Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Tue, 11/25/2008 - 3:32pm.
No one has written about this yet on chicagoclassicalmusic.org so I get to do it. Gramophone Magazine, a British publication, has named our very own Chicago Symphony Orchestra as the number one ranked orchestra in the United States, and the fifth highest ranked orchestra in the world. Congratulations to our friends and colleagues at the CSO. It’s nice to see others recognize what we in Chicago have known for a long time – this band rocks! I am including the full list for those of you who haven’t yet seen it.
I know that some people are uncomfortable with ratings like this. It is, after all, pretty subjective when you look at the top 10-15 orchestras on this list. But there must be something in our mental make-up that draws us to ranking things like orchestras, most embarrassing reality TV moments, best deep dish pizza, and the like. Here’s my question for you. Are there rankings in the classical music world that do make sense, and help us process all of the information floating around? What lists do you like or approve of?
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It has been all over the news since Monday, but the CSO is still buzzing with excitement after the announcement that Riccardo Muti will take over as Music Director in 2010/11. Andrew Patner was on WTTW talking about the appointment. Steve Lester from the CSO's bass section and chair of the Members Committee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra also discussed the partnership on NPR's Performance Today. Steve also talked about how fortunate we've been to also have established such a wonderful connection with Bernard Haitink. His leadership has been and continues to be rewarding and enriching for the orchestra and institution overall and the recordings we've made with Mr. Haitink document that great legacy. The CSO goes on tour with Mr. Haitink to Carnegie Hall next week and he will also take them to China for the first time in early 2009.
While great things are on the horizon, great things are happening right now.
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Some very exciting news from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra! In a note to the CSO family, also posted on our Web site, CSO Association President Deborah Rutter Card shared the news:
Dear Friends,
It is my extreme pleasure to share with you some very exciting news!
We have just announced the appointment of Riccardo Muti—one of the most extraordinary and respected conductors of all time—to the position of music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His unparalleled musicianship, steadfast commitment to the highest level of music making, and dedication to preserving the rich history of the CSO while continuing to propel the organization into the future perfectly complement the world-class stature of our Orchestra and its musicians. He will begin his tenure in September 2010.
Our goal was to bring the best musical leader to Chicago, an extraordinary musician that would match the international profile of our Orchestra, and we have found this in Maestro Muti. I would like to thank all of you for your support, advice, guidance and input throughout the search. Your enthusiasm and passion for our great Orchestra inspired us all. I know that Maestro Muti looks forward to getting to know our wonderful city and community. If you would like to read more about Maestro. Muti’s appointment, please click here.
Most sincerely,
Deborah Rutter Card
President, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
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Social network services on the Internet come and go; a while ago MySpace was the dominant service, now it is equaled, and soon undoubtedly surpassed, by Facebook in traffic. There are dozens of other popular services, such as Orkut and Friendster, and probably thousands of small, niche-market sites.
What’s an arts organization to do with all this new media? Jason Heath
talks about it in a video (in which he mentions Chicago Classical Music as an excellent example). In the last section, he talks about Facebook (“more and more Facebook over Myspace,” according to Jason).
Facebook didn’t start out very business friendly, but there have always been ways for fans of different organizations to express their love. The most commonly used way was Facebook Groups. Some of CCM’s Participating Organizations have these groups (I’m not sure which were started by fans and which were started by the organization:
Ars Antiqua;
Chicago Chamber Musicians;
Grand Park Music Festival;
Ravinia Festival). The CSO has several, all started by fans.
Then in November of last year, Facebook launched Facebook Pages. Two CCM organizations have already established a presence:
Chicago Opera Theater and
WFMT. Today, we launched
our own Facebook page. There are obvious marketing benefits to having a page for your own organization, but I believe the main strength is building a community and participate (just like CCM aims to do).
So go explore Facebook and if you have an account, be sure to
become a fan of the CSO. If you do so before this Friday, April 11, you enter for a chance to win the latest recording from our new CSO Resound label,
Mahler’s Symphony No. 6,
signed by Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink.
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The Chicago Symphony Chorus is turning 50! They are a remarkable group and the CSO will be celebrating with a program dedicated to this incredible ensemble of virtuoso voices. The performance has been sold out for quite some time as their loyal fan base has come out in force and extremely early to get tickets to this one-night-only event.
There is another opportunity to hear the Chorus in a more traditional role with the phenomenal Valery Gergiev conducting the CSO and Chorus for Berlioz' wonderful Romeo and Juliet.
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Regarding Jim's blog on Dudamel's appearance on 60 Minutes (which agreed is a good piece), I'd like to link to Andrew Patner's
Critical Thinking interview with Dudamel which took place just days before he flew to California (mid-stint with the CSO!) to make his announcement with the LA Philharmonic. Contrary to the last line of the 60 Minutes piece, we in fact heard all about Dudamel on WFMT first.
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I just returned from New York and had an opportunity to talk with my counterpart at the NY Phil about their performance in North Korea. While the general press has been great, they have been criticized in some circles, which is completely misplaced.
I lived in Romania for four years after the fall of communism. They had every bit as cruel a leader in Nicolae Ceausescu who in fact implemented many of his cruelist policies after a visit to Kim Il Sung, the former North Korean leader. I talked with many of my friends there about music and they shared stories about the bootleg Led Zeppelin albums among others that they kept hidden. It was to them just a taste of music and inspiration that was beyond their borders (a place very few of them had the opportunity to see).
I also had the pleasure of meeting many of the young musicians that comprise Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra when they came through Chicago. This is the youth orchestra of Arabs and Israelis that Barenboim established to bring together young people from these different cultures to show how music can truly bridge cultural chasms. Every one of them was delighted with the experience. To see a Lebanese violinist, a Syrian Clarinet player and an Israeli bass player play together in a late-night open jam session was something to behold. Making music together broke down all the perceived barriers and they all reveled in their new friendships.
I tip my hat to the NY Phil for reaching across the divide. Music can't solve the grand problems of our time, but it can be a way to bring people together, even if for a short respite.
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The CSO released its Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago CD this week. It is the most recent release from CSO Resound, our in-house recording label. This recording helps to illustrate the full range of the CSO musicians, with music ranging from Prokofiev's Scythian Suite to Bloch's Schelomo, his cello concerto performed with Yo-Yo Ma. But it also includes Harrison's Pipa Concerto that was also featured during 2007's Silk Road Chicago collaboration between the CSO, the Art Institute, Silk Road Project and Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs.
I'm writing not just about this release, but the freedom that the current recording and distribution environment provides to all ensembles. With CSO Resound, we have been able to define our artistic priorities and record what the CSO feels is important. There are many examples of groups looking at music distribution differently. Radiohead's In Rainbows release is one that is often referenced, but it is an outstanding example.
The methods by which music will be distributed in the future are absolutely continually in flux, which makes it an exciting time. We all recognize the shift from physical to digital product, but the digital environment is shifting as well. Where will Rhapsody fit into the mix as its share of the market grows?
We feel there will always be interest in the highest fidelity sound, which is why we released our Bruckner 7 recording with principal conductor Bernard Haitink in SACD Hybrid format. In April, we will be releasing Mr. Haitink's Mahler 6 with the CSO, also in an SACD and traditional format. There may be some opportunities where we cannot have a physical product, such as our Shostakovich 5 conducted by Myung-Whun Chung. But there is still merit in making such an outstanding performance available to the public, which is why this was our first digital-only release. Digital buyers are much more interested in portability than fidelity. It doesn't mean that you have to give up fidelity for portability in all cases. The key is to reach out to as many potential listeners as possible in the formats that make sense to them.
While those strategic decisions need to be hashed-out, the freedom this new recording environment provides is incredibly exciting.
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This week, the CSO is performing
Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar for the first time. It was such a mind-blowing experience that it motivated me to begin blogging about “Classical” music in Chicago here at CCM.
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I attended Sunday afternoon's CSO "Beyond the Score" presentation on Tchaikovsky's Fourth. What is so great about these programs, which I highly recommend, is how they put masterpieces in perspective in terms of other art of the period - literary, visual, and musical. Right off the bat, three pieces were mentioned as influences on Tchaikovsky's 1878 symphony: Verdi's
La Forza del Destino, Bizet's
Carmen, and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
This got me to thinking about how some of the recordings in our catalog try to put great works into musical perspective. While Cedille Records' main mission is to present the work of Chicago's finest musicians and composers, we have a secondary mission of "increasing awareness and knowledge of neglected areas of the classical repertory" (from our Mission Statement). In addition to presenting unrecorded or relatively obscure works, this also means presenting programs that combine the familiar and the unfamiliar in ways that often shed new light on the more familiar work.
I should note that almost all our program ideas come from the Chicago musicians we record. The champion in finding ways to illuminate renowned works is violinist Rachel Barton Pine. Her 2003 recording of the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carlos Kalmar made quite an impression, not only for the great playing but because she coupled it with the great (but very rarely recorded) "Hungarian" Concerto by Joseph Joachim, which one critic called "the Holy Grail of Romantic violin concertos."
The reason this was such an illuminating choice was
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