By: Frank Cadenhead It was just the second day of the new year that good news arrived. A new scientific study indicates that being a few pounds overweight has little or no effect on your general health. That was Resolution No. 1. I did not read the entire report, not exactly wanting to hear the [...]
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By: Frank Cadenhead The two Parisian scandals on everyone’s lips in December were operatic in scope but also happened to be about opera. After all, Paris is still a city where artists are the center of continuing debate with their audiences. How timely this is since, in a few days, 2013 arrives with the centenary [...]
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By: Frank Cadenhead Two New York nights, back to back. Two examples of the continuous search for the enchantment, the profoundity, the glory of art. Who is an artist? How do you earn the title? Whether you work with an iPad, a pencil, a brush, a chisel, a baton, a clarinet, your voice or your [...]
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By: Frank Cadenhead It was appropriate. A visit to New York over the Thanksgiving holiday started off musically with Dvorak’s New World Symphony with its famed Largo - the one with the “Goin’ Home” tune. It has been years since my last visit with the New York Philharmonic in their hall and I did not [...]
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By: Frank Cadenhead “What? America doesn’t have a Minister of Culture?!” I remember a good friend asking. “How do they manage?” The short answer: they don’t. To translate the French words politique culturelle into American English poses problems, since the concept essentially does not exist. It generally refers to the government’s policies for the arts but the [...]
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By: Frank Cadenhead It was Halloween night. I should have expected something. The Belgians were in town to show off their musical muscle and brought both the Liege Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera of Wallonia. Belgium’s lower half is called Wallonia. They speak French and Liege is the [...]
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By: Frank Cadenhead Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is a monument of world culture. It is not just a musical masterpiece but an extraordinary gift to our collective humanity. It is like a Michelangelo, a Titian, a Shakespeare play, a poem by Goethe – so utterly astounding that anyone has to wonder how the artist, a mere [...]
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By Frank Cadenhead A top orchestra manager in Paris once told me in private “What is Mikko Franck still doing in Finland?” Born in Helsinki in 1979, he was already on the international circuit at 23 and has frequently guest-conducted in Paris. He would be an obvious choice for a major orchestra and his leadership [...]
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By: Frank Cadenhead October 13, 2012. It certainly is the first time, and probably the last, that I will be able to join my home town, San Diego, together with the French city, Lyon, in the same sentence. But two similar stories in these cities have struck a chord. The first is a surprising item [...]
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Paris, Thursday, October 11, 2012. When I was growing up in San Diego, one of my passions was the New Yorker column, “Letters from Paris” by the grand and gifted Janet Flanner. Her reports from this city, full of energy, intellect, passion, contradictions and good food, could have been one of the reasons I live [...]
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