Author: Ginger Dolden

California’s San Luis Obispo Symphony will open its 2021-22 season on August 14 with a one-hour, intermissionless pops concert at Sinsheimer Stadium, featuring Concertmaster Emily Lanzone as soloist in Gliere’s “Phoenix” from The Red Poppy Suite, and music by Dvorak, Sousa, and John Williams. The season will comprise five concerts at the Performing Arts Center San Luis Obispo, plus two outdoor concerts and a concert in partnership with the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. Principal Clarinet Richard Dobeck and Principal Bassoon Lisa Nauful will be soloists in Carl Stamitz’s Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon on a program also including Michael Daugherty’s Strut and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. The orchestra’s film-festival program will feature Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark Symphonic Nocturne (arranged by Robert Russell Bennett), Miklos Rozsa’s The Lost Weekend Suite, Steiner’s Suite from Casablanca, and selections from Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. Concertmaster Emily Lanzone, Principal Second Violin Timothy Shanks, Oboe Heidi Butterfield, Principal Oboe and English Horn Jessica Hoffman, and Principal Flute Marley Eder will perform music by Bach, Cowell, Farrenc, Honegger, and Warlock. Programs during the rest of the reason will feature music by Brahms, William Banfield, Warren Benson, Valerie Coleman, Alan Hovanhess, Jessie Montgomery, Mozart, Stefan Podell, Thomas Siwe, and Tchaikovsky.

“Trade bodies and unions representing British musicians have expressed frustration at a government announcement on European work visas that they say changes nothing,” writes Mark Brown in Thursday’s (8/5) Guardian (U.K.). “Musicians and performers continue to accuse the government of ignoring their plight by failing to negotiate any Brexit deal that would reinstate the previous visa-free working arrangements. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) this week released a statement headlined: ‘Visa-free short-term touring allowed in 19 member states.’ … Horace Trubridge, the general secretary of the Musicians’ Union, [said] the announcement [confirmed] arrangements that already existed…. Paul W Fleming, the general secretary of the union Equity, … said it was still waiting on a country-by-country breakdown of different work permit regimes as well as ‘proper definitions of short-term touring, and the implications on carnets and cabotage for small-scale productions.’ … The DCMS statement … said visas or work permits for short-term tours were not needed in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. It said the government was actively engaging with the eight remaining countries that did not allow visa- and permit-free touring.”

“Violinist Daniel Hope, music director of New Century Chamber Orchestra, is on a tear all over Europe, playing and conducting at … summer music festivals,” writes Janos Gereben in last Tuesday’s (8/3) San Francisco Classical Voice. “Still, the Berlin resident and Zurich Chamber Orchestra music director somehow found time … to put together an unusual season for NCCO next year. He and the 19-member conductorless chamber ensemble will be together once again … for the first time since January 2020…. The season features two co-commissions: the U.S. premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Violin Concerto, with Hope, and the world premiere of Mark Adamo’s Cello Concerto, with guest leader and soloist Jeff Zeigler…. NCCO Executive Director Richard Lonsdorf [said], ‘Given the rapidly changing health guidance in the past few weeks, New Century … will inform subscribers and ticket holders of the attendance policies in effect closer to the dates of each concert week.’ … Paola Prestini’s From the Bones to the Fossils … and Adamo’s new compositions are inspired by the issue of climate change…. Hope returns to lead the first concerts in 2022” with music by David Diamond, Florence Price, and Copland; Soprano Leah Hawkins will perform songs of the Harlem Renaissance.

“Pacific Symphony will perform three [free] outdoor concerts later this month in Irvine, Mission Viejo and Orange as part of its annual ‘Symphony in the Cities’ series,” reads an unsigned article in Thursday’s (8/5) Los Angeles Times. “Thousands are expected to attend the summer series, which is held in local parks throughout Orange County. The music will be a mix of classics, and popular and patriotic music. There will also be a sing-along. Children will be able to learn how to conduct from conductor Carl St.Clair and could help lead the orchestra during the concert. The program includes Giaochino Rossini’s ‘Finale from Overture to William Tell,’ Goerges Bizet’s ‘Farandole from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2,’ Max Bruch’s Concerto No. 1 in G Minor for Violin & Orchestra III. Allegro energico, Arturo Marquez’s ‘Danzón No. 2,’ Ennio Morricone’s ‘Gabriel’s Oboe from The Mission,’ Alberto Ginastera’s ‘Danza Finale’ from Estancia, Op.8a, John Philip Sousa’s ‘Hands Across the Sea March,’ ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever,’ Aaron Copland’s Selections from Old American Songs, Samuel Ward’s ‘America the Beautiful,’ and Irving Berlin’s ‘God Bless America.’ ” Performances take place in Mission Viejo on August 14, Irvine on August 15, and in Orange on August 22.

“Michael Tilson Thomas, the longtime former music director of the San Francisco Symphony, was diagnosed late last month with a brain tumor that required an immediate operation,” writes Joshua Kosman in Friday’s (8/6) San Francisco Chronicle. “The surgery, which took place during the last week of July at UCSF Medical Center, was successful, the orchestra announced on Friday, Aug. 6. Thomas, 76, will now embark on a monthslong course of therapy and has canceled all his public appearances through the end of October…. The announcement from the Symphony said that Thomas is under the care of the UCSF medical team…. His first appearances in San Francisco [as San Francisco Symphony’s music director laureate], beginning Nov. 12, are still on the books. Thomas has, however, withdrawn from scheduled performances with the New World Symphony, the Miami training orchestra that he founded and directed, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.” Thomas’s husband, Joshua Robison, said, “Michael continues to be the witty, sharp-tongued, affectionate and brilliant person I’ve known all his life. But he is now looking at life from a new perspective, and looking at time in a much different way.”

The Utah Symphony has relocated an August 14 performance to Hurricane Community Center Park in Hurricane, Utah, approximately 25 miles outside of Zion National Park, where the concert was originally scheduled to be performed. The change in venue follows a July 2021 flash flood that caused damage to the structure and surrounding area of Zion National Park’s O.C. Tanner Amphitheater. The amphitheater will be closed for repairs for an estimated six to eight months. The performance will mark the first time the Utah Symphony has performed in Hurricane; the program will feature violinist Aubree Oliverson, a Utah native, in selections from Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir d’un lieu cher, John Williams’ arrangement of “Tango” from Por una Cabeza by Carlos Gardel, and “Summer, III. Presto” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Music Director Thierry Fischer will conduct “Nimrod” from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, in memory of the lives lost to the pandemic, and the program will also feature music by Holst, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Tchaikovsky. The concert is part of the orchestra’s “Forever Mighty Tour” in collaboration with a Utah Office of Tourism initiative encouraging visitors and residents to travel responsibly to help ensure strong communities and preserve parks and outdoor recreation.

“A chance encounter between a Tasmanian music director and a historian has led to the first performance since 1936 of a choral work by Charles Sandys Packer,” writes Catherine Zengerer in last Tuesday’s (7/27) ABC News Australia. “Margot Lampkin OAM from Choral Productions Tasmania … discovered that [historian Luke Agati] was writing a biography of [Packer], an English composer who rose to fame and then disappeared into obscurity…. Agati, a collector of early Australian music publications [had] spotted an old copy of a composition by Charles S. Packer, called Crown of Thorns. The oratorio [was] considered a masterpiece by Australian musical societies in the late 19th century…. Packer was a rising star in London’s musical world in the early 19th century when a twist of fate saw him transported to the colonies [for bank fraud]…. He was eventually given a conditional pardon…. In 1863, he composed … Crown of Thorns … [which was] played as often as Handel’s Messiah in Sydney…. It disappeared from performance lists after 1936…. Determined to revive the piece, [Lampkin] worked with three Hobart choirs…. The work was finally performed … in Hobart on Good Friday, just as it would have been a century ago.”