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IN Music News THIS WEEK:
Midsummer Night's Dream Mozart
A New Day in Santa Rosa
S.F. Performances: Novelist Departs, Journalist Arrives
The (Kirkegaard) Sound of Music
FM Ostinato
Music at Menlo ... Atherton and
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Gaffigan Cometh
By Janos Gereben
James Gaffigan, incoming associate conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, is one of the country's "hot" musicians, especially in the under-30 crowd. At 26, he has already had numerous 42nd Street moments, rising from the chorus line, à la Ruby Keeler, to top billing. In Cleveland, he took over to rave reviews from the orchestra's indisposed music director, Franz Welser-Möst, then conducted a Zürich Bohème after a double substitution, as Welser-Möst couldn't fill in when the originally scheduled conductor, Marcello Viotti, suddenly died.
Writing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, music critic Donald Rosenberg asked Gaffigan about such career-making events, and the young conductor gave an unpretentious, no-nonsense answer: "It's a weird job in that respect. We [assistant conductors] are waiting for people to go down. You don't wish any harm on people, but some good things come out of bad things."
Gaffigan, Rosenberg says, "has led several performances of extraordinary power and passion. His account of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 last summer at Blossom Music Center was one of the season's galvanic events. ... He is a maestro on a quick rise: Philadelphia Orchestra in July, Tonhalle Orchestra of Zürich in September, German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin in October, spring tour with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra, performances with the Rochester Philharmonic and Columbus Symphony, a Young People's Concert next spring with the New York Philharmonic."
A major stop in the lineup is the San Francisco Symphony, where music director Michael Tilson Thomas appointed Gaffigan to the newly created associate post, which includes artistic planning, subscription concerts, all classical "Summer in the City" series concerts, and a June Festival concert. His conducting appearances with the Symphony during the coming year will include
Dec. 29-31 (Vienna Woods, New York Nights), March 14-17 (with piano soloist Yundi Li and music by Brahms, Liszt, and Ravel), March 16 (with Yundi Li and music of Liszt and Ravel), and March 17 (a "Music for Families" concert with Yundi Li, the program yet to be announced).
A graduate of the New England Conservatory and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Gaffigan trained at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen and the Tanglewood Music Center. He shared first prize at the Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition in Frankfurt in September 2004.
James Gaffigan
Midsummer Night's Dream Mozart George Cleve and his Midsummer Mozart Festival have been celebrating the composer for 32 years, no matter what round-number anniversaries might have come up. This season is dedicated to the memory of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who was a founding member of Midsummer Mozart when still a violist back in 1974, before she embarked on the singing career that brought her greater fame. Friday's season-opening concert in Herbst Theatre showed conductor and orchestra — which includes some of the area's best — at their usual high-grade worship of the great Amadé (never Amadeus, Hollywood nothwithstanding). The lengthy, exhilarating bliss of the Posthorn Serenade was imaginatively bracketed by two brief marches from K. 335, a program selection — and, more, execution — of unexpected depth and impact. Under Cleve's (nonexistent) baton, March No. 1 came through as a miniature gem, endlessly inventive, spirited, and buoyant. March No. 2 closed the first half in similar fashion, in Cleve's hands with their almost imperceptible motions. There may be a more "minimalist" conductor than Cleve, but I haven't seen anything like it. The Posthorn, a Cleve favorite, was superb. Unfortunately interrupted by both audience applause after a couple of movements, and then — incongruously — by Cleve, who called on soloists to take a bow between other movements, the whole of the work came through brilliantly nevertheless. First among equals: the graciously dancing Concertante-Andante and the perfection of the wind instruments in the Rondeau-Allegro. Individually and in ensemble, flutists Maria Tamburrino and Stacey Pelinka, oboists Laura Griffiths and Ruth Stuart, clarinetists Mark Brandenburg and Janet Averett, and bassoonists Carla Wilson and Alica Benjamin helped to make this small (37-piece) orchestra an instrument of great talent. Concertmaster Robin Hansen, principal violist Janet Sims, cellists Terry Adams and Wanda Warkentin, and — of course — posthornist Laurie McGaw each had their moment of glory. Principal horn and trumpet, David Sprung and Kale Cummings, respectively, turned in major-league performances. André Watts, in his fifth decade on the concert circuit, was the big-name attraction, his performance of the Piano Concerto No. 9 alternating between brilliance and heavy-handed overplaying. The pianist who had gone through "phases" of Liszt and Schubert now seems to mix the two by way of playing Mozart.
George Cleve
A New Day in Santa Rosa The Santa Rosa Symphony not only has a change in the top artistic position, Bruno Ferrandis succeeding Jeffrey Kahane as music director, it also has new directors and a new president of the board. Sam Brown has been named to head the board. The Exchange Bank executive brings long experience with orchestra to the job. In the 1980s, Brown was chair of the capital campaign for the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, the Symphony's current home. In the years ahead, he will have an important role in the development of the Green Music Center, the next (and significantly improved) venue for orchestra performances. New board members are Stacey Pelinka, flutist, representing the musicians; Santa Rosa Symphony League President Wendy Lalanne; Sara Kozel of Healdsburg; and Dr. Barry Silberg, a Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital surgeon.
S.F. Performances: Novelist Departs, Journalist Arrives At San Francisco Performances, busy publications director Anita Amirrezvani has somehow found enough time on the side to complete a novel, The Blood of Flowers — a fine accomplishment. But on top of getting the book finished, Amirrezvani also achieved something far more rare than "just" writing a novel: Little, Brown and publishers in 16 other countries bought it. The author is leaving S.F. Performances "to pursue matters related to my book," and Ruth Felt, the organization's founder/director, had to find a new publicist in a hurry. In comes Karen Hershenson, leaving her Contra Costa Times job as journalist, film critic, columnist ("about life and issues in the East Bay"), and editor.
The (Kirkegaard) Sound of Music Michael Savage, as managing director of the San Francisco Opera, had an important role in the reconstruction of the War Memorial Opera House. He went on to oversee recent major efforts to renovate (resuscitate, really) both the Napa Valley Opera House and Yountville's Lincoln Theater. With such credentials, Savage's response to a review here about a concert taking place in one of "his houses" was received attentively. The San Francisco Classical Voice report about the opening of the Festival del Sole in Lincoln Theater paid tribute to the hall's great sound, wondering if any "enhancement" might have been at play: The theater has superb acoustics, doing justice both to solo voices and to large orchestra. However, it's difficult to say what was natural sound and what appeared courtesy of what the theater's opening press release called "Meyer Sound's MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction program, with M2D array coverage to fit the moderately reverberant, 'symphony-friendly' architectural design of Auerbach and Associates."All you heard was the real McCoy, wrote Savage: "While it is true that the theater boasts a magnificent new Meyers sound system, it was not in use on Sunday. The acoustics of the theater are, as you point out, excellent — we were fortunate to have the advice of Larry Kirkegaard of Chicago during the design phase of the renovation, and it is neither necessary nor our practice to reinforce the sound for any of our classical music presentations." Aha! Kirkegaard. Now, where have we heard that name before? Let me count the ways. He and his firm have fixed the sound of such important and disparate venues as our Davies Hall, London's Barbican Hall, Aspen's Music Tent (Good sound in a tent? Yes, he did that), Tanglewood's Seiji Ozawa Hall, the new Carnegie Hall, and — back to these parts — the soon-to-be-opened S.F. Conservatory of Music in the Civic Center. The 89-year-old Conservatory is about to open its news doors, at 50-70 Oak Street. The $80 million facility is all about sound. Beginning with open houses and receptions next week, we'll hear what Kirkegaard hath wrought this time. In architectural/design tours during construction, the acoustician has promised specifically:
FM Ostinato Once upon a time, KQED-FM, the radio station with the interminable million-dollar fund-raising drives (and part of KQED Inc., which had total annual salaries in excess of $17 million in fiscal 2004) presented classical music and news. Now there is no music there, so how do you fill 24 hours? Mostly by repeating programs, in an unrestrained sort of way. The day starts with Morning Edition, at 3 a.m., repeated at 5 a.m. and again at 7 a.m. (and broadcast twice on KALW-FM, beginning at 5 a.m.) Between the city's two public-radio stations, that's almost 10 hours daily of a single program. KQED repeats the 9 a.m. Forum at 10 p.m. The ineffable Terry Gross and her Fresh Air can be heard at 1 and 7 p.m. on KQED, and at 9:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. on KALW-FM. All Things Considered is broadcast twice on KQED and once on KALW every weekday, taking up a total of six hours ... daily. What's the point? San Francisco's music community is poorly served by radio stations. "The" classical-music station, KDFC-FM, stays away from vocal music, will not carry something as basic and essential as the Metropolitan Opera live broadcasts on Saturdays, and chops up symphonies and concertos instead of playing them through. (A notable exception is KDFC's broadcasts of San Francisco Symphony concerts in their entirety.) Poor cousin KALW actually makes a rather handsome effort to include classical music at night, but KQED does nothing. Why is that?
Music at Menlo ... in Atherton and Palo Alto It's called Music@Menlo, but this great chamber-music series takes place in Atherton's Menlo School and Palo Alto's St. Mark's Episcopal Church. Beginning this week, through August 11, the two locations are a whirlwind of rehearsals, classes, coaching, community and school events, and the raison d'être of it all: concerts day and night.
Young musicians being trained at the Music@Menlo Festival With Mozart as the focus, but including many other composers, the festival programs unfold in many free concerts, along with the regular evening events. Here are some activity samples covering just a couple of days: Wednesday, July 26: 1:30 p.m., Atherton, Café Conversation, "Pulling Out All the Stops: James Welch's Excellent Adventures with the King of Instruments," with James Welch, organist, free; 2:30 p.m., Atherton, Chamber Music Institute master class with Peter Wiley, free; 6 p.m., Palo Alto, Prelude Performance, free; 8 p.m., Palo Alto, Mozart and Shostakovich concert, with violinist Ani Kavafian, violist CarlaMaria Rodrigues, cellists David Finckel and Peter Wiley, pianists Derek Han and Wu Han, organist James Welch. Thursday, July 27: 1:30 p.m., Atherton, Café Conversation, "Scholarship and Instinct: Can They Coexist?" led by violinist Joseph Silverstein, free; 2:30 p.m., Atherton, Chamber Music Institute master class with Derek Han, free; 5:30 p.m., Atherton, Prelude Performance, free; 7:30 p.m., Atherton, Encounter, "Mozart's Piano Concerti: Operas Without Words," led by Jeffrey Kahane.
(Janos Gereben is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com.)
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