Author: Mike Rush

Conductors Mei-Ann Chen, Alondra de la Parra, JoAnn Falletta, and Jeri Lynne Johnson will be featured on a livestream on August 17 at 9:30 a.m. on YouTube and Facebook Live. Nashville Public Radio’s 91Classical Colleen Phelps—host of the station’s Classically Speaking podcast—will moderate the panel discussion about the future of orchestras during the upheaval of 2020. Listeners may submit questions in advance by emailing colleen@91Classical.org, or submit questions in the comments during the talk. Mei-Ann Chen is music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta; Alondra de la Parra is music director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Australia; JoAnn Falletta is music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic; Jeri Lynne Johnson is founding artistic director of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, based in Philadelphia. More information about the event can be found at 91Classical’s website.

“Joining the slow march back to live concerts, London’s Wigmore Hall will offer a seven-week series of 80 performances starting September 13 and featuring 150 musicians from Europe and the U.K.,” writes Anthony Brown in Tuesday’s (8/4) Musical America (subscription required). “Each will last 60 to 90 minutes, live streamed in HD on the Hall’s site. Live audiences can attend 60 of the concerts. Indoor COVID-19 guidelines include attendance limited to 56, 10 percent of capacity; paperless tickets and no printed programs; temperature checks; hand sanitizer widely available; and staggered entrance times. … Wigmore Hall Artistic and Executive Director John Gilhooly said he is ‘thrilled to be welcoming audiences through the doors to our beautiful auditorium again…. Should the international crisis escalate again before September, our planned autumn concerts will revert to empty hall broadcasts,’ which the venue pioneered in May. The programs, still being finalized, include a mix of solo recitals and ensembles. Among those confirmed are the Arditti Quartet; Renaud Capuçon (violin); Gerald Finley (bass-baritone); Julia Fischer (violin); Christian Gerhaher (baritone); Malcolm Martineau (piano); Sir András Schiff (piano); and Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin).”

“On a recent weekend, I tuned into a concert that renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma streamed through the Berlin-based classical music platform IDAGIO,” writes Scott Duke Kominers in Monday’s (8/3) Bloomberg. “The concert program was totally new—Ma put it together just for this performance. It’s not on YouTube or any other platform—and like any other live concert, it was visceral, ephemeral and exclusive…. A replay was available, but only for the next 24 hours. The economics of this type of event might work out quite well. A ticket to a typical streamed concert costs something like $8. If the artist can reach 10 times as many viewers that way, that matches the revenue brought in by an in-person show that costs $80 a ticket…. $8 [is] about the same as paying to stream a new movie—so many more people will be able to afford it…. Digital platforms can even help artists engage directly with their fans. (Ma, for example, took questions submitted over live chat after his performance.) They may also be better at managing and tracking customers to generate sustained interest—and recurring revenue. And they may have the digital tools to help artists find new listeners.”

“Especially during a pandemic, the graying of audiences has been seen as a sign of precariousness,” writes Anthony Tommasini in Thursday’s (8/6) New York Times. “It’s true that classical music tends to attract older patrons, and that seniors are indeed the most vulnerable to the virus…. Yet again, aging audiences are pointed to as an ominous indicator that this art form continues on a slow, inexorable death spiral…. Even back in the 1960s, when Leonard Bernstein was galvanizing the Philharmonic and attracting young people like me to his concerts, audiences were dominated by those in their 50s and older.… During a recent online panel sponsored by the League of American Orchestras, several artists and administrators commented that classical music attracts passionate fans, including older ones, and that institutions should cherish and serve that passion…. The main challenge of engaging new classical music audiences—of all ages—[is] diminishing attention spans…. Classical music should embrace this reality and promote performances as rare opportunities to disconnect … from the digital life outside…. Classical music institutions must be careful … not to take older members its audiences for granted. These veteran music lovers keep showing up—something for the field to celebrate, not fret over.”

“In early June, conductor Roderick Cox hosted a conductors’ round table discussion on his Facebook page … to discuss the experiences of Black conductors, their views on orchestral culture, and whether things were getting better or staying stuck,” writes Michael Zwiebach in Tuesday’s (8/4) San Francisco Classical Voice. The article includes an edited transcript of the discussion among the conductors. “Besides Cox, the conductors were: Michael Morgan, of Oakland Symphony; Thomas Wilkins, principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, music director of the Omaha Symphony, the Boston Symphony’s artistic advisor, education and community engagement, and the Henry A. Upper Chair of Orchestral Conducting at Indiana University; and Jonathon Heyward, chief conductor designate of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, 2020 recipient of the Sir Georg Solti Career Assistance Award, former Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2017–18), and an assistant conductor of the Hallé Orchestra for the past three years…. Cox is a 2018 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award winner, a rising guest conductor [who] started the Roderick Cox Music Initiative (RCMI) in 2018, a project to help provide scholarship funds to young musicians of color from underrepresented communities…. Cox is featured in an upcoming PBS/FilmNorth documentary called Conducting Life.”

“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to make large gatherings a no-go, the Houston Symphony steps in to provide fans and newbies alike an opportunity to hear the orchestra from their own homes,” writes Holly Beretto in Monday’s (8/3) Houston Culture Map (TX). “The ‘Live from Jones Hall’ concert series continues this month, with weekly, hour-long performances from the symphony’s downtown home…. Tickets are $10 per concert, and ticket buyers get a private link to access the live stream. The August installment of the series kicks off August 8, with guest conductor Nicholas McGegan [leading] Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as well as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, spotlighting four members of the Symphony’s violin section. The evening’s program also includes ‘Summerland’ from Three Visions by composer William Grant Still. The August 15 concert features George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, conducted by Houston Symphony conducting fellow Yue Bao, and Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F major.” Programs on August 22 and 29 will feature Missy Mazzoli’s Dark with Excessive Bright Concerto for Double Bass featuring Principal Double Bass Robin Kesselman; opera arias from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, transcribed for wind ensemble; ‘The Fiddler’s March’ from Wynton Marsalis’s The Fiddler’s Tale; and Schubert’s Symphony No. 2.

“The Tulsa Symphony Orchestra will present its first two concerts of the 2020-2021 season as outdoor events at ONEOK Field, home of the Tulsa Drillers baseball team,” writes James D. Watts Jr. in Wednesday’s (8/5) Tulsa World (OK). “Keith Elder, executive director of the Tulsa Symphony, said the … concerts … allow for … ‘social distancing in how people will be seated, both in the audience and among the performers,’ he said. ‘The stadium seats about 8,500, and we’re expecting about 1,700 for our concerts.’ … Masks will be required….The first concert, described as a ‘Celebration of Beethoven’ … will be performed Sept. 5 [led by] resident guest conductor Daniel Hege…. The concert will conclude with a fireworks display. The second concert … on Oct. 18 at ONEOK Field [will feature] guest conductor Sarah Hicks [leading] the Overture to ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio,’ Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy featuring TSO concertmaster Rossitza Goza as violin soloist, and Brahms’ dramatic Symphony No. 4…. The orchestra is also considering moving its popular Fridays at the Loft chamber music series to an outdoor venue… Elder said the orchestra will announce its plans for the remainder of the 2020-2021 season at a later date.”

The Omaha Symphony has announced a restructured 2020-21 season that will begin in January 2021, with newly designed Masterworks, Joslyn, Pops, Rocks, Movies, and Family subscription series. “While we hoped to begin our 100th anniversary season in September, the need to adapt these plans has become clear,” said President and CEO Jennifer Boomgaarden in a press release. The first concert of the season will take place on January 10, 2021 at the Joslyn Art Museum with Thomas Wilkins, in his final season as music director, leading music by Haydn, Delius, Piazzolla, Vaughan Williams, and Robin Olson, with Concertmaster Susanna Perry Gilmore as soloist. The first Masterworks program, on January 15-16 at the Holland Center, will feature Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8, Glinka’s Capriccio Brillante, and Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand with soloist André Watts. Music Director Designate Ankush Kumar Bahl will conduct a program of Mendelssohn and Sibelius in February, and a collaborative April program with Opera Omaha will feature music by Wagner and Strauss, with soprano Karen Slack and baritone Craig Irvin. The season will feature standard repertoire as well as music by Michael Daugherty, John Williams, Anna Clyne, Eric Ewazen, William Grant Still, Walter Piston, and Gabriela Lena Frank.

Virginia’s Fairfax Symphony Orchestra has announced that Tim Owens, a violinist in the orchestra for more than 34 years, died on July 7 at age 55 after a short illness. As a part-time professional violinist, he performed at the Kennedy Center, National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, Washington National Cathedral, Carnegie Hall, and several embassies. Owens was also president and owner of Cronin Communications, a telecom consulting firm, and previously served as executive director of the Foundation for Rural Service, the philanthropic arm of the Rural Broadband Association in Washington, D.C. In July, the Fairfax Symphony dedicated a virtual performance in Owens’s honor featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with guest violinist Inmo Yang. Online tributes to Owens are posted here.