July 20, 2012  |
| | | Thought of the Day | | A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
--George Bernard Shaw
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| Quote of the Week | | Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. --Buddha
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| | A Zany Collaboration for Lyric Opera of Chicago | | 
CHICAGO -- On one level, it makes perfect sense: a collaboration between two of Chicago's iconic arts institutions. But a partnership between Lyric Opera of Chicago and The Second City? Lyric -- land of Pavarotti and Puccini, Rhine maidens, and Casta diva; Second City -- land of Jim Belushi and Tina Fey, improvised comedy sketches, and shows with titles like Between Barack and a Hard Place and 0% Down and 100% Screwed? Apparently so. At a press conference in Second City's funky cabaret space, Lyric Opera announced the first two programs in its new Lyric Unlimited initiative: The Second City Guide to the Opera, with Lyric's musicians and singers and Second City's signature blend of irreverent sketches and improvisations, and a family matinee titled Popcorn & Pasquale, a 70-minute overview of Donizetti's comic opera designed for families with children aged five to 12. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
Bregenz Festival Gets Another New GD |  PARIS -- The Bregenz Festival, with its dramatic floating stage on Lake Constance, has announced Elizabeth Sobotka as its director for 2015. The news arrived just one day before the season opened on July 18, attended by luminaries including Austria's President Heinz Fischer and Culture Minister Claudia Schmied. The festival originally hired Roland Geyer to succeed David Pountney, the current director, but the trustees had a change of heart when Geyer let them in on his plans for the future. So Pountney, intendant since 2004 and also leading the Welsh National Opera, agreed to stay on through next year. Sobotka, 46, is the current intendant of Oper Graz; she will be the festival's first woman intendant since its founding in 1946. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| | | Tanglewood's 75th: A Glitzy Celebratory Mix |  LENOX, Mass. -- Berkshires residents are used to bad weather, but the thunderstorm that soaked Tanglewood in August 1937 was so ferocious that it drowned out the Boston Symphony Orchestra's second concert on its newly acquired estate. Newspaper photos showed well-dressed donors getting drenched under the large, flimsy tent. It was a punishing setback for Gertrude Robinson Smith, who had spearheaded fund-raising to bring BSO concerts to the Berkshires. But she sprang back into action, appealing to locals and Boston residents for the funds to build a hall for future concerts on the 210-acre Tanglewood estate. The $100,000 they raised, however, was too measly for Eero Saarinen, the architect chosen by Music Director Serge Koussevitzky. For that sum, Saarinen scoffed, he could build "just a shed," and so could any local carpenter. Indeed, that is how Joseph Franz, from the adjoining town of Stockbridge, was chosen to build a solid roof with no walls. Franz's structure (updated in 1988 by Saarinen's son Eliel) remains the festival icon. Tanglewood, with its Boston Symphony concerts and its Music Center for young musicians, now spreads over 500 acres and is among the world's most pre-eminent music festivals and schools. The 75th anniversary of the first concerts called for tributes; ordinarily they would be designed by the orchestra's music director. But after recent cliffhanger seasons driven by the health issues of James Levine, the BSO has no music director. So a team cobbled together a suitably glitzy celebration.
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New Jersey Symphony President and CEO to Exit | | 
When the New York Philharmonic hired Matthew VanBesien as its new executive director, that left an important vacancy in Australia, where VanBesien had been CEO of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. As it turns out, André Gremillet, current CEO of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will succeed VanBesien, starting in September. With NJSO since 2007, Gremillet arrives in Melbourne just a few months in advance of its new music director, Sir Andrew Davis, 68. Gremillet has vastly improved NJSO's fortunes during his tenure, literally and artistically. On his watch, Jacques Lacombe was brought in to succeed Neeme Järvi as music director and the orchestra raised $35 million under its "An Incomparable Sound. A Cultural Treasure" campaign. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| |  PARIS - On Friday, July 13, Miguel Esteban stepped down as general manager of Switzerland's flagship orchestra, Geneva's Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, after only two weeks in the job. It was not his decision, according to local media. Born in Los Angeles to Cuban nationals, Esteban, 46, is a co-founder of the Verbier Festival alongside Martin Engström with an impressive address book. The OSR's board was clearly delighted with its choice when his appointment was announced in July of 2011, to begin July 1 of following year, the same time as the much-anticipated new music director, Neeme Järvi. Last Friday's announcement was cryptic. During the six-month transition period, with former General Manager Steve Roger, there were warnings. In late March, orchestra musicians wrote to the board president to ask that Roger's period be extended. An employee was quoted in the local press as saying, "The administrative staff was terrified." So far, both the administration and Esteban have made no further comment. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
The Mice War: A New Children's Opera! | ADVERTISEMENT 
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Eugenia Zukerman's Tanglewood Vlog |  | | Christoph Eschenbach, Conductor |
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Music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Christoph Eschenbach first appeared with the BSO at Tanglewood in 1970 as a pianist, with Seiji Ozawa conducting. Eschenbach is also a favorite guest conductor and pianist at summer music festivals around the world. "I'm so happy to have been invited to Tanglewood to play the piano and to conduct so many times," he says. "And now for this very special 75th anniversary and to commemorate a program that Lenny (Bernstein) conducted, with Midori in her debut performance at Tanglewood." |
| Do We Need Visas For Orchestra Support Staff? |  To submit a question to FTM Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com Dear Brian: We are touring an orchestra in the United States next season and have been grappling with the idea of whether the staff from the concerts team need to have visas for this tour, regardless of whether they are employees or freelance (we've had different opinions expressed). In the past, we have always included our orchestral manager on the visa petition because she is a full time employee, but the concerts team staff are rather different, not least because they are usually hired only for the tour, nothing else, and will not be on tour for the whole time and are therefore not an intrinsic part of the artistic production. They receive no payments or salary in the US and, thus, earn no income in the US. Do you have any thoughts on this? If we get them visas, would they all have to travel together? Would we need two separate petitions? Does this cost more depending upon the size of the concerts team?
Read the full story |
| Epiphanies and Masochism | 
From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark An Irresistible Concert So soon after declaring my relief at being able to put my concert calendar on hold in the summer, Le Poisson Rouge presented a program too irresistible to miss, with three well-known chamber musicians at the top of their form: violinist Harumi Rhodes, cellist Caroline Stinson, and pianist Molly Morkoski in Ravel's Sonate posthume pour violon et piano, Messiaen's eight Préludes pour piano, Takemitsu's Distance de Fée for violin and piano, Debussy's Sonate pour violoncello et piano, and Piazzolla's Verano Portena for piano trio, from The Four Seasons. One of the best concerts I heard all year. Read the full story
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| Latest Roster Changes | |  Musical America is helping presenters keep up with its advertisers! Managers whose rosters appear in the 2012 edition of the Musical America Directory should write to listings@musicalamerica.com with the names of artists and attractions that have been either added or removed, and please be sure to indicate "added" or "removed."
NEW THIS WEEK KahaneSwensenBrey, piano trio, added, Sciolino Artist Management
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