Category: News Briefs

Wednesday (2/11) on his South Florida Classical Review website, Lawrence A. Johnson reports, “The cash-strapped Concert Association of Florida, leading presenter of classical music and dance for more than four decades in South Florida, is poised to file for bankruptcy as early as this week. … While Concert Association officials declined to discuss its financial status midweek, sources indicate that the organization is attempting to broker a deal with the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale to assume control of CAF’s remaining season events at their venues. At the Arsht Center this would include violinist Mark O’Connor on Feb 22 and Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic Feb. 26. … Rumors have been flying for weeks that the organization’s bankruptcy filing had happened or was imminent.” Attorney Robert Hudson, chairman of the board of the Concert Association, “said Tuesday no filing had taken place and likely would not occur until an agreement could be made to salvage the rest of the season under different auspices.”

In Tuesday’s (2/10) Miami Herald, Douglas Hanks reports, “In calculating how to finance half of a $609 million baseball stadium with hotel taxes, Miami-Dade County is not reserving money for the New World Symphony’s expanded home in Miami Beach, county officials said. Although only a planning decision, the omission calls into question a $27 million infusion of hotel taxes the symphony is counting on to pay for the $140 million high-tech concert hall under construction off Lincoln Road.” County Manager George Burgess asserts that the two new projects are not connected and should not be seen in opposition to each other. “As construction workers secure the steel girders that make up the skeleton for the complex designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, the New World Symphony is awaiting county dollars tentatively pledged to the project last spring. In May, commissioners unanimously approved a motion instructing Burgess to negotiate a deal that would hand the symphony $27 million from a countywide hotel tax. The agreement requires a second commission vote, but Burgess has not presented a final deal with the symphony.”

Photo: Rendering for the New World Symphony’s expanded home
Credit: Courtesy of the New World Symphony 

In Tuesday’s (2/10) Guardian (London), classical music writer Tom Service rails against four prominent British bankers who, appearing before the Treasury Select Committee, apologized simply for the current market crash, not any sort of lack of judgment on their parts. “So what does this all have to with music, you ask? Here’s what: many of our major classical music institutions are sponsored by one or other of our large banks—[Lord] Stevenson is chairman of Aldeburgh Music, and one of his ex-companies, the Bank of Scotland, is the major sponsor of the Edinburgh International Festival, who took over from the Royal Bank of Scotland. … But right now, the fact that the artistic directors of those festivals—or any of the other cultural organisations who owe RBS or HBOS anything in terms of support they have been given—have to suck up to these morally redundant ex-masters of the universe makes me feel queasy. How can the art made at festivals sponsored by these bankrupt individuals and companies do the job that classical music should do, and have a necessary, critical voice in contemporary culture, if it continues to be supported by the dead hand of big banking? … I would happily advocate the replacement of large-scale private—or at least City-based—sponsorship with a model of bigger public, government support.”

“Come November,” writes Mike Boehm on Tuesday’s (2/10) Los Angeles Times blog Culture Monster, “Sarah Coburn, a rising soprano, is scheduled to sing her first L.A. Opera role in Handel’s ‘Tamerlano,’ playing opposite Placido Domingo as the beleaguered daughter of a conquered Turkish potentate. Culture Monster wonders whether any semblance of that tale’s turbulence is stirring within Coburn’s own family these days considering that her dad, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), has led the charge to keep federal economic stimulus money from landing in the pockets of artists such as, well, his daughter. On Friday, the Senate voted 73-24 in favor of Coburn’s amendment ‘to ensure that taxpayer money is not lost on wasteful and non-stimulative projects, such as funding museums, theaters and arts centers.’ … If arts partisans are tempted to cast Coburn père as a stereotypical Okie-from-Muskogee (indeed, that is his hometown) who hammers the arts out of ignorance, there’s a bit of a complication: ‘The senator comes to the opera a lot,’ reports Mark Weinstein, executive director of Washington National Opera.’ ” The article goes on to highlight some of the positive reviews the younger Coburn has received from respected critic.

In Tuesday’s (2/10) Chronicle of Philanthropy, Suzanne Perry and Grant Williams report, “The economic-stimulus package passed by the Senate today does not include a number of measures that nonprofit and foundation leaders had proposed to help ease the impact of the recession on the philanthropic world. As these provisions were also left out of the House bill, the chances that they will be included in the final stimulus package are slim.” One key measure was “a $15-billion bridge-loan fund that was proposed by Independent Sector, a coalition of charities and foundations. The coalition says the money is needed to help charities that receive late payments from cash-strapped state governments while also facing a tight credit market. … Independent Sector says the bridge-loan fund is critical, and it will continue to fight for it if it does not end up in the stimulus package.” Other measures included a “flat” excise tax for private foundations; a proposal allowing donors to transfer funds from retirement accounts to donor-advised accounts; and an increase in the tax deduction for people using their vehicles to volunteer.

In an Associated Press article published on Tuesday (2/10) and picked up by the Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, Denver Post, Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), and Yahoo! News, among others, reporter Martin Steinberg writes, “The Soloist, the upcoming movie about a cellist who became homeless, has struck a chord with American orchestras. They are mobilizing to help feed the hungry. At least 163 orchestras in 45 states are expected to participate in food drives in late March, a month before the movie’s release on April 24, the League of American Orchestras said Tuesday. The Soloist is based on the true story about a schizophrenic Juilliard-trained cellist (portrayed by Jamie Foxx) who becomes homeless and is helped by a Los Angeles Times columnist (Robert Downey Jr.). ‘The story of The Soloist reminds us that classical music has the power to sustain spirits and change lives, even under the most difficult circumstances,’ said Jesse Rosen, president and CEO of the league, a national service organization for orchestras. The food will be distributed to local assistance organizations associated with the group Feeding America, which says its network provides food to more than 25 million Americans a year.” For a list of participating orchestras as of February 10, click here.

Photo of The Soloist: Francois Duhamel 

February 2009 marks two important anniversaries for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. February 1 was the 150th birthday of Victor Herbert, the composer of operettas including Naughty Marietta, Sweetheart, and The Red Mill who was instrumental in establishing ASCAP. February 13 is the 95th anniversary of the formal founding of the society envisioned by Herbert and a small group of composers, lyricists, and music publishers at New York’s Claridge Hotel in 1914. Victor Herbert, born in Dublin, Ireland in 1859, trained as a cellist at Stuttgart Conservatory and played in Johann Strauss’s orchestra in Vienna. After coming to the United States with his wife, soprano Therese Foerster, he conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony and his own Victor Herbert Orchestra; he wrote 43 operettas as well as numerous instrumental works, including his best known, the Cello Concerto No. 2 in E minor. ASCAP made it possible for music creators in the United States to be compensated for the public performance of their works in accordance with U.S. Copyright Law.

The board of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic has pledged a total of $175,000 to the orchestra’s 2008-089 annual fund, compared to $98,000 the previous year. Additionally, the Dekko Foundation, based in nearby Kendallville, has pledged to match personal contributions up to $150,000. Dekko also has pledged to continue to match up to the same amount in 2009-10. “We see the Fort Wayne Philharmonic as an amenity that adds to the overall health and vitality of northeast Indiana,” said Sharon Smith, program director of the Dekko Foundation. “For that reason, we wanted to help the Philharmonic become a stronger, more sustainable organization. By calling attention to the need for increased financial support from board members, the Philharmonic has strengthened an important revenue source. In the long run, that’s a move toward a more impactful and enduring organization.”

The Chamber Music Society of Minnesota and actor Lou Bellamy will perform the world premiere of Steve Heitzeg’s While We Breathe, We Hope (Fanfare for Obama), a setting of a portion of Barack Obama’s election-night victory speech, at a February 15 concert at First Lutheran Church in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. The three-minute fanfare, setting the “This is the Moment” section of Obama’s victory speech in November, will be narrated by Lou Bellamy, founder and artistic director of St. Paul’s Penumbra Theater. The work was commissioned by Young-Nam Kim, the Chamber Music Society’s founder and artistic director, and is scored for violins, viola, cello, bass, piano, and a percussionist who will play Hawaiian ‘ili’ili stones. The program will also include Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, the Adagio from Mozart’s Divertimento K. 240, and Heitzeg’s chamber work The Legend of Bluebonnet.