Beth Anderson is hosting Women’s Work 2007, a series of three Wednesday concerts in March at Greenwich House Arts. The dates are March 14, 21 and 28 and the venue is the Renee Weiler Concert Hall at Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow Street, New York City (between Seventh Avenue South and Bedford St.). Beth has pulled together a terrific package of recent chamber instrumental and vocal music by prominent contemporary women composers from Asia, the U.S. and Europe, and how their work has been influenced by folk music, poetry and even new technology. To do our part, the crack Sequenza21 team has put together an event blog with programs, notes and pictures. The gals have also built themselves a multimedia site at MySpace with some lovely musical samples. Hie thee thither.
Out my (Seattle) way, local composer and Seattle Weekly columnist Gavin Borchert this week offered up something titled “Small Apologies“. A few excerpts:
Not that I have anything against Tony Bennett or Norah Jones or any of the other recording artists whose work is propped up next to the biscotti, but I was wondering when Starbucks would get around to classical music. At last they have, a CD starring the home team: The Seattle Symphony and Starbucks Entertainment have announced their co-release of Echoes, containing newly commissioned works (!) from six composers [Bright Sheng, John Harbison, David Schiff, David Stock, Samuel Jones, Gerard Schwarz, with an older piece by Aaron Kernis], each one asked to somehow rework an older piece he (and they’re all “he”s) loved. As an opportunity for time-travel collaboration, a meeting of musical minds from different cultures and eras, it’s a great idea; as a concession to conservative classical fans who can’t take their new music straight, it’s dismaying. [….]
The fact that Starbucks and the SSO are giving seven living composers exposure is exemplary. What bothers me is the philosophy that seems to underlie the project, one endemic to the classical music business as a whole these days. Composers and performers alike so often present new work, whether strong or weak, innovative or comfy, timid or bold, with a tentative sort of hat-in-hand stance—emphasizing, above any other virtue the music might have, that it won’t be scary. Constant reassurance, even apology, is the tone, in media coverage, program notes, PR material, casting musicians as supplicants and listeners as 3-year-olds who have to be coaxed to finish their beets. [….]
There is an untapped audience for new classical music, but reaching them, I believe, will require a new approach. They’re the people who aren’t averse to classical music, who are interested in the arts in general, but who need a reason to give their time and money to us rather than everything else competing for their attention in our hypersaturated culture. Suppose the wheedling and cajoling with which we serve up music is turning them off. These people aren’t going to attend classical concerts or buy CDs unless they think they’re going to hear something they can get excited about. I don’t mean merely not offended, I mean actively thrilled. Which means, for heaven’s sake, we ought to start talking about something other than nonscariness, ought to start pushing aesthetic virtues other than accessibility.
The floor’s open…
Gérard Mortier, who is famous for painting lipstick on corpses and taking them to the ball, will become general manager and artistic director of the New York City Opera after he retires from the Paris Opera at the end of the 2008-2009 season. Mortier ran the Salzburg Festival in the 1990s where he mounted such customer-unfriendly provocations as Hans Neuenfels staging of Die Fledermaus, in which Orlofsky was a drug dealer who sold cocaine, Nazi thugs appeared on stage and Eisenstein had incestuous children who commit suicide. Can’t wait to see what he does with Lulu.
Reminds of one of my favorite lines, from Charles T. Downey in ionarts, a couple of years ago: “I suppose that opera all comes down to that eternal question that must be answered: anal rape or elaborate wigs?” Indeed.
The Metropolitan Opera announced that its co-production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha with the English National Opera will debut next season on April 11, 2008. The ENO is doing nine performances of Satyagraha this April. Written in 1980, Satyagraha is based on Gandhi’s formative years in South Africa, as he developed his philosophy of nonviolent protest as a powerful force for change. It is the second work in the ”portrait” trilogy by Glass, which also includes Einstein on the Beach (1975) and Akhnaten (1983-84). Satyagraha involves the director Phelim McDermott and the designer Julian Crouch, two of the three artistic directors of the visionary British theater company Improbable.
On the bad news front, the Met has dumped a scheduled revival of Tobias Picker’s honorable An American Tragedy in favor of Tan Dun’s terminally lame The First Emperor, apparently because it has a chance to take the production on the road to China.
It’s great to see that Peter Gelb is going with artistic merit and not being tempted by the possibility of big crowds and big bucks.
Here’s a programming note to remember. Performance Today will broadcast Tom Myron’s Violin Concerto #2 on Tuesday’s program.
The performance–by the Eclipse Chamber Orchestra–was recorded on 5/14/06 in Alexandria Virginia; Elisabeth Adkins, soloist.
Performance Today is carried on 250 member stations around the
country. For info on where and when you can hear the show in your area, visit www.performancetoday.org. The show will also be available for on-demand listening through the website for seven days.
Since it’s opera week here at Sequenza 21 and there’s a lot of chatter in the comments about transplanting operas between cultures and Galen has raised the topic of fugues in the invisible YouTube video below, it seems somehow fitting to mention that Miller Theater and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music are presenting tonight and tomorrow night the U.S. premiere of Lost Highway by Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth, a multimedia opera based on the weird and wacky David Lynch film of the same name. Film buffs will recall that Lynch’s film involves sex, murder and a character named Fred Madison who mysteriously becomes Pete Dayton through a mental disturbance known as “psychogenic fugue.” Can you dig it?
Timothy Weiss conducts the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and an all-student cast. Anybody going? Write us a review.
Speaking of great American operas, Tobias Picker has written two of them; Emmeline, which is an unqualified masterpiece, and An American Tragedy, which I think history will regard more dearly than its contemporary reviews might suggest. Between those two landmarks, Picker wrote a kind of “forgotten” opera called Thérèse Raquin, an epic based on the Zola novel which, like Tragedy, involves an unwanted lover being chucked overboard in favor of a more attractive alternative. Picker’s psychiatrist, if he has one, could probably make something of that.
Thérèse Raquin premiered at The Dallas Opera in 2001 and is now having its New York premiere run, in a revised chamber version prepared by Picker, from Dicapo Opera Theatre.
The opera has three more performances this coming weekend: Friday and Saturday, February 23 and 24, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, February 25, at 4 p.m. Dicapo Opera Theatre is located at 184 East 76th Street in Manhattan, just off Lexington Avenue and directly underneath St. Jean-Baptiste Church.
I haven’t seen Thérèse Raquin yet and don’t have any critical guidance to offer but Picker is one of the very best American opera composers and his music is never less than compelling. Get on down to Dicapo this weekend.
Here’s a message from Rama Gottfried:
//
at last! here it is. tomorrow night::
::envelopes for orchestra::
5 minutes of mercury wobbling in space for a 57 piece orchestra
+ and a stacked concert of works by my extremely talented friends at
the manhattan school of music
friday, 2.23.07 – 7:30p
borden auditorium, manhattan school of music
122nd/Broadway (take 1 train to 116(downhill walk) or 125(uphill))
it will be good, you should come.
*** don’t forget to sit in the balcony, it sounds best from there.
the stairs are just as you enter the hall on both sides.
\\
high 5s to all,
rama
I don’t know Ricky Ian Gordon personally but he e-mails me frequently with updates on his projects, never neglecting to sign off with “xxxooo” which I find endearing although I’m sure he does the same for all the guys. I know and like his music mainly from Audra McDonald and a wonderful recording of his songs called Bright-Eyed Joy but nothing I’ve heard or read prepared me for the universal praise for the Minnesota Opera’s production of Gordon’s (with libretto by Michael Korie) The Grapes of Wrath. What we have here, apparently, is a real contender for the title of the Great American Opera.
Listen to the often cranky Mark Swed: “As far as I was concerned — and this is a minority opinion — the nearly four-hour opera was too short. Had Gordon and Korie been allowed to follow their original bliss and create a two-night or more American “Ring” cycle, I would have gladly returned for more.”
Or Variety: “Gordon and Korie have produced a bit of a conundrum: a very long show about suffering and endurance that leaves the viewer enlivened. The intelligence and compassion of their work, combined with the evident vitality and belief of the cast in this opera’s merit, supply high emotion with depth and compassion. This is not a happy story, but its telling is nothing short of incandescent.”
St. Paul Pioneer Press: “Ten years and $2 million in the making, the Minnesota Opera’s world premiere of “The Grapes of Wrath” turns out to be well worth the time and expense: It’s a grand, sprawling, politically astute and musically compelling affair that amply and accessibly answers the rhetorical question: ‘An opera about Okies?'”
Bernard Holland? Well, Bernie’s been sour grapes (not to mention irrelevant) for some time now.
It’s a monster week for our gaucho amigo Lawrence Dillon whose music will be showcased at the Music Now Fest 2007, February 21, 22 and 23 at Eastern Michigan University. This is EMU’s 15th biennial new music festival and it gets underway on Wednesday at 8 pm with a concert of pieces by EMU composers Whitney Prince and Anthony Iannaccone as well as works by Steve Reich, Alberto Ginastera and others. Faculty artists include David Pierce, Willard Zirk, Garik Pedersen, John Dorsey, Kimberly Cole-Luevano, Kristy Meretta, Julie Stone, Kathryn Goodson and guest Cary Kocher.
On Thursday, there will a composer convocation and welcome at 11 AM at Pease Auditorium where Mister Dillon will speak about “Furies and Muses: Composing in the 21st Century.” (My money’s on the Furies.) The lecture will be followed by open student ensemble rehearsals with Dillon and the EMU Symphony Orchestra and University Choir. Open rehearsals with the Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band are scheduled for Friday.
On Thursday night at 8 pm, there will be a faculty recital of the chamber music of Lawrence Dillon, including the aforementioned Furies and Muses, Dunigan Variations, Big Brothers and Facade. Winning composition(s) in the New Chamber Works for Horn competition will be premiered by sponsor Willard Zirk.
On Friday, there is a Meet the composer gig in the afternoon followed by the Festival finale a 8 pm–a concert by EMU’s major performing ensembles who will play Dillon’s Blown Away and Amadeus ex machina. Other works include Ogoun Badagris by Christopher Rouse; Spiel by Ernst Toch, Symphonic Band; and a piece by Anthony Iannaccone.
Presumably, on Saturday, Lawrence will go home and take a nap.
- Classical Vocal Performance: “Rilke Songs,” Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Peter Serkin), track from Lieberson: Rilke Songs, The Six Realms, Horn Concerto.
- Classical Contemporary Composition: “Golijov: Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears,” Osvaldo Golijov (Robert Spano).
- Opera Recording: “Golijov: Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears,” Robert Spano, conductor, Kelley O’Connor and Dawn Upshaw; Valerie Gross and Sid McLauchlan, producers (Women of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra).
- Producer of the Year, Classical: Elaine Martone.
- Classical Album: “Mahler: Symphony No. 7,” Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, Andreas Neubronner, producer (San Francisco Symphony).
Classical Crossover Album: “Simple Gifts,” Bryn Terfel (London Voices; London Symphony Orchestra). - Engineered Album, Classical: “Elgar: Enigma Variations; Britten: the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Four Sea Interludes,” Michael Bishop, engineer (Paavo Jarvi and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra).
Orchestral Performance: “Mahler: Symphony No. 7,” Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (San Francisco Symphony). - Choral Performance: “Part: Da Pacem,” Paul Hillier, conductor (Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir).
- Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance(with Orchestra): “Messiaen: Oiseaux Exotiques (Exotic Birds),” John McLaughlin Williams, conductor; Angelin Chang (Cleveland Chamber Symphony).
- Instrumental Soloist Performance(without Orchestra): “Chopin: Nocturnes,” Maurizio Pollini.
- Chamber Music Performance: “Intimate Voices,” Emerson String Quartet
- Small Ensemble Performance: “Padilla: Sun of Justice,” Peter Rutenberg, conductor (Los Angeles Chamber Singers’ Cappella).