October 26, 2012   |
| | | Thought of the Day | | If a man harbors any sort of fear, it makes him landlord to a ghost. --Lloyd Douglas
|
| Quote of the Week | | Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. --Edgar Allan Poe
|
| | Katharina Wagner Pulls out of Colón Ring |  Katharina Wagner has severed her contract with Teatro Colón, where she was to have staged a compact version of the Ring, a tribute to her great-grandfather's bicentenary that was set to run one night only, Nov. 27, and that reduced the epic cycle from 16 to 7 hours. She and Teatro Colón Intendant Pedro Pablo García Caffi have both said that the split was amicable. But reports that surfaced in the Argentine press earlier this week had Director Valentina Carrasco taking over. Wagner's move is no surprise. Last week she arrived in Buenos Aires for rehearsals, only to fly back the same day to Germany. Conditions, she said, were unacceptable. There was no rehearsal stage. The costume and make-up staff hadn't begun work, and several artists were not present because they hadn't secured their visas. "I have enough to do in Bayreuth," she told Die Welt. She sent an email to Intendant Caffi explaining that she would return within 48 hours if the circumstances were made "reasonable." Apparently they were not. |
AFM Endorses Obama for Second Term |  The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) International Executive Board has announced its official endorsement of President Obama for a second term. Aside from his reversal of the "anti-labor legacy" of his predecessor, the President has found favor with the union for his push to eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource American jobs, as well as his insistence that the rich pay their "fair share" of taxes. "President Obama inherited a real mess four years ago and has stood by the working people in this country during our emergence from the Great Recession," said AFM President Ray Hair in his comments. "He offers the best hope for recovery and prosperity over the next four years, and he deserves a second term as our President." AFM has 90,000 members. |
| | | October Video of the Month | | |
Los Angeles Philharmonic Names COO |  The Los Angeles Philharmonic has looked to its own to find a successor to Arvind Manocha in the position of chief operating officer. Manocha, as reported earlier, is moving on to become president and CEO of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Virginia. Gail Samuel takes her new position on Nov. 19, a promotion from vice president and general manager to COO. Her move caps a journey that began 20 years ago when she started as orchestra manager. "The strength of an institution is its people and in this matter the LA Phil is richly endowed," commented Philharmonic President Deborah Borda, to whom Samuel will report. "What a pleasure that this critical position will be filled by an individual who has truly 'come up through the ranks' and proven her value in 20 years of service." MA.com subscribers read the full story |
Strip Club Loses Its "Art Form" Argument |  ALBANY, N.Y.-- Lap dances are taxable because they don't promote culture in a community the way ballet or other artistic endeavors do, New York's highest court concluded Oct. 23 in a sharply divided ruling. The lawsuit was filed by Nite Moves in suburban Albany, which was arguing fees for admission to the strip club and for private dances are exempt from sales taxes. If ice-dancing routines to music haven't been regarded by lawmakers as qualifying, then it was "surely ... not irrational" for the tribunal "to conclude that a club presenting performances by women gyrating on a pole to music, however artistic or athletic their practiced moves are, was also not a qualifying performance entitled to exempt status." |
| |  NEW YORK -- Thomas Adès's setting of Shakespeare's The Tempest arrived at the Metropolitan Opera on Oct. 23 with the composer conducting, a production by Robert Lepage to be shared with L'Opéra de Québec and the Wiener Staatsoper. At age 41, Adès is still young enough to be the golden boy and shining hope of British music. His Tempest has already had an extraordinary global success for an opera barely eight years old, and its appearance at an important but cautiously conservative house like the Met is nothing if not a major fashion statement. The Tempest is made out of familiar musical materials that any attentive operagoer will recognize. But unlike most composers who trod retro paths, Adès takes possession of these time-honored artifacts and makes them his own, clothing them in an enhanced tonal language that sounds fresh, often surprising, and always dramatically alive. Operas on Shakespearean subjects are notoriously tricky to pull off, but The Tempest is well paced and structured, its score continuously absorbing. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| Rocky Seas, a Waltz, and a Violin Concerto | |  From Berlin Times by Rebecca Schmid The programming of the Berlin Philharmonic, while reportedly having gravitated away from the players' specialty in German repertoire since Sir Simon Rattle took the reins a decade ago, not only gives equal weight to post-Romantic repertoire but consistently illuminates connections between works which seem disparate at first glance. Andris Nelsons conducted the orchestra on Wednesday in a program of Britten, Widmann, Debussy and Ravel that yielded a powerful sense of emotional coherence. Jörg Widmann, a prolific German clarinettist and composer whose opera Babylon premieres in Munich next week (also featuring MA.com New Artist of the Month Anna Prohaska), combines neo-Romantic expressivity with avant-garde textures and unrestrained modern angst, much in the spirit of his teacher Wolfgang Rihm, yet in its own impulsive search. His Violin Concerto unfolds in a single, approximately 30-minute movement with a driving, lamenting melody at its center, alternately spurring and diffracting the colors of the orchestra. Structurally, it recalls Rihm works such as Gesungene Zeit, a chamber concerto written for Anne-Sophie Mutter. Read the full story |
| Can They Dance Away With My Copyright? | | To submit a question to GG Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com Dear Law & Order: Performing Arts Division - I own the video footage of a performance by a dance company. Recently, I learned that another choreographer purchased a license from the dance company to recreate and perform the same work. However, they used a copy of my video to help in recreating the choreography. In other words, they copied the performance which was on my video, but no one asked my permission. Aren't I entitled to a royalty or a fee? How are the choreography and the video separable? The only way they could get the choreography was through my video." Read the full story |
| A Flair for Marketing |  From Ask Edna by Edna Landau
For the answers to the questions below, click here. I am often asked by artists and ensembles how they can gain recognition for themselves and build a following. The easiest way to answer them is by way of example. Prior to March 1, 2012, I don't think that Sybarite5 was on my radar screen. I'm sure I read that they were a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition in the fall of 2011 but the information just passed through my mind at the time. On March 1 of this year, I received my first e-mail communication from them in which they announced their Carnegie Hall debut at Zankel Hall, scheduled for November 13. In the relatively short newsletter, they also announced the first Sybarite5 baby (born to their bassist and his wife), a few upcoming world premiere performances, some educational workshops, and also saluted their new friends at the Logan Series in Erie, Pennsylvania, saying: "We could not have asked for a warmer, more appreciative audience at Penn State!" Read the full story |
| Yannick In Philly |  From "Why I Left Muncie" by Sedgwick Clark Tuesday night's first Philadelphia Orchestra concert in New York was exciting for several reasons. First and foremost, it featured a Verdi Requiem in Carnegie Hall. For others, it was a proving ground for Yannick Nézet-Séguin as a simpatico music director for the Orchestra at last. A short, compact, 36-year-old Montreal native, with a penchant for ugly ties, he veritably bristles with quick-step intensity, and the Philadelphians were with him all the way. From the opening pianissimo notes, played at an achingly slow tread, to the most eruptive attacks in the Dies Irae, the players never made an infelicitous sound, never forced their tone or scrunched their bows. The winds were more forwardly balanced and exhibited more character than I recall from this ensemble in Carnegie (perhaps from playing in Verizon Hall, where their clarity is extraordinary). The brass were never rasping or overbearing, and those glorious strings held their own in the most massive Verdi tuttis. |
| 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." Abbado, Roberto, conductor, added, IMG Artists Armstrong, Dominic, tenor, added, Fletcher Artist Management Blendulf, Daniel, conductor, added, HarrisonParrott |
| | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment