“As summer season at Tanglewood entered full swing, dozens of Boston Public Schools students boarded a bus and headed west for a day trip,” reports Paris Alston in Tuesday’s (7/26) WGBH radio (Boston). “They were part of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Days in the Arts program. They participated in workshops related to music, theater and the visual arts alongside professional artists and members of the BSO. Oscar Lapham, a 13-year-old 8th grader at Boston Latin Academy, said his band teacher mentioned the annual festival. ‘It’s all outdoors, and I like that you can hear the music from anywhere,’ Lapham said…. [Dania]Cortez Bogdanovskaya described learning how to make art prints… ‘Also, I learned different things about the instruments. Like earlier today we listened to a bassoon.’ That was a lesson from Suzanne Nelsen, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s second bassoonist…. ‘Usually I’m here all summer,’ Nelsen said…. Visiting students are a special highlight, Nelsen said…. ‘I think it’s one of the most important things that we can do as orchestra musicians, because they will not know what we do unless there’s that kind of interaction.’ ”
Author: Jennifer Melick
In artistic catalyst role, Daniel Bernard Roumain is helping to transform New Jersey Symphony
“Daniel Bernard Roumain is halfway through his two-year tenure as resident artistic catalyst at the New Jersey Symphony, and his contributions have been revelatory,” writes Courtney Smith in Monday’s (7/25) NJ Arts. “The day we spoke by phone, … Roumain was … with his New Jersey Symphony Chamber Players for its second annual Newark Museum of Art Summer Series [of] four chamber music concerts, ongoing through Aug. 17, in the museum’s intimate [garden]. Roumain described this year’s programming as ‘a heightened and deepened experience from last year.… For the New Jersey Symphony and myself, … we’re committed to our role in supplying relief and giving opportunities to our audiences. In some ways, to escape the trauma of the day. We do this with well-conceptualized public concerts that connect with its audiences and inspire new ways of thinking.’ Roumain’s artistic catalyst role reflects the evolution, over the last couple of years, of the American orchestral field…. The 51-year-old Black Haitian-American is … a composer, violinist, educator and activist…. He sits on the board of the League of American Orchestras…. His north star is social justice. He’s particularly invested in the issues impacting Black communities…. The violin is his tool of change.”
Minnesota Orchestra names Thomas Søndergård music director
“Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård has been chosen as the 11th music director to lead the Minnesota Orchestra in its 120-year history,” writes Ross Raihala in Thursday’s (7/28) St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN). “Søndergård, 52, will be music director designate in the 2022-23 season before beginning his new role in September 2023. Under the terms of a five-year contract beginning in the 2023-24 season, he will lead the orchestra in at least 12 weeks of concerts and activities a year. Søndergård succeeds Osmo Vänskä, who … will become the orchestra’s conductor laureate in September…. Søndergård … joined the Royal Danish Orchestra as a timpanist in 1992…. In 2005, Søndergård made his debut [leading] the Royal Danish Opera, which launched him into the international spotlight…. In 2018, he became music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra…. Søndergård will hold that post concurrently with his position in Minnesota. ‘My impression of the Minnesota Orchestra is that it is an ensemble with tremendous heart,’ Søndergård said. ‘There is a warmth, an openness and a cooperative spirit among the musicians that fits very well into the way that I like to make music.’ … Søndergård will make his debut as music director designate with three performances Oct. 20-22.”
Grant Park Music Festival in August: world premieres, Haydn’s “Creation,” mariachi music, choral music
The Grant Park Music Festival’s free concerts at Chicago’s Millennium Park this August will include a program marking the 60th anniversary of the Grant Park Chorus, a night of mariachi music, and Haydn’s Creation. The Grant Park Chorus’s 60th-anniversary concert on August 4 will feature Christopher Bell leading music by Ēriks Ešenvalds, Ola Gjeilo, Abbie Betinis, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, and Samuel Barber. On August 3, Carlos Kalmar will lead the Grant Park Orchestra and Mariachi Herencia de México in traditional Mexican folk music; there will be a free pre-concert dance demonstration by BYNC Ballet Folklorico. Other Grant Park Orchestra programs will feature the world premieres of Christopher Theofanidis’s Flute Concerto with flute soloist Marina Piccinini and Carl Vine’s Zofomorphosis featuring the orchestra and piano duo ZOFO, plus Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Augusta Holmès’s Andromède, Franck’s Symphony in D minor, Libby Larsen’s Deep Summer Music, and violinist Christian Tetzlaff as soloist in Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. The festival will conclude with a pair of concerts featuring Haydn’s Creation with the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus and vocal soloists. For most Grant Park Music Festival concerts, bag checks will be implemented to prohibit firearms, knives, and other weapons.
New French record label to focus on neglected women composers of the past
“A new record label devoted to releasing music by forgotten women composers will be launched this September,” writes Hannah Nepilova in Tuesday’s (7/26) BBC Music (U.K.). “Founded by cellist Héloïse Luzzati, La Boîte à Pépites launches on 30 September with its debut album: a 3-CD boxset of the complete works by Charlotte Sohy [1887-1955]. This will be followed, in 2023, with a CD of music by Rita Strohl [1865-1942], with many other women in the pipeline, including the British composers Liza Lehmann [1862-1918], Alice Mary Smith [1839-1884] and Adela Maddison [1862-1929]. The record label forms one part of the ‘Elles: Women Composers’ project—devised by Luzzati—which began with the creation of the ‘Un Temps pour Elles’ music Festival in France and was soon followed by the YouTube channel ‘La Boîte à Pépites’ which today contains more than 60 videos, from animated documentaries to a video advent calendar. The aim behind it all, according to Luzzati, is ‘to exhume pieces that seemed worthy of a good position in the standard musical repertoire’—many of which have never been recorded or have been lost over time.”
Boston Typewriter Orchestra gives new meaning to “keyboard instrument”
”At most concerts, it’s a traditional band or a singer that’s the big draw. For the Boston Typewriter Orchestra, it’s the typewriters,” reports Levan Reid in Tuesday’s (7/26) CBS Boston. “They use old-style typewriters to give them their rhythmic tone. ‘We call them instruments, some people call them office machines, some people call them sculptures,’ Orchestra member Chris Keene told WBZ-TV. ‘It’s got a limited range of sounds, so you really have to work at what you are trying to extract out of it.’ So how does a group like this even get started? ‘We came together in the beginning as a bunch of weirdos that kind of liked to bang on typewriters and, for one reason or the other, we were obsessed with making noises on typewriters,’ said member Alex Holman. ‘Once we realized we were trying to entertain an audience, not just having a laugh, banging like monkeys on typewriters, I think it just really started to jell,’ member James Brockman told WBZ. The orchestra’s popularity is on the rise. They’re back in business after the pandemic, playing live at parties…. The Boston Typewriter Orchestra does one or two gigs a month.”
Paul Bhasin appointed music director of DeKalb Symphony Orchestra
“The DeKalb Symphony Orchestra has named Paul Bhasin as its new music director,” states an unsigned article in last Thursday’s (7/21) Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Clarkston, Georgia-based “symphony spent its 2022 season auditioning for a new music director/conductor. It is part of a complete restructure of the organization’s leadership that began with the hiring of Alan Hopper as executive director last year. The pandemic delayed the audition process that allowed the four final candidates for music director to conduct a concert and work with the symphony’s musicians…. The orchestra was founded in 1964 and has more than 80 musicians, most of them volunteer. There are at least eight concerts each year, and the symphony is based on the campus of Perimeter College of Georgia State University’s Clarkston Campus. The orchestra is about to launch its 58th season. Bhasin also serves as director of orchestral studies at Emory University and conducts the Emory University Symphony Orchestra, the Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra and teaches conducting. Bhasin won the Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition in 1998, and has since led a variety of university, academic and professional ensembles throughout North America. He is the music director and conductor of the Atlanta Chamber Music Festival.”
Schenectady Symphony to join local Proctors Collaborative organization
“The 87-year-old Schenectady Symphony Orchestra will come under the wing of Proctors Collaborative as part of a new agreement,” writes Steve Barnes in Tuesday’s (7/26) Times Union (Albany, NY). “The arrangement calls for Proctors [performing arts center and cultural anchor in Schenectady] to provide the SSO with a variety of administrative services and other support…. The orchestra will remain artistically independent, with its own board of directors and status as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit. It is similar to the relationship Proctors has had with other affiliates including Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany since 2011 and Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs for the past seven years. Both organizations have said the association with Proctors has been essential to their financial stability. Bob Bour, president of the symphony’s board of directors for the past 15 years, said the immediate catalyst for the change was the departure last fall of the company’s part-time executive director. ‘Finding a new, part-time executive director who could do everything we asked of that person was going to be impossible,’ said Bour.… The orchestra … has a paid staff of two—Glen Cortese, the artistic director and conductor since 2019, and a music librarian—and pays its musicians.”
Buffalo Philharmonic’s free “Concert for Healing” brings city residents together
“The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra played to the tune of healing Sunday night, offering a free concert [at Kleinhans Music Hall] dedicated to victims of the Tops shooting in May,” reports I’Jaz Ja’ciel in Sunday’s (7/24) Spectrum News 1 (Buffalo, NY). “The sounds brought all ages and races together, in direct contrast to the vision of the individual who infiltrated the city with hate. ‘He didn’t do what he really wanted to do … create this division where we would be filled with hate,’ … said [Music Director] JoAnn Falletta. ‘Instead, I think the community has come closer together in supporting, in helping, in vowing that this will never happen again in our city.’ Falletta worked with members of the East Buffalo [community], including Pastor Julian Cook of Macedonia Baptist Church, who sang baritone in the concert, to find the right time and place for the musical tribute…. ‘Healing can be accomplished by music, especially when we are listening to it together,’ Falletta said.… The program consisted of … pieces from all Black composers,” including Adolphus Hailstork, George Walker, William Grant Still, Valerie Coleman, Florence Price, Duke Ellington. “Falletta said … that she wants to make the healing concert an annual event … in East Buffalo.”
Pacific Symphony to present “Concert for Healing” following May 15 church shooting
California’s Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale will perform a “Concert for Healing” on August 3 at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California. The concert will open with the world premiere of Hymn of Healing composed by Richard A. Nichols in memory of victims of a mass shooting at the Geneva church on May 15, in which one person was killed and five were wounded. Pacific Symphony Music Director Carl St.Clair will conduct the performance, and Rev. Dr. Steven Marsh from Geneva Presbyterian Church and Rev. Dr. Albany Lee from Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church will speak. Hymn of Healing is a musical setting of text created by the church’s choir director, Eileen O’Hern. The performance will also include Ticheli’s There Will Be Rest, Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 (“La passione”), Paulus’s The Road Home, Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and Exsultate Jubilate, and “Amazing Grace,” the latter sung together with the congregation.