The great mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza has received the 10th Yehudi Menuhin award from the Queen of Spain, in the last days of her reign. The award recognises her educational work. Report here.
The Smithsonian Institute has acquired – for most of the wrong reasons – the gown worn by opera diva Renee Fleming when she played the Super Bowl last year (you can watch her performance here).
So what have we here?
An object of artistic veneration? A significant piece of Americana? A religious relic? None of the above.
The official reason given by the Smithsonian: Museum curators love it when an object can tell a significant story. When an object can speak to many different stories, it’s a curatorial jackpot.
The real reason: They’re besotted with celebrity, regardless of content.
Read the curator’s justification here.
Surely it would have been more credible to present this gown alongside one of Renee’s more vivid opera costumes or concert gowns – just to show what she does in real life.
Within hours of receiving $17 million to support the work of music director Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has announced a second gift of $15 million to provide young people’s concerts and training programs.
The donation, by the Negaunee Foundation, is one of the largest it has ever given. To quote the press release: It supports a long-term goal of Riccardo Muti, Music Director of the CSO: to share classical music with more people—especially those who might not otherwise have access to it—and to strengthen the relationship of the CSO with communities. “Performances alone are not enough,” Maestro Muti said. “Having a treasure like this Orchestra, we have a responsibility to make it accessible to as many people as possible. This gift will ensure that the talents of the CSO will be shared throughout Chicago and around the world.”
This is an astonishing way for Deborah Rutter to round off her presidency of the orchestra before heading off to Washington to revive the Kennedy Center. It is also a tribute to the magnetism of Riccardo Muti, who has demonstrated his ability to excite philanthropists almost as much as he energises musicians. Happy days in the Windy City. Press release follows.
CHICAGO—The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) Board of Trustees announced today that the Chicago-based Negaunee Foundation has made a $15 million gift to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO). One of the largest commitments in the institution’s 123-year history, it provides both annual operating support and endowment funds to support, in perpetuity, the work of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Institute for Learning, Access and Training, which will be known from now on as the Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The mission of the Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO is to create and sustain connections to music for individuals and communities by sharing the extraordinary musical resources of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Through its educational, family and community programs, the Institute engages more than 200,000 children, teens and adults of diverse incomes and backgrounds each year.
Institute programs include concerts for children, families and school groups, such as Once Upon a Symphony and Family Matinees; curricula and programs for teachers and students such as Orchestra Explorers and Dream Out Loud; the Civic Orchestra of Chicago—the only pre-professional training ensemble affiliated with a major American orchestra—which offers frequent, free performances at Symphony Center and across Chicago and which celebrates its 95th anniversary this season; and low-cost and free rehearsals and performances, often led by Music Director Riccardo Muti. The Institute’s programs are an important expression of the CSO’s commitment to Citizen Musicianship – using the power of music to contribute to our culture, our communities, and the lives of others.
The $15 million gift from the Negaunee Foundation supports a long-term goal of Riccardo Muti, Music Director of the CSO: to share classical music with more people—especially those who might not otherwise have access to it—and to strengthen the relationship of the CSO with communities. “Performances alone are not enough,” Maestro Muti said. “Having a treasure like this Orchestra, we have a responsibility to make it accessible to as many people as possible. This gift will ensure that the talents of the CSO will be shared throughout Chicago and around the world.”
Said CSOA President Deborah Rutter, “This commitment to the work of the Institute is truly remarkable. By endowing the work of the Institute in perpetuity, the Negaunee Foundation will significantly increase the CSO’s ability to use the power of music to transform and enrich the lives of hundreds of thousands in Greater Chicago and across the globe. The Foundation’s generosity will also allow the Institute to become ever more responsive to community needs while sustaining the Institute’s longstanding community, education, family and training programs, including the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. We could not be more grateful to Negaunee.”
The Negaunee Foundation was created in 1987 to celebrate the arts and education in greater Chicagoland. It has a long history of support for the CSO and the Institute’s programs, having been a major donor to the CSO since the early 1990’s. Negaunee has been one of the largest annual supporters of the Institute in recent years. The Institute was founded in 2008 to integrate, highlight and expand the CSO’s longstanding and wide-ranging education and engagement programs. Since its founding, the Institute has been led by CSOA Vice President Charles Grode with the guidance of the Institute Board.
Santa sometimes come in June. See press release below. UPDATE: And click here to see what followed that.
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Much to watch on Youtube, if you’re not fixated on the football.
Two early films have been uploaded about Glenn Gould, both from 1959.
Don’t just sit there, click here.
Frank Schirrmacher, one of the best-known journalists in Germany, has been cut short in mid-life. Successor to Marcel Reich-Ranicki as the FAZ books editor, he rose to become editor of the august paper – only to succumb, too young, to the relentless pressure.
We regret to report the death of Dr Alice Brandfonbrener, a pioneer in the rehabilitation of injured performers. She was 84.
After going to Aspen as a physician in 1978, she held a 1983 seminar there on performing arts medicine. Ever since, musicians beat a track to her Chicago door. She was director, from 1988, of the Medical Program for Performing Artists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. “If someone comes in with a sprained wrist, I don’t just look at the wrist; I study the whole patient,” she said. “A musician’s medical condition frequently stems from multiple sources, including technique, physical conditioning, the repertoire, the instrument — even their emotional state.”.
Alice will be universally missed. If you have an Alice experience, do share.
Here’s a recent interview.
Video Interview: Alice Brandfonbrener from Performing Arts Medicine on Vimeo.
They’ve averstised the vacancy today, and shifted the goalposts.
It is a much diminished role, in which the new boss will function beneath a new ‘Controller’ of Music and will have oversight, rather than control, of the BBC Proms.
The key criteria are:
Respected industry/media figure, ideally with experience gained within music, culture, media and / or broadcasting, and a demonstrable ability to schedule, programme and prioritise to the benefit of audiences
Experience of leadership within a large or complex organisation and of effectively leading large teams and developing talent.
The second line would appear to exclude internal favourite Tom Service, who has the support of many staff.
It would tend to favour old ex-BBC hands like Stephen Maddock, Tony Sargent and Hilary Boulding.
Gillian Moore of London’s South Bank remains the front-runner among non-BBC applicants, though we hope the likes of Susannah Eastburn (Sound and Music) and Marcus Davey (Roundhouse) will be tempted to throw their hats into the ring.
Full advertisement here.
Here’s her spot on the Today programme. She was preceded by a listener who defined himself as ‘a psychotherapist and opera director’.
Jonathan Miller, were you listening?
Click here to listen.
The most celebrated literary salon in Paris between the Wars – the ménage of Gertrud Stein and Alice B Toklas that so offended Ernest Hemingway in his macho memoir – is being recreated as an opera this week n St Louis.
The composer is Ricky Ian Gordon and the leading ladies are sung by Stephanie Blythe and Elizabeth Futral.
In other literary news, William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun has just earned a stunning operatic debut in Buenos Aires, at the Teatro Colon. The composer is Oscar Strasnoy.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, 79, is stepping down due to ill-health and speculation is rife about his successor, to be announced next month.
It’s an establishment decision, recommended by the Great and the Good. Since the Poet Laureate is now the estimable Carol Ann Duffy there are targeted whispers that precedent is about to be broken again by appointing a female composer.
The front-runner, according to gossip, is Judith Weir, 60, opera composer.
The orchestral composer Sally Beamish is also said to be in the running.
No disrespect to these excellent candidates, but why not break the mould still further, Your Maj? Go outside the magic circle to the real world of working composers who grind fingers to the bone writing film and television scores of considerable merit.
Joceylne Pook, for instance, whose work was used by Stanley Kubrick.
Rachel Portman, who has written for Mike Leigh and Jim Henson.
Ilona Sekacz, one of the busiest TV composers.
Or Debbie Wiseman, presently working on the death of Dylan Thomas.
No need to keep it within the upper crust, eh? Get someone who writes tunes and tells stories.
This may be the biggest advance for Nordic culture since the Vikings left Newcastle.
The Danish composer Per Norgard has won the New York Philharmonic’s 200,000 cash stipend for new music, the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize.
The judging panel was slightly weighted to the north. It contained the NY Phil music director Alan Gilbert (former chief of the Stockholm Phil) and Esa-Pekka Salonen (Finnish new-tech netrepreneur) among other worthies.
But there’s no denying Norgard’s merit. I’m just listening to a new recording of his symphonies by the Vienna Philharmonic, no less.
(He might look a little less morose today).