Music News
Orchestra Association Turns 40
The country’s largest organization of state orchestras, the 400-plus member Association of California Symphony Orchestras, is holding its 40th annual conference Aug. 7-9 in Walnut Creek. It is hosted by Barry Jekowsky’s California Symphony, in the first instance of the conference taking place in the Bay Area outside San Francisco. The theme is “Mining California’s Musical Landscape.”
“The California Symphony is proud to host this banner conference honoring four decades of service by ASCO, which has quietly played a critical role in California’s prominence in the classical world. Without this organization and its many resources, there’s no doubt that many regional and community orchestras would be missing from our cultural landscape today,” says CSO Executive Director Stacey Street, who is also chairing this year’s event.
Stacey Street
A guest speaker at the conference will be Marie Damrell Gallo, one of the state’s most generous supporters of the arts, who was already honored as California’s 2008 “Woman of the Year.” An accomplished pianist herself, the former teacher in San Francisco’s Alamo Elementary School relinquished a concert career “in order to raise eight children.” She has spearheaded the movement to develop a performing arts center in downtown Modesto, which culminated in the construction of the Gallo Center for the Arts, now in its inaugural season. She is the president of the Center.
Marie Damrell Gallo
“My speech at the conference,” Gallo told Classical Voice, “is about ‘Turning Gifts Into Treasures,’ meaning that our support for orchestras helps produce the treasures they give us, but the gifts also come from all the musicians and people working behind the scenes at the orchestras.”
Other speakers at the conference include former San Francisco Symphony Executive Director Peter Pastreich, arts management consultant Jan Masaoka, and Nathaniel Stookey, who in 1987, at age 17, was the youngest composer ever commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony.
Conference participants are being offered three live performances by East Bay companies: a Musicale of chamber works written by California Symphony Young American Composers in Residence Mason Bates, Pierre Jalbert, and Chris Theofanidis; opening night of Festival Opera’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and the California Shakespeare Theater production of Uncle Vanya. Bates, Jalbert, and Theofanidis will also be featured on the panel “Conversations With the New Music Makers,” to be moderated by Jekowsky.
Nathaniel Stookey
Young Musicians Keep Up ‘Perfect Record’
As the summer intensive period for the 2008 Young Musicians Program ends, piano and voice coach Jim Meredith reports that for the 19th consecutive year, all of the graduating class will go on to college, mostly prestigious ones, and many with full scholarships — see list below. On the program faculty: famed singers Frederica von Stade and Oliva Stapp.
Graduates and other gifted youngsters, between ages 10 and 18, are giving a series of free performances in Hertz Hall this week:
July 30 (7:30 p.m.) — chorus, symphonic winds, and orchestra; Aug. 1 (7:30 p.m.) and Aug. 3 (3 p.m.) — small ensembles, instrumental and vocal, individual artists, opera and musical theater groups, and a jazz program.
Donna Wing Chung, Ivana He, Kimberly Garrette
Graduating YMP members and their destinations (* denotes full scholarship):
Johnathan Arnett - California Institute for the Arts
Donna Wing Chung* - Brown University
TiaMoya Ford* - Williams College
Kimberly Garrette - San Francisco State University
Kamal Ghammache-Mansour - Berklee College of Music
Ivana He - UC Santa Cruz
Courtney Knott* - Berklee College of Music
Christina Mwaka - California Institute for the Arts
Elliott Nguyen - UC Santa Cruz
Anna Poon - UC Santa Barbara
Zachary Slater - Los Angeles City College
Milton To* - UC Berkeley
Meng Ruo Yang* - Harvard University
From the program:
YMP Chorus
Symphonic Wind Ensemble
String Ensemble
Con Brio Quartet, a wild Piazzolla tango a la Prokofiev
Opera Theater, finale to The Marriage of Figaro
Opera Musical Theater, a grand medley from Les Misérables
Kendra Dodd, mezzo-soprano, “Dido’s Lament”
Nicole Raynor, lyric coloratura, “Caro nome”
Sydney Ragland, tenor, “She Never Told Her Love” and “El Vito”
Additional vocal and instrumental solos, duos, and trios.
YMF Director Daisy Newman
Guitar Summit
Some of the world’s best-known and newly emerging guitarists are converging in San Francisco for the Guitar Foundation of America’s convention and competition (international and youth categories), Aug. 5-10, held at the S.F. Conservatory of Music and Herbst Theatre.
Polish guitarist Marcyn Dylla, winner of last year’s competition
Participating artists in the evening concerts include Zoran Dukic, Hopkinson Smith, Shin-Ichi Fukuda, and Pavel Steidl. In the afternoons: Jose Antonio Escobar, Marcin Dylla, Boris Gaquere, Renato Martins, Thibault Cauvin, Raphaella Smits, Michael Nicolella, Gyan Riley, Pablo Marquez, Aleiksey Vianna and Ensemble São Paulo, Duo Melis, and Xue Fei Yang
Xue Fei Yang, one of China’s best-known classical and pop guitarist
Conservatory Board Appointments
Lisa S. Miller has been appointed chair of the Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has served on the Board for five years, recently took a key role as chair of the Inaugural Gala for the new Conservatory at Civic Center, and served as the founding chair of the Conservatory Society in 2003.
Lisa Miller
Also newly named to the Board’s Executive Committee: Timothy Foo, executive vice-chair; and Carol Pucci Doll, secretary. Other new trustees include Christian P. Erdman, Chair of the Frank H. and Eva B. Buck Foundation; Peter Pastreich, former executive director of the San Francisco Symphony; and longtime civic volunteer and philanthropist Joan Traitel.
‘Unsung Heroes of the Art World’
That’s what Kate Eilertsen, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ acting director of visual arts, called the exhibition team — those responsible for setting up the newly opened Bay Area Now 5.
The Team: Jen Hing, Valerie Imus, Justin Limoges, Justin Wyckoff
This multimedia show of 40 artists, mostly local ones, runs through Nov. 16, and it includes numerous musical performances. It is YBCA’s fifth triennial exhibition of Bay Area art, exploring regional responses to globalization. See the Yerba Buena Web site for events during the show.
At the exhibit: Eco y Narcisco II, by Ana Teresa Fernandez
Photo by John Wilson White
Bayreuth Online
At long last, the Bayreuth Festival’s Web site is redesigned and improved, reports Terri Stuart, whose monitoring of the festival’s Web casts (see calendar here) has resulted in an unqualified endorsement of Radio Bartók over German Web casts, which she has found “frequently buffered, with many dropouts.”
Another avid Internet-listener, Kori Lockhart, agrees with the choice of Radio Bartók (complaining solely about the Hungarian-only commentary), and says the Bayreuth links stopped working on Operacast — “this might be nice to know before we embark on the Ring.” The first cycle started on Monday, Walküre due July 29, Siegfried on July 31, and Götterdämmerung on Aug. 2.
And, on Sunday, Bayreuth had its first live videocast over the Internet, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg “thus made accessible to the first 10,000 people prepared to part with the not inconsiderable sum of 49 euros” ($77).
After reading Rupert Christiansen’s account in Monday’s http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/07/28/btopera128.xml Telegraph, you might reconsider spending the money so early in the days of “live opera on your computer.”
Things began badly — first my log-in failed, then the screen froze, then I pressed the wrong button and had to start over, with the result that it was only about halfway though Act One that I could relax.
The sound was clean, but a little on the tinny side, and I couldn’t manipulate the picture to expand beyond a five-inch by four-inch rectangle. Did I enjoy it? The interval backstage coverage was fun of a rather Teutonic nature (subtitles would be a help), but — quite apart from my dim view of Katharina Wagner’s wilfully perverse staging — I won’t feel impelled to repeat the experiment.
Someone more Windows-competent than I am might succeed in conjuring up a better transmission, but I can’t see any crucial advantage that streaming scores over a top DVD recording, which comes out cheaper, more durable, and more flexible.
From the new Bayreuth Meistersinger
Photo by Jochen Quast
An Adler Wedding
They met, appropriately enough, performing in a production of The Marriage of Figaro. Now, Adler Fellow Andrew Bidlack, 28, and soprano Melissa A. Raz, 30, are married. The event was chronicled in The New York Times.
Bidlack made his debut with the San Francisco company in May as both the Lamplighter and the Drunkard in Rachel Portman’s Little Prince in Berkeley, and he appeared in the War Memorial as Arturo in last month’s productions of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, as well as Odoardo in Handel’s Ariodante.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Bidlack
Preparing for The Bonesetter’s Daughter
Amy Tan’s complex, fascinating novel is about to become an opera, under the original name of The Bonesetter’s Daughter. The San Francisco Opera will present the world premiere on Sept. 13 at the War Memorial Opera House.
Amy Tan
Photo by John Foley
Between now and the premiere, numerous events will be held in preparation, including:
- SFO Guild South Peninsula Guild Chapter, Sunday, Aug. 3, 4 p.m., Green Gables Estate, Woodside. The speaker is SFO Music Administrator Kip Cranna. Ticket prices, cleverly, are pegged to characters in the story: Ruth Young level, $50; LuLing level, $100; and Precious Auntie level, $150. For more information and tickets, call (650) 207-8518, or see the Web site.
- SFO Guild East Bay Chapter, on Sunday, Aug. 24, 12:30 p.m., Sequoyah Country Club, 4550 Heafey Road, Oakland. The discussion will be led by Cranna and Bonesetter composer Stewart Wallace. Adler Fellow Katharine Tier will sing excerpts from the opera; she is the understudy to mezzo Zheng Cao, who sings the dual role of Ruth and LuLing. For information or reservations, contact Silvia Lin at (925) 838-9255 or e-mail to LLLLL@juno.com, tickets can also be ordered on-line.
Zheng Cao
Norman Dello Joio
Composer Norman Dello Joio, 95, died last week in East Hampton, N.Y. He was a prolific composer in many genres, including chorus, orchestra, solo voice, chamber groups, piano, and television scores. He wrote three operas about Joan of Arc: The Triumph of Joan, which he withdrew after a student performance in 1950 at Sarah Lawrence College; and The Trial at Rouen, for television, which was later revised for the New York City Opera, as The Triumph of St. Joan.
His Blood Moon was among Kurt Herbert Adler’s many commissioned world premieres for San Francisco Opera.
Dello Joio won awards throughout his career, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for Meditations on Ecclesiastes for string orchestra, and an Emmy in 1965 for a TV series, The Louvre, on NBC.
Dello Joio’s first marriage was to Grayce Baumgold, who later became director of San Francisco’s Old First Church Concerts. In 1974 he married Barbara Bolton, who survives him, along with his sons, Justin Dello Joio, a composer, and Norman Dello Joio, a champion equestrian jumper; his daughter, Victoria Dello Joio, a martial arts master teacher; two stepchildren, Ned Costello and Kathleen Bar-Tur; and three grandchildren.
Norman Dello Joio
‘Music for Everyone’ at Holy Names
Robert Commanday writes:
A master project in the teaching of music was celebrated in a big way last Thursday. It was at Holy Names University in the Oakland hills, where the Kodály Center for Music Education was been operating for exactly 40 years. Under the title “Music for Everyone,” a three-day symposium gathered current and past faculty from many countries, student teachers, other music professionals, and admirers. Thursday night honored the Holy Names sponsorship of this institution, beginning with Sister Mary Alice Hein, the director who founded the program in 1969 and was inspired by an encounter at Stanford with the great Hungarian composer, Zoltan Kodály. Striving for universal musical literacy was his lifelong mission. This, the principal Kodály Center in America, was its first.
The gala event, chaired by the Kodály Center director, Anne Lasky, was graced by eloquent addresses: by Sister Rosemarie Nassif, president of Holy Names University; Gilbert de Greeve and Jerry Jaccard, president and vice president, respectively, of the International Kodály Society. De Greeve, a distinguished Belgian pianist, spoke of finding your “spiritual center through the language of music,” that “music makes the mind more sensitive to everything else,” and he stressed “the right of every person to be taught the elements of music” — as a subject, “music is not an option but basic.” Jaccard, associate professor of music at Brigham Young University, and a graduate of the Kodály Center at Holy Names, spoke along these lines in a most convincing fashion. Finally, the Hungarian government through a representative of its Consul General in Los Angeles, presented an award to Sister Mary Alice Hein.
A concert by Chanticleer set off the evening perfectly. Singing a full program — from Josquin to Mahler and Samuel Barber, and including folk song arrangements and other secular pieces — the dozen men, sang as one and beautifully, were never better.
The weekend’s activities concluded the Kodály Centers 2008 Summer Institute for teachers. For more information about the Center and short movies about Kodály’s approach and vision, go here.
Flicka to Retire
Frederica von Stade has chosen 2010 to say farewell to her singing career, Classical Voice has learned. The year 2010 also marks the 40th anniversary of her debut at the Metropolitan Opera. The IMG Management Agency is sending invitations to music organizations to notify the agency “of their interest.” San Francisco Opera, Symphony, and S.F. Performances are certain to be bidding for a chance to hear her for the last time.
Frederica von Stade
The mezzo, a longtime resident of San Francisco and Alameda, has starred in the top opera houses and recital halls around the world for the past four decades. She made her San Francisco Spring Opera debut in 1971 as Sextus in La Clemenza di Tito and sang on the main stage in the following year, as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. She has lent her name to and performed without fee for literally hundreds of music-education causes.
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.
I second, third and fourth the enjoyment of Bartok Radio. I am thinking of adding Hungarian to my current portfolio of French, German, Russian, Latin, Italian, Czech and in honor of new housekeepers, Spanish. I do not find that the Hungarian interferes with my apparently subliminal comprehension of the commentary in the original languages. Surgos!
Posted by Ruth C. Jacobs on July 29, 2008 at 9:26 pm