As Marin Alsop prepares to officially take the reins of the Baltimore Symphony this fall, Peter Dobrin takes the measure of her style and work with the orchestra thus far. “A conductor’s work basically falls into two categories: the time in rehearsals resolving ensemble problems such as balance, intonation, the length of notes; and the visual inspiration and tempo manipulations in performance that bring the craft worked out in rehearsal to a level of art. [There is] more work to be done in both areas.”
Author: sbergman
Three Replacing One At Art Basel
“Sam Keller, director of Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach for seven years, is stepping down to become director of the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. Art Basel organizers announced on Tuesday that he was being replaced” by a triumvirate of directors, who will split the managerial duties into artistic, fiscal, and strategic compartments.
London’s Podium Youth Movement
London’s three top orchestras are all undergoing lead conductor changes at the same time, making for an exciting, if uncertain, period in one of Europe’s musical capitals. More than just standard turnover, the successions represent a generational passing of the torch – all three orchestras are exchanging maestros close to their 80th birthday for young stars ranging in age from 35 to 54.
Babs Helps Out NYC’s Freelance Pool
“Barbra Streisand is touring Europe with a 58-piece orchestra composed mostly of the cream of New York’s freelance musicians. It’s a sweet gig for the players. But beyond that, the tour has created a mild economic boom for the pool of musicians left behind.”
A Tangible Display Of The Dangers Of Warming
An artist in New York is slowly making her way across the city, tracing a single, thick chalk line onto pavement and sidewalk. A meditation on linear thought? A revolt against the tyranny of traffic lanes? Nope – she’s quietly tracing the line scientists believe will represent the edge of the great flood that could destroy chunks of America’s largest city as a result of climate change.
Great Architecture For The Masses
“Pieces of architectural history sit on Milwaukee’s south side – a row of four duplexes and two cottages designed by Frank Lloyd Wright more than 90 years ago for low- to moderate-income families. But years of extreme makeovers, including aluminum siding added to one house, rendered some of them shells of their former designs. Now a nonprofit group wants to restore the Frank Lloyd Wright charm to one of the single-family homes… The group hopes to make it a museum, inspire others to renovate the four remaining structures and motivate architects to design housing for the disadvantaged.”
Clark Institute Gets $90m In Cash And Art
Boston’s Clark Art Institute has received a gift of $50m, along with $40m worth of great English art. “Turners, Constables, Gainsboroughs, and other pieces from the English Romantic period of the early 1800s” are included in the gift, which came from the estate of the late Sir Edwin Manton. The donation is the largest ever received by the Clark.
NEC’s Sick Puppy Gets Underway
“Every year pianists and other instrumentalists gather at New England Conservatory under the direction of pianist Stephen Drury to sink their teeth into some of the most enigmatic, esoteric, and downright weird music the 20th and 21st centuries have to offer.” The event is known to participants as Sick Puppy, and it has attracted some of the top living composers in the world to serve as composers-in-residence.
New Sondheim Musical Will Try For Broadway
“After a disastrous workshop, a flop out-of-town production and a nasty lawsuit, “Bounce,” the only new Stephen Sondheim musical in years, may finally play New York. Sources say the Public Theater wants to mount a full-scale production at its flagship theater on Lafayette Street next spring, with an eye to moving it to Broadway if the critics are kind.”
Using Fiction To Make Reality Seem More Real
One of the highlights of this year’s Venice Biennale is the Dutch pavilion, where artist Aeronaut Mik’s work is stopping visitors in their tracks. “Mik works at the border between politics and play, reality and drama. His Venice project, called ‘Citizens and Subjects,’ includes a series of video projections of disasters and crises that raises the stakes for what theater means.”