Category: News Briefs

In Wednesday’s (2/18) New York Times, Javier C. Hernandez reports, “The Italian designer and billionaire Giorgio Armani celebrated Fashion Week on Tuesday with the announcement of a $1 million donation to promote arts programs in New York City public schools. The money will be used to create the Armani Arts Institute, an umbrella program that will fund arts initiatives in schools serving some of the city’s most disadvantaged populations. At a news conference with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that coincided with the opening of Armani/5th Avenue, the designer’s new flagship store in Midtown, Mr. Armani called the donation ‘an investment in the future generations of New York City.’ … The donation will go to the Fund for Public Schools, a nonprofit corporation that collects private money to support the school system. It has raised more than $240 million since 2003.”

In Thursday’s (2/19) Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), Ruth Bonapace writes, “The Westfield Symphony Orchestra has not so quietly embarked on a mission. Under David Wroe’s leadership, they’ve been taking classical music and turning it on its head, wringing it for every combination and permutation possible to make it, well, fun. … This weekend, get a taste of that ongoing effort as the WSO joins forces with the Omayra Amaya Flamenco Dance Company to put their own spin on the popular opera Carmen, with a score adapted from Bizet’s masterpiece. ‘I wanted a unique retelling of the Carmen story,’ Wroe said. ‘So I commissioned Amaya to choreograph an aspect of Carmen’s life, using Bizet’s music, the book that the opera is based on, and the Pushkin poem that inspired the book.’ … Omayra Amaya is the grandniece of the legendary dancer Carmen Amaya, and her parents had their own dance company in Spain. Amaya’s company is based in New York, and they are known for mixing American jazz with traditional flamenco. … ‘We are moving away from the overture and concerto model to a different idiom in our culture. This program is very much in that ilk,’ said Wroe, a native of Great Britain who has been music director of the 26-year-old orchestra since 1997."

In Thursday’s (2/19) Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein writes, “As the Chicago Symphony Orchestra gears up for Riccardo Muti’s initial season as music director in 2010-11, much of its programming next season will honor the distinguished senior conductors who are stewarding the CSO through the long transition from the Daniel Barenboim era to the Muti era. Bernard Haitink will conclude his four-year tenure as principal conductor with the 2009-10 season, details of which the CSO announced Thursday. The Dutch maestro is to lead the orchestra on a nine-concert European tour in September before launching his November residency at Symphony Center with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 and Mendelssohn’s complete Midsummer Night’s Dream incidental music. He will return in June 2010 to wind up his tenure, and the CSO season, with a Beethoven festival that includes all nine symphonies. The orchestra will celebrate the 85th birthday of conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez with four weeks of concerts in January.” As music director-designate, Muti will conduct two subscription weeks in October featuring the music of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mozart. “By popular demand, the CSO will expand its ‘Beyond the Score’ series of multimedia programs to two performances of each program. Works to be explored are Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, Rachmaninov’s The Isle of the Dead, and Debussy’s La Mer.”

Photo: Riccardo Muti
Credit: Todd Rosenberg

“Within 24 hours of announcing a free consulting program for any troubled arts organizations in the country,” writes William Triplett in Thursday’s (2/19) Wall Street Journal, “Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, received 110 emailed pleas from 31 states. … Over the course of almost three decades, [Kaiser] has specialized in resuscitating arts outfits once on life-support, including Harlem’s Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the Kansas City Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre and London’s Royal Opera House. He’s even written a how-to book based on these experiences—‘The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations,’ essentially a 183-page prescription, published last fall by Brandeis University Press. … ‘Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative,’ which Mr. Kaiser unveiled on Feb. 3, is essentially an online hotline (www.artsincrisis.org) for troubled groups.” The initiative is “fundamentally driven by a passion to end a self-defeating phenomenon he has witnessed throughout his career.” Says Kaiser, “So often in a troubled organization, there’s so much focus on ‘what happened, what went wrong, who did what, whose fault was it?’ But turn that around and focus on ‘what do we do next year?’ and the energy from that is amazing.”

“Like a lot of other people in this town,” writes Tim Smith Wednesday (2/18) on his Baltimore Sun blog Clef Notes, “Brendan Cooke was affected personally by Baltimore Opera’s decision to file for bankruptcy in December. He had sung with the company for nearly a decade, in more than 20 supporting roles and as a member of the chorus in the bass section, and he was counting on more work this spring. Cooke isn’t giving up on opera, however. He’s now running his own company: Baltimore Concert Opera.” The new group “will offer Mozart’s Don Giovanni on March 25 in the elegant ballroom of the Engineer’s Club (Garrett-Jacobs Mansion), which seats about 250. There will be no staging, just singers with music stands, and not too many of the recitatives. … And no orchestra; to keep things financially manageable, there will be only piano accompaniment. … If all goes well, another opera-in-concert will be presented this spring. Beyond that, Cooke envisions a four-opera season, maybe two performances each.”

In Wednesday’s (2/18) Charleston City Paper (South Carolina), Greg Hambrick reports that the Charleston Symphony Orchestra “is expected to run out of money sometime in March, likely necessitating pay cuts through the rest of the season. In the meantime, the board and musicians will have to make tough decisions about next season. Board leadership says cuts will have to come from the core group of 46 players. But those musicians say the organization can do more—more shows, more special events, more fund-raising, more promotions—without having to lose one instrument. The difference at this point is a projected $500,000 hole in the orchestra’s $2.9 million budget. … Orchestra members say the board hasn’t capitalized on the one thing they have in large supply: talented musicians with time to kill. … Right now, the orchestra is using the players at about half of what they could be, says Tim O’Malley, a cello player and local union representative. … Private shows account for about 29 percent of the budget, but O’Malley says that opportunities have been missed that would grow that pot of money. … There may be opportunities for additional private performances, but [board chairman Ted] Legacy says they’re not enough to make up the spread.”

Wednesday (2/18) on ArtsBeat, the culture news website of the New York Times, Dave Itzkoff reports, “Several performances scheduled by the Concert Association of Florida, a longtime producer of classical music and dance events, will go forward as planned even though the company filed for bankruptcy. In a release, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County said that it would host six of seven events scheduled for the coming weeks by the Concert Association of Florida, which filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection on Friday. The events include a concert by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Lorin Maazel, on Feb. 26, as well as performances by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pinchas Zukerman (March 12), and the National Philharmonic of Russia (April 10).”

Try telling Barbary Day Turner about the economic crisis, writes Richard Scheinin in Thursday’s (2/19) San Jose Mercury News (California). “The founder and music director of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra has just announced her group’s 2009-10 season, and it’s larger than the last one. ‘We’re going to try this and see what happens,’ she says. The orchestra’s 19th season features nine performances, two more than the current season. It kicks off Aug. 29-30 at Le Petit Trianon with two nights featuring a popular top-tier piano soloist—Jon Nakamatsu—and closes in May 2010 with two pairing the orchestra with an exceptional jazz soloist, the young pianist Taylor Eigsti.” Day Turner hopes that by expanding beyond the orchestra’s traditional Sunday-night performance structure they can access a new audience. “The orchestra has seen a slight bump in private donations in recent months. (Go figure.) And Day Turner has managed to decrease next season’s operating budget to $247,000 from this season’s $259,000. The current budget was puffed up by the cost of a recording project, she explains.”

The Orchestras Feeding America National Food Drive, organized by the League of American Orchestras and Feeding America, has generated significant press coverage during the past week. An Associated Press report by Martin Steinberg published on February 11 appeared in more than 158 publications, including the Denver Post, Detroit Free Press, Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), and Washington Post. Other local press printed their own original stories, including the Philadelphia Bulletin, and the St. Petersburg Times (Florida), which reported that “For more than 15 seasons, the Florida Orchestra has tied some of its outdoor concerts to a food drive, raising awareness and filling the coffers of Tampa Bay Harvest. Next month, it will join in a national effort, inspired by a new movie called The Soloist, about a cellist who became homeless.” The League has signed up more than 200 orchestras in 49 states for the food drive, which comes to a head March 27 & 28 in anticipation of The Soloist’s April 24 release. For more on the food drive, click here.

North Carolina’s News 14 television station recently reported on the Winston-Salem Symphony’s food drive, which gathered food for those in need. The Winston-Salem food drive was part of the Orchestras Feeding America National Food Drive, organized in partnership between the League of American Orchestras and Feeding America and culminating on March 27 & 28. Hundreds of orchestras throughout the United States are participating in the Orchestras Feeding America. A video posted on New 14’s website on February 6 covers the Winston-Salem Symphony’s food drive, held in conjunction with that weekend’s performances. To watch the video, click here.

Photos from the Winston-Salem Symphony’s “Food for Body and Soul” Food Drive, Feb. 7, 8 and 10.
c/o Camille Jones