Month: January 2010

New venture at the Moore

By Philippa Kiraly

This Friday at the Moore Theatre, audience members will be able to hear a performance of Broadway favorites by Lenonard Bernstein, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim and more. Let alone these are always a delight to hear, the twist is that they are being performed by a new generation of performers.

Broadway Bound Childrens Theatre and Seattle Youth Symphony are joining together in a semi-staged concert with a group of young singers aged 15-25 and 100 of the SYS as an on-stage orchestra.

This kind of collaboration is a new venture for the youth symphony and is the first of several planned to take place this year and in the future. The idea was hatched by Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, the orchestra’s music director, who will conduct the performances. Known to Seattle as a consummate musical educator of the young, Radcliffe’s credentials include time as assistant conductor of Boston Opera Company and work with Connecticut Ballet Theatre. He was also a student under Bernstein, and is looking forward with enthusiasm to this expansion of the orchestra’s mission.

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Breaking news (tomorrow)

Update :

Communications staff forwarded answers to me yesterday evening.

Update 2:

I’ll be listening by iPhone (thank you Apple and Dan) and posting later today.

The Seattle Symphony issued a media advisory this afternoon, announci ng that Leslie Jackson Chihuly (Seattle Symphony Board Chair) will hold a media advisory tomorrow at the Olympic Fairmount Hotel.  Finally.  While the advisory describes the event as an opportunity for Jackson to share the board’s five-year plan for the orchestra.  By the end, I hope we will actually have a plan that is more than just a theme and variation on the stalled contract negotiations with the musicians.

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Kurt Masur Makes His Welcome Debut at Benaroya Hall

By R.M. Campbell

Even though the Seattle Symphony Orchestra is in another uneasy period with troubled labor negotiations, the imminent departure of its chief executive and a long-standing deficit, it made splendid music to open the New Year Thursday night at Benaroya Hall.

The galvanizing force was Kurt Masur in his local debut. While the German conductor is in his early 80’s and suffers from Parkinson’s, he was a dynamic force on the podium, revealing his utter command over Mozart and Bruckner. SSO musicians responded with vigor and insight. The entire concert was a revelation and, for once, the cheers and standing ovation were justified.

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Is the “Great Recession” over for orchestras?

The Saint Louis Symphony released encouraging news on the health and revenue of Saint Louis’ orchestra.  As reported in the Saint Louis Business Journal, tickets sales at the midpoint of the 2009/2010 season are up 20% from $4.34 million to $5.19 million this year.  The article also acknowledges a modest increase in contributions.  Are ticket sale jumps and contribution increases in St. Louis an anomaly, unique to the city or do they represent a broader rebound for arts organizations and symphony orchestras in general?

Everyone is striking these days

The Seattle Symphony musicians aren’t the only ones contemplating a strike.  Out in Ohio, the musicians have terminated their month-to-month agreement with management and may go on strike.  The situation is similar to the one shaping up in Seattle.

The musicians, in response, released their own statement — their first on the matter — noting a willingness to bargain but also expressing reservations about the administration’s demands, which they said stand to diminish the orchestra’s stature and jeopardize the ability to attract and retain the best players.

And.

Currently, the Cleveland Orchestra is ranked seventh in the nation in terms of musician compensation, behind the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco. A cut of 10 percent would put Cleveland behind Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh.

Finally.

But from the management perspective, the problem is clear. Highlighted in the orchestra’s announcement were several figures from the 2009 annual report, including a 20 percent decline in giving, a 5 percent decline in ticket sales and a $27 million loss to the value of the endowment.

Read Zach Lewis’ story in the Plain Dealer.

Beethoven’s Ninth: an occasion in itself

There is perhaps no ninth symphony as famous as Beethoven’s Ninth – the Ninth.  It is the summit every composer after him sought to reach but none surpassed.  Johannes Brahms’ crafted his own first symphony in the shadow of Beethoven, paying homage to the great composer through musical references.  Bruckner, another great symphonist, reached his own ninth but died before it was completed.  Stricken by self-doubt through his life, never sure of his own talents, it is ironically Bruckner’s own ninth which many consider his best.  Then there is Mahler, who was so intimidated by Beethoven’s symphonic opus that he renumbered his own symphonies to avoid the magic number “9.”

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