Author: Ginger Dolden

The Cleveland Orchestra and the classical streaming platform IDAGIO have announced a new collaboration, with the orchestra spotlighted as part of IDAGIO’s “Great Orchestras in the Global Concert Hall” series at GlobalConcertHall.com. The venture launched in February with streamed concerts featuring Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst; pianists Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and Marc-André Hamelin; and harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. Six concerts are available through December 31, 2023; additional releases are planned on March 5, 12, 19, 26, and April 2 and 9, also available through the end of 2023. In announcing the collaboration, Cleveland Orchestra President and CEO André Gremillet said, “Today’s digital world requires a digital vision: to fully utilize the power of technology to deepen the audience’s experience and create an online community of symphonic music and Cleveland Orchestra lovers. With our In Focus digital concert series, we envision a space where a community of curious individuals can connect around great music and storytelling; where they can discover new works and artists or revisit favorite performances. We are proud to partner with the internationally renowned, leading streaming app for high-quality classical music, IDAGIO.”

“It took a while for Black Violin to realize its representational power,” writes Seth Sommerfeld in Thursday’s (2/24) Inlander (Spokane, WA). “The Grammy-nominated duo—composed of string-shredding virtuosos Kev Marcus and Wil Baptiste—has been melding classical technique and hip-hop flair since 2004, but at the start the guys were more focused on … trying to make good money and land gigs as touring or studio violinists…. ‘As the years went on, we started seeing people bring their kids to see us,’ Marcus says…. ‘The whole schtick is we’re Black guys playing violin…. You start seeing the responsibility that we have and try to use it as a mechanism of good.’ … [They] have played the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra [and] opened for Wu-Tang Clan… Black Violin is currently on a massive tour…. They created the Black Violin Foundation three years ago—to give … grants [to] allow students to continue their musical education. This includes everything from paying for summer camps to [partnering] with the Baroque Violin Shop in Cincinnati to get POC youths string instruments…. ‘We’re just trying to … create more opportunity for young Black and Brown students to find a way to classical music.’ ”

“Calgary native Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser will bring the musical influence of Jamaica to the National Arts Centre Orchestra as part of his new role as the orchestra’s principal youth conductor and creative partner,” writes Lynn Saxberg in Wednesday’s (2/23) Ottawa Citizen (Canada). “A music educator-turned-orchestral conductor, Bartholomew-Poyser has worked with orchestras across North America, from Thunder Bay to San Francisco. He will be the first titled Black conductor in the NAC Orchestra’s history. However, he’s no stranger to NAC audiences. Bartholomew-Poyser has collaborated with NACO and the National Creation Fund on various projects and conducted the orchestra during the televised broadcast of last year’s Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. The first major project in his three-year NAC mandate is … Reggae Roots, a video-on-demand learning series that features the Jamaican-born, Halifax-based reggae singer, Jah’Mila, and program an accompanying concert of reggae-infused orchestral music to be included in NACO’s 2022-23 season.… Bartholomew-Poyser’s duties will also include developing concert programs for families and students, engaging with the arts-education community and working on special projects with the orchestra’s artistic planning team. He starts the new job this month.”

“The Metropolitan Opera announced Sunday that it will suspend its ties to Russian artists and institutions who are allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” writes Anastasia Tsioulcas in Sunday’s (2/27) National Public Radio. “The Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, … did not specify which institutions and artists it intends to suspend from collaborations, but three of the most prominent that have been actively allied with Putin are the Mariinsky (formerly Kirov) Theatre in St. Petersburg; its general and artistic director, the conductor Valery Gergiev, who is also the Met’s former principal guest conductor; and star soprano Anna Netrebko…. The Met’s move comes four days after Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra dropped Gergiev and pianist Denis Matsuev from a three-concert series.… On Sunday, Gergiev’s European manager, Marcus Felsner, announced that he was dropping him as a client due to his ties to Putin…. In Germany, Munich mayor Dieter Reiter has said that if Gergiev does not denounce the invasion by Monday, he will be fired from his role as the Munich Philharmonic’s chief conductor. In the Netherlands, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra said it will drop a planned Gergiev festival in September if the conductor does not separate himself from Putin.”

“Plug Gemma New’s name into your search engine,” writes Virginia Fallon in Sunday’s (2/27) Stuff (New Zealand). “You’ll find dozens of outstanding reviews, awards, and profiles of the New Zealander hailed as a rising star in the orchestral world. Currently, she’s the music director of Canada’s Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra…. The 35-year-old has been appointed as the artistic advisor and principal conductor of The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO), currently celebrating its 75th anniversary year. The position is both the first of its kind for a New Zealand orchestra and the first time in the NZSO’s history a woman has held a principal conductor position. New will conduct a variety of concerts with the NZSO over the next three years and advise on what music and other activities it presents. She debuted with the orchestra in 2020—‘a lifelong dream’ … New, who has lived abroad for a decade, says the NZSO was always part of her future plans…. She believes in music wholeheartedly, saying classical music is the universal language…. NZSO chief executive Peter Biggs says New’s appointment is a coup for both the orchestra and New Zealand.”

On February 22, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will perform the first of three free concerts at community locations across Baltimore City. The performance at New Shiloh Baptist Church will feature Chevalier de Saint-Georges’s Overture to The Anonymous Lover, Carlos Simon’s AMEN!, Strauss’s “Thunder and Lightning” Polka and “On the Beautiful Blue Danube,” Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A minor, and Ives’s “Circus Band” March, led by Assistant Conductor Jonathan Rush. Subsequent concerts are planned on April 26 at the B&O Railroad Museum and on June 1 outdoors at the Patterson Park Observatory, both featuring classical works paired with pop music, arranged for Baltimore-based rapper Wordsmith, the orchestra’s artistic partner.

William Kraft, a percussionist, composer, conductor and educator who played a long and indispensable role in making Los Angeles a world capital of new music, died Saturday,” writes Mark Swed in Thursday’s (2/17) Los Angeles Times. “His wife, composer Joan Huang, says the cause was heart failure. He was 98…. He took full advantage of the varied opportunities unique to the musical life in Los Angeles, which included a decades-long career with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as percussionist, principal timpanist, composer-in-residence and associate conductor. He was the founding conductor of the L.A. Phil New Music Group, which, with its Green Umbrella concerts, helped transform the notion of what a modern orchestra could become…. He … became Igor Stravinsky’s go-to percussionist. He befriended and gave the premieres of major works by many of the leading avant-gardists … Kraft began his career as an orchestra percussionist with the Dallas Symphony in 1954 and then joined the L.A. Phil a year later…. The Los Angeles Percussion Ensemble and Chamber Players [which he founded] promoted a wide range of new and recent percussion music … In 1966, he conducted the L.A. Phil in what became a historic Duke Ellington program at the Hollywood Bowl, with Ellington as the soloist … The final two [L.A. Phil] concerts Kraft attended were as recently as January.”

“Michael Morgan, the visionary longtime music director of the Oakland Symphony, talked often about the program he had devised for his planned [subscription] debut with the San Francisco Symphony,” writes Joshua Kosman in Friday’s (2/18) San Francisco Chronicle. Morgan died in August 2021. “So there was a fair amount of emotion in Davies [Hall] on Thursday, Feb. 17, when the orchestra finally made good on the project…. To stand in for Morgan … the Symphony brought in three young conductors for their debut appearances…. Price’s Third Symphony, which Morgan introduced in Oakland in 2019, inevitably left the strongest impression, in a powerhouse performance conducted by Akiko Fujimoto…. Franck’s exuberantly pictorial tone poem ‘Le Chasseur Maudit’ and … Carlos Simon’s 2017 score ‘Amen!’ which conjures up the harmonies and rhythms of a Black Pentecostal church service … were nimbly conducted by Earl Lee…. The third [conductor] was [San Francisco Symphony resident conductor of engagement and education] Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser…. Together with mezzo-soprano Melody Wilson and the men of the Symphony Chorus led by Anthony Trecek-King, he brought an interior glow to Brahms’ ‘Alto Rhapsody’ and a high degree of expressive directness to three spirituals…. Every moment of the evening felt suffused with Morgan’s spirit and presence.”