February 1, 2013   |
| | | Thought of the Day | | If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. --Emily Dickinson
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| Quote of the Week | | It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it. --Voltaire |
| | British Orchestras Want to Know, "What's Next?" |  LONDON -- This is not a happy time for British orchestras. Local government authorities are slashing their arts budgets by anything up to 100 per cent and managers still await the financial decisions of the newly emasculated Arts Council. So "What's Next" would seem a fitting theme for this year's annual conference of the Association of British Orchestras, held in Leeds Jan. 23-25. Among the speakers was New Yorker critic and author Alex Ross, who offered a capsule view of orchestras in the U.S. "I come to you from the land of the endless classical crisis," he said, "a country where classical music seems to have been an endangered species from the time it first crawled ashore. The pianist and author Charles Rosen, who died in December, remarked that the death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition." MA.com subscribers read the full story |
Carnegie Hall to Celebrate Britten, Vienna |  NEW YORK -- In announcing its2013-14 season, Carnegie Hall has declared the Minnesota Orchestra's four performances of the seven Sibelius symphonies an official "highlight," so the trustees, musicians, and executives of that great band had best hurry up and get their collective act together and settle their differences. Music Director Osmo Vänskä is scheduled to conduct what will be the hall's first-ever complete cycle. Otherwise, there are anniversaries galore, the major one being the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth. On Thursday, Executive and Artistic Director Clive Gillinson outlined highlights of the 2013-14 season, budget $78 million. Among them are a concert version of Britten's Peter Grimes performed by the Saint Louis Symphony and Chorus under David Robertson, and the monumental War Requiem by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus led by Robert Spano. Other anniversaries to be honored: the Kronos Quartet's 40th; Marilyn Horne's 80th birthday and Valery Gergiev's 60th; the Silk Road Ensemble's 15th year; and the 25th anniversary of Anne-Sophie Mutter's Carnegie Hall recital debut. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. |
| | | Maggio Musicale Gets Gov't Oversight |  BOLOGNA -- The outgoing Minister of Culture, Lorenzo Ornaghi, has announced that he will appoint a government commissioner to run Florence's Fondazione del Maggio Musicale for the next six months, on the grounds of "serious irregularities" in its management. The commissioner's name has not yet been disclosed, but observers think it will be the Ministry's Director General for Live Performance, Salvatore Nastasi, or Francesco Bianchi, an experienced executive in corporate finance who has worked for JPMorgan and Citibank, among others. \ The "irregularities" are being blamed on Superintendent Francesca Colombo, in the job for over two years at the invitation of Florence Mayor Matteo Renz. (Zubin Mehta remains music director.) At her hiring, she alleged to be a specialist in fundraising. However, according to the latest estimates, the Fondazione's total debt is running around 35 million euro -- 8.3 million euro deficit plus 27 million euro of bank exposure. The appointment of a commissioner seems the only way out. MA.com subscribers read the full storyk exposure. |
Sacramento Opera, Philharmonic, to Merge |  The Sacramento Philharmonic and Sacramento Opera will merge as of July 1, citing shrinking audiences and donations. The new organization will have one board of directors and one yet-to-be-chosen general director; it will be known as the Sacramento Region Performing Arts Alliance. Michael Morgan, music director of the Philharmonic, will assume the role for the opera as well. The two organizations' budgets, collectively $2.1 million, will merge into one for $1.8 million. The opera has been in business for 31 years; the symphony for 16; talks of the merger have been ongoing for the last two years. Because there is so little crossover between symphonic and opera audiences, each organization will keep its own artistic identity and name. As to saving on staff costs, that may be one side effect, although both organizations are already operating with severely reduced numbers. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| David Hyslop Off to Fix Louisville | |  David Hyslop, veteran orchestra executive turned consultant, is to take the helm of the Louisville Orchestra as interim during its search for a CEO to succeed Robert Birman, who announced his resignation two weeks ago and whose last day is Feb. 1. Birman presided over a recovery from bankruptcy and an intensely bitter contract battle with musicians that cost the orchestra its entire 2011-12 season. Though presenting concerts again, the organization is by no means out of the woods.
Hyslop is onetime CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra (1991-2003), the St. Louis Symphony (1978-1991), and the Oregon Symphony (1972-1978). In the years since Minnesota, he has been a fund-raising and strategic planning consultant to arts organizations. He recently served as interim CEO to the Dallas Symphony, which he managed to bring back from the brink after a period of serious financial difficulty. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| New Artist of the Month: Composer Dylan Mattingly |  SAN FRANCISCO -- Last December at Zellerbach Hall, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra gave the premiere of Dylan Mattingly's Invisible Skyline, a restless, beguiling 30-minute opus of serene vistas and arresting rhythms. Mattingly, 21, is a Berkeley native, and many in the audience had heard his shorter pieces. But this was a premiere to make you sit up and take notice; following the performance, the San Francisco Chronicle praised Mattingly's gifts as a composer and orchestrator, saying he "blends and interweaves the different sections and their sonorities with a deft hand." Mattingly is currently majoring in composition and ancient Greek at Bard College, but remains based in Berkeley, where he considers John Adams a mentor. "He makes me push myself, to never take anything for granted," says the young composer. "The main thing I've learned from him is that you should never be composing on default. He once said that every time he finishes a piece, he feels that he can never write another one. I understand that feeling, that you sort of give everything to every piece you write." |
| The Ultraschall Adventure Continues |  From Berlin Times by Rebecca Schmid It hardly needs to be said that contemporary music enjoys a privileged status in Germany. Even with the heavily protested merger of the SWR (Southwest German Radio) Orchestras currently in effect, the support of public broadcasting for cutting-edge programming everywhere from Donaueschingen to 'poor but sexy' Berlin creates an atmosphere of seemingly boundless experimentation. The annual Ultraschall Festival, co-presented by Berlin's two major classical radio stations, Deutschlandradio and Kulturradio RBB, sets out to provide a glimpse into the wide spectrum of developments, consciously elevating adventure above dramaturgical unity. |
| Responsibility...Its Not Just About Visas |  To submit a question to GG Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com Dear Law & Disorder: We are facing a visa problem for one of our Russian singers. She is supposed to sing in the United States at the end of February with a US Orchestra. Now it turns out that the orchestra is neither willing to apply nor to pay for the visa fees that would be a total of $1800 ($250 for the AGMA union consultation, plus $325 to USCIS, plus another $1,225 to USCIS to have the approval notice expedited) and the artist does not want to pay this big fee for just one engagement of 8 days. The visa petition is ready to be mailed, but now we are wondering if there is a way of reducing the costs. The singer has been to the US many times to perform, and is a member of AGMA. On the top of the visa petition, she will also have to pay $190 for an interview at the US Embassy in Moscow. Would there be a way of getting her a visa without having to pay all these costs (or at least pay less?) Help! |
Starting a Concert Series? Begin With a Great Idea | | 
From Ask Edna by Edna Landau I am frequently asked what it takes to start a concert series. Having spoken to a good number of artists who have done so, I would say that the main basic ingredients are passion, determination, hard work, resourcefulness, excellent networking skills and perhaps, most importantly, a great idea or anticipation of a need. Anyone who has started their own series has literally thrown themselves into it, believing that the community they are targeting, and possibly even the world beyond, will be richer as a result of it. In this column, I have chosen to highlight the Cypress String Quartet, architects of the Call and Response and the Salon Series in San Francisco, and pianist Orli Shaham, founder of Baby Got Bach in New York City, designed for three to six year olds. Read the full story |
| A Long Blog on Lawrence in HD |  From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark A Blu-ray video of Lawrence of Arabia was finally released in November. Collectors have been screaming for it for years, but Columbia Pictures was working on yet another upgrade of this foremost of epic films for its "50th Anniversary Edition." I ran to Barnes & Noble the first day of its availability (somebody's got to rearrange those deck chairs before the ship sinks), rushed home, and sat starry-eyed and golden-eared for nearly three and a half hours as director David Lean's breathtaking desert vistas, Maurice Jarre's magnificent symphonic score, and Peter O'Toole's astonishing performance (not to speak of the superb supporting actors) set my pulse racing once again. |
| 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."
NEW THIS WEEK Burton, James, conductor, added, United Artists and Authors Agency/UNA (North America) Harms, Rena, soprano, removed, Guy Barzilay Artists Harms, Rena, soprano, added, Fletcher Artists Management Rader-Shieber, Chas, stage director, added, Fletcher Artists Management Read the full story |
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