• A newly released CD: Patricia Brooks in Recital at Lincoln Center
• Dana Gioia to Exit Arts Endowment
• Gerard Schwarz to Fails to Renew
• The Fly Is a Flop
• Artists Touring? Find the Best Route with Travel Planner Pro!

• Soprano Anna Netrebko Gives Birth
• Nathaniel Merrill Dies
• The Alexander String Quartet Fellowship for Emerging Professional String Quartets
• Also on MusicalAmerica.com This Week...
• BONUS FEATURES

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“One of the greatest singers I have ever heard!”
--Howard Kissel, American Theater.

“Brooks is wonderful & marvelous, an artist of great intelligence & caressing sensuality!”
--Opera News.

New York City Opera presents Spotlight on Patricia Brooks, a celebration featuring audio and video clips. Guests: Steven Blier, Zoe Caldwell, Frank Corsaro, Dominic Cossa, Terrence McNally, Julius Rudel, Theodore Mann.

September 18, 2008, 7:00 p.m.

Visit www.nycOpera.com for more information.

NEW YORK -- Dana Gioia will step down as chairman of the National Endowment for the Performing Arts in January. For the 57-year-old poet, the job has been both exhilarating and exhausting. "I have traveled nearly every week for six years and I usually work six to seven days a week," said Gioia, who is leaving well before his second four-year term is to expire. "I feel I've earned the right to return to my private life as an artist." Gioia is the most high-profile NEA chairman in recent history; before his arrival, the agency was threatened with extinction by conservatives who branded it a shameful supporter of such explicit works as Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs. Now, the NEA is among the most visible cheerleaders for the arts.

Gerard Schwarz announced Wednesday that he will not renew his contract as music director of the Seattle Symphony when it expires at the end of the 2010-2011 season. By that time, he will have been in the post for 25 years. Schwarz, who in 1975 left his post as co-principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic to launch his conducting career, is credited with moving Seattle into the big leagues, producing some 125 recordings and premiering 70 works. In recent years, musicians have complained about his prickly leadership style and bland musicianship, and reportedly threatened to strike if Schwarz did not step down when the current contract expired. Both conductor and orchestra management insist that his departure is his own decision.

LOS ANGELES—If the William Friedkin-Woody Allen directed Il Trittico that opened the Los Angeles Opera’s new season Sept. 6 represents the positive aspects of the company’s intensified relationship with Hollywood, Howard Shore’s The Fly, which had its American premiere the following afternoon, represents the negative. Shore is a fine film composer, but he demonstrates little understanding of the operatic craft. The music sounds mostly like underscoring, and David Henry Hwang’s libretto is alternatingly insipid and creepy, suggesting more unnerving insights about the opera’s creative team than its characters. David Cronenberg, the thinking man’s shock-meister, directs, as he did the 1986 film.

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Anna Netrebko, Musical America's 2008 Musician of the Year, gave birth to baby boy on Sept. 5th in her home town of Vienna, Austria. (The Russian born soprano became an Austrian citizen two years ago.) The father of the child is Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott, 36, to whom she became engaged in late 2007. The child, whose name is Tiago Arua Schrott, weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces. He and his mother are said to be doing well. "Both parents are delighted that their son has finally arrived and look forward to introducing him to family and friends in the coming days," said manager Jeffrey Vanderveen in a statement. Netrebko, who turns 37 on Sept. 18, is next scheduled to appear on stage at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg on Jan. 14, in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor.

Nathaniel Merrill, founder of Opera Colorado and for 28 seasons resident stage director of the Metropolitan Opera, died on Sept. 9. He was 81 and had suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease.

Merrill launched the Colorado company with his then-wife and music director Louise Sherman in 1981. Prior to that time, and in addition to his work at the Met under Sir Rudolf Bing, he staged operas all over the world, including Vienna, Hamburg, Buenos Aires, Chicago and San Francisco. At Colorado’s Central City Opera, he directed Aida starring a young Beverly Sills.

Met productions included L’Elisir d’Amore, Turandot, Die Meistersinger, Aida and Der Rosenkavalier, among many others. Merrill retired from directing in 1998.

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International Center for the Arts at San Francisco State University announces the Alexander String Quartet Fellowship, beginning Fall 2009. Finalist Quartets will be invited to participate in SFSU’s Annual Yehudi Menuhin Chamber Music Seminar January 21–25, 2009. Fellowship Quartet Receives: One-Year Residency with Alexander String Quartet; Performance Opportunities; Career Guidance; Stipend; Professional Recording Opportunity; Coaching with Visiting Artists. Apply by November 20, 2008. ICA 415-817-4476

For complete information and application guidelines: http://ica.sfsu.edu/ASQFellowship

Airport Security Makes Ailey Dancer Dance
Maestro a Brilliant Bit of BBC Programming
'Passionato,' a New Online Classical Store
Hamlisch to Colorado Symphony
Vernon Handley Dies
Bryn Terfel is Big on Balance
Bolshoi Artistic Director to ABT
Beethoven's Last Piano Work "Discovered"
Classical Music Missing from KenCen Honors
Beacon Theater Set for Renovation
Peter Glossop Dies
Covent Garden Opens, to the Unwashed
Brevard Music Center President to Retire
City Opera Takes the Show on the Road
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,
Puccini with a Touch of Hollywood Whimsy
Ani Kavafian to New Haven Symphony
Events Honor Anniversary of Pavarotti's Death

"May you never forget what is worth remembering, nor ever remember what is best forgotten."

-Irish Blessing

We Remember 9/11

"Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory."

-Sir Thomas Beecham

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Header Photos Courtesy: 1. John Kane/The Joyce Theater 2. George Mott/Glimmerglass Opera 4. Grant Leighton