Every year we in the arts media publish "in memoriam" pieces remembering some of the notable figures who passed away over the preceding 12 months. But 2007 seems different — we saw the passing of many individuals who changed the very history of their genres (and some whose influence was even wider).
The anticipated cost of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, now under construction on a hilltop in Kansas City, has risen by 20% to a total of nearly $400 million.
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has awarded a $1 million grant to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts for an audio-visual documentation project.
Lincoln Center has appointed Bill Bragin to the new position of Director of Public Programming, beginning next January. He will be responsible for curating all of the complex's free outdoor presentations, most notably the popular summer programs Midsumer Night Swing and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, as well as other selected projects including special events to celebrate Lincoln Center's 50th anniversary in 2009-10.
Montserrat Caball_, the legendary soprano who at age 74 is still appearing at such venues as the Vienna State Opera, is one of two winners in the classical category of this year's Latin Grammy Awards. The honors were announced and presented last night by the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences at a ceremony in Las Vegas.
Philip Glass is in a three-way tie for ninth place, just a notch below Stephen Hawking. Daniel Barenboim, at no. 19, is slightly below Damien Hirst (the artist who did the shark in formaldehyde) but slightly above Rupert Murdoch and Steven Spielberg. Plácido Domingo is one of nine notables clustered at no. 58, along with Paul McCartney and novelist Stephen King.
The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul and its three major tenants — the Minnesota Opera, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Schubert Club of Minnesota — have concluded a "master agreement" that should settle what Ordway president Patricia Mitchell described as the "areas of conflict that have plagued us for the last 2½ decades."
Carnegie Hall has selected Iu & Bibliowicz Architects to provide the design for its upcoming expansion into Carnegie Towers, the two skyscrapers adjacent to the venue.
Early this month, Gramophone magazine announced the finalists — the "shortlist," as they say on that side of the Atlantic — for the 2007 Classic FM Gramophone Awards (co-sponsored by the British radio network).
"Our business is poised to rebound," said the CEO of Warner Music Group yesterday, "because the demand for music is as strong as it has ever been and our determination to meet that demand has never been greater."
The Joffrey Ballet opens Chicago's "Blockbuster Week" this evening with its popular program "Cool Vibrations" — including Twyla Tharp's famous Beach Boys ballet Deuce Coupe — in Millennium Park on the shore of Lake Michigan.
The aria-packed soundtrack CD to the recently-released film No Reservations has risen to no. 1 on this week's Billboard classical chart, following two weeks at no. 2. The score to the restaurant comedy, which stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart as rival chefs, is made up largely of famous opera arias sung by famous Decca artists: "Nessun dorma" and "Celeste Aida" (Luciano Pavarotti), "Un bel dÐ" and "O mio babbino caro" (Renata Tebaldi), "La donna mobile" (Joseph Calleja), "Libiamo, libiamo" (Joan Sutherland); there are also a couple of pieces written specifically for the film by Philip Glass.
The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida has announced its programming for the 2007-08 season. In addition to its many and varied presentations of musical and spoken theater, jazz and comedy, the Kravis Center will offer regular helpings of classical music, dance and even a bit of opera from November to April.
"Blockbuster Week," a summer's-end series of large-scale free performances in Chicago's Millennium Park, offers its third season early next month, with performances by the Joffrey Ballet, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from September 5-9 in architect Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker Pavilion.
Jonathan Mills has been making dire predictions about the future of the Edinburgh International Festival if funding isn't increased. For the next three weeks, we get to see the kind of event he wants to run: the first EIF under his direction gets underway this evening.
Peter Lane, who has spent a decade as president of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, has been appointed CEO of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in New York state.
The New Zealand International Arts Festival, the island nation's largest arts showcase, has announced preliminary details of its 2008 program, which will feature two performances by one of the world's foremost ballerinas and the Southern Hemisphere premiere of a Philip Glass song cycle.
Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the complex's large and varied series of free summer performances, gets underway today with a 7:30 p.m. concert at the Damrosch Park Bandshell featuring legendary protest singers Roy Brown Ram‹rez and Arlo Guthrie.
Last week Sotheby's announced that it is presenting for auction the collection of Russian paintings, furniture and decorative arts that Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich assembled over more than 30 years for their apartments in Paris and London.
It should be one exciting July in Manhattan, as the 2007 Lincoln Center Festival presents an array of extraordinary events — beginning this evening with two one-act Beijing operas starring the extraordinary Wu Hsing-Kuo as well as theater from the Com_die-Fran‹aise and Chile's Compa걋a Teatro Cinema.
The 2007 Bard SummerScape festival kicks off six weeks of music, dance and drama at Bard College in the Hudson River Valley tonight with the world premiere of Victorious, a work commissioned by the festival from choreographer Doug Varone.
Reclining Figure, the six-ton bronze sculpture by Henry Moore in the reflecting pool on Lincoln Center's North Plaza, was lifted and removed from its resting place there this past weekend for the first time since it was installed in 1965.
Sam the Record Man, the Toronto music retailer whose bright red storefront on Yonge Street was a serious destination for two or three generations of music lovers, shut its doors for good this past weekend.
By
Vivien Schweitzer,
Matthew Westphal
|
June 28, 2007
The inaugural edition of the Manchester International Festival — which is billing itself as "the world's first international festival of original, new work" — kicks off today with a "monkey opera" composed by Britpop singer Damon Albarn.
Miami's new Carnival Center for the Performing Arts is out of jeopardy, at least for now. Yesterday the Miami-Dade County Commission approved an extra $4.1 million in funding for the complex, staving off a financial crisis that threatened to shut down the organization's operations.
By
Vivien Schweitzer,
Matthew Westphal
|
June 23, 2007
The 2007 Caramoor Festival opens its six-week run this evening with a gala concert by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the organization's resident ensemble.
Today, the first day of summer, Make Music New York holds its debut celebration: a festival of hundreds of free concerts, featuring music of all genres and styles, in parks and streets throughout the five boroughs of New York City.
As Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing 2007 opens tonight with a battle of the swing bands on Josie Robertson Plaza, the complex itself is kicking off a brand new program. Beginning today, in cooperation with Nokia Siemens Networks, free wireless access is available in all outdoor areas of the Lincoln Center campus.
The historic crystal chandelier in Philadelphia's Academy of Music has left the building for the first time since it was installed in 1857. This afternoon it was lowered from the auditorium's ornate ceiling for 13 months of cleaning and restoration.
For one week in June every other year, Boston really is, as its old nickname has it, "the Hub of the Universe" — for lovers of medieval, renaissance and Baroque music, that is. The 2007 edition of the Boston Early Music Festival, the largest of its kind in North America, got underway last night with a concert of 16th-century French songs and dances by the Renaissance string band The King's Noyse.
By
Matthew Westphal,
Vivien Schweitzer
|
June 1, 2007
Luminato, a new "Festival of Arts and Creativity" in Toronto, launches its inaugural edition today with nearly 20 events in genres ranging from classical music and jazz to visual art to popular song and world music to theater and dance to cinema. And the calendar is similarly packed for all ten days of the event.
Composer Steve Reich and jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins were presented with the 2007 Polar Music Prize today by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in a ceremony in Stockholm.
A new recording of Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4 by Lang Lang landed on the Billboard classical chart this week at no. 1. Performing alongside the Chinese superstar pianist on the Deutsche Grammophon release are conductor Christoph Eschenbach and the Orchestre de Paris.
Lincoln Center has signed an agreement with Nokia Inc. (in cooperation with Nokia Siemens Networks) to develop and implement free wireless Internet access throughout the arts complex's 6.3 acres of outdoor space.
The first major construction project of Lincoln Center long-discussed redevelopment plan gets underway next week, as Alice Tully Hall closes down for an 18-month renovation.
He may only have made $32 in cash, but Joshua Bell's experiment in busking seems to have paid off in CD sales: his most recent release has hit no. 1 on the latest Billboard classical chart, and he has two compilations in the top 20 as well.
Sound Grammar, a recording by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman and his band released in September 2006, has won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Music, which carries a $10,000 cash award. The disc, the first in a decade by the legendary free jazz pioneer, was recorded live at a 2005 concert in Italy.
There were four new titles on this past week's Billboard classical chart. The Essential Joshua Bell, a two-disc, digitally remastered compilation on Sony BMG Classical, is the highest-ranking of the arrivals, landing at no. 12. Just behind at no. 13 is Simon Rattle's new recording of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, with the Berlin Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Choir, and soloists Thomas Quasthoff and Dorothea R‹schmann. The Art of the Guitar, an anthology of music by composers ranging from Alb_niz to Grieg to Villa-Lobos played by David Russell, made the chart at no. 18. And a Harmonia Mundi release of Handel's Concerti Grossi Op. 3, performed by the Academy of Ancient Music, arrived at no. 24.
WNYC New York Public Radio, the most listened-to non-commercial radio outlet in the U.S., has received the largest single gift ever given to an individual public radio station: a $6 million contribution from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation.
A lieder recital by soprano Diana Damrau, recorded live at the 2005 Salzburg Festival, has arrived on the Billboard classical chart. The disc, released on the Orfeo d'Or label last September, makes its debut this week at no. 18. The program, which also features pianist Stephan Matthias Lademann, includes Berg's Seven Early Songs, Zemlinsky's Waltz Songs on Tuscan Folk Lyrics, five of Wolf's M‹rike-Lieder, and selections by Mahler and Strauss.
Kate Lindsey, a mezzo-soprano in the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and the Daedalus String Quartet, a young ensemble associated with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, are the winners of the 2007 Segal Awards.
Billboard magazine's classical crossover chart offered the big news in CD sales last week, as a recording of jazz standards by bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff arrived on that best-seller list at no. 19.