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Jazz, and the lost world of Bach and Beethoven

Time was when "classical" music flowed ever fresh from the inspiration of the moment. It was called improvisation, and it was considered fundamental to the art of composer-performers like Mozart and Beethoven. That was before the classical tradition became standardized, formalized, cast in stone. I was recently reminded of that long-ago creative world, as I was covering the prodigious Detroit International Jazz Festival. Performances by great musicians like trumpeter Terence Blanchard, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, bassist

Muti raises his flag over the Chicago Symphony

It was a banner night for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the spectacular public welcoming of conductor Riccardo Muti as its 10th music director. But more than that, at a time when American orchestras are reeling from the effects of an economic slump, it was a profoundly encouraging sign of the health and prospects of classical music. The free concert Sunday evening at Chicago’s handsome Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park drew not just a big crowd, it drew a sea of humanity – upward of 25,000 people, according to

Memo Re: A Dream Audience

Over two weeks, and a mile or so from the Surfing Museum in Santa Cruz, California, Marin Alsop brought a dozen living composers and their music to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Famous composers—people like John Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Philip Glass, and Mark Anthony Turnage. A bevy of critics were in attendance to opine on one or more of the several concerts, including yours truly.  The result was one of the better of the 19 series I’ve been attending, starting with the first one Alsop directed in 1992.

New Season, New Blog

  I walk into a musical event filled with hope and anticipation: for a performance that catches fire, the discovery of a wonderful new artist, a veteran's finest hour, a peak experience. Reality rarely lives up to that exalted fantasy, but my assumption is that the artists will make their best effort to honor the music and share it with the audience. So, toi toi toi: I want them to have a good night, for the listener's sake and for their own. Thus I am not a "gotcha" critic, and I can forgive many faults in a

Highlights of Ravinia Festival’s 2010 season

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has made its summer home at the Ravinia Festival outside of Chicago for 74 seasons. This season's residency began quietly in the pavilion on Monday June 28 with an all-Chopin program, conducted by its music director since 2005 James Conlon, who is also music director of the Los Angeles Opera. Actually it was so quiet as to be puzzling. Monday is certainly not a big concert night. Even more curious was the structure of the evening, which began with pianist Garrick Ohlsson playing a solo, followed by

More than "Pretty Ballet" with The Joffrey and The Cleveland

Joffrey Ballet and The Cleveland Orchestra @ Blossom 9/4 Let there be [more] light. When Joffrey Ballet artistic director Ashley C. Wheater spoke to the press earlier this summer I asked him if the company would make any set changes based on experience gained after last year’s successful Blossom appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra. The first thing he mentioned was the lighting--that they hadn’t realized how much natural ambient light detracted from the dancers. They certainly fixed that. Walking into the Pavilion this

Review: Joffrey Ballet with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom

I've been a fan of the Joffrey Ballet since I first saw them perform in Kansas City in the early 70s -- long before the company's transplantation first to Los Angeles, then to Chicago, and the demise of its co-directors Robert Joffrey (1988) and Gerald Arpino (2008). The company distinguished itself then by its devotion to the disciplines of classical ballet interestingly fused with some of the best elements of modern dance, in repertory which was always fresh and exciting. Thus I'm happy to report that under its current artistic

Canadian Brass at Blossom: conversations with tubist Chuck Daellenbach & trumpeter Brandon Ridenour

Canadian Brass turns 40 this year – middle age for a human being, but venerable for a touring ensemble. Tubist Chuck Daellenbach founded the group in 1970 with trumpeter Stuart Laughton and trombonist Eugene Watts. One of the first groups to actively develop the practice of audience engagement during concerts, Canadian Brass is still going strong.   Trumpeter Brandon Ridenour was the youngest player in the group’s history when he joined in 2006 at the age of 20. We reached both

Nicholas McGegan plans to have fun with The Cleveland Orchestra

On Saturday, July 17, British-born conductor Nicholas McGegan will take the Cleveland Orchestra back to the 18th century when he conducts the ensemble in Handel’s ‘Concerto Grosso No. 1’ and the Suite from ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’, and collaborates with violinist Peter Otto in Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’. Dubbed ‘The Energizer Bunny’ by the Plain Dealer, McGegan was indeed full of energy, even at 9:30 in the morning, when we reached him by phone in

Memo Re: Wanted: Concert Receptionists

Over two weeks, and a mile or so from the Surfing Museum in Santa Cruz, California, Marin Alsop brought a dozen living composers and their music to the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Famous composers—people like John Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Philip Glass, and Mark Anthony Turnage. A bevy of critics were in attendance to opine on one or more of the several concerts, including yours truly.  The result was one of the better of the 19 series I’ve been attending, starting with the first one Alsop directed in 1992.

Summertime with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road at Blossom Music Center

  I’ve just got to say that if I’d been wearing socks they would have been knocked off by the concert offered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble last month.An overflow [crossover] crowd filled the Blossom Music Center pavilion and the lawn that Saturday night to listen to new works as well as traditional Persian and Chinese music.The ensemble’s interactions with each other and with the audience kept alive a keen awareness of the sense of drama inherent in music’s power to summon and

Pianist Cecile Licad takes a jazz tour

            Pianist Cecile Licad, whose romantic temperament is well documented and whose interest in chamber music is far reaching, takes both proclivities to a new place in her latest venture. She’s about to embark on a five-city tour with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and an all-star band – to play live accompaniment for a new silent movie, "Louis," on the early life of jazz icon Louis Armstrong.

Cleveland Orchestra: Franz celebrates his 50th at Blossom with Debussy, Schubert & Strauss (August...

If the Edinburgh, Grafenegg, Merano, Lucerne or Stresa festivals don't figure in your travel plans for the next two weeks, tickets to Blossom last weekend could have been the next best thing, as Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra treated large pavilion and lawn crowds to a preview of most of their tour repertory. In fact, if you have free tickets to the Bruckner 8 taping next Wednesday and Thursday at Severance Hall, you will have heard virtually everything but Toshio Kosokawa's Woven Dreams (scheduled for

A View of Cleveland from Toronto

By now, it’s well known among those who write about music that Donald Rosenberg, a critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, lost his lawsuit against his employer and the Cleveland Orchestra. (To make a long story very short, Rosenberg alleged that the Plain Dealer "reassigned" him because he was writing too many unfavorable reviews of the orchestra. More details may be found here.) I mention the lawsuit here because it’s a problem that may benefit from a "Torontonian" perspective.

Project Niagara Fails

Evidently, summer has caught me napping. It wasn’t until last weekend (July 24-25) that I learned that the joint venture of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra for a summer festival in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake (near Niagara Falls, Ontario) had been quietly shelved. This was news to me – but I can’t help thinking that the mid-July announcement was intended to go pretty much unnoticed. However, a little online research brought me up to date: a press release, dated July

Oberlin Summer Theatre

Review: Oberlin Summer Theatre Festival’s Much Ado About Nothing Laughs at Love An utterly delightful opening-night production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing showed, once again, that the Oberlin Summer Theatre Festival is the place to be for the month of July. The Hall Auditorium theatre sizzled with Director Paul Moser’s jazz-era version of the classic battle between the sexes. Charmingly played lovers Hero (Alexis Macnab) and Claudio (Donnie Sheldon) showed just how

Beyond the Screen

     They’re baaaack.      After an initial trial last year, the Ravinia Festival is once again using giant video screens for every Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert in its pavilion this season. Two 12-by16-foot screens flank the stage, giving listeners in Ravinia’s 4,000-seat pavilion an up-close-and-personal glimpse of the performers from percussion section to guest soloists.      In a recent evening of resplendent Wagner with Ravinia’s Music

Twilight for the Fey

  Iolanthe @ Ohio Light Opera 6/30/10 In Gilbert and Sullivan’s nineteenth-century era elves and fairies held the same popular cachet that vampires and werewolves do today. Just as in “Twilight” or “True Blood,” the nonhuman creatures could be both lovely and dangerous. The Ohio Light Opera’s “Iolanthe” delights in the splendid, frothy, utterly musical side of mortals mingling with fairies. While there are supposed to be fatal consequences (the fairy

Not-so incidental music

On opening night at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, the festival stage was draped in Art Deco silks, and its horizon bedecked with wild touches of Magritte and Dali, to tell a magical story of court intrigue, banishment, love and redemption. But this production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" was also a feast of music. With screaming abandon, Justin Ellington turned the many songs in Shakespeare's play into a fullstage romp in the style of '20s and '30s jazz. And when the comic

Opera Nuova done

The festval this year was excellent. Lots of really promising singers.
Classical Voice North America