Classical Music
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Tue, 12/23/2008 - 6:02pm.
This will be my last blog of the year. Soon after the first of January there will be some significant changes coming to chicagoclassicalmusic.org. We will be re-launching the site including a new design, improved navigation and functionality, and a new interface that will make posting user-generated content a breeze!
We expect these changes to improve your experience, and hopefully, inspire you and others to make this site YOUR forum for exchanging ideas, viewpoints, and information on classical music in Chicago. Of course, we will keep (and improve) the calendar, special offers from member organizations, blogs, and other elements.
Thanks to all of you who have participated in chicagoclassicalmusic.org this year, and a special thanks to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust for their support. On behalf of all of our member organizations, have a happy holiday season and a great New Year!
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 12:19pm.
In the spirit of the holidays, I am delighted to share a link with you that will get you free music downloads from one of the greatest orchestras in the world.
These are outstanding recordings of recent performances by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra are absolutely free! The offer expires at the end of December. Grab 'em now!
Franz Schubert - Symphony no. 8 'Unfinished'
Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony no. 2
Felix Mendelssohn - Symphony no. 4 'Italian'
César Franck - Symphony in D minor
Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 1
Antonin Dvorák - Symphony no. 8
Camille Saint-Saëns - Symphony no. 3 'Organ'
Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 2
Anton Bruckner - Symphony no. 8
Johannes Brahms - Symphony no. 2
Click here and enjoy.
Thanks to Sinfonietta violinist and webmaster Dave Belden for passing this on to me.
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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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Several years ago there was what
could be deemed breaking news in the classical world, news that probably sent
shivers up many enthusiasts’ and music-history buffs’ spines. Good shivers,
that is. It was the unearthing of 200-plus phonograph cylinder recordings in an
old archive in Russia.
With low volume and heavy amounts of surface noise, the cylinders hold a brief
but invaluable glimpse into the early days of recording and how classical music
was performed throughout the years. Some of these cylinders carry the earliest
known recordings of works by Bach, Verdi and Schumann, to name just a few.
A
selection of the recordings ranging from 1890 to 1923 will be released this
month on the Marston label. An article I came across a couple weeks ago
discusses the discovery of many of the recordings at auctions and in old
archives, and how the plan for their creation and allusions to their lingering
existence was discovered in the correspondence between a music-loving
businessman, Julius H. Block, and Thomas Edison himself. It is a fascinating
article. If you are a fan of juicy tidbits of musical history, give this
article a read and perhaps pick up the recording—you just might hear a
whistling Tchaikovsky in the background.
Read the original article here: Classical Ghosts, Audible Once Again
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 2:34pm.
At the end of May I wrote a blog entitled, “It’s the Economy, Stupid”, that posed some questions about how the economic downturn might affect ticket sales and fundraising. One respondent suggested that I was letting the media “blow the downturn out of proportion”, while another recommended that I should be careful about whom I call stupid.
Today, an exceptionally astute reader noted that my May blog was “a premonition of sorts” and asked how I thought the economy might affect the arts looking forward. I should probably quit while I’m ahead, but what fun would that be? Here are some observations, opinions, and thoughts.
We are already seeing lagging ticket sales for some of the bigger events that have taken place this fall, and I personally know of a few funders that are either cutting back or ceasing their arts funding altogether.
I expect that over the next 6-18 months we will see things getting worse. I suspect that the next economic “shoe to drop” will be credit card debt, and my guess is that the stock market will be slow to recover. As a result, I would not be surprised to see a few of the smaller arts organizations going out of business, and most arts organizations operating more conservatively than normal. The big guys will do okay – they have a lot of resources, but more importantly, the type of broad-based community support that makes going out of business almost impossible. No, it’s the smaller organizations that will feel the brunt of this brutal economy. This is a time to hunker down and survive.
Here is my prescription for the arts in a tough economy:
1. Budget for a worst-case scenario and be pleasantly surprised if/when you outperform it.
2. Don’t sacrifice programming excellence or audience development activities. Present brilliant programming.
3. Work hard on advancing sustainable relationships with ticket buyers and donors.
4. Stay focused on executing against your strategic plan and don’t get sidetracked.
5. Develop restructuring options in case the worse happens.
6. Be very thankful you work in the arts and not in the real estate or financial sector.
These are a few of my thoughts. Please chime in with yours. Maybe together we can think our way out of this mess!
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Depending on where
you live it has probably happened to just about every one of us, I know for me
it is almost a daily occurrence living in the city. Maybe you’ve had a quiet
afternoon walk or a private conversation (in your home nonetheless!)
interrupted by loud music blaring from inside a passing car, that unmistakable
thump thump of a sub-woofer in a trunk, just rattling to get out.
In an article put out by the AP, Andrew Vactor was cited by police
for playing his rap music too loud and was given the opportunity to reduce his
$150 fine down to just $35 if he spent 20 hours listening to classical music.
The article mentioned greats such as Bach, Chopin, and Beethoven as Vactor’s
“hard time.” He lasted only 15 minutes before having to scoot off to practice
for his University’s basketball team. Vactor claimed it wasn’t the music just
the time conflict. Perhaps this unconventional punishment could have future
success… barring any extra-curricular activities of course.
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Well, we're in that interesting zone where I'm trying to get all interested parties on board (no pun intended) to support, financially and energetically, a commission for a pretty big new piece for next season. A composer with a good track record, whose pieces Chicago a cappella has done often in years past, came to me with an idea for a very cool compilation of music, which would serve as the scaffolding on which I could create a concert program.
I can't tell you who it is, since we have not finished the process, but you might be interested in the process.
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I remember a long discussion I had
in college about the creation of the album cover for The Beatles’ 1967 release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
It was a seemingly endless list of pop-culture inclusions and references to
their evolving careers created by cardboard cut outs and props. At the time and
even today it is a shining example of unique album-cover artistry. I began to
think about album cover artwork in general and about what others think on its
offering to the “music experience” as a whole. Does it lend to the excitement
of opening up a new album by seeing the cover and hearing the music for the
first time, or is it a distraction?
A couple images came to mind in the
classical genre: the striking image of a woman in a yellow dress standing in an
ornately hand drawn room on the cover Anne-Sophie Mutter’s Mozart: The Violin Sonatas, or the mural-esque angel of Piers
Lane’s Scriabin: The Complete Etudes. Classical music has never been known for its unique and artistic album
covers, yet genres such as rock ’n’ roll and hip-hop sometimes go over the top
and find themselves facing censorship and taking artistic expression to the
level of risqué. Do you think album artwork is or should be considered a part
of the overall “music experience?” And why do you think its emphasis varies
between genres?
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Today's guest blog is written by Stefan Lano who will conduct the Chicago Sinfonietta during the upcoming performances of the opera Margaret Garner at the Auditorium Theater beginning November 1st.
As we prepare for the production of Margaret Garner at the Auditorium Theater, I am pleased to share some thoughts with you about this important opera.
Although, the commissioning venues of Michigan Opera Theater, the Cincinnati Opera and The Opera Company of Philadelphia were most generous in alotting ample time and funding for workshops prior to the world premiere here in Detroit, both hindsight and the experience gained through repeated performances will inevitably color subsequent re- visitations to this score. That this is now the case, became evident at our first rehearsals and run-throughs of the
opera this past week. The goals and priorities set by production teams of most any opera, play or film are pretty
much the same: 1. tell the story clearly and with dramatic efficiency; 2. entertain the public while, hopefully, simultaneously edifying them; 3. try to achieve a sense of closure at evening's end such that the public feels that they have been 'taken somewhere.'
An example of point number 3, would be the ambience in the public when the reprise of the Aria is reached in Bach's Goldberg Variations; or the sense of tragic inevitability at the end of Verdi's Otello as opposed to the comic inevitabiltiy at the end of his Falstaff. Point number 2 is a bit more subtle. In some opera, such as Mozart's Magic Flute, the moral of a given scene is presented as an aside in the form of the ensembles where the characters address the public more directly rather than each other. In an opera such as Margaret Garner, the message of Toni Morrison is, as one would expect from a literary national treasure, inherent in her story. Thus do we arrive at the conundrum articulated by Madeleine in the final scene of Richard Strauss' Capriccio: do the words or the music take precedence?
Rather than argue for one or the other, I have always found that if the notion of effective theater is well-served, then both words and music are better clarified. In the case of this run of Margaret Garner, this notion dictates our modus operandi perhaps moreso than the first time around. The care taken in the preparation of any first performance is, more often than not, devoted to 'getting it right', especially when composer and librettist may be present. There is, however, more to theater than merely getting it right. One can get the words and the notes right while missing their element of dramatic marriage. From the resonance of the opening productions of Margaret Garner, it seems that most would agree that we 'got it right.'
It bespeaks the vision of David Di Chiera in his mounting a reprise of Margaret Garner relatively soon after the premier. His decision is now the more felicitous as we approach an historic Presidential election in which an African-American could well become our next President. That our country evolve as to embrace change.
In the spirit of opera being an art form in perpetual evolution, Kenny Leon and I intend to greatly expand upon that which we presented some years ago and are especially thrilled that we will do so in the architectural landmark of the Roosevelt Theatre about which one can only echo George Ballanchine's comment: 'Why don't they build them like this any more...?" Amen.
All best wishes to you,
Stefan Lano
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Today’s blog is submitted by musician and writer, Rashida Black.
In his recent blog, Chicago Sinfonietta Executive Director Jim Hirsch wrote about his support of the mission of the Sphinx Organization. Jim noted that Sphinx actively promotes diversity and inclusiveness in classical music and that it's "not our field's favorite topic... based on the national statistics that show less than 3% of orchestral musicians being people of color." That's where I'd like to jump in to mention the many organizations, some of which are under the radar, that acknowledge the racial disparities and that are trying to do something about it. Like the Chicago Sinfonietta...
Just briefly, I'll point out youth programs like The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Talent Development Program , which prepared many of Sphinx's top performers over the past decade. There are larger organizations and festivals including the Soulful Symphony in Baltimore and the Gateways Music Festival that showcase Black and Latino talent and nurture their careers. There are web sites like Bill Zick's AfriClassical.com and my own, myrtlehart.org, which advocate, promote and educate the general public on the subject. I'm just scratching at the surface of who is working to raise that 3%. We live the 3%. We also acknowledge the fact that many who can do something about it simply don't want to do something about it, which is why we've stepped up to the plate.
So, in an effort to "do something about it," the Myrtle Hart Society is raising funds and awareness through its first benefit featuring The Boys Choir of Kenya to be held at 6:30 pm on Monday, October 13 at the G. R. N'Namdi Gallery located at 110 North Peoria, Chicago.
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