Resonate

Sure, the New York Philharmonic musicians played Dvorak and Bernstein while they were in North Korea. But they also played music by 12-year-old Farah Taslima.

As part of the orchestra’s teaching program for child composers, four members of the orchestra and four North Korean musicians performed Taslima’s piece, “Serenity Unleashed,” the day after the Philharmonic’s big concert.

Taslima originally wrote the piece for the full orchestra two years ago, and the Philharmonic performed the piece at Lincoln Center. Can you imagine being that accomplished as a 10-year-old?

Taslima says she began composing after musicians from the Philharmonic visited her school four years ago. 

It just goes to show how much influence a major orchestra can have. Not only does the orchestra inspire audiences in the concert hall, but through outreach programs, the orchestra can lead children to embrace music and follow a passion.

While all of the world’s arts coverage is focusing on the New York Philharmonic, here’s a fun tidbit  for while you’re bored or while you’re harboring resentment toward a conductor.

My only complaint to the recipe: You can’t pound anything with timpani mallets. They’re made out of felt.

The world has had its eye on classical music this week. The rarity, caused by the New York Philharmonic’s performance in North Korea,  has intertwined arts coverage with political speculation.

The big question of the week presented in much of the media coverage:  Could a concert affect the tense relations between Washington and Pyongang?

Considering that only North Korean elites attended the concert, and that the North Korean media hid the concert on an inside page of the newspaper, the concert should not be viewed as something that would have a profound effect on a country’s  opinion of America.

Maybe what the world should focus on is the reaction that the orchesta received when it played “Arirang,” a Korean folk song. The audience stood up, cheering and waving to the orchestra — basically, the first time during the concert that the audience seemed to enjoy the performance.

Perhaps embracing other cultures’ music is the way to reach out to them. While we might consider Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” to be a proud representation of America to share with the world — and the New York Philharmonic might play it ardently –  maybe that’s not what other people care about. (Also, maybe America should continue to examine why one of the major pieces embodying an “American sound” was written by a European. Dvorak wanted that piece to be a means to developing the American musical identity, not an end.)

I always wince when a music critic makes negative comments about a performance, even when the remarks are fully deserved. (I suppose maybe I empathize with the musicians too much to ever become a critic.)

In the spirit of Oscars night, this review of the Miami Symphony Orchestra receives the award for Harshest Review. Lawrence Johnson of the Miami Herald says the performance of Bruch’s Violin Concerto, Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and a clarinet concerto by Alex Berti “could charitably be called disastrous.” He continues to pick on most sections of the orchestra, the young violin soloist, and even a composer’s orchestration skills.

When a critic states that a performance is “some of the worst orchestra playing heard on a South Florida stage in many years,” I find myself hoping that the performance was truly deserving of such an attack, rather than us having a case of a bitter critic on our hands.

This week Ewa Strusinska became the first woman appointed to an assistant conducting position in the U.K. She was named assistant conductor of the Halle Orchestra, the oldest orchestra in Britain, which is based in Manchester.

Perhaps more impressively, Polish-born Strusinska is only 30 years old. So while the media is focusing on her gender, maybe they should instead be focusing on how much she has accomplished at such a young age.

An article about Strusinska’s appointment in The Independent included this telling paragraph:

Among other world-recognised female conductors are Marin Alsop, of Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, who is also beginning to conduct at Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and JoAnn Falletta, at the Buffalo Philharmonic.

Let’s ignore the factual error that Alsop “is also beginning to conduct…”  I find it interesting that even though many still feel Europe is the world’s center for classical music, the United States is primarily where the status quo is being challenged and overcome.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, the world-renowned soprano favored by Queen Elizabeth II and who sang at Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding, publicly insulted singers who attempt to bridge the worlds between classical and pop music.

She said of singers such as Charlotte Church and Hayley Westenra:

“They are all fake singers, they sing with a microphone…. These people, two or three years and they’re gone.”

“People call them up-and-coming, but they never last. They are the new fakes for the new generation.”

Ouch, Dame Kiri, that’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? If anything, insult the real pop singers who can’t sing at all. But if you insist, then at least take this sentence off of your foundation’s Web site:

“While classical music is her first musical love, she has always had a keen interest in all forms and styles of musical expression.”

A real-life soap opera turned real opera. This could get interesting.

The notorious ice-skating feud between Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan came to life on the stage for the first time at the world premiere of “Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera” in Portland, Oregon.

The rock opera tells the story of Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gilooly, and his friends conspiring to keep Kerrigan from competing in the Olymics through songs such as “Whip Her Butt” and “Gilooly Colluded.”

Ok, so it may not have as complicated of a plot as a Mozart opera, but it’s equally as dramatic.

Harding actually attended the premiere and supposedly laughed the entire time. If she finds it funny, I bet the rest of us would find it even funnier.

Thanks to fundraising efforts by the School of Music’s dean, Toni-Marie Montgomery, the Northwestern University School of Music will soon have a $90 million new building. Montgomery and Northwestern University President  Henry Bienen officially announced the new construction project today.

Montgomery said the construction will begin in 2009. When the five-story building is completed (tentatively planned for early 2012), it will be the first time in 35 years that the vocal, music academics and piano departments will be located on the same side of campus as the instrumental program. Once the building is complete, the music school will abandon the old, decrepit Music Administration Building that the vocalists and pianists call a second home.

This is such a relief. Finally, after the administrators first mentioned this project more than three years ago, Northwestern’s music students will finally get what they were promised. Granted, almost all of the students that are at the school now won’t get to benefit from the new building, but still.

There are two main reasons why this building will help the music school:

1) Considering that Northwestern has one of the best music schools in the country (Yeah, I’m not tooting my own horn. It’s pretty good.), its facilities don’t reflect that. It’ll be easier to recruit excellent new students when the school has an impressive building.

2) This will probably help the dean’s reputation within the school, considering that under her tenure, the organ program was cut and the jazz department was almost left out to rot.

I sat down with Dr. Mallory Thompson, director of bands and conductor of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Northwestern University, to discuss her career and her outlook on the purpose of wind ensembles. For a full transcript, see the Extras page.
Interview with Mallory Thompson

Metropolitan Opera alumna Elizabeth Futral took to the pool this weekend with clarinettist Todd Palmer in a world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s “Orpheus and Euridice.”

The new opera, performed by the Long Beach Opera, is staged — well, not really staged — not in a concert hall but at and in an Olympic-sized pool.

The pool idea was inspired by the libretto’s focus on water. (Orpheus crosses the River Styx to find his lost love.)

The Long Beach Opera has a history of taking big risks and thinking outside of the concert hall. Last year the company staged Grigori Frid’s “The Diary of Anne Frank” in two parking garages.