Author: Ginger Dolden

The Asheville Symphony and vocalist Melinda Rodriguez will perform jazz and American Songbook standards on April 26 at the Orange Peel, a performance venue in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. The concert is part of the orchestra’s new ALT ASO flexible chamber orchestra series at locations throughout Asheville. Christopher Lees will serve as guest conductor of the concert. “Cheek to Cheek,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” and “My Favorite Things” are among songs on the program. The next performance in the ALT ASO series will be June 21 at the Asheville Art Museum, with Music Director Darko Butorac conducting a program featuring music complementing the museum’s American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection exhibition.

Alexander Neef took over “as director of the Paris Opera … just as the longest strike in the company’s history was morphing into the worst global pandemic in a century,” writes Alan Riding in Thursday’s (3/31) New York Times. “For the public, … the least exciting aspect of Mr. Neef’s strategy is to stem the Paris Opera’s losses by the 2024-25 season…. He … has some innovative, albeit simple, ideas. For instance, he prefers not to have the Paris Opera’s two large theaters—the Palais Garnier and the Bastille Opera—resemble ‘permanent festivals,’ with splashy productions that are never revived…. The 2022-23 season … also embraces an interesting change in emphasis…. Taking his inspiration from many German opera houses, he plans to create a troupe of 15 to 20 professional singers who will be on salary (and not work as freelancers, as most soloists do) and will take on all but the biggest roles. Mr. Neef said he believed that greater job stability had become more appealing to cast members over the past two years…. ‘The attraction of going to a new city every few weeks is not as high as it used to be,’ he said.”

“Riccardo Muti tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, resulting in the cancellation of one concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,” writes Miriam Di Nunzio in Monday’s (4/4) Chicago Sun-Times. “A statement from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra said the conductor tested positive … during a routine daily COVID screening per CSO safety protocols. As a result, Tuesday night’s concert, the third and final performance with works by Mahler and Bruckner, and the world premiere performances of Missy Mazzoli’s ‘Orpheus Undone’ is canceled…. In addition, Muti will be unable to conduct upcoming concerts scheduled for April 7, 8, 9 and 12 at Symphony Center. However, the full orchestra and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes are expected to perform on these dates, with program changes to be announced…. On Saturday night, Muti attended the annual Symphony Ball and conducted the evening’s concert with the CSO. Guests at the event were required to show proof of vaccination or negative COVID test. All are being notified directly regarding the matter, a spokesperson for the CSO said when reached by phone late Monday. The 80-year-old conductor, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, is quarantining and experiencing mild symptoms. He is ‘in good spirits,’ … Monday’s statement said.”

“Consider David Bernard to be the Johnny Appleseed of classical music,” writes Dave Gil de Rubio in last Tuesday’s (3/29) Long Island Weekly (NY). “Given his role as conductor of the Massapequa Philharmonic, a position he’s held for six years, it comes as no surprise. The zeal he has for this genre of music has led him to find unorthodox ways of spreading the gospel of Beethoven and Mozart…. During the pandemic, he entered into a unique agreement with the Nassau Museum of Art to present live music at the mansion and on the … grounds of the former Frick Estate.” For the Massapequa Philharmonic performance with cellist Zlatomir Fung “at the Adelphi Performing Arts Center on Sunday, April 3 … Bernard offers a unique twist … InsideOut seats, which place audience members onstage with the musicians. It’s something the Great Neck native developed and is regularly featured by the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony in New York City … It’s a crucial part of Bernard’s classical music outreach for both children and adults. And while he recently led an InsideOut concert for third-graders … he feels it’s just as important a tool to use in providing that connection with grown-ups.”

The Albany Symphony … has an impeccable reputation … but what it has never had is a Black musician as an official member…. ‘It’s not acceptable,’ said [Music Director] David Alan Miller,” writes Shaniece Holmes-Brown in Saturday’s (4/2) Times Union (Albany, NY). “The symphony has been working to improve the diversity in the orchestra [with] IDEA, or Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access, Task Force…. The task force is composed of symphony board members, community members, symphony staff, a musician from the orchestra, Miller and Chairman Jahkeen Hoke, the CEO of the Business for Good…. In September of last year, members of Albany’s orchestra took a tour of historic areas to learn about the history of African-Americans in Albany and Black art. The tour culminated with the launch of Convergence, a three-year collaborative initiative between the symphony and community members exploring three art forms with Black artists…. ‘We’ve built all sorts of wonderful connections, but at the core, if the people on the stage are mainly white, then something is missing,’ said Miller.” The article also reports on orchestral auditions and the National Alliance for Audition Support (NAAS), which aims to increase diversity in American orchestras. NAAS is a partnership made up of the Sphinx Organization (lead program administrator), New World Symphony, and the League of American Orchestras.

The Philadelphia-based ensemble Orchestra 2001 is one of three recipients of the city’s 2022 Arts + Business Council Awards honoring impactful collaborations between organizations and business. Orchestra 2001 received the award for its two-year “Emerging Markets” series launched in May 2020, one of the orchestra’s responses to the pandemic’s unprecedented loss of employment for local performing artists due to venue closures. “Emerging Markets” has presented informal pay-what-you-wish musical events where residents shop, work, and play, including at the 9th Street Market, featuring music by Italian, Mexican, Southeast Asian, and African American composers; the project included the Philadelphia premiere of Tan Dun’s Prayer and Blessings for the Victims of COVID-19. By the conclusion of this two-year program, Orchestra 2001 says it will have performed approximately 70 short performances reaching 5,000 Philadelphians outside the Center City cultural district. The other two award recipients are Visit Philadelphia, for its project turning the city’s empty storefronts into art installations, and the Barnes Foundation’s project connecting social-impact artists with neighborhood businesses.

“Internationally renowned violin maker and instrument conservator Rodrigo Correa-Salas has been responsible for maintaining, reviewing, overseeing and preserving all 13,000 instruments and objects at Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum for just over four years,” writes Sofia Krusmark in Sunday’s (3/20) Arizona Republic (Phoenix). After working “in Panama as the chief luthier … for orchestras across Central America … in July 2017, Correa-Salas received a call from Manuel Jordán, deputy director and chief curator of MIM, the world’s largest global instrument museum, inviting him to interview in Phoenix to be the museum’s conservator…. Correa-Salas was born in Santiago, Chile…. His grandpa was the orchestra conductor for the Santiago Symphony Orchestra. His mom danced professionally…. After graduating from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, Correa-Salas was accepted into Indiana University’s violin making program … in string instrument technology…. In Puerto Rico, Correa-Salas … opened and ran a violin shop where he repaired and restored violins [and later] was appointed custodian of [Pablo Casals’s] cello…. He later became the official luthier of the Festival Casals of Puerto Rico…. ‘To be able to restore an instrument that is unplayable to a place where it can play again … fills me with satisfaction—and joy,’ Correa-Salas says.”

“Life for young students at the Cleveland Institute of Music is about to change dramatically,” writes Zachary Lewis in Sunday’s (3/20) Plain Dealer (Cleveland). “On Thursday, the school announced plans to replace its current preparatory program with a comprehensive, more demanding program called the Academy. The model, which goes into effect next fall but already has met with mixed reactions, obliges most pre-college students to take a range of music courses in addition to private lessons, and entails significant new performance and review requirements. Along with these comes higher tuition…. Currently, most preparatory (that is, not college-level) students at CIM only take private lessons. At other schools, meanwhile, including some in Cleveland, young players also give recitals, submit to assessment, and take music theory and group performance classes. The Academy checks all of those boxes and more … including orchestras. It applies to all non-beginning students in fifth grade or higher…. [President and Chief Executive Paul] Hogle said … he’s fully aware the school stands to lose students over the change, but said that’s a chance CIM has to take as it seeks to remain competitive with other national conservatories and differentiate itself from peers in Northeast Ohio.”