January 11, 2013   |
| | | Thought of the Day | | You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. --C.S. Lewis
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| Quote of the Week | | Joy is not in things; it is in us. --Richard Wagner
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| | Chopin Recital Tour - Jean Muller, piano | | ADVERTISEMENT  CD Awards Gramophone Critic's Choice "A major talent" International Piano Choice "...bristling with energy, fabulous technique and intellectual understanding." Tour Dates 18 January New York, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall 15 February More Tour DATES |
Rattle to Exit Berlin in 2018 |  BERLIN -- Sir Simon Rattle took the music world by surprise yesterday when he announced that he would not continue as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic when his contract expires in the summer of 2018. Having arrived in 2002 from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Rattle, 57, will have been in the post for 16 years. "As a Liverpool native, I can't celebrate this particular birthday without considering the Beatles' question: 'Will you still need me, when I'm 64?'" he said, adding that he will be on the brink of that age. "I am certain that it will be time for someone else to undertake the enormous and extraordinary challenge that is the Berlin Philharmonic." The long lead time has stirred the pot of rumors about the conductor's relationship with the Philharmonic, whose internal politics has earned it the reputation of being a gaggle of 128 soloists. |
| |  Riccardo Muti has the flu, but apparently he feels well enough to fly home to Italy, after canceling this week's concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Late Wednesday, it emerged that he had pulled out of next week's as well. Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Music Director Edo de Waart, who is on the podium this week, will remain on the job. Much of the repertoire on the concerts is the same as what the orchestra will play on its 18-day tour of Asia at the end of the month. These concerts were programmed in preparation for the trip. |
| | | Second City Comedy's Opera "Guide" Wows the Crowd |  CHICAGO -- On Saturday night, Lyric Opera of Chicago teamed up for an unprecedented, one-night-only collaboration with The Second City, Chicago's fabled comedy troupe, in a show titled The Second City Guide to the Opera. In a program note written for the crisply paced, sharply funny collection of skits, songs, and video presented at the Civic Opera House, General Director Anthony Freud wrote, "I hope you'll laugh your heads off." Judging from the waves of guffaws and exuberant applause, the sold-out audience was more than happy to oblige. Renée Fleming, Lyric's creative consultant, and actor Patrick Stewart served as hosts and willing participants in several skits. (Fleming as an arrogant diva of a staffer at a local Kinko's, Stewart as a mega-star being fawned over for roles he never played--What? That wasn't you in Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Gandhi? Coulda sworn....) Along with six Second City members and two of Lyric's Ryan Opera Center artists, the cast sent up all things operatic from insanely convoluted plots to restroom lines that stretch "into infinity." Music Director Sir Andrew Davis' hilarious voiceovers included the stern warning that "coughing is strictly forbidden." Patrons, he urged, should simply choke instead. |
| |  NEW YORK -- The title role of Giordano's 1896 opera, Andrea Chénier, has long appealed to tenors because of the fervent lyricism and heroic thrust of its showpiece arias and duets. Both Domingo and Pavarotti sang it at the Metropolitan Opera, and before them it was a vehicle for the likes of Richard Tucker and Mario del Monaco. On Sunday in Avery Fisher Hall with the Opera Orchestra of New York, Roberto Alagna bid to add his name to that pantheon, singing the role for the first time. Sad to say, it was a faltering attempt, suggesting either that he had not studied the part sufficiently or that it may be beyond his vocal comfort zone. At the start, during the warm-up to Chénier's opening aria, Alagna startled the audience by suddenly breaking off, motioning to conductor Alberto Veronesi to stop, and after a quick consultation beginning again. Then in Act 2, he missed an entrance, leaving out a crucial phrase entirely. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
Fort Worth Opera Commits to New Works |  In honor of its upcoming 70th-anniversary season, the Fort Worth Opera has announced an ambitious plan to present new operas by composers of North and South America, over the next ten years. Hence the name for the program, "Opera of the Americas." Initial works to be performed in the first three years, starting in 2014, are With Blood, With Ink, by Daniel Crozier and librettist Peter M. Krask; the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning Silent Night, by Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell; A Wrinkle in Time, by Libby Larsen (pictured) and librettist Bradley Greenwald; Dog Days, by David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek; and, in the anniversary year of 2016, JFK (working title), also by Little and Vavrek. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| Ask, and Ye "May" Receive...or Not | | 
To submit a question to GG Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com Dear Law and Disorder, I am a music professor at a medium-sized state college. We have two questions with regard to live streaming some of our concerts and recitals. We, of course, have paid the ASCAP and BMI licenses/fees to cover the rights for live performances. I believe the licensing agencies base the amount of the fee on the size of the school, and we pay a flat amount each year. Does paying those licenses for live performances also cover streaming the concert live? Our department chair believes this to be the case. The other issue involves archiving the recordings of the concerts, or leaving them on the website for a time after the concert so patrons (e.g., parents of students or any other interested parties) can view the concert at a later date if they had a conflict the day of the original concert and were unable to watch it live. Would this practice also be covered by the licenses or fees we've already paid? Is this a grey area in which the law has not yet caught up with the technology, or would this practice be a violation of copyright? I know of other schools whose music departments are streaming performances. Any clarification you could give on this subject would be most helpful not only to us but to many schools throughout the country. Read the full story
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Reaching Out to Past and Potential Supporters | | 
From Ask Edna by Edna Landau The end of 2012 has brought a deluge of e-mails into my Inbox. Some were holiday greetings, coupled with updates on an artist's current activities. Others were invitations to a showcase or to visit with an artist at the conferences which take place in New York in January. I will share the best and the worst of them with you since I think there are valuable lessons to be learned. MY VOTE FOR BEST END OF YEAR HOLIDAY GREETING FROM AN ARTIST (Jennifer Sheehan) Subject: Dreams DO Come True! Read the full story |
| Szell's Sublime Walküre | | 
From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark We were driving bumper to bumper out to the country last Friday and checked out the Met Opera station on Sirius XM. It was about 20 minutes into Wagner's Die Walküre, and Hunding had just come home from a hard day at the office to discover his lovely wife, Sieglinde, with a stranger, Siegmund, at the dinner table. Hunding's leitmotif had a particularly nasty staccato bark in the lower brass, and I pushed the info button to find out who was conducting. "George Szell, Dec 2, 1944," it said, and I nearly plowed into the rear of the car in front of me. A few moments later Siegmund spoke up, and I exclaimed, "That's Melchior!" |
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