Cosmic Burst Cafe: November 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

News From Musical America Worldwide

November 30, 2012

In This Issue

2013 Grawemeyer Award to
Multi-media Composer

Woodruff Arts Center Swindled Out of $1.4M

David Lang Named to Composer's Chair

Tony Hall Exits ROH for Top BBC Job

Avery Fisher Hall to Be Renovated

Leipzig Journal

Can We Loan Sheet Music?

A Master Multitasker

More Delights in New York Concert Halls

Latest Roster Changes

Also This Week on MusicalAmerica.com...

Thought of the Day

Without labor nothing prospers.

--Sophocles

Quote of the Week

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

--C.S. Lewis

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2013 Grawemeyer Award to Multi-media Composer

Dutch composer Michel Van der Aa has won the 2013 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Up-close, a multi-media concerto for string orchestra, cello, and video. The award brings with it $100,000, among the largest purses in the world for composition.

Van der Aa, 42, is composer-in-residence at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He wrote the work on commission from the European Concert Hall Organization for Argentine-French cellist Sol Gabetta and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. It was premiered in Stockholm in 2011 and has subsequently been performed throughout Europe and recorded on DVD on the composer's label, Disquiet Media.

Much of the composer's oeuvre incorporates live music and theater with recordings of both. He is currently collaborating with English novelist David Mitchell on Sunken Garden, a 3D film opera scheduled for premiere in London in April.

MA.com subscribers read the full story

Woodruff Arts Center Swindled Out of $1.4M

The Woodruff Arts Center -- landlord to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which found itself $20 million in debt earlier this year and reduced its musicians' pay accordingly -- is the city's corporation of culture, housing an art museum and a theater along with the ASO. It takes in about $100 million a year, about one percent of which was recently found missing.

A mid-level employee, who left in October, apparently embezzled over $1.4 million by submitting fraudulent invoices during his seven-year tenure on the WAC payroll. The theft was discovered after his departure (for unrelated reasons), and thus far no charges have been filed. Confronted with the facts, the man has admitted to his crime.

MA.com subscribers read the full story

November Video of the Month

David Lang Named to Composer's Chair

David Lang, Musical America's 2013 Composer of the Year, has been appointed to Carnegie Hall's Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair for the Hall's 2013-14 season. Generally Carnegie announces this position as part of its season announcement, in January, but Lang -- typically -- has something special up his sleeve.

Together with 2012 MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase, and members of her International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Lang will be heading up a professional workshop titled "Creating New Music" in Nov. 2013. Focusing on the art of collaboration, the six-day seminar will be built around several teams of composer-chamber ensembles, each of which will create a work commissioned by Carnegie Hall to be premiered in Zankel Hall. Teams are invited to apply for the coveted (tuition-free) spots by Feb. 1, 2013. For more information.

MA.com subscribers read the full story

Tony Hall Exits ROH for Top BBC Job

Tony Hall, CEO of the Royal Opera House, has been named general director of the BBC, succeeding George Entwistle, who resigned earlier this month after 54 days in the job. The BBC has been in crisis ever since it emerged that one of its most popular TV personalities, the late Jimmy Savile, had abused some 300 children over a 40-year period.

Further complicating the situation were accusations that top management had cancelled a scheduled investigative news report on Savile.

Said Culture Secretary Maria Miller, "It is important now that Tony Hall gets to grips quickly -- to provide the stability and certainty that the BBC needs, and restore public confidence."

Lord Hall, 61, was the BBC's director of news before joining the Royal Opera House in 2001.

MA.com subscribers read the full story

Avery Fisher Hall to Be Renovated

Construction on a remodeled Avery Fisher Hall is expected to get underway in 2017, a collaborative project between the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center, which owns and operates the hall. The refurbishing was to have started in 2005, when British architect Norman Foster's design was approved, as part of the larger campus' billion-dollar update. But cost estimates of $300 million and a threatened lawsuit from the Fisher family if the name of the building was changed stopped the project.

So the exterior of the venue, which opened in 1962, will continue to be called Avery Fisher Hall, but naming rights of the auditorium will go to the highest bidder. And a new acoustician and architect will be chosen. One of the requirements of the new design will be more stage room for theatrical presentations, of which Music Director Alan Gilbert is a big fan.

MA.com subscribers read the full story

Leipzig Journal

From A Rich Possession by James Conlon

The Gewandhaus Orchester was the first to play the Prelude to Die Meistersinger, conducted by the composer, on November 1, 1862. The orchestra traditionally observes important anniversaries of works that were premiered there. The honor (and pleasure) fell to me last week to open the program with the Prelude before moving on to works less familiar to the orchestra and to the public in Leipzig. But even the ten minutes spent in front of one of the oldest and most distinguished "Traditionorchestern" (as the Germans, with well-deserved pride, refer to them) is enough to drive home the immense value of tradition in the best sense of the word. (More on this subject to come.)

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Can We Loan Sheet Music?

To submit a question to FTM Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com

Dear Law and Disorder:

May we loan music that we own for orchestral performances by other non-profit organizations (schools, community orchestras, etc? Would the other group still need to obtain performing/recording permissions? Could we be liable if they don't?

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A Master Multitasker

From Ask Edna by Edna Landau
For the answers to the questions below, click here.

Please submit your questions to askedna@musicalamerica.com

I am frequently asked how musicians can be expected to handle the various artistic, administrative, financial, and performance related responsibilities they must regularly juggle and still not have their performances suffer in quality. I actually wrote about this in an earlier column entitled Time out for Time Management (June 30, 2011). The question resurfaced when I was sitting in the audience at a recent Musica Sacra concert of some of my favorite choral music and spent part of the intermission reading the program, specifically music director Kent Tritle's bio. I was so astonished by the number of positions he holds concurrently that I went backstage after the very wonderful concert to ask if he would be willing to meet for coffee and shed some light on how this is humanly possible. Fortunately, he agreed, and I am happy to share what I learned.

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More Delights in New York Concert Halls

From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark

Gardiner's "Authentic" Missa solemnis

I was driving with a friend over Thanksgiving weekend, and we tuned in during the middle movement of a Sibelius Violin Concerto on Sirius FM. I was quickly enthralled by the soloist's rubato and technical command and declared him to be "an old Russian violinist." When I heard the double basses' pianississimo in the last five bars, barely audible yet with firm tone, I had no doubt: "This is the 1959 Heifetz with Hendl and the Chicago Symphony." Indeed, it was. But what pleased me more than my good guess was that for years I have considered it inferior to the violinist's 1937 recording with Beecham. The later recording's freedom, especially in the finale's wild accelerating into climaxes and subsequent backing off as the temperature cools, bothered me in my youth, but last week I reveled in it. The recording hadn't changed, but I had!

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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

Capuçon, Renaud, violin, added, Opus 3 Artists

Devin, Anna, soprano, added, HarrisonParrott

Gringyte, Justina, mezzo-soprano, added, HarrisonParrott

Karanas, Daveda, mezzo-soprano, added, HarrisonParrott (Europe)

McGovern, Jonathan, baritone, added, HarrisonParrott

Morricone, Andrea, composer & conductor, added, IMG Artists

Shanahan, Jordan, baritone, added, Encompass Arts

Thomas, Russell, tenor, added, HarrisonParrott (Europe)

Thouret, Ashley, soprano, added, Encompass Arts

Read the full story

Also This Week on MusicalAmerica.com...