February 2008
Planets, WCFSO on Air
Broadcast – My November 3, 2007 concert with the WCFSO will be featured on Iowa Public Radio's Symphonies of Iowa series this Saturday morning at 10:00 am. [As always, time given is local.] This event featured a major commission from visual artist Gary Kelley, who created a series of evocative paintings and works on paper that were filmed by Scott Smith and presented alongside our performance of the Planets.
Here we are rehearsing Neptune the Mystic with Gary's imagery. Lining everything up was not an easy task since Scott's video piece involved constant motion in addition to edits and pans cued to the music. But the result was thrilling – read the review here. We are continuing work on this project and hope to make it available to orchestras nationwide in the future.
PS – Still hoping that IPR will establish an iTunes/mp3 stream.
Sampleography
Celebrated jazz record label Blue Note recently released 'Droppin' Science: Greatest Samples From The Blue Note Lab', a collection of jazz tunes that have been sampled by important hip hop artists and djs. The way in which this type of musical influence functions in hip hop fascinates me, especially as so much of my professional work deals with how the same issue has unfolded in a variety of music over the past four centuries.
J Rocc is a legendary dj, formerly of The Beat Junkies and now with Stones Throw Records. His mixes and live sets are unparalleled in hip hop today. Don't trust me, check him out – here is J Rocc spinning a set of Blue Note selections [mp3, right- or control-click to download] along with bits from the hip hop tunes in which they were sampled. More info at Stones Throw.
Programming 101
We are busy putting the final touches on the 08/09 orchestra season here in Iowa, culminating the annual process of selecting guest artists, initiating collaborations, building musically rewarding programs, balancing costs and strategizing marketing. If you have heard me speak about my work in person you already know that I believe the contemporary music director's most essential responsibility – along with engaging the local community – is creating subtle, novel and enlightening musical programs that underscore and advance the orchestra's mission.
Perhaps next season I'll offer a blow-by-blow of the entire process in Iowa. In the meantime, a look into how it works in and around the Bay Area.
Gaucho groove
So what DO the cowboys of Latin America sound like?
Find out this weekend. The WCFSO teams up with irrepressible local duo Calle Sur for a cross-cultural, family-friendly program of cowboy music from North, Central and South America. The concert is entirely self-produced with Karin Stein and Ed East of Calle Sur. Guest Alfredo Rolando Ortiz will perform his South American Suite for harp.
This winter Calle Sur enhanced the symphony's already wide-ranging school programs with a series of colorful visits to area elementary schools. Ed is pictured above teaching students the Venezuelan song El Gavilan at Edison School in Waterloo in January. [Photo by Brandon Pollock, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier] Ed is also lead singer of the acclaimed Latin jazz group Orquesta Alto Maiz, with whom the WCFSO co-produced a hot program of Latin jazz, salsa and popular music in 2005.
Melody Parker previews Cowboys of the Americas. [And, yes, Ed is playing the guitar in the photo that accompanies Melody's piece, not the flute as stated.]
Update: It is early Sunday and I am sitting at home in Cedar Falls watching the snow fall heavily outside onto the half inch of ice already down. Needless to say, Cowboys of the Americas will not ride into town today. We are planning to reschedule the event for October. More details soon.
LA, meet BCAM
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens its new Broad Contemporary Art Museum this weekend. The new facility represents the first phase of LACMA's Transformation Project. Check out the BCAM countdown on its last day.
[In case you are wondering why I am posting this... I am a native of LA and have spent many hours at LACMA over the years. I also have a long-standing interest contemporary art. And, of course, it's generally worth taking note of anything in LA with Eli Broad's name attached to it.]
As red as...
Valentine's day, rooted as it is in violence, invites a revisiting of the old Veronese feud.
Juliet:
My only love, sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me
That I must love a loathèd enemy.
William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene v [138-141]
Sergei Prokofiev – Romeo and Juliet, Suite no. 2, the Montagues and the Capulets, opening
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, February 2, 2008
Wharton recap
A look back at Philip Wharton's residency with the WCSFO in January.
View the program and read the review here.
Check out an earlier post on our community and education events.
Click on the images to view full photo galleries, and discover Philip's enchanting music below.
Philip Wharton – Passing Season, A Curtain of Rain [world premiere]
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, January 12, 2008
Lincoln-time
The Lincoln Bicentennial begins today in the president's birth state with a celebration at the Kentucky Center for the Arts featuring the Louisville Orchestra, soprano Angela Brown and actor Sam Watterson. The program features the world premiere of Lincoln At Ease by my friend Peter Schickele. Radio journalist Bob Edwards hosts.
After prepping the orchestra last week, I have the evening off to observe the spectacle from the other side.
Wedding marches
Last weekend in Cedar Falls the WCFSO hosted a marriage proposal in the front rows of the GBPAC Great Hall. Then we tuned up and kicked off our Shakespeare in Love program with Mendelssohn's music for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'
If you a] were at the concert, b] are also planning to get engaged and/or married to the strains of Mendelssohn, or c] just enjoy his music, listen to Robert Greenberg's take at NPR music.
Disclosure: I am d] getting married this summer, but Felix is not invited.
LO 2008/9 classical season
The 2008/9 classical season of the Louisville Orchestra was announced early this year as part of an effort to raise the profile of the orchestra's core series. Music director Jorge Mester took a unique approach to programming the season, building concerts around pieces the orchestra has never played and highlighting the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award winner for 2008 [the much-lauded Neruda Songs by Peter Lieberson].
I will conduct a program in February featuring a 20th-century work new to the LO, Ginastera's Variaciones Concertantes. I'll also be joined by the genre-busting composer and violinist DBR for performances of his Voodoo Violin Concerto. The LO will feature several other compelling soloists in 2008/9, including Matt Haimovitz and Edgar Meyer.
Read Andrew Adler's season preview in the Courier-Journal.
New music midwest
WCFSO principal flutist Claudia Anderson electrified the crowd in Cedar Falls last night with her performance of Lowell Liebermann's 1992 Flute Concerto. A truly exciting and rewarding stride in programming an ever wider array of contemporary musical voices for audiences in northern Iowa. [Yes, that was composer-in-residence Philip Wharton leading the violins.]
If you are among those aforementioned audiences, consider checking out Claudia's upcoming Espírito Português program with New Prairie Camerata on February 14 at the UNI Gallery of Art. The concert is part of the gallery's New Polyphonies: Contemporary Art from Portugal exhibit.
As if on cue this morning, NPR covers another midwestern new music story that first drew attention last spring in NYC.