Resonate

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.

Sometimes it’s good to take a peak at what orchestras outside of Europe and the United States are up to. 

This weekend I came across an article in The Times of South Africa profiling a 22-year-old instrumentalist named Melissa Hoover.

Hoover is a “cadet” in an apprentice program by the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra. As a cadet, she performs with the orchestra occassionally, giving her the chance to play with a professional orchestra even though she is still in school.

The KZN Philharmonic’s Web site has this to say about the cadet program:

The KZN Philharmonic’s National Cadetship Programme addresses the limited representation of, and increasing demand for, local artists in the pool of present and future full-time musicians in our country’s orchestras. The programme is open to all young South African musicians (although historically disadvantaged students receive preference).

Successful candidates are funded annually as full-time cadets with the Orchestra – they work directly with professional musicians, experience first hand the role of performing in a professional orchestra, and receive individual lessons from senior KZNPO musicians. The initiative already boasts several success stories, with numerous cadets going on to promising professional careers in the KZNPO and other South African orchestras and ensembles.

What a great way to train up-and-coming musicians. Only a few programs like this in the United States. The Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the New World Symphony are both training orchestras, meaning the students are performing with eachother under the guidance of professional orchestra members. And several weeks ago, the Chicago Sinfonietta announced a new apprenticeship program for college-aged minority musicians, where the participants get to perform with the orchestra.

The Christian Science Monitor came out with an article this week   that makes it seem as if percussion concertos are growing in popularity. But here’s the thing: I’m not sure they are.

The article points out that four percussion concertos are being performed in the United States in the next month. It is indeed an exciting month for percussion because this Friday, Evelyn Glennie will premiere the percussion concerto by John Corigliano called “TriplePlay.” The article mentions how Glennie has had a significant impact on the (still small but growing) number of percussion concertos by commissioning new pieces regularly.

Concertos by Jennifer Higdon, Steven Mackey and Kevin Puts will also be performed this month, the article says. But it doesn’t say who is giving these performances, making it seem as though those are the only concertos being played by anyone.

My guess is that the article is referring to performances with professional orchestras. I don’t believe for a second that there are only four concertos being performed this month in the whole country. Every week, percussion students at music schools and conservatories are performing concertos by Paul Creston, Ney Rosauro, Joseph Schwantner and many other composers.

So yes, maybe orchestras are embracing the percussion concerto more because audiences find the spectacle of a percussionist running from instrument to instrument exciting. But this article does not give any real indication that percussion concertos are actually becoming more frequently played.

That’s been the big question in my mind ever since the presidential campaigns began last year. Does most of this country still believe that men can lead better than women? If so, when will a woman have the chance to prove them wrong?

I started musing about this again when I read an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer speculating about who might become the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music director in 2012. Christoph Eschenbach will step down at the end of this season, and Charles Dutoit will spend four years as the orchestra’s “chief conductor.” Then what?

Peter Dobrin, the Inquirer’s music critic, suggests that Stephane Deneve, Ivan Fischer, Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Jurowski, Antonio Pappano and Simon Rattle could all be considered for the position. All of these men have or will soon conduct the orchestra.

It makes me wonder: Are the conservatories of Europe and the United States not offering women the chance to study conducting? Or are women simply more interested in becoming professional musicians? 

I’m not sure if anyone knows exactly what the problem is. But it does seem like a problem that, at a time when a woman is one of the top candidates for the presidency, there is not one viable woman candidate openly being considered for such a major orchestra position.

(Photo courtesy of Rick Harris)

These days orchestras and opera companies are doing everything they can think of to attract a younger, broader audience. (i.e. bringing Star Trek to the stage) It seems as if no one has figured out the best way to lure people under 30 into the concert hall, but I’m guessing the Canadian company Opera Lyra Ottawa is not on the right track.

The opera company is hosting its annual Opera Soiree next Saturday night, and the guest of honor is Steven Page, lead singer of the popular Canadian pop-rock band Barenaked Ladies.

Luckily it doesn’t sound like Page will be testing out his opera chops. Page briefly will sing a few pop songs, with some accompaniment by the opera’s stars. The rest of the evening will consist of tenor Michael Schade, baritone Russell Braun and rising-star mezzo-soprano Lauren Segal (She’s one to keep an eye on in the next few years.) will sing classic excerpts from The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Barber of Seville and others.

The standard reaction to that musical lineup from young adults: Yawn.  If an opera company wants to appeal to a younger crowd, they should focus on content, not on star power. Stage John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, or even better, put on a production of Eric Whitacre’s techno-opera Paradise Lost. Now there’s some music young hipsters would enjoy.

If anything, having Page interrupt a night of opera might alienate its older patrons who come to hear, well, opera.

Women won big at the Grammys tonight. Sure, Amy Winehouse earned a huge amount of awards. But check out the results for the awards they didn’t show on TV: the stuff in the instrumental, composing/arranging and classical categories.

– Jazz maestra Maria Schneider won Best Instrumental Composition for her piece “Cerulean Skies,” performed by the Maria Schneider Orchestra on the album “Sky Blue.”

–Judith Sherman won Classical Producer of the Year for her work with chamber groups Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird (a ground-breaking Chicago sextet who won a Grammy of its own tonight), and several other groups.

– The late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson won Best Classical Vocal Performance for “Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs.”

– American composer Joan Tower – perhaps best known for her pieces “Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman” — took home three Grammies for her work “Made in America.” Hear her talk about the piece below:

(Photo courtesy of <insertstereotypicallabelhere>)

I have to share something I heard this weekend.  

Like Evelyn Glennie, Blue Man Group has helped expose percussion to a mainstream audience. The group now has long-running shows in nine cities around the world, while other productions tour around America.

The show revolves around three blue-faced men who mime and play percussion. The men all look very similar under the blue grease paint: They’re about the same height and seem to have similar faces.

This weekend, I talked with a man who works for Blue Man Group in Chicago. He told me that there previously have been female Blue Men, but that it is rare.

Blue Men have to be the same height (fairly tall) and have similar facial features, he said. Even if someone is an outstanding actor and fabulous drummer, he/she will not become a Blue Man unless he/she fits the physical requirement.

“Women have to look androgynous, so I’m afraid you couldn’t be one,” he told me.

Thanks?

(Photo courtesy of Sean Dockery)

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra will be embracing its Trekkie side this summer in an effort to reach a new audience.

The orchestra will perform “Star Trek: The Music” in mid-June under conductor Erich Kunzel of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Music from the Star Trek television series and films will be on the program. Sorry, though — the musicians will not be in costume.

Star Trek actors John de Lancie and Robert Picardo will be co-hosting the concert.

This is not the first time the Toronto Symphony will venture into space. Three years ago, Kunzel led the orchestra in a Star Wars-themed performance.

The Star Trek concert comes at a time when orchestras are realizing the popularity of movie-music concerts. More and more, orchestras are adding music by John Williams and from say, the Harry Potter films, to their repertoire. Even though the orchestras have to pay hefty sums for the rights to perform film music, they’re realizing that the increase in ticket sales is worth it.

Also during the 2008-2009 season, the Toronto Symphony will perform at Carnegie Hall and will be guest conducted by Xian Zhang in May 2009.