|
MUSIC SHORTS
Carmel Bach Boss Quits
April 3, 2001
|
By Janos Gereben
George Gelles, appointed executive director of the Carmel Bach Festival just 3 months ago, resigned the post this week. He was to have assumed the position on April 1 but the Festival was fooled. Reached at his home in San Francisco Wednesday, Gelles said that his wife had just landed a "terrific job" in London and that's where they were both moving. Speaking for the Festival, Bruce Thibodeau, today confirmed Gelles resignation to SFCV and said, "I will continue in the role of interim executive director as I have since last October, and we will restart our search for a new executive director."
Gelles explained, "I was starting officially (at Carmel) on April 1, but rather than go through the summer season, I thought it most prudent to let (acting executive director Bruce) Thibodeau do it, to pass the reins back to him. My wife was interviewed in fall when I was being interviewed for Carmel but she didn't hear back from them and they (recently) called her out of the blue."
Gelles' appointment had been eagerly welcomed by Carmel on the basis of his previous 14 years as executive director of the Philharmonia Baroque and in other management positions. The Festival should not encounter major difficulties because of this. Its 2001 season is planned and announced, and experienced management is in place. Thus far, Gelles had actually committed very little in work time there, consisting of a meeting with the music director, Bruno Weil, in Europe, "three days in January in Carmel and three days in February," he said. "March I was taking off to be with my son, and I told Carmel that."
Thibodeau, as head of his Arts Consulting Group, had led the search efforts that ended in the Gelles appointment.
Possible Oregon Bach Changes Too At the Bach festival to the North, the Oregon Bach Festival, there may be leadership changes in the near future as well. Both the music and executive directors who founded the annual summer series in 1970, Helmuth Rilling, 68, and Royce Saltzman, 74, have been dropping hints about retirement. The Oregon Bach Festival made the statement that "with firm commitments in both cases, there is no official search or succession underway. However, the Festival staff, board and the University of Oregon (administration that operates the festival) are all prepared to act quickly should either announce a change." While no names are being given in connection with for Saltzman's position, the name of Jeffrey Kahane, music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony and L.A. Chamber Orchestra, has come up as a possible successor to Rilling, possibly in partnership with other conductors. Rilling, who will conduct Haydn's The Creation with the San Francisco Symphony April 18-21, has recently completed his recording of all of Bach's works and will now undertake a recording of the complete Mendelssohn.
Bye Bye, Wo Wa? Surrounded by hostile forces determined on capturing him, the old dictator is digging in, swearing not to be taken alive. The scene is not Belgrade, it's Bayreuth — and the outcome may be quite different from the meek compliance that followed the pledge to fight to the end. Let's face it, Wolfgang Wagner, though not burdened with any of Milosevic's crimes against humanity, is made of sterner stuff than is the Yugoslav paper tiger. At 81, Wagner has been in charge of the Bayreuth festival for a half a century (first a shared responsibility, but for several decades alone), and he is determined to continue indefinitely. When the festival's board of directors voted to replace Wo Wa next year with his estranged daughter, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 55, Herr Generaldirektor was too busy in Korea to be bothered by what he considers a "nomination," not an appointment. After all, the composer's grandson has a lifetime contract as director. And if he doesn't agree, attorneys may be busy for years to sort of this one out. Using the festival's Web page, Wagner left a simple message: "My contract has not been altered." (Apparently, the English version of the Web site is in hostile hands: It's "under construction" and does not carry the "Nuts!" message.) There was no comment from Wagner's son, who is estranged not only from him but also from his sister and the rest of the family. The current version of a dysfunctional family of giants on exhibit in Bayreuth follows the exploits of Fafner and Fasolt on the stage there. Or, depending on your point of view, it may be a new generation of the Nibelungs.
Pocket Honor for Viardot Admired by her 19th century fellow artists at a time when women had nothing but obstacles in their path, Pauline Viardot (later Viardot-Garcia) occupies a special place in the history of music. San Francisco's Pocket Opera will present a one-woman show by Marta Johansen about the singer-composer, whose friends included Georges Sand, Hector Berlioz, and Richard Wagner. Salon Viardot: A Musical Life will have one performance only, on Sunday, April 8, at 2 p.m. in the Palace of the Legion of Honor. For information, see www.pocketopera.org/01s1.htm#sv.
An American Romeo and Juliet The southwest German city of Ulm (which happens to be Albert Einstein's birthplace) is the venue for the world premiere of Viennese composer Herbert Lauermann's opera, The Liberation. The story is that of Romeo and Juliet, but in the setting of the last days of World War II — she is German, he is an American GI.
Arts Fare Better Under Blair Than in the Bush Era However socially conservative Tony Blair's government may be, its attitude to the arts is downright liberal in comparison with the current American scene. As the result of a doubled subsidy, to £336 million (nearly a half a billion US dollars), the four independent London symphony orchestras have paid off their formerly large deficits. The United States, a somewhat larger country, spends far less. In the United Kingdom, regional ballet companies are well supported, and arts organizations in Scotland and Wales receive funds as well, unlike the London-centric thinking of the past.
Converting the Airwaves Mozart left Marin's KMZT ("K-Mozart"), 1510 AM, Monday morning when the owner, Mt. Wilson Broadcasters, pulled the plug on the station's classical-music format to launch a "Christian broadcasting" format. The reason, as usual in such broadcasting format changes: not enough revenue. And so San Francisco, already without an FM station to broadcast the Metropolitan-Texaco broadcasts, now becomes a one-station city for classical music. And don't even count on that for too long. KDFC is owned by Salt Lake City's Bonneville International Corp., which is a fully owned subsidiary of the Mormon Church. Several Bonneville stations around the country have recently switched — no kidding! — to "male-oriented rock." (It's close to what was once known as "MOR rock," or middle-of-the-road so-called [far from real] rock.) Why not religious programming? Bonneville is an investment arm of the Mormon Church, not an evangelical tool. So if or, rather, when KDFC joins the quest for higher income, it may provide "male-oriented rock" as an alternative to KMZT's "Christian programming." It's not only Mozart who has left the building, so has Elvis. (Janos Gereben is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group and technology editor for www.the451.com. You can contact him at janos451@earthlink.net.) ©2001 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved |