History
Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 7:19am.
A couple of strange things have crossed my computer screen this week and I would really love to get your opinion about them.
Earlier this week a friend emailed me an article about a robot conducting an orchestra. Okay, hold the jokes about conductors for a second. Honda’s ASIMO humanoid robot will take command of the baton in Detroit on May 13 and will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as it performs Impossible Dream to open a concert performance featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
I think we can all agree that robots are unlikely to replace humans on the podium anytime soon. What’s interesting about this is that Honda is a major donor to DSO, and one gets the feeling that putting ASIMO on the podium might somehow be tied to the sponsorship. I’m all for acknowledging the wonderful corporate partners who support our work, but does this go too far?
Another item that caught my eye was from the League of American Orchestra’s newsletter. Apparently classical composers and folk musicians are collaborating on creating new music for orchestras. Not exactly a new idea given the use of folk music themes throughout classical music history, but up until recently, using folk influences was considered déclassé. How do you feel about this renewed interest in vernacular music?
Finally, speaking of traditional music, the Chicago Sinfonietta will be presenting the world premiere of Three Songs for Blues Singer and Orchestra created by composer/arranger Larry Hoffman on May 11th and 12th featuring Muddy Water’s long-time guitarist, John Primer. We are pleased to offer registered users of this site a “hot deal” to attend this concert that will also feature pianist Leon Bates performing Rhapsody in Blue and Pictures at an Exhibition performed with a never-before-seen video created by astronomer and video artist José Francisco Salgado.
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A good friend of mine who goes by the alias "
Drex Drexler" sent me this article from today's
New York Times, which provides evidence that
Thomas Edison was by no means the first to lay down a track (a recording recently discovered by researchers looks to have beaten Edison to the punch by 20 years).
Check it out: here's the article with audio of the findings.
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Thu, 03/06/2008 - 11:10am.
I have a favor to ask of you. In November 2008 The Chicago Sinfonietta will partner with the Chicago Humanities Festival in musically exploring the year’s Festival theme, “THINK BIG”. We invite you to help us realize our 'big idea" for a concert by joining us in selecting the most transformative classical music compositions ever written -- works from various eras that truly changed the rules and affected everything that came after. We will perform two of the selections at Chicago's Symphony Center on Monday, November 10th at 7:30 p.m. And to "change the game" even more, we hope to either present a live streaming broadcast that evening (so you can hear the winning selections regardless of where you are) or post the performance as a downloadable video file on our website.
Let your voice be heard! A panel of experts has shared its ideas for “game-changing” nominees and you can vote right now at the
Chicago Sinfonietta’s website. Make your selection from the experts' list, or if you disagree, feel free to write in your own.
Thanks for voting – and please pass this link on to others!
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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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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 10/31/2007 - 10:39am.
Last week Daniel J. Levitin wrote
an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times about how odd it is that classical music audiences are discouraged from expressing their enjoyment of music through movement. Levitin asserts that moving to music is innate and that we would probably have more fun if we moved freely.
I couldn’t agree more. For me, it follows the “don’t clap in between movements” rule at classical music concerts that I sometimes find so counter-intuitive. Would it be distracting if half of the people at a concert got up to dance or sway to the music? In some instances, yes. But there are times when the enjoyment of a piece is enhanced by moving to the beat, and if the entire audience joins in doing so, then it can ascend to a higher level altogether.
A great example of this takes place every January at the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Annual Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Maestro Freeman closes this concert every year by inviting the audience to stand up, hold hands, sing, and sway to the pulse of “We Shall Overcome”. The act of moving as a group, and singing together makes this one of the most emotional moments of the season, year after year.
Maybe there are other opportunities like this that would make our concerts more fun and fulfilling. Can any of you share similar moments that you may have experienced in the concert hall?
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Submitted by Ravinia on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 3:09pm.
World premiere will be part of Ravinia’s 2009 celebration of the Lincoln Bicentennial under the banner: “Mystic Chords of Memory”
Ravinia Festival has commissioned award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones, who most recently won a Tony for his choreography for Spring Awakening, to create a new full-evening work, tentatively titled A Good Man, inspired by Abraham Lincoln and celebrating the slain president’s 2009 bicentennial. The announcement was made today by Jones and Ravinia Festival President and CEO Welz Kauffman in a joint press conference before the Lincoln death bed at the Chicago History Museum. The work will be performed by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
“The image of Abraham Lincoln’s long, broken body stretched across what was to become his death bed will be at the heart of the work,” Jones said. “I wonder about the paradise our country could have been if Lincoln had lived to complete the reconstruction of America, but which we are only left to imagine. I would like to share that vision with audiences and then remove it in order to expose that great distance between what is and what could have been.”
The press conference concluded Jones’s daylong trip to Springfield and Chicago that provided him the opportunity to connect with real locations and relics from Lincoln’s life in Illinois, including the old state Capitol, Lincoln’s home, tomb and the Lincoln Library and Museum. Jones also was introduced to the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. As a member of the commission, Kauffman sees the bicentennial as an opportunity for community involvement that will encourage guests and artists from the entire “Land of Lincoln” to seek out Ravinia, which for years has worked toward diversifying audiences and programming with an eye toward commissions and premieres by such luminaries as John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Mark Morris, the Joffrey Ballet and Philip Glass—not to mention the first opera from South Africa, Princess Magogo.
“Bicentennial celebrations by their very definition are about a single moment in time, but any artistic celebration of the great Abraham Lincoln requires something truly timeless. That’s why we sought out Bill T. Jones,” Kauffman said. “Bill is emblematic of Ravinia as he, too, thrives on music, dance, theater, community development and reaching out to diverse audiences. There’s also a bit of Lincoln in him—not just his charisma but also his respect of the past and demands of the future. He and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company enjoy international acclaim, and I would love to see his view of Lincoln shared on distant shores. I can’t wait to experience Lincoln through his eyes.”
Kauffman said that because Lincoln looms so large as a historical figure, it’s easy to forget just how recently Lincoln lived and made decisions that will forever impact this land. Lincoln was killed less than 40 years before Ravinia, North America’s oldest music festival, was founded by a railroad company.
Details on the project, which is under development, will be released as the work progresses, but the work will be central to Ravinia’s 2009 celebration of Lincoln’s life and legacy (which will include other events throughout the season).
Jones said, “I live with the uneasy feeling that society has shaped me as a result of something that was stolen from us when Abraham Lincoln was killed. The cynicism and alienation that I have to cope with in my own head and heart arose as a result of a climate built systematically by such a strange turn of destiny as his assassination. Libraries are full of scholarly texts dedicated to the legacy of this singularly American man. I want to create a dance theater work that investigates a handful of key moments from his remarkable life and subject them to a process whereby song and memory deliver us beyond the boundaries of space and time.”
After working together for more than a decade as a critically lauded dance team,
Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane (1948-1988) formed their own company in 1982. Since then, the 10-member company has performed in more than 200 cities around the world and is recognized for its collaborative work with artists ranging from painter Keith Haring to the Orion String Quartet. The Harlem-based company is also celebrated for its educational endeavors. Its acclaimed dance works include Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, Still/Here, Blind Date and last year’s Chapel/Chapter.
In addition to winning the Tony for Spring Awakening, Jones received the 2007 Obie Award and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Callaway Award. He’s also received the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; the 2005 Wexner Prize, the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Harlem Renaissance Award, the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize and the 1994 MacArthur “genius” grant. In 2000 The Dance Heritage Coalition named Jones “an irreplaceable dance treasure.” Jones began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), studying classical ballet and modern dance.
The San Francisco Chronicle says, “Some choreographers are born dance-makers whose genius manifests in the steps themselves. And some choreographers are geniuses who just happen to choose dance for their primary mode of expression. Bill T. Jones is of the latter variety, and the dance world is fortunate to have him.” The Chicago Tribune concurs, “Bill T. Jones is a dancer abundantly blessed with musicality. Whether he is poised in classical ballet positions or sashaying about in a quick vaudeville buck-and-wing, he appears to find the best movement for the right moment.”
Ravinia Festival’s 2009 season will reflect many aspects of the celebrated and sometimes controversial 16th president through programming across the many genres and disciplines regularly presented at America’s oldest music festival, including classical, jazz, gospel, music theater and dance. These programs will be united under the banner “Mystic Chords of Memory,” a quote from Lincoln’s first inaugural address. Ravinia received a $70,000 grant from the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. The grant will help Ravinia commission up to 10 chamber music compositions, each setting or framed by Lincoln’s words. Other programs will look at the music and composers from Lincoln’s era; the global influence of this important leader; the legacy of poet Walt Whitman; and jazz, gospel and spirituals.
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
---Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
-submitted by Adriana Avila, Marketing Manger, Ravinia Festival
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Gustav Mahler. Composer, conductor, graffiti artist?
I first read about this online, saw it on Alex Ross’ blog, Torontoist.com and am frankly quite curious about the whole thing. I don’t know what this graffiti is supposed to represent, if it is in fact supposed to say something about Mahler, or if it is just a mindless joke.
What is this all about? What does it mean to you? Is it just vandalism or 
is this person trying to say something? Any thoughts?
As a side note, I found a really interesting contextual historical timeline of what was going on in the world while Mahler was composing. Check it out.
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Today is the 10 year anniversary of Sir Georg Solti's death. Yesterday I interviewed CSO president Deborah Card and Martha Gilmer to get their reaction, as well as information on today's tribute to take place at noon.
If you missed the piece on today's morning show, you can
listen here.
(it's about 3-4 items down the list)
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Yesterday I guest-conducted the Jewish Community Singers of Metro Chicago, a terrific volunteer civic group of about 70 singers called (in Hebrew) Kol Zimrah. I was brought in to lead KZ for a half-dozen weekly rehearsals and then the final concert, performed at the lovely Weinberg center at the corner of Lake Cook Road and I-294. The house was packed, with people overflowing to the patio outside, which fortunately had been supplied with speakers from the audio system that was carrying us on microphones.
The program lasted about an hour. Would you believe that there was a connection between one of the songs and my own grandmother? Oy! As it turned out, the program contained a "niggun" in Yiddish. A "niggun" [plural "niggunim"] is a wordless tune, which in this case sounded like "tschiribim-bam-bam," and so on. This particular niggun was arranged by Alice Parker, who was Robert Shaw's longtime collaborator, and a brilliant arranger in her own right.
However, more interesting to me was the composer of the original tune, Lazar Weiner. I learned from a friend that Lazar Weiner, who wore many hats in the NYC Jewish-music scene a hundred or so years ago, was the music director of the Freyheyt Gezang Vereyn (Freedom-Song Union), basically the choral-music arm of the Communist Party in New York City in the 1920s. Here is a picture of Weiner conducting.
And who sang with Lazar Weiner in the Freyheyt Gezang Vereyn? None other than my father's mother, Lillian Cohen, born Leah Krikun in Minsk, what is now Belarus. Now THAT is a small world!
All of the repertoire on yesterday's concert was Jewish. Most of it was in Hebrew; there was that "niggun" in infectiously fun Yiddish, and one in English. Much of the music is somewhere in the region between liturgical and classical music. I decided to feature scores by Max Janowski, my great mentor, as well as works by Lewandowski, Bonia Shur, Yehezkel Braun, Bob Applebaum, Donald McCullough (a lovely song on a Jewish text), Chaim Parchi, and others.
The pieces ranged from Chassidic melodies to the Yiddish "niggun", to classical music by Israeli, European, and American composers and arrangers. The choir sang its collective heart out, and we brought down the house. The energy and spirit were wonderful; this is an impressive choir, with some very good soloists and a strong track record of championing the music of living composers, including commissions, so its mission is close to my heart.
How does music come full circle in your life? I am sure that there are remarkable connections all over the classical-music world just like the one about my grandmother. I can only imagine that, most of the time, people become involved in classical music through *personal connections* to other people who are making classical music, and it goes on from there. What are your connections? Share them with this online community. We'd like to hear your stories too.
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