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 Rebecca Schmid In Berlin, where contemporary music thrives from the Philharmonie to off spaces, it is a widespread perception that New York’s mainstream institutions are afraid to program anything past Stravinsky. A look at Alan Gilbert’s recent undertakings with the New York Philharmonic, notably in a hugely successful “360” concert of Mozart, Stockhausen, Boulez [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark Shaham’s 1939 Dark Horse Gil Shaham had an epiphany. After years of recognition as one of the brightest young lights of the concert circuit, the Israeli-American violinist conjured one of the most imaginative programming concepts in years. He had been struck by how many violin concertos written in the 1930s had entered [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic are on a European tour for a couple of weeks, and for a change I didn’t roll my eyes in despair when I saw the list of repertoire. His predecessors as music director, Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel, for all their superb work at building [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark In their wildest dreams, the six string quartets couldn’t have asked for more. Nor could music lovers, as the Manhattan School of Music rang in the New Year with what it called the “Inaugural Robert Mann String Quartet Institute.” Yes, this is why I left Muncie, but this time my hometown friends [...]
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By Alan Gilbert On January 4 the Philharmonic made a very important announcement: Matthew VanBesien has been named the next Executive Director of the Orchestra. I feel very positive about this choice, as I was quoted as saying, but here I want to discuss some of the thoughts that have come to my mind in [...]
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On Saturday, September 10 2011, Alan Gilbert spoke before the New York Philharmonic performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, on A Concert for New York. Following are his reflections that preceded the performance, which was telecast nationally on PBS and can be watched in full at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/a-concert-for-new-york/watch-the-fully-edited-broadcast-program-with-tom-brokaw/1182/. We are faced, on this anniversary, with the responsibility [...]
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by Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. Dear Edna: As it is now late August and booking season is heading our way, I was wondering when you think is the best time to catch orchestra executive directors. I will be sending out materials through regular mail and e-mail. If I move [...]
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by Sedgwick Clark It seems odd that Carnegie Hall’s 2010-11 season concluded in mid May and that the New York Philharmonic continued into the last week of June, with the final concert of its Summertime Classics coda at the end of last week. It also seems to me that the official seasons in both halls concluded in [...]
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