Author: Jennifer Melick

“Back in 2017, The Dallas Morning News entered into a partnership with the San Francisco-based Rubin Institute for Music Criticism to help sustain its ongoing coverage of classical music,” writes Michael Granberry in Tuesday’s (12/17) Dallas Morning News. “The institute launched the program in 2016 with its pilot partner, The Boston Globe. The program has worked so well, The Dallas Morning News is now expanding its commitment by hiring as a full-time fellow, on a renewable one-year basis, Tim Diovanni, who recently completed a summer internship with The News before returning to Dublin, Ireland, to complete a graduate degree…. In addition to The News and The Boston Globe, the institute has established partnerships with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Houston Chronicle and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis [plus The Seattle Times, Toronto Star, and San Francisco Classical Voice]. During his full-time, one-year position, slated to begin on March 31, Diovanni will work closely with The News’ arts and entertainment editor, Christopher Wynn, and longtime contributing classical-music writer [Scott] Cantrell to cover the increasingly dynamic classical music scene in North Texas. Diovanni launched his experience at The News last summer by reporting on the Cliburn Junior competition.”

Carnegie Hall has announced its complete schedule of “Beethoven Celebration” events in 2020, with more than 58 artists and ensembles performing in New York City and elsewhere from January to June 2020. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will begin the year with an evening of American poetry and Beethoven recordings (January 3) that incorporates manuscripts and rare recordings from the library’s collections. At Carnegie Hall, there will be two complete symphony cycles, the first in February 2020 by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, the second in March and April 2020 by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie will perform an all-Beethoven program (March 5), and a lecture series will feature a discussion with Carnegie Hall Debs Composer’s Chair Jörg Widmann (March 29). The Beethoven Celebration year will end at Carnegie Hall on December 6 with “All Together: A Global Ode to Joy,” a global project recasting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as a 21st-century call for unity, justice, and empowerment, led by conductor Marin Alsop. Read Symphony magazine’s cover story examining Beethoven’s role in contemporary society.

“Last May, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Managing Director Jan Raes announced that he would resign at the end of December 2019,” writes Nicholas Beard in Wednesday’s (12/18) Musical America (subscription required). “Whether that was related to the firing of and subsequent peace-making with Music Director Daniele Gatti, over allegations of sexual misconduct, was never made clear. In any case, Raes is stepping down after 11 years at the job and the orchestra has yet to find a successor. Serving as interim until it does so will be business and media director David Bazen, 55, with the orchestra since 1999. He’ll take over January 1, and the orchestra reports the new managing director won’t be in place until next summer.”

“The Longwood Symphony Orchestra is made up of members of Boston’s health care community, including nurses, doctors, researchers, and medical students,” writes Jeremy Eichler in Monday’s (12/16) Boston Globe. “Founded in 1982, it’s earned a distinguished place among the area’s rich network of community orchestras thanks to its unusual makeup, its adventurous programming, and its engaged social mission…. Two-thirds of Saturday’s program in Jordan Hall consisted of works by living composers…. The night opened with John Harbison’s ‘Remembering Gatsby’ (Foxtrot for Orchestra). … Next up was Joan Tower’s ‘Duets,’ an intricate concerto for orchestra built out of soloistic duos played in pairs by various members of the orchestra…. On Saturday, both of these challenging contemporary pieces, while seemingly pressing the all-volunteer orchestra to the edge of its capacity, also brought out its best, as music director Ronald Feldman, at key moments, drew out expressively rich and deeply committed playing.” Also on the program was Brahms’s Double Concerto, featuring violinist Ayano Ninomiya, a Naumburg Competition winner and New England Conservatory faculty member, and Boston Symphony Orchestra Principal Cello Blaise Déjardin.”

“The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s new concert hall in the former Warner Grand Theatre will get its close-up in October, with a live broadcast of the symphony’s first subscription concert on Milwaukee PBS,” writes Chris Foran in Wednesday’ s (12/18) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The broadcast “also will include a pre-concert special on the symphony and its new digs, an upgrade and expansion of the former movie palace at 212 W. Wisconsin Ave. The $90 million construction project is on track for the theater, dubbed the Milwaukee Symphony Center, to open next fall, with smaller concert events and a gala prior to the start of MSO’s 2020-21 season.… The date of the first subscription concert and broadcast are expected to be announced early next year. MSO music director Ken-David Masur will conduct the performance, which also will feature the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. The concert hall projects includes renovating the Warner Grand, which opened in 1931, and an adjacent office building, as well as additions including a glassy, two-story lobby east of the original theater.”

“When 16-year-old Kyle Levy arrived at the Kimmel Center last October, he was simply a high school musician on a field trip with bandmates to watch a rehearsal of the Philadelphia Orchestra,” writes Shaun Brady in Monday’s (12/16) Philadelphia Inquirer. “An hour later, he was stunned to find himself onstage, playing on a brand-new cello created just for him, under the baton of conductor Nathalie Stutzmann. The remarkable afternoon, masterminded by Make-A-Wish Philadelphia, Delaware & Susquehanna Valley, was the highlight of an extremely difficult year for the young cellist, who is a junior at Central Bucks South High School.” Levy has leukemia. “Many families [assume] that the [Make-A-Wish] organization’s wishes are intended solely for terminally ill children. Not so, said Dennis Heron, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish Philadelphia, Delaware & Susquehanna Valley…. [After receiving] his gorgeous new instrument … Kyle took his place in the spotlight to play Stephen Melillo’s hymn, ‘That Which Remains,’ which the school orchestra had been rehearsing for its own concert the following night…. ‘It was very moving,’ said Philadelphia Orchestra CEO Matías Tarnopolsky. ‘Music can give voice to thoughts and feelings that words alone cannot, and that’s what you saw happening with Kyle.’ ”