Author: Mike Rush

“The Wyoming Symphony Orchestra is … about to embark on their second livestream production this Saturday and Sunday,” writes Dan Cepeda in Thursday’s (1/28) Oil City News (Casper, WY). “The popular holiday program in December was the first fully-produced WSO livestream event, and Music Director Christopher Dragon says they took what they learned and made improvements to the production…. ‘We’ve already got another camera lined up for this upcoming concert to help get more angles,’ he said. There will also be improvements to the audio.… The WSO has relied mainly on small wind and brass sections during their various gatherings this season, but for this livestream they were able to get clearance from health officials to bring in 29 orchestra members, all distanced on stage. Dragon says this week’s all-Mozart program … ‘works very well for small ensembles…. At the time that Mozart was writing, the string sizes that they had were much smaller.’ … Dragon says … he’s also looking forward to next season…. ‘We are determined to have audiences back in the hall as soon as it’s safe,’ he said.… ‘We have some very big ideas to use from the previous season we had to cancel. I’m confident that we will [bring] them back for next season.’ ”

On January 23 and 24, 2021 conductor Delta David Gier and the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (Sioux Falls, SD) will perform the world premiere of New York City-based composer Frank J. Oteri’s Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow, written in the last months of 2020. The concerts will be presented to a limited in-person audience, and the January 23 concert will also be live-streamed on the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra’s Facebook page, as well as the South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s website, at 5:30pm PST/7:30pm CST/8:30pm EST. Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow, an eleven-minute work for full orchestra, ruminates on the catharsis and empathy needed surrounding loss. Oteri improvised music on the piano that would become part of this work the morning after his mother passed away from COVID-19 in early April 2020; he completed other sections and orchestrated the score after months of quarantining at home in October 2020. In addition to his compositional activities, Oteri is the composer advocate at New Music USA and the editor of the online magazine NewMusicBox. He is vice president of the International Society for Contemporary Music and received the Composers Now Visionary Award in 2018.

“From the age of 3, CBS News political correspondent Ed O’Keefe toiled at a keyboard—not in typing … but in studying classical piano in Delmar, a suburb of Albany, NY,” reports Candice Agree on Wednesday (1/20) at Chicago’s WFMT radio. “Although he loved playing, his interest in current events and politics pulled him into a journalism career…. O’Keefe, 37, is about to become a fixture in the White House press room, as he will cover the Biden administration…. But he has never left his first passion far behind. He shared some musical memories with us before taking on his new assignment … as Senior White House & Political Correspondent.” O’Keefe discusses his fifteen years of classical piano study; attending concerts by the Albany Symphony Orchestra and at the Tanglewood Festival; how mastering Chopin’s 24 Preludes and other pieces provided lessons in “how to memorize material, an essential skill for live television”; and  playing piano as an adult as “a way to relax, to relieve stress … a unique and memorable way to entertain people.” Says O’Keefe, “One day in the future, I’d like to commit to … re-learning the work I spent 15 years studying as a kid.”

“When Stephanie Childress steps onto the podium this spring at Powell Hall, she will begin her tenure as assistant conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra,” writes Jen Roberts in the January issue of St. Louis Magazine. “The 21-year-old has already received many accolades … but considers conducting the SLSO for her audition to be one of the top musical experiences of her life. ‘I did the first downbeat to the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, and the sound jumped back at me,’ she says. ’It was full of warm emotion. It was charged. It was intense.’ Childress auditioned just before the pandemic began.… She spoke … from her flat in London about her background as a musician and what she hopes to learn from working alongside music director Stéphane Denève.” In an interview, Childress talks about asking for violin lessons at age 4 after attending a concert by Nigel Kennedy; playing in the U.K.’s National Youth Orchestra; sitting in on English National Opera rehearsals as a 13-year-old; her shared passion with Denève for French music; looking forward to working with the St. Louis Symphony’s youth orchestra; and plans to play violin with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

“When the King Center welcomed its first live show since the pandemic, it was not a big-name star that took the honor of helping get Brevard’s cultural life back in gear. It was the Brevard Symphony Orchestra, masked—except for the wind section—and six feet apart from each other while playing their hearts out on the main stage,” write Maria Sonnenberg in Wednesday’s (1/20) Florida Today (Brevard County, FL). “The orchestra’s genial artistic leader, Maestro Christopher Confessore, chose to make lemonade from the bitter drink the pandemic had dealt the cultural organization. ‘It was a huge adjustment, but now everyone is listening in a different way and it will be a positive for use when we get back to normal configuration,’ he said…. The next few months will be busy as the orchestra launches into a belated big Beethoven bash [on Jan. 23] to celebrate the composer’s 250th birthday last December…. All the concerts in this series … will be offered as a professionally produced delayed livestream, … ‘to allow our patrons to enjoy the performance at home,’ said executive director David Schillhammer.” Also planned are four classical programs from February through April, and a pops program in February.

“Philadelphia Orchestra music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is urging the incoming presidential administration to take immediate action to help save a U.S. arts sector battered by the pandemic,” writes Peter Dobrin in Wednesday’s (1/20) Philadelphia Inquirer. “ ‘Artists need financial support to continue to create; the arts institutions of America need it to survive,’ writes the conductor in a letter to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. ‘While the vaccine is now here, and we can finally start to see the end of the pandemic, the financial implications will last for years without meaningful government intervention.’ He urges them to consider appointing a cabinet-level champion dedicated to arts and culture—an idea proposed by others that has gathered steam…. The letter was posted Tuesday on social media, and will be sent directly to Biden and Harris, an orchestra spokesperson said. Nézet-Séguin … says that although he is a Canadian citizen, as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, ‘two of the country’s greatest cultural institutions, I am a proud artistic citizen of the United States of America…. I urge your administration to prioritize the arts for the benefit of this country, for all Americans.’ ”

“In 2008, Marine Corps bandleader Brian Dix got the idea to compose a symphonic piece called ‘Madam President,’ just in case then-Sen. Hillary Clinton were to win the race for the presidency,” writes Pam Kragen in Wednesday’s (1/20) San Diego Union-Tribune. “Thirteen years later, the San Diego resident has finally premiered a new version of the piece…. Newly renamed ‘Madam (Vice) President,’ the jaunty 5-minute march debuted online Sunday to honor former California Sen. Kamala Harris…. To record the video, Dix recruited 45 women musicians from all over California who volunteered their time filming themselves playing their musical sections. Those videos were then assembled and produced into a finished film … The video can be seen online at youtube.com/user/artslaureate/videos. … ‘Madam President’ was scheduled to make its premiere in 2020 with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, but the pandemic led to the cancellation of the concert…. On Nov. 3 … Dix said his husband … told him to change the name of the piece. Less than a minute later, Bramwell Tovey, artistic director and conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, called with the same suggestion.” Dix was director of the U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps in Washington, D.C. from 1998 to 2015.