Category: News Briefs

“Think of it as a sonata rather than a symphony,” writes Graydon Royce in Friday’s (6/19) Star Tribune (Minneapolis). “The Minnesota Orchestra this morning unveiled a $40 million project to remodel its 35-year-old hall in downtown Minneapolis. That represents a significant telescoping of a project that the orchestra proposed in May 2007 as a $90 million endeavor. ‘We are trying to be fiscally responsible and very focused,’ said Michael Henson, the orchestra’s president. ‘We have tested every aspect of this project, and it’s critical to get something of lasting significance.’ The orchestra has selected the Toronto firm of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB) to lead the redesign, which is intended primarily to address capacity issues in the lobby and service facilities and address the exterior. Henson said he anticipates that KPMB will select a local partner on the project. … The firm has worked on many renovations of cultural institutions, including the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and Canada’s National Ballet School. … The orchestra has raised $14 million toward the project. Of the remaining money, board chairman Jack Eugster said the organization will seek $14 million through public bonding from the state and the remaining amount from private sources. The project is tentatively slated for a January 2013 completion.”

Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Orchestra

Posted June 22, 2009

In Friday’s (6/19) San Francisco Chronicle, Joshua Kosman writes, “Lawrence Granger, a gifted and committed cellist with the San Francisco Symphony for 30 years, died Sunday at UCSF Hospital shortly after being diagnosed with cancer. He was 57. Mr. Granger joined the Symphony in 1979, after stints with the Oakland Symphony and San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. A dedicated chamber player, he appeared regularly with his orchestral colleagues on the Symphony’s Chamber Music Series and as part of the independently produced Chamber Music Sundaes. He also performed as a guest member of several community orchestras. Among his solo appearances under the Symphony’s auspices were his participation in the local premieres of works by Su Lian Tan, Steven Stucky and Bright Sheng during the 1993 Wet Ink Festival. Mr. Granger was born in San Diego on March 1, 1952, and moved to the Bay Area with his family in 1966. He attended then-Cal State Hayward, earning a music degree in 1975, and studied with Bonnie Hampton and Symphony principal cellist Michael Grebanier. He joined the music faculty of his alma mater—later Cal State East Bay—in 1990.”

Posted June 19, 2009

In Thursday’s (6/18) Grand Rapids Press (Michigan), Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk reports, “Opera Grand Rapids broke ground today on the Betty Van Andel Opera Center, the company’s first permanent home. For most of its 42-year history, the company has presented operas by Mozart and Puccini in the comfort of DeVos Performance Hall. But it has managed its affairs from rented offices, stored props and costumes in the homes of staff and volunteers, and rehearsed for productions such as Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ in vacant warehouses and empty storefronts. The company’s days of operating as a traveling caravan soon will be over. Artistic director Robert Lyall called the $2.25 million building the ‘missing piece’ in the company’s operations. … Philanthropists Jay and Betty Van Andel in 2001 gave a $1 million lead gift to build the 14,000-square foot building, which will include a rehearsal hall, practice rooms, costume shop and storage facilities. … Dedication of the building is tentatively planned for February 2010, but occupancy could come as early as the end of this year, according to Opera Grand Rapids executive director Mike Havlicek.” The Grand Rapids Symphony provides the orchestra for Opera Grand Rapids.

Posted June 19, 2009

In Thursday’s (6/18) Globe and Mail, James Bradshaw reports, “Saxophonist Wallace Halladay has won the $25,000 Virginia Parker Prize, given each year since 1982 by the Canada Council for the Arts to a classical music performer under age 32 who shows outstanding talent. Halladay, who has yet to turn 30, is a virtuoso who is comfortable in multiple styles, both classical and contemporary. He currently teaches at the University of Toronto, and is a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Esprit Orchestra. Halladay joins a distinguished list of past winners of all musical stripes that includes Jon Kimura Parker, Louis Lortie, Michael Schade, Karina Gauvin, James Ehnes, Isabel Bayrakdarian and last year’s winner, Jean-Phillipe Sylvestre.”

Posted June 19, 2009

Friday (6/19) on Bloomberg.com, Catherine Hickley reports, “Martin Hoffmann, a German television producer, will take over from Pamela Rosenberg as the director of the Berlin Philharmonic after her contract expires in 2010, the Berlin regional government said. Hoffmann, who is 49 and a lawyer by profession, has led the television production company MME AG since 2004. Before that, he was an executive at SAT. 1, a private television channel belonging to ProSiebenSat1. Media AG, according to a statement from the state of Berlin sent by e-mail today. Hoffmann ‘is the right person to support us on our creative journey,’ Simon Rattle, the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, said in a statement. Rosenberg announced last year that she would not seek to extend her contract at the Berlin Philharmonic beyond 2010 because she wants to spend more time on individual projects.”

Posted June 19, 2009

In Friday’s (6/19) New York Times, Dave Itzkoff reports, “The French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez will be among the winners of the Kyoto Prize, awarded annually by the Inamori Foundation in Japan to recognize ‘contributions to the scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind,’ the foundation said in a news release. Mr. Boulez, 84, will be the prize’s laureate in its arts and philosophy category. (Awards are also given in the disciplines of basic sciences and advanced technology.) The foundation recognized Mr. Boulez for his contributions to the musical field of serialism, and for his ‘controlled chance’ compositions and his work as director of the Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic/Music at the Pompidou Center in Paris. Mr. Boulez and his fellow laureates will be honored in a week of ceremonies that start on Nov. 9 and will receive gold medals and cash prizes of about $500,000 each.”

Photo credit: Todd Rosenberg

In Thursday’s (6/18) Nashville Scene, Russell Johnston writes, “When Kenneth Schermerhorn died in 2005, after more than two decades at the helm of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the maestro left an unusually large void. … While the NSO searched for a permanent music director, it hit upon a dramatic short-term solution: Call Leonard Slatkin. As the man who built the St. Louis Symphony … into a top-level orchestra, Slatkin seemed uniquely suited to develop the Nashville Symphony’s musical polish and national reputation. Symphony President Alan Valentine persuaded Slatkin to sign on, first for the new hall’s gala opening, then for a three-year term as a music advisor. His benchmark would come when Nashville hosted the 2007 conference of the American Symphony Orchestra League—a coming-out party that would test the NSO’s mettle. … This weekend, Slatkin closes the circle on his formal affiliation with the Nashville Symphony, revisiting some of the music that began the partnership.” Slatkin’s final Nashville program includes Brahms’s Second Symphony, Bruch’s Violin Concerto, and Joan Tower’s Made in America, commissioned by a consortium of orchestras , premiered by the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra, and recorded by Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony.

Made in America was the first composition of the Ford Made in America program, a partnership program of the League of American Orchestras and Meet The Composer. Ford Made in America is made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund, the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company. The first round of Ford Made in America was also generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding was provided by The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, JPMorgan Chase, Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund, and The Amphion Foundation.

Photo: Leonard Slatkin leads the Nashville Symphony at the American Symphony Orchestra League National Conference, 2007
Credit: Matthew H. Starling

Posted June 19, 2009

North Carolina’s Winston-Salem Symphony announced that it concluded its 2008-09 fiscal year with a small surplus of $5,300, marking its sixth consecutive season with a balanced budget. The orchestra also received record contributions to its annual fund campaign, with individual contributions of nearly $440,000, representing a 17 percent increase over the previous year’s campaign. Merritt Vale, the orchestra’s executive director, credited a $10,000 challenge grant from an anonymous donor on May 27 as the catalyst for the grassroots support for the orchestra during the last three weeks. The grant came after the orchestra’s annual meeting, when the orchestra faced the prospect of a year-end deficit of nearly $80,000. In a press statement, Vale mentioned donations “from new donors and from long-time supporters” ranging from $20 to $2,000. “The Symphony is overwhelmed by and deeply grateful for the community’s outpouring of support.”

Posted June 19, 2009 

The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra has received a $150,000 grant from the Monsanto Fund for its In Unison program. Established in 1992, the In Unison program provides music-related resources to churches in the St. Louis area’s African-American communities while increasing access to Powell Symphony Hall, where the orchestra performs. Through the program, orchestra musicians visit 40 St. Louis-area churches, performing during services, special-event concerts, and educational events. Members of participating churches are eligible for discounted tickets to SLSO concerts, tuition discounts to area music camps, and scholarships to pursue music studies at college or conservatory level. The Saint Louis In Unison Chorus performs during an annual Black History Month celebration and at Gospel Christmas concerts, community concerts, and other events. “The In Unison program supports the enrichment of lives through music, and allows St. Louisans to experience the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra within their own community,” said Deborah Patterson, president of the Monsanto Fund. The Monsanto Fund is the philanthropic arm of the Monsanto Company, based in St. Louis.

Posted June 19, 2009 

Florida’s Sarasota Music Festival—an annual three-week series of events run by the Sarasota Orchestra—will feature the U.S. premiere of a Mozart fragment, completed by Robert Levin. Performers in Mozart’s Rondo in A major, set to for June 19 on the festival’s final weekend, will be clarinetist Charles Neidich and a student string quartet; Levin’s completion of the fragment was commissioned by the Mozart Society of Japan and had its world premiere in Tokyo on May 23. Levin, a renowned pianist and Mozart scholar, is artistic director of the three-week festival. During the Sarasota Music Festival, young musicians come to Sarasota to work with orchestra faculty members, who act as mentors and join them in performances.

Posted June 19, 2009