Robert D. Thomas/Class Act

PREVIEW: "Fantasia" — sort of — to play at Hollywood Bowl this weekend

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Walt Disney’s Fantasia
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, John Mauceri, conductor
Friday, August 19 and Saturday, August 20 at 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, August 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Hollywood Bowl
Info: www.hollywoodbowl.com

Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Walt Disney’s 1940 landmark Fantasia.

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Year in and year out some of the best Hollywood Bowl programs involve motion pictures being projected on the Bowl’s large screens (including one suspended over the orchestra), often while an orchestra plays the movie’s musical scores. This weekend offers what may be one of the more unique uses of that format with a program based on the 1940 Walt Disney movie Fantasia.

John Mauceri returns to conduct the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, an ensemble he founded 20 years ago, playing selections from the score of a movie that Walt Disney at one point considered a failure but today is considered a landmark for its daring blend of classical music and animation and for its innovative melding of art and technology.

For those who have never seen Fantasia, the movie is a series of animated segments set to classical music. However, what you’ll see this weekend is not the entire work and not in order. Six of the seven segments will be screened: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the first movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, an extract from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours. A suite from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker will conclude the evening, accompanied by fireworks. What’s missing are the Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria sequence, the Meet the Soundtrack intermission section, and the narration by Deems Taylor.

However, the evening will include two segments — Sibelius’ The Swan of Tuonela and Debussy’s Claire de Lune — that had been prepared in 1940-41 for an update of Fantasia (in fact, Walt Disney originally envisioned that the movie would be updated frequently but financial problems from the movie’s opening, along with World War II, torpedoed that idea during Walt’s lifetime).

The program will also offer Destino, a six-minute animated short made by the Walt Disney Company in 2003 but originally conceived in 1946 as a collaboration using art by Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali and Disney artist John Hench set to music by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez (Bette Midler refers to this section in her narration sequence in Fantasia 2000). Destino was nominated in 2003 for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Fantasia was groundbreaking when it opened in 1940 (Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review, wrote, “motion picture history was made last night”). Not everyone was enthralled; classical music purists often object to the cartoon sequences and, indeed, it is hard to hear The Sorcerer’s Apprentice without seeing Mickey Mouse in your mind.

Part of Fantasia’s importance was in its use of technology. Disney had already developed the multiplane camera and used it for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but Fantasia gave it an even more extensive test. Fantasia was also the first motion picture to employ multi-point stereophonic sound to give the moviegoer a sense of being surrounded by a live symphony orchestra.

When the movie was originally released in 1940 and 1941 it played in just 13 cities with limited showings using a specially designed system called “Fantasound.” Ultimately, World War II and the cost of erecting a “Fantasound” system in any given theater or playhouse made the original release of Fantasia a financial loser.

However, the movie was re-released in several versions as new technologies in both projection and sound were able to improve the viewing experience and ultimately, it became a moneymaker for Disney.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

FOLLOWUP: "Porgy and Bess" — opera or musical?

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

Last Saturday in the Pasadena Pops concert, the orchestra’s new principal conductor, Marvin Hamlisch, alluded to a new production of Porgy and Bess now being prepared back east, declaring that he was pleased that it was being produced as a Broadway musical instead of an opera In my review (HERE), I responded, “I do, however, take issue with Hamlish’s contention that Porgy and Bess is a musical. I realize that director Diane Paulus is working on a new production of what she calls The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which is supposed to recast the work as a musical, but, in the words of Ira Gershwin, ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ — i.e., it’s an opera.”

I’m not the only one who doesn’t agree with the new work. An article by composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim in today’s New York Times castigating the concept is HERE (it also appears in a number of other media outlets).
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

AROUND TOWN/MUSIC: Cleaning out the inbox

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
A shorter version of this article was first published today in the above papers.

• THE PASADENA POPS AND THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY ARBORETUM have finalized a contract for the orchestra to appear at the Arcadia facility beginning next summer. The three-year agreement with an “evergreen” clause will also see the Pops become the Arboretum’s presenting partner. Dates for the Pops’ concerts in 2012 are June 26, July 21, August 18 and September 8. Happily for fans of both the Pops and the California Philharmonic — which shifts from the Arboretum to next-door Santa Anita Racetrack next summer — that means the two organizations will not conflict on dates, a good thing from a parking and traffic point of view. The Pops also envisions “family concerts, outdoor theatre, silent films, as well as Asian-influenced performances, to name a few," according to Paul Jan Zdunek, CEO of the Pasadena Symphony Association; programming details will follow in the coming weeks. MORE

• MUSE-IQUE, the new ensemble headed by former Pops music director Rachael Worby, will appear in a free concert of American music on the steps of Pasadena’s City Hall at 6 p.m. on Sept. 11 commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

• THE LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC has promoted outgoing associate conductor Lionel Bringuier to the new post of resident conductor through the 2012/2013 season. MORE

• GUSTAVO DUDAMEL, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will be featured on a new DGG box set of CDs next month conducting the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra of Sweden (one of three orchestras he currently helms) in Bruckner‘s Symphony No. 9, Sibelius‘s Symphony No. 2 and Nielsen‘s Symphonies No. 5 and. 4 (The Inextinguishable).

Gramophone Magazine (which is published in England) devotes its cover story for the August 2011 issue to Dudamel and this new recording. It’s an interesting article but not easy to find. The print edition costs $10 (U.S.) and the only way to find it online at this point is to subscribe ($63.14 per year or $16.21 for three months). Like other digital magazines, you get the full pages and have to scroll through them (i.e., they’re not converted to easily readable text). However, the publication does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.

Los Angeles Times Music Critic Mark Swed dwells on Dudamel’s upcoming DGG release, which Dudamel recorded at the beginning of his tenure with the Swedish orchestra (he became that ensemble’s music director in 2007; next season will be his sixth and last in that capacity, although he will continue to work with the ensemble as its “honorary conductor”).

Two things make this upcoming recording intriguing, as Swed points out in the article. First, the works are pieces that Dudamel has yet to conduct in Los Angeles. Second, the performances show him at a very young age (he was 26 when he came to Sweden) and he talks with Swed about how his concepts have changed — and are changing — even in just a few years. The article shows us a different side of Dudamel than we’ve seen so far in L.A. BTW: there’s a great photo of young Gustavo wearing glasses and with short hair. You might not recognize him without the caption!

• THE L.A. PHIL has announced the 2011-2012 participants in the Dudamel Fellowship Program: Joshua Dos Santos of Venezuela, Mihaela Cesa-Goje of Romania (the first woman ever selected for the fellowship), Courtney Lewis of Northern Ireland and Boston, and Santtu Rouvali of Finland.

Each of the four conductors spends 4-6 weeks working with Dudamel, Phil musicians and with students in LAPO education programs. During their time (Santos, Lewis and Rouvali will have two time blocks), the fellows will both observe and gain hands-on experience. The Dudamel Fellowship was instituted in 2009. One of the inaugural class, Perry So, is leading Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings on Tuesday’s Hollywood Bowl program and a member of last year’s class, Joshua Weilerstein, was recently named as one of two assistant conductors at the New York Philharmonic (MORE). Details on the new class are HERE.

• JOANN FALLETTA, who once headed up the Long Beach Symphony, has renewed her contracts with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony and been named principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The Buffalo Philharmonic contract takes her through the 2015-2016 season; she was the first woman to head a major orchestra when she took over that position in 1999 at the age of 45. The Virginia Symphony contract is for another three years with an option for an additional two years. She becomes the first American and first woman to serve with the Ulster Orchestra.

• Violinist JOSHUA BELL, who is appearing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic next week at Hollywood Bowl (DETAILS), has been named music director of the Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields in London. According to Gramophone, Bell will conduct performances from the violin chair as opposed to standing on a podium (at the Bowl he will lead the Phil in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons while playing the solo parts). Kenneth Sillito remains as the ASMF artistic director and will also conduct. Pianist Murray Perahia has been the group’s principal guest conductor for several years.

• UPCOMING NOTABLE CONCERTS: The Cal Phil plays today at 2 p.m. in Walt Disney Concert Hall and concludes its 2011 summer season on Aug. 21 at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and 22 at Disney Hall (DETAILS) Southwest Chamber Music concludes its summer festival at The Huntington Library tonight at 7:30 p.m. and August 20-21, also at 7:30 p.m. (DETAILS) John Mauceri returns to conduct the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which he founded 20 years ago, on Aug. 19, 20 and 21, playing the score to Walt Disney’s 1940 movie classic Fantasia while the movie is shown on the Bowl’s large screens. This is one of my “don’t miss” concerts of the Bowl season. (DETAILS).
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

(Revised) OVERNIGHT REVIEW: Marvin Hamlisch and Pasadena Pops at the Rose Bowl

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Pasadena Pops; Marvin Hamlisch, conductor
“Marvin Does Broadway”
Saturday, August 6, 2011 • The Lawn Adjacent to the Rose Bowl
Next concert: August 27, 2011 • “Marvin Does Movies”
Info: www.pasadena-symphony.org
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There may have been more important ways to spend a Saturday night but few, if any, could have been more pleasurable than spending last night with Marvin Hamlisch, the Pasadena Pops and an array of soloists under balmy skies and a bright half-moon at The Lawn Adjacent to the Rose Bowl.

A good-sized crowd turned out (particularly impressive considering there was competition from the California Philharmonic’s Rodgers and Hammerstein program at the Arboretum and from the staged production of Hairspray at Hollywood Bowl) to hear Hamlisch and friends work their way through a couple of dozen selections from Broadway, the place where Hamlisch quipped “tickets cost $150 and parking is $900.”

That sort of witty, yet gentle repartee is part of what makes a Hamlisch concert go down so easily. His banter ranged from the downgrading of the nation’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ to joking with KABC weatherman Dallas Raines about the region’s relentlessly constantly good weather. Mid-show he dashed off a Victor Borge-like set of piano variations on Happy Birthday in the styles of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.

More than anything, however, Hamlisch succeeds by connecting with all ages in the audience in part because his comments on the music are intelligent even when they’re brief. For example, he and the orchestra opened with two Rodgers and Hammerstein overtures, with Hamlisch explaining that the Oklahoma overture was the traditional, “Hey, come on in” collection of song that would appear in the show, while the Carousel Waltz was radically different because the music never reappears and the curtain is open at the beginning, not closed.

(I do, however, take issue with Hamlish’s contention that Porgy and Bess is a musical. I realize that director Diane Paulus is working on a new production of what she calls The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which is supposed to recast the work as a musical, but, in the words of Ira Gershwin, “It Ain’t Necessarily So” — i.e., it’s an opera).

One of things that make Hamlisch’s programs succeed is that they are really a series of short works that he ties together artfully to make a winning package (in the descriptive phrase of the former Pops music director, Rachael Worby, programming for the iPod mentality). About the only thing he didn’t do correctly was to identify all the shows from whence the music came (although there was a list of the shows in the program).

In addition to his commentary, Hamlisch conducted decently, if not with great flair (he does seem to bury his head in the score quite a bit), played the piano (sometimes doing both at the same time), and even sang a duet with Cady Huffman for one his own tunes, They’re Playing Our Song, which Huffman informed people was the show with which she made her professional debut at the La Mirada Theater. Apart from a few rough patches, the Pops orchestra playing was typically first-rate.

Individually and as ensembles the three soloists provided many of the evening’s high points (there was actually a fourth soloist at the conclusion of the first act: Steven Brinberg who did a neat takeoff on Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, — my original review didn't identify him by name).

As a trio, Huffman, Anne Runolfsson and Gary Mauer offered a poignant rendition of Send in the Clowns, while Runolfsson and Mauer played Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better with typical over-the-top foolishness, although she did display the requisite amount of impressive power.

Huffman vamped a slinky Ulla from The Producers while Mauer offered a winsome rendition of Begin the Beguine and later had the evening’s funniest moment with another witty Cole Porter song, The Tale of the Oyster. To conclude the evening, Mauer joined with Runolfsson, Hamlisch and the orchestra to finish the evening on the highest and most powerful of notes as they reprised their roles in The Phantom of the Opera, a performance that should have impressed even the most ardent “Phantom” hater and did bring forth a thunderous standing ovation from the others.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• Although the Pops uses video screens on both sides of the stages, the camera work remains mediocre and the lighting continues to have problem, rendering people’s faces much redder than they really are (Huffman and Runolfsson looked like they had Rosacea).
• Hamlisch listens to his audience. After hearing reports that some people (not everyone, I hasten to add) were upset that the first concert didn’t begin with The Star Spangled Banner, Hamlisch opened with the National Anthem last night, then quipped that the balance of the program would be SSBs from countries around the world.
• One thing I’m going to miss when the Pops moves to the Arboretum is the convenient parking adjacent to the Rose Bowl venue and the fast getaways that patrons have.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

STORY AND LINKS: 9/11 concerts beginning to appear on schedule

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

The question about how classical music will commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks isn’t really “how” but “how many?” Because 9/11 falls on a Sunday this year, most churches will likely pay tribute in their worship services. However, details of special musical events are also beginning to emerge.

• The Pasadena Master Chorale will honor the day with a performance of Fauré’s Requiem at 4 p.m. at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church. Artistic Director Jeffrey Bernstein will lead the concert, which will open with four a cappella American works: a traditional setting of Psalm 137, By The Waters of Babylon; Virgil Thompson’s My Shepherd Will Supply My Need; Words To Be Spoken, by Ross Lee Finney; and Bernstein’s own arrangement of America the Beautiful.

The Fauré Requiem is a logical choice for this type of concert. As Bernstein notes, “Perhaps the lightest of the well-known Requiem settings, Faure’s Requiem is tuneful and direct, ending with music of ethereal beauty and promise.” Soprano Krystle Casey and Baritone Cedric Berry will be the soloists in the Requiem, which will be accompanied by Edward Murray on the church’s pipe organ. DETAILS

Incidentally, the PMC will present a summer concert entitled “My Spirit Sang All Day” on Aug. 14 at 4 p.m. at La Crescenta Pres. Bernstein will conduct music ranging from Purcell, Elgar, William Billings and Ralph Vaughan Williams to Ernst Krenek and Matthew Harris. DETAILS

• The first group out of the block on 9/11 commemorations was the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which will use its Hollywood Bowl concert on Tuesday, Sept. 13, as a tribute to those who died in the attack. The program will include the other “most obvious” musical choice — Mozart’s Requiem — and pair it with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Bramwell Tovey, who for the past two seasons was the Phil’s principal guest conductor at the Bowl, will lead the orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale and soloists Heidi Stober, soprano; Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano; Nicholas Phan, tenor; and Matthew Rose, bass-baritone. Chichester Psalms calls for a boy treble but he hasn’t been named yet (at least the name isn’t on the Web site). DETAILS

BTW: the Bowl’s concert on 9/11 will be a rock concert featuring The National;
Neko Case, with special guest T Bone Burnett; and Sharon Van Etten in what the HB Web site describes as “an evening of triumphant, powerful and poetic American rock music [celebrating] our spirit and resolve under the stars of the summer sky.” DETAILS

• Muse-ique, Rachael Worby’s new ensemble, has announced it will participate in a free concert of American music at 6 p.m. on the steps of Pasadena’s City Hall, but no details have been forthcoming.

More will surely arrive in the in-box during the weeks ahead.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

(Revised) NEWS AND LINKS: Jorge Mester named artistic director of Young Musicians Foundation

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

The revision is to correct the location of the Nov. 6 concert.

Jorge Mester, who for 25 years was music director of the Pasadena Symphony, has been named artistic director of the Young Musicians Foundation and its Debut Orchestra. The 76-year-old Mester (pictured left) will continue in his current positions as Music Director of the Louisville Symphony and Naples (Fla.) Philharmonic, although the Louisville ensemble is embroiled in a major financial struggle at the moment.

Founded in 1955 and based in Los Angeles, the YMF is one of the nation’s top pre-professional training orchestras. Its list of former music directors includes such illustrious names as André Previn, Myung-Whun Chung and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Last week, the its most recent maestro, Case Scaglione, was named an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, joining Joshua Weilerstein, who was a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic last year, in that post assisting Music Director Alan Gilbert (MORE).

Scaglione’s YMF predecessor, Sean Newhouse, is now assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony. Last season he won praise from audiences and critics alike when he stepped in on two hours notice to replace James Levine and conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 with the BSO (MORE).

Thus, Mester (who has served on the YMF Advisory Board for 12 years) takes his new position at a propitious time for the organization. He will help select and mentor the YMF’s next music director (it’s usually a three-year appointment) and is preparing an expanded conductor program where he will serve as a mentor for those people, as well. He will also supervise auditions for the orchestra’s new musicians next month.

It’s a role for which Mester is eminently suited. He headed the conducting program at The Juilliard School in New York City in the 1980s, taught conducting at the USC Thornton School of Music, and was the Aspen Festival’s artistic director for many years (he is now conductor laureate there). Several conductors heading orchestras today, including JoAnn Falletta (Buffalo Philharmonic), count Mester as a mentor. During his time with the Pasadena Symphony, he also introduced to local audiences a number of young artists who have gone on to major careers, perhaps most notably the violinist Midori.

In addition to his shepherding and teaching work, Mester will conduct one of the YMF’s six free concerts during the upcoming season, leading the orchestra in John Adams’ Shaker Loops and Bizet’s Symphony in C Major at 6 p.m. on Nov. 6 at the Los Angeles County Art Museum's Bing Theater.

• Read Janette Williams' article in the Pasadena Star-News HERE.
• The YMF media release is HERE.
• The 2011-2012 YMF Debut Orchestra season is HERE.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

COMMENTARY: Half full or half empty?

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

A highly perceptive reader (I know that’s the case because she’s reading my Blog) took mild issue with the Hemidemisemiquaver comment at the end of my review today (LINK) that described Thursday’s crowd of 7,501 at Hollywood Bowl as “quite healthy.” She commented, “In the Bowl that seats 17,500? In a region with 20 million people in it? Not too sure about that descriptive phrase!”

Or, to cut to the chase, is the glass half-full or half-empty?

We’ve completed four weeks — 40 percent — of this summer’s classical Tuesday/Thursday season at the Bowl and things seem to have settled into a pattern. The last two weeks have seen about 7,500 people for each of the four performances.

The first two weeks, with Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel on the podium, drew bigger crowds although it’s worth noting that the audiences for the Dudamel concerts were off from last summer. The attendance on July 12 was 9,513 and 9.207 showed up on July 14 (both programs were the same, including the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition and pianist Lang Lang as soloist in Prokofiev’s third piano concerto). During the second week, the attendance was 9,236 for the all-Mozart concert Tuesday and 8,209 on Thursday for an eclectic program. To cite one comparison, the first of two concerts that Dudamel conducted last summer (which, admittedly, featured Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue) drew 13,907.

So what is one to make of all these numbers, aside from the perception that “The Dude’s” drawing power seems to be diminishing, at least at the Bowl?

When I raised this issue last year, Philharmonic management noted that 7,500 people in one concert is 1,000 people more than the orchestra can draw for three concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall where the seating capacity is a shade over 2,250. Undeniably true. On the other hand, in each of the last four concerts there have been 10,000 Bowl seats left empty. So, is the glass half empty or half full?

In this season’s Performances Magazine (the Bowl’s printed program) is a welcome letter from Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky (his district encompasses the Bowl). Most people gloss over this letter but it caught my eye. He wrote of his parents, who moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, “The new Hollywood Bowl quickly became their home away from home. They were classical music aficionados, and for them, the Bowl was accessible as well as affordable.” Zev’s experience (which continues in the rest of his letter) mirrors mine to some extent. But is that still the case today?

I think the glass is half-empty, or to put a more positive spin on it, I think there’s a lot of unused capacity that could — and should be filled. Part of the issue is timing; Tuesday and Thursday are work nights for many people. Part of it is accessibility; with increased traffic, it’s harder to get to the Bowl than in previous decades, whether you’re driving or taking a “Park and Ride” bus. Riding the Red Line with its free shuttle is the cheapest way to go but unless you live next to a Red Line station, the trip can take a long time, especially when you go home.

Another issue is the Bowl’s sound system. The Phil and L.A. County have made considerable upgrades but it’s not state of the art. Wwhile I’m a huge proponent of live concerts, there’s no denying that a good home sound system delivers better fidelity than what you get at the Bowl, not least because at home you’re not battling things like airplanes/helicopters, rolling wine bottles and chirping crickets, cicadas or whatever those insects are.

Moreover, the economy is still putting a major hit on all artistic organizations and ticket sales are down in many places.

However, for me the biggest deterrent to Bowl attendance — particularly for people with families (see Yaroslavsky’s letter) — continues to be price. Tickets for Tuesday and Thursday concerts start at $1 but there are very few of them and they sell out well in advance (I checked for next Tuesday’s concerts and none were available online). The next level is $8, then $10, $16, $21 and on up to $361 (per ticket).

Now certainly the $8 and $10 tickets are comparably priced to movie tickets today, although when you add in the costs for driving, parking and online service fees the comparison gets a little weak. But the job, it seems to me, is not merely to compare, it’s to put a jolt into people that will make some who have never — or rarely — come to the Bowl to say, “Let’s give the Bowl a shot tonight.”

The most drastic way of stimulating attendance, of course, would be to make the top tier or two free, but the Bowl is, after all, a critical part of the Phil’s income stream and, thus, such a suggestion isn’t realistic. However, here is an alternative:

Take the remainder of the Tuesday/Thursday concerts and re-price the entire top tier (letters V, W and X) at $1 per ticket. If you paid $8 for a section W ticket, you get to move down to the next tier. Re-price that tier (letters Q, R, S, T and U — currently $10 or $16) at $5 per ticket; if you already have a ticket in those sections, you get to move down to the next closest tier. My guess is that the increased ticket sales would eventually offset the new pricing structure, although that may not happen initially. It’s late to be putting this into place and getting the word out will be a problem but it’s at least worth a shot and building for the future is always a laudable goal for any arts organization.

Wouldn’t it be nice if 20 years from now Supervisor Yaroslavsky’s successor (assuming he has retired by then) would be able to say, “The Philharmonic’s innovative ticket-pricing program, beginning in 2011, enabled my family to discover the joys of a picnic and concert at Hollywood Bowl.”?
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

OVERNIGHT REVIEW: Joana Carneiro and the L.A. Philharmonic at Hollywood Bowl

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Los Angeles Philharmonic; Joana Carneiro, conductor
Nielsen: Maskarade Overture; Lindberg: Clarinet Concerto; Copland: Clarinet Concerto; Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite
Thursday, August 4, 2011 • Hollywood Bowl
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Tuesday and Thursday have been alumni week on the Hollywood Bowl podium. Tuesday, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s outgoing associate conductor, Lionel Bringuier (now sporting a new title: resident conductor) led the orchestra in a program of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky (with a major assist from pianist Yuja Wang — LINK). Last night, Portugal-born conductor Joana Carneiro, who preceded Bringuier as LAPO associate conductor, led a more innovative program at the venerable Cahuenga Pass amphitheatre.

The “reunion” theme continues next weekend (August 12 and 13) when Miguel Harth-Bedoya, who served as the Phiul’s associate conductor from 1999-2004, returns to lead a Latin-themed program.

After Carneiro finished her tenure with the LAPO, she moved north to the Bay area to become music director of the Berkeley Symphony, where she replaced Kent Nagano (now heading the Montreal Symphony), who retired from that innovative ensemble after an impressive 30-year tenure.

The 34-year-old Carneiro is a strikingly beautiful woman whose podium style leans heavily to heart-on-the-sleeve exuberance. She employs sometimes grand, sometimes fussy, sweeping gestures that seem difficult for musicians to follow and sometime get in the way of the music rather than encourage it. Consequently, while there were many positive moments in last night’s concert there were also others that left us wanting more.

The evening opened with a boisterous account of Neilsen’s Maskarade Overture followed by what turned out to be the evening’s highlight: Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto, written in 2002 for his countryman, Kari Kriikku, who was the soloist last night.

This 26-minute, single-movement work is a tour-de-force for the soloist; in fact, one wonders whether anyone beside Kriikku would attempt it … or want to. (Amazon.com lists in its catalogue only the original recording that Kriikku made following the premiere with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste.)

Kriikku bobs and weaves all over the place as he plays but that fits the style of the piece, which opens with a jazzy, bluesy solo and then has the soloist skittering up and down the keyboard, with the orchestra answering with occasionally dark, ominous chords.

There are several cadenzas written into the work; the most extensive requires the soloist to create multi-phonic sounds (think double-stops on the violin) that resemble bird sounds, sort of a Finn’s take on the music of Olivier Messiaen. For all of that, the ending is surprisingly tonal and majestic. Carneiro led the Philharmonic joyfully through the accompaniment. The audience responded with a vigorous standing ovation, particularly for the soloist.

After intermission, Paul Meyer was the soloist in a somewhat subdued reading of Aaron Copland’s 1947 Clarinet Concerto, which sounded tame when compared with Lindberg’s piece. Meyer played the melancholy first movement diffidently and sailed gracefully through the cadenza that acts as a bridge to the concluding, jazzy, upbeat movement. The accompaniment has plenty of quintessential Copland harmonies and Meyer handled all of them with aplomb. Carneiro’s reading was carefully couched with Joanne Pearce Martin’s work on the piano a highlight. Compared to its response to the Lindberg, the audience’s applause was restrained.

Concluding the concert with Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite made sense on several layers. The original ballet was written two years before the Clarinet Concerto (Appalachian Spring won Copland a Pulitzer Prize) and there are overtones of that ballet and other familiar Copland dance pieces in the concerto. Moreover, the orchestral suite leans heavily on the orchestra’s wind sections and the Phil’s principals — Lorin Levee, clarinet; Marion Arthur Kuszyk, oboe; Catherine Ransom Karoly, flute; and Whitney Crockett, bassoon — performed with sensitivity and grace throughout the evening.

Carneiro tended to emphasize speed in the rhythmic, quick portions and lingered luxuriantly over the slower sections. One suspects that most of the limited rehearsal time was devoted to the concertos, particularly the Lindberg, which may have accounted for some ragged rhythmic moments, but the wistful end was exquisite, fading away into the nighttime air.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• The attendance was 7,501, eight more than Tuesday and about the average for the past four (i.e., non-Gustavo) weekday crowds. Considering that the soloists were not big market and the presence of a very contemporary concerto on the agenda, the number was quite healthy.
• There were also fewer aerial instrusions than in past concerts; one had the good luck to fly over during intermission. Ask not why the good fortune; just be grateful.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

NEWS AND LINKS: L.A. Phil offers "Create Your Own Season" ticket packages

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

Summer music seasons are still going strong but upcoming 2011-2012 indoor seasons are just around the corner and the Los Angeles Philharmonic is offering a chance to secure the best remaining seats at Walt Disney Concert Hall with its “Create Your Own Season” packages.

You buy a minimum of five concerts under this program but everything is in play (except the gala opening event), including the performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the Shrine Auditorium (LINK). In fact, if you’re so inclined, you could create a package of only the Mahler symphonies being performed by the L.A. Phil and the Simón Bolivár Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in January and February 2012.

You don’t save on ticket prices with this program but you do get exchange privileges (helpful if you find you have to miss a concert) and save on handling fees, as well.

INFO: www.laphil.com

Single tickets go on sale Aug. 21
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

OVERNIGHT REVIEW: Lionel Bringuier, Yuja Wang and the L.A. Phil at Hollywood Bowl

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Los Angeles Philharmonic; Lionel Bringuier, conductor; Yuja Wang, piano
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 • Hollywood Bowl
Next concert: Tomorrow at 8 p.m. (Joana Carneiro, conductor
Info: www.hollywoodbowl.com
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Last night’s Hollywood Bowl concert was supposed to have been tinged with sadness because it was to be the final concert in Lionel Bringuier’s four-year tenure with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the first as two assistant conductor and the last two as associate conductor. However, earlier in the day the Phil announced that Bringuier (pictured right) had been promoted to a new position, resident conductor, for the next two seasons (LINK). It’s unclear whether his duties will be any different than those of associate conductor but, based on last night (and what we have been hearing for the past four years), it’s a savvy move by the Phil’s management to keep Bringuier connected with the orchestra.

That wasn’t the only reason for celebration last night, because the soloist for the evening was Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, who — like Bringuier — is just 24 years old. She’s becoming a regular on LAPO schedules and with good reason: she’s a pianist with a formidable technique who also happens to exude a great deal of musicianship in her playing. It also may (or may not) be worth mentioning that she came on stage last night wearing the shortest dress I’ve ever seen a female pianist wear, an orange sheath that elicited gasps from the audience.

Her vehicle last night was Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and her performance also took everyone’s breath away. Like her more celebrated compatriot, Lang Lang, she played the fast sections VERY fast, so much so that her hands were a blur on the large video screens on either side of the stage. Unlike Lang, however, she often sat quietly at the keyboard except for the requisite power needed to sail through Rach 3’s bravura sections.

Yet for me, what I also take away from the performance were the quiet sections, particularly a few measures in the first movement that became an exquisite example of musical collaboration between Wang, Clarinetist Lorin Levee, Flutist Catherine Ransom Karoly and Oboist Marion Arthur Kuszyk.

Bringuier kept his eyes focused on Wang throughout the traversal as he and the orchestra did their best to bend to her tempo changes (the shifts weren’t particularly willful; they’re just Rachmaninoff). Overall, it was an invigorating performance; the concerto’s whiz-bang ending always elicits an instant standing ovation but this time the crowd, which numbered 7,493 was remarkably — and deservedly — vociferous.

Wang returns to Walt Disney Concert Hall November 4, 5 and 6 when her vehicle is Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (James Conlon will conduct — INFO) When individual tickets go on sale Aug. 21, you would be well advised to lock in your ducats before they sell out.

After intermission, Bringuier led the Phil in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. There was more than a little irony in the fact that Bringuier’s final Phil concert was supposed to conclude with this piece, because it was with this symphony that Gustavo Dudamel made his LAPO debut in 2005 at the Bowl (click HERE for Alan Rich’s prescient review from that September evening).

Alan (who died in 2010) was also very bullish on Bringuier; one wonders what he would have thought of the young Frenchman’s brash take on this familiar work. If you like your Tchaikovsky grandiose, then this wasn’t a night for you. Instead, Bringuier stripped away the pomposity and led a bracing, thought-provoking performance.

Even with the Bowl’s limited rehearsal schedule, Bringuier got the strings to play with a lean sound that allowed the many wind solos to come through clearly (it helped that the amplification was on good behavior last night). The opening was somber, highlighted by Lorin Levee’s clarinet solos, one of many times for the Phil’s veteran Principal Clarinetist to shine. Moreover, Bringuier dared to draw out the silences in that opening section, not easy amid rolling bottles and chirping crickets.

Conducting without a score, Bringuier essentially played the symphony in two large movements, taking almost no time between the first and second movement or between the final two sections. His tempos reflected their descriptions to the max; after the first-movement opening, the Allegro con anima section was, indeed, animated, and in the final movement the Allegro vivace really emphasized the vivace appellation. Even the third movement, while having some lilting qualities, propelled forward a real sense of urgency.

Overall, this was (no surprise) a young person’s guide to the symphony. With it came an amazing amount of thought for someone who is still learning his art. It also demonstrated exciting prospects for what the future holds for him … and, hopefull, for us, as well.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• With temperatures having soared over the century mark in the afternoon, nearly all of the men elected not to wear white dinner jackets, although a couple donned them after intermission. The balmy evening actually was one of the most pleasant in recent memory.
• Among my memories from the Tchaikovsky were the unusually tender horn solo at the beginning of the second movement, played by Eric Overholt, and the sharp brass section attacks that echoed off the nearby hillsides — quite an interesting effect.
• With Principal Concermaster Martin Chalifour off for the evening, Nathan Cole — the orchestra’s new First Associate Concertmaster (and holder of the Ernest Fleischmann Chair) slid over into the first chair.
• It’s amazing to consider that 50 years from now there will undoubtedly be people who will listen to Bringuier conduct and Wang play … or maybe not so amazing. Fifty years ago, Zubin Mehta was named the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s assistant conductor (he was 25 at the time); less than a year later, he became the orchestra’s music director. And I can still visualize sitting spellbound in front of my black-and-white television watching 16-year-old Andre Watts as soloist in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic on a “Young People’s Concert” on Jan. 15, 1963. Both Mehta and Watts are still going strong (in fact, Watts will appear the Phil at the Bowl on August 23 as soloist in Liszt’s second piano concerto — INFO).

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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.