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Boston Early Music Festival - 2009 Operatic Centerpiece - Antiochus und Stratoni

2009 Operatic Centerpiece

Antiochus und Stratonica

Music by Christoph Graupner (1683-1760)

Libretto by Barthold Feind (1678-1721)

Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors

Gilbert Blin, Stage Director and Set Designer

Lucy Graham, Choreographer

Anna Watkins, Costume Designer

Lenore Doxsee, Lighting Designer

Holger Falk as Antiochus

Claire Debono as Stratonica

Full cast list available at WWW.BEMF.ORG .

When Antiochus meets the enchanting beauty Stratonica, he is instantly
captivated. But this is no ordinary love story: Stratonica has just married
Seleucus, King of Syria and Antiochus' father. How can the distraught
Antiochus win his true love's heart, yet remain faithful to his devoted
father?

Declared "the highlight of local opera presentations" by The Boston Herald,
the two-time Grammy-nominated Boston Early Music Festival brings the
exquisite world of Baroque opera back to Boston with its newest Baroque
opera masterpiece, Lovesick: Antiochus und Stratonica. Composed by Christoph
Graupner in the German opera capital of Hamburg, Lovesick is filled with
heart-wrenching drama, hilarious comic interludes, dazzling sets and
costumes, spirited dances, astonishing special effects, and stellar singing
and playing. Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime theatrical experience!

June 9, 10, 12, 13, and 14, 2009 in Boston

Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College, Boston, MA

June 19, 20, and 21, 2009 in the Berkshires

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA

Tickets on sale NOW at WWW.BEMF.ORG and
617-661-1812.

Tickets for the Cutler Majestic performances in Boston are also available
through Telecharge.com
and
800-233-3123.

Visit WWW.BEMF.ORG today for more
information!

Opera company marks anniversary

Opera company marks anniversary
Diablo Light Opera Company, the Walnut Creek community theater devoted to staging Broadway musicals, kicks off a yearlong celebration of its 50th anniversary June 28-29 with a special concert performance of "Brigadoon" with the Diablo Symphony. Daren A.C. Carollo will direct a cast of 50 singers and dancers, accompanied by the 60-member symphony (which is entering its 46th season).

The 1947 musical was the first hit by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, and, in 1962, "Brigadoon" was the first Broadway show presented by the opera company, which had specialized in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas since its founding in '59. The rest of its 50th season will consist of "The Will Rogers Follies," "The Producers" and "Hello, Dolly." Full season information is available at (925) 944-1565 or www.dloc.org. - Robert Hurwitt

Competitions continue legacies of Rachmaninoff and Iturbi

At the 2007 José Iturbi International Music competition, vocal finalist Alyson Cambridge was accompanied by Catherine Miller.

This weekend, L.A. is host to tournaments that could feature future keyboard stars.

By Chris Pasles, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 20, 2008

Los Angeles has no dearth of contests. There are the Oscars. The Emmys. Sometimes the NBA playoffs. But even in this competitive city, the current week has been notable. Two classical music tourneys -- each honoring a brilliant expatriate pianist who lived out his life in Beverly Hills -- have been overlapping. And anyone hoping to catch a future keyboard star on the rise will be torn over the weekend between UCLA and downtown, as the second José Iturbi International Music Competition and the third Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition and Festival draw to a close.

At stake are not only championships but also prize money totaling nearly $300,000.

The confluence of these two contests is only a coincidence. But their existence speaks to the esteem in which the musicians they are named after are held by their founders. Rachmaninoff, of course, is widely known. Iturbi, a native of Valencia, Spain, who died in 1980, is less so. He was, however, the first classical artist to sell a million records (Chopin's "Military" Polonaise" in 1950), the first to receive a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame (1960) and a feature (as himself) in seven MGM musicals.

"José was a phenomenally gifted pianist, and he was passionate about making sure that classical music remains accessible and popular," says Donelle Dadigan, co-founder of the Iturbi competition and founder of the Hollywood Museum.

Iturbi and his longtime companion, Marion Seabury, who died in 2006, were Dadigan's godparents. Five years after the pianist's death, the women established the José Iturbi Foundation -- "to give young people an entree into the professional world," Dadigan says. "And equally important, to continue what my godfather did for his entire life, which was to help popularize classical music."

This year, the competition will award more than $250,000, divided equally between voice and piano. (Seabury was a soprano.) The top prize in each category is $50,000, plus performances aboard Cunard's Queen Mary 2.

Local chamber groups thrive as the classical music world downsizes

Local chamber groups thrive as the classical music world downsizes
Small is beautiful

Sandy Rucker-Tabachnick

The classical music world has gone small as chamber groups lead the way while symphony orchestras recoup financial losses. An unexpected result of the shift from large to small is that chamber groups are popping up everywhere. Retirees who haven't played in a while are getting their cellos and violins out of the attic, whipping them into shape and joining friends for a jam session of Haydn string quartets. Musically inclined nine-to-fivers hold down day jobs while playing in quartets with co-workers or just people they meet on the street. Small is in, and Madison is no exception.

Read More...

Mavens moan about the decline of longhair music, but listeners are hitting all h

While a handful of Don McLean scholars may still wonder what day the music died, classical music fans carry the answer around like a yellowed piece of sheet music.

The music died today. And it was always better yesterday. Recent evidence of the end: The Columbus Symphony Orchestra is “at death’s door,” according to an op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio’s Greatest Online Newspaper). The Shreveport Symphony Orchestra plans to move core players to a per-service pay model, leading a fan at shreveporttimes.com to accuse the city of treating musicians as “minimum wage servants” rather than as “professionals [who] will keep this city alive long after the established oil and gas money has died off.”

Read More...

Mariachi meets Mozart

CHULA VISTA – Classical music and mariachi have always gone hand-in-hand for Southwestern College music professor Jeff Nevin.

As a teenager in Tucson, the trumpet player joined the symphony orchestra the same year he became a member of Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson, a youth mariachi group whose name translates to the Ugly Little Monkeys of Tucson. For his undergraduate audition at the University of Illinois, Nevin began playing classical music, but changed to mariachi when nerves made him flub the notes.

Read more HERE

Detroit kids write and stage original opera

The stage was set, and each actor and actress was eager to begin. After all, they had been working on their production for seven months.

On Friday, May 9, students from Hanstein Elementary School on Detroit's far-east side were given the rare opportunity to showcase their talents at the Detroit Opera House as they staged their first opera, "The Ringer of the Moon."

The initiative began last October when Hanstein principal Bernardine Carroll, a Detroit resident, contacted the folks at InsideOut Literary Arts Project, (an organization dedicated to placing professional writers in schools to help students develop their self-expression), to garner support for their student achievement program nicknamed the Write Stuff.

Carroll said, "Our school received some funding from the Skillman Foundation, and we decided to spend a portion of those funds to build the writing skills of our students." How did they accomplish this? In a very creative and ingenious way.

Dr. Suzanne Scarfone, education director of the InsideOut Literary Arts Project and writer-in-residence at Hanstein, collaborated with Karen DiChiera, cofounder of the Michigan Opera Theatre, to bring the students' imaginative literary works to life. Fifty students from Hanstein worked with Scarfone to create the Poetry Palace.

One Friday each month, from October through March, the group gathered in their virtual palace to participate in poetry writing sessions. During these sessions, students were required to choose a medieval character, name their character and write a poem as that character, based on the theme "The Struggles of a ... " This became the foundation of the dialogue for what eventually became their opera.

Read more HERE

ED NOTE: GO HOMETOWN!!!

Prominent NYC chamber orchestra plans music hub NEW YORK

One of New York's most prominent chamber orchestras will soon have a permanent home and offer rehearsal spaces for classical musicians.
The Orchestra of St. Luke's plans to buy a part of a six-story Manhattan building and convert it into the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. The building also houses the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The chamber orchestra's president, Marianne Lockwood, says the center is intended to be a hub for classical musicians.

The orchestra is trying to raise $35 million to buy and renovate the building by 2010. The Orchestra of St. Luke's formed in 1978 and has released numerous recordings.

It performs about 100 concerts each year throughout New York.

Jamaican concert pianist Rhoden speaks on classical music

On Sunday, May 18, Jamaica's world-famous concert pianist, Orrett Rhoden, will give a joint recital with violinist Preston Hawes in the Mona Chapel, at the University of the West Indies. The concert begins at 5:00 p.m.

Last week, Rhoden, 47, shared with The Sunday Gleaner perspectives on the growth and development of classical music in Jamaica and elsewhere.

The Sunday Gleaner: What can be done to popularise classical music to young people in Jamaica?

Rhoden: A great deal can be done through the schools. If we have music being taught in the schools from an early age, that will bring a new generation into experiencing classical music.

Also, I think the absence of Radio Mona has been a great loss. They played classical music from dusk till dawn. They had lunch hour concerts as well, which I thought was so wonderful. I thought we were really getting somewhere, you know, for a Caribbean country to have a radio station which played both classical and jazz music. They used to have a wonderful jazz programmes in the afternoon. Jazz to me a just as important as classical music. It bridges the gap between the pop music and classical music.

I am a bit disappointed in what I see on television in terms of music which has vulgarity lewdness. This I think is a development in the wrong direction. I have nothing against pop music. But I think that we should have more programmes on television, not necessarily classical. We could have for example, more semi-classicals and Latin American music.

Have you ever delved into the non-classical genre?

I did a concert once in the south of France where I extemporised with a group of reggae musicians. I was able to improvise on the spur of the moment, while they were playing jazz rhythms. It was a classical thing, with a reggae foundation.

What is required to be a classical pianist?

It is the most difficult profession >ever. It really is. In America, Europe and the far East, there is so much talent competing for so few opportunities. I think there are about 2,000 concert pianists out there on the market at the moment and they are all very good. You have to be clear about how much potential and talent you have. You have to be realistic. You don't want to got out there with just half of the requirements trying to compete with the others who are really way ahead. You really want to have talent, and personality, and the ability to compete with everybody else.

And you must have something to say musically. In my case, my angle has always been 'a concert pianist from the Caribbean/Jamaica'. As a child, I had influences from the popular music of the day, and at that time it was Bob Marley's music. I have a different approach to classical music. Although it is treating the music with respect and authentically using the music scores and not doing anything that is not on the printed page, I have my own interpretation towards the music and often critics have described me as "the Caribbean Bombshell" and "Jamaica's ebullient answer to Vladimir Horowitz".

That is where I have made my niche.You have to have something new to offer, something new to say.

What do you mean by personality?

You don't want to be considered as lacking character. You must have some amount of flair. To be a carrier of the music to the public you have to have some idea of what you think the music is saying and then try to convert that into your own language.

How well are concert pianists paid?

It depends on your agent and who invites you to play and many other factors. I have my set fees when I am asked to play anywhere. Luckily, I have been able to eat.

What's right and wrong about how classical music is taught in Jamaica?

I think that a lot of the teachers that teach classical music apparently usually go into a exam for the students for the Associated Board exams of the Royal Schools of Music. I think that is good because it gives them some sort of standard to work with.

To say what is wrong, I think emphasis should be more on the classics and not on popular music. Classical music training is foundational for every other kind of music. I would like to see students performing more the works of the great masters.

Do you give master classes?

I give master classes. I have given a few here. I prefer to perform. I think I have a particular gift in that area in terms of communicating the audiences that I play to. That is how I inspire people, but not necessarily through teaching. It will inspire musicians to see that they too can get somewhere if they persevere and continue.

Who is Preston Hawes?

He is a genius. He is 25 and he is doing his doctorate in violin at Yale University. A lot of musicians can be very academic and dull and boring. He is not one of those. He has technique and he is a romantic performer and electrifying. I have known him for four years. He is the associate director of the New England Symphonic Ensemble. The concert is a warm-up for our appearance together at Carnegie Hall in September.

You have lived overseas for many years, where do you make your home now?

Right here in Jamaica. I live here. Whenever I have concerts I go and come back. I have been living here for 10 years, but I keep a very low profile. It is only recently that I have been going out to a lot of parties and things like that.

Washington National Wagner Society - May 31st, 2008

Please join the Washington National Wagner Society for a unique musical experience!

EVENINGS IN BAYREUTH

Saturday, May 31, 2008

And Repeated Saturday, June 7, 2008 7:30pm

Calvary Baptist Church
855 8th Street N.W. (8th and H Streets, NW)
Washington, DC

Presenting The Wagner Symphonette and Vocal Ensemble

Conducted by Darryl Winston

And featuring the following singers:

Regina McConnell
Marje Palmieri
Paul McIlvaine
Dianne Barton
Joyce Lundy
Sarah Wells
Susan Sevier
Elaine Dalbo
Cynthia Ballentine
Matthew Osifchin
Richard Gabriel
Lora Sullivan
Jennifer Hosmer
Linda Kiemel
David Simons
Stephen Brown
Robert Davidson
Donna Kepler
Lynn Symmons
Lydia Harris
Joseph Baker
Vernon Adler
Darnel Brandon
Harold March
and introducing…
Farrar Strum, tenor

For more information, contact
the Washington National Wagner Society

(202) 470-5559

info@washingtonnationalwagnersociety.org
http://www.washingtonnationalwagnersociety.org