The Year in Music: North America

By Leslie Kandell

The music world, too, was changed by it. In stunned response to the World Trade Center attack, we sang: the National Anthem, "God Bless America," "Amazing Grace," and whatever else we know by heart. Orchestras, some of whose tour plans were disrupted, scrapped programs and delved into the heart of the literature. In memoriam, Kurt Masur, now Music Director Emeritus of the New York Philharmonic, conducted Brahms's German Requiem; Seiji Ozawa, now Boston Symphony Laureate, led the Berlioz Requiem; Claudio Abbado, in his final season with the Berlin Philharmonic, led the orchestra in Carnegie Hall concerts of Mahler, Brahms, and Beethoven.

By spring we heard the first music composed after the attack. Resurrection, Krzysztof Penderecki's radiant piano concerto, was introduced by Emanuel Ax with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch (finishing his directorship in 2002-03). The American Composers Orchestra-from which Dennis Russell Davies stepped down after 25 years-offered The Book of Five, a concerto grosso for orchestra and rock band, by Stewart Wallace; the attack impelled the composer to write an elegiac fifth movement as a centerpiece. Falling Dreams was Kevin Matthew Puts's response to a couple jumping off the tower hand in hand.

Lorin Maazel began the New York Philharmonic season, and his tenure there, with John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, a somber, affecting montage of vague dissonance with selected ambient sound, fragments of messages on signs held by victims' families, and the familiar measured reading of names.

Memorials were everywhere on the 9/11 anniversary. As former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani began to read names of the dead, Yo-Yo Ma, America's No. 1 classical artist, played Bach. That night, Governor George Pataki attended the premiere in the State capital of Albany of Richard Einhorn's The Spires, the Cities, the Field, a cantata in memory of the victims, which incorporated phrases (translated into English) from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy books-"using the words fanatics would use to destroy us in a way to shame them," said the composer. David Alan Miller conducted the Albany Symphony, featuring harmonica player Robert Bonfiglio and mezzo-soprano Lucille Beer.

The most far-ranging event was a rolling worldwide concert of Mozart's Requiem with 180 choirs, beginning at 8:46 AM-the minute of the initial terrorist attack-and moving through 20 time zones including the South Pole, where it was downloaded from the Internet.

Leonard Slatkin led the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center's inclusive "Concert for America" and the BBC Symphony (which he is leaving) in the controversial The Death of Klinghoffer as part of a John Adams festival. Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony gave a free concert of American classics, including Copland, Barber, and Bernstein.

In New York, a premiere by Egyptian composer Kamel Boutros, with Hebrew and Arabic text, was part of a concert by the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Shanghai Quartets. The Verdi Requiem was aired on public television from Liberty State Park, with Zdenek Macal conducting the New Jersey Symphony, Westminster Symphonic Choir, and Metropolitan Opera soloists. (It was the pre-recorded dress rehearsal that was broadcast, as ominous winds rattled the stage and forced cancellation of the scheduled performance.)

Fallout: Arts Funding

New York, hardest hit by the attack, fared less badly in the cutting room than did other places. Some say the troubled economy, which took a toll on grants, contributions, and subscription sales, was already in decline before September 11. Californians are willing to pay higher taxes to support the arts, but the Los Angeles Opera canceled the Kirov Opera production of War and Peace after costs abruptly increased and the arts philanthropist Alberto W. Vilar was unable to meet a time commitment. (Vilar, the biggest individual backer of the Kennedy Center and the Met, cut back his share in the new international Maazel/Vilar Conductors' Competition, as well, and Maazel made up the difference.) The Cleveland Orchestra cut back national broadcasts, and the Chicago Symphony, which once seemed the only orchestra immune to a deficit, is $4 million in the red. The Colorado Symphony musicians, to avoid going into Chapter 11 as San Jose and Calgary were forced to do, took no pay increase. Orchestras taking cuts are in Saint Louis, San Antonio, and Rochester. The Enron scandal hurt Texas; Houston Grand Opera cut its staff, and Anthony Whitworth-Jones, general director of the Dallas Opera, left citing "frustration with the local fund-raising situation." Dallas Opera postponed its United States premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's The Silver Tassie, suddenly a war-sensitive subject. Organizations receiving multi-million dollar good news are the Kennedy Center, the Blossom Festival, the San Diego Symphony, and Ontario arts, to which the outgoing premier promised $90 million. Also, conservatories such as Juilliard report increased attendance at inexpensive student concerts and opera productions.

Mutiny, and Other Orchestra Woes

Charles Dutoit, threatened with a lawsuit over "abusive and arbitrary behavior," resigned as music director of the Montreal Symphony on the eve of his 25th-anniversary season. Subscription sales froze as Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and Vladimir Ashkenazy pulled out. Peripatetic principal flutist Tim Hutchins resigned as chairman of the orchestra committee to take a leave in 2003-04 in the Pittsburgh Symphony-which despite its financial troubles happens to pay more. The hefty salary of Émile Subirana, President of the Quebec Musicians' Guild and a catalyst in Dutoit's resignation, made his constituents uncomfortable, and he was voted out.

When the Edmonton Symphony did not renew the contract of Music Director Grzegorz Nowak ("not a team player," was the phrase), musicians complained that they weren't consulted and walked out for a month; some subscribers threatened to cancel. Nowak, backed by a friend's grant, started his own orchestra with some Symphony players, while resident conductor David Hoyt filled in during the search for a new principal. Edmonton worries whether there is enough audience to support two series.

James Judd was forced out as music director of the debt-ridden Florida Philharmonic, but Joseph Silverstein, its experienced acting music director, is optimistic about its new management (Trey Devey as executive director), financial reorganization, and the forthcoming announcement of the next music director.

After 32 years, the Baltimore Symphony disbanded its chorus. The Chicago Symphony Chorus, left out of the Ravinia Festival, circulated a petition of protest.

Farewell, Symphony

Even a partial list of the departing is a music directors' Who's Who: Masur bade farewell to the New York Philharmonic at Tanglewood with concerts of Mahler and Beethoven. Seiji Ozawa, after a 29-year tenure with the Boston Symphony, led his farewell at Tanglewood a week earlier with works of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky. Christoph von Dohnányi's expansive goodbye to the Cleveland Orchestra was Wagner's Siegfried. Macal leaves the New Jersey Symphony to replace Ashkenazy at the Czech Philharmonic. James Levine gives up Munich for the Boston Symphony, but of course will hold on to his Met Opera post. Trevor Pinnock stepped down from the English Concert. The retirement of Kurt Sanderling, 90, was announced. Mariss Jansons will leave the Pittsburgh Symphony to succeed Riccardo Chailly at the Royal Concertgebouw and Maazel at Munich's Bavarian Radio Symphony.

The year 2002 was not the best for conductors' health: Masur and James Conlon came through surgery well, but Abbado's health was an issue, and health was a consideration when James DePreist and Hans Vonk resigned their respective directorships of the Oregon and Saint Louis symphonies.

Beverly Sills promised herself to resign as Lincoln Center's chairman when a new president was found, and after a bumpy search, Reynold Levy was chosen; Bruce Crawford succeeded Sills as chairman. That was May. By fall, the 73-year-old Sills had become chairwoman of the Metropolitan Opera. Henry Fogel is to leave the Chicago Symphony but continues to chair the American Symphony Orchestra League.

Space News

At the end of 2001, the Philadelphia Orchestra moved happily into its new home, the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall. Wolfgang Sawallisch conducted concerts showcasing acoustics: star soloists (Ma, Ax, Itzhak Perlman), great choral works (the Verdi Requiem), and new music-Jennifer Higdon's well-received Concerto for Orchestra. The hall's design is appealing ("rapturous," said a listener), but after the acoustics drew mixed reviews, it was determined that time was needed for simple adjustments-to the heat, or reverberation chambers-and especially seeing what others think. Ticket prices are now the nation's highest.

The Hollywood Bowl beat back preservationists and got the go-ahead to update its 73-year-old orchestra shell. Meanwhile, The Nashville Symphony will have a $120-million hall converted from a fire station and a repair shop; Nashville Opera is looking to be part of it. New York City Opera is considering a move downtown from Lincoln Center to a building damaged in the World Trade Center attack. Renovation of New York's Symphony Space and adjoining theater, renamed the Leonard Nimoy Thalia, is complete; after its lives as an ice palace, boxing rink, movie theater, and music venue, it manages to retain its identity even though wrapped in an apartment building.

Unearthed

An unplayed Hindemith Concerto for left hand, composed for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein, turned up in a Pennsylvania farmhouse. A 33-measure fragment of an experimental Chopin prelude was reconstructed and performed at the Newport Music Festival. Only a couple of Carl Czerny's piano studies are widely known, but a four-day Edmonton festival revealed that he wrote over a thousand pieces for many instruments, most unpublished, and some unfairly so. A piano concerto by Trenton native George Antheil was discovered and performed by Michael Rische with the Berlin Symphony; at Lincoln Center, Guy Livingston played an all-Antheil piano concert introducing unpublished sonatas. As part of the worldwide Stefan Wolpe centennial, a season of concerts and symposia was planned in New York, Pennsylvania, and California. Daniel Barenboim led the Chicago Symphony in the American premiere of Furtwängler's Symphony No. 2, from 1947; "German Romanticism's dying gasp," a reviewer said of the sympathetic performance (recorded by Teldec). Eve Queler led what may be the first complete performance in 150 years of Donizetti's Marino Faliero. Luciano Berio completed Turandot, and the version was heard at San Francisco Opera.

Festivals

The Silk Road Project-concerts of colorful music from the ancient route between Europe to China-made a stop at Carnegie Hall and then wove through Washington, D.C., and other cities to be the centerpiece of the Seattle Symphony's second May Festival. Its theme was complemented by Lincoln Center Festival's varied, exotic offerings that focused on the Middle East. Bright Sheng, director of Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music, based that weeklong festival around American music of the last 15 years, which displayed tremendous cultural diversity. Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasión Segun San Marcos was an electrifying clash of Afro-Cuban rhythms, ethnic and traditional instruments, break dancing, and art song; the Oregon Bach Festival, which commissioned it and three other Passions, featured Tan Dun's Bach homage, Water Passion After St. Matthew.

The headline was "Mostly Mozart Mostly Canceled." Musicians struck just before the July festival. They settled four days later, but found a lukewarm reception despite Lincoln Center's peace offering to the public of two free concerts.

There's good news: Nigel Redden announced that Spoleto is doing well artistically and coming out of debt. And bad: Colorado wildfires kept Aspen ticket sales down.

Winners, Honors

Aaron Jay Kernis won the $200,000 Grawemeyer Award for his 1994 Colored Field for English Horn and Orchestra, which was recorded by the San Francisco Symphony. Henry Brant and music critic Justin Davidson won Pulitzer Prizes. MacArthur grants went to trombonist/composer George Lewis and bassist/composer Edgar Meyer, with the Gilmore award going to Piotr Anderszewski. JoAnn Falletta and Miguel Harth-Bedoya won the final Seaver/NEA Conductors Awards. Leonard Slatkin was inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Plácido Domingo's Operalia contest winners were soprano Carmen Giannattasio and mezzo-soprano Elena Manistina. In a year when the American Guild of Organists foresaw a shortage of organists, Clive Driskill-Smith won Calgary's organ competition. The winner of Pasadena's first Rachmaninoff International Competition was Evgeni Mikhailov; Alessio Cioni, the audience favorite, was disqualified for "lack of preparation" of the Third Piano Concerto. Barnabas Kelemen, a Hungarian, swept the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis (which could be followed live on the Web). The first Maazel/Vilar Conductors' Competition ended in a tie between Xian Zhang, a 28-year old woman from China, and Bundit Ungrangsee, a 31-year old man from Bangkok, Thailand; each received $45,000, two to three years of study with Maazel and others, and select professional engagements. Danail Rachev received the New World Symphony's first fellowship, to apprentice with Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and several other guest conductors during the 2002-03 season.

James Galway was knighted for service to music, and Rostropovich, 75, was honored in Azerbaijan by its highest award; both artists performed with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood soon afterward. President Bush awarded Domingo a Medal of Freedom, and Paul Simon and James Levine were chosen for Kennedy Center Honors. Gilbert Levine, the Jewish, Brooklyn-born music advisor to the Vatican, was knighted by the Pope.

Do Tell!

Luciano Pavarotti's last-minute cancellation of a big-ticket performance in Tosca was the last straw for the Met, whose future roster does not include him. The 67-year-old tenor said he would focus on his new 32-year-old wife, who is expecting twins. Salvatore Licitra, Pavarotti's Met substitute, made the most of this classic opportunity, acquitting himself well enough to mollify the outraged audience and launch his career; a recording on Sony Classical, already in the pipeline, followed not long after. Don't look for Jonathan Miller at the Met for a while; he ran afoul of Cecilia Bartoli and talked about it. Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu, unexpectedly photogenic in a movie of Tosca, showed up for the Met's pension fund concert; meanwhile, their manager dropped Gheorghiu, having lost patience with her attitude. Anne-Sophie Mutter, who performs with André Previn and introduced his Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony, married him in August. Tibor Rudas still seeks an American arena booking for his lavish all-Chinese production of Turandot.

New Lives for Instruments and Music

Thanks to a wealthy collector and patron, the New Jersey Symphony is poised to inherit $50 million worth of Strads and Guarneris. Now all they have to do is raise half that sum. Heifetz's Guarneri, the "David," is being played by Alexander Barantschik, concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony. A tree specialist verified the age and authenticity of a $20 million Strad, the "Messiah."

Following Ma's electronic journey, Joshua Bell is assisting MIT researchers in creating technology-aided "hyperinstruments." Similarly, a virtual violin device is said to bring "feeling" to computer-generated sound, and a "mutantrumpet" with bells and slide plugs into a laptop for enhanced weirdness; hear it at www.benneill.com/recordings.html.

Railway stations in the U.K. have boarded the anti-classical bandwagon, using Beethoven and Mozart to deter young vandals. But classical music in the operating room, a study shows, inspires surgeons to perform (excuse the word) at their best.

Obituaries

In 2002 and late 2001, the music world recorded the loss of composers Ralph Shapey, Leo Ornstein, Xavier Montsalvatge, and Grant Beglarian; conductors Yevgeny Svetlanov, Günter Wand, Mehli Mehta, and Henry Mazer; sopranos Eileen Farrell, Martha Mödl, and Beverly Bower; tenors Sandor Konya and Gösta Winbergh; baritone Norman Atkins; bass-baritones William Warfield and Emile Renan; pianists Dudley Moore, Robert Helps, Shirley Greitzer, Vlado Perlemuter; violinist Rafael Druian; cellist Zara Nelsova; oboist John de Lancie; trumpeter Armando Ghitalla; percussionist Michael Bookspan; teacher Dorothy DeLay; critics Paul Hume, Byron Belt, and Edward Downes; harpsichordist Igor Kipnis, lutenist Suzanne Bloch, organist Edouard Nies-Berger; directors Peter Hemmings, Raymond Gérôme, Robert "Ed" Bradberry, and Herbert Wernicke; journalist, publisher, patron Eric Friedheim; record-company executive Seymour Solomon; Paul Tripp (author of Tubby the Tuba); and Rosemary Brown, who was visited by ghosts of the great composers.

Leslie Kandell is music critic for the regional sections of The New York Times. She also writes for The Berkshire Eagle and other newspapers. She contributes to Opera News and American Record Guide.