October 12, 2012   |
| | | Thought of the Day | | There are always flowers for those who want to see them. --Henri Matisse
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| Quote of the Week | | There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm. --Edgar Allan Poe
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| | James Levine Will Return to the Met |  NEW YORK (AP) -- James Levine plans to return to the podium following a two-year absence, conducting from a wheelchair following a fall last year that left him partially paralyzed. The Met announced Thursday that its music director intends to conduct a concert at Carnegie Hall on May 19 and will lead three productions in the 2013-14 season: a new staging of Verdi's Falstaff' and revivals of Mozart's Così fan tutte and Berg's Wozzeck. Levine, 69, has not conducted since Die Walküre in May 2011. He canceled his entire schedule for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons following three surgeries. A fall that damaged his dorsal spine No. 4 vertebra caused "major paralysis," according to Dr. Patrick O'Leary. The doctor said Levine currently is free of back pain. |
Los Angeles Phil COO to Exit |  Arvind Manocha, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is to be the next President and CEO of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. He succeeds Terrence D. Jones, who is retiring after 16 years with the organization. His tenure begins Jan. 2. A native of Ohio, Manocha has been with the Philharmonic since 2000, first as director of strategic operations for Walt Disney Concert Hall, then as general manager, overseeing non-classical programming for the Hollywood Bowl. In his current post, he supervises operations at both the Bowl and Disney Hall and is part of the senior management strategic planning team. Located in Vienna, VA, Wolf Trap encompasses three venues: the outdoor 7,028-seat Filene Center, the Children's Theater-in-the-Woods, and The Barns at Wolf Trap, located adjacent to the Center for Education. |
| | | October Video of the Month | | |
Paris Opera Names New Intendant |  PARIS -- The intendant of Milan's famed Teatro alla Scala, Stéphane Lissner, is to be the future intendant of the Opéra National de Paris. He is contracted in his current job through 2017, but until that time will carry the title of "designated director" and begin planning for 2015-16 in Paris and beyond. The announcement of Lissner's appointment, by Minister of Culture and Communications Aurélie Filippetti, comes on the heels of incumbent Nicolas Joel's statement in a newspaper interview that he would not be a candidate for extending his term at the opera. Joel, whom critics have faulted for conservative programming, blamed budget cuts for the past three years for his decision. Lissner, 59, is busy launching the season at La Scala and will not take full command in Paris until August 2015. He has a history of multi-tasking -- he is also currently director of music for the Wiener Festwochen (Vienna Festival Weeks). His Paris appointment is for five years and could be renewed. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
Jonathan Nott to Tokyo Symphony |  British conductor Jonathan Nott, chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra since 2000, is to be the third music director of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra starting with the 2014-15 season and continuing for three years. He succeeds Hubert Soudant, who has led the TSO since 2004. The orchestra's only other music director, from 1965-2004, was Kazuyoshi Akiyama. Nott, 50, first led the TSO in October 2011. "It was immediately clear that there was an enormous rapport," he said. "The morning after the final performance, actually on the way to Narita airport, I received the invitation to take up the post...and I accepted without hesitation." A former principal conductor of the Ensemble intercontemporain, and, before that, of the Lucerne Symphony, Nott began his career in the opera houses of Frankfurt and Wiesbaden. Nott is the mastermind behind the Bamberg Symphony's triennial International Mahler Conducting Competition, whose first recipient was Gustavo Dudamel. |
He's Come Very Far, Very Fast |  NEW YORK -- The unlikely encounter between first-time opera director Woody Allen and a budding Albanian tenor began with about 20 minutes of near-silence at rehearsal. "I barely spoke English, and he barely spoke -- at first," jokes Saimir Pirgu. Then, in 2008, he was an emerging tenor who had one of the biggest breaks of his young career as a principal in an Allen-directed opera in Los Angeles. Four years later, 31-year-old Pirgu is an even hotter hire in the music business. He's appearing with the San Francisco Opera in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, which runs through Oct. 19. Later this season, he'll sing at the Metropolitan Opera alongside Plácido Domingo in Verdi's La Traviata, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti. His performance with Domingo will serve as a reunion: Both Domingo and the late Luciano Pavarotti, two of The Three Tenors, not only inspired Pirgu's career but also helped nurture it. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| New Blogger from Paris | |  From An American in Paris by Frank Cadenhead When I was growing up in San Diego, one of my passions was the New Yorker column, "Letters from Paris" by the grand and gifted Janet Flanner. Her reports from this city, full of energy, intellect, passion, contradictions and good food, could be one of the reasons I live here now. What I will focus on in this blog is the extraordinary musical activity that is too often not reported in the English-language press. The music scene here is one of the most rich and remarkable in the world. With loads of resident professional orchestras, several important halls, and a rich operatic canvas, this can be the ideal life for those who care about music. When great orchestras travel, Paris is a certain stop and one can literally hear the cream of the world's orchestras during the course of one year. There is one gentle warning, however, to any reader who has gotten this far: I ain't no Janet Flanner. Read the full story |
| They Can't Do That To Me! | | To submit a question to GG Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com Dear Law And Disorder, I just got a notice that a venue where I booked one of my artists is closing. I have a written engagement contract that was signed by the venue over a year ago. The notice I received says that they have run out of money and are cancelling their season. Can they do that? Do I have a valid claim? Should I file a lawsuit? Can I alert the media? How do I send a message to other venues not to do this? Read the full story |
| Demystifying the Business of Jazz |  From Ask Edna by Edna Landau
For the answers to the questions below, click here. I am delighted to have as guest blogger this week the widely respected and admired founder of LVanHart Artist Productions, Laura Hartmann. This is the first Ask Edna post that addresses jazz, and it couldn't be in better hands. -- EL This summer, while having lunch together, my friend and colleague Edna Landau and I entered into a discussion about the differences between management practices in the classical and jazz worlds. Afterwards, she asked if I would write a piece on this topic for "Ask Edna." What an honor! So, here you go: In thinking about how to approach this subject, I remembered a panel that I put together for Arts Presenters in the late '90's called "Demystifying the Business of Jazz." In the audience that day were artists who wanted to know how to approach the whole concept of finding help with their careers. They were stumped as to how to navigate among the different people who are involved in a jazz artists' life. It can be daunting, but the key to demystifying the process is to understand what roles we each play. |
| The Birds | 
From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark At night after watching Jon Stewart and Colbert and checking out TCM's midnight film, I'm often up proofreading or writing captions during deadline. I was up until 5 a.m. yesterday morning finishing details for the last article of the 2013 Directory to go to the designer. Last night I had looked forward to a good night's sleep for the first time in months, and the light was out by 2. My wife can sleep through any alarm on the market. The other day I noticed a cream-colored conical protuberance about three-quarters of a foot high on her bedside table, and she explained brightly that it was her new alarm clock. It gradually lights up the room like the sun rising and birds begin to chirp - definitely something new in a second-floor rear apartment in Manhattan. If that doesn't do the trick, it also has a radio. "What's WQXR?" she asked. "96.3," I answered, knowing full well that it has a new frequency since the Times sold the station a few months ago; I just can't remember it. 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."
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