorial gathering for family and close friends will be held this summer in Beach Haven, N.J.

Posted January 9, 2017

“Every Charlotte Symphony Orchestra concert uptown involves a series of decisions,” writes Lawrence Toppman in Saturday’s (1/7) Charlotte Observer (N.C.). “Do I want to spend the dough for a ticket or two? … Do I want to test my ears and patience with works I don’t know? Variables increase by one this week: Do I brave Snowmageddon? … The best reason to stir after the storm Saturday could be ‘Evolution,’ the new percussion concerto by Winthrop University’s Leonard Mark Lewis…. The world premiere … glittered and percolated in the hands of Leonardo Soto, the CSO’s timpanist. Lewis isn’t afraid to combine ideas that don’t commonly complement each other. Strings lay down a warm melody, while the soloist plays propulsively on the marimba or dreamily on the xylophone.… Jazzy brass drive the beginning of the last section, and the soloist wails on a drum kit.… When the music swings, he swings.… During the brief, lovely Meditation, strings and harp play contemplatively. Soto picks up crotales (tiny tuned cymbals) and rubs them with a violin bow, producing a soft, keening sound. He does this while walking across the stage.… He seems to send vibrations up like a quiet message to the cosmos.”

Posted January 9, 2017

“For over four decades, classic composer and jazz trumpeter Hannibal Lokumbe has reflected on the African-American experience through music and words,” writes Bobbi Booker in Friday’s (1/6) Philadelphia Tribune. Following the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performances of his One Land, One River, One People in 2014 and 2015, “Lokumbe teams with the Philadelphia Orchestra again as one of only five composers and orchestra pairs selected through a peer review panel process to participate in Music Alive, a national three-year composer-orchestra residency program of the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA.… Lokumbe’s work has been commissioned and performed by symphonies and orchestras across the country, including the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.… The composer’s latest project, titled ‘Healing Tones,’ is a community-commission that will engage Philadelphians in writing a ‘hymn for the city.’ The hymn will focus on healing troubled communities and will include inmates of the Philadelphia Detention Center, guests of Broad Street Ministry, and the youth of Philadelphia. These groups represent collaborators in the Orchestra’s HEAR (Health, Education, Access and Research) initiative…. The world premiere of this new oratorio, ‘Healing Tones,’ will be part of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2018-19 concert season.”

Posted January 9, 2017

“The Florida Orchestra will take on an expanded presence throughout Florida, thanks to new funding that will send musicians to cities around the state,” writes Andrew Meacham in Friday’s (1/6) Tampa Bay Times. “An ambitious state residency program [is] funded by more than $700,000 in grant money from the state of Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. The program starts today with a Masterworks concert in Daytona Beach. Other concerts through March take the orchestra to schools and community orchestras in Volusia, Highlands and Alachua counties…. The orchestra got an additional boost via renovation grants, $1 million from the state and another $800,000 from the city of St. Petersburg, to rehab the Mahaffey Theater’s acoustic shell. Work on the shell … will begin in May. [Orchestra President and CEO Michael] Pastreich also announced a new hire by the orchestra. Violinist Kristin Baird will travel among Pinellas County schools, working with music directors and teachers … [as] a professional classical musician doubling as a public schools instructor.… Beginning January 22, the orchestra is adding a Sunday series of pay-what-you-can chamber concerts at the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum.”

Posted January 9, 2017

“A recently retired Johnstown attorney has been selected as the new executive director of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra,” reports Jocelyn Brumbaugh in Sunday’s (1/8) Tribune-Democrat (Johnstown, PA). “The orchestra’s board of trustees announced that Mike Walther will join Maestro James Blachly, who was recently named music director of the orchestra, to lead the group that is now halfway through its 87th performance season. John Coyle, president of the orchestra’s board of trustees, called Walther ‘exactly the kind of dynamic leader we had been hoping to find. His creative energy, business acumen and financial management experience will be a perfect complement to the artistic vision of our new music director, Maestro James Blachly,’ Coyle said in a press release. Walther served as the director of the Johnstown-based National Drug Intelligence Center from 2007 until its closure in 2012. Since his retirement from the Department of Justice, Walther has operated a legal practice with offices in Johnstown and New Orleans, Louisiana. He’s also a recently-retired United States Army Reserve military judge.… The Johnstown Symphony Orchestra has provided live performances featuring local, regional and international artists since 2009.”

Posted January 9, 2017

“If anything is familiar to 82-year-old Liz Popovich, it’s her polished wood violin,” writes Chris Jones in Friday’s (1/6) Williamsburg Yorktown Daily (Virginia). “When Popovich glides the bow across the strings, her face lights up…. She plays entirely from memory. … Popovich is one of an estimated 5.4 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease…. Popovich … struggles at times to recognize her daughter [Marcia Munn] who she sees regularly…. In 2015, Munn met Carolyn Keurajian, executive director of the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra…. Munn told Keurajian that she could no longer take her mother to the evening concerts [because of] confusion, agitation and disorientation…. Keurajian invited Munn and Popovich to attend the orchestra’s rehearsals…. Munn noticed that after … music rehearsals that Popovich could hold conversations, talk about the music she just heard, and discuss the instruments and performers.” Munn said the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra rehearsals give her mother “the sense of who she once was and what she was able to do. It makes her feel special.” Dr. Kemal Chemali, a neurologist, says, “Music is one of the last things to go in Alzheimer’s…. You can remember a song and sing it without making a single mistake.”

Posted January 9, 2017

“The line forms at twilight outside of an empty San Francisco warehouse. Tickets are scanned as guests walk through a dimly lit passageway leading to a bar. But the 500 or so people are not waiting for a rock concert,” reports Jamie Wax on Saturday (1/7) at CBS News. “They’re in for a very different kind of experience: SoundBox—an annual 10-concert series that runs from December through April at the San Francisco Symphony…. The program is divided into three sections of about 25 minutes each, with two 20-minute intermissions. Each act features a piece of music spanning centuries of compositions. It’s aided by a multimedia light display and the Meyer Sound Constellation system …” Says San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, “It’s been very surprising for us that the attention of the audience in this situation, in fact, has been more focused, more quiet, more attentive than many of the ‘regular’ subscription concerts.” Also covered in the report are performance formats of the Miller Theatre at Columbia University’s Pop-Up concert series and the International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as the influence of Amazon’s TV series Mozart in the Jungle, which focuses on a professional orchestra.

Posted January 9, 2017

Pictured: The San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas in a SoundBox performance. Photo by Stefan Cohen

The American Composers Orchestra has announced a new co-commission, Symphonic B A C H Variations for Piano and Orchestra, a piano concerto by conductor/composer José Serebrier, together with the Swedish record label BIS. Yevgeny Sudbin will serve as soloist for a recording of the work, with further details—including the orchestra and a live performance date—to be announced later. BIS previously commissioned José Serebrier’s Flute Concerto with Tango, which was recorded with soloist Sharon Bezaly and the Australian Chamber Orchestra; American Composers Orchestra gave the U.S. premiere of that work in 2012. Serebrier’s previous compositions include three symphonies and concertos for violin, double bass, and harp. Founded in 1977, the New York-based American Composers Orchestra supports the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers.

Posted January 6, 2017