Category: music

When the decision to move the New York Philharmonic’s home base back to Carnegie Hall after 40 years as the anchoring tenant at Lincoln Center was announced this past weekend, it came like a bolt out of the blue. There had been no substantial rumors of an impending deal, little to no speculation that the Phil might be pulling out of Avery Fisher Hall, and no public indication that Carnegie had much interest in reacquiring the orchestra as a tenant. In the rush to get a deal done, in fact, the Phil left some of its board members and supporters out of the process entirely. Lincoln Center officials, meanwhile, claim to have been broadsided by the deal, with no opportunity given for them to make a counteroffer.

“To many observers over the past few years, it has often seemed as if Lincoln Center was too busy competing with itself and that it had lost sight of its larger public mission. It was one thing for City Opera to think about leaving. It is something altogether different when the Philharmonic packs up. The charmed circle has been broken.”

With the New York Philharmonic set to take up residence in Carnegie Hall, the nation’s premier presenter of touring orchestras is set to gain the services of one of the world’s most well-known orchestras, and lose a lot of its scheduling flexibility. Some observers are worried that Carnegie’s famed schedule of touring orchestras, featuring perhaps the finest annual array of ensembles anywhere in the world, will have to be drastically scaled back to accomodate the Phil. Carnegie Hall execs insist that they can be both a home to the Phil and the top presenter of out-of-town ensembles, but many have their doubts.

Canadian music acts have a tough time getting recognition at home. So they try to make it big in the US. But though many Canadian musicians have hit it big there, it’s getting tougher. “Smartening up, many underground acts have been looking elsewhere for international record deals. Like the jazz greats in post-First World War Paris or the ignored-at-home Detroit techno DJs in 1980s Europe, Canadian artists are discovering the Old World can provide a more receptive audience than the new. Ironically, that transatlantic success is often enough to garner American attention.”

LA’s new Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall is turning heads (and it hasn’t even opened yet). “The city centre more in need than even Bilbao of something worth looking at has got a shimmering pile of twisting metal. Yet this isn’t ‘me too’ urbanism, more ‘hey buddy, we were here first’. The $274m (£150m) Walt Disney Concert Hall was designed before Bilbao (in the late 1980s) but was held back by funding and other problems, which makes it the prototype architectural regenerator, a pivotal, if tardy, building. The hall is an exuberant pile of twisting steel encasing public spaces of generosity and wit, finished internally in Douglas fir, light streaming in where the external structure peels away from the façade – this is a building with no windows but plenty of light. It could exert a major impact on the city’s feeble downtown, its contorted, lumpy profile looming impressively over the skyline.”

Forty years after it left for Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic plans on moving back to Carnegie Hall. “The move would give Carnegie Hall the oldest orchestra in the country and deprive Lincoln Center of the first cultural institution established there. For the Philharmonic, going to Carnegie Hall means it can exchange the flawed acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall for a stage of undisputed sound quality, without having to foot the bill for a costly renovation. It would also turn the orchestra, now led by Lorin Maazel, from a rent-paying tenant into a managing partner.”

“The Philharmonic’s decision to leave comes on the heels of New York City Opera’s proposal to leave Lincoln Center, too, for a new site at ground zero. Simultaneously, the weak economy has forced Lincoln Center’s new management team to scale back plans drastically for the institution’s redevelopment — a project now expected to cost less than a third of the $1.5 billion originally projected.”

“Musically, the issues are straightforward: the Philharmonic has always had complaints about the acoustics at Avery Fisher Hall. The principal criticism is that sound onstage does not allow the sections of the orchestra to hear one another adequately. That, in turn, affects the performance heard by the audience. Visiting orchestras have supported the Philharmonic’s criticisms.”

Stories abound about how classical music is sinking into obscurity – death, even. But “in the things that matter most, classical music is actually healthier than for decades.” The evidence, writes one critic, is compelling. “For a start, London is more than ever the uncontested classical capital of the world, with some 20 professional orchestras and five music colleges. Many of the world’s great soloists choose to make their home there, as do home-grown musicians in great quantity and quality. In 1985, for example, the Association of British Orchestras had just 12 members; now it has 50. Up to half of this growth has come from new orchestras.”

“Times are definitely changing in some of Canada’s symphony and opera halls. On a Saturday night these days, it’s hard not to notice the huge number of concertgoers in their teens and 20s. Many of them have never heard live classical music before. Some have never heard classical music, period. But lured in by cheap tickets for those under 30, they are quickly becoming converts. This is a vital renewal process for cultural institutions that have traditionally been seen as stodgy and elitist. And winning over potential new subscribers is also an economic necessity at a time when dwindling arts funding has left several Canadian orchestras on the brink of financial collapse.”