We’ve received these sobering thoughts from a young player who was about to audition for the ASO. He has allowed us to publish his name.
I’m a twenty-eight years old second generation double bassist, playing in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for a season; my father has been playing in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra as a bassist for I think about 40 years now.
I wanted to write to you to about an aspect of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra situation that I feel is being left out of the general social media foray. Most of the ‘social media’ arguments on the side of the Atlanta Symphony Musicians have been focused on how the current lockout will affect the musicians and arts culture in Atlanta. I’m not writing about what’s already been said…<
Simply put the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is THE orchestral ensemble for the entire southeastern United States. Very recently I was hoping to audition for the ASO’s principal double bass opening. While looking at the map to get to Atlanta while this situation was in its fermentation stage I thought to myself, ‘Holy shit, if Atlanta goes down the shitter that’s basically it for world class ochestral music in the entire southeast.’
As I’m sure you’re aware, the quality of an orchestra compared to its peers can be drawn from a multitude of different sources. One can take into account annual operating budget, the prestige of soloists and guest conductors brought in (which is directly related to budget size), size of various sections in the orchestra, size of the audience, etc. This statement obviously doesn’t work across the board but generally, the higher the budget of an ensemble the more the players are paid, the higher the talent an orchestra can recruit, ergo the higher the artistic quality of the ensemble. The previous statement is zero percent rocket science.
Up until this current point in history, the ASO has been to me the best ensemble in a lot of the aforementioned ‘orchestral quality rubrics’ in their part of the country (I only use the phrase ‘a lot of the aforementioned’ because I don’t have the exact comparative numbers in front of me). One would have to go to Dallas in the west, Cincinnati/Indianapolis/Nashville in the north, and who knows where in the east after one crosses the Atlantic Ocean to hear the same level of artistry. I could be wrong, but what I haven’t heard from the pro-art support of the ASO is how the Atlanta Symphony situation could potentially not just artistically devastate Georgia, but an incredibly huge geographic area of the United States.
I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers with other orchestras in the southeastern United States, or disparage those ensembles. But simply put I don’t know of another professional orchestra in that massive part of the country with the prestige and money behind it that the ASO has enjoyed in the past.
I understand the issues involved in trying to make people that are interested in classical music care about classical music. It’s also my passionate view that one hundred percent of humans, if not other animals, are capable of appreciating emotionally as well as intellectually benefiting from our art. It must be made clear that the loss of the Atlanta Symphony in it’s current form will not just rob the city of Atlanta, but the entre portion of America under which the ASO did or should have had influence.
I completely stand by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians when they say they are an incredibly important part of the arts in their city. But I think America needs to understand they are their flagship arts organization not just for the city of Atlanta or state Georgia, but an entire region of the country.
Sincerely,
Andrew Goodlett
Here’s what they issued in a press release:
ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RELEASES FIFTH RECORDING
ON ITS RECORD LABEL, ASO MEDIA
All-Vaughan Williams Release Features The Lark Ascending, Dona nobis pacem And Symphony No. 4
DIGITAL RELEASE AND PHYSICAL RELEASE AVAILABLE TODAY,
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2014
The Grammy® Award-winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) today released its fifth recording on its record label, ASO Media.
Distributed by Naxos of America, this all-Vaughan Williams release features Music Director Robert Spano leading the Orchestra in The Lark Ascending, with ASO Concertmaster David Coucheron as soloist, as well as Dona nobis pacem, featuring soprano Jessica Rivera, baritone Brett Polegato and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus (ASOC). The composer’s Fourth Symphony is also included on the album.
Dona nobis pacem… Does anyone on the lockout ASO board know what those words mean?
See also here.
The pair are appearing at the i-Tunes festival at London’s Roundhouse at the end of the month.
Domingo says he’s ‘thrilled to be the final performer at this year’s iTunes Festival seen all over the world… thrilled to be following Katy Perry who was last year’s closing performer; thrilled to be able to perform with other excellent singers; and above all, thrilled for the recognition that this brings to the unique and magnificent world of opera and classical music’.
Hm.
We regret to report that Georges Pretre, the unassuming French conductor who turned 90 last month, has been forced to cancel his October dates with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony orchestras. Georges broke a femur in June and, though out of hospital, he is undergoing a further period of therapy to the end of the year before he can take up the baton again.
He is supposed to be conducting at La Scala in March 2015.
We wish him a speedy recovery.
CNBC reports that David Marcus, who led the New York arts school out of penury to an endowment worth one billion dollars, is leaving abruptly at the end of the month. No explanation. No confirmation. No comment, needless to say, from the very tight-lipped school.
Marcus (l.), whose take-home pay is half a million bucks, put together the toughest, blue-chip endowment board anywhere in world arts.
He will not easily be replaced. It’s buy your own pencils from now on.
Workers at the National Arts Center have voted to walk out any time after September 24, placing Pinchas Zukerman’s last season in jeopardy. Report here.
The Hungarian conductor Adam Fischer has responded with doom and dismay to the announcement by the Danish national broadcaster, DR, that is it closing down its chamber orchestra, of which he is chief conductor.
Fischer has made highly successful Mozart recordings with the orch. He says, inter alia, ‘we don’t all have 17 more years to begin all over again’.
(photo: Agnete Schlichtkrull)
Statement from Adam Fischer
Chief conductor, The Danish National Chamber Orchestra
www.facebook.dk/ChamberOrchDK
Like most of those affected I have only now heard of the plans to close down the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. Right now I am in a state of shock; I can hardly believe that this is true, nor can I envisage an artistic future without the orchestra. I have been working with the musicians for 17 years. We have succeeded in developing an internationally unique and characteristic musical style admired – and rightly so – all over the world.
And at the very time when our work is beginning to bear fruit, when the orchestra is getting invitations from important music centres worldwide, all is in ruins – I would have sworn this was impossible. To destroy is easy; to build up and restore the lost confidence is many times harder. We do not all have 17 more years to begin all over again. I certainly do not.
Over the past few years I have seen constantly enthusiastic audiences in Copenhagen. And I’d like to think that sometimes during the concerts we have created some truly life-affirming moments. I know that the orchestra costs money. But I would like to believe that the moments of joy that the musicians of the Danish National Chamber Orchestra give their audiences are more valuable. Anyone who has ears to hear will know what I mean.
I appeal to all those who have taken pleasure in our concerts, who have delighted in experiencing Beethoven and Mozart, to think about how the orchestra can be saved.
Adam Fischer
September 10th, 2014
The Columbus Symphony Orchestra in Ohio is about to announce its new music director, starting in 2015.
It’s Rossen Milanov, 49, a Bulgarian who is presently music director of the OSPA (Orq. Sinf. de Principe de Asturias) in Oviedo, Spain. He will hold both positions, as well as a third job at the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.
Milanov replaces the Canadian Jean-Marie Zeitouni, whose contract was ‘not renewed’ by Columbus at the end of last season. Zeitouni yesterday landed a job in Colorado.
The season has started, the merry-go-round has begun.
h/t: Dianne Winsor
For ten years, he was conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra chorus and assistant to Sir Colin Davis on tour. He collected two Grammys for his work with the LSO Chorus and appeared as conductor in his own right with several leading British orchestras.
Last Friday, Joseph Cullen was arrested in Glasgow and charged with two counts of lewd, indecent and libidinous practices. The nature of the offences was not specified and no plea was entered when he appeared in court in Glasgow on Monday.
Among other successes and distinctions cited on his website, Joseph Cullen has been director of the Huddersfield Choral Society since 1999, is an outstanding organist and is working with a Vatican institute in Rome to improve liturgical music in the Roman Catholic Church in the UK.
Caution: Presumptions of innocence apply until after the trial.
The St Paul Chamber Orchestra has excitedly announced the recruitment of Julie Albers as principal cello.
She’s terrific.
So is her sister Becca who is assistant principal viola up the road at the Minnesota Orchestra.
And a third sister, Laura, is associate concertmaster at the San Francisco Opera Orchestra (Emily E. Hogstad reports).
That’s quite a family, seriously going places.
The musicians have been out on the picket line today in Atlanta, Georgia, boosted by free coffee and doughnuts from members of the public.
Behind the scenes, the ASO and its president ‘Dr Stanley E. Romanstein, PhD’ are digging in for a protracted lockout. Romanstein needs the stoppage to last a long time because he’ll never get another job in music once it’s over. And here’s one reason why.
The violinist Emily E. Hogstad, who provided brilliant insights into the Minnesota dispute in its time, has been reading the balance sheets of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. What she has come up with is a couple of nuggets of pure gold (you might use an earthier noun when you’ve read her discoveries here).
Emily reports that two years ago – the last time ‘Dr’ Romanstein ransacked the musicians’ pay packets and threatened their jobs, the president was awarded a $45,000 bonus by a grateful board. That is money you might think would have been better spent building a stronger orchestra. You might think that; we couldn’t possibly comment.
But Romanstein’s reward is Jimmy Carter peanuts when set beside the annual bonus paid to his predecessor, Alison Vulgamore – a bonus of $169,101 on top of her annual salary, bringing her total take-home to $600,000.
And this was paid to her at a time the orchestra was running a deficit the size of a small oil well.
Alison hightailed it soon after to Philadelphia, leaving behind a black hole and a grim tradition of giving undeserved rewards to failed executives. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is in a helluva mess. None of it is the fault of the musicians, who are being made to pay.
And there’s no sign the ridiculous ‘doctor’ plans to take any of his own medicine in cuts and sutures.
A producer friend who does not usually hype his own work asked me to listen to a recent release. It’s a set of Fauré’s Requiem, preceded by eight Fauré songs that were orchestrated for the occasion by the conductor John Lubbock. So I listened.
And was overwhelmed.
But here’s the catch: the record is not being reviewed because it is an own-label release by a fringe ensemble, the Orchestra of St John’s Smith’s Square.
For the same reason, it is not getting played on Classic FM or BBC Radio 3.
Or shipped abroad. Or promoted anywhere.
If it weren’t for Slipped Disc, you’d never get to hear about it, or to access one of its tracks.
Sit back, click and be ravished.
