Big Pharma does some good.

The Indianapolis Orchestra woke up this morning $10m the richer.

It plans to spend the money on streaming concerts and improving the musicians’ pensions. The orch is on a bit of a roll with a good, young conductor, Krzysztof Urbanski, and 15 percent growth in ticket sales.

urbanski indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS – The Lilly Endowment Inc. announced today that it was awarding the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra a grant of $10 million as part of a special initiative to strengthen the financial stability of Indiana arts and cultural institutions.  The grant, one of the largest gifts in the ISO’s 85-year history, will help support strategic objectives which are designed to sustain and improve the ISO’s financial future.

“These organizations have a long history of providing enlightening and educational experiences to the Indianapolis community and to the people of Indiana,” said Ace Yakey, the Endowment’s vice president for community development. “Their creative and energizing programs, exhibits, concerts and strong audience and community engagement have a significant economic impact on the city and around the state and on their national and international reputation.

“Indiana marks its bicentennial in 2016 and Indianapolis celebrates its bicentennial in 2021. The Endowment hopes that these grants enable recipients to cross these milestones in a stronger position to sustain and build on their contributions to the cultural vitality of the city and state.”

The ISO intends to use the grant to support an investment in technology to enable audio and video streaming of select ISO performances at Hilbert Circle Theatre, to fund its defined benefit pension plan for ISO musicians, and to support its endowment. 

“Lilly Endowment’s support comes at a critical point in time for the ISO,” said Vince Caponi, the Chair of the Board of Directors of the ISO. “This transformational grant will enable the ISO expand its reach beyond the walls of our concert hall, will help fulfill an important commitment to our extraordinary musicians, and will help secure the future of the institution. I hope others in the community will continue to recognize the importance of this cultural asset and provide support for our ongoing operations.”

“Throughout the years, the Endowment has supported the ISO at crucial moments in our history,” said Gary Ginstling, the ISO’s Chief Executive Officer. “The ISO Board, Musicians and Staff are overwhelmed at the generosity of this extraordinary grant and the confidence it shows in our strategic direction and our ambitious plans.”

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra has seen strong attendance growth in recent seasons, with a 15 percent growth in overall sales to Hilbert Circle Theatre concerts from FY14 to FY15.  Student ticket sales have increased dramatically as well, with an increase of 50 percent over the past two years. In addition, the ISO has continued its tradition of innovation with its new Lunch Break Series of casual 45-minute performances each summer, and its new 317 Series which brings the Orchestra outside its concert hall and into central Indiana communities.  The ISO will announce its FY15 financial results at its Annual Meeting on December 7.

The elusive pianist will play at the reopening of Teatro Petrarca at Arezzo, where musical notation began.

The concert will be given on the 20th anniversary of the death of Arturo Benedetti Michaelangeli.

teatro petrarca

John Ferrell has died, at 90.

Before settling in Tucson in 1974, he toured with the fabulous Stradivari Quartet.

john ferrell

nadja michael kundry

This is a rehearsal shot from Parsifal at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, where Nadja Michael is dressed as a veiled, implicitly oppressed Moslem woman on her first Act 1 entrance.

True to Wagner? True to Islam? Or just a misplaced fashion statement?

The director is Marcelo Lombardero.

Several maestros have now made the point on Slipped Disc and elsewhere that audiences ought to be allowed to express their reactions in between movements of a musical work.

Among them are Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Mark Elder and Daniel Barenboim.

It may be time to abolish the mid-movement taboo- with certain qualifications.

Our friend Tim Page has been reminded of a piece he wrote almost 30 years ago in the New York Times, imploring concert audiences not to erupt too soon. We reprint it below with his permission, and one emboldened phrase.

 

audience applause

EARLIER this season, I sat with a rapt audience at Carnegie Hall, listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. Written during the composer’s final illness, the symphony provides one of the most difficult, haunting yet ultimately rewarding musical experiences in the repertory. When the final notes of the closing Adagio dissipate into air, the silence should be as eloquent as the sounds have been – a charged residue, if you like; a silence that is a musical statement in itself, transfigured by what has gone before. At Carnegie, Mahler’s silence, so hard won, lasted barely a second. Somebody shouted ”Bravo!,” the audience responded reflexively, and one left the hall frustrated, rudely shaken from an engrossing dream.

Premature applause is one of the most disturbing elements of our musical life. I have long despaired of hearing the final notes of the first act of ”Der Rosenkavalier” in an opera house. It is a wonderfully poignant moment, and it is inevitably interrupted. The Marschallin sits at her mirror, worrying about her lover, feeling mortal. The curtain slowly starts to fall, and the exquisite cadence Strauss created to accompany its drop is suddenly lost in applause. Ironically, the better the performance has been, the more quickly it is likely to be disrupted.

Will I ever attend a performance of Schubert’s ”Trout” Quintet in which the playful false ending in the last movement isn’t broken by ill-timed cheering? The fans vie to shriek the first ”Brava!” at diva concerts, and a recent performance of Debussy’s ”Clair de Lune,” was marred by clapping the moment the final note was played – the musical equivalent of a photo finish.

Music is not a sporting event but, at its best, a taste of the sublime; the most abstract of the arts, it is, paradoxically, the most human. Jean Sibelius asked that his Symphony No. 4 be followed by no applause whatsoever, and that the audience leave in thoughtful dignity. Glenn Gould once titled an article ”Let’s Ban Applause!” Most of us would not go this far, but applause can be ruinous unless it is carefully considered.

Applause between movements or sections of a song cycle is bad enough (I recently attended a rendition of Schumann’s ”Frauenliebe und Leben” in which every single song was bravoed, handily sapping the score’s collective power), although a polite note in the program guide or a shake of the head from the artist will usually discourage such transgressions. But what can one spectator do to still premature applause without seeming to shush, hector and hamper one’s neighbors, who have, after all, paid for their tickets and are legitimately entitled to express their pleasure?

A plea: hold the applause until the music has completely died away. Wait for that relaxation of a conductor’s shoulders, the drop of a pianist’s hands or the easy grin that releases singer from song cycle. And then applaud as long and loudly as you wish. Your enthusiasm will then complement the music, rather than diminish it.

(c) Tim Page, May 1986

Ceridwen Davies, who plays in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, had her instrument taken from the locked boot of her parked car in St Kilda West.

She has owned the Carlean Hutchins viola for the whole of her professional career.

ceridwen davies

 

People… parked cars are not a safe place to leave precious things. Here’s another one.

 

An art installation in Montreal, Canada, sets small birds loose on amplified strings.

Watch here.

birds guitars

The anti-foreigner Alternative für Deutschland movement held a demo outside the Mainz State Theatre on Saturday night.

Singers responded by moving their Beethoven rehearsal to the lobby and belting out the Ode to Joy, as you can see below. They also unfurled a banner proclaiming Stop Racism.

 

mainz singers

Now the singers are facing a criminal prosecution for infringing the rights of the demonstrators by singing too loud.

Polizeisprecherin Heidi Nägel sagte gegenüber dem SWR, dass hier schließlich ein Grundrecht verletzt worden sei: “Die Sänger waren eindeutig zu laut. Das war nach dem Versammlungsgesetz eine grobe Störung, und das ist eine Straftat.”

Mainzer Dom demo

There was an unscheduled break in today’s Pagliacci rehearsal at Covent Garden.

Cast and chorus were called to the side-stage and chorus director Renato Balsadonna broke the news very sensitively that Joan Carroll, friend and colleague, had died the night before of cancer.

Joan was a fine singer, actress and larger than life personality who was loved by all and, in the last months of her illness, deeply missed.

May she rest in peace.

joan carroll

photo (c) Neil Gillespie

Frank Almond, the Milwaukee concertmaster, has written a beautiful memoir of Joseph Silverstein, the Boston legend who died yesterday, aged 83.

In 1979 I was 15 years old and not sure I wanted to play the violin any more; I was in my hometown of San Diego coming off a hiatus of about a year or so. The only reason I was hanging in was because I’d just started with a new teacher who somehow intuitively knew that what I really needed was some quality guidance and a highly structured practice regimen. And maybe a summer of hard work. My mom drove me to the local auditions for BU’s Tanglewood Institute, but I had no idea how that summer would change my life.

Read on here.

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Glendale police in California are searching for a maroon 2007 Acura ATL sedan, which was stolen on November 1 from the  Embassy Suites Hotel parking lot at 800 N. Central Ave. The car had a 300 year-old cello in the trunk.

The cello has a label ‘Antonio Domenicelli Fecit en Ferrara 1714’.

If you are offered it, call Glendale police at 818-548-4911. There’s a reward.

glendale cello

police photo

Next day, another instrument theft from a parked car.

Uli Bender, a nice chap from the Staatsoper press office who went on to launch and run a hugely successful children’s opera programme, has died suddenly at the age of 69.

Official notice here.

uli bender