San Francisco Classical Voice

Music and Faulty US Intelligence

The US government has denied visas to a group of Cuban musicians nominated for awards, preventing them from attending the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday. The nominees in the Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album category included 77-year-old Ibrahim Ferrer of the Buena Vista Social Club.

"Something as noble as music is being converted into a policy against Cuba," a government official told a press conference in Havana, showing letters from the US Interests Section, denying the visa requests. The letters cited a section of US Immigration and Naturalization Law that says the President can deny entry to foreigners when their visit is deemed "detrimental to the interests of the United States."

The "magnificent young violinist Baiba Skride," says Santa Rosa Symphony music director Jeffrey Kahane, has nothing to do with those dangerous Cuban musicians, unless State Department intelligence misidentified the location of her native Latvia. Although visa applications were made for Skride in October, so that she may make her West Coast orchestral debut in Santa Rosa, in the Sibelius Violin Concerto, the government failed to act by February, so she had to be replaced the last minute for the February 14-16 concerts. Kahane says "the equally magnificent Chee-Yun" will be the soloist, but meanwhile Santa Rosa and hundreds of music organizations across the country are hurting from the (mis-)handling of visa applications from artists abroad.

Meanwhile, Kahane's Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is still hoping the Latvian violinist will receive the visa in time to perform in the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 and the Schubert Rondo the following week in Los Angeles.

Javier Gonzalez: Embracing a Potential 'Terrorist Musician'

Keeping 'em out of the country or help musicans from other countries? Upholding traditional American values of trust and friendship, Atherton's Mary Morgan is busy arranging a series of recitals for her protege, the young Cuban pianist Javier Gonzalez Quintana. The next concert will be held in Menlo Park on February 13. (For information, call 650-493-2775.)

Morgan and her husband, Dr. Benjamin Spock, traveled to Cuba often, and after his death in 1998, she continued to visit. A couple of years ago, she attended a recital in Havana "by chance" and "saw and heard Javi, immediately recognizing a great talent," and she decided to help Gonzalez study in the US. "I had some connections with Fidel, and cashed in my cards on this one. Still, on the very last day, the US Interest Section told me that he would not be admitted because the State Department, which has Cuba listed as a terrorist country, had just made a new rule.

"In order to "house" an academician or artist from Cuba, you had to obtain a license from the US government. I got the State Department, the INS, my immigration attorney and the US Interest Section on the same line. He is only a student, not a terrorist. They relented and gave him his visa, just 30 minutes before closing. Javi graduated that morning, got his visa that afternoon, purchased his ticket, and was on the plane the next day."

Assisted by Morgan and fellow musicians recognizing his talent, Gonzalez entered the San Francisco Conservatory's master program in music in the summer of 2002, at age 24, and won first place in the piano concerto competition. A year later, he auditioned with Jerome Lowenthal, who accepted him as a student. Pending a successful audition on in a couple of weeks, Gonzalez will study with Lowenthal at the Juilliard School, but continue to maintain residence in California.

He will have another friend in New York. When Alicia de Larrocha came to San Francisco a little over a year ago, on her tour of farewell concerts, Morgan and San Francisco Symphony pianist Robin Sutherland introduced Gonzalez to her. Last summer, she asked to hear him live, not just on the home-made CDs sent to her. "She said she couldn't have us at her place, in New York, because her piano was mute," Morgan says. "I got Steinway across the street from her Carnegie apartment on 57th Street to give us the Rachmaninov Hall. She and Javi had a wonderful lesson in Spanish. She took us home with her, and sure enough, the piano was mute. She explained that she doesn't want the neighbors to complain. For 23 years she has had the apartment, and had the mute piano."

Morgan, meanwhile, is resuming her work as founder-director of the Dr. Spock Company. She is revising "that book" (Baby and Child Care) and will have the 8th edition published in June, in time with the good doctor's 101st birthday celebration.

SF Conservatory Students to Kennedy Center

San Francisco Conservatory of Music students have been invited to perform in the Kennedy Center's Conservatory Project, May 24-31, as part of the Kennedy Center's "Performing Arts for Everyone." SFCM is one of eight conservatories in the country to participate in the invitational event.

Going to Washington are clarinetist Edward Abrams and mezzo Elza van den Heever. Abrams studies clarinet with David Breeden, piano with Paul Hersh, and conducting with Michael Tilson Thomas. He will conduct the New World Symphony in Carnegie Hall in April with MTT's conducting workshop.

The Conservatory Project was created to develop and showcase young talent from the nation's leading conservatories. The inaugural week of performances includes programs in classical music, jazz and opera. Participants will also be critiqued by famed musicians, including Leonard Slatkin and Plácido Domingo.

Ling Wins Young Artist Competition

Jessica Ling, a junior at Saratoga High School, is the winner of the California Youth Symphony Young Artist Competition. Part of the prize is being featured with the orchestra as a soloist. She will perform Barber's Violin Concerto on March 14 at Flint Center in Cupertino, and on March 21 at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center. Ling's teacher is veteran violin instructor Pat Burnham, who is on the SF Conservatory faculty and active in the Palo Alto area.

SFS on Tour

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony are leaving on a 10-concert, seven-city tour of the US next month, with stops in Kansas City, Champaign-Urbana, Cleveland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Newark. Their programs will feature the music of Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mahler, Berg and John Adams — a much more varied and interesting repertory than the steady diet of 19th century classics visiting orchestras are lavishing excessively on San Francisco.

'Primary Results' at the War Memorial

San Francisco Opera general director Pamela Rosenberg has a contract running through 2006, but word from the Opera's board of directors is that they are ready to extend the contract (along with that of music director Donald Runnicles), if she wants to continue. That part of the story is less certain: she is believed to have mixed feelings, pulled in different directions by family considerations (children and grandchildren in Europe) and determination to make her mark on the company's history.

Music on the 'net, Free and Easy

Check www.kennedy-center.org for free live and archived performances at Kennedy Center. Another source of freebies is Opera Ireland, at www.geocities.com/Vienna/1340/oi.html. And then, there is www.ring.mithec.com for a whole bevy of stuff, featuring right now Everything 'Ring'.