Category: music

Days after he debuts in Boston, James Levine will travel back to New York to put his new toy on display at Carnegie Hall, where comparisons between the quality of the BSO and the Met Opera Orchestra are sure to be made by the sharp-tongued Big Apple critics. Over the course of the season, Levine will conduct six Carnegie concerts: three with the Met, and three with Boston. It’s almost as if the same guy is managing the Yankees and the Red Sox, and for classical music fans in the Northeast, it should be an interesting matchup.

Richard Dyer sees three big tasks ahead for James Levine and his new orchestra. “The first is improving the quality of the BSO. The second is renewing and refreshing the repertoire. And the third is bringing the public along on the journey.”

The use of so-called “beta blocker” drugs is rampant in the classical music world, where a single mistake can be career-threatening and the tiny muscle motions needed to control a performance can be seriously affected by a sudden attack of nerves. But even in private, most professional musicians never talk about the prevalence of the drugs, for fear of admitting weakness. Still, performers and doctors alike defend the use of beta blockers, pointing out that that they are far less harmful than the alcohol and Valium that musicians of the past used to overcome nervousness.

You can’t talk about Lincoln Center’s new jazz complex without bringing up the man who single-handedly spearheaded the drive for its construction. “For [Wynton] Marsalis, who has been artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center since its mid-1980s inception, this moment will represent the realization of a cherished dream: a glittering, multileveled, permanent home in the heart of Manhattan for the music to which he has sworn passionate, unwavering allegiance.”

It happens to the best of us: a busy day combines with a brief brain lapse, and suddenly, you’ve double-booked yourself. It’s a tricky situation for anyone, but when you’re one of the world’s most popular concert pianists, it’s a major headache. Enter Garrick Ohlsson, who is scheduled to appear in both Newark and Montclair, New Jersey, this coming Friday night. Unfortunately, cancellation was not an option for either concert; fortunately, the two towns are only 12 miles apart. The solution: Montclair’s concert will be pushed up by half and hour, and as soon as he is done taking his bows, Ohlsson will dash off to Newark, arriving minutes before he is scheduled to take the stage.

Most classical music enthusiasts are aware that the Dallas Symphony has elevated itself over the last decade or so to a position in the top ranks of American orchestras. But toiling in the shadow of Dallas is another outstanding ensemble that usually gets mentioned in the national press only as the resident orchestra for the Van Cliburn piano competition. Once a regional chamber orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony has thrived under the leadership of music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and William Littler says that the group deserves to be taken seriously in any discussion of North America’s top orchestras.

The AM radio station that stepped into South Florida’s classical music void when the local public radio station abandoned the genre three years ago has been sold to a religious broadcaster, and will likely cease its classical programming by the beginning of 2005. WKAT had struggled to attract advertisers since going classical in the fall of 2002, and even arts benefactors in the area weren’t terribly interested in helping the station out. Eventually, the station’s owners were forced to sell in order to pay outstanding bills.

Lincoln Center’s new $128 million performing arts center has finally brought jazz officially into the fold at New York’s flagship musical institution. “No longer will it be squatting in someone else’s territory, as it was at Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. Now Jazz at Lincoln Center can create concerts with a much greater sense of freedom in the practical aspects of scheduling and staging than it could in the past. The new complex, within the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, includes three performance spaces,” ranging in size and style from a 140-seat nightclub to a full-size hall seating 1,200.

Orchestras seem to be pulling away from adventurous programming as a knee-jerk reaction to short-term fiscal problems. But Norman Lebrecht fears that such decisions will only hasten the demise of orchestral relevance. “While a programme of family favourites may stabilise finances and reassure creditors, it casts into acute doubt the survival of the symphony orchestra in the modern world. Who, after all, needs so many orchestras if they all play the same music and none of it is new? It is a question that is starting to trouble hardcore supporters of live music.”

There was a time, not too long ago, when the Lucerne Festival was only a minor blip on the classical music scene, but these days, the Swiss town is among the most important stops for the world’s top touring orchestras. But it wasn’t until Claudio Abbado came on board in 2000 that the festival developed the idea to create its very own dream ensemble. “What Abbado proposed was for the festival to have its own orchestra once again, but one of a very special nature… Its 40-odd members would be supplemented by players from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, as well as front-rank chamber musicians and soloists. Indeed, the orchestra’s roll-call was astonishing.”