{"id":4023,"date":"2012-02-22T11:40:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T15:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=4023"},"modified":"2012-03-18T15:54:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T19:54:32","slug":"ma-bloggers-span-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=4023","title":{"rendered":"MA Bloggers Span the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

First New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert as a Musical America <\/em>blogger and now Los Angeles Opera Music Director James Conlon. Welcome Maestro Conlon!<\/p>\n

His blog, entitled \u201cA Rich Possession,\u201d made its debut last Thursday, February 16, and demonstrated that those who love the arts really can make a difference. All of us have seen government funding for the arts tank during the current money crunch. But when the L.A. School Board proposed cutting all arts instruction in elementary classes, Conlon writes, \u201cThe public outcry against these cuts was loud and clear\u2014and effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The elementary school years are the most impressionable time for introduction to the arts. Thank goodness for Mrs. Kirk, the music teacher at Westview Elementary in Muncie. She taught me clarinet in second grade, and\u00a0every Halloween she\u00a0played a recording of Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019s Danse macabre<\/em>, which\u00a0fired my imagination and a\u00a0love for classical music that burns unabated.<\/p>\n

Read Conlon\u2019s eloquent letter to the superintendant of the L.A. Board of Education and watch for his further contributions in the list of blogs on the right side of the Web site home page.<\/p>\n

Copland House Comes to Manhattan<\/strong><\/p>\n

For years I\u2019ve been tempted by Music from Copland House concerts, at Aaron Copland\u2019s National Historic Landmark home in New York\u2019s lower Hudson Valley, but they always seemed out of reach. On Monday (2\/20), however, the Mountain came to Mohammed when several of the ensemble\u2019s artists played a tasty\u00a0program of mostly lightish American music at a dual benefit concert at Christ and St. Stephens Church on West 69th Street.<\/p>\n

Following a performance by students and teachers of UpBeat NYC, a \u201cgrassroots organization\u201d in the South Bronx modeled after El Sistema, the Copland House portion began with a world premiere by Rob Smith of Chaw<\/em>, followed by works by Pierre Jalbert, Paul Schoenfield, Derek Bermel, Copland, and Grainger. All were executed winningly, especially Copland\u2019s Vitebsk<\/em>, which was given a stunning reading by violinist Harumi Rhodes, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and pianist Michael Boriskin.<\/p>\n

Music from Copland House next performs in Manhattan at the Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Hall on March 28.<\/p>\n

Callas in My Dotage<\/strong><\/p>\n

This being the video and audio age, it seems asinine that people would watch films on computers, in the air, or, god forbid, on a cell anything. Lincoln Center to the rescue!<\/p>\n

LC has been offering live-performance and documentary films for many years at Walter Reade Theater. I\u2019ve attended numerous screenings even when I own the\u00a0DVDs for the same reason I go to old movies in a theater: They were made for each other. I have a lot of Bernstein videos, but I still go to the Reade when they are shown. (How about his Verdi Requiem, Jane?) I hope that one of these days a Carlos Kleiber video festival will pop up. But I especially go for the artists I never experienced live, and this year it\u2019s Maria Callas.<\/p>\n

I often say that I\u2019m saving such-and-such for my dotage, when there are no performers around anymore capable of producing what I want to hear in, say, Mahler, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, et al.\u2014and that\u2019s happening with alarming rapidity! Most music before Haydn, Schubert, and grand opera fall into my dotage category. Of course I have Callas\u2019s irreplaceable 1954 recording of Tosca<\/em> but none of her bel canto efforts. (Tristan<\/em>, Otello<\/em>, Pell\u00e9as<\/em>, Bluebeard\u2019s Castle<\/em>, and Lulu<\/em> are my favored operatic speed.)<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m looking forward to the first two Callas on Film presentations at the Reade on March 17. There\u2019s one on the 18th too, but I can\u2019t resist another of Leon Botstein\u2019s last-chance-in-a-lifetime concerts over at Carnegie at the same hour\u2014this time of Franz Schmidt\u2019s opera Notre Dame<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Looking Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

My week\u2019s scheduled concerts:<\/p>\n

2\/22 Alice Tully Hall. Britten Sinfonia\/Thomas Ad\u00e8s (conductor and piano); Pekka Kuusisto (violin). Couperin: Les baricades mist\u00e9rieuses<\/em>. Couperin (arr. Ad\u00e8s): Les baricades mist\u00e9rieuses<\/em>. Ad\u00e8s: Three Studies After Couperin<\/em>. Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin<\/em>. Stravinsky (arr. Dushkin): Airs du rossignol et March chinoise<\/em>; Suite Nos. 1 and 2. Ad\u00e8s: Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths.<\/em><\/p>\n

2\/24 Carnegie Hall. Berlin Philharmonic\/Simon Rattle. Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 (completed performance edition by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca, rev. 2011).<\/p>\n

2\/25 Carnegie Hall. Berlin Philharmonic\/Simon Rattle; Camilla Tilling, soprano; Bernarda Fink, mezzo; Westminster Symphonic Choir. Wolf: \u201cElfenlied<\/em>\u201d; \u201cDer Feuerreiter<\/em>\u201d; \u201cFr\u00fchlingschor<\/em>\u201d from Manuel Venegas.<\/em> Mahler: Symphony No. 2 (\u201cResurrection\u201d).<\/p>\n

2\/26 at 3 p.m. Avery Fisher Hall. Pittsburgh Symphony\/Manfred Honeck; Hilary Hahn, violin. Stucky: Silent Spring. Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5.<\/p>\n