Category: News Briefs

In Monday’s (7/6) Australian (Sydney), Rowan Callick reports, “Australia and Japan are developing together a Utopia Project that would present an arts Olympics every two years in an Asia-Pacific centre. They have enlisted the potential support of eight other countries in planning to stage non-competitive arts shows that would include artists, works and performances from across the region. The project would involve exhibitions, workshops and educational presentations, and would move to a different city each time in order to share the costs and the impact. … Arts Minister Peter Garrett is being asked to come to this party. If the Australian government offers its support, then Australia and Japan would invite the eight others to join the process formally. … This bold Utopia Project seeks to follow up an extraordinarily successful three-year arts collaboration between Australia and Japan, which has involved four pairings of leading artists.”

Posted July 6, 2009

In Sunday’s (7/5) Press of Atlantic City, Juliet Fletcher writes about the Bay-Atlantic Symphony in Bridgeton, New Jersey, “who every Fourth would cap a roster of tried-and-true tunes with a rendition of Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’—which featured about 55 orchestral players and, true to the musical score, cannon-shots. But this year’s concert on Saturday was different: In the wake of budget difficulties, the city silenced the tradition. … The gist of the cancelled invitation was the price: The symphony would cost $15,000. Fourth of July events across the region have been smaller this year, and arts organizations likewise have scaled back their summer calendars. But for Paul Herron, executive director of the Bay-Atlantic, the news threw an unexpected hitch in his plan to promote the orchestra. … Herron said the 12-year tradition might be worth reviving—not just for the cultural life of the town, but for its economy. ‘Bringing in the arts is a powerful economic engine,’ he said. Towns that pay for an arts event see a return in local business revenue worth at least three times the initial cost. That worked in [nearby] Avalon, he said, where last year’s concert series of Italian arias ended up generating a town-wide festival of Italian culture, offering food and other vendors.”

Posted July 6, 2009

In Saturday’s (7/4) Washington Post, Anne Midgette profiles National Symphony Orchestra  Glenn Donnellan, who has created an unusual musical instrument. “I just decided, ‘Well, let’s see if I can make one,’ ” Donellan is quoted as saying. “ ‘I thought it would be cool to say to the kids, “Hey, you can make your own.” ’ The object in question is an electric violin made out of a baseball bat. And the answer is, Yes, he could. Just in time for the Fourth of July, Donnellan posted to YouTube a video of himself playing the national anthem on his electric baseball-bat-violin. He didn’t necessarily mean the clip for wide circulation. He put it up because a friend with contacts in the Washington Nationals front office wanted to show it to his bosses and ask about having Donnellan play the national anthem for a game. But there are no secrets on YouTube. By Friday, the video had racked up a respectable 1,600-plus views, and some enthusiastic comments.”

Posted July 6, 2009

In Sunday’s (7/5) New York Times, David Barboza writes, “Thirty years ago this summer the violinist Isaac Stern created a sensation when he came to China for a series of concerts and master classes. His visit, richly documented in the Academy Award-winning film ‘From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China’ (directed by Murray Lerner and supervised by Allan Miller), was credited with giving a boost to classical music here and helping foster cultural exchanges between China and the West. This October Beijing will commemorate that visit with a concert by the China Philharmonic to honor Mr. Stern, who died in 2001 at 81, and to pay tribute to the remarkable strides this country has made in music since then. … Since the days of Stern’s historic visit, interest in and access to classical music has mushroomed in China. There are major orchestras in many cities, and an estimated 40 million students across the country study the violin or the piano. But there are not yet enough dedicated fans to support classical careers within the country, which is why, even today, Chinese musicians go abroad and now populate the world’s leading orchestras, opera houses and music schools.” Barboza recounts Stern’s visit in detail and discusses the effect it had on Chinese music schools at the end of the Cultural Revolution.

July 6, 2009

A CBC News report Friday (7/3) states, “A young Torontonian currently working in Zurich has been named assistant conductor of l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal. Nathan Brock, 30, will begin work in July, assisting music director Kent Nagano at the Lanaudiare and Knowlton festivals. He is expected to work with Nagano through the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons. His first OSM concert and his Canadian debut will be this December with soprano Marie-Josée Lord at Montreal’s Notre Dame Cathedral.” Brock is currently an instructor and assistant to Prof. J. Schlaefli at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Switzerland. “From 2003 to 2008, he served as founding artistic director and conductor of the Northern Lights Music Festival in Guadalajara, Mexico. Brock won the 2007 Bern Chamber Orchestra’s young conductors’ competition and was one of six finalists in a field of more than 150 at Spain’s eighth Cadaqués International Conducting Competition in May 2006.”

Posted July 6, 2009

On Sunday (7/5), Associated Press reporter Jim Fitzgerald writes, “Orchestras, theaters, museums and other arts organizations in the nation’s suburbs face the challenge to attract customers—and donors—from the same population going to the Chicago Symphony, the Smithsonian or Broadway plays. With the recession cutting into corporate and government funding and making Americans cautious about their spending, the groups are working harder to promote their small-town advantages—especially an easier commute and cheaper ticket prices. … ‘The appeal of the Westchester Philharmonic—and this is probably true of suburban orchestras throughout the country—includes the ease with which you can get to us, afford the tickets, park, get in and out,’ [Executive Director Joshua] Worby said. ‘But it’s a slippery slope because you can’t fool audiences if your product is substandard. Manhattan is just 20 miles down the road.’ … Outside San Francisco, the Berkeley Symphony also stresses convenience. ‘We do play that up, that you don’t have to drive across the Bay Bridge and pay your $4 toll or whatever or take a BART train,’ says spokesman Kevin Shuck. ‘But part of our message to the Berkeley audience is that you don’t have to go to the San Francisco Symphony to get high quality.’ ”

Photo: Berkeley Symphony Music Director Designate Joanna Carneiro
Credit: David Weiss

Posted July 6, 2009

The Cleveland Orchestra announced that it is offering concertgoers the chance to win free tickets via a mobile-phone trivia contest on July 2 at its annual free downtown concert celebrating Independence Day. Winners of the trivia challenge will receive tickets to the Blossom Festival, where the orchestra performs during the summer. The orchestra’s partner for the contest is Distributive Networks, a Washington, D.C.-based mobile marketing company that created the mobile marketing platform Obama for America in the 2008 Presidential campaign race. During Cleveland’s Star-Spangled Spectacular Community Concert and Festival on July 2 in Public Square, audience members will be invited to text the word BLOSSOM on their cell phones to a specified number. Instructions, including the specific number, will be broadcast on a large screen at Public Square and via radio stations WCPN and WCLV, which both are broadcasting the orchestra’s 9 p.m. concert. Contest participants will receive text trivia challenge questions about the Cleveland Orchestra and will be invited to share photos of friends and families at Public Square and Blossom by uploading them to YouTube and flickr using the keywords “Cleveland Orchestra.” The trivia challenge is part of the orchestra’s public launch of social media tools; future plans include a blog at the orchestra’s website for news, behind-the-scenes information, and input from musicians and guest artists.

Posted July 2, 2009

Lincoln Center has announced details of a three-month exhibit chronicling its 50-year history, set to open at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on October 15. The exhibit, Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years, will feature all twelve Lincoln Center constituent organizations and encompass seven themes: origins, architecture, personalities, performances, technology, education, and media and commerce. Some of the items on view will be a signed copy of John Adams’s score On the Transmigration of Souls, written in response to 9/11 and premiered by the New York Philharmonic on September 19, 2002; the feathered, sequined gown worn by Beverly Sills at her 1980 farewell gala at the New York State Theater; a poster designed by Andy Warhol for the fifth New York Film Festival in 1967; and the yellow dress from Lincoln Center Theater’s Tony Award-winning production Contact. Exhibit curator Thomas Mellins will give a free lecture at 6 p.m. on October 15 in the library’s Bruno Walter Auditorium.

Posted July 2, 2009

The Youth Orchestra of the Americas has announced the addition of a third “Musical Fiesta” concert at Boston’s Jordan Hall in July, while it is in residence at New England Conservatory from July 13 to 30. The July 27 free family concert will feature music from the home countries of YOA’s musicians, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Argentina. The orchestra also will offer free concerts on July 22 at Jordan Hall and July 29 at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade, as well as in numerous community-engagement projects, all previously announced. The YOA embarks on a U.S. and Canadian tour following its Boston stay, including stops in Charlevoix, Knowlton, and Quebec City, all in Quebec; THEArc in Washington, D.C.; the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland; and the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival in Easton, Maryland. The Youth Orchestra of the Americas, comprising musicians aged 18 to 28 from North and South America, was founded in 2002 by New England Conservatory, the nonprofit institution Vision, Inc., and Venezuela’s El Sistema music education program.

Posted July 2, 2009 

The Juilliard School has announced the first concert to be performed by Juilliard Baroque, comprised of faculty members from the school’s new Historical Performance Program. The October 27 concert, an all-Bach program, will take place at the school’s Paul Hall and will feature violinists Monica Huggett (the program’s artistic director), Robert Mealy, Cynthia Roberts; cellist Phoebe Carrai; flutist Sandra Miller; double bassist Robert Nairn; oboist Gonzalo Ruiz; bassoonist Dominic Teresi; and harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss. Repertoire for the concert will include A Musical Offering and the concerto for Oboe and Strings in F Major (BWV 1053); a second concert on February 7 will feature Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Nos. 3, 4, and 5. The ensemble’s teaching residency at Juilliard and concert schedule will be modeled on that of the Juilliard String Quartet, the conservatory’s resident quartet since 1946. Beginning in fall 2009, twelve students will be enrolled in the school’s new two-year graduate-level historical performance program.

Posted July 2, 2009