Pittsburgh Opera name change

The Pittsburgh Opera has decided to come clean.

Okay, nothing negative. In fact, it is a good thing a long time coming. The company will change the name of its artist trainging program from the Pittsburgh Opera Center to the Resident Artists of the Pittsburgh Opera.

"It is more representative of what our young artists do, and it clears up some confusion," says its public relations manager Kesha Pate. "Some people think they are students, but they are profession artists-in-training."

 Plus, there is that confusion with the "other' opera company in town, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, with which both the training program and the main company get confused from time to time.

Bottom line, by any name, these are some outstanding voices, whether they are in the main productions in smaller or mid-sized roles, or in their own production (this year, Britten's  "Rape of Lucretia" starting Jan. 30, 2010.) Hear em before they make it big...

Susan Graham sings at the Kennedy funeral

Again, the nation turns a to supposedly dead artform at very serious moments in its history, as mezzo-soprano and Grammy-Award winning opera singer Susan Graham will sing at the funeral mass for Senator Edward Moore Kennedy tomorrow (Aug. 29)in Boston, Massachusetts. Not to make a use a time of sorrow to make an argument, but I again must point out that classical music and opera holds so much more relevance than CD sales or even attendance sometimes show.

Of course, I don't know what she is singing, but I assume it will be classical or operatic. Also, maybe Kennedy liked certain operas. I know there is a video of him conducting the Boston Pops out there...but still, art music tends to be considered the most appropriate for big occasions, along with folk music and gospel, rather than rock and pop, the forms that supposedly replaced classical. I am a fan of all, but sick of hearing how dead classical is when it isn't.

Minnesota Orchestra cuts soloists

From the upper-midwest comes this intriguing news:

Minnesota Orchestra trims guests to save cash

By Claude Peck, Star Tribune

August 24, 2009

Here's some of the changes: James Conlon conducting Prokofiev and Dvorak replaced by an audience development series called "Inside the Classics" led by Orchestra's assistant conductor, and highlighted by Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, "the Pastoral." Violinist Salerno-Sonnenberg, replaced by an orchestral concert led by a former student of music director Osmo Vanska.

I think that more orchestras should be dropping expensive soloists and conductors or at least driving the fees down. Right now some are vastly overpayed. I mean, they aren't overpaid when you compare them to CEOs or motivational speakers or pro athletes, and I wish the arts and education were more highly paid. But considering how cash-strapped orchestras are, these fees are often exorbitant.

But I am not sure that dropping them now and so publicly is such a good idea, especially when the MO is replacing them with clearly lesser fare. I think it'd be better to plan on making next season less star heavy before it is announced. If to make it through the season you had to cut a concert already announced, a concert that was part of the reason some people bought season tix, you'd be better off at least performing the same rep and even spinning the situation differently...

Drinking Alone by Moonlight...with cello

Adam Liu, assistant principal cello of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and a member of the music faculty at Duquesne University, was born in Tianjian, China, and attended the Central Conservatory in Beijing before coming to the United States. His brother, ChangYuan Liu, stayed behind and is now on the composition faculty of the Central Conservatory. The two see each other a lot when Adam visits China, but Wednesday, Sept. 2, at 8 p.m. at PNC Hall on the Duquesne campus, they will united in song as Adam plays ChangYuan's "Drinking Alone by Moonlight." It uses the famous Tang Dynasty poem,

Liu (left, warming up with the PSO in the Egg in Beijing last May, also will play the Kodaly Sonata for Solo Cello, op. 8, and with With pianist Becky Billock, Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A major.

New Manfred Honeck and PSO discs

UPDATE 8/25/09 -- Last one, I promise. I forgot to put my review of the new PSO disc here. It ran in the Post-Gazette and on www.post-gazette.com last week. I will put it below the update below. Actually, I meant for my review to run with 3 stars, but it accidently went with 4. I am not going to be a jerk and run a correction on that, but I will change the online story ...

UPDATE 8/18/09: I added yet another review below, this time a review of the new Pittsburgh Symphony disc on Pentatone with Janowski. I don't have the disc yet (it was released in Europe first), but when I do I will review it, too.

The Sunday Times (London)
 Stephen Pettitt

RICHARD STRAUSS *** (out of 5)

Eine Alpensinfonie; Macbeth Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, cond Marek Janowski Pentatone Classics PTC 5186339

It's my view that Eine Alpensinfonie, Richard Strauss's famous charting of the ascent and descent of a mountain, and his last symphonic poem (it was composed in 1915), contains some of his best writing post-Salome and Elektra.
This live recording is not the most immediately exciting. The opening apart, there's an inadequate sense of wonder. Although the storm scene excites just as it should, Janowski prefers to savour the experience thoughtfully, rather than thrill at it. In an account of real warmth, he makes the most of Strauss's tenderest, sweetest writing. The Macbeth here generates raw feeling.

Original post:

Typically, we critics (those who are left) are territorial about our maestros. We like to be the ones who give you all the news on them and be the ones who review everything for you. I suppose I used to be that way more, but in the new world of journalism, it is a silly stand to take. You are going to get information elsewhere at time. I just want to provide consistently excellent coverage when I do. At least I try.

So, while I will eventually will say something about this new album (esp. since the following review really doesn't say much about Manfred Honeck, PSO music director), it makes little sense for us not to mention a new Honeck album just because it isn't available in the U.S. and I can't review it. His new disc with violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann is a European-only release for now, so we go to the astute comments of critic Nicholas Kenyon in the Observer of London:

Britten, Szymanowski Violin Concertos. Zimmermann, Honeck, Swedish Radio SO and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra/Wit (Sony Classical 88697439992

July 26, 2009

Benjamin Britten's violin concerto has never been among his most approachable works, but Zimmermann's cool, lyrical, crystal-clear style suits it perfectly, especially in the final Passacaglia, which gradually acquires a huge, desolate power. Manfred Honeck's Swedish Radio accompanies here, and the two Szymanowski concertos are played by Antoni Wit's fine Warsaw Philharmonic. In these, Zimmermann perhaps lacks some rhapsodic warmth, but the gloriously exotic sounds of the First Concerto are magnificently realised, and the more folk-inspired Second blossoms idiomatically.

NICHOLAS KENYON

Added:

The Guardian (London), by Tim Ashley

   This is a great album, though its contents may make it problematic for some.
Britten's Violin Concerto, modelled in part on Berg's and triggered by the outbreak of the Spanish civil war, was completed during the composer's controversial US exile and ranks among his most forceful pacifist statements.
Szymanowski's two Concertos, however, are so disparate in tone that the chances are you'll like one but not the other. Each plays without a break: otherwise, the First (1916) is very much a product of Szymanowski's exotic-erotic-ecstatic middle period, while the Second (1933) is darker, folk-based and altogether more disturbing. The performances are close on definitive. Soloist Frank Peter Zimmermann has the remarkable ability to adapt his tone to each work: he attains a unique level of tragic anguish in the Britten, but the craggy sound he deploys there contrasts sharply with the syrupy decadence he brings to Szymanowski's First and the heavyweight lyricism with which he plays the Second. The orchestral contributions are outstanding, too: the Warsaw Philharmonic under Antoni Wit are match-less in Szymanowski; for the Britten, Manfred Honeck conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony with a searching intensity that matches Zimmermann's own.

Me again: I finally got this Honeck disc (Aug. 23 -- okay, I realize this is a convoluted post and I won't do one like this again) and I have to say that I am yet again impressed by Honeck's abilities outside of his core repertoire (Austro-German). He has the Swedish RSO playing with precision and lustrous tone in the Britten concerto. There is some nice give and take with Zimmermann, too. A lively recording I would recommend of a worth work that is not so well-known.

Also, Honeck's new disc with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, of Mahler's Symphony No. 1, is out in Japan (available as an import at cdjapan.co, but no reviews yet. It will be released in the U.S. in a few months and should be a good one based on how tremendous the concerts were last Sept.

Leonard Slatkin at 65

UPDATE 8/26/09: Apparently, I didn't miss Slatkin's birthday! It is on Sept. 1, after all. I think the AP report I get is supposed to be a week early. So you still have time to get those well wishing e-mails and letters in ;-)

A belated Happy Birthday to conductor Leonard Slatkin, who turned 65 yesterday (Aug. 24). Principal guest conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, he also is now the music director of the Detroit Symphony. His concerts this fall with the PSO are (sorry for the ugly formatting). Sibelius 2 is one of my favorites, but the second program is more intriguing overall to me. Looking forward to hearing Leonard talk about the programs with us:

Made in America

Location: Heinz Hall Friday, October 23, 2009 at 8:00 PM Sunday, October 25, 2009 at 2:30 PM

Leonard Slatkin, conductor William Caballero, horn Aaron Copland:    El Salon Mexico Samuel Barber:    Overture to The School for Scandal Samuel Barber:    Adagio for Strings    Samuel Barber:    Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance John Williams:    Concerto for Horn and Orchestra Aaron Copland:    Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo

Music Critics in New York

Robert Croan filed the following report from New York from the 2009 Music Critics Association of North America convention, which I unfortunately couldn't make at the last minute:

John Adams’ “The Flowering Tree” was jointly commissioned by five organizations for Mozart’s 250th birthday in 2006. Premiered in Vienna, it has been making the rounds with several productions since then. It reached Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Aug. 13, with a physically beautiful production directed by Peter Sellars in the lovely Rose Hall, usually a jazz venue in the spectacular Time Warner Center.
More oratorio than opera, the 2-hour work pays homage to “The Magic Flute” with a pretentious libretto about transformation, trial by fire and redemption. Held together by a narrator (baritone Sanford Sylvan) and enacted by two more singers and three dancers, the slim plot centers on a young woman who turns herself into a tree and sells its produce to ease the lives of her impoverished mother and sister. (In the process she manages to make a prince fall in love with her.) The score – well-realized by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under the composer’s baton – is freely minimalist, with a bit of almost every other style thrown in. It’s often lovely, but insufficiently varied to delineate the range of emotions portrayed, while the use of body mikes made it impossible to determine the singers’ real sounds.

Members of the Music Critics Association of North America, in New York for their annual meeting, also took in a workaday Beethoven concert by Mostly Mozart’s Festival Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall. It was pleasant enough, though neither Osmo Vanska (Minnesota Orchestra’s music director) nor pianist Yevgeny Sudbin (in Concerto No. 4) brought outstanding insights to the familiar masterpieces. Far more interesting, if unrelated to Mostly Mozart, was Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5: the Musical”: a thoroughly delightful romp on Broadway, which deserves a run in Pittsburgh at the earliest possible timeslot.

Mozart likely killed by strep (not Salieri)

Open up and say aaagghh, Herr Mozart...

A new report speculates that a particularly virulent strain of strep throat may have done in Wolfie. It kills me to think of all the music we lost because of something that was to be treatable relatively soon. Here is the AP report:

By JOANN LOVIGLIO

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — For more than two centuries, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has endured — as has the speculation about what led to his sudden death at age 35 on Dec. 5, 1791.

Was the wunderkind composer poisoned by a jealous rival? Did he have an intestinal parasite from an undercooked pork chop? Could he have accidentally poisoned himself with mercury used to treat an alleged bout of syphilis?

A report in Tuesday’s Annals of Internal Medicine suggests the exalted Austrian composer might have succumbed to something far more commonplace: a streptococcal infection — possibly strep throat — that led to kidney failure.

The researchers looked at death records in Vienna during the months surrounding Mozart’s death — November and December 1791 and January 1792, and compared causes of death with the previous and following years.

“We saw that at the time of Mozart’s death there was a minor epidemic in deaths involving edema (swelling), which also happened to be the hallmark of Mozart’s final disease,” said Dr. Richard Zegers of the University of Amsterdam, one of the study’s authors.

There was a spike in swelling-related deaths among younger men in Vienna at the time of Mozart’s death compared to the other years studied, suggesting a minor epidemic of streptococcal disease, Zegers said.

The cause of death recorded in Vienna’s official death register was “fever and rash,” though even in Mozart’s time those were recognized to be merely symptoms and not an actual disease.

His surviving letters and creative output suggest that he was feeling well in the months before his death and was not suffering from any chronic ailment. Many accounts note that he fell ill not long before he died — suffering from swelling so severe, his sister-in-law recalled three decades later, that the composer was unable to turn in bed.

Others who reported to have been witnesses to Mozart’s final days also described swelling, as well as back pain, malaise and rash — all symptoms that indicate Mozart may have died of kidney disease brought on by a strep infection.

“It’s not definitive, but it’s certainly food for thought,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who was not involved in the study.

He said it was not unreasonable to presume that Mozart died from strep complications, based on the information presented, but he pointed out that the authors had scant data to go on.

“Serious streptococcal infections were much more common than they are now and, indeed, they had very serious complications,” he said. “This is sure to set off many discussions going forward."

New York City calling to Pittsburgh pied pipers

UPDATE: they did set the world record: 1,989 flutists making up the largest flute ensemble ever on Aug. 14.

The National Flute Association is holding its national convention in New York City this week and the Pittsburgh Flute Club and the Flute Academy will be there en mass. The students and teachers will perform in a showcase concert at 1 p.m. Thursday (August 13) in the midtown Marriott Marquis. 40 members of the two local organizations -- ranging in age from the teens to the seventies! -- will play among other works a new piece by former Pittsburgher David Keberle. His "Soundings II," commissioned by the Pittsburgh Flute Club and the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society in 2003, will be conducted by Wendy Webb Kumer with Carnegie Mellon flute professor, Alberto Almarza as the featured soloist.

By the way, the Pittsburgh Flute Club is one of the oldest in the nation, and is approaching its 80th anniversary! But the best part is that it is still going strong, perhaps better than ever.

Oh, forgot to mention. The convention is honoring James Galway, who will lead the members of the Pittsburgh groups and a bunch of other flutists in what they hope will be a Guiness Book of World Records record for "largest flute ensemble." They have to beat 1975 players set in China in July. Good luck, but I am not sure I would want to be in the building for that! Not without earplugs.

Savvy Students Savor Success

How's that for a header? It's too bad over-the-top alliteration is frowned upon these days in journalism.

I hope you had a chance to read my article today on music entrepreneurship and the new book by David Cutler of Duquesne University: "The Savvy Musician." It is available at his Web site, but will be fully published in November

Actually, you should check out that Web site if you have an interest in this subject, it is a robust collection of resources on the subject.

I am particularly excited about this development because I think that the way we teach music students in this country is often not connected enough to the real world. Music entrepreneurship teaches students to think creatively about their own careers instead of just standing in line waiting to get hired for traditional jobs such as orchestras. We owe it to students to give them a fighting chance to get a job.

Further, I think that entrepreneurship already exists within music now, it's just that we don't talk about it or look for it. Cutler's book has many examples, but many others are out there.

I was at the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble concert the other day and ran into someone who curtained his performing career to teach and got a job as a paralegal to pay the bills. A few years later, his firm helped him open his a new studio! You can find funding and support for your career that is outside the regular paths if you open your mind to it, and more of this will help make the music scene in this country more healthy.