Classical Music

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

Depending on how talks go between the Manchester City Council and the Royal Opera House, Covent Gardens, tourists to the east side of England's textile city could be watching kings and queens sing on stage rather than counting the royal figures in a deck of cards.

Manchester is looking for a way to rejuvenate the east part of the city and plans for a casino have been tossed. Instead the city councillors are interested in using opera to renew the area, especially because the Royal Opera House's performance of a circus opera--Monkey: Journey to the West--opened Manchester's 2007 International Festival.

The circus opera, a collaboration between the band Gorillaz and opera director Chen Shi Zheng, suggested the possibilities of making opera relevant and engaging for modern audiences.

So far, talks haven't reached the nitty-gritty stage of determining how many jobs would be created or how much revenue would be generated. But the Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, Tony Hall, is excited about the future potential for opera such a project might suggest.

Will hip programming bring in more revenue and create more jobs than gambling? The answer remains to be seen, but we may get a chance to find out if the Royal Opera House comes to Manchester.

For more information, please read the BBC News article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

Henry Brant, a U.S. avant-garde composer, died at the age of 94 on Saturday, April 26 in his Santa Barbara, California home. His death was due to natural causes.

Born in Montreal in 1913, the composer was the son of American parents and eventually moved to the US. As a composer, he experimented in order to find a new music that reflected the hodge-podge collection of sounds in daily life. Simply by walking down the street, the average person can hear jazz from a restaurant, rap from a car stereo and someone's own collection of favorite hits coming from an upstairs apartment.

He was also a composer who liked to put musicians in their places. At least, he enjoyed exploring acoustical space and the effects of placing musicians in different parts of a performance venue. A work such as Horizontals Extending entails two ensembles placed widely apart and a trapset (percussion) on stage; all three groups of musicians then play in a different time.

He played instruments ranging from the tin whistle to the organ and violin. He studied at McGill University in Canada and later in New York. He has also taught at the Juilliard School, Columbia University and Bennington College.

In 2002, Brant was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his composition Ice Field. Brant received two Guggenheim Fellowships and won the Prix Italia, becoming the first American to take home that prize.

For more information, please see the CBC News Article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

Most tenors at the New York's Metropolitan Opera House sing an aria and get on with the music. But on Monday, April 21, the audience attending the Met's performance of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment were treated to something that hadn't happened in 14 years. The tenor Juan Diego Florez encored an aria in response to the crowd's enthusiasm, bringing the production to a halt while he whipped through another 9 high C's in "Ah, Mes Amis."

Purists of the modern age would be disgruntled by the action-stopping showmanship. In fact, the reason encores are so rare is that the Met regarded requests for an encore in the same vein as flash photography.

But the disdain for encores is a more modern phenomenon. Back during the 17th-18th centuries, opera divas were quite willing to encore a favorite aria. Some singers became so associated with a particular number that composers would write that signature piece into the score.

But all that changed with the reform of opera. By the late 18th-century, composers like Gluck were fed up with opera theatrics. Singers must be subordinate to the music, not the other way round. Gradually, doing whatever you wanted to do on stage fell out of fashion.

But post-modernism has been chipping away at the crusty exterior and Peter Gelb, who became the general manager of the Met in 2006, has been loosening some of the rules. Maybe someday we'll forget the plot all together (always rather thin in an opera anyway) and simply create the opera sing-along, in which the audience joins voice with the singers in chorus after chorus of favorite hits.

For more information, please see the NPR article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

In the 1800s, Richard Wagner had a dream to create an all-encompassing, multi-media art experience combining music, art and drama into the ultimate artistic expression. But his plans outstripped the capabilities of 19th-century theaters and he built his own in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth. In 1876, Wagner founded the Bayreuth Festival in order to premiere his colossal four-opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung. Based on Norse mythology, the cycle consists of the following operas:

• Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold)
• Die Walkure (The Valkyrie)
• Siegfried
• Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods).

Over 125 years later, the Bayreuth Festival remains a prestigious affair, still run by Wagners. For the last 50 years, Richard Wagner's grandson Wolfgang Wagner has directed the show. Now 88, he is finally showing signs of retiring. Wolfgang Wagner appears to be ready to hand direction of the festival over to his daughter by a second marriage, 29-year-old Katharina Wagner.

Yet many, including the Richard Wagner Foundation, feel that the younger daughter lacks the know-how to bear such a responsibility. They favor Wolfgang Wagner's 62-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. Eva Wagner-Pasquier is an experienced arts and culture manager and would be able to step into her father's shoes quite easily.

One might expect such a rivalry to result in a bitter feud, but the two sisters appear to be making a deal. They are working on a proposal, due April 29, which will outline a plan for the festival's future.

For more information, please read the CBC Article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

The CBC is planning to get rid of its Radio 2 orchestra and fans aren't happy about it. Classical music fans protested across Canada on Friday, April 11 in an attempt to prevent the public broadcasting company from dropping its radio orchestra.

Playing music and holding signs proclaiming "Save our CBC," "Classical Music Rocks," "My CBC includes the CBC Radio Orchestra," protesters gathered for an hour in front of CBC branch locations.

But the protests aren't limited to single hour demonstrations: a Facebook group (now the popular way to organize people for social change) has attracted 13,000 supporters.

The CBC, however, cites its decision as one that will enhance musical diversity on its stations, claiming a need to represent more genres on Radio 2. Classical music will still get the most air time, but there will now be room for jazz, folk, roots, R & B and singer-songwriter styles.

The classical music fans, however, disagree. People go to a particular genre station because they want to listen to a single genre. Mixing genres is just a way to make everyone unhappy.

What do you think about the CBC's decision? Should Radio 2 stay true to its classical music fans or branch out in the name of peace, harmony and musical diversity?

For more information, please read the CBC article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

Ralph Vaughan Williams may have been dead for 50 years, but his popularity in his native land lives on, evidenced by the strong support he received through Classic FM's recent Hall of Fame poll.

Vaughan Williams was a British composer through and through, taking much of his compositional inspiration from early English folk music.

Apparently the English public appreciate his dedication to promoting, preserving and championing their cultural history, as radio listeners of the UK's Classic FM radio show have voted one of his works the "best classical piece of music" for the second year in row.

Vaughan Williams' popularity is strong enough that his piece "The Lark Ascending" not only received the number one vote, but his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis was voted into third place.

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 came in second. The bastion of the classical repertoire, Beethoven, took 4th and 5th place.

Classic FM's list of top classical works covers some 300 compositions, twelve of which were written by Vaughan Williams. Understandably, Mozart, Beethoven and Bach have the most representation, but even Paul McCartney made it on the list this year for Ecce Cor Meum.

For more information, please read the BBC article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

With a price tag of $3.9 million USD, the Guarneri del Gesu violin sold at auction in February is not surprisingly kept safely stowed and not brought out just for any old house party entertainment. In fact, the violin hadn't been played for over 70 years.

However, all that changed when the violin's new owner, Russian lawyer and businessman Maxim Viktorov, hosted a private concert in Moscow over Easter weekend. Viktorov arranged for violinist Pinchas Zukerman to perform on the violin, considering the virtuoso to be the one worthy enough to coax music out of the world's most expensive instrument.

Israeli-born Zukerman also plays a Guarneri violin himself. Only 150 violins made by the Guarneri family survive today. The Italian family was one of the top violin makers of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Viktorov's violin was built in 1741 and previously owned by Belgian Henri Vieuxtemps, who played for Tsar Alexander II. Viktorov hopes to restore Russia to its great cultural history and make it a country that once again attracts top artists, but the concert met with lack-luster enthusiasm. Zukerman didn't even receive a standing ovation, but the audience did muster up a round of applause for Max Bruch's Violin Concerto in G Minor.

For more information, please read the CBC article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

The 78-year-old Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott died on Wednesday, March 12, bringing to a close a relationship with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales that had spanned seven decades. To honor this partnership, the National Orchestra of Wales is planning to name its new home Hoddinott Hall (in the Wales Millennium Centre).

Hoddinott was a Welshman through and through. Born in Bargoed, Caerphilly, he graduated from Cardiff University and lectured in music at the Welsh College of Music and Drama before becoming a lecturer at his alma mater. His hometown in later life was Gower, Swansea, where he died in the city’s Morriston Hospital.

His appeal reached through the entire United Kingdom: he was called upon to compose music for the wedding of Prince Charles to Camilla Parker Bowles. He had also composed music for the Prince’s 16th birthday.

But he was especially loved in Wales. In 1997, Hoddinott received the Glyndwr Award for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales during the Machynlleth Festival and in 1999 was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arts Council of Wales.

Hoddinott has also worked to foster music appreciation among his countrymen, co-founding and directing the Cardiff Festival. His friend and fellow co-founder of the festival was John Ogdon.

For more information, please read the BBC article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

Forensic artists at the Dundee University offer classical music fans a different face for German composer J.S. Bach (1685-1750). Typically, biographies of the 18th century composer use a portrait of J.S. Bach that depicts the composer as a stern, wigged and large-nosed individual, a bit dusty and far removed from the 21st century.

However, the artists in Scotland have made the Baroque composer seem a little more lifelike. Taking a bronze cast of Bach's skull and scanning it with a laser, the forensic artists were able to use his bone structure to digitally construct facial muscles and skin. Historical records (such as the fact that Bach had eye problems and swollen eyelids) helped to fill in the details. According to the Centre for Forensic and Medical Art's Dr. Caroline Wilkinson, the face is as complete as current science and records can make it.

The completed face will travel from Scotland to Eisenach, Germany (Bach's hometown) where it will go on display in the Bachhaus museum.

To see the recreation of Bach's face or for more information, please read the BBC article.

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke

The New York Metropolitan Opera has seen quite a few shows since it first opened in 1883 on Broadway at 39th. Though it has changed venues since then, hosting over 200 performances annually at the Lincoln Center, the Met's reputation as a bastion of High Culture has never wavered.

To celebrate the 125th season of the Met, the opera house announced that it will feature six new performances and 22 revivals, including a performance using a projection of a set designed by artist Marc Chagall for a 1967 production of Mozart's Die Zauberfloete. New performances include a production of John Adam's Doctor Atomic.

To celebrate the 40 years that Placido Domingo has been with the Met, the opera house will host a gala in March. To honor the one-year anniversary of Pavarotti's death, conductor James Levine will give a free performance of Verdi's Requiem on Sept. 18.

So mark your calendars and be prepared for another good season of opera. If you can't make it to New York, don't worry. The Met has gone HD, offering full-screen versions of its performances at select movie theaters across the country.

For more information, please read the CBC article.