“Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra’s summer festival Summermusik returns from pandemic shutdown beginning Aug. 6, with performances running through Aug. 20 at outdoor venues throughout the city,” writes Anne Arenstein in Monday’s (7/19) CityBeat (Cincinnati). “Cellist Sujari Britt and violinist Caroline Goulding … head a roster of soloists that includes CCO principals…. CCO music director Eckart Preu [said] the program lineup spotlights women as composers and performing artists as well as music’s therapeutic potential…. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4, written in the midst of devastating hearing loss, [and] Tchaikovsky’s ‘Variations on a Rococo Theme’ [will be performed on a program including] ‘Lyric for Strings’ by George Walker… On Aug. 8 … in addition to excerpts from chamber works by Smetana, Beethoven and Hummel, cellist Britt performs the world premiere of her composition ‘No One’s Driving,’ and Preu will be the pianist for Nico Muhly’s ‘Allen & Lucien.’ … Another world premiere: British composer Lilian Elkington’s ‘Romance, Op. 1’ [on an] Aug. 15 concert, titled ‘Her Voice.’ In addition to Elkington, composers include … Jennifer Jolley, Reena Esmail, Elena Kats-Chernin, Shelley Washington and Gabriela Lena Frank.… Summermusik’s final mainstage concert on Aug. 20 [includes] works by Esmail, Gabriella Smith and Jessie Montgomery.”
Author: Ginger Dolden
New three-year composer residency for Bill Banfield at Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra
“Andrew Sewell and Bill Banfield hope to break new ground in the next three years. But in the meantime, they don’t mind revisiting an old memory: The night they ducked out of an official university party and spent the evening with Leonard Bernstein” as graduate students at the University of Michigan in 1988, writes Gayle Worland in Tuesday’s (7/20) Wisconsin State Journal. “Sewell [is] the longtime music director of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and Banfield, the orchestra’s newly appointed composer in residence…. Banfield … recently retired from a professorship at the Berklee College of Music….. Sewell contacted Banfield about the WCO performing one of Banfield’s pieces in 2020, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic…. That chat … led to the creation of the three-year residency…. At last week’s Concert on the Square, Sewell conducted a work by Banfield … Titled ‘If Bernstein Wrote It …’ the work is one of four instrumental movements that make up Banfield’s Symphony No. 6…. As composer in residence, Banfield will be commissioned to write two pieces for the WCO, including a work for narrator and orchestra featuring the words of Frederick Douglass for summer 2022, and a symphony expected to be premiered in early 2024.”
Violinist Jennifer Koh: it’s past time to de-marginalize people of Asian descent in classical music
Violinist Jennifer Koh. Photo: Jingyu Lin for The New York Times
“I have not been surprised by the recent violence toward Asian Americans. I palpably remember being afraid when I was a child in Illinois, in the 1980s,” writes violinist Jennifer Koh in Tuesday’s (7/21) New York Times. “The message was clear: Asian American lives had little value…. When I was growing up, I saw very few people in music who looked like me…. Classical music is often called ‘universal,’ but what does universality mean when the field was built for white men who still hold much of the power? In my nearly 30-year career, I have seen not even a handful of ethnic Asians—much less Asian American women—ascend to executive or leadership positions…. So how can classical music empower and create space for all members of our community? Ask Asian Americans to curate programs and create work … Hire and commission Asian and Asian American singers, instrumentalists, conductors and composers … Mentor Asian Americans at the beginning of their musical careers. Sponsor and promote Asian Americans in arts management and administration. Recruit Asian Americans onto the boards of arts organizations…. I invite musicians and musical institutions to create these new spaces with me and my forward-thinking colleagues.” Koh is a member of the League of American Orchestras’ board of directors.
Timothy Campbell named director of South Dakota Symphony Chorus
The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra in Sioux Falls has appointed TIMOTHY J. CAMPBELL as director of the South Dakota Symphony Chorus. He begins at the start of the 2021-22 season, which is the orchestra’s centennial year. Campbell is associate professor of music at the University of South Dakota, where he conducts the Concert Choir and Men’s and Women’s Chorus, and teaches courses in choral literature, applied voice, and sight-singing. He is the founder and artistic director of Transept, a vocal ensemble of professional consort singers and musicians in Sioux Falls. Campbell previously served on the faculty of West Virginia University and was associate director for Men’s Consort Houston and the CORO Vocal Artists, and director of the St. Luke’s Early Music Ensemble (TX). As a vocalist, Campbell has performed with professional ensembles around the country. He holds degrees from Bemidji State University (B.S.), the University of Minnesota (M.M.), and the University of Arizona (D.M.A.).
Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra’s new conductor, Gabriel Bruce
The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has named GABRIEL BRUCE conductor and director of the Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra. Bruce will work with Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director Geoffrey Robson on the advanced ensemble of the orchestra’s youth programs. Bruce is currently orchestra director at Mills University Studies High School and Mills Middle School in Pulaski County, and previously taught orchestra in the Pine Bluff schools and served as music director of the Pine Bluff Symphony Youth Orchestra. A native Arkansan, Bruce played trumpet at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, where he received a Bachelor of Music Education; studied conducting with the Arkansas Symphony’s David Itkin; and formed the Conway Chamber Orchestra, a community ensemble. Bruce received a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Hartt School in Connecticut, and has studied at the Conductors’ Institute at Bard, the Rose City International
Chamber Music Northwest’s four-week festival, with premieres by Neikrug, Ludwig
Chamber Music Northwest launched its four-week summer festival season at Reed College in Portland, Oregon on July 1 with CMNW Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim and the conductorless East Coast Chamber Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Strings. The season of 17 concerts is being performed in person for limited audiences as well as online. Featured music this summer includes the world premiere of Marc Neikrug’s A Song by Mahler, previously scheduled to premiere at the 2020 Summer Festival; and David Ludwig’s Les Adieux for clarinet and chamber ensemble commissioned to honor CMNW Artistic Director Emeritus David Shifrin in 2020. Pianist and composer Matan Porat will perform improvisational accompaniment for free screenings of Buster Keaton’s silent films at outdoor community concerts in Gresham and North Portland. The live festival concerts will be professionally recorded and streamed online beginning on July 15, with access through August 31 at the organization’s website https://cmnw.org/.
Review: Chicago Symphony’s Ravinia Festival return with Tower, Karpman, Garrop, Simon, Johnson, Beethoven, Mozart
“With the celebratory thwacks of bass drum and timpani that open Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra made it thunderously clear on Friday evening that it was back in business at Ravinia,” writes John von Rhein in Sunday’s (7/11) Chicago Classical Review. “It also marked the Ravinia concert debut of conductor Marin Alsop in her role as the festival’s chief conductor and curator, leading three weeks of CSO performances this summer…. Ovations were long and loud for Alsop’s two weekend events…. On Saturday … all five works were … new or unfamiliar music by living American woman composers Laura Karpman and Stacy Garrop, and African-American composers Carlos Simon and James P. Johnson…. Karpman’s All American and Garrop’s The Battle for the Ballot play around with traditional sounds of American patriotism, albeit with a feminist spin…. Simon was represented by his Fate Now Conquers (2020), for chamber orchestra [led by] Jonathan Rush … [whose] brawny and assured reading … drew a resounding whoop of approval.” Friday’s program also included Johnson’s Harlem Symphony and Victory Stride; Saturday featured Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, with pianist Jorge Federico Osorio.
Dallas classical radio station WRR seeking new management; potential bidders include Dallas Symphony and KERA
“The city of Dallas is inviting proposals to take over management of city-owned classical-music radio station WRR-FM (101.1),” writes Scott Cantrell in Monday’s (7/12) Dallas Morning News. “Both KERA, the local public radio and TV operation, and the Dallas Symphony Association are interested. A request for proposals went out June 17, initially with a July 5 deadline for questions and a proposal submission deadline of July 15. The deadlines have been extended to, respectively, July 9 and July 29…. The city’s Office of Arts and Culture, which oversees WRR, says: ‘WRR 101.FM has operated at a deficit for eight years in a row, with a declining fund balance in operating reserves of $5.1 million since 2012…. If the station’s operating and capital reserves were exhausted, the City would not be able to require it remain a classical station.’ … The Friends of WRR asked supporters to email members of the Dallas City Council, requesting delay and reconsideration of the RFP process and timeline…. In addition to being unusual as a city-owned radio station, WRR … depends on revenue from on-air advertising, a challenge for a station with a relatively small share of the area radio audience.”
COVID infections at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival lead to isolation of musicians, changes in programming
“A COVID-19 cluster at the Verbier Festival has left musicians in isolation and led to changes in the program of the Verbier Festival Orchestra’s (VFO) first concert with conductor Valery Gergiev next week,” reads an unsigned article in Monday’s (7/12) Violin Channel. “Isolation for affected individuals began on Thursday, July 8…. As of … July 12, nine cases in the Verbier Festival Orchestra have been confirmed according to a festival spokesperson…. All festival participants will receive a rapid antigen test on both Monday, July 12, and Thursday, July 15. Those who tested positive must remain in quarantine for 10 days…. Those in the VFO bubble cannot come into contact from any other individuals—including the Chamber Orchestra, which is arriving on July 11 and 12, until further notice… The Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra will replace the Verbier Festival Orchestra in an adjusted program on July 16…. In light of falling COVID-19 case numbers and in accordance with guidance from Swiss authorities, Verbier had been operating as a festival without vaccination requirements, mask requirements when outdoors, or quarantining … It remains unclear whether the [festival’s] COVID-19 protocol will change for the remainder of the festival, which is set to run through August 1.”
Bakersfield Symphony’s Stilian Kirov to remain at orchestra through 2026
“The show must go on—and it will do so with Stilian Kirov still in charge. The Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra announced Tuesday that its music director has signed a five-year contract to remain with the BSO through 2026,” reads an unsigned article in last Tuesday’s (7/6) Bakersfield Californian. “Kirov, who is also the music director of the Symphony in C in New Jersey and the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, … began his tenure with the BSO in the 2015-16 season after the departure of longtime conductor John Farrer.… Kirov has many supporters…. ‘Stilian is truly a gem, and we are incredibly fortunate to have his level of talent here in Bakersfield,’ Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh said in a news release. ‘He has made an impact in our community.’ … The Bakersfield Symphony’s 2021-22 season begins Oct. 9 with Bruch and Dvořák, a performance featuring violinist Simone Porter playing Bruch’s ‘Scottish Fantasy’ followed by a journey to the ‘New World’ with Dvořák’s enigmatic Symphony No. 9.”