May 24, 2013   |
| | | Thought of the Day | Nothing happens unless first we dream. --Carl Sandburg |
| Quote of the Week | | We do not remember days, we remember moments. --Cesare Pavese |
| | James Levine Welcomed Back with Standing O(s) |  NEW YORK--James Levine rolled onto the Carnegie Hall stage Sunday afternoon in his black motorized wheelchair and into a 6-by-6-foot mechanical podium constructed by the Metropolitan Opera. Belted into the wheelchair, Levine and two aides waited while the podium hoisted him about 3 feet in the air and its interior rotated 180 degrees to leave him facing the audience. Given a 1-minute standing ovation, he blew a kiss to the crowd in the sold-out 2,804-seat auditorium, raised his fists in triumph and tapped his heart. And then it was down to business, after a more than two-year absence caused by a fall that left him partially paralyzed. Looking a bit like a starship captain in the commander's chair, Levine conducted Wagner, Beethoven, and Schubert and received a 71/2-minute standing ovation at the end. |
La Scala Cuts Back Its Season |  MILAN--La Scala has reduced the number of operas it will stage during the 2013-14 season due to Italy's economic crisis, Intendant Stéphane Lissner said Thursday. Instead of the usual 13 operas, there will be only ten, with fewer newer productions as well. Lissner blamed the economic crisis and the constant decrease in public funding. Italy's unemployment rate has risen sharply to 11.5 percent and the economy is in a protracted recession. La Scala's 2012 budget was 116 million euros ($149 million), some 36 percent coming from government sources and the rest, some 73 million euros, from ticket and subscription revenue, sponsorships, and tours. Well after the current season got underway, the theater was told it would receive five million euros less in government funding than it had been promised. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| | | Damrosch Family Sues Lincoln Center |  The Damrosch family, connected by blood or marriage to Walter and Leopold, wants its park back, and so do residents of the neighborhood on New York's Upper West Side. The 2.4 acre Damrosch Park, on the south side of Lincoln Center, is closed ten months out of the year so Lincoln Center can stage private events like Fashion Week and the Big Apple Circus--and pocket the proceeds. So Damrosch and friends have brought suit against Lincoln Center and the New York Parks Department, which apparently has given the performing arts complex permission to move in and take over. The plaintiffs claim that marks "an illegal seizure of park land for commercial purposes." At a rally in the park yesterday, New York Parks President Geoffrey Croft declared, "They have turned the park into a convention center. This is not some commercial property to be exploited." "It has become a cash cow for Lincoln Center, and this was not the idea," said one family member. |
| Met Opera Says It Has Disbanded Its Ballet Co. |  The Metropolitan Opera Ballet is no more. In accordance with its most recent contract with the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), the Met has gradually reduced the size of the dance company from 16, as of fall 2011, to eight, all of whom have been offered--and took--a buyout package of $75,000 plus continued health benefits. The resident ballet troupe's origins date back to the Met's, in 1883. Current General Manager Peter Gelb presents the move as not only cost-saving, but also an artistic practicality, given the number of different choreographic styles used in Met productions since he took over. The Met has actually used more dancers in the past season than it has when it had a resident ballet troupe of 92, during the 2005-06 season. Gelb says he will be hiring on a per-production basis going forward. |
| New DG App Shoots to the Top of the Charts |  If the popularity of the new Deutsche Grammophon app exploring Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is any indication, the recording industry may have found a way back to commercial success. Developed with Touch Press exclusively for Apple products, the app has topped classical charts in six countries after less than a week on the market. It includes historic audio and video, interviews, synchronized scores, and written commentary. One of the most compelling features is the ability to move among four different video recordings: Leonard Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic (1979), John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (1992), and the Berlin Philharmonic under Ferenc Fricsay and Herbert von Karajan (1958 and 1962). Meanwhile, users can follow the score in the four different editions, which can be viewed as is or in a curated version that closes in on up to six of the most active instruments. Deutsche Grammophon is the first record label to collaborate with Touch Press. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| New I-94 Process for Artists Touring the United States | | To submit a question to GG Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com Dear Law and Disorder: I heard that US Immigration will no longer be giving foreign artists the little white card they used to get when an artist entered the US. The cards were stamped with the artist's visa category and the date they had to leave. It was my understanding that we needed to make copies of those cards if we needed to extend an artist's visa. Are we supposed to use something else instead? Is there a new process? |
| Hi, I'm Adam Schoenberg |  From Ask Edna by Edna Landau Adam Schoenberg is a very gifted young composer with a knack for building relationships. He first entered my life early in 2011, shortly after I started writing this blog. He wrote me a lovely e-mail, saying that there were things he wanted to "Ask Edna" but he didn't think they were straightforward enough for the blog. His thoughtful and considerate style of writing (as well as his compliment on my blog!) made me want to try and help him. He had graduated from Juilliard the previous year, where he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree, and had already been commissioned to write works for the Atlanta and Kansas City symphonies. The premiere of his American Symphony was scheduled just a month later in Kansas City under the baton of its music director, Michael Stern. Our initial discussions revolved around generating attention for the Kansas City premiere and how he might get through to conductors and artistic administrators to acquaint them with his music. He was particularly interested in trying to secure a West Coast premiere for his chamber orchestra work, Finding Rothko, which was inspired by four paintings, one of which was housed at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. |
| Spring for Ives |  From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark Too bad that we have only one more season of Carnegie Hall's Spring for Music series to anticipate. Programs have been stimulating and the artists notable. Tickets cost only $25 a seat! But our economy hasn't cooperated: The Oregon Symphony under Carlos Kalmar--whose concert in the initial season was my favorite concert of the year, bar none--couldn't raise the funds to return this year, so the already-scheduled Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony stepped in to play an extra concert. In the opening concert (5/6), Music Director Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony enlivened John Adams's Sibelius-tinged Shaker Loops and did their best to make a case for the 1947 version of Prokofiev's uninspired Fourth Symphony, based on his ballet The Prodigal Son and filled with weak-tea melodic echoes of Romeo and Juliet. In between, they were joined by the inanely dubbed TIME FOR THREE, string trio in the New York premiere of Jennifer Higdon's pleasant Concerto 4-3. Read the full story |
| 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 Bullock, Julia, soprano, added, Young Concert Artists
Dewsnup, Jill, soprano, added, Vocal Artists Management
Forde, Thomas, bass-baritone, removed, Guy Barzilay Artists
Hermès Quartet, added, Young Concert Artists
Ji-Yong, piano, added, Young Concert Artists
Martín, Jaime, conductor, added, IMG Artists
Parnas, Cicely, cello, added, Young Concert Artists
Semenenko, Aleksey, violin, added, Young Concert Artists
Tasin, Mete, tenor, added, Vocal Artists Management |
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