Category: News Briefs

The Cleveland Plain Dealer (6/11) and the Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog (6/11) are among the news organizations reporting on awards to 26 orchestras given Thursday by the League of American Orchestras and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). The awards were announced at the League’s 64th annual conference taking place in Chicago from June 9 to 12. Donald Rosenberg reports in the Plain Dealer, “The Contemporary Youth Orchestra, a Cleveland ensemble led by Liza Grossman, won an award for adventurous programming Thursday…. The ensemble of high school and college musicians won third place in the category of Youth Orchestras on the basis of repertoire it played during 2008-2009 season. The repertoire included the world premiere of Ryan Gallagher’s Concerto for Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Synthesizer, Drum Set and Orchestra.” David Ng’s Los Angeles Times blog entry reported, “Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic won the Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming…. Another local winner was the Orange County High School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra, which received the Award for American Programming on Foreign Tours. The orchestra recently toured Australia, where they performed pieces such as Steven Stucky’s Fanfare for Los Angeles and Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 2.” Twenty-two other orchestras and festivals received awards for contemporary-music programming; in addition, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music won the John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music, and the Albany Symphony Orchestra (N.Y.) won the Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming. More information on the awards is available at ASCAP’s website.

Posted June 12, 2009

In Thursday’s (6/11) Buffalo Business First, James Fink reports, “The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has named a new associate conductor to replace the soon-to-be departing Robert Franz. And, at the same time, the orchestra will welcome a conducting fellow through a partnership with the League of American Orchestras. Matthew Kraemer, who held the prestigious the Bruno Walter Associate Conductor chair with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, has been named the BPO’s new associate conductor. Kraemer will re-locate to Buffalo and make his Kleinhans Music Hall debut on Sept. 26 during the BlueCross BlueShield Pops Series opener featuring Johnny Mathis. Kraemer was selected from more than 140 candidates the BPO considered, said Dan Hart, orchestra executive director. … In addition, [Music Director JoAnn] Falletta announced that Joseph Young has been selected as the BPO’s conducting fellow for the 2009-2010 season. The fellowship is run through the League of American Orchestras and serves as an important training program for upcoming classical musicians and conductors.”

Posted June 12, 2009

Bernie Becker reports in a New York Times blog entry yesterday (6/11), “Now that First Lady Michelle Obama has returned to the United States, she plans to kick off a new music series next week, according to the White House. The first installment, set for Monday, will feature members of the Marsalis family (father Ellis and two of his sons, Wynton and Branford), who will play jazz for about 150 students. The White House also said that country and classical events will be scheduled. Since she moved into the White House, Mrs. Obama has placed quite an emphasis on the arts, including hosting a poetry jam in May. While in Paris recently, the Obama family went to Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum.”

Posted June 12, 2009 

In a Thursday (6/11) entry at Broadcasting & Cable magazine’s website, broadcastingcable.com, John Eggerton reports, “The Public Broadcasting Service Thursday instituted new staff cutbacks, as well as temporary reductions in salaries and benefits. It is all part of trying to close a $3.4 million budget deficit in 2010, according to a PBS source, who said the cutbacks were announced at a staff meeting. PBS stations have been hit hard by the financial crisis. PBS has cut about 10% of its workforce in the past six months via layoffs and unfilled positions…. Starting July 1, which is the beginning of PBS’ 2010 fiscal year, salaries of all non-union workers—essentially all but technicians, said the source—will get a 3.85% reduction pay for six months. In addition, pay raises have been cancelled.” Eggerton writes that the staff cuts, along with other cuts, such as 6-month reduced contributions to retirement benefits, will get PBS about halfway to the $3.4 million total. “The ‘plan going forward’ was for the benefits and salaries to return to current levels after six months, but the employees were also told that PBS would need to manage the financial situation ‘dynamically.’ ”

Posted June 12, 2009

The San Francisco Symphony has announced that a second season of its “Keeping Score” television series will air on PBS beginning in October. Three one-hour documentary-style programs with the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas will cover Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Ives’s Holidays Symphony, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. Each program will include performances by the orchestra along with the stories behind the symphonies, with scenes shot in Paris, New England, St. Petersburg, and Moscow, with a unifying theme of composers struggling with musical language as a unique expression of their ideas. Along with the television series, the orchestra’s “Keeping Score” programs work in tandem with an interactive website, www.keepingscore.org; a national radio series; and an education program for K-12 teachers to help them integrate classical music into core subjects. The first season of “Keeping Score” aired on PBS in 2006, with episodes on Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Copland.

Posted June 12, 2009

Photos of Michael Tilson Thomas by Oliver Theil

A panel of three judges has awarded clarinetist Romie De Guise-Langlois first prize in the 2009 Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Young Artist Competition. The award comes with a prize of $5,000 and a solo appearance with the Houston Symphony on July 12, led by Houston Symphony Music Director Hans Graf. De Guise-Langlois was given the award following the competition finals concert on June 6, at which she performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. De Guise-Langlois, a native of Canada, is currently a fellow of The Academy—A Program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute. She earned an Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music. Judges for the competition were Melinda Bargreen, former music critic at The Seattle Times; Robert Berretta, manager of artists and attractions at Opus 3 Artists; and conductor Thomas Wilkins, music director of the Omaha Symphony and principal guest conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Other competition laureates this year were cellist Hee-Young Lim (second place); pianist Jeewon Lee (third place and audience choice award); and violinist Gao Can (fourth place). The Ima Hogg Young Artist Competition takes place annually; it was established in 1976 in honor of Miss Ima Hogg, a founder of the Houston Symphony and the Houston Symphony League.

Posted June 12, 2009

The Atlanta Symphony and Saint Louis Symphony orchestras are set to release separate recordings of symphonic works by John Adams this July. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s recording entitled Transmigration will be released on the Telarc label on July 28; it includes performances of Adams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 work On the Transmigration of Souls, as well as three other works devoted to the theme of honor and remembrance: Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Agnus Dei (adapted from the same string quartet as the Adagio for Strings); John Corigliano’s Elegy; and Jennifer Higdon’s Dooryard Bloom. Baritone Nmon Ford sings in the Higdon work, a world premiere recording; On the Transmigration of Souls, for orchestra, chorus, children’s choir, and pre-recorded soundtrack, includes performances by the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, Gwinnett Young Singers, and sound designer Mark Grey. David Robertson conducts the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra on the July 21 Nonesuch release of two Adams works: Doctor Atomic Symphony and the 2001 piece Guide to Strange Places. The symphony is a three-movement work adapted from Adams’s opera Doctor Atomic, which had its world premiere in 2005 at San Francisco Opera. The first performance of the symphony took place in 2007 in London at the BBC Proms; the U.S. premiere, with Robertson leading the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, took place in 2008.

Posted June 12, 2009

The Utah Symphony will offer four free performances in the Salt Lake Valley this summer to thank communities for supporting the Salt Lake County Zoo Arts and Parks Fund, known as ZAP. The four concerts, from June 29 to July 15, are set to take place in Taylorsville Regional Park, Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley, Abravanel Hall, and Sandy Amphitheater. For a July 8 concert in Abravanel Hall, the orchestra will partner to raise funds for The Road Home, a nonprofit that provides assistance to people who are homeless in Salt Lake County and along the Wasatch Front. Utah Symphony Assistant Conductor Cho will conduct all four concerts, which include music by Copland, Holst, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Handel, and Brahms, as well as marches by Sousa and Johann Strauss. Sterling Poulson, a meteorologist with KUTV 2News, will join the orchestra to conduct Morton Gould’s American Salute on July 8. Since 1997, ZAP has provided funding for cultural, artistic, zoological, botanical, and recreational opportunities within Salt Lake County. For the past decade Salt Lake County has collected one additional penny on every ten dollars spent within Salt Lake County for ZAP. Through an application process, the funds are distributed to local organizations and projects deemed qualified for funds by the Advisory Boards and Salt Lake County Council.

Posted June 12, 2009

On Wednesday (6/10), David Crary of the Associated Press reported, “Charitable giving by Americans fell by 2 percent in 2008 as the recession took root, only the second year-to-year decline in more than a half-century, according to an authoritative annual survey released Wednesday. Particularly hard hit were social-service charities, which suffered a 12.7 percent drop in donations at a time when most of them were reporting increased demand for their services. … The Giving USA Foundation, which has conducted the survey since 1956, expressed relief that the 2008 decrease was not worse, given that many Americans lost more than 2 percent of their wealth during the year. … According to the report, total giving in 2008 was $307.65 billion, down from a record $314.07 billion in 2007. Two-thirds of public charities experienced decreases—among the few sectors to improve were religious and international affairs organizations. … Arts/culture/humanities organizations received $12.79 billion, down 6.4 percent.”

Posted June 11, 2009

In news that could have ramifications for the orchestra world, Robert Hurwitt reports in Wednesday’s (6/10) San Francisco Chronicle that “Free Night of Theater, the 4-year-old national audience development program administered locally by Theatre Bay Area, succeeds in attracting new audiences and in contributing to their ‘aesthetic growth,’ according to a study released Tuesday. The study, announced at a news conference at New Conservatory Theatre Center, was conducted by Alan Brown of the consulting firm WolfBrown.  The key finding, bearing out earlier follow-up surveys in the months after previous Free Nights, is that giving away tickets works not just to attract new theatergoers to a free show, but also to convert a significant number into future paying customers. A full 28 percent of Free Nighters expressed strong interest in seeing the company’s future shows, with another 37 percent showing milder interest. Theatre Bay Area’s local and Theatre Communications Group’s national follow-up surveys show rates of paid return attendance of 41 to 44 percent for each of the past three years.”

Posted June 11, 2009