Classical Music

• 
  About.com: Classical Music

• The Met: Live in HD, Season 4

  1 Nov 2009 | 12:10 pm

  Now in it's fourth season, The Met: Live in HD has been broadcasting live performances in high definition to theaters around the world since 2006. This Saturday, November 7th, the Met will present its third Live in HD broadcast of the season, Puccini's Turandot. Saturday's performance will star Maria Guleghina as the Chinese princess, Turandot, and Marcello Giordani as Calàf, the prince whose solos include the famous "Nessun dorma." I'm looking forward to viewing this production, as the last Turandot I saw at the Met was lackluster and pathetic. This year's production, directed by Franco…

• Sometimes It's Better Not to Perform

  25 Oct 2009 | 4:08 pm

  In a recent article by Philip Boroff, it was reported that the average income for a Carnegie Hall stage hand in New York City is $430,543. This proves that being a stage hand isn't as nerdy as some people think! Sometimes It's Better Not to Perform originally appeared on About.com Classical Music on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 23:08:39.Permalink | Comment | Email this

• Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to Tour North America

  25 Oct 2009 | 3:26 pm

  In just a few weeks, November 10th to be exact, Asia's oldest orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, will embark on a historic tour of North America, starting at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Under the direction of Maestro Long Yu, the SSO will perform in twelve cities in the US and Canada (listed below) in celebration of the orchestra's 130th anniversary as well as the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. Unfortunately, the SSO will not make it anywhere near the middle of the US, but those of you who live in California and New York have a special chance to see a rare US…

• Joshua Bell's At Home with Friends

  18 Oct 2009 | 2:55 pm

  Classical Music CD ReviewI finally had the chance to listen to Joshua Bell's latest album, At Home with Friends, and I'm happy I did. As I mentioned a few Sunday's ago, the album features an eclectic blend of music and musicians including Kristin Chenoweth, Sting, Marvin Hamlisch, and more. The flawless and effortless playing of Bell combined with the stellar performances of the guest artists, make for a truly unique and memorable listening experience. Read more... Joshua Bell's At Home with Friends originally appeared on About.com Classical Music on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at…

• 2009 Halloween Classical Music Concerts

  11 Oct 2009 | 5:53 am

  This year, why not take your family to a Halloween classical music concert? Many of the concerts listed here encourage children to come in costume and participate in pre-concert activities like costume contests, petting zoos, and story telling. Also, the majority of these family Halloween concerts happen about a week before Halloween, meaning that your children won't miss out on an evening of trick-or-treating! For those of you looking for something a little less child-oriented, there are a few Halloween concerts listed here for adults, like the silent horror movie accompanied by live organ…

• 
  NPR: Classical

• Christopher O'Riley: Reliving A Love For Ravel

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Ravel's piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin harkens back to old music and old friends. Pianist Christopher O'Riley renews his love for the piece, which captivated him as a young conservatory student. Watch him perform the opening "Prelude."» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Losing It All For Love: Dvorak's 'Rusalka'

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  In Dvorak's dream-like opera, a little mermaid abandons immortality for love, but her ultimate sacrifice goes unrewarded. Soprano Ana Maria Martinez stars as Rusalka in a production from the 2009 Glyndebourne Festival.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• The Story of 'Rusalka'

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:04 pm

  Dvorak's dream-like opera tells the story of a water nymph who gives up everything for love, only to have her sacrifice go unrewarded.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• New York City Opera Rises From Turmoil

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:15 pm

  A longtime scrappy alternative to the plush Metropolitan Opera, City Opera struggles to make a comeback with a new general manager, a renovated theater and a shorter but smarter season of operas.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Bach's Best 'Brandenburg' Concertos

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:01 am

  Subtle and brilliant at the same time, J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are a microcosm of Baroque music. They contain an astonishingly vast sample of that era's emotional universe.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• 
  Google News: Classical Music

• The Classical Music Network - ConcertoNet

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm

  The Classical Music NetworkConcertoNetParaphrasing Voltaire on God, “If Gustav Mahler hadn't written the song-symphony, Song of the Earth, Zemlinsky would have had to invent it. and more »

• Classical music review: Von Trapp Children fill Fort Worth's Bass Hall with ... - Dallas Morning News

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:20 pm

  Classical music review: Von Trapp Children fill Fort Worth's Bass Hall with Dallas Morning NewsFORT WORTH – Murder at Fort Hood. Shootings in Orlando, Fla. Enough, enough. and more »

• Master of the Mutable, in an Idiom All His Own - New York Times

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:24 pm

  Master of the Mutable, in an Idiom All His OwnNew York Times“But I was listening to as much Serbian music and country and western music and classical music as I was listening to jazz and blues,” he said, describing a

• Review: Delayed passion finally delivered in Philharmonia Baroque's 'Dido' - San Jose Mercury News

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:03 pm

  Review: Delayed passion finally delivered in Philharmonia Baroque's 'Dido'San Jose Mercury NewsThree years ago, the classical music world went bananas celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. This year, a hefty percentage of classical and more »

• Boxer Nikolai Valuev is a classical music heavyweight - guardian.co.uk

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:46 am

  guardian.co.ukBoxer Nikolai Valuev is a classical music heavyweightguardian.co.ukMy money's on Valuev to retain his title, anyway, and a victory for this highly cultured Goliath would strike a blow for classical music in the unlikeliest and more »

• 
  Topix: Classical Music News

• Candler School singers to perform

  7 Nov 2009 | 4:31 am

  From Staff Reports Originally published: November 07. 2009 3:01AM Last modified: November 06.

• Photo: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

  7 Nov 2009 | 4:19 am

  The Classical Music Prizes awarded by Dutch theatres and concert halls have been announced at a ceremony in Rotterdam.

• On the Net for all to hear and see

  7 Nov 2009 | 4:05 am

  In only its nine years of existence iTunes has become an incredible marketing tool for musicians.

• Outside Guide: Family classes

  7 Nov 2009 | 3:47 am

  Heather Nielsen, head of community and family programs at the Denver Art Museum, reads to kids during a recent Create Playdate story time.

• Await a rain of ragas

  7 Nov 2009 | 3:41 am

  KOCHI: Ita s going to be a musical shower. Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, one of the 20th centurya s greatest masters of the sarod, will perform at JT Pac on November 8. In the programme titled a Bhairava he will be accompanied by Tanmoy Bose on tabla.

• 
  NYT: Classical Music

• Music Review | New York Philharmonic: Swirling Sonorities, With Asian Poems Translated Into German

  By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:37 pm

  Neeme Jarvi conducted the New York Philharmonic in Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Lyric Symphony” on Thursday at Avery Fisher Hall.

• Music Review | New York City Opera: City Opera Returns in Its Newly Inviting Home

  By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:16 pm

  The company opened its 2009-10 season on Thursday night with a celebratory program, “American Voices,” and for once at an opening-night gala, there really was a great deal to celebrate.

• Stacy Rowles, Jazz Musician, Is Dead at 54

  By BEN RATLIFF

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:14 pm

  The jazz trumpeter, fluegelhorn player and singer had been active on the Los Angeles jazz scene since the 1980s.

• Classical Music/Opera Listings

  By THE NEW YORK TIMES

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:35 pm

  CLASSICAL.

• Music Review: A Mix of Flash and Idealism at the Latin Grammys

  By JON PARELES

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:46 am

  Glitz and heart-on-sleeve emotionality mingled, every so often, with political and social messages at the 10th annual Latin Grammy Awards.

• 
  Artsjournal.com: Greg Sandow

• No-star game

  Sandow

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:31 am

  Last night I went to the gala season-opening show at the New York City Opera. That was a night with special meaning, obviously, because the company was coming back from the dead, with a new directo, a refurbished theater, and a new point of view. Let's wish them luck. But in past weeks I also went (without addressing them here) to the season openers at the Met and the New York Philharmonic, which of course are the other two big classical music performing institutions in New York. And, looking back, as I sat in the audience last night, it struck me that all three events had something in common…

• Quotation of the day

  Sandow

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:49 am

  From my wife Anne Midgette's probing review of classical music in the White House, in today's Washington Post: ...what becomes clearer, in this presentation, is that classical music no longer automatically holds a position of predominance among today's power elite. The day's message was, "Look, classical music can be fun," even though this message is also a tacit admission of the widespread assumption that it isn't. President Obama reflected that, indeed, in his opening remarks, joking that newcomers to classical music shouldn't worry if they weren't sure where to applaud: President Kennedy…

• Unexpected classical music

  Sandow

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:06 pm

  In Zombieland (a delectable movie), there's a scene where the four dysfunctional people we're learning to love smash up a store full of tacky western-style souvenirs. And have loads of fun doing it. They're allowed to, because as far as we and they know, they're the only human beings left in the US. It's them against millions of zombies. And what do we hear on the soundtrack while they're smashing the souvenirs? The Marriage of Figaro overture, sounding like wild, crazy fun, just as it ought to in the opera. (It would work even better in the film if they'd chosen a better performance.) This…

• Crossing cultures

  Sandow

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:08 pm

  Three quick notes about things I learned in Tunis. First: Composers in Guatemala incorporated Afro-Caribbean music into their compositions -- in the 18th century! I learned this from Dieter Lehnhoff, an Austrian violinist and conductor who's been living in Guatemala for many years, and has studied, published, and recorded Guatemalan compositions from past centuries. There are recordings of some of these pieces with the Afro-Caribbean influence, but they're not (I gather) available outside Guatemala. Dieter says the composers used pizzicato strings to mimic the sound of the local…

• Future of, international edition

  Sandow

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:19 pm

  We hear a lot about classical music in Finland -- about how many orchestras they have, how they train and nourish musicians, how many fine composers they have. Etc.But apparently they have no more luck getting younger people to go to classical concerts than we do. Timo Cantell, an arts management professor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, gave a paper in Tunis about this. He interviewed people in their 20s and 30s who don't go to classical concerts. He asked them, among many other things, about advertisements for classical concerts:"A typical advertisement [for a classical concert] might…

• 
  ArtsJournal.com: On the Record

• Farewell

  on the record

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:51 am

  I remember a moment during the summer of 2002, when I looked at my wife and told her that I needed to make a change in my professional life. I had been managing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for seventeen years--a dream job, to be sure--but there comes a time when one realizes that one needs a change, and probably the organization you are leading realizes that as well.  So it is with blogging. I have enjoyed writing this blog for the past few years, and have had the wonderful opportunity to write about those aspects of the music world--particularly the world of symphony orchestras--that…

• Declining Arts Participation: A Topic for Broad-Based National Dialogue

  on the record

  23 Oct 2009 | 7:12 am

  Earlier this year the National Endowment for the Arts released its 2008 Arts Participation Survey, and the picture it paints is worrisome. The study was done in May, 2008, six months into the recession, and certainly we can draw a conclusion that some of what it tells us was probably affected by the economy. But I think we would be hiding our heads in the sand if we argued that the economy was the sole cause of what looks like a continuing and increasing decline in attendance at all arts events, particularly classical music, in this country. For example, in the area called "classical…

• The Case for Subsidizing Ticket Prices

  on the record

  16 Oct 2009 | 7:32 am

  If you go to symphony concerts in Europe or South America, you see audiences that tend to be more diverse than ours in the United States--more young people, more ethnic diversity, more apparent diversity of economic and demographic background. Since the criticism often leveled at American orchestras is their lack of such diversity, one certainly starts wondering just why it is different here. I was most strongly struck by this in São Paulo, where the São Paulo Symphony plays to almost sold-out audiences night after night and there are enormous numbers of young people--as well as racial and…

• Artistic Authority in Orchestras: A Tricky Balance

  on the record

  9 Oct 2009 | 10:38 am

  I appear to have caused some confusion in the past with my comments about orchestra board members who try to wield too much authority in programming decisions, and conversely about conductors who adopt an autocratic, almost dictatorial stance, saying, "I am in charge of all artistic matters--just leave me alone." In a private email I was recently asked, "Which is it, Mr. Fogel? Is the music director in charge? Or the board? Or, for that matter, the management?" To start with, if an orchestra has to answer that question, something is already wrong. In a healthy orchestral organization, large…

• The Music Director Search: Integrity and Commitment

  on the record

  2 Oct 2009 | 9:34 am

  In last week's blog, I began a discussion of some of the questions I am most frequently asked by orchestras engaged in music director searches. This week, I am continuing that subject.What do we do when we start getting local pressure for a candidate? It is shocking to me how often this happens. Sometimes it's a relative, sometimes it's a close friend, sometimes it's a well-meaning person who just loves the work of one conductor and pushes that name over and over again. It is really up to the music director search committee to hold firm, to apply identical standards to all candidates being…

• 
  ArtsJournal: Slipped Disc

• The Record Doctor is back

  Slipped disc

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:26 am

  Surgery opens next Monday, Nov 9, at 1400 on WNYC Soundcheck, but the website will open for patient registration before the end of this week. Do check the site for details. A description of the practice can be found here. All musical ailments sensitively treated. If you have any life crises that might be helped by a piece of music, do send us a mail. And please ask friends to take their aches and pains to The Record Doctor. On Sunday night Nov 8 the Record Doctor, wearing another hat, will be speaking at HIR Riverdale on the elimination of Jewish ritual from…

• Other side of the Dude

  Slipped disc

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:30 am

  Amid the hoopla and hullabaloo of Gustavo Dudamel's arrival in Los Angeles, few seem to have noticed that he has quietly renewed as music director in Gothenburg, Swden, for the next three years. The Swedes can never be faulted for discretion. Over the last four years they have enabled the Venezuelan wonderstick to learn his repertoire out of the world's limelight, working with a band that expects a conductor to push out the envelope every time he steps on the rostrum. Gothenburg, I have written elsewhere, is top dog among Scandinavian orchestras, a league apart from the Stockholm…

• Fun use of a free newspaper

  Slipped disc

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:38 am

  Sitting in the fug of London's Northern Line in the summer of 2007, Christopher Fox began to compose a vocal piece on the small ads in the freesheet London Lite. He called it 20 Ways to Improve Your Life and it has just been released on record by the Cambridge a capella group, The Clerks. The work is a telling reflection of the trash that gets thrust in our faces every time we board public transport - Give your sperm a life, don't run low, launch your career - and it may well endure as a relic of our disposable age. London…

• The snowman cometh

  Slipped disc

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:02 am

  Attempts by Liz Forgan, chair of Arts Council England, to defend her veto of the Mayor of London's candidate are sounding more plaintive than her usual robust self. In a letter printed yesterday in the Guardian, whose ownership Trust she chairs, Dame Liz bleated that she was trying protect the ACE from political interference and to promote the cause of candidates who are more qualified than the Mayor's. Hmmm... let's examine those two points. The ACE is yoked by the present government to a Department of Culture that controls all major decisons. The…

• Emily is a lousy composer, I'm so glad to say.

  Slipped disc

  23 Oct 2009 | 2:29 am

  News that a computer boffin in California had successfully manufactured a simulacrum of 'classical music' was of such overwhelming importance that I was asked to analyse it on BBC Newsnight, while the leader of the British National Party was contentiously being given parity time on another channel. To my relief and delight, the musical samples obtained from Professor David Cope at the University of California, Santa Cruz, were of such derivative transparency and inventive poverty that the project fizzled out before our ears. Professor Cope calls his computer golem 'Emily Howell' and…

• 
  ArtsJournal.com: PostClassic

• Keeping Good Company

  PostClassic

  29 Oct 2009 | 6:06 pm

  I had expected to have two new CDs and a book out this fall, but two of them have been delayed until February. One of the CDs, however, has arrived, titled The Minimalists, by the Orkest de Volharding on Mode Records (Mode 214/5). It's a two-CD set, and the lineup consists of:Steve Reich: City LifeTerry Riley: In CLouis Andriessen: Worker's UnionKyle Gann: Sunken CityJohn (Coolidge) Adams: Short Ride in a Fast MachineDavid Lang: StreetSunken City, of course, is my piano concerto commemorating the disaster in New Orleans that attended hurricane Katrina; the august Geoffrey Douglas Madge…

• Maryanne Amacher (1943-2009)

  PostClassic

  22 Oct 2009 | 7:11 pm

  [For emendation to the above dates, see updates below.] The music world lost one of its most bizarre characters today, and I say that with the utmost affection. Maryanne Amacher was an amazing composer of sound installations, who occasionally taught courses at Bard. I first encountered her in 1980 at New Music America in Minneapolis. She had, as was her wont, fitted an entire house with loudspeakers, and the staff was in a state of jitters because at opening time she was still obsessively running around and changing things. She was a tireless perfectionist. Years later I interviewed her for…

• Total Heaviosity

  PostClassic

  17 Oct 2009 | 3:56 pm

  Liturgy opening the New Yorker Festival, October 16, 2009: Tyler Dusenbury, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Greg Fox, Bernard Gann. Listen here. The photo completely fails to convey the high-energy maelstrom of their strumming. 

• Silence and Noise

  PostClassic

  14 Oct 2009 | 7:11 pm

  This Friday night, Oct. 16, my son's black metal band Liturgy plays at the New Yorker festival, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, 149 7th Street, 8 PM. The event is listed as already sold out, but I'm supposed to be on a guest list. I just heard the band play live on WFMU. Their new CD Renihilation is out on the 20 Buck Spin label. It's ecstatic, in a loud and rhythmically propulsive sort of way. Even my former newspaper seems to think they're a strange but inspired choice for the festival. Not sure what that means, except that maybe it took my son 16 months out of college to get more…

• Upcoming Appearances

  PostClassic

  1 Oct 2009 | 7:13 pm

  Several performances of my music, or in which I am involved, are coming up. First of all, percussionist Andy Bliss will play my vibraphone piece Olana on a concert in Chicago this Sunday, Oct. 4, at the Chicago Temple, 77 Washington Street, at 2 PM. The concert, a duo with pianist Mabel Kwan, also includes pieces by John Luther Adams, Julia Wolfe, Eve Beglarian, Alvin Singleton, and others - looks like a great lineup.Sarah Cahill is giving several performances of her A Sweeter Music project, on October 12 in New York City, October 18 at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and Oct. 24 at Swedish…

• 
  Chamber Music Today

• Perfect Halloween Music: The Aesthetic Realism of Josquin Desprez’s ‘Mille regretz’

  DSM

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:20 am

  S ingers in brown or black, in an austere chamber, cold beyond the capacity of their clothing to keep them warm. F aded Renaissance landscape with fields now harvested and frost well on the pumpkin...    [50-sec clip, Paul Hillier & Hilliard Ensemble, Josquin Desprez, ‘Mille regretz’, 1.6MB MP3]T he singers’ gestures are Brueghel-like—some threading their way in the foreground and others in the distance. Denuded woods; hunting; dogs; countertenor; pensive magpies. V alley of ponds, river meandering through it abjectly. Steeply-roofed houses and…

• Anonymous 4: Aural Ambitions of Medieval Worship, Modal Fictionalism

  DSM

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:06 am

  T he performance by Anonymous 4 last Saturday evening in the Friends of Chamber Music’s Early Music series was beautiful, without doubt.Marsha GenenskySusan HellauerJacqueline Horner-KwiatekRuth CunninghamT he program ‘Secret Voices: Music from Las Huelgas, ca. 1300 CE’ of pieces from the Codex Las Huelgas embodies both traditional and emerging aspects of the musical and religious practice of its time. There are motets that manifest secular or para-liturgical aspirations, but the music is also inherently liturgical and devotional.A s I listened, entranced by the singing,…

• Akuma no ma: Nareh Arghamanyan, Romanticism and Nogaku-like Meter

  DSM

  3 Oct 2009 | 3:18 am

  P ianist Nareh Arghamanyan delivered a romantic tour de force last night, in her performance in the Friends of Chamber Music’s Master Pianists series.Mendelssohn: Variations Sérieuse, Op. 54Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110Chopin: Polanise-Fantaisie in A-flat Major, Op. 61Schumann: Humoreske in B-flat Major, Op. 20T he Humoreske’s radical changes in mood are humorous? Not so much. There is a ‘laughing-while-crying’ perplexity in there, which Nareh honors and turns round and round. The “innere Stimme” inner voices... the narrative that is not a…

• Stefan Jackiw: Violin Atmospherics, Where They Come From

  DSM

  27 Sep 2009 | 9:09 am

  V iolinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Max Levinson performed last night at Kansas City’s Folly Theater, as part of the Harriman-Jewell 45th season.Beethoven: Sonata No. 1 in D majorCopland: Sonata for Violin and PianoLutosławski: SubitoBrahms: Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108F or me, the highlight of the evening was the performance of Witold Lutosławski’s ‘Subito’ for violin and piano. Lutosławski was noted for his striving to achieve a unity of effect and expression through a 'system' of composing, for his love of drama, and for his penchant for high-saturation coloristic…

• Sung Birds: Bird-based Recital Repertoire

  DSM

  2 Aug 2009 | 3:17 am

  I    am an avid birder as well as flutist. I would like this Fall to do a recital program of works related to songbirds. Any suggestions?”  —  Anonymous.T hanks for the email. Not symphonic birds or full-orchestral concerto birds, but chamber ensemble or solo recital birds. This topic is not one that I have any experience in at all, but it’s intriguing. So I earnestly, naïvely look around...Joseph-Henri Altès. ‘Le rossignol et al tourterelle’, Op. 26. (flute, soprano, piano)Clement-Philibert-Leo Delibes. ‘Le rossignol’. (flute, soprano,…

• 
  Adaptistration

• Ballet Hawaii Stands Up For Live Orchestra Music

  Drew McManus

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:14 am

  As leaders at the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra (HSO) continue to promise then postpone news about the beleaguered organization’s fate, Ballet Hawaii has gone on record saying that they intend to use live music for their annual Nutcracker performances. Traditionally, the Ballet uses the HSO for the concerts, however, those plans could be interrupted if the HSO decides to file bankruptcy and cancel remaining concerts. Hawaii News Now produced a television segment about the HSO and Ballet that quotes representatives from the Ballet saying that they can’t imagine performing without…

• Honolulu Update: Hurry Up And Wait

  Drew McManus

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:16 am

  Honolulu Symphony Orchestra (HSO) board chair, Peter Shaindlin, postponed a scheduled announcement about the organization’s immediate future as well as a meeting with city officials to discuss the orchestra’s economic position. An article in the 11/4/09 edition of the Honolulu Adviser reported city officials saying they found the cancellation “…frustrating and disappointing.” Furthermore, KITZ.com reports the musicians’ union has filed a complaint with the federal labor board following shortages as high as 50 percent in their most recent paychecks… Although…

• Honolulu’s Paint Isn’t Even Dry But It’s Starting To Peel

  Drew McManus

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  Not even two months after the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra (HSO) appointed Majken Mechling as Executive Director and reports are already flying around that the organization may file bankruptcy as early as today. According to a report in the 11/3/09 edition of the Honolulu Adviser by Rick Daysog the “symphony’s board of directors held a special meeting [last Friday] to discuss the organization’s continued financial problems and discussed a potential bankruptcy filing and other options”… The HSO cancelled scheduled performances of Haydn’s Creation due to their…

• Adaptistration Turns Six

  Drew McManus

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:30 am

  Although 2009 has endured its fair share of economic downturn related turmoil, traffic and interactivity at Adaptistration have never been better. Today marks Adaptistration’s sixth anniversary and after more than 1,600 posts and 2,000 comments, blogging is more fun and relevant than ever… Adaptistration Turns Six! Here’s a quick overview of events since the last anniversary: New for 2009… Adaptistration launched a Twitter account. The Orchestra Financial Reports resource list was added to the Resource section. The print publications for the website reviews and…

• When High Standards Collide With Low Expectations

  Drew McManus

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:30 am

  Last week’s poll asking readers “how many orchestras will take advantage of having the direct link to their respective financial reports page at GuideStar.org and post it on their webpage by the end of November” and if “institutional transparency in the form of posting financial and annual reports matter” generated just over 100 responses. The results, at the time this article was written, can be summed up by saying that stakeholders have high standards but low expectations… QUESTION: Does institutional transparency in the form of posting financial and annual…

• 
  Classical Convert

• The oldest electronic drum machine

  Me

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:33 pm

  Here she blows: Click here to view the embedded video. Man, I love suff with cogs and pulleys and gears and stuff. It’s so fascinating watching little mechanical things moving sinusoidally. I used to be fascinated by street organs as a kid (and actually, I still would be if they ever existed on the street still). That’s why this is cool. It might be more efficient to pipe everything through CPUs and ICs and ETCs, but it isn’t as pleasing to the eye. I think we need to start incorporating analogue wheel and pulleys and stuff into digital electronics. Or at least have a few…

• Please don’t turn off your cellphone

  Me

  25 Oct 2009 | 7:43 pm

  Ordinarily, cellphones get shut-up before a performance, but not here: Click here to view the embedded video. And here’s the making of: Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video. (via Gizmodo)

• Suck juice from moose

  Me

  21 Oct 2009 | 10:14 am

  When I was about 8 years old my dad bought me a copy of Carmina Burana on cassette tape (remember them?). It turns out I didn’t really like anything except for O Fortuna!, that staple of medieval action movie trailers. I do remember being excited by the tightly compressed liner notes, which included both the Latin and English translation of the poems. “Velut Luna” has been what I’ve heard when it plays ever since. It might have been different if I had seen these lyrics first, instead: Click here to view the embedded video.

• Lake effect

  Me

  19 Oct 2009 | 8:10 pm

  Taken while on a three o’ clock saunter around the lake: And taken on my usually rubbish phone camera! Apparently even its paltry pixel count can’t put up a fight when faced with such a delicious increase in daily maximum temperature, and blueness of sky.

• The End of Summer

  Me

  19 Oct 2009 | 6:15 am

  Here’s another young musician to bracket the weekend, with an accordion-based rendition of  the end of “Summer”, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Click here to view the embedded video. The end of summer. How appropriate. It snowed here last Friday. Snowed! I can’t believe it’s already time to start worrying about alternate side-of-the-road parking.

• 
  listen

• End of an Era

  Steve Hicken

  18 Oct 2009 | 12:07 pm

  In a way.The development of the concert music blogosphere can be dated from when Alex Ross began blogging at The Rest is Noise back before the internet cooled. Now Alex has effectively closed TRiN and opened a new blog, Unquiet Thoughts, under the auspices of The New Yorker, for which Alex is the concert music critic.I wish Alex well in his new corporate digs and I look forward to his blog posts,

• Lindberg Live

  Steve Hicken

  16 Sep 2009 | 5:15 pm

  I don't know what it's like in the rest of the country, but the sound on the PBS broadcast of the New York Phil's opening concert here is awful--it's weak and full of pops.On first hearing, Magnus Lindberg's EXPO does what its composer says it's meant to do--shows off the orchestra and set the stage for the remainder of a concert and a season.

• Hello, It's Me

  Steve Hicken

  8 Sep 2009 | 5:16 pm

  I've thought about us for a long, long time.I've not posted in a while because I've been immersed in my Percussion Concerto. More on that soon.Regular (or at least more regular) posting will begin again soon.

• In C and Me

  Steve Hicken

  22 Jun 2009 | 4:41 pm

  Sony Classical (in conjunction with Carnegie Hall) has released the original recording of Terry Riley’s epochal In C (1964, open instrumentation) in a digitally remastered version on compact disc (Sony 88697 45368 2). Countless musicians and artists, myself included, of all stripes have talked and written about In C, most often focusing on its liberating power.A good deal of the talk about In C

• Twitterpated

  Steve Hicken

  26 May 2009 | 4:59 pm

  In response to this post by the always thought-provoking Daniel Wolf, I've begun a set of prose scores called twitterpieces. They will appear at my Twitter page, www.twitter.com/stevehicken. Everything you need to perform them will be included in the tweet. The first will appear shortly after this is posted.

• 
  NewMusicBox

• American Music Center Holds First-Ever Auction

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  The American Music Center, in celebration of its 70th anniversary this month, is holding its first-ever online auction which is now open and will run through November 20, 2009.

• Discovery and Creativity

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  By Dan Visconti What distinguishes an "author" from all others is not necessarily superior creative ability or technique, but rather an ability to value something that others might have considered too insignificant.

• Equals, Snapshots, Presence: ISIM – the International Society for Improvised Music

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  By Stephen Nachmanovitch Those of us who gravitate toward improvisational music do so because we enjoy relating to other human beings as equals.

• The AvantGrand: Even Better Than the Real Thing?

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  By Colin HolterIf the piano world isn't abuzz over the new Yamaha AvantGrand, it should be.

• Whirled Series

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  Despite today being Election Day, last night's World Series game got the entire front page of both the New York Post and the Daily News, and since sports news always gets the back page of the local tabloids (imagine if such status were accorded to music or to the arts in general), the game captured those pages, too.

• 
  Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise

• Spanish noise

  Alex Ross

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:29 pm

  I'm pleased and amazed that El ruido eterno, as The Rest Is Noise is known in Spain, is currently listed as the No. 1 non-fiction bestseller (castellano) by La Vanguardia. I will make a brief trip to Spain next week, appearing at the Spanish National Library in Madrid at 7 PM on Nov. 2; the International Institute in Madrid at 7 PM on Nov. 3; and Librería La Central in Barcelona at 1 PM on Nov. 4. I'm tremendously grateful to my Spanish publisher, Seix Barral, and also to the U.S. Embassy Madrid for helping to arrange this trip.

• Audio guide reminder (EU edition)

  Alex Ross

  20 Oct 2009 | 3:41 am

  Audio-Samples zum Buch The Rest Is Noise: Das 20. Jahrhundert hören finden Sie hier. Para los ejemplos de audio relacionados con el libro El ruido eterno, vaya aquí. Per esempi musicali dal libro Il resto è rumore vai qui.

• End and beginning

  Alex Ross

  14 Oct 2009 | 2:36 pm

  I've launched a new blog on the New Yorker website. It's called Unquiet Thoughts, after the John Dowland part-song, and it will offer many of the features that readers have come to expect from this site: the hilarity, the profundity, the delicious recipes. Given the close relationship between my New Yorker writing and my adventures in blogging, it makes more sense to bring all of my activity under the magazine's exacting aegis. The present site will remain intact, with a focus on my books and related material. I'll continue to augment the audio resources and post fresh…

• 
  Sequenza21/

• November portraits

  Steve Layton

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:25 am

  Miller Theatre at Columbia University is running a great little series of composer portrait concerts this month: Saturday, Nov. 7th, Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) is featured, with Chicago’s Fifth House Ensemble doing the honors. The program includes Ustvolskaya’s Trio (1949), Piano Sonata No. 6 (1988), Octet (1949-1950), Composition 2 (1972-1973), Piano Sonata No. 4 (1957), Composition 3 (1974-1975). Then on Tuesday, Nov. 17th, we get a full plate of a true American “gnarly” individualist, Ralph Shapey (1921-2002). Miranda Cuckson (violin, viola, and artistic…

• N.C. without the Y.

  Steve Layton

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:36 am

  I’ve just been informed via press release, that our s21 blogging regular Lawrence Dillon is a “mid-career composer.”  It’s nice to know that he’s only half-done making great music and not already washed-up! Said release was about the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts LINKS Commissioning Awards, and the four composers who’ll be getting premieres thanks to it, at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) in Winston-Salem — whose composer-in-residence just happens to be… yes, Lawrence Dillon. And one of which is by……

• Hey bidder bidder!

  Steve Layton

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:35 am

  Like to own a piece of potential history? Or maybe just somebody to lug your bags around? Grab some fare or flair, from fluff to full, all to be had at the American Music Center’s 70th anniversary online auction fundraiser. Proceeds will support the Center’s ongoing programs, which have been working to build a national community of artists, organizations, and audiences creating, performing, and enjoying new American music for a good chunk of the last century. The list of auction items is eclectic, to say the least. I’m not really seeing the musical value in a gift certificate…

• Who Interviewed Amanda Palmer?

  Galen H. Brown

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:03 am

  Amanda Palmer (photo by Martin Foster) Amanda Palmer is a bona fide rock star.  She first made her name as half of The Dresden Dolls, and has since struck out on her own with a solo album called “Who Killed Amanda Palmer.”  In June of 2008 she teamed up with the Boston Pops for two nights, and this December they’re doing it again for a New Year’s Eve concert.  Amanda has also been pioneering new models of how the rock music industry can work (staying in nearly constant contact with her fans via Twitter plays a key role), and I wanted to see if that ingenuity could…

• Tuning in to Gravity at Galapagos

  Galen H. Brown

  27 Oct 2009 | 7:14 am

  Last Friday I finally made it down to the new DUMBO location of Galapagos Art Space to see the release party/performance of Mikel Rouse’s haunting new album Gravity Radio. But let’s back up for a moment before we get to Rouse. DUMBO, for you non-New Yorkers, is one of the myriad New York City neighborhood abbreviations, like SoHo (South of Houston) or Tribeca (triangle below Canal), and it stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,” which is to say it’s in Brooklyn in the area just south of the Manhattan Bridge. It was one of the first places in…

• 
  WGBH Classical Performance Podcast

• Inna Faliks plays Beethoven and Pasternak

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Nobody really knows what Beethoven's improvisations sounded like, but this Fantasy gives a rare glimpse into the  inventive mind of the master, as he put music together on the spot, at the piano. Eventually this was written down as his Op. 77.  As bonus, Inna Faliks plays a couple of Preludes by the composer, poet and novelist, Boris Pasternak. Beethoven:  Fantasy, Op. 77.  Pasternak:  Two Preludes (1906) Inna Faliks, piano Recorded in a live broadcast in WGBH's Fraser Performance Studio on October 29th, 2009. ©2009 WGBH Educational Foundation.

• Aldo Abreu plays Anonymous music from Mexico

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  23 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  This anonymous composer wrote some beautiful tunes.  Too bad we have no idea who he or she was!  These pieces dating from around 1750 were discovered in the Mexico City Cathedral.  Aldo Abreu has arranged them for recorder and basso continuo. Anonymous (Mexico City Cathedral, 1750):  Sonatas; Salaverde:  Canzona Segunda. Aldo Abreu, recorders; Peter Sykes, harpsichord; Sarah Freiburg, cello More info:  http://www.hunsteinartists.com/artists/abreu.html Recorded in a live broadcast in WGBH's Fraser Performance Studio on October 22nd, 2009. ©2009 WGBH…

• Narek Hakhnazaryan plays Beethoven

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  16 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Beethoven's friend the Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein was the lucky dedicatee of this beautiful Sonata for cello and piano.  Beethoven must have had a lot of respect for the cello-playing Baron, because he gave him the first notes of the theme to play without any accompaniment! Beethoven:  Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3 in A major, Op. 69 Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello; Noreen Cassidy-Polera, piano. More info:  http://www.yca.org/hakhnazaryan.html Recorded in a live broadcast in WGBH's Fraser Performance Studio on September 17th, 2009. ©2009 WGBH Educational Foundation.

• Roberto Plano performs Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  9 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Franz Liszt was captivated by the poetry of the 14th century humanist, Petrarch, who wrote ardent love poetry in honor of a woman he hardly knew, named Laura.  Liszt thought of these pieces as his own sonnets in honor of his beloved Marie, the Countess Marie D'Agoult. Liszt:  Three Sonnets of Petrarch. Roberto Plano, piano More information:  http://www.robertoplano.com/ Recorded in a live broadcast in WGBH's Fraser Performance Studio on September 10th, 2009. ©2009 WGBH Educational Foundation. http://www.wgbh.org/classical email: classical@wgbh.org

• Raphael Popper-Keizer and Gloria Chien play Debussy

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  2 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Debussy planned to write six sonatas before he died, for various combinations of instruments, but only got around to writing three before he died of colon cancer.  This Cello Sonata is the first one he finished.  He originally wanted to call it "Pierrot angry with the moon", refering to the unhappy clown character in Commedia dell'arte theater.  You can imagine PIerrot in this music: whimsical and funny, but occasionally revealing an undercurrent of sadness. Debussy:  Sonata for cello and piano Raphael Popper-Keizer, cello; Gloria Chien, piano. More…

• 
  PlaybillArts.com

• "A Test of the Dionysian and the Apollonian": Four Orchestras in Four Nights

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  Frank Cadenhead was recently in Paris where, in one extraordinary weekend, top orchestras from London, Cleveland, Caracas and Cologne played one after the other.

• Sound & Vision: Chéreau and Salonen Chat About the Met's From the House of the Dead

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Director Patrice Chéreau and acclaimed conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen make company debuts bringing Leoš Janácek's From the House of the Dead to the Met for the first time. The artists discuss the production, which runs Nov. 12-Dec. 5.

• 20 (PLUS) QUESTIONS WITH: Pianist Ingrid Fliter

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  Winning the Gilmore Award in 2006 put Buenos Aires-born pianist Ingrid Fliter dramatically on the map, marking her as one of the most important young artists on the international scene. Her latest album, Chopin Waltzes, was released Nov. 3 on EMI Classics.

• Thomas Hampson Sings Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony in NYC Nov. 5-10

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Thomas Hampson began his New York Philharmonic residency with a Nov. 2 lecture and will now present a series of concerts at Avery Fisher Hall Nov. 5-10. He chats here about his work with the Phil and other current projects.

• Weisgall at City Opera- The Making of a Modern American Masterpiece

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  New York City Opera officially begins its 2009-10 season at the newly renovated David H. Koch Theater Nov. 7 with Hugo Weisgall's Esther. Olivia Giovetti explores the history behind the piece and reflects on the composer's relationship with City Opera.

• 
  Muso

• Pianist Joanna MacGregor signs to Warner Classics & Jazz

  7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  The Warner Classics & Jazz label announced at the end of October that it has taken on the acclaimed artist along with her own label, SoundCircus

• Music critic Alex Ross to give Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:03 am

  Alex Ross, classical music writer for The New Yorker and influential blogger, will give the Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture on 8 March 2010 at London’s Wigmore Hall.

• Eight opera stars go for gold onboard cruise liner

  30 Oct 2009 | 1:02 am

  A prestigious talent contest for up-and-coming opera stars is being held on a cruise ship in the middle of the Med – but you don’t need to leave dry-land to see the performances

• In Harmony president Julian Lloyd Webber to meet the children of El Sistema

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am

  Lloyd Webber will meet the founder of the Venezuelan youth music scheme that inspired a similar UK project, In Harmony

• BBC Radio 3 and English National Opera invite everyone to ‘Sing Hallelujah’

  28 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  A collaborative project between BBC Radio 3 and the English National Opera aims to encourage people to discover the joys of singing

• 
  Jessica Duchen

• "Ochin priatna"

  7 Nov 2009 | 1:21 am

  Apparently the Beast from the East likes classical music. Why should this sound so weird? http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2393

• Moments of Inspiration

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:43 am

  Diverse news and inspiration for Friday morning, featuring a link to a profoundly moving story about the healing power of music, some words of wisdom from Lionel Shriver and a rather odd photo from outside a Rite of Spring rehearsal...http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2391

• Notes on programme notes

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:14 am

  So what do you want from a programme at a concert or opera? A few thoughts on what's wrong and why. Ideas, please, on how to fix it. (Comments at the Standpoint site, please, rather than here - it's good to have one discussion rather than two - thanks!). http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2386

• November...

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:46 am

  November edition of Standpoint includes my article on No Music Day and how our minds affect our listening; and a stunning essay by James Macmillan on music and modernity. http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2384

• Dilettante's Composer Competition Countdown

  1 Nov 2009 | 2:09 am

  An e-interview with Dilettante Music's Digital Composer-in-Residence Competition judge Nico Muhly as the big evening approaches: http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/2382

• 
  Classical Music from Minnesota Public Radio

• Dawn is back at the SPCO with a world premiere

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Dawn Upshaw returns in her role as Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. She sings some signature music by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov and a world premiere by film composer Alberto Iglesias.

• Regional Spotlight - Summer Singers

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  Tune in to Classical Minnesota Public Radio Thursday afternoon for Regional Spotlight. Host Steve Staruch will highlight Minnesota choir The Summer Singers.

• How to find the right piano teacher

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Choosing a piano teacher can be a bit like finding the right lawyer, plumber or hairdresser -- professional experience is important, as well as a good fit. North Dakota Piano Teacher of the Year, Sharon Westbrook, shares her thoughts on finding that best "fit."

• New Classical Tracks: Star Power

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:42 am

  A trio of star soloists brings out the passion and beauty in two Russian chamber works.

• SPCO names new Principal Timpanist

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:49 am

  Twenty-something Michael Israelievitch has just been named Principal Timpani of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. It was a grueling (but thorough!) audition and he feels ready to take on his new role.

• 
  Dial

• The Dark Within The Dark

  Jonathan Bellman

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:48 pm

  At the beginning of my final year—quarter, actually: fall 1979—enrolled at UCSB, there appeared a green, hyper, talkative violist and composer, an odd mix of self-confidence and neurotic insecurity named Gregory Michael Amov.  For reasons never became clear, Greg apparently decided I was someone to know and began to affect certain aspects of my manner: growing something vaguely beardlike, smoking black cigarettes (I smoked Shermans MCDs at the time), shadowing me.   Friends would badger me about it in a good-natured way—“Like father like son, eh, Jon?”—and I did…

• Guidance, or Not

  Jonathan Bellman

  29 Oct 2009 | 11:47 am

  Phil forwards me a letter from someone who thinks he would like to be a musicologist, and who desires guidance along this rocky road.  Do I want to take a crack at this?  Sure.  For protection of those intimately involved, I will not mention any names.  Here’s the other thing: I apologize if I repeat sentiments offered in previous blog posts, and (contrariwise) I warn you in advance that I’m not going to be offering a bland YOU CAN DO IT message.  So: Dear Sir, You write as a dissatisfied 27-year-old, interested in musicology, who (initially) was not accepted…

• Exercise no. 5: the second seminar game piece

  Phil Ford

  27 Oct 2009 | 9:20 am

  Two things. First of all, friend of the blog David Brent Johnson has done a new show for Night Lights on the 1957 film The Sweet Smell of Success. David interviewed me and James Naremore, whose book on film noir is a favorite of mine. Go check out of the show. You'll learn a lot about a great film and you'll also be impressed by David's editing skills, which were considerably taxed by my, uh, elliptical manner of speaking. Second, more about exercises. Are you getting tired of them? I'm not. Last week I devised a new one for my seminar. It was rather more complex…

• Asteria in Boulder

  Jonathan Bellman

  25 Oct 2009 | 7:42 pm

  Imagine the Platonic Ideal of a performance of songs about Love—Love incarnated as a poetic idealization.  You might conceive of vocal lines sinuously interwoven with the kind of insouciance born only from total contrapuntal command.  You might imagine performers able to match pitch and timbre to achieve the two-becoming-one and one-blossoming-into-two effects with seeming effortlessness, and you might fantasize that, when short phrases were exclaimed together, the singers would be in such sympathy that breath and enunciation, attack and release were utterly simultaneous, a poet…

• Exercise no. 4: Dress badly and become a fascist

  Phil Ford

  22 Oct 2009 | 2:18 pm

  I'm dressed badly today. (Worse than usual, I mean.) Everyone in my family except (mysteriously) me has the Swine Flu, so my schedule is off and I was running around this morning and just grabbed whatever in my closet came readily to hand. This is the result: At one point I had to talk to Peter Burkholder about some department matter and apologized for dressing in a manner unbecoming to a musicologist. He told me that an old professor of his dressed in the coat-and-tie professorial style, but sometimes changed it up with Western wear. Students puzzled over this incongruity and…

• 
  Ionarts

• Cloudy Skies for Russian Stars

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:21 am

  Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for contributing to ionarts again with this review of the National Symphony Orchestra's concert. You can read his latest column for InsideCatholic here. Brahms, Violin (& Double) Concerto(s),Repin / Chailly / GewandhausDG.com .co.uk .de .frSergei Prokofiev, Symphonies,Järvi / Scottish NOChandos.com .co.uk .de .frProkofiev, Khachaturian, DSCH, Russian Ballet Suites,

• Susanna Phillips: Superlative

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:43 am

  Read my review today on the Washington Post Web site:Charles T. Downey, Soprano Phillips: languid legatoWashington Post, November 5, 2009Susanna Phillips, soprano (photo by Ken Howard)Soprano Susanna Phillips, in the area to perform with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra this weekend, gave an exceptionally beautiful recital on Tuesday night in the auditorium of Alexandria's Bishop Ireton High

• Lunch with Bach

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:30 pm

  The best part of the Washington Bach Consort's season most years is their series of free noontime cantatas, on the first Tuesday of every month. Yesterday, I had the rare chance to attend one of those concerts, at the Church of the Epiphany downtown, in the company of the elementary school class of Master Ionarts. Few will probably believe that this trip was not planned at my instigation (really,

• Till Fellner's Beethoven Cycle, Part 4

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:11 am

  Pianist Till Fellner (photo by Francesco Carrozzini)Fellner Beethoven Cycle:Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3Online scores:No. 25 (op. 79, "Cuckoo") | No. 24 (op. 78, "A Thérèse") | No. 15 (op. 28, "Pastoral") | No. 27 (op. 90) | No. 4 (op. 7)Till Fellner crossed the midpoint in his seven-concert cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas in Washington on Sunday night to a capacity crowd at the National Gallery of

• Anne Truitt's Life as Color

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:10 pm

  The major exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum this fall, Anne Truitt: Perception and Reflection, is a great way to spend a couple blissful hours lost in thought. Although Truitt grew up in Easton, on Maryland's eastern shore, and worked for most of her career right here in Washington, D.C., her work flew under the radar. Most of what I knew about her before this show is because of Tyler Green's

• 
  The Rambler

• EXAUDI at the Warehouse, reviewed

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:32 am

  My review of EXAUDI’s recent concert at the Warehouse is now online at Musical Pointers: Several of the pieces in this miscellany of special commissions and ‘must do’ rarities came across as surprisingly honest to certain choral traditions. No doubt that perception is a product of my upbringing, but that tradition and the resulting pieces sound interestingly and pleasingly English to me, right down to the strings of finger pops in Molitor’s Lorem ipsum, which recalled peals of change-ringing bells. But then EXAUDI and most of the composers they performed are products…

• Music and the Cold War at the AMS

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:51 am

  The Cold War and Music Study Group of the AMS has a new blog. At the moment it just includes notices about the study group’s forthcoming meeting at AMS 2009 (next weekend), but hopefully it will blossom into something more than this. An open discussion about some of the topics raised at the meeting would be great, since the papers that are to be presented look pretty tasty: Marcus Zagorski: ‘Historical Narrative and Aesthetic Judgment: Serial and Post-serial Music in West Germany’ Elaine Kelly: ‘Conceptions of Canons in a Post-Cold War Climate: Interpreting Narratives…

• musikFabrik – Michaels Reise um die Welt

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:40 pm

  From Anablog: The video of musikFabrik’s 2008 production of Michael’s Journey Around the World has been posted to YouTube, and it’s well worth watching. WDR did an admirable job of capturing the overpacked visuals, but the DVD still represents only a fraction of what the audience was seeing. Don’t miss watching these. The vids are all here.

• Concert programming

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:35 am

  My review of last month’s Radius concert at the Purcell Room has just been accepted for publication in Musical Opinion. It won’t be out until the January issue,  but I wanted to pick up some overspill here. Firstly, John Reid’s playing of Berg’s opus 1 Piano Sonata was stunning. I ran out of space in my short review to really expand on why I thought it was so good, but the main thing I got was a sense of Berg’s full spectrum tonal palette, and his skill in slipping from one of its regions to another. Reid gave the music quite a lot of space, so it was possible…

• EXAUDI at the Warehouse, this Thursday

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  27 Oct 2009 | 2:09 pm

  EXAUDI makes a rare appearance in London this week with an eight-voice programme of the newest contemporary music – much of it to be premiered at this performance. EXAUDI are a staggeringly good choir and not to be missed: if you need some persuasion, here’s what I said about their performance last year at the Spitalfields Festival. The concert is part of Sound and Music’s The Cutting Edge series and takes place at the Warehouse, next Thursday, at 7.30pm. Chung Shih Hoh: mantra:imagine (2007, UK premiere) Stephen Chase: from Jandl Songs (2007-) Gwyn Pritchard: Luchnos (2007,…

• 
  Soho the Dog

• Immortal hand or eye

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:19 am

  Reviewing the Boston Classical Orchestra.Boston Globe, October 29, 2009.

• Frenzy and frolic, strictly symbolic

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:18 am

  Reviewing the Boston Symphony Orchestra.Boston Globe, October 28, 2009.

• Orientation

  27 Oct 2009 | 12:06 pm

  Reviewing the Juilliard String Quartet.Boston Globe, October 27, 2009.

• I sit down and write a brand-new rhyme

  24 Oct 2009 | 1:18 pm

  Beethoven's early believers. The Transcendentalists' Ludwig Van.Boston Globe, October 25, 2009.What you hear is not a chorus. "Rapper's Delight" and the vestige of minstrelsy.Boston Globe, October 25, 2009.Updates in this space have pretty much dropped off the radar, haven't they? But at least I'm keeping busy. (The first article previews Chapter 4 of the ever-impending book; if I can get "Rapper's Delight" in there as well, I'll at least have reached new levels of expressive tangentiality.)

• Noticeable absence

  20 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pm

  Reviewing the Boston Chamber Music Society.Boston Globe, October 20, 2009.

• 
  Wolf Trap Opera

• Happy Fifth Bloggiversary

  Kim

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:37 am

  Well, it was on Wednesday, but I missed it.Now We Are Five.

• Sweating Small Stuff... Seeing Forests for Trees... Wholes Being Greater than Sums of Parts ...

  Kim

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:46 am

  As we prepare for our California auditions, I thought this would be a great opportunity for a guest post. Joshua Winograde, Artistic Planning Manager for LA Opera, is a great friend and colleague of the WTOC, and he spent several chunks of his career so far with us - as a Filene Young Artist, as the originator of the title role in Volpone, and as the administrative engine behind the development of the Wolf Trap Opera Studio.I keep telling Josh he should have his own blog, but he seems to prefer sending guest posts for mine... HmmmmSweating Small Stuff... Seeing Forests for Trees... Wholes…

• IAD-LAX-ORD-CVG-IAH-JFK/NYP-PHI-WAS

  Kim

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:28 am

  And we're off. 7 cities, 6 airports, 3 train stations, dozens of cabs and one car rental later, we'll end up back here at Thanksgiving - with any luck, ready to cast 3 operas for next summer.I'll write as often as possible from the road - cities and dates below at right.Tonight I try to stuff 3 weeks' worth of clothing, computer gear, audio/video archive equipment, and audition paperwork into one checked back and one carry-on. The travails of travel await, but this will make it all better this year.See you from the left coast in a few days.

• Expert Friday: Tips from Texas

  Kim

  30 Oct 2009 | 11:36 am

  On our final expert Friday, some combined advice from Kathleen Kelly and Laura Canning of the Houston Grand Opera Studio:Don't Second-Guess! We like hearing you sing; we know auditioning is hard and we want you to do well. Don't try to second guess what I want you to sing, or wear, or say. Just be true to yourself. Every panel wants something different- every MEMBER of every panel wants something different! Your Aria List Make sure you choose your starting piece carefully. Don't choose something long just because you think you're only going get to sing one aria - that can be a self-fulfilling…

• Your Audition Partner at the Piano

  Kim

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:40 am

  First, a list from a few seasons ago, when my colleague Thomas Lausmann sat on the audition panel with me: What Makes a Fabulous Audition Pianist? Listening. The ability to put the playing in subconscious mode and use most of the conscious mind to take in all of the details of the performance and become a split-second collaborator for singers the pianist has never met. Flexibility. Turning on a dime to respond to the unexpected – a mis-timed entrance, a sudden change in tempo, an ill-marked cut in the printed music, a book (or, perish the thought, a stray piece of loose music) that won’t…

• 
  Yankeediva

• Shocking!!

  Yankeediva

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:28 am

  My senior year at Bishop Miege High School in suburban Kansas City, I was certain - and I mean CERTAIN! - that I would be a high school choral director, and so I searched for schools that had great music education degrees. After sorting through loads of brochures, I settled on The Wichita State University, known for it's wonderful teacher programs, and as it so happened, an outstanding opera

• Climb every mountain - or at least one of them!

  Yankeediva

  2 Nov 2009 | 11:24 am

  Yesterday the NY Marathon took the Big Apple by storm. The women's race saw a heroic figure and favored winner fight a horrible leg injury and still cross the finish line, the men's race saw a great upset with the USA taking the win for the first time in ages, and I got to cheer on my very dear friend in his 6th race (despite the fact that while fighting the crowds to get to the finish line I

• Meet Gabriel, the sweetest, scene-stealing Donkey you'll ever meet.

  Yankeediva

  29 Oct 2009 | 8:32 pm

  This is Gabriel, the adorable, mild-mannered Donkey that graces the stage of the Metropolitan Opera for our production of The Barber of Seville. He's only one element that makes this run so fun and refreshing and wonderful. We are actually rehearsing this week to add in 2 new cast members, which means those of us that have been performing these past weeks have to bring in the new colleagues and

• Rest, Relaxtion, Restoration ... ah, Alaskaaaaaah

  Yankeediva

  24 Oct 2009 | 12:38 pm

  I had the extreme pleasure of singing on board the US AMSTERDAM recently on a 7-day cruise of Alaska for the Metropolitan Opera Guild. The brilliant Jake Heggie was my collaborative pianist, the dashing Michael Snider the organizer, and a number of enthusiastic opera lovers our audience and travel companions! The week could not have been more memorable, more relaxing, more breathtaking, or more

• Good times!

  Yankeediva

  8 Oct 2009 | 11:51 am

  It feels WONDERFUL to be able to report that I believe a good time was had by ALL on Saturday night for the opening of "The Barber of Seville" here in NYC! I think the audience was happy to be given the chance to laugh out loud a bit, as laughter truly does tend to work magic, even on the most unsuspecting!Yesterday was a huge day, as I had a big brainstorming session with my recording team of

• 
  Opera Chic

• American Voices for an American Opera Company: NYCO Dazzles NYC

  opera chic

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:16 am

  An inscription to $100 million gift-giver, David H. Koch, on the inside cover of the evening's program, first and foremost,...

• NYCO Opening Night Gala: The Photos

  opera chic

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:01 am

  A healthy mix of opera-for-the-people people and NYC socialites greeted New York City Opera's Opening Night Gala last night in...

• Anna Netrebko, Tree Whisperer

  opera chic

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:35 am

  The Russian soprano sings to the Ents (you know what I'm Tolkien about). ~*Youtube hilarity ensues*~

• Classical Music @ The White House: JFK & Obama

  opera chic

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:07 am

  "Now, if any of you in the audience are newcomers to classical music, and aren’t sure when to applaud, don’t...

• 27 & Broadway

  opera chic

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:56 am

  Concrete jungle where dreams are made of There's nothing you can’t do,Now you're in New York Jay-Z - "Empire State...

• 
  Opera Today

• The precious Hugo von Hofmannsthal

  gary@operatoday.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:21 pm

  http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6902508.ece?&EMC-Bltn=XT3451F

• Flavio and Alcina by ETO

  gary@operatoday.com

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:39 am

  In celebration of their 25th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel, English Touring Opera has devised Handelfest, an extravaganza of five operas (Flavio, Teseo, Tolomeo, Alcina and Ariodante) and a wide variety of masterclasses and workshops taking in several of the company’s usual touring venues.

• Thomas Arne’s Artaxerxes — Baroque Hyperbole

  gary@operatoday.com

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:03 am

  Thomas Arne's masterpiece, Artaxerxes, was a huge hit after its 1762 debut. Yet the work is now a rarity. This spectacular performance at the Linbury Studio Theatre, will certainly raise its public profile.

• Paris: Off and Running

  gary@operatoday.com

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:47 am

  The Paris Opera season started with ‘un boum,’ scoring decisive successes with two infrequently performed stage pieces.

• Tancredi by Opera Boston

  gary@operatoday.com

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:16 pm

  At the time of the premiere of Tancredi in 1813, Rossini, not quite twenty-one years old, had been composing works for the stage for three years and was still not world famous.

• 
  Opera Today News Headlines

• The precious Hugo von Hofmannsthal

  Gary

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:21 pm

  Paul Reitter [Times Literary Supplement, 4 November 2009] Can a bad economy make for great poetry? Hugo von Hofmannsthal thought so. Indeed, he saw his own gift for lyrical writing and reflection as being, in a way, a consequence of the stock market crash of 1873. This self-understanding starts with the fact that Hofmannsthal was conceived at the very moment of the bust. His father, a banker, got word of it soon after arriving in Naples for his honeymoon.

• Opera star Bartoli explores music of the castrati

  Gary

  20 Oct 2009 | 5:05 pm

  By Kerri Mason [Billboard, 20 October 2009] NEW YORK (Billboard) - Cecilia Bartoli could have followed the path of least resistance. When the Italian mezzo-soprano burst onto the opera scene in the early ’90s with a standard repertoire of Rossini and Mozart, she looked like she could establish a career as a traditional classical artist.

• 'Macbeth' toils with brain, not heart

  Gary

  19 Oct 2009 | 5:05 pm

  By Catherine Reese Newton [Salt Lake Tribune, 19 October 2009] In some ways, Verdi’s “Macbeth” — with its witches, ghosts and buckets of blood — is a logical choice to open an opera season right before Halloween. In other ways, it’s a daring choice: There’s no love triangle, the central characters spend more time brooding than emoting, and almost all that blood is shed offstage.

• 'Death of Klinghoffer' at last

  Gary

  19 Oct 2009 | 4:50 pm

  By Mark Swed [LA Times, 19 October 2009] Nearly 20 years ago, Los Angeles Opera added its name to the list of commissioners of John Adams’ opera about terrorism, “The Death of Klinghoffer.” The company wrote a check and promised a Music Center production at some unspecified but not unreasonably distant time after the work’s premiere in Brussels in 1991.

• German soprano Nadja Michael gives a staggering performance as Salome at S.F. Opera

  Gary

  19 Oct 2009 | 4:48 pm

  By Richard Scheinin [Mercury News, 19 October 2009] In Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” a teenage nymphomaniac princess discovers her inner necrophilia. At the opera’s conclusion, she kisses the crimson lips of the severed head of a prophet, John the Baptist, served to her on a silver platter. Top that, Quentin Tarantino.

• 
  ANABlog

• John Zorn, "Femina (Part 3)"

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:06 pm

  jzf

• Extraterrestrial Jesus

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:44 pm

  After the aliens arrived and announced their intentions in V last night, the first thing we see is two priests arguing over a Vatican pronouncement that the aliens are harmless. The younger priest is skeptical:"There's not a lot of scripture on the subject...I'm at a loss to explain how God and aliens exist in the same world..."It was fun to see that theological argument tossed in right off the bat. Science fiction doesn't deal with the issue of Christianity very often, aside from co-opting its plotines (ie Dune). And the Church is not in the habit of addressing such basic sci-fi conundrums…

• Martial Solal Newdecaband, "Incoercible"

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:27 pm

• Harry Partch Interview

  1 Nov 2009 | 6:02 pm

  A Closet of Curiosity posted an interesting interview with Harry Partch. The conversation covers a lot of ground, like the fact that he doesn't consider Delusion of the Fury to be an opera because his musicians are onstage with painted bellies. He sees 'opera' as an Italianate term, although he wouldn't mind being lumped into the same operatic category as Mussorgsky (good man). Partch also says that 'according to Bell Laboratories' the average ear can distinguish 600 pitches in an octave. The interviewer also meets Partch at the theater where Delusion of the Fury is being premiered and…

• Mike Bloomberg Has Us Over a Barrel

  1 Nov 2009 | 5:41 pm

  Bloomberg's latest ad has the requisite dulcet soundtrack as he recounts all the good that he's done for the city. We see smiling kids going to school, smiling fishmongers and construction workers, and then for less than a second, we see this cop cuffing someone on the hood of a car.It's an inadvertent metaphor (or perhaps a subliminal reminder) of the position Bloomberg has the city in. We're powerless to resist voting him in to an illegitimate 3rd term. No one seriously thinks Bill Thompson would do a good job as mayor (not even Bill Thompson). So we're stuck with a billionaire who couldn't…

• 
  Aworks: New American Classical Music

• Rewriting Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (2006). Michael Gordon

  Robert Gable

  31 Oct 2009 | 11:17 pm

  The New York Times contemporary composers blog has resumed with a post by Michael Gordon on his work that uses themes from Beethoven:Perhaps the most interesting interaction with classical music that I’ve had was a commission from the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, Germany, to write a new piece for orchestra that referenced Beethoven in some way. It was a challenging request and for a while I wasn’t sure how to proceed. In the end, I decided to take one theme from each movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and work with them as if they were my own.  Includes a streamed excerpt,…

• Rhythm-a-Ning (1957?). Thelonious Monk /via lala via google via kronos quartet/

  Robert Gable

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:51 pm

  Image by louisvolant via FlickrI'm trying the new Google "one-box" search feature that allows, among other treats, one button access to a lala player for tracks of the artist you are searching for. My comments so far: The lala player appears in a separate popup rather than reusing a current lala window (or stealing the google search window itself). All my searches so far offer lala selections. iLike, iMeem, Rhapsody, and Pandora appear more sporadically. The Steve Reich featured tracks are all from Music for 18 Musicians; the Philip Glass more diversified. 4'33" shows up in the John Cage…

• Music with Changing Parts (1970). Philip Glass /dee-dee-dee-mistake/

  Robert Gable

  29 Oct 2009 | 8:23 pm

  Alex V. Cook has an interview of Dickie Landry, a founding member of the Philip Glass Ensemble. I particularly liked the part on helping Glass understand the value of accomplished musicians: Landry pulls out a picture of one of the early Philip Glass Ensemble rehearsals noting the talented composers in the group but comments, “Philip and them were great composers but not the best technicians. They could play, but they really couldn’t play. We were rehearsing music for changing parts and it was like dee-dee-dee-mistake, dee-dee-dee-mistake. Oh God, I thought, this is like torture. I…

• aworks five-star links and tracks :: october 27th, 2009 /bridging differences/

  Robert Gable

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:56 pm

  Image by trainman74 via Flickr The Transcontinental vows to be the blogosphere's Adorno defender. Hmm, the Bay Bridge is closed again after the Labor Day repair has apparently failed. I start regularly commuting over a bridge for the first time starting Tuesday but I think/hope my bridge is more reliable. At least I don't live or work on Treasure Island. And McSweeney's is co-sponsoring an effort to investigate the new Bay Bridge. Summer Is Coming In has discovered Operabase, a database of opera performances. The Respect Sextet has that double bill album with the music of Karlheinz…

• Five Knee Plays (1976). Philip Glass /recovery program/

  Robert Gable

  25 Oct 2009 | 12:11 pm

  Philip Glass via last.fm JerryZ reviews a well-programmed LA concert with Feldman's Rothko Chapel, Ben Johnston’s Quartet No. 4 “Amazing Grace”, and music by Philip Glass:The Jacaranda series has recovered the “Five Knee Plays” from Einstein on the Beach, with approval of Glass and the publisher. At the time of their first presentation of the set, in 2005, only the middle work was available; three other segments had been issued for children’s chorus but were no longer available, and the opening segment had been withdrawn and had to be reconstituted...The music still grabs at you.

• 
  Sounds & Fury

• Free Concert By The Berlin Philharmoniker

  A.C. Douglas

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:06 am

  We've just received from the Berlin Philharmoniker on behalf of the Philharmoniker and its longtime sponsor, the Deutsche Bank, the following press release. And, yes,...

• A Response

  A.C. Douglas

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:03 am

  In a post on his blog, The Transcontinental, Andrew W wants to make the case that the postmodern propensity by presumable highbrow types such as...

• S&F Joins The Amazon Associates Program (Administrative Note)

  A.C. Douglas

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:03 pm

  For the past twelve years or so we've been dealing with Amazon almost exclusively to fill all our online shopping needs and only rarely find...

• The Berlin Philharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall

  A.C. Douglas

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:05 am

  For those of you not already acquainted with it, we'd like to direct your attention to what is almost certainly the Web's most beautiful and...

• Jeff Bezos, Are You Listening?

  A.C. Douglas

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

  We have for years on S&F been a big fan of the idea of the eBook, but always tempered our enthusiasm with the proviso that...

• 
  Deceptively Simple

• Unwritten Works We Wish Had Been Written

  admin

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:40 am

  The Ring Cycle as Imagined by Felix Mendelssohn: “My best thanks also for your last letter. Do you know, I think your suggestion as to the Nibelungen most luminous? It has been constantly in my head ever since, and I mean to employ my first leisure day in reading over the poem, for I have forgotten the details and can only recall the general colouring and outlines which seem to me gloriously dramatic. Will you kindly communicate to me your specific ideas on this subject? The poem is evidently more present to your memory than to mine. I scarcely remember what your allusion means as to…

• Hello?

  admin

  15 Oct 2009 | 9:56 pm

  And….we’re back. Team DecSimp moved from the South Side to the Near Northwest Side, ran the Chicago Marathon, and is now engaged in keeping a classical record label moving forward, because, much in the manner of a shark, if it isn’t moving forward, it is dead and the carcass is spending money for no good reason. Riccardo Muti laid out The Plan (PDF) yesterday for when the new era commences next fall, with plans to bring music to juvenile offenders and at-risk youth, naming Mason Bates and Anna Clyne as the new CSO composers-in-residence, and creating the Sir Georg Solti…

• De Niese de bees knees

  admin

  20 Sep 2009 | 7:53 pm

  Danielle de Niese’s new Mozart album is out now, and received a big plug from the New York Times Magazine today, and therefore needs no further boost from me. But, it’s a splendid album of opera and concert arias, and you get to hear her with Bryn Terfel and the authoritative Sir Charles Mackerras and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. (Age of Enlightenment Orchestra? Enlightenment Orchestra? No, we need two prepositional clauses, surely.) An added bonus are the liner notes by Chicago Opera Theater general director Brian Dickie, who brought de Niese to COT and Chicago in…

• Code name

  admin

  20 Sep 2009 | 7:00 pm

  Names exist, partially, to remove doubt. We put them on things to eliminate what they are not as much as to say what they are. “What is [this]?” “It is [that].” Names also create attachments between the person, or people, who did the naming and the thing that’s been named; if you find a stray animal, the last thing you should do if you have no intention of keeping it is to give it a name. A name is a tie that binds. Once that attachment is in place, and we agree on what a thing is named, the name begins to settle in and take root, becoming nice and comfortable…

• Free and patriotic music

  admin

  11 Sep 2009 | 1:50 pm

  Nominally part of the Back the Bid program for Chicago 2016, the Chicago Symphony’s offer of three free downloads also makes for a thoughtful 9/11 memorial. From this page, you can download recordings of the CSO playing The Star-Spangled Banner and Stars & Stripes Forever, as well as the Olympic Anthem. The first two are led by Sir Georg Solti and pack a mighty, terrorist-and-Nazi-and-Commie-defying wallop; the third is from concerts led by Leonard Slatkin. The downloads will only be up through Sunday, so act now. And for those who care about such things, they’re at…

• 
  The Standing Room

• Links for 2009-10-30 [del.icio.us]

  My Favorite Intermissions: Tosca II (Scarpia 0) maybe a prequel?

• Links for 2009-10-27 [del.icio.us]

  On a Pacific Aisle: Half a Century INSANE BRAIN, OVER. Music review: 'Einstein' at the beach | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times "Jacaranda, the West Side’s new music series, concluded its first concert of the season at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica with excerpts from Philip Glass’ groundbreaking opera" Daniel Stephen Johnson: Combination Pizza Hut and Analytical Dressing-Down "I still can't help but think it must sting to get schooled in hip-hop and race by the 'Combination Pizza Hut' guys" Meredith Monk @ Next Wave Festival at 17 dots…

• Links for 2009-10-08 [del.icio.us]

  Gustavo Dudamel | LA Phil | Game Baton Hero - "Can you achieve the level of super maestro?"

• Links for 2009-10-02 [del.icio.us]

  YSaC, Vol. 442: Philip Glass sells a table. | You Suck at Craigslist i got a red table for sale! take it for free!

• Links for 2009-10-01 [del.icio.us]

  Civic Center: Il Trittico at the San Francisco Opera once again, sfmike and i are basically completely aligned

• 
  Finding My Singing Voice

• Taking voice problems seriously

  Finding My Singing Voice

  13 Oct 2009 | 5:46 am

• Audio update, "Domine Deus," October 7, 2009

  Finding My Singing Voice

  9 Oct 2009 | 10:51 am

• When less is more: learning to embrace simplicity

  Finding My Singing Voice

  9 Sep 2009 | 6:34 pm

• Learning about the art of teaching voice

  Finding My Singing Voice

  23 Aug 2009 | 7:25 pm

  Me at the Eastman ScI recently decided to transition from my full-time public relations job into teaching voice. I began the transition earlier this summer and decided that attending a summer workshop on vocal pedagogy (the art of teaching singing) would be a great way to inspire myself and sharpen my skills. I chose a program at the Eastman School of Music called “Eastman Sings! Pedagogy Meets Performance.” It proved to be an excellent choice. Here are a few highlights from the weeklong workshop.

• Learning to sing: Deciding when to start

  Finding My Singing Voice

  14 Jul 2009 | 4:21 am

  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what age is the best age to start singing lessons. I recently interviewed for voice teaching positions at several community music schools, and this issue came up in every interview. Actually, the question wasn’t, “What is the best age to start singing lessons?” but rather, “What is the youngest age you will teach?” In past, I’ve always stuck to the conventional answer that a student should not begin formal voice lessons until after puberty (between ages 8-13 for girls and 10-15 for boys). But I’m beginning…

• 
  grecchinois

• The Most Striking Image I Saw Today

  nick

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

  At the Tate Britain as part of the Turner and Masters exhibit.An adventure with my good friend and flatmate-for-the-month, Susie. In the midst of a plethora of stunning landscapes, this one stopped us in our tracks.

• Visitors

  nick

  1 Nov 2009 | 4:08 pm

  After the shows opened, I was lucky enough to have some family visitors come visit to see a couple of the performances. One who has come many places to see me in the states made her first journey overseas to see a performance in Glyndebourne - my aunt. Recently retired, she has been able to take advantage of her new-found freedom to do what she loves best - explore the world. She's been all over the world, but has never been able to work it out before to come see me sing when I am abroad. It was nice to be able to be an excuse for her to be able to visit somewhere new. An added bonus of…

• Stir Crazy

  nick

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:51 pm

  The other day, one of my colleagues called, begging me to go out with him to Brighton, which is not far from Glyndebourne. He said, "I have to get out of here – I going out of my mind. I mean, I love it here, but I'm just not used to having this much free time. It's driving me crazy – I need to be doing something!" He explained that, accustomed to normally working on a concert schedule, he wasn't used to having to waiting around for so long in between performances and devoting such an long time to just one thing. Instead of having an intense week of rehearsal and then a series of…

• Gay Icons

  nick

  22 Oct 2009 | 3:10 pm

  Last weekend, I traipsed into London to catch the very last day of the Gay Icons exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. The Gallery had asked ten gay, public figures to choose six of their own icons – heroes or people, either straight or gay, who influenced or somehow had an impact on forming who they are in the present day. The selectors' choices were widely diverse, ranging from life-partners and family members to Virginia Woolf to The Village People. I gazed at portraits of people with life stories both familiar and completely unknown to me, moved by their tales of courage, strength,…

• Heart

  nick

  18 Oct 2009 | 6:17 pm

  Yesterday, I went to visit Martin Isepp for lunch. Martin is an incredible vocal coach with whom I've spent the past three summers working on various song repertoire at Marlboro. My summers working with him have deepened my love of lieder and reconnected me with my passion for music in general. He's pushed me to demand the best from myself in my work and to constantly dig deeper. The main thing I've taken from him, though, is the importance of conveying the heart of the music. In all of my sessions with him, I am constantly humbled by how great the music we perform is and how much it demands…

• 
  The Collaborative Piano Blog

• The Collaborative Piano Blog is 4!

  Chris Foley

  7 Nov 2009 | 3:21 am

  On November 7, 2005, I took a massive leap of faith and started a brand-new blog about the art of the piano in ensemble, a field that at the time had almost no presence on the internet. I had no idea that four years later, the Collaborative Piano Blog would have achieved such a large reach in the profession, nor that I would have derived such satisfaction from writing it.Thanks for four great years, everyone!

• How To Become An Accompanist?

  Chris Foley

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:10 am

  Ever wonder about the exact nature of the accompanist stereotype that caused pianists from Gerald Moore onwards to react so violently to the traditional image of the meek and docile assistant at the piano? A quick look at the entry on How To Become An Accompanist in the 1910-12 Everywoman's Encyclopaedia offers a rather disquieting glimpse. The most egregious passages are quoted below - readers on mobile devices may wish to sit down before reading:To many girls the work of an accompanist appeals in several ways. It does not entail a quarter the strain of solo work; it does not need the big…

• A Visual Dichterliebe

  Chris Foley

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:04 pm

  In order for the art song to survive in the coming years, the genre needs to find ways to re-imagine itself, to discover new ways of looking at the core repertoire. For one of his song recitals, Chad Smyser asked photographer Tasha Roth to take pictures that would encapsulate the meanings of the 16 songs in the cycle. Chad writes about Tasha's process:She was able to capture a mood which settled between two worlds: nature and the urban environment. The photos conjured up a mythical place where the Black Forest meets Roosevelt Island. They added an evocative dimension to the performance of the…

• LEGO Grand Piano Set

  Chris Foley

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:59 pm

  (Via P@u! +ox's photostream on Flickr)

• Quote of the Day

  Chris Foley

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm

  Why is it, then, so wonderful? Well, once in a while, we just click into place: there comes a fleeting moment when each of us, playing highly individuated and often wildly complicated parts, actually become an ensemble. We … blend. This is a tremendously intense feeling, and hard to describe. There's a kind of "whoosh" to it – the sensation that you are part of something immensely powerful, something bigger than your own individual capability. The idea that you are part of not only what you yourself are making, but also what the others are creating. Out of our normal human isolation, we…

• 
  parterre box presents La Cieca

• Canon fodder

  Baritenor

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:58 pm

  Edgar has always been the odd man out in the Puccini canon, lying well outside the standard rep. The recent discovery of forty minutes of additional music is likely to do little to change that, but the find was momentous enough to merit a world premier of the newly restored Four Act version of Puccini’s second opera at the Teatro Regio Torino in 2008, with José Cura in the title role. Unfortunately, not even the draw of new old music — and more Puccini is always a good thing — is enough to make this DVD (Arthaus Musik 101377) a must-have for anyone but a Puccini compleatist.

• Step by step

  La Cieca

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:38 pm

  Some sunny diversion (and perhaps a little threaded conversation) on a grey Saturday afternoon: a rebroadcast of the March 9, 1974 performance of I Vespri Siciliani from the Met. The stream begins at 1:00 pm EST here, or if you’re feeling adventurous, you can delve further into Oslo, Norway’s NRK P2 radio. Elena: Montserrat Caballé; Arrigo: Nicolai Gedda; Guido di Monforte: Sherrill Milnes; Giovanni da Procida: Justino Díaz. Conductor: James Levine. Details for this broadcast are derived from the invaluable Operacast.

• Conversing on so many levels

  La Cieca

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:12 pm

  Cher public, La Cieca would like to call your attention to the latest innovation by our webmeister Nick Scholl: threaded comments. You can now reply to a specific comment (instead of the entire thread) and thus we can avoid having to start every reply with, “squirrel, you have got to be kidding me!” (Though doubtless some of you will still feel the emotional need to continue to do so.)  Just look for the red “Reply” link at the lower right corner of the comment to which you want to make a reply.

• The muse as mezzo

  Ercole Farnese

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:14 am

  Joyce Di Donato’s latest release is a CD entirely devoted to music Rossini composed for his first wife, Isabella Colbran, one of the most celebrated divas of the early 19th century. In recent times, there has been disagreement whether Colbran was a soprano or a mezzo-soprano. She called herself a soprano, but in those days the distinction was only between sopranos and contraltos; the mezzo-soprano category was to be invented later in the century. In modern performances, however, the problem remains whether the Colbran operatic roles (a total of ten, plus four cantatas) should be…

• Les feux d’artifice s’approchent

  La Cieca

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:08 am

  According to the always reliable Zachary Woolfe, among the beans spilled at the NYCO “Koch” Gala last night was the strong suggestion (from no less than Rufus Wainwright himself) that a production of Prima Donna is planned for an upcoming George Steel-planned season. [New York Observer]

• 
  BBC Music - Latest Classical Releases

• Osso - Run Rabbit Run

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  An unusual, but not unrewarding, statement of intent.

• Frédéric Chopin - The Complete Waltzes (Ingrid Fliter)

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  The young Argentinean stamps her authority with a finesse beyond her years.

• Various Artists - Piazzolla and Beyond (London Concertante)

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  A riveting, dramatic, and even sexy listen.

• Johann Sebastian Bach - Bach Brandenburg Concertos

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Stands up on its own, quite simply as a smashing performance.

• Hans Werner Henze - Gogo no Eiko

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  An opera that has been resuscitated and restored to new life.

• 
  Naxos: Medici Arts DVD New Releases

• MASTERS OF AMERICAN MUSIC: Celebrating Bird – The Triumph of Charlie Parker (NTSC) (2057078)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• JANACEK, L.: Cunning Little Vixen (The) (Paris National Opera, 2008) (Blu-ray, Full-HD) (3078384)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• CILEA, F.: Andrea Lecouvreur (La Scala, 2000) (NTSC) (2050098)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• MASTERS OF AMERICAN MUSIC: The Story of Jazz (NTSC) (2057158)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• DONIZETTI, G.: Lucrezia Borgia (Bavarian State Opera, 2007) (NTSC) (2072458)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• 
  Naxos: Opus Arte New Releases

• WAGNER, R.: Ring des Nibelungen (Der) [Opera] (Bayreuth Festival 2008, Thielemann) (OACD9000BD)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• VERDI, G.: Otello (Liceu, 2006) (Blu-ray, HD) (OABD7041D)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

• PURCELL, H.: Dido and Aeneas (Royal Opera House, 2009) (NTSC) (OA1018D)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

• MY FIRST BALLET COLLECTION (NTSC) (OA1019D)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

• PURCELL, H.: Dido and Aeneas (Royal Opera House, 2009) (Blu-ray, HD) (OABD7049D)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

• 
  Naxos: BIS New Releases

• MENDELSSOHN, Felix: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 (Bergen Philharmonic, Litton) (BIS-SACD-1584)

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

• SILVESTROV, V.: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 (Lahti Symphony, J.-P. Saraste) (BIS-CD-1703)

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

• BERNSTEIN, L.: Serenade / BLOCH, E.: Baal Shem / BARBER, S.: Violin Concerto (Gluzman, Sao Paulo Symphony, Neschling) (BIS-SACD-1662)

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

• HOLMBOE, V.: Kairos (Time), `Sinfonias Nos. 1-4` (Wales Camerata, Hughes) (BIS-CD-1596)

  1 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• Trombone Recital: Lindberg, Christian - CASTELLO, D. / SPEER, D. / FRESCOBALDI, G.A. / BIBER, H.I.F. von / CESARE, G. (The Baroque Trombone) (BIS-CD-1688)

  1 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• 
  Naxos: Arthaus Musik New Releases

• VIENNA BOYS' CHOIR: Silk Road (Film, 2008) (Premium CD+DVD Edition) (NTSC) (101469)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• OFFENBACH, J.: Hoffmanns Erzahlungen (Les Contes d'Hoffmann) (Komische Oper, 1970) (sung in German) (Felsenstein Edition) (NTSC) (101289)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• DONIZETTI, G.: Fille du Regiment (La) (La Scala, 1996) (NTSC) (107107)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• VERDI, G.: Rigoletto (Arena di Verona, 2001) (NTSC) (107096)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• HANDEL, G.F.: Barockstar (Film, 2009) (NTSC) (101375)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• 
  Naxos: AudioBook New Releases

• McCARTHY, C.: No Country for Old Men (Abridged) (NA498012)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  An experienced hunter aims at an antelope half a mile across a plain—and misses. But the shot launches him unexpectedly into a tense and frightening chase in which he becomes the hunted, as drug dealers mercilessly pursue the money. The local upright sheriff struggles to contain the situation and has to face his own fears; the pitiless hitman Anton Chigurh, follows his target unceasingly, ruled by a cold, implacable logic; and chance plays its own part in deciding who lives and dies. Cormac McCarthy blends brutality and suspense with acute characterisation. With his mastery of words,…

• WENBORN, N.: French Revolution (The) - In a Nutshell (NA198612)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  The French Revolution marked the birth of modern Europe. From the storming of the Bastille to the horrors of the guillotine, the events of 1789 and after are among the most stirring—and most disturbing—in the continent’s history. But what really happened in France during those turbulent closing years of the 18th century? And what does it mean for us in the 21st? This audiobook tells the story of a nation’s traumatic journey from absolute monarchy through the shadow of Terror to military dictatorship. But it is also the story of a people’s heroic struggle for the…

• LAMPEDUSA, G.T. di: Leopard (The) (Unabridged) (NA799612)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  Sicily, 1860. In the gracefully decaying estates of the ancient Corbera family, Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, is aware that great change is coming. It is not only in the form of the popular uprising towards Italian unification, but in the decline of the nobility and the rise of the middle class. Assailed by the critics on its publication, The Leopard was nevertheless hailed by the public and has since grown in worldwide popularity for the ironic elegance with which it spins a story of regret and rebirth, of change and stagnation, of the passing of the old ways and the inevitable triumph of…

• DICKENS, C.: Old Curiosity Shop (The) (Unabridged) (NAX89512)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

  Death, innocence, sacrifice and corruption—The Old Curiosity Shop is vintage Dickens. Provoking an unprecedented outpouring of public grief when it was first published, it follows the story of Little Nell and her feckless grandfather. Forced to leave their magical shop of curiosities in London, they are pursued across the English countryside by the grotesquely evil dwarf Quilp. They escape—but at what cost? Part tragedy, part allegory, this is Dickens at his most intense; drawing on his own experiences, he weaves a story of extraordinary emotional power.

• DICKENS, C.: Barnaby Rudge (Unabridged) (NAX90912)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

  For the background to this historical novel, a tale of mystery, suspense and unsolved murder, Dickens chose the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780. Mayhem reigns in the streets of London, vividly described by Dickens, and the innocent Barnaby Rudge is drawn into the thick of it. Against the public disorder, Dickens tells of the private discord within families—with fathers and sons at loggerheads—and creates a wealth of colourful characters: the sinuously evil Lord Chester; the pretty and vivacious Dolly Varden; and the host and regulars at the Maypole Inn—a symbol of…

• 
  Naxos: Historical New Releases

• WAGNER, R.: Opera excerpts / STRAUSS, R.: Till Eulenspiegel / BRAHMS, J.: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 10 (Furtwangler, Early Recordings, Vol. 4)(1930-36) (8.111005)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  This fourth volume of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s early recordings features music by composers who were closely associated with the renowned conductor. These distinguished recordings include seamless and intensely wrought interpretations of evergreen favourites from Wagner’s Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung, the accomplishment of a musician who knew the music-dramas as a whole. The graphic and lovingly turned account of Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks benefits from a remarkably vivid 1930 recording which belies its age.

• MOZART, W.A.: Violin Concerto No. 3 / BRAHMS, J.: Violin Concerto (de Vito, Beecham, van Kempen) (1941, 1949) (8.111349)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  Violinist Gioconda De Vito was a key figure in the renaissance of Italian string playing after 1945. With her broad phrasing, ample tone and generous vibrato, she excelled in performances of Brahms’s Violin Concerto using Joachim’s cadenza, as in this 1941 recording. The Manchester Guardian wrote of her 1949 recording of Mozart’s G major Concerto: ‘Every note was perfectly intoned and of individual life, yet as easefully and indivisibly belonging to the phrases of song as waves in a flowing sea…quite heavenly’.

• KREISLER, F.: Complete Recordings, Vol. 1 (1904, 1910) (8.112053)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

  Fritz Kreisler sold millions of records and gave pleasure to listeners around the world who could never hear him perform live. This disc brings together recordings made in 1904 and 1910 which, despite the recording industry’s infancy and the extraordinary limitations placed on the musicians, are amazingly good in both artistic and technical terms. Alongside several beloved favourites such as Bach’s Air on the G String are several recordings of Kreisler’s own popular compositions, and alternative takes of several musical bon-bons.

• BRAHMS, J.: Deutsches Requiem (Ein) (Fischer-Dieskau, Grummer, Kempe) (1955) (8.111342)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

  On its first release, this 1955 recording was praised as ‘a worthy performance of the work and a well recorded one’ by Gramophone, which also commented that ‘Elisabeth Grümmer sings her solo with beautiful tone and deep feeling’ and ‘Fischer-Dieskau gives a[n] expressive and musical account of his part’. The choir and orchestra perform with measures of equal conviction, subtlety and power. Recognised as a ‘musician’s conductor’, Rudolf Kempe was an outstanding interpreter of the German classics, always obtaining beautifully lucid…

• BEETHOVEN, L. van: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 (Karajan) (1952-1953) (8.111339)

  30 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

  Herbert von Karajan established himself as one of the 20th century’s greatest conductors, both in live performances and on recordings. Taken from the first of Karajan’s four Beethoven symphony cycles, made in the splendid acoustic of London’s Kingsway Hall, these are beautifully polished readings that traverse the decades with ease. The Karajan trademarks of ‘perfection of balance and blend’ can be heard, for example, in the beautifully pointed woodwind chording and weight of the pizzicatos at the opening of Symphony No. 1. No less telling is the opening of…

• 
  Kenneth Woods: A View from the Podium

• From the last OES program

  Kenneth Woods

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:12 am

  A symphony supporter in Pendleton emailed this morning and asked me to reprint the little farewell essay I wrote for the OES program last week- To my Pendleton friends-  I know it is the most obvious cliché one always hears at these times, but I honestly can barely believe that it has been nearly 10 years since I first conducted the OES in Mozart’s Paris Symphony, with which we open our final concert together tonight. At the time, I never imagined that I would still be associated with the orchestra after a decade, nor imagined the 180 pieces we’d play together, nor could I have guessed…

• Technical issues November 1, 2009- RESOLVED

  Kenneth Woods

  2 Nov 2009 | 11:41 pm

  UPDATED- We believe the problems have now been soloved, but if you have any problems with the site, please let our webmaster know by emailing admin@kennethwoods.net Many thanks Hi readers We’re having some serious problems here with the site right now, but the crack webhosting team claim to be working hard on it (hi team- have another latte and keep at it). For now, you can read the  posts here on the homepage, but not other posts, categories, pages or comments. The problem should be fixed soon. Meanwhile, I believe the RSS feed is working properly, so with a little patience, you can…

• Last of the Redneck Mozart

  Kenneth Woods

  30 Oct 2009 | 1:50 am

  On the one hand, it may seem like we had a little mini-onslaught of blog posts last week, after a fairly quiet summer. On the other, I continue to feel like there is a huge backlog of things I want to write about, but that I still am working to recapture a sense of freshness in my writing about them. In the meantime, I fear content here may oscillate between silence and mind-numbing and tired re-treading of the same old Vftp clichés So with all that to look for, I wanted to just try to talk a tiny bit about my last day at the OES from a musical perspective- Mozart first.  As I mentioned in…

• East Oregonian- Swan Song

  Kenneth Woods

  29 Oct 2009 | 11:54 am

  From the East Oregonian Maestro Kenneth Woods’ Swan Song Seven years after moving to Wales, Kenneth Woods conducts the Oregon East Symphony in his farewell performance By KATHY ANEY The East Oregonian Conductor Kenneth Woods lives for those moments when he and his orchestra slip into a musical realm beyond tempo and timbre into something almost spiritual. “You can’t make it happen,” Woods said, “but when it does, it’s the ultimate thrill ride.” Occasionally, he finds himself conducting with tears in his eyes. He’s had plenty of those in-the-zone…

• Goodbye to- The Coffee Hour

  Kenneth Woods

  23 Oct 2009 | 2:15 pm

  “The Coffee Hour.” It’s a Pendleton institution that needs no further introduction. I suppose most small and medium sized communities have a program with a similar mix of current affairs, cultural news and community discussion. I’ve done radio sit downs all over the country that were similar, but for me, there’s only one Coffee Hour. I think its iconic status in my imagination is partly due to my first impressions of it. In the week of my first concert here, the orchestra manager asked me to do the show and directed me towards the venue- the local feed store. Said feed store seemed…

• 
  Iron Tongue of Midnight

• More on Health Care Reform

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:43 am

  Nicholas Kristoff has a great column today on why the U.S. health care system has worse outcomes than just about every other industrialized nation. Note the graceful apology to his readers in Slovenia. :)The Times Prescriptions blog has excellent coverage of an anti-reform rally going on right now in D.C. I quote the following:Ms. Garloch, who has a combination of Medicare and private coverage, said insurance should be sold across state lines to increase competition.But Ms. Garloch, like many in the crowd who while visibly angry. could not articulate the main problems in the health care…

• In Fernem Land

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am

  All the Lohengrin you could want, with an amazing range of voices taking on the great aria "In fernem Land," from Klaus Florian Vogt and Jussi Bjoerling to Lauritz Melchior.

• Other Minds Does Henry Cowell

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:14 am

  The indispensable Other Minds is putting on a mini-festival next week devoted to the visionary American composer Henry Cowell. A pair of concerts, a panel discussion, and a couple of receptions await anyone lucky enough to be free. The performers include Sarah Cahill, Wendy Hillhouse, the Colorado String Quartet, organist Sandra Soderlund, and the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio. What a lineup! I probably cannot go; I have multiple conflicts that include a two-day work event of which I am an organizer. But maybe you can go!Here's the basic information:Thursday, November 12, 20097pm Reception, 8pm…

• The Prokofiev Project

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:08 pm

  Stanford Lively Arts is presenting what looks to be a fascinating four day event called "The Prokofiev Project," which is similar to last year's "Stravinsky Project." Joseph Horowitz curates the event, which will include concerts of orchestral and piano music. Pianists Alexander Toradze, George Barth, and Kumaran Arul are among the performers. The puppet artist Robin Walsh also participates. There are sundry talks, including an evening that will include historic recordings and film.The dates for this extravaganza are November 12-15, at Stanford, in Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Campbell Recital…

• Upcoming in Berkeley

  1 Nov 2009 | 3:18 pm

  A friend is the pianist in what looks like a perfectly lovely program. "Mystery Composer" - who could resist?Mike Jones, violinJohn Burke, pianoBach, Brahms, Mozart, Ravel, Richard Strauss, and a Mystery Composer8:00 pm Saturday, November 21stTrinity Episcopal Churchcorner of Dana and Durant, Berkeleydetails, directions etc. at http://www.trinitychamberconcerts.com/

• 
  Musical Assumptions

• Cui the Cuitic

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:28 pm

  “If there were a conservatory in Hell, and if one of its talented students were to compose a programme symphony based on the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Mr. Rachmaninoff's, then he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and would delight the inhabitants of Hell. To us this music leaves an evil impression with its broken rhythms, obscurity and vagueness of form, meaningless repetition of the same short tricks, the nasal sound of the orchestra, the strained crash of the brass, and above all its sickly perverse harmonization and quasi-melodic…

• Demonic Viola d'amore!

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:54 am

  Normally the head of a viola d'amore is a blindfolded cupid. You see the occasional animal head, and the occasional uh-blindfolded woman, but it is very rare that you see a male head, and even more rare to see one with horns! This instrument was made by Devin Hough for Daniel Geiger. You can see more detail here.

• Why I Could Never be a Soloist

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:44 am

  I suppose it is every young musician's dream to have a career as a soloist: to be able to travel from city to city playing concerts, sometimes playing with orchestra, and sometimes playing recitals. I suppose that soloists are "wired" to have a certain repertoire that they play over and over again, honing and improving their interpretations from concert to concert, delving deeper and deeper into the pieces they play. It is a fulfilling (but often lonely) life for a select group of people.I am not wired that way. Actually, when I play a recital it is kind of like an information "dump." I work…

• Ten Things to Love about Brass Playing

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:47 pm

  I just discovered Tine Thing Helseth's brass ensemble called tenThing. I'm thrilled that these Norwegian women are taking the brass world by storm, making it clear, once and for all, that gender isn't any kind of barrier for any instrument. It is simply remarkable how beautifully brass instruments can be played.

• Bach, Bantock, and Cui

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am

  The heading of this post looks a little like the masthead of a law firm, but these people are the composers who wrote the music for a concert I am playing tomorrow night at Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois, to which you are invited.It is very easy to get to Lake Land College from I-57 (it's about an hour south of Champaign--take the Route 45 exit and turn left). Once you get on campus, look for signs for the Administration Building on the south side of the campus. Here's a map that may help.

• 
  Sieglinde's Diaries

• Fall flurries

  16 Oct 2009 | 7:34 am

  Ladies, I announce lots of juicy additions and changes to Brad's Met Futures page:For the 2010-11 season: Orfeo ed Euridice has been added to the repertory, and will feature David Daniels and Lisette Oropesa (as Amor); the Danish contralto Susanne Resmark will make her Met debut as Ragonde in Le Comte Ory; Marina Poplavskaya takes over Violetta from Anna Netrebko; Kathleen Kim sings Madame Mao in Nixon in China; Anne Sofie von Otter will be Clairon in Capriccio (instead of Susan Graham); Susan Graham will sing Iphigenie; Canadian mezzo Julie Boulianne debuts as Stephano in Romeo et Juliette…

• She's back

  14 Oct 2009 | 6:19 am

  STRAUSS Der Rosenkavalier, Met 13 October 2009; c. de Waart, Fleming, Graham, Persson, Sigmundsson, White, Ketelsen, Vargas.Curtain up: things have settled enough for Sieglinde to reboot. I'm seeing an equilibrium based on (really) short posts, but it's still being calibrated, so patience please. Last night, the return of Renee Fleming's Feldmarschallin and Susan Graham's Octavian, and a debut of a promising soprano, Miah Persson as Sophie, ethereal in a Judith Blegen hue. I'm dreading the day when I can detect the inevitable pulling back in Renee's voice. My current (conservative) diagnosis:…

• Latest updates

  26 Aug 2009 | 5:47 am

  I'm transitioning to another appointment (the kind that promises tenure at the end of the tunnel!), which is why I've been absent the past few months. In the next few weeks, I'll have to figure out how to achieve productive homeostasis between work and play, because I don't want Sieglinde to "die" just like that. But the new job is grueling, and the demands for tenure daunting, so no promises. Meanwhile, I have an inch thick of tickets to the Met, for an ambitious list of 20+ operas this season (many for multiple viewings, especially the Armida and the Attila). What was I thinking when I…

• Met Futures: March Madness edition

  26 Mar 2009 | 12:58 pm

  Sieglinde, in the midst of work-related turmoil, brings you the latest juicy updates to Brad's Met Futures page:For the 2010-11 season: Sondra Radvanovsky has been added to the cast of Tosca; Simon O'Neill will join the cast of Die Walküre as a second Siegmund; for Don Carlo, Simon Keenlyside has been tapped to sing Posa, and Maestro Lorin Maazel has been removed as conductor; In Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Cristina Gallardo-Domas will be Antonia; and in Nixon in China, Janis Kelly will debut as Pat Nixon.For the 2011-12 season: Aida has been added to the roster, with a cast that includes Violeta…

• There's always next (next) year

  12 Feb 2009 | 8:16 am

  Now that the Met 2009-10 season roster has been officially announced, it's time to shift our collective obsession to seasons 2010-11 and beyond. Brad Wilber's Met Futures page, which will remain in Sieglinde's Diaries for the foreseeable future, has just been updated with the following info:In La Boheme, Vittorio Grigolo and Kristine Opolais will make their Met debuts in the fall of 2010 as Rodolfo and Musetta respectively, joining a cast which already includes several debuting international artists.In the new production of Das Rheingold, Eric Owens is Alberich, and Hans-Peter Koening is…

• 
  On a Pacific Aisle

• Half a Century

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:31 am

  Quand j'étais petit, on me disait toujours, "Tu verras quand tu auras cinquante ans." Eh bien m'y voilà à cinquante ans. Et je n'ai rien vu. Rien. — Erik Satie

• The Rest is Unquiet

  14 Oct 2009 | 3:59 pm

  Things have been a little quiet of late around Noiseville (not that I should talk), and now we know why. Alex Ross has moved his blogging emporium over to The New Yorker, under the rubric Unquiet Thoughts. Initial musings are on György Kurtág, Stile Antico, and more; update your records accordingly.

• Now, That's Retro

  15 Sep 2009 | 2:21 pm

  A package from Sony waltzed across my desk this afternoon, bringing with it the new recital disc by the strange and wonderful German soprano Simone Kermes. (I haven't spun it yet, but it goes right to the top of the pile; although I haven't reached the levels of Kermesomania that some inhabit, anything she does is automatically of interest.) The package included a couple of CDs in the familiar jewel case, a robust press release, and something else. Something big, flat, and shrink-wrapped.Honest to God, I didn't know what it was.My first guess was a wall calendar, my second a video laserdisc.

• Monopoly

  13 Sep 2009 | 4:01 pm

  I'm told that following Friday's season-opening Trovatore, the members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus have decreed that Sondra Radvanovsky should be the only singer ever again allowed to sing Verdi with the company. A little extreme, perhaps, but I take their point.

• In Fond Memory

  11 Sep 2009 | 10:52 pm

  Kitty Carlisle Hart (1910-2007)Because I never hear Trovatore without thinking of my first, and for many years only, Leonora. Requiescat in pace.

• 
  Mostly Opera

• CD: Jonas Kaufmann excels with Die Schöne Müllerin

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:49 pm

  Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Helmut Deutsch (piano). Schubert: Die Schöne Müllerin. 2009. Further information here.A timid, sensitive boy loves a young, beautiful woman. Initially she seems to love him too, but leaves him for a real man. The hunter beats the poetic boy to win the miller´s daughter. And, instead of just swallowing the disappointment and quite literally look for other fish in the stream

• Renée Flemings 14 minutes in Copenhagen

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:46 pm

  Renée Fleming and Christoph Eschenbach in CopenhagenRenée Fleming with Orchestre de Paris conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Copenhagen, May 11th, 2009. Program: Capriccio final scene and Bruckner´s 9th symphony. Extras: Zueinigung and Morgen (R. Strauss).Upon reading that at her recent London concert, Renée Fleming was criticized for singing approximately 20 minutes, I was reminded that

• DVD review: Cunning little Vixen

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  The cunning little vixen. Paris Bastille Opera 2008. Production: André Engel. Cast includes: Jukka Rasilainen (Forester), Elena Tsallagova (Vixen), Hannah Esther Minutillo (Fox). Conductor: Dennis Russell Davies. Further information here.André Engel and his team has simply created a great, straight-forward production of Janacek´s opera The cunning little vixen. A couple of seasons ago, the same

• Copenhagen: Disappointing Eugene Onegin

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:14 am

  Natalya Kreslina and Audun IversenEugene Onegin. Royal Danish Opera, September 6th 2009. Production: Peter Konwitschny. Cast: Audun Iversen (Eugene Onegin), Natalya Kreslina (Tatiana), Jenny Carlsted (Olga), Niels Jørgen Riis (Lenski), Gustav Belacek (Gremin). Conductor: Michael Schønwandt.I sincerely do not hope, this is what the Royal Danish Opera gets (rather: Has chosen) instead of the

• Irmgard Seefried - lieder

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:46 am

  Irmgard Seefried - lieder. 2-CD release of previously released material. Released 2007. Further information including track-list here.German soprano Irmgard Seefried (1919-1988) was an ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera in the socalled golden period of the 1050´s, contemporary with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Lisa della Casa, Christa Ludwig. A lyric soprano, among her operatic roles she was

• 
  thirteen ways

• 8bb Halloween Weekend Sale Challenge

  Tim

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:14 am

  Take a break from preparing your dapper Don Draper or sexy Sarah Palin costume and check out this great deal on eighth blackbird’s December 8th Harris Theater concert. From Friday through Sunday, all tickets for Pierrot lunaire are 30% off! On December 8, eighth blackbird presents Schoenberg’s dark, creepy masterpiece, a work that wouldn’t be out of place on Halloween night! Haunted by the death-sick moon, Pierrot is preyed upon by giant moths, steals from blood-drenched graveyards and smokes tobacco from a skull. Don’t miss this opportunity to witness eighth blackbird…

• 8bb wins new Meadows Prize

  Tim

  15 Oct 2009 | 1:27 pm

  Okay, I’ll give in just this once to putting a press release on the blog, mostly because it has lots of information about this fabulous new prize that we are awfully chuffed to have won (ensemble members in the last few days have been randomly breaking into “it’s just so weird and cooooool!” and “that really is kinda amazing…”). You can also go here and here and here for other coverage of the announcement, made at a gala hosted by Bruce Willis. As a lanky, geeky, wimpy kid growing up in Brisbane, Australia, the Die Hard movies were my sort of…

• US Standardized testing for music: I failed 4/4

  phot

  14 Oct 2009 | 4:34 pm

  I was checking out the NY Times and they had an article on sluggish math results and more indicators of the abysmal failure that is “No Child Left Behind.” I was curious to see what kind of questions the kids were being asked, and the article had a link to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which I dug around in for a bit, and finally came to a page where you can test yourself in several categories, including…music. Music? Go ahead and pop open another internet tab and check it out, I’ll wait. You might want to keep it open after you do it to refer back.

• eighth blackbird, the torrent

  phot

  12 Oct 2009 | 4:05 pm

  Google alerts rock, for a huge variety of reasons. I only have a couple of them set up, and naturally “eighth blackbird” is one of them. And so what do I find in my email inbox just now? A google alert for a torrent link to download our Strange Imaginary Animals CD. Should I be upset? Maybe if the link had more than 0 seeders and 0 leechers, or if I thought somehow that illegal sharing of our CDs were somehow cutting into our revenue (which it’s REALLY not, trust me). Even then, I doubt I would be upset. Personally, I think one of the coolest things in the world (and one…

• Really, it made sense at the time

  Matt Albert

  21 Sep 2009 | 8:25 am

  I woke up this morning in Atlanta, having gone to visit a friend who plays in the Symphony. I’d spent the weekend in Spartanburg, SC, just a few hours away, with my grandfather and aunts, and it was time to start getting ready to go to Birmingham, where we have a concert tomorrow night. So, what’s my preferred route? Have you googled it yet? Go ahead. I’ll wait. So by now, you’ve figured out that it’s a pretty easy drive. You’re imagining me writing this from a Chick-fil-A by the highway, or maybe on my Sidekick as I drive into the city. Not that I would…

• 
  An Unamplified Voice

• Unamplified again

  JSU

  23 Oct 2009 | 5:37 am

  The news that City Opera's home will now be free of artificial sonic sweetener (that is, miking, as indirect as it may have been) is both surprising and welcome. Anthony Tommasini, take a bow!: as I noted years ago, getting rid of this "enhancement" has been a persistent crusade of his since it was first introduced to the State Theater a decade ago.Now, to see if the company can find enough money to survive for another decade...

• Marie Theres'

  JSU

  19 Oct 2009 | 7:28 pm

  Der Rosenkavalier -- Metropolitan Opera, 10/16/09Graham, Fleming, Sigmundsson, Persson, Vargas / de WaartStrauss and Hofmannsthal's Marschallin is essentially -- she's not the Empress Maria Theresa, but as a namesake she stands in for her -- at the apex of her social universe, at a time and place in which that was incalculably important. She bears her husband's title of "Field Marshal", but he is far off and in any case seemingly more engaged in hunting than actual warfare. While he is gone the world is hers, and it's a world where "soft" power reigns to an extent hardly imaginable after the…

• There he goes...

  JSU

  15 Oct 2009 | 8:07 am

  I wasn't at Tuesday's Rosenkavalier, but positive reports from that and Friday's dress rehearsal may get me to see Edo de Waart's version of the piece before he departs. But here is the long-contemplated appendix to my February post on Lisa della Casa: that great Marschallin at the 1960 opening of Salzburg's Festspielhaus, in the monologue and closing duet of Rosenkavalier Act I. Sena Jurinac is Octavian. I'm not sure if the embed widget works, but I believe the download should. Act I (conclusion).mp3

• The end of the QXR era

  JSU

  8 Oct 2009 | 4:10 pm

  Tonight at 8PM, the sale of WQXR arranged in July makes itself heard on the air. The deal was a three-way transaction: the New York Times company, continuing to hemorrhage money in the Pinch Sulzburger era, sold the WQXR name and website to WNYC (formerly a classical-music competitor, now long since taken over by the public radio talk-talk) and WQXR's most valuable asset -- its place in the middle of the dial and 6000 watt broadcast license -- to Univision Radio. WNYC also got the frequency (105.9) and 600 watt broadcast license heretofore used by WCAA, the Spanish-language channel that will…

• Ouch

  JSU

  29 Sep 2009 | 9:47 am

  I got this press release a few minutes ago:James Levine to Undergo Surgery for Herniated Spinal DiscMr. Ronald Wilford, Chairman of Columbia Artists and James Levine’s manager has announced that Mr. Levine will undergo immediate surgery for a herniated spinal disc. The procedure necessitates withdrawing from his scheduled performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera.Mr. Levine has withdrawn from performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston on Tuesday, September 29 and Saturday, October 3 and from Carnegie Hall’s opening night performance on…

• 
  On An Overgrown Path

• A radical traditionalist

  7 Nov 2009 | 2:33 am

  Good evening, and welcome to this Britten Sinfonia pre-concert event, at which I am delighted to be joined by tonight’s conductor and pianist, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and soloist Tamara Stefanovich.Tonight’s concert, which has the theme Dialogues, is a celebration of the music of the contemporary American composer Elliott Carter who will be 101 in a few weeks time. We will be discussing his music a little later; but first, and rather perversely, I want to talk about a composer whose music does not appear in tonight’s concert.Benjamin Britten gives his name to tonight’s orchestra and…

• The art of activism

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:17 am

  This arresting print by the young South African artist Nandipha Mntambo uses cowhide moulded to fit the human body to - 'challenge and subvert preconceptions regarding representation of the female body ... to disrupt perceptions of attraction and repulsion'.Part of a diptych titled Mlwa ne Nkunzi, it is one of the exhibits in Life Less Ordinary at the Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham. This exhibition uses photography, performances, videos and installations by young artists to look at how race-based dynamics continue to shape society in post-Apartheid South Africa.Earlier this year I discussed…

• No banal chatter day

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:37 am

  BBC Radio Scotland is having its annual 'no music day' on November 21st, which is the day before Benjamin Britten's birthday. 'No music day' is an interesting concept, but I have a better idea. BBC Scotland's sister network BBC Radio 3 should have a 'no presenter day' when they play music without the classical jocks in between. I guarantee Radio 3's audience will increase by at least one on November 21st if they take up my suggestion.Header image is sampled from Binghampton Review. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical…

• Recessional music

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:44 am

  Mozart Piano Concerto No. 14 in E flat, K.449Elliott Carter First DiversionElliott Carter RiconoscenzaElliott Carter Enchanted PreludesElliott Carter Inner SongElliott Carter Second DiversionElliott Carter DialoguesHaydn Symphony No. 83 in G minor (La Poule)This programme is being given by the Britten Sinfonia with Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano/conductor and Tamara Stefanovich piano in Norwich Nov.6, London Nov. 7 & Cambridge Nov 9. In Norwich I will be giving a pre-concert talk with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich. Kate Kennedy is giving the Cambridge talk.Creating a…

• Are you connected?

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:57 am

  Online social networks are the new big thing. So it is great to see classical music social networking site Dilettante Music making a big splash in the mainstream media with support from BBC Radio 3 and names like Nico Muhly. As the Dilettante website says: We’ve harnessed the latest web tools to break down the barriers to classical music ... so you can discover who’s who, what’s what, and what people are saying about it ...Regular readers will know I'm always keen to discover 'who’s who, what’s what, and what people are saying about it' in the classical music world. So I followed…

• 
  rogerbourland.com

• Liking Philip Glass after all

  Roger Bourland

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  I watched the two-hour documentary on Philip Glass this weekend called GLASS: Portrait in 12 parts. It’s a terrific look inside one of America’s most successful composers. The amount of work he has done in his life is stunning: operas, symphonies, film scores, concertos, chamber music, piano music. He confesses to getting up early in the morning and working all day: “that’s my secret.” He doesn’t care whether people like his music or not. “There is plenty of other music to listen to. You don’t have to listen to mine. Listen to Mozart, or the…

• Hooked on being connected

  Roger Bourland

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:20 am

  Our internet service has been mostly down lately. I came home from work yesterday, hopped on the computer. No internet. I tried to rip off our neighbor’s wifi connection but it kept dropping out. I realized how tied to the internet connection I am/we are. Things pop into my mind: oh, I need to order those shoes. Too bad–no internet. What’s the name of that…? Too bad, no internet. I need to check.. Ah, too bad; no internet. OH! I need to remember to email…, oops, no internet. I plopped down on the sofa and pouted. After decompressing, I read a bit more of Dan…

• Rufus Wainwright’s new “Milwaukee at Last!”

  Roger Bourland

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:06 am

  I have a confession to make: I didn’t care much for Rufus Wainwright’s last album “Release the Stars.” With some time between and some Rufus vacation, I returned to the music, able to listen again with fresh ears. Much of the RELEASE music is on the live album, “Milwaukee at Last” just released as a combo DVD and CD, is performed here. Filmed and performed in Milwaukee, where I lived in the summer of 1973, Rufus is in the middle of the tour, the music is impeccably performed, and Rufus––as a singer, pianist, guitarist, and songwriter––is at his…

• Embellishing the world

  Roger Bourland

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:07 am

  Last week in our MUSIC HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CREATIVITY class, we talked about musical embellishments. Robert Winter spoke at length about melodic embellishments in classical music–a rich resource to be sure. As A.J. Racy has been demonstrating Arab melodies for the past few weeks, virtually every phrase is filled with embellishments, and ones that are quite different than western embellishments. We closed the class with yours truly pointing out vocal embellishments in selected pop/folk music from America: The Carter Family singing “Wildwood Flower,” Doug Kershaw playing and…

• Mama Cass, Mary Travers, Joni Mitchell: I Shall Be Released

  Roger Bourland

  28 Oct 2009 | 2:54 pm

  Pardon me: I’m having a wave of nostalgia. What a trio!

• 
  Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog

• Mad Men and reminiscences of an earlier era

  Jason

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:57 pm

  Ahhh, Mad Men. My brother got me into the show over the summer of 2009. I don’t watch anything on actual live television (I don’t even remember how to switch our entertainment center over to live TV!), generally waiting until a season of a show has completed and then purchasing it on iTunes for enjoyment at my leisure. As has been stated man times since the first season, Mad Men conjures up the sights, sounds, and situations (including those both charming and not-so-charming) of a bygone era, giving viewers a window into the testosterone-soaked world of post-World War II New York…

• Doublebassscore – Koussevitzky Concerto Mvt 2

  Jason

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  More great content from the Doublebassscore YouTube channel: -Gary Karr, bassist Thanks to John Grillo for pointing this out to me!

• Doublebassscore – Koussevitzky Concerto Mvt 1

  Jason

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  More great content from the Doublebassscore YouTube channel: -Gary Karr, bassist Thanks to John Grillo for pointing this out to me!

• Music was bass player Spellman’s passion – JSOnline

  Jason

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  Frank Almond, the Concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony and one of my fellow Inside the Arts bloggers, sent me a link to this story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that exquisitely captures the way many bass players would like to be remembered at their wake: Music was bass player Spellman’s passion As a bass player in dozens of Milwaukee country and rock bands over the years, Mike Spellman was a real pro, never hot-dogging or calling attention to himself, just playing what the music required. But he did like to enjoy himself. That’s why Saturday, following his instructions…

• The Evolution of Apple Ads | Webdesigner Depot

  Jason

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Mac nerds (I know you’re out there!), rejoice: Webdesigner Depot recently put out a wonderful retrospective of Apple ads over the ages. Think that Apple ads were always clean and simple? Just check out all the text-heavy ads from the 80s and early 90s. It wasn’t until the return of Steve Jobs in the mid-90s that Apple ads took on the sleek look that they’re known for today. Some of the 80s material is staggeringly ugly in hindsight (though not any different than what most computer companies were putting out at the time): The Evolution of Apple Ads | Webdesigner Depot

• 
  The Omniscient Mussel

• Tafelmusik Sing-A-Long Messiah Contest

  Miss Mussel

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:07 pm

  Miss Mussel has long held the view that the Messiah is boatloads more fun to sing than it is to listen to. In Toronto, the period performance outfit Tafelmusik cottoned on to this years ago and offers a sing-a-long concert in Massey Hall conducted by one Herr GF Handel. Anna Magdalena Bach has been known to show her face as well. It is, simply put, a hoot. Imagine 4,000 church and community choir members finally getting the chance to belt out the Hallelujah Chorus with orchestra. Being a period band, Tafelmusik of course operates at Baroque pitch. Thankfully, this eliminates some of the most…

• COC 60th Anniversary Gala Artists Finalized

  Miss Mussel

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am

  Saturday night Miss Mussel’s inbox brought the rather unsurprising news that Ben Heppner was canceling his COC engagement due to illness. The bug he caught in London while doing Tristan und Isolde is apparently still making life difficult. Replacing the ailing Heppner is John Treleaven, fresh from a Siegfried in Los Angeles, Ramón Vargas and Canadian baritone Russell Braun. According to a COC press release much of the original program remains intact. Mr. Vargas will sing arias from Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Mr. Braun will also sing an aria…

• Monday Links

  Miss Mussel

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:23 pm

  These pages have been clogging multiple browser windows for a while, so they may be ever so slightly old. Not so far gone that you can’t just pick off the bits of mould and make a perfectly good sandwich…uh…for your brain….or…..something. “Why deface a book? If you don’t like what’s in it, shut it and bring it back,” Small town librarian fights the good fight in Tennessee. Make sure you watch the video. The newscasters are almost more entertaining that the story. Looking to book the next bright young things in your town? Check it: Ten…

• Just So We’re Clear

  Miss Mussel

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pm

  ToothpasteForDinner - a new-to-Miss-Mussel interwebular comic has produced this helpful guide to all things panflute. First spotted on a server’s T-shirt at the inestimable café With The Grain. It’s worth the drive to Guelph, people. [For those that read aloud in their heads, it's pronounced Gwellf] Share This Post:

• Review: Nico Muhly and The KW Symphony

  Miss Mussel

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:07 pm

  In Friday’s Record Classical musicians, administrators and marketers all over North America are spending an increasingly large amount of time thinking of ways to get younger people interested in classical music. The two basic choices are luring more people into the existing concert hall or taking the ensemble to venues normally used for other types of performance. There are pros and cons to both strategies and each has their place. An important pro in the alternate venue scenario is the atmosphere. When the music is removed from the heavily ritualized concert hall, the relationship…

• 
  time4time

• Claude Lévi-Strauss, 100, Dies

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:43 am

  via suhrkamp.de The Influence of Claude Lévi-Strauss By ROBERT MACKEY Claude Lévi-Strauss, 100, Dies; Altered Western Views of the ‘Primitive’ By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN Posted via web from lichtconlon's posterous

• Marie NDiaye - Rosie Carpe

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:12 am

  via suhrkamp.de Marie Ndiaye: Rosie Carpe - ARTE http://bit.ly/38cfEf Posted via web from lichtconlon's posterous

• Marie n'diaye

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm

  Marie NDiaye, Trois femmes puissantes (Mediapart)von Mediapart Posted via web from lichtconlon's posterous

• Frankfurter Schule: Auf unheimlichem Boden | Kultur | ZEIT ONLINE

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:44 am

  via zeit.de Theodor W. Adorno auf einer Faschingsfeier, im Arm zwei unbekannte Schönheiten Posted via web from marjanzahed-kindersley's posterous

• sonorité sans mémoire I

  1 Nov 2009 | 4:18 pm

  via lichtensteiger.de download the musique trouvé CD catalog [pdf] Posted via web from lichtconlon's posterous

• 
  Naxos New Releases

• ARENSKY, A.: 6 Pieces, Op. 53 / Etudes, Opp. 41 and 74 / Pres de la mer (Neiman) (8.572233)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• ALFANO, F.: Cyrano de Bergerac (Palau de les Arts `Reina Sofia`, 2007) (NTSC) (2.110270)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  While best known today for having composed the ending to Puccini’s unfinished Turandot, Franco Alfano wrote some dozen operas, including Cyrano de Bergerac (1936) with a libretto by Henri Cain based on Edmond Rostand’s drama of the same name. It is a moving tale of romantic misunderstanding, swashbuckling bravado and heartbreaking loyalty, in which the eloquent Cyrano feels unable to express his love for Roxane because of his famously protuberant nose—except on behalf of his handsome but inarticulate friend, Christian. When Domingo and Radvanovsky sang Cyrano and Roxane at…

• AMIROV, F.: Shur / Kyurdi Ovshari / Gyulistan Bayati Shiraz / Azerbaijan Capriccio (Russian Philharmonic, Yablonsky) (8.572170)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

• VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, R.: Piano Concerto / The Wasps / English Folk Song Suite / The Running Set (Wass, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Judd) (8.572304)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  The popular overture from Vaughan Williams’s incidental music for Aristophanes’s The Wasps introduces a suite whose mischievously witty, noble and farcical movements underline the play’s satire of the Athenian legal system. A similar vivacity characterises his English Folksong Suite and The Running Set, where Vaughan Williams relishes setting tunes such as Barrack Hill, Irish Reel, The Blackthorn Stick and Cock o’ the North. Folksong-like melodies also feature in his magnificent Piano Concerto, in which the magisterial influence of Bach and Busoni may also be heard.

• BERLIOZ, H.: Benvenuto Cellini (Salzburg Festival, 2007) (NTSC) (2.110271)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm

  ‘A mix of futurism à la Metropolis, fantasy à la Batman and quotes from Piranesi’s Carceri, juxtaposed in the form of photo montages, enhanced with…robots, a helicopter, a shark and the winged vehicle of a pop star Pope’, was how the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described this astonishing Salzburg Festival production of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini. The high-calibre cast, headed by Burkhard Fritz as the temperamental Renaissance artist and the 26-year-old Latvian soprano Maija Kovalevska as Teresa, the woman with whom he tries to elope, is conducted by…

• 
  Naxos Blog

• David Aaron Carpenter & the Viola Sing Out

  Elysha

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  These past two months have brought something not typically widespread – wonderful releases from talented violists, and excellent reviews to follow! The LA Times recently did a viola feature on this very topic, citing two of my latest favorite violists, Eliesha Nelson and David Aaron Carpenter. As a violist myself, I love to see such regard and praise come to the instrument, and am excited for the opportunity to help bring attention to these brilliant violists. In late September, I interviewed Eliesha Nelson, and graciously, David Aaron Carpenter recently answered the same questions…

• Naxos Releases A New Recording of John Adams’ Nixon In China

  Kelly

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  On October 27, Naxos released John Adams’ 1987 masterwork Nixon in China, performed at Opera Colorado in June of 2008. This is the first new recording of the Adams opera since the original cast recording was released in 1987. Conducted by Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the recording features Robert Orth (Richard Nixon), Maria Kanyova (Pat Nixon), Marc Heller (Mao Tse-tung), Tracy Dahl (Madame Mao), Chen-Ye Yuan (Chou En-lai), Melissa Malde, Julie Simson and Jennifer DeDominici (the three Secretaries) as well…

• Podcast: To The Four Corners with Huang Ruo

  Raymond

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm

  Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China the same year the Cultural Revolution ended. This allowed him to get a unique kind of musical education as “western” music was again allowed back into China. This experience, along with his subsequent study in the United States, has helped him develop a unique compositional voice. In this podcast, he talks about his musical youth, and about his new CD with Future in REverse (FIRE) ensemble. Album details… Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559653 Subscribe to Podcast: Enhanced* | Regular | iTunes Store Download this Episode: AAC* | MP3 *…

• El Sistema-Music To Change Life Released on October 27th

  Kelly

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  “Originally art was made by a minority for a minority. Then it became art by a minority for the majority, and now we are at the beginning of a new era where art is intended by the majority for the majority.” – José Antonio Abreu Three decades ago, visionary Venezuelan musician and politician José Antonio Abreu founded El Sistema, a national system of music education designed as a model for social improvement. Today, some 265,000 Venezuelan children and young people are involved in choirs and orchestras around the country, and El Sistema is exporting some of the world’s finest…

• Podcast: Don Giovanni … for string quartet

  Raymond

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Since the first performance of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, there has been a steady stream of arrangements of the piece. By the end of the 19th century, there were already more than 600 published arrangements. Some were note very good, but others, such as the music featured in this podcast, were excellent. On this CD, Quatour Franz Joseph performs an arrangement of Don Giovanni for string quartet, made sometime around 1800. Album details… Catalogue No.: ATMA ACD22559 Subscribe to Podcast: Enhanced* | Regular | iTunes Store Download this Episode: AAC* | MP3 * enhanced version of…

• 
  Berkshire Review for the Arts

• A Singer’s Notes, 6: West Toward Home

  Keith Kibler

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:23 pm

  Vic Kibler: Adirondack Fiddler Outstanding Folk Recording (American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress) ©1992, Sampler Records, Ltd. Listen to Earl Eddy's Favorite, played by Vic Kibler (fiddle), and  Paul Van Arsdale (dulcimer), from Vic Kibler: Adirondack Fiddler Outstanding Folk Recording (American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress) ©1992, Sampler Records, Ltd. Now Route 7 is close to the center of my life; when I was in college it was Route 2; when I was a boy it was Route 29. Route 29 led to Saratoga, and that's where I was last Saturday night. I went to see a…

• An Opportunity to help young musicians get started: donate to the H & I’s New Year’s open mic event!

  The Editor

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:36 pm

  New Year 2009 with Rick Harlow and Roman Iwasiwka. Photo Kelly Lee. For the past few years my friend and musical partner Rick Harlow and I have hosted an Open Mic New Years Eve event at his 2000 square foot artist loft in North Adams, MA. This used to simply be a party but this annual 'happening' has transformed into a venue where young artists can show up (via invitation & word of mouth) and sing or play instruments or perform slam poetry or standup comedy, etc. Many of these young artists cannot play in local bars because of their age and those that are old enough might not actually…

• Lake George Opera at Saratoga presents “Much Ado About Mozart,” Sunday, November 8th at 3:30

  The Editor

  2 Nov 2009 | 10:45 pm

  Lake George Opera at Saratoga presents "Much Ado About Mozart" Sunday, November 8th at 3:30 The Spa Little Theater, Saratoga LGO Opera's Fall Concert features a variety of selections from Mozart operas and concert works. Artistic Director Curtis Tucker will lead the program, with performances by sopranos Kirsten Chambers and Deborah Rocco, mezzo soprano Kara Cornell, baritone Jonathan Michie, bass Yong Li, and pianist Michael Clement. The program will highlight the breadth of Mozart's vocal works, from well-known operas such as The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, and Don Giovanni, as…

• David Hoose, Music Director of The Cantata Singers, Boston, talks to Michael Miller, with Season Preview

  Michael Miller

  31 Oct 2009 | 11:50 pm

  The Cantata Singers of Boston will begin their 2009-10 season on November 6 at Jordan Hall with a concert combining Heinrich Schütz, Musikalische Exequien (1636)
Hugo Distler, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, 
Op. 12, no. 1 from Geistliche Chormusik
Arnold Schoenberg, Friede auf Erden 
J.S. Bach, Cantata BWV 8,
“Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?” This thoughtful and lively program of Baroque and modern music is typical of the Cantata Singers, who in recent years have been building their season programs around a single composer, this year Heinrich Schütz, the greatest…

• Beauty and the Beast: South Berkshire Concerts present Schoenberg, Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc The Proteus Ensemble, Hai-Ting Chinn, Mezzo-Soprano

  Seth Lachterman

  29 Oct 2009 | 11:11 am

  Claude Debussy: Syrinx, Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune (arranged by James Johnston)Francis Poulenc: Le Courte paille Maurice Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Cello Arnold Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire, opus 21 Proteus Ensemble: Jennifer Grim, flute, piccolo; Gilad Harel, clarinet, bass-clarinet; Yuko Naito, violin; James Johnston, piano Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano (Poulenc and Schoenberg) From Top, Clockwise: The Proteus Ensemble, Arnold Schoenberg, Hai-Ting Chinn, Mezzo-Soprano Perhaps no concert this past year could match the flavor, color, and daring of last night’s recital at…