The Year in Music: North America

By Leslie Kandell

Not so long ago, many Americans regarded Japan as one of the farthest of faraway places. But on March 11, when Japan endured an earthquake and a tsunami, resulting in threats of nuclear reactor meltdowns, the world—not least the music world—was reminded that we are all in this together. Air quality is a global concern; export shortages affect economies everywhere; and cultural exchanges gum up fast.

The Metropolitan Opera’s three-week tour to Japan was shaken but not stirred from its plan; when Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja withdrew, Barbara Frittoli and Rolando Villazón stepped into their roles. Fabio Luisi and Gianandrea Noseda conducted the 350 musicians, chorus members, and dancers—two planeloads with crew—while stagehands and staff carried on undaunted.

Responses in New York included the New York Philharmonic’s donation of proceeds from its recording of Takemitsu’s Requiem to relief efforts. The Japan Society hosted an all-day marathon to benefit victims, featuring Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson, and Mannes College presented an evening of Western and Japanese music to benefit the Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund. An earthquake relief benefit concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, with Yoko Ono and John Zorn, sold out in hours.

Events in Japan both heightened and cast a shadow over the second segment of JapanNYC, Carnegie Hall’s city-wide festival celebrating Japanese arts and culture. Seiji Ozawa had already canceled his appearances because of poor health, but most of the other concerts—to name just two, the NHK Symphony Orchestra led by André Previn and the Bach Collegium Japan—were preceded by expressions of sympathy from Carnegie’s Clive Gillinson, and moments of silence.

Later, musical tributes to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center continued to flow in this tenth-anniversary year. Among them was the new Shades of Memory by the Vermontraised composer Pierre Jalbert, introduced by the Houston Symphony under Hans Graf. Heart of a Soldier, by Christopher Theofanidis, had its premiere at the San Francisco Opera. It is based on the true story of a Vietnam veteran killed on 9/11 while moving people out of the World Trade Center.

On September 10 the New York Philharmonic, having also commissioned a commemorative song cycle from John Corigliano, performed Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony in a concert broadcast nationwide, and then telecast September 11 in Europe, South America, and Asia.

NEW MUSIC
The American Music Center and Meet the Composer have merged to become New Music USA, a national membership organization. Composers will now be able to apply for grants through a single membership; new-music advocacy through the media will become simpler, as will online research. Its Web site, www.newmusicbox.org, has improved audio and video, as well as more national  correspondents.

At Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music, Charles Wuorinen stepped in for James Levine, leading the premiere of It Happens Like This, his own commissioned cantata of poems by James Tate, dedicated to Levine. Park Avenue Armory’s inaugural Tune-In Music Festival featured eighth blackbird and the New York indoor premiere of John Luther Adams’s 2009 Inuksuit. The summer outdoor premiere was a four-ensemble percussion event spread throughout New York’s Morningside Park and including music students from around the country. In its applied theory of relativity, “what you hear depends on where you stand.”

The premiere of Bells, by Nathan Davis, took place in the lobby of Alice Tully Hall. The musical material, for winds, percussion, gongs, and small bells, was played by members of International Contemporary Ensemble standing in the audience. The obbligato, however, came from cell phones, which listeners were directed to connect to several conference numbers, and put on “speaker.” The point of interest
was influence of space and distance, as related to advanced electronics and old-fashioned bells.

OPERA
Opera America reports that 33 U.S. companies, alphabetically from Atlanta to Virginia, are featuring American operas this season and next. American movie theaters—more than 600 of them—carried The Met Live in HD, a Metropolitan Opera film project that thrives as it expands. In fact, the New York Times reported, the company balanced its budget for the first time in seven years, partly due to Live in HD profits.

Major Ring cycles were mounted on both coasts: The Met got up through Die Walküre, with Deborah Voigt, Jonas Kaufmann, and Bryn Terfel, in stylized mythic costumes, navigating the tricky, moveable scenery. San Francisco Opera’s staging by Francesca Zambello placed the four operas in American locales.

One opera always set in America is Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which received an extraordinary three revivals in four locales: American Repertory Theater performances, starring Audra McDonald as Bess, took place in Cambridge, Mass., and New York (over Stephen Sondheim’s incendiary objections to the direction, which caused sudden revisions). The Seattle Opera’s Bess was Lisa Daltirus. Bramwell Tovey, who had conducted the opera at the Hollywood Bowl, led the Boston Symphony concert production of the original 1935 version at Tanglewood, with Laquita Mitchell as Bess.

John Adams’s Nixon in China, in a new production by its original team, arrived at the Met, with James Maddalena recreating the title role and the composer making his Met conducting debut.

The endangered New York City Opera left Lincoln Center to present a reduced season—with, at long last, Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna—at various Manhattan venues. On its editorial page, the New York Times ruefully described City Opera as “a roving troupe, not quite busking but close.”

ORCHESTRAS
More Money, Please: The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas suspended operations for the 2011–12 season. The decision resulted from an increase in operating costs, compounded by a decrease in corporate funding and government support. The Honolulu Symphony also suspended operation, and the Syracuse Symphony filed for bankruptcy. The Detroit Symphony flickered out and then came back, having made a contract settlement—to the delight of its eclectic clientele, which turned out in force for its returning concert. Out east, the bitterly contentious Philadelphia Orchestra board and musicians agreed on bankruptcy reorganization just in time for opening night.

Doing OK: Under its new director, Alan Pierson, the Brooklyn Philharmonic is performing a series in three neighborhoods—Brighton Beach, downtown Brooklyn, and Bedford-Stuyvesant—whose programs reflect the heritage of each.

Spring for Music, a new series at Carnegie Hall to be extended for several years, presented six North American orchestras and celebrated their inventive programming. Case in point: Orpheus performed six “New Brandenburgs” inspired by Bach’s concertos, the Toledo Symphony brought a semi-staging of Previn’s rarely heard Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, and the Dallas Symphony came in with Steven Stucky’s oratorio, August 4, 1964, for Lyndon B. Johnson’s centennial, tracing his most stressful, conflicted day as president. Next year’s orchestras are already named, and their programs are online.

HAIL AND FAREWELL
Disabled by a continuing spate of injuries and surgeries, James Levine cancelled 2011 appearances at the Metropolitan Opera and relinquished his directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Fabio Luisi was immediately named principal conductor at the Met—to the displeasure of European houses where he cancelled performances. The BSO is in the process of searching for a successor.

Robert Spano, now in his tenth season as music director of the Atlanta Symphony, was named music director of the Aspen Music Festival after David Zinman quit in a dispute over plans to downsize the festival.

Peter Oundjian, music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, is now music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as well.

Alan Gilbert now heads Juilliard’s conducting department, and Gerard Schwarz concluded his tenure at the Seattle Symphony, to be succeeded by Ludovic Morlot.

Lorin Maazel has been appointed chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and Ohio native John Morris Russell will lead the Cincinnati Pops.

NEW SPACES
The Montreal Symphony and its music director, Kent Nagano, moved into a new space in September. This was a happy conclusion to years of obstacles, and the orchestra celebrated with works by Quebec composers Claude Vivier, Gilles Tremblay, and Julien Bilodeau.

Two centers opened in January: the Palladium concert hall in the multi-venue Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana, by CSO Architects, and in Miami Beach, the New World Symphony’s Frank Gehry-designed hall. Its state-of-the-art performing and recording facility has the capacity to telecast live performances on its outdoor wall for listeners in its park.

The DiMenna Center for Classical Music opened as New York City’s first dedicated space for rehearsal, recording, and education. Serving as Orchestra of St. Luke’s first permanent home, the 20,000-plus square foot facility offers local and touring musicians affordable rehearsal and recording space in midtown Manhattan.

PAST+ONLINE=FUTURE
John Cage 100: www.johncage.org/2012 is the go-to site for commemorative news of the composer’s centennial.

Morgan Library & Museum joined the Library of Congress Music Treasures Consortium Web site, www.loc.gov/musictreasures, which offers online access to some of the world’s most valued music manuscripts and printed scores. Many are in the composer’s hand; most have never been reproduced. Consortium members include the British Library, libraries at Harvard and Juilliard, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. The site is part of the Library of Congress’s Performing Arts Encyclopedia (www.loc.gov/performingarts), in which Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, and Debussy are represented. The online items in this launch range from the 16th to the 20th century. Researchers can browse materials, find information and view digital images via each custodial archive’s Web site. The site is expected to grow as consortium members add more items.

FESTIVALS
At this point, the Mostly Mozart festival must be keeping its name just for old times’ sake. Handel’s rarely heard Orlando was performed there by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra as part of a tour that included Ravinia and Tanglewood; the festival’s Stravinsky concentration was highlighted by Renard, in a version polished by Mark Morris after he had workshopped it at Tanglewood in 2009. The festival concluded with—what’s this!—an all-Mozart violin and piano recital.

Tough times at Tanglewood, which soldiered on without Levine and also (suddenly), minus scheduled pianist Leon Fleisher. Hurricane Irene, which played havoc with numerous East Coast cultural events, even forced the first-ever cancellation of its annual Beethoven Ninth final concert. Levine replacements were found in old BSO friend Charles Dutoit and new friend Emmanuel Krivine. (By now, finale tickets
are probably on Ebay.) The talented Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado made an exciting debut, as well as in Caramoor, Houston, Mostly Mozart, and Toronto. Watch for his name.

Lincoln Center’s new Tully Scope Festival was a jumble that swept in a Morton Feldman celebration, gambist Jordi Savall, staged concerts by Les Percussions de Strasbourg featuring the New York premiere of Grisey’s Noir de l’étoile, and an all-Xenakis program, with lectures and discussions.

UNEARTHED
Leon Botstein merits some kind of trophy for uncovering the neglected and the totally neglected. His discoveries all have an aria, or a scene, or style, worth another look. He led the American Symphony Orchestra in a concert version of Albéric Magnard’s Bérénice and, at Bard College, a staged version of Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae. David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony performed Mozart’s Zaïde, another opera set in a seraglio, in a version completed by Berio in 1995.

A CORNUCOPIA OF PRIZES
Madame White Snake, by Zhou Long, about a demon that transforms itself into a beautiful woman to experience love, won the Pulitzer Prize and an ASCAP award after its premiere at Opera Boston. The $1 million Birgit Nilsson Prize went to Riccardo Muti, and the Grawemeyer, diminished in funds because of the recession, was awarded to Louis Andriessen. Pauline Oliveros has the William Schuman Prize, soprano Susanna Phillips the Beverly Sills Prize, and Emanuel Ax is an honorary member of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York. Tenor René Barbera swept the Operalia Competition, but the Van Cliburn Award was split between its youngest contestants: Nobuyuki Tsujii and Haochen Zhang. José Antonio Abreu, the founder of Venezuela’s El Sistema, received Sweden’s Polar Music Prize. The Emerson String Quartet, Marin Alsop, Philip Glass, William Bolcom, and Joseph W. Polisi were all inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Alisa Weilerstein, cellist, and Francisco Nunez, director of the New York City Youth Chorus, were awarded $500,000 MacArthur grants. •

Leslie Kandell has contributed to MusicalAmerica.com, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, American Record Guide, BBC Music Magazine, Berkshire Eagle, and other publications.

OBITUARIES
In the year 2011 and late 2010, the classical-music world recorded the loss of composers Henryk Gorecki, Milton Babbitt, Lee Hoiby, Peter Lieberson, Daniel Catán; conductors Kurt Sanderling, Dino Anagnost, Rudolf Barshai, Yakov Kreizberg, Johannes Somary; pianists Jacob Lateiner, Nikolai Petrov, George Shearing, Billy Taylor; sopranos Shirley Verrett, Margaret Price, Helen Boatwright; tenors Salvatore Licitra, Peter Hofmann, Robert Tear; baritone Cornell MacNeil; bass Giorgio Tozzi; violinists Eugene Fodor, Joseph Suk, Sergiu Luca; violist Raphael Hillyer; cellist Bernard Greenhouse; tubist Harvey Phillips; Marlboro Music School founder Blanche Moyse; acoustician Cyril M. Harris; author Joan Peyser; orchestra administrator Frank Milburn; Sony executive Norio Ohga; author and publicist Johanna Fiedler; John Diebboll, who designed pianos with fantasy shapes.