Author: Ginger Dolden

“In 1940, at age 12, Vera Jiji found her first passion: the cello,” writes Alix Strauss in Tuesday’s (7/21) New York Times. “She learned to love playing the orchestra instrument at the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. ‘I didn’t pick the cello. They assigned it to me because I had a good ear and long fingers,’ said the Bronx native, now 93. ‘I loved it.’… As an adult, though, she stopped playing the instrument. She became a professor and a fixture at Brooklyn College teaching English…. She married twice and had four children. Her beloved cello … remained untouched … for about 40 years. She picked up her cello again only after retiring at 62. ‘I revived the passion I always felt when I started playing again,’ she said. Since then, it has been like a second life. Today Dr. Jiji, who lives with her 93-year-old husband [on the] Upper East Side … can be found playing most Fridays with other amateurs and friends in two musical groups, a trio and a string quartet, at the 92nd Street Y.” Says Jiji, “Even though I was aging I learned I could still re-enter this wonderful world of creating music.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/arts/adult-cello-lessons.html

“You could say that Kathryn Wyatt, the new executive director for Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, has been preparing her whole life for this role,” writes Laura Douglass in Tuesday’s (7/20) Pilot (Southern Pines, NC). “A professional musician, arts administrator and educator, and innovator in social change, Wyatt sees the historic Weymouth home, gardens and gathering spaces in downtown Southern Pines as a community treasure…. Weymouth [is] home to the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame; a chamber music series featuring nationally and internationally known musicians … and numerous special events…. As an accomplished violist, Wyatt has performed nationally and internationally with major professional opera companies and orchestras. As an educator, she’s coached nationally and internationally, and maintains a private studio. She has taught at N.C. State University and Duke University and the John F. Kennedy Center … recognized Wyatt for her work in citizen artistry and community development through the arts. Wyatt co-founded Kidznotes, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing orchestral training to underserved children in the Raleigh-Durham area. This work was inspired by her involvement in El Sistema, a nonprofit [music education] organization in Venezuela. In July 2016, Wyatt became the first president and CEO for El Sistema USA, established at Duke University where she taught social entrepreneurship and the arts.”

“The Mankato Symphony Orchestra has been selected to represent the state of Minnesota in the first-ever national United Symphonies of America! ‘edutainment’ event,” states an unsigned report in Wednesday’s (7/20) KEYC TV (Mankato, MN). “The one-hour online event is scheduled for Sept. 30 at 5:30 p.m. The event will involve one orchestra from each state and interweave musical entertainment with information about how symphony orchestras enrich local communities. According to United Symphonies of America! co-founder Jonathan McPhee, the first-of-its-kind collaborative program has been designed to meet multiple challenges faced by orchestras emerging from the pandemic…. The project will shine a light on the participating orchestras’ community impact programs, such as July 4th Pops performances, Nutcracker events with local ballet companies, educational programs aimed at school children, and collaborative initiatives with galleries, museums and universities. ‘We are thrilled to have been selected to represent the State of Minnesota in this historic initiative,” said Bethel Balge, executive director of the Mankato Symphony Orchestra…. Organizers are hopeful that viewers will be inspired to support their local orchestras by making donations or purchasing promotional t-shirts and hats. Direct links to do both will be provided during the online presentation.” Learn more at https://unitedsymphonies.com/.

“As part of a bold new joint initiative to support emerging arts administrators and leaders of color, Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Seattle Symphony have announced the first recipients of the Seattle Arts Fellowship,” writes Clive Paget in Tuesday’s (7/20) Musical America (subscription required). “The 2021/22 fellows … are Dalanie Harris (Seattle Symphony), Kierra Nguyen (Seattle Opera), and Gabriela ‘Gabi’ Páez Shutt (Pacific Northwest Ballet). Each recipient earns a placement at one of the presenting organizations for a year [July 2021-June 2022]…. The Seattle Arts Fellowship … is available to any individual who identifies as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) or as ALAANA (African/African American (diaspora), Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native American/Indigenous, and Asian Pacific Islander)…. The fulltime, $24/hour plus benefits fellowships offer not just hands-on work experience in administration but also opportunities for mentorship and networking…. Harris, a bassist and podcaster from Los Angeles, co-founded Classically Black Podcast designed to bring listeners into the world of classical music through the eyes and ears of Black classical musicians. As such, she hopes to make more than just a positive impact on Seattle Symphony…. ‘I’d like to be challenging the ways we as individuals interpret and analyze music,’ she said.”

“When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the 2021-22 state budget on July 12, the arts, culture and live events industries got $616 million,” writes Lily Janiak in Thursday’s (7/22) San Francisco Chronicle. “Ron P. Muriera, board president of Californians for the Arts, a co-founder of San Jose Arts Advocates as well as a consultant and artist himself, remembers when the California Arts Council had less than $1 million to grant to the entire state, in the 2003-04 fiscal year…. The approximately $616 million includes: $50 million for small nonprofits for employee expenses …; $150 million to live event venues and businesses …; $128 million to the California Arts Council, $60 million of which supports the piloting of [a] … project hiring artists to further public health goals; $50 million to museums; $238 million … to specific organizations. Muriera credits the increase partly to Newsom, noting that the governor also increased the California Arts Council’s budget by $10 million in 2019, and partly to an unusual coalition of advocates brought together by the pandemic. California Arts Advocates joined forces with the California chapter of the National Independent Venue Association and the California Association of Museums.”

The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra has announced details of its 2021-22 season, featuring five masterworks programs, four community concerts at locations throughout Annapolis, a family concert with Magic Circle Mime Company, and a holiday pops concert with the Sultans of String ensemble. The season will open September 4 with the return of the ASO’s annual free Pops in the Park concert at Quiet Waters Park; the program will feature music by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Scott Joplin, Leroy Anderson, Duke Ellington, John Williams, and more. Music Director José-Luis Novo will lead the orchestra’s first masterworks concert at Maryland Hall, featuring Concertmaster and Annapolis Symphony Academy Director Netanel Draiblate as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, and Debussy’s La Mer. In May, the orchestra will perform the world premiere of a new work by Jessica Hunt marking the ASO’s 60th anniversary, on a program with Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Olga Kern. The orchestra is offering subscription packages to all five in-person programs at Maryland Hall, subscription packages to its four-concert community series, and Symphony+ virtual subscriptions to access the ASO’s virtual platform. Said Novo, “We cannot wait to celebrate our 60th anniversary with everyone.”

“Kaija Saariaho’s opera ‘Innocence,’ which had its première at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on July 3rd, contains one of the most unnerving scenes I’ve witnessed at a theatre,” writes Alex Ross in the July 26 New Yorker. “About forty minutes into the piece, in a scene marked ‘IT,’ the chorus chants the phrase ‘When it happened’ in staggered rhythm…. A frame drum raps out sixteenth notes in rapid-fire bursts, and two trumpets let loose a series of … quick, shrieking upward glissandos…. Sopranos oscillate queasily between the notes A-flat and G…. A high-school student stumbles through a door, his arms covered in blood. A shooter, a fellow-student, is laying siege to a Finnish international school…. The psychological-thriller components of ‘Innocence’ mark a change for Saariaho, who rose to fame by employing modernist and avant-garde techniques to summon otherworldly, dreamlike spheres…. ‘Innocence’ … has a seething rawness. It’s as if the turmoil of recent years had prompted her to abandon aesthetic distance and enter the melee of the real…. ‘Innocence’ will travel widely: both the Met and the San Francisco Opera are set to present the work in future seasons…. What rescues the opera from utter bleakness is the inherent beauty of Saariaho’s writing.”

“Composer Nkeiru Okoye knows people see her as an activist, or a champion of social justice in the music world,” writes A.Z. Madonna in Tuesday’s (7/20) Boston Globe. “That’s not the full picture, Okoye said. ‘I am privileged to be a composer who works mainly by commission … [and] if the commissioner says, “Write a piece about Martin Luther King Jr.,” I’m writing a piece about Martin Luther King Jr.’ So when South Shore Conservatory tapped her as the first composer-in-residence for its new ‘SSC Transform’ initiative, and leadership commissioned what Okoye described as ‘a piece about social justice,’ she decided to focus on cardiologist and Wellesley College president Paula Johnson, whom she saw as a potential role model for the conservatory’s teen students…. ‘What if we give them someone to root for? I think that can also be social justice,’ Okoye said. The result was ‘Grayce and Sickle,’ a five-minute piece for wind ensemble that will receive its world premiere on July 23 at the conservatory.” Says Okoye, “I have two friends who have sickle cell. I spoke with them recently about this piece, and they began crying—‘Nobody understands, thank you for telling people about this.’ ”

“University of North Carolina School of the Arts has set up a new scholarship program in hopes of recruiting a more diverse group of students,” writes John Newsom in last Thursday’s (7/15) Winston-Salem Journal. “The Winston-Salem arts conservatory announced Wednesday that it will work with a New York foundation ‘to recruit, train and support talented students who might be missed through traditional avenues.’ … UNC School of the Arts said it plans to award 10 full scholarships to undergraduates from eight U.S. cities…. The first Posse Artists will enter UNCSA in fall 2022…. The school said it will use existing and new scholarship funds and a $500,000 grant from the Posse Foundation to pay for the Posse scholarships…. The Posse Foundation works with 63 colleges and universities … to recruit talented but overlooked students from 10 [U.S.] cities…. The Posse Foundation worked with the charitable foundation established by the family of Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the Broadway musicals ‘Hamilton’ and ‘In the Heights,’ to create and fund this new arts initiative. Two other schools previously signed on to the Posse Arts Program: California Institute of the Arts and Bard College in New York.”