Nobody knew what to expect. Probably a quirky, Midwest-voweled reading of Ogden Nash or TS Eliot, you know, conventional texts that are suitable for a concert hall. Instead, a sold-out Chicago Symphony Center Tuesday night witnessed everything they knew about classical music upended by a two-hour hug from actor Bill Murray.
The comedic icon brought his elegant-playing friends on stage for a meditation on American poetry and European music that married common and uncommon threads while breaking all rules, including saying the N-word out loud. Great musicians know how to make a concert hall smaller and smaller. By the end of the evening, 2,500 of us felt Murray whispering the secret to life directly in our ear, as he famously did to Scarlet Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation.
Nothing was lost here, though, as Murray took us through a love letter to Hemingway, the existential pain of depressed French painters, nature seekers Walt Whitman and James Fenimore Cooper, our nation’s hapless political history, the gospel according to Van Morrison, his beloved comeback kids of baseball, the Chicago Cubs, and a heartrending, perfectly-voiced reading of Huck Finn’s self-revelatory paean to releasing slaves.
Each time we thought we saw the most poignant moment of the evening, Murray and colleagues Jan Vogler, Mira Wang, and Vanessa Perez added another layer of intimacy and depth to the performance, astoundingly elevating and giving new life to some of the most cliched musical works. Perez shone new pearls in her pianissimo phrases of “I Dream Of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair,” and she and cellist Vogler somehow made “Moon River,” formerly concerto for elevator and disgruntled riders, into something newly profound.
Murray shot us right through the heart when he took violinist Wang’s hand and danced a soulful tango with her onstage to the accompaniment of tango master Astor Piazolla. In the middle of Wang’s virtuoso reading of Heifetz’s showy version of “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” Murray shocked us all by singing the Gershwin lyrics better than anyone since Satchmo. Murray’s singing was the best gift of the evening, in a rousing version of “When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God” that made soulful melancholy an art form.
But that was only a warm up: The cornerstone was a homage to centenarian Leonard Bernstein. Murray crooned a gut wrenching yet dignified “Somewhere” and immediately turned tears into giddy laughter with his barnstorming and unimaginable rendition of “I Feel Pretty.” He then teased and defied the most famous rhythmic motive in all of musical theatre by singing “I Like To Be in America” in his own invented way, underlining five words of Sondheim’s as an anthem for the woes of 2017, ending the concert by punctuating “Puerto Rico’s in America” to an avalanche of applause.
We thought we would get our Ogden Nash when Vogler and Perez started playing “The Swan” during the drawn out encore session. But Murray surprised us again, narrating Lucille Clifton’s stunning “Blessing the Boats,” sending us off with a graceful benediction.
If you are anywhere near New York, do whatever it takes to see and hear these four musicians make miracles anew at Carnegie Hall on October 16.
The esteemed pianist, who yesterday announced her imminent retirement, opened the Israel Philharmonic season last night with Beethoven’s third piano concerto, conducted by Zubin Mehta.
She will give ten performances of the work, up and down the country, over the next 12 days.
The BBC Symphony concert has been rescheduled for Saturday 19 May 2018 at 7.30 pm and will include: Strauss Selected Songs Elgar In The South Strauss Four Last Songs
People who booked for the previous event will have a priority booking period, starting this morning.
The first American to direct an opera at Bayreuth has been named among this year’s recipients of a $625,000 MacArthur ‘genius award.
Yuval Sharon, 37, was called in to replace Alvis Hermanis at next summer’s Lohengrin, conducted by Christian Thielemann.
His closest conductor collaborations so far have been with Franz Welser-Möst in Cleveland and Gustavo Dudamel in LA.
The other MacArthur winners this year are listed here.
The EUYO, founded in London in 1976, is moving its operational centres to Italy and Belgium.
press release:
The Orchestra has accepted an offer from Dario Franceschini, Italian Minister of Culture, and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, to establish a legal and operational seat in Ferrara and Rome, and a new broadcast partnership with RAI, alongside its current Italian work in Bolzano. The Orchestra is also announcing a new partnership in Brussels. These arrangements represent the Orchestra’s first change of headquarters since it was established in London in 1976.
… From 2018, Italy, the home of the EUYO’s Founding Music Director Claudio Abbado, is to become the Orchestra’s legal and operational seat…
… From 2018, the EUYO will be establishing an office in Brussels following an invitation from the Brussels Philharmonic. The EUYO will assist a consortium of Flemish orchestras, concert halls and conservatoires in initiating the Youth Orchestra of the Flemish Community.
The Italian announcement follows Grafenegg and the EUYO’s recent announcement that from 2018 the EUYO is expanding its relationship and work with Campus Grafenegg, the Grafenegg Festival and the Government of Lower Austria, where the Orchestra has been in partnership with Grafenegg in the European Music Campus since 2014. The Orchestra becomes Resident Orchestra at Grafenegg and Partner in Campus Grafenegg, whilst Grafenegg becomes the EUYO’s summer home and principal summer venue partner.
Congratulations to Daniel Hope, 44, who has received the Bundesverdienstkreuz from Berlin’s cultural senator, Klaus Lederer.
A protege of Yehudi Menuhin, Hope, who has made his home in Berlin, was decorated for his efforts in ‘breaking down barriers and connecting communities’.
photo (c) Harald Hoffmann
A number of Russian media outlets last night reported the death of the great baritone. The reports, which were ‘confirmed’ by the state agency TASS and carried on the BBC News website, are without foundation.
They have been denied by the artist’s wife Florence and by his agent, AskonasHolt, which issued a statement saying Dmitri Hvorostovsky is ‘alive and at home’. Florence posted that her ‘husband is fine and sleeping happily next to me.’
Some months ago, Dmitri asked all media not to circulate any reports about his health that did not originate from himself or his family.
The artist, 54, is receiving treatment for brain cancer.
UPDATE: From Dmitri himself: Contrary to several erroneous reports in the Russian media, Dmitri is alive and resting at home. He looks forward to his parents’ visit to London this weekend and celebrating his birthday with them.
