Author: Jennifer Melick

On July 16, Chicago Sinfonietta presented “More Life,” the third installment of its “Sinfonietta in Your Neighborhood” series, on the rooftop terrace of Chicago’s Millennium Park. The free event from 3 to 7 p.m. highlighted homegrown talent with a fashion-design panel and performances by DJs and musicians supporting Chicago’s regional entrepreneurs in art, design, and music. Chicago Sinfonietta musicians Karla Galva and Edith Yokley performed, followed by a 4 pm panel discussion and two DJ sets. Participating fashion designers and DJs included Ayo, Dave Jeff, Hollywood Hxlt, Vic Lloyd, Fashion Geek Zo, Marco Dano, and DJ Geno.

“Conductor Daniel Stern, who spent four decades furthering orchestral music in Boise, Idaho, has passed away,” states an unsigned obituary in Wednesday’s (7/13) Violin Channel. “Born in Switzerland, Stern grew up in Rochester, New York. He spent a significant portion of his adult life in Boise, arriving in 1974 to take up a position as Music Director of the Boise Philharmonic. He stayed in that role until 1987, making significant improvements to the quality of the orchestra and advancing its reputation in the region. Stern was also the Music Director of the Boise Baroque Chamber Orchestra between 2005 and 2018. Up until his retirement, he had been associated with the group for all but two years of its existence. Over the course of his life, he taught in a number of public schools in Oregon, as well as tertiary teaching at Boise State University and the College of Idaho. Alongside this work, he also made frequent guest conducting appearances with Opera Idaho and Ballet Idaho. Stern received Idaho’s Governor’s Award in the Arts in 2014, in recognition of his years of service to music in the region.” Stern is survived by his wife, Paula Knoblock Stern, and daughters Frances and Rebecca.

“Eleven days had passed since a shooter opened fire on a July 4 parade in downtown Highland Park,” writes Hannah Edgar in Sunday’s (7/17) Chicago Tribune about the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s season-opening Ravinia Festival concert on Friday. Ravinia is located in Highland Park. “The … concert … was only Ravinia’s second since the park canceled or postponed events post-shooting…. In memory of the July 4 victims, the CSO and Alsop played ‘Nimrod’ from Edward Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations.’… Principal conductor Marin Alsop [used] her short remarks to prime audiences to the late composer Julia Perry (1924-1979)…. Before Friday, the CSO had never played Julia Perry’s ‘Short Piece for Large Orchestra. ’ … Like many Black composers of her generation, … racism constrained her professional prospects. A series of paralyzing strokes in the 1970s curtailed her career…. [In] Perry’s undersung modernist marvel … [Alsop] brought out the work’s motivic tightness as if illuminating the score by backlight.… It did seem darkly apt that this most American of backstories hung over Perry’s work, following Highland Park’s most American of tragedies. Music may offer catharsis of all kinds, but sweet sounds won’t shorten the long road ahead.” Also on the program were Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Stewart Goodyear, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.

“When Angaddeep Singh Vig arrived in Glasgow from India as an 18-year-old asylum seeker in January 2020, without any of his beloved musical instruments, he remembers feeling like ‘a guy without a soul,’ ” writes Malcolm Jack in last Monday’s (7/11) Time Out Glasgow. “But thanks to Musicians in Exile—Glasgow’s asylum seeker and refugee orchestra—he has got his soul back, and then some. Started in 2019, the project is the brainchild of Paul MacAlindin, a freelance conductor who has worked with orchestras and ensembles all over the world … From 2009 to 2014, MacAlindin was music director of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq–a maverick mission to help young musicians in the country…. ‘It worked,’ he says, ‘until the invasion of Islamic State.’… He moved back to his native Scotland … [and] founded … an award-winning ‘regeneration orchestra’ set up to help revitalize [neighborhoods] through performances in local venues by musicians of all backgrounds. Musicians in Exile grew out of that, as a way of helping to give musician asylum seekers and refugees … to sing, play and share their talents.” Read about how American orchestras and the classical music community are helping refugee musicians in Symphony magazine.

“The Arizona Commission on the Arts has received a one-time appropriation of $5 million in the $18 billion state budget for 2023-2024,” writes Sofia Krusmark in Wednesday’s (7/13) Arizona Republic (Phoenix). “It’s the largest amount of money the state has given the commission. The commission hopes to provide more resources for individual arts, as well as for smaller nonprofits, younger aspiring artists, older adults and veterans…. Begun in 1967, the Arizona Commission on the Arts is the state agency that financially supports more than 200 arts nonprofit organizations across Arizona…. From 2008 until 2012, the agency had a place in the ongoing General Fund line item in the state budget, averaging about $550,000 per year to the arts. In 2012, the line item was eliminated due to recession-era budget-balancing efforts … For the 2023 fiscal year, the breakdown [of funding for the commission] is $5 million from the legislature, $1.2 million from the Arts Trust Fund and $900,000 from the NEA…. Arizona’s arts and culture industries generated $10.9 billion for the state in 2019 … Funding from the commission goes to the Phoenix Symphony and Musical Instrument Museum, among other arts groups.

“The newest class of Dudamel Fellows at the Los Angeles Philharmonic” was announced on Monday, writes Peter Feher in Tuesday’s (7/12) San Francisco Classical Voice. “The orchestra’s program for rising conductors—inaugurated in 2009, the same year Gustavo Dudamel took over as music director—has served as a reliable stepping stone to bigger things. Not least return appearances with the LA Phil: Last summer at the Hollywood Bowl saw six former fellows taking the podium. The fresh faces joining the orchestra for the 2022–2023 season are Luis Toro Araya, Rodolfo Barráez, Linhan Cui, and Chloé Dufresne… Each conductor leads two concerts in the LA Phil’s Symphonies for Schools series and acts in other performing and educational capacities, from covering main-season programs at Disney Hall to mentoring the young students in Youth Orchestra Los Angeles…. Barráez hails from Venezuela and is now finishing a master’s degree in Berlin, and Cui started her studies in China and is currently a doctoral student at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Representing Chile, Araya just accepted a post with the National Orchestra of Spain, and Dufresne has won prizes in her native France, after time at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.”

On July 30, the Nashville Symphony will present its fourth annual “Spirits of Summer,” a themed event at Schermerhorn Symphony Center pairing music and cocktails. Principal Pops Conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez will conduct a program of music by American composers William Grant Still, Caroline Shaw, Andrés Soto, and Reena Esmail. Nashville mixologists will be present at a cocktail competition to speak about their adult beverages. The audience will be asked to vote for their favorite musical-cocktail pairing at the end of the evening. The event is presented by the orchestra’s Crescendo Club for young professionals ages 21 to 40.