January 4, 2013   |
| | | Thought of the Day | | Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus. --David Hockney
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| Quote of the Week | | I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the years'. --Henry Moore
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| | New York Times Culture Editor to Exit |  The New York Times Culture Editor Jonathan Landman, in the job since 2009, is taking advantage of the latest round of newsroom buyouts. Here is his memo, excerpted, to colleagues. I will be taking the buyout and leaving The Times. We all know that the newsroom has to reduce its costs. No less urgent is its responsibility to cultivate a new generation of leaders. My continued presence would help accomplish neither. So it's time to go. I've never quite believed my good fortune here....The Times has given me an endless series of astonishing opportunities over the last 26 years, ending with what has to be the best job in journalism.... |
Gheorghiu Says She'll Divorce Alagna, ASAP |  The on-again, off-again marriage of Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu and French-Italian tenor Roberto Alagna is off again, according to an interview with Gheorghiu by the Mediafax news agency. "We have decided together and on perfectly friendly terms with Roberto Alagna to get divorced as soon as possible," Gheorghiu said. Once known as opera's "love couple," Gheorghiu, 47, and Alagna, 49, were married in 1996; rumors of their split surfaced in 2009. However, in 2011 Gheorghiu told the Telegraph "We are in a very happy place right now." No longer. |
| | | | |  Michael Capasso, founder and general director of the Dicapo Opera Theater, has posted a letter to "friends" on the company's website headed "Urgent Appeal for Donations." Dicapo, he writes, is going on a six-month hiatus, during which time he and the board of directors will attempt to raise $1.2 million, half of which is the company's current debt load. Among the casualties is the premiere of The Letter by Paul Moravec and Terry Teachout, slated to open in February. The company is trying to avoid filing for bankruptcy because, writes Capasso, that "would almost certainly mean the end of Dicapo." |
Maria Stuarda Opens 2013 at the Met with Style |  NEW YORK -- Donizetti's Maria Stuarda may not be the cheeriest opera to welcome in the new year, but the Metropolitan Opera can hardly be expected to present Die Fledermaus every December 31. Lately the company has decided to give the evening a festive flavor by staging a new production, in this case of Maria Stuarda, a work that the house has never presented before. Revelers were probably relieved to note that Maria Stuarda is relatively short, at just under three hours. Admirers of Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, on which the libretto is based, may miss the play's political intrigues and subtle character development, but it's amazing how much dramatic and musical power Donizetti managed to generate and how inventively he stretched the Italian operatic conventions of the day. The musical portraiture of each queen is brilliantly individualized; in this case, there are two marvelous singers in the roles, and each knows precisely what she has to do. |
Botstein: El Sistema Would Never Work in the U.S. |  At a recent symposium that was part of Carnegie Hall's "Voices of Latin America" festival, Leon Botstein offered a rather unpopular point of view on the potential impact of El Sistema in the U.S. The American Symphony Orchestra music director (and Bard College president) essentially said El Sistema would never work here. He called the program "admirable," but said that in the U.S., classical music had been marginalized by popular culture, and that its importance and "prestige" died with the end of immigrant settlement houses in the 1920s. He added that El Sistema wouldn't catch on Stateside because of "the American egalitarian suspicion that arts are not vital to democracy." MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| New Artist of the Month: Apollon Musagète Quartett |  Last November, I attended a concert at New York's Weill Recital Hall by a quartet of which I knew little except that it had a French name that meant "Apollo, leader of the Muses" and that all the members were Polish. But the performances I heard of Haydn, Szymanowski, Josef Suk, and Janácek soon made it plain that the Apollon Musagète Quartett would not long remain little known. The players (except for cellist Piotr Skweres, who sits atop a platform) stand while performing. It is untraditional and many, including myself, find it quirky. Violinist Bartosz Zachlod explained: "We had to stand for a performance of Spohr's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra with the Dresden Philharmonic. We discovered that we enjoyed the greater freedom of movement it gave us, so we have continued to perform that way." Hearing them in Weill Hall, I was impressed by their unanimity of sound and excellent ensemble, but also surprised by how little they looked at each other. That suggested intense rehearsal, which Zachlod readily confirmed, adding that they sometimes rehearse in the dark to emphasize listening over looking. |
| Leipzig Journal: Part 2 |  From A Rich Possession by James Conlon I had intended to submit this entry on December 15, the day after the terrible events in Newtown, CT. I found it impossible to think about anything else, and felt it was inappropriate, if not disrespectful, to publish it on that day. I have kept it for the New Year and offer it to the reader with my best wishes for 2013. At the end of my previous entry, I was wandering around the streets of Leipzig and reveling in the cultural riches it has to offer. From Bach to Stockhausen, this city has played a historic role disproportionate to its size, and the Gewandhaus Orchestra can be credited with having kept much of that alive.
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| | | America puts its own brand on Symphonic Music 
Maestro Stephen Gunzenhauser and the Lancaster Symphony celebrate American Classics with the music of Copland, Bernstein, and Gershwin. The brilliant violinist Michael Ludwig will be the guest soloist performing David Chesky's exciting Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra. "Chesky's music has integrity, and it gets under your skin." David Hurwitz, Classics Today Click here for concert dates |
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From Ask Edna by Edna Landau The New Year presents us with a wonderful opportunity to take stock of our individual goals and priorities and address them with renewed vigor and dedication. For many of us, these may include some of the following: - creating a website or regularly updating an existing one
- taking a new set of professional photographs
- ordering business cards
- launching a Kickstarter campaign for an important project
- making a recording or demo CD
- maintaining contact with supporters and updating them on recent and upcoming activities
- launching a new concert series or exploring concert opportunities at existing venues
- starting a blog
- mapping out time to prepare for a competition or for key orchestral auditions
- adding a newly commissioned work to our repertoire
- exploring possibilities for study abroad
- creating a monthly budget and adopting a system to adhere to it
- making sure we are covered by health insurance
- working with a coach on public speaking and presentation skills
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| Charles Rosen's "Revelatory" Artistry | | 
From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark My favorite solo piano music is Debussy's -- iridescent, sensual, and, after all these years, mysterious. My first recording of his music was by Charles Rosen performing Images, Books I and II, Estampes, L'Isle joyeuse, and other short pieces on an Epic LP. It had been praised by David Hamilton as "indispensable" and "revelatory" in High Fidelity magazine. "[There] is an extraordinary musical intelligence at work in these performances, as well as an impeccable technique; other recordings are simply not in the running," he concluded. Rosen died on December 9 at age 85. Soon after, I listened to that worn LP and to his earlier recording of the composer's Etudes. I had not played either of them for at least three decades, and the pianist's mastery remained undiminished by time and by my subsequent acquaintance with Walter Gieseking's classic, more "impressionistic" interpretations. It's unfortunate that so few of Rosen's Epic and Columbia recordings were not transferred to CD. Sony did release his acclaimed Bach and Beethoven recordings on its Essential Classics line, but his equally praised 20th-century repertoire remains in limbo. Five years ago I compiled three CDs worth of his recordings of music by Bartók, Liszt, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Ravel, and Debussy, and approached Arkiv to release them, to no avail. |
| Latest Roster Changes | |  Musical America is helping presenters keep up with its advertisers! Managers whose rosters appear in the 2013 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."
Berger, Kathleen, soprano, added, MIA Artists Management Lee, Simon Kyung, tenor, added, MIA Artists Management Rodin, Alaine, soprano, added, MIA Artists Management
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