In Thursday’s (1/29) Rocky Mountain News, Marc Shulgold writes, “Life with the Colorado Symphony officially commenced for Douglas Boyd during concerts last weekend. Where it ends? Well, that’s yet to be determined. Boyd’s title of principal guest conductor began this month and continues with concerts this weekend in Boettcher Hall. Though his tenure is slated to carry him through the 2010-11 season, things have gotten interesting with the announced departure of music director Jeffrey Kahane at the end of the 2009-10 season. As a result, CSO interim President Cliff Gardiner acknowledged that Boyd likely has jumped into a new category: music director candidate.” Boyd acknowledges that he’s flattered for being considered, but states that he’s focusing on the job at hand, noting “the best things happen when you’re not looking for them.” “Among those things,” Shulgold writes, “was the invitation to serve as the CSO’s principal guest, succeeding Peter Oundjian.” Boyd is also an artistic partner at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Photo: courtesy of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra
In a front-page story in Wednesday’s (1/28) New York Times, Daniel J. Wakin reports, “With giddiness and glee, musicians tested the acoustics of the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday, less than a month before it reopens after a $159 million, 22-month upgrade, a major milestone in Lincoln Center’s $1.2 billion remaking. … The musicians, acoustical experts and Lincoln Center officials in attendance all proclaimed the hall much more present, alive and reverberant than the old Tully.” Commenting on the hall’s architecture in the February 2 issue of The New Yorker, Paul Goldberger writes, “Large sections of the surrounding Juilliard building have been renovated, and almost nothing about approaching, entering, and being inside the complex is the way it was. … Almost every change has made this building better—both more alive and more functional.” Goldberg states that the architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro might have been a surprising choice initially, but “they have turned out to be exactly what the place needed. So far, their Lincoln Center work—which will include several additional phases of reconstruction, beyond Alice Tully—shows a rare talent for being assertive without being egotistical.” Other renovation work at Lincoln Center will be completed in stages over the next couple of years. 
The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra has unveiled designs for the former Engine Company 204 Firehouse, where the orchestra is planning to move its administrative offices. The design group HOK NY is designing the DeGraw Street Firehouse as a pro bono project for the orchestra; the building will include a music rehearsal room and will also house Create!, a children’s art education and training nonprofit organization. The building’s multipurpose space will be used for performances, meetings, lectures, and other community uses. The new space will be known as The BP Music Center for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and will be the orchestra’s first permanent home in the Borough of Brooklyn. HOK plans to restore the firehouse’s brick exterior to its natural color and will design a modern, all-glass entrance with marquee. 
The Cleveland Orchestra’s January/February residency in Miami, Florida, will include a chamber music performance and discussion on February 2 of Music and the Brain with Welser-Möst and Ali R. Rezai, M.D., director of Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Neurological Restoration. Discussion topics will include the way in which music and the brain interact, the impact of music on health, and a sociological perspective of the role of the arts in neuroscience. The program is part of a recently launched collaboration between the orchestra and the Cleveland Clinic. (A similar symposium took place last August at Austria’s Salzburg Festival, when the orchestra was on tour.) During the residency, from January 27 to February 2, members of the orchestra also will participate in an exploration of the music and politics of Stalin’s Russia, in connection with performances of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (“Leningrad”). 
A consortium of American and Canadian orchestras will commission composer Osvaldo Golijov to write a new orchestral work honoring Henry Fogel, president of the League of American Orchestras from 2003 to 2008. The Memphis Symphony Orchestra will premiere the work, expected to be 15 to 20 minutes in length, in the fall of 2010. Executive leadership from the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Duluth Symphony, Glens Falls Symphony, Paducah Symphony, Reno Chamber Orchestra, and Vermont Symphony—the steering committee for the project—are inviting additional orchestras of any budget size to perform the work throughout the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 concert seasons. “I can’t think of a better way to honor Henry’s commitment and contribution to the vitality of American orchestras than with this commission,” said Jesse Rosen, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras. “I congratulate the consortium on commissioning Osvaldo Golijov, one of the most original voices of our time.” Golijov is the recipient of numerous honors, including a MacArthur Genius Award, the Vilcek Prize, two Grammy nominations for his opera Ainadamar, recorded by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Musical America’s Composer of the Year Award. For more information on how to join the consortium of orchestras performing the work, visit earshotnetwork.org/fogel.html or contact Ryan Fleur at ryan.fleur@memphissymphony.org. 
The Juilliard School in New York is nearing the end of its 2009 FOCUS! Festival, “California: A Century of New Music,” which surveys the California scene and is designed to show how ideas from the West Coast have traveled throughout contemporary music. Five concerts and an opera will showcase the work of composers John Adams, John Cage, Henry Cowell, Robert Erickson, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Roger Reynolds, and Morton Subotnick, as well as young composers Pamela Z, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Mason Bates. There will be the world premiere of a string quartet by John Adams, performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and Adams’s 1990 opera The Death of Klinghoffer will be performed in concert on January 31, led by the composer. All performances are free (tickets required) and take place at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, at the Juilliard School. The festival, conducted by founder Joel Sachs, is in its 25th year.