Thursday, August 31, 2023

Review: OrpheusPDX production of Dark Sisters

 

Photo credit: Owen Carey / courtesy of OrpheusPDX

By Mark Mandel

PORTLAND’S CHAMBER OPERA company, OrpheusPDX, completed its second season August 27 by making a powerful case for composer Nico Muhly and librettist Stephen Karam’s 2011 work, Dark Sisters. It spotlights the women of a polygamous, renegade Mormon sect whose children have been taken from them by a U.S. government suspecting abuse and forced marriage.

Based largely on memoirs and the aftermath of the 2008 raid at Yearning for Zion Ranch, a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community in Texas, Dark Sisters received a southern Utah setting from director Kristine McIntyre and designers Megan Wilkerson (sets), Lucy Wells (costumes) and Solomon Weisbard (lighting). The first scene depicted five sister wives lamenting their absent children before an orange and white mesa at twilight. Night skies held a large moon or were star-studded. Daytime video footage of beautiful landscapes appeared when they would  not distract. The ranch gate bore the inscription “Pray and Obey,” a mantra the women sing almost as often as “Keep Sweet.” Moving indoors brought formal portraits of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and other church-recognized “prophets.”

Photo credit: Owen Carey / courtesy of OrpheusPDX

Most of that aptly matched Muhly’s music, which includes Aaron Copland-like open harmonies that evoke vast vistas, plus actual Mormon hymns, and the post-minimalism of John Adams, who also chose a striking Southwest setting (Doctor Atomic), as did Olivier Messiaen (Des Canyons aux Étoiles). The thirteen-musician orchestra that sometimes sounds like more suggests Benjamin Britten’s three chamber operas. Most beautiful, from opening lament to relatively opulent Act I finale, are the passages for a small chorus of women infused by Muhly’s love of Renaissance choral music.

Show, don’t tell, they say. Karam’s skillful libretto eschews narration for conversation that enables the viewer to piece together the story. With McIntyre’s sensitive direction and fine acting throughout the cast, one knew where each of the five wives stood in the eyes of their husband, the Prophet. In this no-narrative vein, OrpheusPDX offered no detailed synopsis of Dark Sisters, which enabled a wrenching surprise: Act II opens with the women in their plain dresses thrust before cameras and a national TV audience for CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

Photo credit: Owen Carey / courtesy of OrpheusPDX

Amusing in speaking the role of King, Nathan Stark was scarcely recognizable as the bass-baritone who was so forceful and frightening in singing the Prophet. The power of his position and his voice pointedly accented the heroism of the central character, Eliza, who bravely stands up to him, refuses to be brainwashed, and escapes the cult. Lyric soprano Lindsay Ohse sang a lovely, highly sympathetic Eliza, saying and doing what Everywoman hopes she would in her shoes. A dress-to-pants change for Eliza’s revisit as a civilian made her look still smarter, but she sadly fails to rescue her fifteen-year-old daughter Lucinda, forced to marry a man four times her age. Light lyric soprano Madeline Ross, expert at portraying girls, sang Lucinda’s simple hymns as if the teen were caught in perpetual childhood.    

Of Eliza’s four fellow sister wives, mezzo-soprano Hannah Penn, as ever a riveting vocal and physical actress, sang wide intervals and broken lines as deeply troubled, suicidal Ruth. At the opposite pole, spinto soprano Vanessa Isiguen, renowned in Puccini, poured out rich tone as Almera, the confident true believer. Mezzo Sarah Beaty’s Presendia longed keenly for the Prophet’s attentions. With less sheer voice than those three, light lyric soprano Emily Way was perfectly persuasive as obedient, a bit bossy, make-no-waves Zina.   

Deanna Tham, associate conductor of the Oregon Symphony, led a fine orchestra with authority and clarity. The woodwind playing stood out as especially eloquent.


Photo credit: Owen Carey / courtesy of OrpheusPDX


Today's Birthdays

Amicare Ponchielli (1834-1886)
Alma Mahler (1879-1964)
Everett Lee (1916)
Ifor James (1931-2004)
Wieland Kuijken (1938)
Itzak Perlman (1945)
Daniel Harding (1975)

and

Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
William Shawn (1907-1992)
William Saroyan (1908-1981)
Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986)

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Another review of Seattle Opera's production of Das Rheingold


The review of Das Rheingold posted on August 20th in Northwest Reverb was written by my colleague, Lorin Wilkerson. But I have written a review, published in Facts&Arts that takes a different view of the production.

Today's Birthdays

Ernesto Cavallini (1807-1874)
George Frederick Root (1820-1895)
Buddy Rich (1917-1987)
Regina Resnik (1922-2013)
David Maslanka (1943-1917)
David Schiff (1945)
Simon Bainbridge (1952)
Dimitris Sgouros (1969)

and

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)
Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
R Crumb (1943)
Molly Ivins (1944-2007)

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Helge Rosvaenge (1897-1972)
Charlie Parker (1920-1955)
Norman Platt (1920-2004)
Gilbert Amy (1936)
Anne Collins (1943-2009)
Lucia Valentini Terrani (1946-1998)
Michael Jackson (1958-2009)
Kevin Walczyk (1964)

and

John Locke (1632-1704)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-1894)
Karen Hesse (1952)

Monday, August 28, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Umberto Giordano (1867-1948)
Alfred Baldwin Sloane (1872-1925)
Ivor Gurney (1890-1937)
Karl Böhm (1894-1981)
Paul Henry Lang (1901-1991)
Richard Tucker (1913-1975)
John Shirley-Quirk (1931-2014)
Imogen Cooper (1949)

and

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
John Betjeman (1906-1984)
Rita Dove (1952)

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Eric Coates (1886-1957)
Lester Young (1909-1959)
Maria Curcio (1918-2009)
Barry Conyngham (1944)
Ann Murray (1949)
Sian Edwards (1959)

and

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
C. S. Forester (1899-1966)
Ira Levin (1929-2007)
William Least Heat-Moon (1939)

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Willem de Fesch (1687-1761)
Luis Delgadillio (1887-1961)
Arthur Loesser (1894-1969)
Humphrey Searle (1915-1981)
Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013)
Nicholas Braithwaite (1939)
Sally Beamish (1956)
Branford Marsalis (1960)

and

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)
Lee de Forest (1873-1961)
Mother Teresa (1910-1997)
Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)
Barbara Ehrenreich (1941)

Friday, August 25, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Robert Stolz (1880-1975)
Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
José Van Dam (1940)
Keith Tippett (1947)
Elvis Costello (1954)

and

Brian Moore (1921-1999)
Charles Wright (1935)
Martin Amis (1949)

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Alessandro Marcello (1669-1747)
Théodore Dubois (1837-1924)
Bernhard Heiden (1910-2000)
Niels Viggo Bentzon (1919-2000)
Stephen Paulus (1949-2014)
Carlo Curley (1952)

and

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
Oscar Hijuelos (1951-2013)
John Green (1977)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1456 that the first edition of the Gutenberg Bible was bound and completed in Mainz, Germany. The Gutenberg Bible was the first complete book printed with movable type. The press produced 180 copies of the Bible. Books had been printed on presses before, in China and Korea, with wood and bronze type; but Gutenberg used metal type, and made a press that could print many versions of the same text quickly. His contributions to printing were huge: he created an oil-based printing ink, he figured out how to cast individual pieces of type in metal so that they could be reused, and he designed a functioning printing press. But others before him had come up with similar ideas. Probably the most important thing that Gutenberg did was to develop the entire process of printing — he streamlined a system for assembling the type into a full book and then folding the pages into folios, which were then bound into an entire volume — and to do it all quickly. The techniques that Gutenberg refined were used for hundreds of years, and the publication of the Gutenberg Bible marked a turning point in the availability of knowledge to regular people.

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1968, Czech conductor and composer Rafael Kubelik launches an appeal to world musicians to boycott performances in the five nations which invaded Czechoslovakia on August 20-21 until their military forces evacuate the country. The appeal was joined by Igor Stravinsky, Arthur Rubinstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Otto Klemperer, Bernard Haitink, Claudio Arrau, and others.

Today's Birthdays

Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925)
Ernst Krenek (1900-1991)
William Primrose (1903-1982)
Constant Lambert (1905-1951)
Carl Dolmetsch (1911-1977)
Mark Russell (1932-2023)
Brad Mehldau (1970)

and

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)
Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1934, the Berkshire Symphonic Festival in was founded in Stockbridge, Mass., by American composer and conductor Henry Hadley, with the participation of the New York Philharmonic. The Festival later became associated with the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky. PS from James: in 1936 this festival moved to Lenox, Mass. where it was renamed the Tangelwood Festival.

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Josef Strauss (1827-1870)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Maud Powell (1867-1920)
John Lee Hooker (1917-2001)
Ivry Gitlis (1922-2020)
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)
Peter Hoffmann (1944-2010)
Tori Amos (1963)

and

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004)
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)
Annie Proulx (1935)

Monday, August 21, 2023

OrpheusPDX crowns Il Re Pastore as a modern political fable

Photo credit - Owen Carey / courtesy of OrpheusPDX

Operagoers may have been tempted to think that an opera from the likes of a teenage Mozart would be a lightweight thing, but in the hands of director Dan Rigazzi, “Il Re Pastore” (“The Royal Shepherd”) offered a fresh look at what it means to rule and who should do it. Rigazzi’s vision of “Il Re Pastore,” presented by OrpheusPDX (August 6) at Lincoln Hall, gave Mozart’s opera a fresh look that made it thought-provokingly relevant. The production was enhanced with Peter Ksander’s efficient modern set and crowned with superb singing and a taut orchestra under conductor Nicholas Fox.

“Il Re Pastore,” written by Mozart in 1775 when he was just 19 years old, uses a libretto by Metastasio, who drew on ancient historians to tell a straightforward tale about love versus duty. The story begins with Alexander the Great (Alessandro in the opera) having freed the kingdom of Sidon from the usurper Strato. With the help of Agenore, Alessandro finds that the shepherd Aminta is the rightful heir but wants Aminta to marry Tamiri, the Strato’s daughter. But Aminta is in love with Elisa, and Agenore is in love with Tamiri. All is resolved after declarations of true love are proclaimed, and an enlightened Alessandro allows the lovers to marry and puts Aminta on the throne of Sidon.

By updating the production, Rigazzi, who is on the staff of the Metropolitan Opera, cleverly took advantage of modern science. That’s how Alessandro became sure that Aminta was the rightful heir. His men confiscated an apple that Aminta had bitten into and sent it to a lab. The resulting DNA report (in big letters on a folder that was given to Alessandro) confirmed her lineage.

Although Aminta is a pants role, in this production Aminta remains a female. When Alessandro asks her to wear a military uniform and assume a man’s look and marry Tamiri before ascending to Sidon’s throne she reluctantly changes garb, but later discards the outfit, realizing that she loves Elisa. That moved the political fable to contemporary times, affirming true love and wise governance in a charming and positive way. That’s a virtuous message for our strident times.
 
Holly Flack and Katherine Whyte | Photo by Owen Carey / courtesy of OrpheusPDX

Canadian soprano Katherine Whyte created a stellar Aminta, executing a myriad of florid runs with panache and her singing of L'amero saro costante was heart-melting. In the meantime, Whyte deftly mastered a sagacious expression that caused chuckles throughout the hall in the first act when Aminta subtly got Alessandro and his men do work for her by combing wool and snapping beans. Her character’s demeanor also contrasted well with the emotional volatility of Holly Flack’s Elisa, whose scene of rage when told that she could not see Aminta almost stole the show. Flack’s unearthly ability to unleash notes far above high C caused gasps of astonishment from some members of the audience.

Equally outstanding was soprano Madeline Ross, who sparkled in the role of Tamiri, eliciting beautiful passages with ease. Her dramatic flourishes were damped somewhat by the duty-bound Agenore of Brandon Michael. Omar Najmi maintained the dignified high ground as Alessandro, and both men dashed off their filigreed lines with gusto.

Ksander’s set design was a neat package with one building that functioned as a farmhouse in the first act and as a café in the second. Outdoor tables and chairs and a screen for the scene when Aminta changes into her military duds were some of the few props needed. On top of that, Connie Yun’s lighting design made it all glow.

A taut orchestra conducted by Nicholas Fox never overpowered the singers. Tempos were smartly judged by Fox, who commanded the harpsichord as well and added a humorous embellishment - like when his fingers raced over the keyboard to accompany one of the characters scurrying around in haste.

Rigazzi’s twist on Mozart’s opera addressed authenticity, integrity, and identity but didn’t shove it down our throats in a heavy-handed manner. The near full-house at Lincoln Hall (with a capacity of 475 seats) rewarded the performance with a standing ovation. That bodes well for OrpheusPDX, which is in its second season under General and Artistic Director Christopher Mattaliano, who led Portland Opera from 2003 to 2019. Up next is Nico Muhly’s “Dark Sisters,” will close out for OrpheusPDX’s season with performances on August 24 and 27.

Today's Birthdays

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Count (William) Basie (1904-1984)
Tommy Reilly (1919-2000)
Willhelm Killmayer (1927-2017)
Gregg Smith (1931-2016)
Dame Janet Baker (1933)

and

X. J. Kennedy (1929)
Robert Stone (1937-2015)
Ellen Hinsey (1960)

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Das Rheingold: Seattle Opera returns to the world of gods, giants, and monsters

The opening night of Seattle Opera’s 60th season at McCaw Hall on August 12 was a special occasion for more reasons than one. Aside from the important anniversary for this great opera house, the opener was Wagner’s epic Das Rheingold. Breathtaking voices, innovative staging, an intriguing interpretation, and costumes to die for made this a night to remember.

Director Brian Staufenbiel wrote about the aesthetic underpinning this production. “The action takes place in a future where science and technology have caught up with nature, where the organic, the mechanical, and the digital have started to fuse.” Certainly an appropriate setting for the Emerald City, it began immediately with David Murakami’s mesmerizing projections: with the entire immense orchestra on stage behind a transparent mesh curtain that doubled as a screen, motes began whizzing by at high speed, which I at first took for microorganisms, only they resolved into a myriad of metal gears of all shapes and sizes—gears, the progenitors of modern microchips, which themselves also formed an important part of the visuals. The gears began to coalesce and to turn, as if in imitation of something that might be the beginning of time from a machine’s standpoint, and the orchestra swelled behind them.

The Rhinemaidens Woglinde (Jacqueline Piccolino),
 Flosshilde (Sarah Larsen), Wellgunde (Shelly Traverse).
© Sunny Martini
As the Rhinemaidens rose from the depths of the river ( the river being a clever practical effect formed by utilizing the orchestra pit’s space so the performers could disappear below the waves), Woglinde , sung by Jacqueline Piccolino in an incredibly full, entrancing, spinto-esque coloratura, began weaving a magical song. Alberich appeared as a larger-than-life projection onscreen, peering down onto the Rhinemaidens. Michael Mayes’ Alberich was perhaps the highlight of the entire performance, and certainly from a dramatic standpoint. Initially lusty, lecherous and funny, taunted by the nixies, sporting an ensemble with a curious blend of ancient Teutonic and vaguely steampunkish stylings,  in this iteration it is easy to forget the depths to which he will soon descend. Mayes’ diction was clear and impeccable, and his voice was that of a fine, powerful dramatic baritone.

Easy to overlook if one weren’t paying attention, the athletic performance of Alberich and the Rheintöchteren was also impressive. No mere pacing about and declaiming, they dove, ran, rolled and frolicked intensely. As the scene ended, primordial techno-magicks began to resolve themselves into the fiery tracings of circuit boards, and then Wotan and Fricka stood admiring the newly built Valhalla.

Greer Grimsley, a SO favorite as Wotan (this being his fourth time performing the role here, going back almost 20 years) cut a magnificent figure. Golden-robed and wielding the impressive spear Gungnir* carved with glowing runes that give him his power, he sang the role with an ease and insight borne of vast experience. When the giants arrive to claim their payment for Valhalla, they sang into a camera at forestage, and it was projected behind them so that they appeared to be towering over the gods (and audience) below. 

The giants Fasolt (Peixin Chen) and Fafner (Kenneth Kellogg). © Philip Newton

It would be hard to overstate Peixin Chen’s performance as Fasolt, especially from a vocal standpoint. I’m no expert at identifying fach, but Chen is perhaps the most astounding dramatische Seriöser Bass that I personally have heard: thunderous, clear and stentorian, yet also incredibly nuanced and expressive. To hear a voice in that low register cut through the orchestral texture with such clarity was a marvelous thing; I felt pinned to my seat as he and Fafner argued with Wotan over payment for the construction of Valhalla. His grim visage only furthered the intensity: it was not rage, nor hot temper, but a smoldering menace that burned there, titanic and eternal. Kenneth Kellogg’s basso profondo Fafner was a perfect match for Chen’s Fasolt: this is truly the way that giants would sing.

Frederick Ballentine as Loge. © Sunny Martini

Another delight from this performance was Frederick Ballentine’s Loge.  Mathew Lefebvre’s costumes were outstanding all around, but perhaps none more than that of Loge; a spectacular ensemble that seemed to enhance Ballentine’s sinuous, subtly androgynous interpretation. Face aglitter, crowned with a puckish woodland coronet resembling many-pronged antlers offset by a large amber gem, Loge seemed to insinuate himself from place to place rather than move—sleek, subtle, dance-like and serpentine, Ballentine’s Loge oozed intrigue and subterfuge.  He employed a magnificent, rounded heldentenor that was beautifully suited to this role, and he seemed to hypnotize whenever he was on stage; Umonst sucht’ich was a highlight of the evening.

Descending into Nibelheim, more kudos were due the projections, as they yielded a very real and visceral feeling of going down…removing the audience from the glorious heights of the mountaintop and deep into a terrifying underworld. Containing a golden horde that was Smaugian in immensity, in Nibelheim there once again arose the technological motif as gold coursed through the pathways of partially hidden electronic circuitry. Here Martin Bakari really shone, as his charismatic yet harried Mime provided a stark contrast to Alberich, now a very demon enslaver of the Nibelungen as they mined for old bits of 20th century technology. 

Michael Mayes as Alberich. © Philip Newton


Alberich’s transformation from the liveliness and gaiety of the opening moments of Act One was now complete. Mayes made it impossible not to pity the wretch, vile though he was, because the madness and grief of one who has foresworn love for gold burned in his eyes, and in his voice. This was an astonishingly difficult task: the crux of the drama fell upon his shoulders, and only one possessed of a fantastic baritone, as well as exquisite abilities as an actor, could have pulled this off so convincingly.

Denyce Graves’ glorious contralto underscored the power of Erda, and due to the strength of her Weiche, Wotan, weiche!  there is no doubt left as to how she was able to ultimately convince the mighty Wotan to yield to her wisdom and forsake the ring: he had to recognize her as a far more ancient and powerful spirit than he. Michael Chioldi, an appropriately heroic baritone, was more than up to the task of delivering a stirring Heda! Heda! Hedo! as Donner, god of thunder. Once again Murakami’s talents enhanced the verisimilitude, as simultaneous projections on a fore-screen and hind-screen of clouds whizzing by gave the strongest impression of being inside a menacing mesocyclone.  As the orchestra led the gods away with a sweeping, moving Einzug der Götter in Walhall, I began to ponder my return to the world of mere mortals, and the leaving behind of gods, giants and monsters.


The Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla. Froh (Viktor Antipenko), Freia (Katie Van Kooten), Donner (Michael Chioldi), Wotan (Greer Grimsley), and Fricka (Melody Wilson). © Philip Newton


 

*The spear is not named, I believe, in Der Ring des Nibelungen lore, but is known from Scandinavian mythology.

Today's Birthdays

Jacopo Peri (1561-1633)
Mario Bernardi (1930-2013)
Dame Anne Evans (1941)
Maxim Vengerov (1974)

and

Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950)
Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
Eero Saarinen (1910-1961)
Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)
Heather McHugh (1948)

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Today's Birthdays

William Henry Fry (1881-1864)
Georges Enescu (1881-1955)
Allan Monk (1942)
Gerard Schwarz (1947)

Rebecca Evans (1963)

and

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)
Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Frank McCourt (1930-2009)

Friday, August 18, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Salieri (1750-1825)
Benjamin Godard (1849-1895)
Basil Cameron (1884-1975)
Ernest MacMillan (1893-1973)
Dame Moura Lympany (1916-2005)
Goff Richards (1944)
Tan Dun (1957)

and

Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809)
Margaret Murie (1902 -2003)
Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008)

and from The Writer's Almanac

Italian-born Viennese composer Antonio Salieri was born in Legnago, in the Republic of Venice (1750). Although he was quite popular in the 18th century, he probably wouldn't be well known today were it not for the movie Amadeus (1984). The movie was based on Peter Shaffer's play by the same name (1979), which was in turn based on a short play by Aleksandr Pushkin, which was called Mozart and Salieri (1830). These stories all present Salieri as a mediocre and uninspired composer who was jealous of Mozart's musical genius; Salieri tried to discredit Mozart at every turn, and some versions of the story even accuse him of poisoning his rival.

But Salieri was a talented and successful composer, writing the scores for several popular operas. He had a happy home life with his wife and eight children. And because he had received free voice and composition lessons from a generous mentor as a young man, he also gave most of his students the benefit of free instruction. Some of his pupils included Beethoven, Franz Liszt, and Franz Schubert. He was the Kapellmeister — the person in charge of music — for the Austrian emperor for 36 years. He and Mozart were competitors, but their rivalry was usually a friendly one; Salieri visited Mozart when he was dying, and was one of the few people to attend his funeral.

After the turn of the 19th century, Salieri's music began to fall out of fashion. "I realized that musical taste was gradually changing in a manner completely contrary to that of my own times," he wrote. "Eccentricity and confusion of genres replaced reasoned and masterful simplicity." He stopped composing operas and began to produce more and more religious pieces. He suffered from dementia late in his life and died in 1825. He had composed his own requiem 20 years earlier, and it was performed for the first time at his funeral.

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Henri Tomasi (1901-1971)
Abram Chasins (1903-1987)
George Melly (1926-2007)
T.J. (Thomas Jefferson) Anderson (1928)
Edward Cowie (1943)
Jean-Bernard Pommier (1944)
Heiner Goebbels (1952)
Artur Pizarro (1968)

and

Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957)
Mae West (1893-1980)
Evan S. Connell (1924-2013)
Ted Hughes (1930-1998)
V. S. Naipaul (1932-2018)
Ted Hughes (1930-1998)
Jonathan Franzen (1959)

and from the Writer's Almanac:

On this date in 1982, the first compact discs for commercial release were manufactured in Germany. CDs were originally designed to store and play back sound recordings, but later were modified to store data. The first test disc, which was pressed near Hannover, Germany, contained a recording of Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony, played by the Berlin Philharmonic. The first CD commercially produced at the new factory and sold on this date was ABBA's 1981 album The Visitors; the first new album to be released on CD was Billy Joel's 52nd Street, which hit the stores in Japan — alongside the new Sony CD player — on October 1. The event is known as the "Big Bang of digital audio."

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861
Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937)
Jacinto Guerrero (1895-1951)
Ralph Downes (1904-1993)
Bill Evans (1929-1980)
Sarah Brightman (1959)
Franz Welser-Möst (1960)

and

Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679-1749)
William Maxwell (1908-2000)
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Albert Spalding (1888-1953)
Jaques Ibert (1890-1952)
Leon Theremin (1896-1993)
Lukas Foss (1922-2009)
Aldo Ciccolini (1925-2015)
Oscar Peterson (1925-2007)
Rita Hunter (1933-2001)
Anne Marie Owens (1955)
James O'Donnell (1961)

and

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
Edna Ferber (1885-1968)
T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)
Julia Child (1912-2004)
Benedict Kiely (1919-2007)
Denise Chávez (1948)
Stieg Larsson (1954)

and

The Woodstock music festival began on this day in 1969.

Monday, August 14, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876)
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988)
Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1955)
Jan Koetsier (1911-2006)
Ferruccio Tagliavini (1913-1995)
Georges Prêtre (1924-2017)
Yuri Kholopov (1932-2003)
Cecilia Gasdia (1960)
Beata Moon (1969)

and

Ernest Thayer (1863-1940)
John Galsworthy (1867-1933)
Russell Baker (1925-2019)
Danielle Steel (1947)
Gary Larson (1950)

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Sir George Grove (1820-1900)
John Ireland (1879-1962)
Luis Mariano (1914-1970)
George Shearing (1919-2011)
Louis Frémaux (1921-2017)
Don Ho (1930-2007)
Sheila Armstrong (1942)
Kathleen Battle (1948)
Gregory Vajda (1973)

and

Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850)
Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

Saturday, August 12, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690)
Heinrich Biber (1644-1704)
Katherine Lee Bates (1859-1929)
Porter Wagoner (1927-2007)
Buck Owens (1929-2006)
Huguette Tourangeau (1940)
David Munrow (1942-1976)
Pat Metheny (1954)
Stuart MacRae (1976)

and

Robert Southey (1773-1843)
Edith Hamilton (1867-1963)
Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959)
Donald Justice (1925-2004)
William Goldman (1931-2018)
Anthony Swofford (1970)

Friday, August 11, 2023

Today's Birthdays

J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954)
Ginette Neveu (1919-1949)
Raymond Leppard (1927-2019)
Alun Hoddinott (1929-2008)
Tamás Vásáry (1933)

and

Louise Brogan (1897-1970)
Alex Haley (1921-1992)
Andre Dubus (1936-1999)

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Inaugural Vancouver Arts and Music Festival a smash hit!

Salvador Brotons and the VSO

The inaugural Vancouver Arts and Music Festival turned Esther Short Park into a magical, canopied landscape (August 4 -6). Kids jumped, climbed, slid, ran, and had a blast at the playground. People strolled into avenues of artisanal food vendors and galleries promoting the visual arts. The weather was downright perfect, and that contributed to the big turnout. The large lawn in front of the main stage was chock a block with blankets, low-profile chairs, and lots of people eager to hear the Vancouver Symphony and a lineup of international artists.

The orchestral portion of the festival featured Time for Three on Friday night (August 4), violinist Anne Akiko Meyers on Saturday evening (August 5), and pianist Orli Shaham on Sunday afternoon (August 6). VSO Music Director Salvador Brotons led the first concert, and Gerard Schwarz helmed the second and third concerts.

Introductory comments by prominent sponsors, including Lorin Dunlop of the Murdock Charitable Trust, which provided most of the funding for the extravaganza, welcomed festival goers to Vancouver’s living room. An historic airplane loudly buzzed overhead during before Brotons took the stage.

 
Photo by Paul Quackenbush

An ebullient Brotons led the hometown band in the “Candide Suite,” an arrangement by Charlie Harmon of music from Berstein’s opera. It aptly concluded with the expansive message of “Let Your Garden Grow,” a perfect tune to kick off the festival.
Time for Three

Warren Black from All Classical Radio introduced Time for Three, the energetic, genre-defying string trio that won the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Consisting of violinists Charles Yang and Nicolas Kendall, and double bassist Ranaan Meyer, the group dived right into on of its bluesy, bluegrassy numbers called “Philly Phunk.” That was followed by their arrangement of “Sweet Child of Mine,” which featured some major shredding. “Vertigo” began with a long pizzicato passage before the orchestra joined in, blending the piece into a lush love song. Kendall showed off his serious vocal chops with soaring “Deanna,” and the threesome lit up the audience with their fingers flying in a scintillating “Csardas.”

Astral Mixtape

During intermission, Hollywood actor Lawrence Gilliard Jr., who studied clarinet at Juilliard, welcomed Astral Mixtape, a Los-Angelese based ensemble to show off its eclectic, new style of music. The foursome (violinists Misha Vayman and Michael Siess, cellist Juan-Salvador Carrasco, and synthesizer-virtuoso Nathan Ben-Yehuda) impressively delved into a piece that breezed from bluegrass to jazz to funk.
Lawrence Gilliard Jr.

 For the second half of the concert, Brotons and the orchestra pumped up the crowd with the striking dance-rhythm of “Danzón No. 2” by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez. Time for Three returned to centerstage for an exquisite rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Astral Mixtape collaborated with T3 for a dynamic “Stand by Me,” and Yang blew everyone away with his superb singing in “Joy.”

The festival drew a larger number of people the next evening for the orchestral concert – introduced with panache by All Classical CEO Suzanne Nance – that was highlighted by violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and conductor Gerard Schwarz. Both have appeared with the orchestra a couple of times and audience responded to their artistry with rapt attention. Meyers burnished her reputation with a stellar performance of Barber’s “Violin Concerto.” The concertgoers were so taken with her sweet sound during the lush and lovely first movement that they applauded for a long time. The second movement also drew applause and the sustained, quicksilver passages of the third movement brought them to their feet for a vigorous standing ovation.
Anne Akiko Meyers

 For this all-American program, Schwarz and the orchestra played Walter Piston’s “The Incredible Flutist,” which depicts a series of scenes when a circus comes to a small town. The musicians had a field day when they broke out in yelling and cheering that was topped off with two dog barks. Principal flutist Rachel Rencher excelled with her solos, and the piece enhanced the festival with its carefree spirit.
Gerard Schwarz

Charles Ives’ “Variations on America” with its tongue-in-cheek style and glorious fanfare at the end also added to the light-hearted mood of the evening. Adolphus Hailstork’s “Four Hymns without Words” featured outstanding playing by principal trumpeter Bruce Dunn. Gershwin’s “American in Paris” provided an uplifting and grand finale to the concert. The musicians elicited the sauntering, jazzy sound with an excellent flair that suggested an American finding his footing through the hustle and bustle of Paris.

Music from a band a couple of blocks away interfered with the quieter segments of music during the Time for Three performance, but it was not so loud when Akiko Meyers played the Barber, thank goodness. That kind of interference is a factor to consider changing or at least reducing before next year’s festival gets underway.

Unfortunately, I was not able to hear Orli Shaham’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” with Schwarz and the orchestra on Sunday afternoon. Shaham, the VSO’s Artist-in-Residence, has performed with the orchestra several times and has also done chamber music concerts with members of the VSO.
Orli Shaham

With Vancouver’s waterfront development surging and completely redesigning the city’s look – making it a vibrant player in the Pacific Northwest – the VAMF successfully gave the city a sense of community that is growing. Needless to say, VAMF is making Portland look pretty bad. This year, due to the lack of funding and political willpower, Portland will not mount its annual Waterfront concert, which celebrates the Oregon Symphony and other arts organizations. But even that one-day wingding does not have scope of the VAMF. Bravos and kudos to Vancouver and the Vancouver Symphony for such a magnificent extravaganza.



Today's Birthdays

Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)
Douglas Moore (1893-1969)
Leo Fender (1909-1991)
Marie-Claire Alain (1926-2013)
Edwin Carr (1926-2003)
John Aldis (1929-2010)
Alexander Goehr (1932)
Giya Kancheli (1935-2019)
Bobby Hatfield (1940-2003)
Dmitri Alexeev (1947)
Eliot Fisk (1958)

and

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)
Joyce Sutphen (1949)
Mark Doty (1953)
Suzanne Collins (1962)

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Carlos Kalmar cleared of Title IX charges at Cleveland Institute of Music


 The charges again Carlos Kalmar have been lifted. Here is a link to the news.

Here is the official letter from the CIM dean:


Dear CIM Community,

Thank you for your patience as the Cleveland Institute of Music worked to conduct a thorough and fact-based investigation into Title IX allegations involving Carlos Kalmar. The investigation was led by Carole Rendon, a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio and partner at the BakerHostetler law firm. Rendon was retained to ensure that the investigation was fair, impartial, and independent.

The Title IX investigation is now complete and earlier this afternoon I communicated my findings to the parties. While the findings of a Title IX investigation are not normally communicated beyond the parties, in light of the public attention surrounding this case, I have decided to share this update with you.

As CIM’s Acting Title IX Officer, I thoroughly reviewed the investigative report which included written reports, voluntary written statements, videos, interviews with more than thirty CIM students, faculty, and staff, and additional evidence provided by both parties. Based on the evidence found in the investigative report, CIM has concluded that the specific allegations against Carlos Kalmar did not violate the Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, and Sex Non-Discrimination Policy Under Title IX.

The investigation found that the alleged conduct could not constitute sex discrimination or sexual harassment as prohibited by Title IX because the conduct did not have “the purpose or effect of substantially or unreasonably interfering with a person’s participation in educational programs or activities…” Moreover, the conduct was not on the basis of sex, nor was it so severe or pervasive as to create an objectively offensive environment such that it denies anyone equal access to educational opportunities at CIM based on gender. Therefore, the Institute was obligated to dismiss the Formal Complaint of Sexual Harassment in this matter.

Mr. Kalmar and the complainants have been informed of the decision to dismiss this case. Each has five business days to appeal the decision. Grounds for an appeal can be found online.

President Hogle, Provost Harrison, and I, as well as the entire CIM administration, have always approached Title IX concerns with a high level of seriousness. As in this case, our goal is to conduct a thorough and fact-based examination leading to a determination consistent with CIM’s Title IX policy. That examination is only possible because of the courage and candor of all of the members of our community who were involved in this process.

Details regarding placement hearings, required of new students and optional for returning students, have already been distributed to orchestral students; scheduling, repertoire, and other class information will soon follow.

CIM will make sure that our students are fully supported to continue CIM’s tradition of empowering the world’s most talented classical musicians.

Thank you,

Dean Southern (he/him/his)

Acting Title IX Coordinator

Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs

& Dean of the Institute

Cleveland Institute of Music

Preview of free Portland-area concerts - in The Oregonian

 

If you'd like to read about these upcoming events, go to OregonLive here. It will appear in the print edition on Friday.

Today's Birthdays

Michael Umlauff (1781-1842)
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947)
Albert William Ketèlbey (1875-1959)
Solomon Cutner (1902-1988)
Ann Brown (1912-2009)

and

Izaak Walton (1593-1683)
John Dryden (1631-1700)
P. L. Travers (1899-1966)
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

and from The Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1928, Australian-born American composer Percy Grainger marries Swedish poet and painter Ella Viola Strom at the Hollywood Bowl in front of an audience of 22,000 concert-goers. Grainger conducted the LA Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of his "To a Nordic Princess," dedicated to his bride.

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Adolf Busch (1891-1952)
André Jolivet (1905-1974)
Benny Carter (1907-2003)
Josef Suk (1929-2011) - violinist
Jacques Hétu (1938-2010)

and

Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953)
Valerie Sayers (1952)
Elizabeth Tallent (1954)

Monday, August 7, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Henry Litolff (1818-1891)
Sir Granville Bantock (1868-1946)
Karel Husa (1921-1916)
Felice Bryant (1925-2003)
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-1977)
Garrison Keillor (1942)
Ian Hobson (1952)
Sharon Isbin (1956)
Christian Altenburger (1957)

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)
Mary Carr Moore (1873-1957)
Karl Ulrich Schnabel (1909-2001)
Udo Reinemann (1942-2013)

and

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

Saturday, August 5, 2023

Talking with Sasha Callahan and Leo Eguchi about the Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival

 

A great way to stimulate your sensory palette will be brought to you by the Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival where you can sample terrific wines and hear exquisite music in the barrel room of three exceptional wineries. Over three weekends from August 4 to August 20, the WVCMF blends great works by Dvořák, Beethoven, and Mozart with contemporary pieces by Composer-in-Residence Kareem Roustom, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, Malian composer Hawa Diabaté, and Kenji Bunch. The theme for this year’s festival centers around the idea of home and belonging.

Performers on this year’s WVCMF roster are the festival’s founders and artistic directors, violinist Sasha Callahan and cellist Leo Eguchi, along with violinist Megumi Lewis, and violists Charles Noble, Bradley Ottesen, and Kenji Bunch.

To find out more about the WVCMF and what will be uncorked this year, I talked with Callahan and Eguchi on the grounds of Reed College before a Chamber Music Northwest concert. Here is our conversation – edited for clarity.

How did you come up with the idea for this festival?

Leo Eguchi – It was after we were married, and I started coming out to Oregon where Sasha’s family lives. I caught the wine bug. I would sneak off by myself and do some tastings. I noticed that the level of the wine was on par with anything in the world, and coupled with the incredible food scene in Portland, it was just lacking one more element: music. The way our festival integrates the wine and the music if very special.

You probably didn’t know if anyone would come to your festival when you launched it. It must have been scary!

Sasha Callahan – Yeah!  It was! We scoped out some wineries that had potential, and on our very first trip to pitch the idea, we visited J. Christopher Wines, but they didn’t have their tasting room finished. So they brought us to their barrel room, and since I brought my violin with me, I played it and we thought that it sounded great in that space!

Eguchi – Sasha and I have been starting things since we entered the professional world. Even while we were finishing grad school at Boston University, we started a chamber orchestra, which was a great experience. With the Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival, we could bring together interests of ours, and reconnect with family.

Callahan – Chamber music is intimate and conversational. At the heart of what I really love about making this kind of music is finding the connections between people. To play in a winery barrel room feels like everyone is there with us.

How did you come up with the idea of working with living composers?

Callahan – It was an idea right from the very beginning. Our first season was small – just three concerts over one weekend. Kenji Bunch was playing with us and we featured his music in our concerts. We love to play new music, and we feel that playing the great masterpieces of the literature paired with the music of our time makes the concerts more relevant. You will hear the Beethoven and the Mozart differently, for example.

So at first we called up old friends. We had our wish list with Gabriela Lena Frank and Joan Tower. We thought that they might be too busy, but they said yes! It was incredible, and it adds so much to the festival environment where people roll up their sleeves and are ready to help. Joan Tower helped us to arrange chairs, and we told her to relax with a glass of wine, but she said, “No, you guys are working. I’ll work with you!.”

Eguchi – We’ve built a vibrant community, and the composer element of the festival has made it stronger.  The world premiere of Kareem Roustom’s Syrian Folk Songs at Appassionata Estate/J. Christopher Wines. It’s a string quartet of four Syrian folk songs from Kareem – written for the festival. The four movements of the piece reflect different regions of Syria.

Sasha and Kareem’s wife studied at Rice University. Kareem called me out of the blue one day to ask if his daughter could study cello with me. We had heard his music and held it in high regard. We have premiered several of his works in the Boston area. I have a solo commissioning project called Unaccompanied, which has an immigration theme. Kareem contributed to that. So when we were putting the festival together for this year, Kareem felt like the natural choice. Kareem is based in Boston and teaches at Tufts University, and this summer, he is also composer-in-residence at the Grand Teton Festival and will travel there right after the world premiere of his piece with us.

Callahan – We will do several of his pieces at the festival. The idea of home and homeland are central themes for the festival this year. Kareem has talked about being uprooted from his homeland in Syria, is a part of his DNA.

Tell us about Hawa Diabaté.

Eguchi – She comes from a long line of musicians in Mali, and we will do her super vibrant and joyous quartet called Tegere Tulon. This piece is for strings, but there is a lot of clapping, and rhythmic drumming.

Sounds great!  And you paired that with Dvořák.

Callahan – Dvorak’s American Quintet is less well-known than his American Quartet, but written during the same period when he was here in the U.S. That piece will feature violists Charles Noble and Bradley Ottesen.

The following week at Sokol Blosser Winery, we will open with Prayer, a beautiful meditative by Ukrainian composer Vasyl Barvinsky. We will follow that with Kareem’s Letters Home. That program also includes Caroline Shaw’s Plan and Elevation. She is very interested in architecture, so it is a musical exploration of vantage points of a home.

Eguchi – A home for music!

Callahan – Then a late Beethoven string quartet, his String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127. He goes into the depths of humanity in a personal way. We thought that was an expression of an inner sanctuary.

Okay, we’ve covered the first two concert series. How about the last one?

Eguchi – That will take place at Archery Summit. We will play Kareem’s Quartet No. 1: Shades of Night. It’s like an illustration for all of the Arabic words for “night.” There are many words about the shades of night.

Kenji Bunch’s Songs for a Shared Space – written for our String Quartet in Boston. This will be the West Coast premiere. This piece is a reflection of what happened during the pandemic, when multiple generations were living in Kenji’s home. The negotiations that take place – what’s for dinner, what movie or show to watch online.  All these family intersections.

Callahan – We close out that concert with Mozart’s final quartet, his No. 23 in F Major, K. 590. It is a very optimistic and joyful piece, but he wrote during a difficult time in his life.

Wine and music… how do you see them fitting together?

Eguchi – When I get excited about music or I drink a wine that I love, it triggers a lot of things in the same place. We don’t have to look at them so differently.

Callahan – Both wine and music will reward you richly if you pay attention in the moment.

Today's Birthdays

Marc Antonio Cesti (1623-1669)
Leonardo Leo (1694-1744)
Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896)
Hans Gál (1890-1987)
Erich Kleiber (1890-1956)
Betsy Jolas (1926)
Stoika Milanova (1945)
Mark O'Connor (1961)

and

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)
Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)
Wendell Berry (1934)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1978, the citizens of Patowan, Utah, decided to name a local mountain Mr. Messiaen, in honor of the French composer, Olivier Messiaen, who spent a month in Utah in 1973 an composed a symphonic work, "Des canyons aux etoiles" (From the canyons to the stars), which glorified the natural beauty of the region

Friday, August 4, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Henry Berger (1844-1929)
Italo Montemezzi (1875-1952)
Albert W. Ketèlbey (1875-1959)
Louie "Satchmo" Armstrong (1901-1971)
William Schuman (1910-1992)
David Raksin (1912-2004)
Arthur Butterworth (1923-2014)
Jess Thomas (1927-1993)
David Bedford (1937-2011)
Simon Preston (1938)
Deborah Voigt (1960)
Olga Neuwirth (1968)

and

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947?)
Robert Hayden (1913-1980)
Helen Thomas (1920-2013)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1705, in Arnstadt, J.S. Bach and a bassoonist named Johann Heinrich Geyersbach cross paths late a night and an argument ensues. Geyerbach threatens Bach with a stick and Bach draws his sword. Both are hauled up before the city magistrate and reprimanded for their behavior.

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Louis Gruenberg (1884-1964)
Antonio Lauro (1917-1986)
Tony Bennett (1926-2023)
James Tyler (1940-2010)
Simon Keenlyside (1959)

and

Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885)
Ernie Pyle (1900-1944)
P. D. James (1920-2014)
Hayden Carruth (1921-2008)
Diane Wakoski (1937)
Marvin Bell (1937)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this date in 1668, German composer Dietrich Buxtehude marries the daughter of Franz Tunder, retiring organist at St. Mary's Church in Lübeck, as a condition to succeed Tunder in his position at St. Mary's. Years later, Buxtehude offered his position in Lübeck with a similar caveat that the new organist must marry his daughter. It is thought that both Handel and J.S. Bach were both interested in the position - but not in Buxtehude's daughter.

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Today's Birthdays

Arthur Bliss (1891-1975)
Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963)
Marvin David Levy (1932-2015)
Anthony Payne (1936-2021)
Gundula Janowitz (1937)
Richard Einhorn (1952)
Angel Lam (1978)

and

Irving Babbitt (1865-1933)
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
Isabel Allende (1942)

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Review of Fred Child and Wang Jie monodrama at Chamber Music Northwest


 My review of absurdist theater with music plus pieces by Scriabin, Vardapet, and R. Strauss is now available for your reading pleasure at Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Preview of the Vancouver Arts & Music Festival in OAW


 The Vancouver Arts & Music Festival is a real big deal - coming up this weekend. My preview gives you the lowdown and even how this six figure deal came about. You can read it in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Francis Scott Key (1779-1843)
Hans Rott (1858-1884)
Morris Stoloff (1898-1980)
William Steinberg (1899-1978)
Jerome Moross (1913-1983)
Lionel Bart (1930-1999)
Nico Castel (1931-2015)
Ramblin' Jack Elliott (1931)
Jordi Savall (1941)
André Gagnon (1942)
Jerry Garcia (1942-1995)

and

Maria Mitchell (1818-1889)
Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Ernst Jandl (1925-2000)
Madison Smartt Bell (1957)