Copious Notes

It's a most artsy time of year

Grace Kiser, 4, left, and her grandmother Sharon Land watch the Lexington Singers perform at the Christmas tree lighting at the courthouse plaza on Dec. 1. Copyrighted photo by Matt Goins for the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com.

There aren't many times in the year you can flip on the TV and see what's happening with some local arts groups. But such was the case last night with WKYT's annual airing of the Kentucky Christmas Chorus, featuring the Lexington Philharmonic and the Lexington Philharmonic.

Christmas is one of those celebrations where are arts groups take center stage and prove they are more than up to the task. The Singers, for instance, perform at numerous events, including the city's Christmas Tree lighting at Victorian Square. Seasonal shows such as Nutcracker Ballet and Christmas plays attract audiences that don't darken theater doors other times of year.

And then there's a little TV thrown in. Last night's Christmas Chorus included an original tune by Lexington Singers assistant director Johnnie Dean and an O Holy Night from Everett and Alicia McCorvey that appeared to arouse a spontaneous standing O from the crowd at Rupp Arena. If you missed it, WKYT and WYMT will repeat the program at noon Christmas Day.

If you want to participate in or watch another Christmas choral event, the second annual Celebration of Song, presented by the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre, will be 6 to 7:30 p.m. Dec. 15 at Victorian Square, Main Street and Broadway.

It will start with an outdoor celebration featuring the Victorian Square Drum and Bugle Corps and Holiday Brass Quintet in Triangle Park, along with the Lexington Singers Children's Choir and Holiday Singers. The event will repair inside for a performance of selections from Handel's Messiah by professional soloists and an orchestra, and a community sing-along of holiday favorites.

If you can't get there, the event will stream live at Celebration of Song website and will be shown at 5 p.m. Dec. 22 on KET1 and 8:30 a.m. Dec. 25 on KET2. The video stream will be available all month at the Web site, which has more info about the event.

CD Review: Karolju -- Instant Christmas classic

Conductor David Zinman commisioned Karolju from composer Christopher Rouse. Photo from davidzinman.org.

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Karolju | Five stars out of 5

Conductor David Zinman has long been one of the biggest champions of new music in the classical music world. This holiday season, he turns that passion into a gift for choral music lovers with Karolju, a work for chorus and orchestra by Baltimore composer Christopher Rouse. Karolju was originally commissioned from Rouse by Zinman in 1989, when Zinman was music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. At its premiere in 1991, Karolju became an instant hit with Baltimore audiences, and it’s easy to see why. The work sounds at once familiar and new.

Rouse drew his inspiration from a collection of Christmas carols written over several centuries, and he put them in a cantata form in numerous languages. Often, he was going as much for the sound of the words as he was in any complete phrases. In the up-tempo numbers, such the Czech passage and Latin sections, that gives the vocals a percussive kick. But there are also moments of transcendant beauty, such as the pastoral Italian segment that closes the work. What’s hard to understand is why Zinman had such a hard time getting Karolju recorded. It’s a vibrant work that should quickly move off classical shelves and find itself on choral programs in coming years. Zinman and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorus paired Rouse’s premiere with Witold Lutoslawski’s Polish Christmas Carols and Joaquin Rodrigo’s Retablo de Navidad for a complete holiday treat.
RICH COPLEY
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Neruda love songs win Louisville award

Composer Peter Lieberson is the 2008 recipient of the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Award in music composition.

Lieberson (Photo, right, by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson) won the award for Neruda Songs, a five-song cycle he wrote for his late wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died in 2006 after battling breast cancer. The mezzo-soprano premiered the work, based on sonnets by Nobel Prize-winning author Pablo Neruda, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic before she died. She also recorded the songs for Nonesuch Records.

“It is impossible to think of a more suitable candidate,” for the prestigious award, New Yorker Magazine music critic Alex Ross wrote on his blog, The Rest is Noise. “Neruda Songs is music of high craft and deep emotion; it is destined to live a very long time.”

The Courier-Journal of Louisville reported that Lieberson, who is battling lymphoma, hopes to make it to Louisville in 2008 to accept his $200,000 award and gold medal.

Lee Todd on the "fire" at the UK Music School

University of Kentucky President Lee Todd speaks at the 2007 spring commencement ceremony. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Matt Goins.

University of Kentucky President Lee Todd has recently praised the School of Music as being, "On fire." For a story previewing this weekend's Holiday Collage concert presented by numerous soloists and ensembles at the school, we asked Todd to expand on his remarks. Here are his responses to several questions we submitted via e-mail:

Copious Notes: What are the most impressive things happening in the School of Music, from your perspective?

Lee Todd: There are a number of impressive things happening in the School of Music -- and the entire College of Fine Arts, for that matter -- that prompted me to talk about it 'being on fire.' In addition to the incredible gift recently made to the opera program, UK Opera Theatre's first opera production of the year was, as you know, the second portion of a world premiere of Thomas Pasatieri's new opera, The Hotel Casablanca. The unique aspect of this production was that UK is home to both the set and costumes, so opera companies wanting to present this opera in the future will be able to get the set and costumes from us.

Since 1995, in fact, the School of Music has produced at least 10 Metropolitan Opera winners at the district level, four at the regional level, and one -- Gregory Turay -- at the national level. Recently, at the district level, UK Opera took three of the four finalist positions.

You have extensively covered the work of our symphony orchestra. In Times Like These was recorded with Arlo Guthrie and released in July. It has received positive reviews and mentions, including publications such as The Washington Post. UKSO joined Guthrie, at his invitation, on the Carnegie Hall stage this past weekend, where he plays annually.

Our wind ensemble is touring China in 2008 and take part in events in honor of the upcoming Olympic Games. Our Jazz Ensemble was the only collegiate one selected to perform at the upcoming international conference, Midwest Clinic. And our UK Percussion Ensemble won its collegiate competition and will perform at an upcoming international conference. No other colleges that we know of have won the collegiate competition three times in a row as our ensemble has done.

That, of course, is not an exhaustive list, but it gives you a good sense of the high level of accomplishment and breadth and depth that exists.

Like 2003 all over again

Jefferson Johnson on the podium conducting the 2003 Kentucky Christmas Chorus. He'll be back this year because, like four years ago, the Lexington Philharmonic will be split between Lexington and Frankfort, where Maestro George Zack will be conducting at the Governor's Inauguration. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Frank Anderson.

Earlier this month Steve Beshear's victory in Kentucky's gubernatorial election denied Gov. Ernie Fletcher a second term in office. But one thing will be the same on inauguration day 2007 as it was in 2003: The Lexington Philharmonic will be split between the inaugural ceremonies in Frankfort and the annual Kentucky Christmas Chorus in Rupp Arena. And once again, Lexington Singers director Jefferson Johnson will be on the podium in Lexington, conducting the Christmas sing-along, which will be broadcast on WKYT and WYMT live at 8 p.m. Dec. 11 and rebroadcast on Christmas Day.

"To be honest, I was scared stiff," Johnson says, recalling the 2003 concert. "I was petrified on the inside, but smiling on the outside. This year, I'll be a lot less nervous."

The Lexington Singers director, who is also the director of choirs at the University of Kentucky, will be joined by some familiar faces with soloists Everett and Alicia Helm McCorvey. Johnson says the Phil is hiring a bunch of extra players to fill out the two orchestras for Dec. 11.

Since Zack, who announced his impending retirement last year, is waving the baton for the last time next September, this could mean he has already conducted his last Christmas Chorus. According to Philharmonic marketing director Danielle Dove, there was some talk of possibly utilizing a police escort so Zack could conduct both events, but the timing of each engagement made that impossible.

Kentucky, of course, has several fine orchestras that could play the inauguration, including the Louisville Orchestra, Kentucky Symphony Orchestra and the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra. But, as long as we keep electing Governors from Lexington, Republican or Democrat, it looks like they'll want to invite their hometown band to their big day. If that's the case, every four years, there will be a conflict on the Philharmonic's schedule.

UK Symphony at Carnegie

The University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra performed with Arlo Guthrie and under the direction of John Nardolillo at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Nov. 24, 2007. Copyrighted photos by Aaron Lee Fineman.

Saturday may not have been a good day for the University of Kentucky football team, but it was an amazing night for the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, which got to play Carnegie Hall with folk legend Arlo Guthrie. Here are a few more photos in addition to what we had in today's Herald-Leader. And if you missed the Gutenberg edition, make sure you check out the New York Times' review of the show. It, of course, focuses on Guthrie, but the UK players get their props.

Lexingtonians in NYC for Turkey Day weekend

Laura Bell Bundy in the Broadway production of Legally Blonde, the Musical. Copyrighted photo courtesy of Barlow-Hartman Public Relations.

How's this for football counter-programming: MTV is reshowing the Broadway production of Legally Blonde the Musical, this time in a sing-along format, at 1 p.m. Thanksgiving Day. The show, starring Lexington's Laura Bell Bundy as SoCal sorority girl-turned-Harvard law student Elle Woods, will play with lyrics at the bottom of the screen. It's been a successful technique with tween hits such as High School Musical.

MTV and Legally Blonde broke new ground in October by being the first Broadway show ever to be shown on TV in its entirety while it was still running on Broadway. According to Playbill.com, between the initial Oct. 13 showing and subsequent airings on MTV, Legally Blonde was seen by more than 12.5 million viewers. Funny thing is, unless there's a real quick resolution to the Broadway stagehands strike, TV is the only way you'll see Legally Blonde Thanksgiving weekend.

Thanksgiving morning, Bundy and the Blonde cast will perform on the broadcast of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which starts at 9 a.m. on NBC.

Also in NYC:

~ The Dunbar High School Marching band will be in the Macy's Parade -- maybe they should just hold the thing in Lexington, don'tcha think? Keep up with the high schoolers adventures in the big city on the blog, March of a Lifetime.

~ The University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra's big Carnegie Hall appearance with Arlo Guthrie is Saturday night. Watch the Herald-Leader over the weekend for photos and a story on the big event.

Juilliard String Quartet makes it look easy

The Juilliard String Quartet are violinist Joel Smirnoff, violinist Ronald Copes, cellist Joel Krosnick and violist Samuel Rhodes. 

In the late 1950s, the Stanley Quartet commissioned Elliott Carter to write a string quartet. He fulfilled the commission with his String Quartet No. 2, a piece that proved to be too difficult for the group.

You can see why. There's no melody for the musicians to hang on, no line to follow. It was created as conversation, and frequently an argument or power struggle, between the four instruments, each speaking in different voices. The musicians are under huge demands for precision and feel.

The Juilliard String Quartet came to the rescue, giving the piece its world premier in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, and established Carter as a major American composer.

Forty-eight years later, the String Quartet No. 2 is still in the Juilliard's repertoire -- albeit with different musicians, now -- and they play it  without breaking perceptible sweat. Monday night at in the Weisiger Theatre in Centre College's Norton Center for the Arts, viola player Samuel Rhodes introduced the piece giving the audience a road map to follow. The instruments were written as four characters: a steady second violin, an emotional viola, an operatic cello and a neurotic, selfish (diva?) first violin. He described how they would converse, argue, grab for power, fall away and in the end, there would be one instrument standing.

Then, the Juilliard proceeded to play it exactly as Rhodes described. And the story cam alive. I've listened to the String Quartet No. 2 before, several times in the last few weeks, and kind of got it. But seeing it performed was a revelation The players embodied their "characters." The often seemingly random music gained cohesion in this performance.

By this point in the concert, it really wasn't a surprise that the Juilliard could play with character and community.

Monday night's alright for concerts

Monday nights aren't usually big concert nights in Lexington, or much of anywhere. But tonight, we have two concerts of note in Central Kentucky:

UK Wind Ensemble

The University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass for its free concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Singletary Center for the Arts, 405 Rose Street.

Under the direction of Cody Birdwell, the ensemble will play Colgrass’s Winds of Nagual — A Musical Fable for Wind Ensemble on the Writings of Carlos Castaneda. Colgrass, a 1956 graduate of the University of Illinois who trained as a percussionist and composer, won his Pulitzer in 1978 for Déjà vu, a work for four percussionists and orchestra that was commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic. He also has been commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and others, and received an Emmy Award in 1982 for the documentary Soundings: The Music of Michael Colgrass.

Juilliard String Quartet
If it’s Giuseppe Verdi, it must be opera, right? Not necessarily. When the Juilliard String Quartet plays at 8 p.m. Monday at Centre College’s Norton Center for the Arts in Danville, the program will include Verdi’s only surviving chamber work, Quartet in E minor. Verdi wrote the quartet while stuck in Naples, Italy, because an opening of an opera you might have heard of, Aida, was delayed due to the lead soprano’s illness. By all accounts, the quartet was a casual exercise, premiered to a small group of friends a few days after Aida opened. Verdi wrote, “I don’t know whether the Quartet is beautiful or ugly, but I do know that it’s a quartet!” Obviously, many musicians such as the Juilliard Quartet have decided it was the former. The concert also will include Elliott Carter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning String Quartet No. 2 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3. Click here for tickets and information.

On the record

Sometimes I forget to do this, and then I wonder why: When a guest conductor, musician or group is coming to town, I like to go fishing for recordings. And I get a lot more bites than you might think.

A lot has been written about a crisis in classical music recording, with fewer and fewer orchestras having recording contracts with major labels, discs being harder to move, etc. That’s one end. On the other hand, with the use of less-expensive digital recording technology available and wider distribution than previously imagined, it seems there’s more music available from more artists than ever before.

Take the Lexington Philharmonic’s lineup.

This year, there aren’t any blockbuster soloists or conductors on the schedule. But we have heard performances from people we’d like to hear more of.

Last week, after talking to guest conductor Alexander Platt, who led Friday night’s concert, I came back to the office and popped his name into Napster;  sure enough, two albums popped up.
The first was the world premiere recording of Robert Kurka’s opera The Good Soldier Schweik, and what a find. The recording with the Chicago Opera Theatre, which Platt directs, is clearly sung, buoyantly conducted and entertaining. It made me want to see the show, although I also think I got a great sense of the show from the disc.

The other disc paired Platt with two other past Lexington visitors: violinist Rachel Barton Pine, who opened the Phil’s 2003-04 season, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which played the Singletary Center’s concert series in 1999. Its Scottish Fantasies for Violin and Orchestra turned out to be a lovely disc of music by Max Bruch, Pablo de Sarasate and others.

If you liked piano soloist Natasha Paremski’s Ludwig van Beethoven work on Friday night, you might want to check out her 2003 Frederic Chopin disc with the Moscow Philharmonic and conductor Dmitry Yablonsky.

Three of the Philharmonic’s other soloists this season also have discs for sale. Pianist John Nakamatsu, who opened the season with a dazzling performance of Johannes Brahms’ First Piano Concerto, has eight discs out, from a CD of his award-winning performance at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition to relatively new concertos by Lukas Foss, to a recent disc of George Gershwin. You can find several CDs by October’s soloist, Pablo Sainz Villegas, on his Web site.

And if you are looking ahead, February’s piano soloist, Sara Buechner, has a number of discs out, including a new one of music for piano and violin by Rudolf Friml. You can find Buechner's discography at her site.

(An aside: If you are a performing and/or recording artist today, you should have a Web site. It might seem a bit arrogant if you’re just starting out, but for many reasons, including dealing with presenters and journalists and giving potential fans a place to go, having a Web site just makes good sense.) 

Beyond the Philharmonic’s visiting artists, we have Lexington-based ensembles recording, including the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra and American Spiritual Ensemble.

Recordings also are good ways to reconnect with folks who have moved on. Violinist Nathan Cole, now with the Chicago Symphony, just released a terrific solo CD, Rapid Approach. Earlier this month, I found UK graduate Gregory Turay’s performance in the San Francisco Opera’s Merry Widow on DVD. And if you couldn’t get to Washington Opera to see Turay in William Bolcom’s A View From the Bridge, you can at least buy the CD.

I could go on, but suffice to say, if you see an artist you like or want to check one out before you buy a ticket, there’s a good chance you can find him or her on CD.
And this being the season that it is, if you’ve shared a great concert experience with someone recently, a CD of the artist’s work could make a lovely holiday gift.

Alexander Platt's true blue chat

Above: Alexander Platt conducts a rehearsal with the Lexington Philharmonic. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Matt Goins. Below: Platt's preshow attire was reminiscent of the look Billy Gillispie sported when he was introduced as the new UK basketball coach. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Charles Bertram.

Shortly after 7 last night, Alexander Platt arrived on the Singletary Center for the Arts concert hall stage sporting an oddly familiar look.

We saw the slightly-out-of-place-blue-pullover thing seven months ago when Billy Gillispie was introduced as the University of Kentucky's new basketball coach. Of course, Billy Clyde's true blue attire was just over a shirt and a tie, while Platt's was over formal wear, his white bow tie popping out from the collar. And Platt was still vying for a job: music director of the Lexington Philharmonic.

Platt was rockin' the Billy G look at the pre-show chat, a sort of meet-the-fans session, moderated by Philharmonic bass player and librarian Joe Tackett.

Tackett has a standard repertoire of questions that starts with candidates' early musical influences and ends with requests for more bass concertos.

Addressing the question of a defining moment in his musical development, Platt recalled a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem at  the Episcopal Church his family attended. "When it was over, no one clapped," Platt recalled. "Everyone just stood up. It was then that I realized the true power of music that transcends words."

As far as programming goes, Platt said he likes thematic seasons that focus on composers or concepts, like a recent year of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky or his plans for a Rachmaninoff season with his primary orchestra in Waukesha, Wis., because, "people seem to love those big pieces."

An audience member got Platt to focus a bit more more on his own passions by asking what he would record if he had the chance to make a signature CD. The conductor, who currently resides in Chicago and has several orchestras under his baton, played to the Lexington crowd saying he had heard good things about the Lexington Singers and that he'd lean toward Franz Joseph Haydn's late masses, one of which the Singers happened to perform just a few days ago. Platt praised Haydn, whose Symphony No. 88 he conducted with the Philharmonic, as an ultimate self-made musician. But, when pressed to pick his favorite composer, the conductor, who has a long opera resume, named Giuseppe Verdi, saying, "he summed up everything Beethoven and Mozart ever said."

Folks who skipped the pre-show still heard quite a bit from Platt, who gave extended comments at the beginning of each half of the concert. He talked about the program, which included Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 3 and Ludwig van Beethoven's Emperor piano concerto, as a set of seemingly dissimilar composers who were united in making complex works out of simple themes.

Both in the chat and stage commentary, Platt said he dealt himself a tough hand by programming Sibelius' Third, because mastering the complexity of the score was a monumental task for a conductor and orchestra just getting to know each other. From the stage, he joked that if a conductor search is a beauty contest, "I picked the wrong swimsuit."

Before the show, he was bolder saying that if he could pull off the Third the Philharmonic should, "offer me a contract immediately. We'll negotiate it at the airport."

Well, with three guest artists left to come this season and a 2008-09 season of guest conductors in the works, that probably won't happen. But Platt should hold onto that pullover. That shade of blue goes over really well here.

~ Read Loren Tice's review of last night's concert.

~ If you went to the show, tell the Phil what you thought of Platt's performance.

2001: the start of a musical odyssey

The first time I ever left a movie theater wanting the soundtrack for the film I just saw was when I was in seventh grade.

It was the Fourth of July weekend, and my brother-in-law Dan -- my sister is 14 years older than I -- said we had to go see 2001: a Space Odyssey at the Naro Expanded Cinema. This pops into my mind with crystal clarity because the Kentucky Theatre, Lexington's answer to Norfolk's Naro, is showing 2001 this weekend on its Winter Classics series. Anyway, I can't remember if I was excited. This was before the Naro became an almost weekly journey for me, but it was when I was in the throes of initial Star Wars fandom, so any space movie had some appeal for me.

The movie, of course, was a little strange for a seventh grader to wrap his head around -- the apes; the quiet, slow spaceships. I don't know that the question, "What was going on there?" was ever answered that night or has ever  been answered completely. But even on that viewing, I had to agree with the tagline. It was, "The ultimate trip." I can remember feeling pinned to my seat with my hands gripping the armrests as Dave sped through the light show toward the end and his regeneration as the "star child."

A key element of those sensations was the music, which I immediately loved, particularly the Ligeti. The majesty of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra and beauty of Johann Strauss' The Blue Danube were already culturally iconic. But the droning, haunting chorus and sharp, sporadic instruments of Gyorgy Ligeti's Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, 2 Mixed Choirs and Orchestra was some of the coolest stuff I had ever heard. It always showed up along with the mysterious and impenetrable black monolith. Later, when I looked at the soundtrack album, it made perfect sense that Ligeti also composed Lux Aeterna, the music as Dr. Floyd travels to the moon, and Atmospheres, the music of Dave's white-knuckle trip through space.

What I certainly didn't realize I was hearing was a movie that, "neatly brackets the entire arc of twentieth-century musical history," as Alex Ross writes in his new book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. In one movie, we go from the beautiful majesty of R. Strauss to Ligeti's envelope tearing work, and the 2001 music is far from his strangest stuff.

Appreciating what Ligeti's music did -- and this was long before I knew anything about 12-tone music and minimalism and any of the other contemporary genres that seem to drive a lot of people up the wall --  set the stage for appreciating a lot of other stuff like John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and even artists like Meredith Monk and bands like Sonic Youth.

The notion that people need to be taught to like classical music has always struck me as absurd. Yes, learning more about the music, learning to play it, deepens your appreciation, definitely, and your liking for it, maybe. The same, I think, is true of pop music. You start with an initial infatuation, then, as you listen and learn more, your appreciation deepens. And things can certainly grow on you. But there has to be a moment for music aficionados when they hear sounds that speak to them and they fall in love. For me, seeing 2001 was definitely one of those occasions.

The image above is a scan of the gatefold of my copy of the 2001: a Space Odyssey soundtrack record album.

Introducing Alexander Platt

Alexander Platt discussed his career and his interest in becoming the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra's new music director over a Tuesday morning breakfast at Stella's. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by David Stephenson.

Alexander Platt loves to create events. As a student at Yale, he raised the money to present a production of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia with Yale and New York City Opera singers. At Cambridge University, it was Britten again, with the infrequently performed Owen Wingrave, which was reviewed in several London dailies.

Just last summer, at Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, N.Y., Platt premiered his reduced version of David del Tredici's Final Alice, which received a sterling review from the New York Times' Steve Smith. That ended a summer that started with the demanding double bill of Arnold Schoenberg's Erwartung and Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle for the Chicago Opera Theatre, where Platt is the music director.

Directing Maverick and Chicago Opera Theatre are two of six posts Platt currently holds, including music director of the Marion (Ind.) Philharmonic, the Waukesha (Wis.) Symphony Orchestra and the Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia, for which he just conducted his first official concert as music director Sunday.

But Platt, 42, is in town this week as the second candidate to succeed George Zack as music director of the Lexington Philharmonic. Over breakfast at Stella's yesterday, Platt said his dream is to be the music director of a, "mid-sized American city regional orchestra." Friday night Platt is conducting the Phil in Franz Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 88, Ludwig van Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 3, which Platt says presents him and the orchestra a steep challenge with its complex rhythms.

Below is an edited transcript of that interview:

Copious Notes: What’s your take on the state of classical music in America, today?

Alexander Platt: My hope is that classical music in America is recovering from this kind of amnesia we’ve had for 20 years that we’ve spent apologizing for ourselves as part of a popular, wider American culture. I think we’re hopefully in the process of waking up from that and asserting ourselves as not just one of many musics in America but rather as a set of truths that need to be told from generation to generation, and each generation we add a new truth with the composers of their time adding their voices. Classical music is in one sense a kind of entertainment, of course. It always has been. But in another sense, it has a scriptural truth for all of us, and can tell us some things we can’t get anywhere except in the world of classical music.

CN: What are some of those truths?

AP: . . . I think classical music is a unique kind of music in that it fosters the art of listening in a way that no other music does. Popular music, any kind of pop music, is no more than a five minute form. Now I’m not saying that’s not as good an experience,or it’s an inferior experience. But it’s a totally different experience from when you sit down at a concert hall and engage with a 45-minute symphony or a three-and-a-half hour opera. It’s just different, I’m sorry.

Busy weekend coming up

Above: Actor Janet Scott (facing the mirror) and director Diana Denley of Shakespeare's Globe Center Australia are preparing Scott's The Love Letter for the Central Library Stage this weekend. Copyrighted Herald-Leader photo by Matt Goins. Below: Chris Kidder as Prospero and Courtney Collier as Miranda in UK's production of The Tempest. Photo by Rebecca Amsler/UK Theatre. Below, below: Mark Hall leads his band Casting Crowns into Rupp Arena Friday.

The weekend before Thanksgiving is often crowded with arts events from groups and presenters trying to get shows in before turkey day ushers in the Yuletide arts season. This year, the weekend seems particularly packed, possibly due to Thanksgiving being as early as it can possibly be on the calendar. Friday is particularly socked in, with the Philharmonic's MasterClassics concert and the Casting Crowns show at Rupp. Here's a list of the highlights:

~ Veteran actor Janet Scott presents her one-woman show, The Love Letter, at the Central Library Theatre, Thursday through Saturday. An important note: The free Thursday night performance is for students only. Due to some miscommunication, there was an error about that in our story Sunday.

~ Across the street, at the Downtown Arts Center, the burgeoning theater program at Bluegrass Community and Technical College presents The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, Thursday through Saturday.

~ Studio Players opens its production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Thursday, and it runs through  Dec. 2. We'll write more on this later, but FYI, Michael Peters is McMurphy, Allie Darden is Nurse Ratched and Eric Ryan Seale directs.

~ The Tempest plays its final weekend at UK, Thursday through Sunday. Here's blogger Andrew Battista's take.

~ Gallery Hop is Friday, from 5 to 8 p.m.

~ Everybody's favorite Depression-era, curly redhead, Annie, is back at the Opera House for a weekend stand as part of the Broadway Live series.

~ Annie will unite with the Casting Crowns concert at Rupp Arena to create a little traffic jam Friday night. Crowns will be joined by Leeland and John Waller.

~ Meanwhile, at the Singletary Center, the Lexington Philharmonic welcomes Alexander Platt as the second candidate to succeed George Zack as music director of the Lexington Philharmonic. He'll be conducting a concert of Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Joseph Haydn and Jean Sibelius with piano soloist Natasha Paremski.

~ Saturday afternoon, the Kentucky District round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions takes place at the University of Kentucky's Memorial Hall.

~ Saturday night, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is at Rupp.

And if all that doesn't help you work up an appetite for some turkey . . .

Spectacular, sensitive singing

The Lexington Singers performed the Lord Nelson Mass by Franz Joseph Haydn, shown in a portrait by Ludwig Guttenbrunn, Sunday afternoon at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Photo from Wikipedia/public domain.

There’s this thing that happens when Lexington Singers conductor Jefferson Johnson closes his left thumb and finger together to end a phrase.

The sound of that final consonant pops off the walls of the Singletary Center for the Arts like a firework that has a second of brilliant light and just as quickly vanishes. It’s thrilling, and it can only happen with an ensemble in perfect unity -- more than 100 pairs of eyes watching one hand.

This, alone, does not make a complete choir. But it is indicative of what a sharp ensemble Johnson was directing Sunday afternoon in a performance of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass.

Three weeks ago I got to hear Haydn’s Creation by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under Sir Colin Davis’ baton. The Lexington Singers' performance was in the same league as the London choir, and that Creation was outstanding.

The Singers' sensitivity to the text and music of Papa Haydn’s ninth mass was as strong as its precision, making for a highly textured performance. There were some nice directoral touches too, such as Johnson (photo, right) bringing the singers to their feet mid-phrase in one section, creating an exceedingly natural crescendo.

Aiding the presentation was a very like-minded soloist in Angelique Clay. She was one of the University of Kentucky’s first big opera stars who returned this semester to join the UK voice faculty. The local arts community has been keeping her busy. She just served as the soprano soloist on the Lexington Community Orchestra’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, last Sunday.

Zev weighs in

Zev Buffman, the impresario of Owensboro, weighed in on my post a few days ago about selling the arts in Kentucky short, and I thought I would share:

My comment Rich, is that yes, there is much going on in our state on the "regional" level, but still, this is a perfect time for change and thinking/creating out of the "box."

A new model of 'The Regional' is evolving nationally, mostly out of sheer financial necessity (money is drying up), PLUS a true need to generate more economic development opportunities and tourism to help those who always help us.

By creating a new "clean industry" (YES BROADWAY MUSICALS) here, that generate some 90 days a year of the actual production (jobs, hotel room, restaurants) for shows that then tour the US, Canada & the world (yes Japan too, is a regular recipient of "made in Owensboro" "product)it becomes a more even "trade" - they sell us Toyotas -- we sell them  Broadway. When you attach to each new Tony award winner guided "product, then bring in hundreds of KIDS to YATA: the new and hard to duplicate "Young Adult Theatre Academy" to work for weeks, shoulder to shoulder with the "Tony pros" and receive college credit for their intense summer month -- you create EDUCATION that will soon become a staple in KY colleges and universities in Western KY.

Finally, when you produce ORIGINAL mystery and thriller plays, screenplays, teleplays, children's mysteries and the extension on "Books on Tape" with full companies, original music, full reading cast, sound effects (both old & new) all in front of live audiences learning and loving their first time in a BIG SCREEN AUDIO theater, you then teach, you entertain and you produce innovative NEEDED product for the sweepingly growing XM and SIRUS plus NPR re-emerging radio programming. That's is how you anticipate a new market need and beat the competition by being there FIRST and with a big Library.

Rich, I swear I could go on for columns. Eventually our colleagues will see the opportunities and expand the wonderful product they already create to more "commercial and Educational" way.

We are standing ready to go anywhere in the State and help in the early beginnings.

A little politics with your classical music?

I have a bunch of new DVDs to look at, including a copy of Peter Sellar's production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni, which I picked up at the Met store last month. But, as I do most first Tuesday nights in November, I just spent several hours parked on the couch watching KET's election coverage.

Earlier in the day, I had some interesting accompaniment driving to the poll: Pianist Jonathan Biss (photo, right) was on American Public Media's Performance Today, playing  works by Beethoven and  Leos Janacek.

After Biss Played the second and third movements from Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata (The one Billy Joel borrowed from for This Night), which he recently recorded, the conversation between Biss and host Fred Child turned to the struggle in Beethoven's music and his motivations.

Biss said Beethoven is, "idealism in sound. There is absolutely no acceptance of the limitations of being a person. That's what makes Beethoven Beethoven . . . One of the reasons that we're not that far from 200 years after his death, and he still captures the public's imagination to a greater extent than in his own lifetime is  because he, as an artist, represents, more than anyone else, what the 19th century was," namely a struggle for human freedom and independence.

Biss and Child went on to discuss Janacek's Sonata (From the Street, Oct. 1, 1905), and its motivations from the death of a worker in a protest.

Sometimes -- I know I am occasionally guilty of this -- we can write off older classical music as just music, forgetting the motivations behind it are the same sorts of things that inspire contemporary writers such as Bruce Springsteen and Richard Thompson. Being reminded of that makes for an even richer listening experience, particularly listening to Beethoven on the way to vote.

Click here for PT's website, and to listen to the entire segment, which I highly recommend for the music and the conversation.

Excuse me while I stick up for the Commonwealth's arts

Gov. Ernie Fletcher and School for Creative and Performing Arts senior Kevin DeVries share a high-five at a Paris campaign stop when they learn they have Lafayette High School in common. Later, they talked about the arts in Kentucky. Copyrighted Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com photo by Mark Cornelison.

Thursday, the Herald-Leader's intrepid teen board went out stalking information from gubernatorial candidates, Gov. Ernie Fletcher and challenger Steve Beshear. That was really cool. What made it even cooler was that the arts made it into the conversation. But it was a little sad to see that both the questioner and the Governor were a tad short on complete and accurate information. Here's the segment of the conversation:

Kevin DeVries, a senior at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts at Lafayette High School, followed with a question that was equally challenging.

"I will be attending Indiana University next year," DeVries said, "and part of the problem it seems with all my friends is that there's not really an artistic hot spot in Kentucky." IU, he said, hooks its students up with the Indianapolis Opera Company.

So, "Is there anything we're doing to better promote the classical arts in Kentucky right now?"

Fletcher explained that he proposed $2.5 million for opera, ballet and theatre in Louisville and that Zev Buffman, a veteran Broadway producer, is now putting on plays at the RiverPark Center in Owensboro.

Well, the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville's voice programs both have newly minted deals for students to work with the Kentucky Opera in Louisville, and even before that, UK students were heading down I-64 to work with the KO on a regular basis. This fall, four UK students are working on all three of the Kentucky Opera's productions. One even understudied the title role in Turandot. What's more, UK has been talking to Cincinnati Opera about what partnerships they can forge.

Indiana has a world-class music school, no doubt, and being accepted there is a tremendous honor. But it's a shame Kevin made a decision without knowing what's actually going on in Kentucky, if that was a major factor in his decision making.

And we love Zev and the new flavors he's bringing to Owensboro's RiverPark Center, including attracting a steady stream of touring Broadway shows to build and a tech productions there. But let's not forget the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville. It's been attracting international theater professionals and press to Actors Theatre of Louisville for more than three decades, where they see shows that go on to have global impacts.

We could go on, easily. And we would remind the Governor that while $2.5 million for Louisville arts is great, it's a big state with a lot of arts outposts from Ashland to Paducah -- the Governor's Awards in the Arts highlight that every year. (I will grant that we may not have gotten everything Gov. Fletcher said to Kevin from the story.)

Once again, it is great to see that with the few moments the Teen Board had with the Governor, they actually talked about the arts. It was just sad to see that the conversation turned on a fairly common misperception about culture in the Commonwealth. As someone who deals with the arts in the Bluegrass State on a daily basis, I'd encourage anyone who has that perception to take a good look around at the Commonwealth's cultural scene to see what's really happening.

NPR's new music site

National Public Radio has launched a sprawling new music website, and this interview with Simone Dinnerstein, which aired on Morning Edition today, is a great introduction. If you have time, listen, then surf on.

New Zealand Quartet stands and delivers

Sunday night we generally like to be home, preparing for the week ahead and trying to turn in early, with no Jon Stewart or Conan O'Brien enticing us to stay up. At least, that's how we roll in the Copley home, and considering most Sunday events are scheduled for the afternoon, and Sunday is the bread-and-butter night for TV, we probably aren't alone.

But, the way the schedule has worked out, the Chamber Music Society of Central Kentucky has had to schedule its first two concerts for the 2007-08 season for 7:30 Sunday evenings. Fortunately, both shows have been well worth starting the week off a bit more bleary eyed than we might hope.

The year started off with the Colorado Quartet playing an interesting program with a zeal that made them well worth seeing live. It continued last night with the New Zealand String Quartet (Photo, right, of, L-R, violist Gillian Ansell, cellist Rolf Gjelsten, violinist Helene Pohl and violinist Douglas Beilman) playing a concert Lexington Philharmonic concertmaster and Society board member Dan Mason declared the best ever for the series. Unlike him, I haven't seen all the Chamber Music Society concerts, but I'd be hard pressed to argue his assertion based on the the New Zealanders'  performance.

They brought a program of music from the early 19th Century to the 21st Century and played it all with precision and passion.

Entering the Singletary Center for the Arts recital hall Sunday evening, it was striking to see all the music stands raised. The Kiwis play on their feet, save for cellist Rolf Gjelsten, who plays seated on a platform that raises him to head level with the other three musicians.

Does playing standing up -- a position in classical music usually reserves for soloists, singers and percussionists  -- add energy and vitality to their playing? We'd need to see them seated to know for sure. But it seemed to. If you concentrated on the players' feet for a few measures, you saw knees buckling, heels rising, and even a little soft shoe from time to time. This was a physical concert for the Quartet.

Conductor Jon Roller turns to Christian rock

Jon Roller conducts a rehearsal for his final concert as music director of the Lexington Community Orchestra. Copyrighted photo by Pablo Alcala for the Lexington Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com.

People who follow my byline or track the trajectories of this blog know that my beats at the Lexington Herald-Leader include classical music and Christian pop music.

Both genres are of great interest to me, but rarely do I get to talk to people who share those twin interests. In fact, in many traditional church music circles, Christian rock is a heretical howl that is denigrating the church, while contemporary praise and worship adherents regard the traditionalists as out of touch with modern life and evangelism. My take is different tastes are served by different styles of worship.

That's what made the course of my chat with Jon Roller, the outgoing  music director of the Lexington Community Orchestra, so interesting. He said that he was stepping away from classical music to devote himself to modern praise music at Asbury College, where he directs chapel music, and at Quest Community Church, where he is part of a praise band.

The article in today's paper concentrates on Jon's role with the Community Orchestra, which he has directed for 16 years and conducts for the final time today as it plays Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The free concert is at 3 p.m. in the Singletary Center for the Arts. But we also talked about quite a bit about his shift in focus from classical to contemporary music and the tension between the two in churches.

On why he is changing his focus:

"Right now, my primary love is contemporary Christian music. That speaks to my heart in unique ways. When I get to play with a band, I feel so alive. It is odd for a conductor to find himself in love with this kind of music."

New York's enviable arts scene isn't perfect, and we can learn from that

The acoustics in the legendary Carnegie Hall make you wonder how an orchestra could want to perform anywhere else.

New York envy is easy to come by, particularly if you love the arts.

No matter how busy the arts scene in Lexington gets, it will never hold a candle to the lists and lists of events that pack the arts sections of The New York Times. And the organizations themselves seem to have everything: multi-million dollar budgets, world-famous venues and the best talent on the planet.
Occasionally, you might remind yourself that you’d better move to New York with a healthy salary if you want to partake in even a smidgen of this arts smorgasbord, but still, you contemplate the menu and drool, drool, drool.

Over 10 days in New York as part of the National Endowment for the Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera last month, I got to indulge in and learn about that scene with a depth I hadn’t before. And while it was thrilling to go to shows night after night and talk about music all day long, it was most intriguing to learn that things are not always as idyllic as they seem in the Big Apple.

This was particularly striking when discussing performance spaces.

New Zealand String Quartet's concert will have Chinese ring

The New Zealand String Quartet is (L-R, top) Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello, Helene Pohl, violin and Douglas Beilman, violin.

The New Zealand String Quartet’s concert Sunday night in the Singletary Center for the Arts is bookended with traditional Western classical quartet fare by Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.

At the core of the program, though, are two works straight out of the past few decades and the Pacific Rim. Before intermission, the quartet will play Eight Colors by Chinese composer Tan Dun, who you may know best for his scores to movies such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000). His opera, The First Emperor, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera last season.

Opening the second half is Bright Light and Cloud Shadows by Gao Ping, a native of China who visited Lexington a few times when he was a student at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and now teaches at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Having two Chinese composers on the program reflects the quartet’s home base on the other side of the planet, as well as a larger trend in contemporary classical music.

“China is a hot topic in every area: economics, politics, culture,” says Helene Pohl, violinist for the quartet. “There’s a fantastic musical heritage there, and it’s a natural blend” with Western classical music.

And the cultures have been blending around the world, no doubt fueled by interest in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Orchestras across the United States, including those in Cleveland and San Francisco, are presenting Chinese-influenced works. In 2003, the Lexington Philharmonic brought Bright Sheng in as a guest conductor, and he presented a couple of his own compositions. Santa Fe Opera and Central City Opera were two summer festivals that presented works by Chinese composers this year — Tan and Guo Wenjing, respectively.

One of the big stories in classical music recently has been the Silk Road Project, headed up by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, that seeks to bridge a variety of cultures.

Cleveland via Vienna

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an in interesting piece today about the Cleveland Orchestra's European trip, including the current stop in conductor Franz Welser-Most's homeland of Austria to play Vienna's historic Musikverein. What strikes me is that when the CO was in New York two weeks ago, there was steady chatter about dissatisfaction with Welser-Most, who is five years into his gig in the city that rocks. But, apparently, he is a hometown hero in Austria, where he will become director of the Vienna State Opera in 2010.

I got to see him conduct the Orchestra in Mahler's Second Symphony at Carnegie Hall, and came away very pleased by a conductor who let the composer speak in their performance. If you click the "continue reading" link, you'll get the review I penned for one of our writing workshops at the NEA Arts Journalism Institute on Classical Music and Opera.

Chicago Symphony education initiative highlights Nathan Cole

Nathan Cole is one of the faces of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's new education initiative, Dream Out Loud. The program, a collaboration between the CSO and Yamaha, is designed to give music educators resources to encourage young people to learn  instruments and make music part of their lives.

A centerpiece of the project is four posters of young Chicago Symphony musicians and additional biographical and educational material at the program's website. There, you can find a piece Cole has written reflecting on his experiences learning to play the violin.

"I was 15 when I decided I wanted to play in an orchestra," the Lexington native writes. "At the time, I was in a summer program and heard the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. They played Dvořák’s New World Symphony and I thought, 'This is great. Everything they play is perfect. They never miss anything. I want to be in a group like that.' Now that I am, I shudder to think what people in the audience are expecting."

Indeed, while the program is aimed at Chicago area schools, it would be great for Lexington kids to log on and be reminded that they can grow up here and go on to play in one of the nation's greatest orchestras, or do any number of other amazing things. There's also a video feature at the site with Nathan impressively playing the violin and not-so-impressively playing basketball. (Hoops really isn't an issue when you have such a fantastic day job.)

~ By the way, this weekend, sorting through some CD piles at home, I ran back across Nathan's debut CD, Rapid Approach. It really is an impressive little disc including Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonata No. 1 in g minor for solo violin, Bela Bartok's Sonata for solo violin and four works by Augusta Read Thomas. The playing is spectacular, and I was particularly taken with Jeremy Young's production, which has just enough reverb to let you lean your head back and imagine you are in the concert hall with Nathan.

Scary classical music

Classical music is often regarded as soothing, powerful, uplifting and other high-minded adjectives. This is the time of year we are reminded the stuff can also be downright frightening.

The obvious first choice is Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor, the organ piece you think of for films like The Phantom of the Opera, Ed Wood, and other scary cinema. Trust me, if you hear it in a church alone, it'll stand your hair on end.

Speaking of movies and standing your hair on end, there is nothing that approaches Bernard Herrmann's music for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho for that effect. The shrieking violins and groaning cellos are aurally synonymous with madness and murder.

O Fortuna from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is often used as a rallying piece for football teams. But imagine the gales of hundred of musicians being turned against you. This is also why you frequently hear the piece, with its bellowing chorus and cracking drum, as the soundtrack for horror movie trailers.

My wildcard would be Aaron Copland's Grohg, the American composer's first ballet score. The ballet, which was never performed in Copland's lifetime, depicts the magician Grohg bringing a series of corpses to life. The first choreography for it, according to music distributors Boosey and Hawkes, was Witches of Salem by the Washington Ballet in 1998. Conductor Oliver Knussen and the Cleveland Orchestra recorded Grohg for Argo Records in 1994.

That quartet is just a few bubbles in the cauldron of macabre classical music that includes composers such as Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart. For more suggestions of frightfully good classical music, check out:

Aaron Green of About.com

These ideas from across the pond

Downloadable recommendations from Naxos Records.

WEKU (88.9 FM) presents Tunes from the Crypt from 7 to 9 tonight.

If you have any ideas of your own -- I'm counting on you, Tackett -- comment below and build the list.

Kayoko Dan in real life

Kayoko Dan fields questions from conducting students at Transylvania University on Friday, Oct. 26.

Friday morning, Kayoko Dan told a class of conducting students at Transylvania University to make sure they know their music before going somewhere to conduct.

"I haven't looked at my score, except in rehearsal, since I arrived," Dan said. "I haven't had time."

Such is the life of a young conductor courting potential employers. Dan is the candidate behind door No. 1 in the Lexington Philharmonic's search for a successor to outgoing music director George Zack.

That put the assistant conductor of the Phoenix Symphony on the podium to conduct a Masterclassics concert at the Singletary Center for the Arts Friday night. Last night's concert brought to a close a whirlwind of a week for Dan, meeting with the orchestra, its management, donors, conductor search committee, and finally her potential public.

Philharmonic traffic advisory

Here's another really good reason to go hear the pre-concert talk from Kayoko Dan, the guest conductor for tonight's Lexington Philharmonic concert at the Singletary Center for the Arts: According to the Philharmonic, Rose Street and Euclid Avenue/Avenue of the Champions will closed from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday for the University of Kentucky's Homecoming Parade.

That'll make parking a bit of a challenge for several lots Philharmonic concert goers are used to using. One of the best options, the Philharmonic advises, will be the parking garage on South Limestone, at Euclid Avenue/Avenue of Champions.

Pre-concert activities will include the Eastern Kentucky University Guitar Ensemble at 6:30 p.m. and Dan's pre-show chat at 7. To attend those, of course, you'll be parking before 7. The concert, featuring guitarist Pablo Villegas and dancers from the Lexington Ballet, is at 8.

It's good to be home

The fellows from the NEA Institute on Classical Music and Opera in Central Park. Too many to name by name, but they included six daily paper scribes, including me; a defense policy analyst by day and music critic by night from Washington; Gentleman Jim from Montgomery, Ala., and Valeria from Hawaii. Notice, I'm not the only one in a bow tie.

It is good to be back in Lexington.

That's a typical thing for a weary traveler to say when he gets back to familiar territory. But considering my journey home included a canceled flight, two-and-a-half hours sitting on the tarmac at LaGuardia and a very aerobic trot through Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta to make my connection to Lexington, it is really good to be back, though I already miss my fellow fellows.

All of us are returning home with a lot to think about.

Joseph Horowitz and Alex Ross, L-R, discuss contemporary music at Columbia University.

Some of the reading we did before the fellowship, particularly by Joesph  Horowitz and Alex Ross had me thinking about things that led to other posts on this site, including the changing role of the conductor and  re-examining concert etiquette.

~ I come away from it thinking about our roles as music writers and critics. Are we best serving readers with what we are doing? What can we do better? What is out obligation to the art form itself?

~ What about this thing we call "classical music," usually for want of a better term. How's it doing, and where is it going?

~ What is the role of classical music in our larger communities?

~ Is new and recent music getting a fair shake in our concert halls? If not, why not, and how important is it that new music be heard?

~ It is very easy for the rest of the country to develop an inferiority complex about New York. But what's the quality of that quantity? Are we, here in Flyover Country, actually better poised to be innovative than the big cities? And, back to we, the journalists, what is our role in encouraging that innovation?

We're not going to answer all those questions today, and I'm not just saying that because I'm tired.

But many, if not all of these questions, are things for us to examine here in Central Kentucky, particularly at such a fluid time in our classical music scene.

Notes:

~ Sitting  on the tarmac in New York, I entertained myself for a while listening to the Delta classical music channel (it's No. 5 if you're traveling soon). I was particularly taken with Canadian Kelly-Marie Murphy's Give Me Wings to Fly, performed by the Gryphon Trio. Listening the entire album, Canadian Premiers, I experienced love at first listen with Old Photographs for Piano Trio, by Christos Hatzis.

~ Fortunately, with the extended plane time, we had been given a lot to read. I finally had time to dive into Ross' The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. It's already an engrossing book, and it was particularly cool to read his section on Charles Ives after hearing Jeremy Denk play the Concord Sonata at BargeMusic. (My fellow fellow Bryant Manning has a great post on this event at his blog.)

The Washington Post's Daniel Ginsberg and the Chicago Sun-Times and TimeOut Chicago's Bryant Manning in the lobby of The New York Times.

By the way, Typepad, the company that supports this and reams of other blogs, has an good interview with Alex about his blog, also called The Rest is Noise. And I just learned NEA fellow Suzi Steffen had an excellent interview with Alex, also.

~ Here's some more NEA Institute blogging from Brenda Tremblay of WXXI radio in Rochester.

OK, I'm starting to get the feeling I'm rambling, like many tired people do. But we'll keep talking about these things, and really, it is good to be home.

New York notebook

Stools in the cafe at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, illuminated by the muted light of a rainy Friday afternoon.

Among the many amazing things I could mention about the NEA Institute in Classical Music and Opera is this: We have been amazingly busy. Even over the weekend, between shows we were seeing, things to write for the institute and what some of us call "work work," there hasn't been time for much else. But y'all back home will get the benefit in a reporter totally psyched with new ideas and a new sense of mission.

The day after hearing about the Downtown Entertainment Development Task Force in Lexington, we made our first trip off the Island of Manhattan to visit the Brooklyn Academy of Music. And looking at BAM was quite intriguing in the context of hearing about a serious proposal to develop an arts district back home. BAM is an institution which has become a major force in its community as well as the nation. Part of the intent of the Academy is drawing audiences in through as many avenues as possible, from events at the opera house to movie theaters in the facility, which roll arthouse fare such as Into the Wild and The Darjeeling Limited. And the multi-venue facility is looking to expand. During a Q&A with president Karen Brooks Hopkins and executive producer Joseph V. Melillo, with the new Lexington proposal fresh in my mind, I asked about facilities with BAM sensibilities around the nation -- Ohio State's Wexner Center came up -- and if they consult with other facilities, which they do. But the most interesting moment was as we departed. Melillo leaned over to me and said, "You've got a great guy in Lexington. Jim Clark. He knows all about BAM."

Certainly, I haven't talked to anyone about this proposal, and I am well aware Lexington has to accomplish its own vision of an arts and entertainment center. But Melillo's comment was a reminder we have a guy in the process with a grasp of the possibilities.

~ Thursday was Carnegie Hall.

Introducing Kayoko Dan

Ten months after George Zack announced he is retiring from his post as music director of the Lexington Philharmonic, the orchestra's audience gets its first peek at the possible future this week.

First up among the candidates to succeed the Phil's conductor of 35 years is Phoenix Symphony assistant conductor Kayoko Dan. The 29-year-old musician is seeking her first post as a music director. Friday night, she'll conduct Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Suite from Sleeping Beauty, with guest dancers from the Lexington Ballet, and Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, with guitar soloist Pablo Villegas.

In today's paper, we check in with the conductor search, talking to several committee members about how it's going. And Friday, we'll preview the concert with a profile of Kayoko Dan. But, as a sneak preview, here's a transcript of our phone interview with Dan earlier this month:

Copious Notes: What got you interested in the Lexington Philharmonic?

Kayoko Dan: I was in Jacksonville in March doing the National conductors preview. Every year, the American Symphony Orchestra League hosts an event where they pick eight American conductors to be showcased in front of an audience that consists of people looking for music directors. The Lexington Philharmonic was there. And Peter (Kucirko, the executive director of the Philharmonic) called me and asked me if I was interested in Lexington, and in a heartbeat, I said, "Of Course."

CN: It's a two-year search, which would drive most people who are used to applying for a job, and hearing the results a few days or a few weeks later, nuts. What is it like knowing you'll be coming and auditioning and meeting everybody, but the decision won't be made until spring 2009?

KD: It's not actually so bad. I'm taking this as just an opportunity to conduct more than a job audition. I can't really control their decisions anyway. The only the thing I can control is how I conduct, and how I interact with people.

A lot of it has to do with chemistry, too. Some orchestras I go conduct, we get along great, musically. Some others, I go conduct, and the chemistry isn't right, and it's kind of awkward. You can't really determine that until you get up there on the podium and start working.

Guess who's heading to Carnegie Hall

Tonight, I have to work up a review of Mahler's Second by the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, so my posting will be brief. (Suffice to say, Mahler 2 in Carnegie, home if its U.S. premier: Wow!)

Anyway, leaving, I grabbed a copy of Carnegie's November schedule. How do you like this entry?:

SAT, NOV. 24
8 PM -- Stern/Perelman - ARLO GUTHRIE * University of Kentucky Symphony * John Nardolillo, Music Director and Conductor

Just a gentle reminder that the Lexington preview of that show is Nov. 2.

~ Here's something to celebrate this weekend: Jamie G's prodigal cat has returned.

Live from the Met

The Metropolitan Opera House on Tuesday afternoon. William Wegman's dogs have been part of the Opera's promotional campaign this year, including the banner for Macbeth.

Take a pretty long opera to begin with, add an 8 p.m. curtain and two super-long intermissions, and you have the red-eye edition of Copious Notes. But they just said MuteMath is on Conan, so I'm up until at least 1:35.

Anyway, our first -- and thus far only -- consensus disappointment at the NEA Institute in Classical Music and Opera was that Natalie Dessay did not sing the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor last night.

We learned that Tuesday morning in a class with Columbia University assistant music professor Karen Henson, where she casually mentioned that Natalie wouldn't be singing Wednesday night, and then proceeded to bring her up at least half a dozen times during the two-hour session. "Natalie this," "Natalie that," "You know, Natalie is really good a mad scenes." Really? Because, you know, Lucia has one of those.

Anyway, I know Karen wasn't trying to pour salt in the wound. She was simply using one of the great acting sopranos today as an example in a class, even showing Natalie's mad scene as Ophelia in Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet that was so incredible, I've already ordered the DVD.

Karen also had a little aside about the current trend of "Opera heroin chic," riffing off the high-contrast and emaciated look of models just a few years ago, in ads such as the banner (photo, right) of Dessay for Lucia.

Anyway, for an out of towner, no night at the Met is a bad night at the Met.

Live from New York

So, last week, I was try to drum up some sympathy around the office, but it wasn't working. See, I'm going to be missing a bunch of stuff around the Bluegrass, like Friday's opening night performance of Hamlet at Actors Guild and Rent's return to the Opera House.

But somehow, I haven't been able to sell this poor, poor pitiful me act. In fact, when I tried to bring it up at features staff meeting last week . . . well . . . I can't remember if any of my polite colleagues said, "shut up," but I know a few were thinking it.

You see, the reason I won't be around for some of these events is I am in the City that Never Sleeps, and my schedule over the next few days includes, but is not limited to:

~ Seeing Mary Zimmerman's new production of Lucia di Lammermor at the Metropolitan Opera with Natalie Dessay (photo, right, by Simon Fowler) in the title role

~ Seeing Sir Colin Davis conduct one of his 80th birthday concerts at Lincoln Center, and then getting to be part of a group chat with him afterwards

~ Hearing the American Composers Orchestra present a night of new works, including a world premier by Scott Johnson, who I have revered since hearing Kronos Quartet's version of his Soliloquy from How it Happens

~ Hearing New Yorker critic Alex Ross talk about his new book, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century

~ Writing reviews of some NYC productions and then having the reviews reviewed by folks like the New York Times' Anthony Tommasini (OK, that's scary)

~ Communing with 22 other arts journalists from across the country

We had our first meeting last night, and I have to say it was fun to brag on Lexington for a few minutes, mentioning that we had just come off a week of a thrilling concert by Kronos and a world premier performance of Thomas Pasatieri's new opera, and that in less than two weeks the search for the Lexington Philharmonic's new music director gets under way. We've got it going like Stacy's mom when it comes to classical music in Lexington. That's actually one of the main reasons to be here at the NEA Institute in Classical Music and Opera at Columbia University. With so much going on, it's a great time to sharpen the skills and work to bring you better coverage than ever during this exciting time in Lexington culture.

It's a tense trip. They've tried to pack a bunch into our schedules, so I don't know how much I'll post this week. But if anything really cool happens, I'll try to send you a blurb, particularly after our singing lessons -- imagine 23 music critics singing together . . . even we shuddered at the thought.

But seriously, I will miss home. (Can I get a sniff from someone?!)

~ Notes from the airport: It was sort of funny seeing all the LSU fans in purple and yellow at Bluegrass Airport yesterday. I was thinking, "What do you say? Hope you had a nice trip, anyway?" One of the fun things upon arrival was buying the New York Times and seeing a photo of Steve Johnson's touchdown as the huge centerpiece of the sports section.

Percussion Ensemble plays for hometown crowd

University of Kentucky percussion professor Jim Campbell and the UK Percussion Ensemble. Photo by Mark Cornelison, courtesy of the UK Percussion Ensemble.

The University of Kentucky Percussion Ensemble is headed to Columbus, Ohio, next month for the International Percussive Arts Society International Convention. There, the group will perform a showcase concert in honor of its third consecutive win in the International Collegiate Percussion Ensemble Competition.

But the hometown crowd gets the first look at 7:30 Sunday night, when the ensemble plays the Singletary Center for the Arts.

The program includes several new works. Chief among them is Brian Nozny’s . . . folded . . . for solo marimba and percussion quartet, which “folds” rhythms on top of one another. Nozny is a graduate student in percussion performance, and the solo marimba player will be Alex Harmon.

Other world premieres on the program include Christopher Deane’s Pyriphlegethon, Anders Astrand’s Bluegrass Bounce and UK alum Michael Aukofer’s Baron’s Dance. Rounding out the program are Christopher Adler’s Signals Intelligence, which is described as exploring, “the experience of hearing an electronic transmission in which order is clearly audible but the information density is too high for humans to parse,” and UK percussion professor Jim Campbell’s newly published Terra-cotta Warriors.

The concert is free and open to the public. The Singletary Center is at the corner of Rose Street and Euclid Avenue.

Review: Kronos Quartet at Transy

Kronos Quartet -- L-R, violinists David Harrington, John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler perform at Transylvania University Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2007. Copyrighted photo by Joseph Rey Au, courtesy of Transylvania University.

You have to love a string quartet that can create parking problems and traffic congestion on Broadway. Classical music in Lexington often takes place in relative quiet. But last night, there was unmistakable hubbub around Transylvania University’s Mitchell Fine Arts Building.

It was for Kronos Quartet, the new music pioneers brought in to inaugurate the Dorothy J. and Fred K. Smith Concert Series.

The stated goal of the endowed series is to “bring high-quality musical performances to Transylvania’s campus annually, reflecting a variety of musical styles that will include classical, jazz, American folk, world music, popular, musical theater, opera and multimedia.”

Save for the opera and musical theater, series really couldn’t have come up with a better ensemble to distill the breadth of that goal into one evening of music.

Kronos Quartet's Wilco connection

(Above) Kronos Quartet in concert. Copyrighted photo by Zoran Orlic, courtesy of Kronos Quartet. (Below) Glenn Kotche performs at the 2003 Day of Percussion at UK. Copyrighted Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com photo by David Perry.

Oct. 10, Kronos Quartet is in Lexington for the group's first concert in the Horse Capitol in more than 11 years. But later this month, in San Francisco, the Quartet will be working with a guy very familiar to Lexington music fans: Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche. The University of Kentucky percussion graduate released his third solo album, Mobile, last year on Nonesuch Records, which is also home to Kronos. We talked to Kronos Quartet's David Harrington on Wednesday, and here's what he had to say about Kotche:

"We were rehearsing with him last week, and we are premiering his piece at the San Francisco Jazz Festival, in October. It’s really cool. It’s got us all playing different instruments, it’s really a neat piece. We're delighted about this.”

"We hooked up because I heard his recording that came out on Nonesuch. Then he came to one of our concerts in New York and we got to talking.  Basically, this is the way that it has happened for 34 years."

You can read more about how Kronos has operated the last 34 years and the Quartet's Transylvania University concert in Sunday's Herald-Leader and at Kentucky.com.

In the meantime, if you want tickets to Kronos Quartet's  Transylvania University show at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 10, they are free. But you must have a ticket. Limited tickets are available in Room 101 of the Old Morrison Building at Transylvania. Hours are 8:30 a.m.-noon and 1-5 p.m. Limit two tickets per person, and they must be picked up by 5 p.m. Oct. 9.

Nathan & Akiko in Europe

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is currently touring Europe and has a nice photo gallery of the trip up on its website. There are a lot of fun pics, and if you click the Saturday, Sept. 29 link, you'll find a photo of Lexington violinist Nathan Cole and his wife Akiko touring Rome. Nathan and Akiko, both violinists in the Chicago Symphony, were recently here for the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington.

NY (hearts) Puma

Phumzile Sojola as Pinkerton in the UK Opera Theatre's 2005 production of Madama Butterfly. The South African-born singer is now Off  Broadway, starring in Three Mo Tenors. Copyrighted photo by Brian Tietz for the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com.

The latest Lexington-connected artist to make it into the spotlight of New York  comes from the University of Kentucky's opera program. Phumzile Sojola, who has sung roles such as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and Don Jose in Carmen with UK Opera Theatre is now one of the Three Mo Tenors in the Off-Broadway edition of the hit show.

Three Mo is a showcase for classically-trained black singers that has been touring around the country, including a stop at the Lexington Opera House in 2002. The show starts with operatic fare and then moves to pop, jazz, gospel, spirituals and other genres.

Even some New York critics who were lukewarm on the actual show sang Phumzile's praises. Claudia La Rocco's New York Times review, which begins "Please. No mo' tenors," gives props to the tenor, known around UK Opera as Puma, saying he, "surely has a Hollywood contract or two in his future."

Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News says, "Sojola stands out - not because of his pipes, but because he's such a charmer. Watch him lead a South African medley in which he asks the audience to join in. I'm dubious about sing-alongs - but he made this a truly joyful noise."

Good stuff, especially if you consider New York critics aren't the easiest folks to win over. Just ask Laura Bell Bundy. Ben Brantley used his Forbidden Broadway review to take another dig at the Lexington star's (Tony nominated) Legally Blonde performance.

(For the record: I have seen Three Mo twice, though not the Puma edition, yet. It was a delicious mix of music and one of the better variations on the tres tenors theme out there.)

Note: This post originally said Three Mo Tenors was a Broadway show, due to the initial information I received. I since learned it is Off Broadway, which is still great, and modified the post to reflect that.

Colorado Quartet: a great live ban . . . uhhh . . . I mean, ensemble

In pop music, a lot of importance is placed on seeing an artist live. There's that pride of saying you've been in the same room with so-and-so, even if it is a really huge room that seats more than 10,000. But there's also the thrill of seeing the music made live, and even if you have no knowledge of how to play an instrument, you can understand the interaction of the players and identify the fingertips producing those fantastic sounds.

If I were going to try to introduce a pop fan to classical music, I would probably start with a chamber concert, Sunday night's performance by the Colorado Quartet for the Chamber Music Society of Central Kentucky being a prime example of why. (Photo, L-R, violist Marka Gustavsson, violinist Julie Rosenfeld, cellist Diane Chaplin and violinist D. Lydia Redding.)

It's not that classical audiences and fans aren't big boosters of live music. They are, in fact, notorious for traveling thousands of miles to see choice ensembles and soloists. But often the discussion leans to the aural experience -- hearing the music brilliantly played unfiltered by recording or amplification. Only in the discussion of powerfully expressive conductors and soloists do you hear much about the visual experience of seeing the musicians. Just last week in this space, we were looking at Alex Ross' New Yorker piece in which he imagined the disappointment of a pop fan going to see a performance of Beethoven's passionate Eroica symphony where, "the musicians have no emotion on their faces."

Colorado Quartet violinist Julie Rosenfeld wore the music on her face Sunday night in the Singletary Center for the Arts recital hall. To put it in pop terms, she was like the guitar hero churning out face-melting solos. Violinist D. Lydia Redding was like the stalwart rhythm player -- though we know string quartets are more complex than that -- constructing complex parts that fill out that sound. Then you had the cool cucumber bassist, a la John Entwistle, in viola player Marka Gustavsson, making holding down those roots and solos look easier than they seem. And then cellist Diane Chaplin was in the deep end, closing her eyes as she dug into her parts.

UK Symphony: Old, new, borrowed, blue

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue is a tradition that has worked well for brides. It turns out to be a good formula for orchestras, too -- at least, for the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra on Friday night.  The first concert of the 2007-08 season was a bright, bold affair that came in at a jiffy 90 minutes.

The old: Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 is the 19th Century symphony, and a live listen usually reaffirms why. If you want to prove to a skeptical rocker that an orchestra can be every bit as engaging, powerful and thrilling as a Strat through a Marshall stack, this is the piece to do it with.

Conductor John Narolillo set a brisk tempo from the get-go, signaling this would be a performance that impressed with speed over majesty. The orchestra had no trouble keeping up though, tack sharp on each rearticulation of the iconic theme in the first movement and strapped in for the charge to the finish in the third and fourth. The performance was not so fast as to trample sublime moments though, particularly the beautiful first movement oboe solo.

It was a fine performance and fitting interpretation for a night of youthful energy that started with . . .

The new (and blue): OK, only in the world of classical music could something that's now drinking age still be considered new. Anytime people want to say that audiences don't want to hear 20th (and 21st) Century music, I cannot imagine they have heard works like Michael Torke's Bright Blue Music, composed in 1985. It was commissioned for the New York Youth Symphony and sounds like it with magical flourishes that would be at home in a Harry Potter score. The UK Symphony seemed to struggle a bit with the overlapping harmonies at the beginning of the piece, but soon got in sync and in the spirit of it. Kudos to UK for programming it. This and other Torke pieces need to be heard more.

The borrowed: Or, shall we say, borrowed back. Seth Morris graduated from UK earlier this year with a bachelors in flute performance and music education. He is now studying at the New England Conservatory, but returned to the stage and orchestra where he was principal flute for two years to play Jacques Ibert's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra. I confess I knew little of the work before Friday night and had a tough time finding anything. It was a jaunty enjoyable piece, conducted by assistant conductor Robert Seebacher. Ibert is often lumped in with his French contemporaries such as Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc, though there were dashes of Gershwin and his American ilk in this piece, too. What sold it though was Morris' expressive playing. He made the flute sound more exciting than the instrument usually gets credit for being.

And with its recordings, touring and strong relationship with UK Opera, the UK Symphony is becoming  more exciting than a mid-American college orchestra usually gets credit for being. Friday night's free -- yes, free -- concert demonstrated that the reputation is well deserved.

Thinking about classical music and faith

Rarely do I put the "classical music" and "Christian pop culture" categories on the same post, but this Bernard Holland piece from Sunday's New York Times raises some interesting questions and points about faith and music and how they interact.

Among things it asks us to contemplate are:

~ Does the church have a role in the diminished status of classical music in today's culture?

~ Did churches that presented music in a classical tradition warm or chill faith? What music draws a Christian into closer communion with God?

~ Are churches that present modern worship music as edifying to their congregations as churches of the past?

~ What is the priority in church between faith and evangelism?

It's all interesting to contemplate. Being a fan of both genres, I can find myself simultaneously lamenting that many modern church goers are not familiar with some of the great works that have been products and foundations of faith for centuries, save for being aware of the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah, and also being grieved by supporters of traditional church music who take little time to actually listen to modern worship before dismissing it. Some of the answers to questions above would be quick no brainers, depending on your views of faith, music and individual taste.

But for many of us, Holland gives us something to think about.

Thinking about classical music

Late in the summer, I was accepted to this fall's National Endowment for the Arts and Columbia University Institute on Classical Music and Opera Journalism. It's a 10-day intensive for a few dozen arts journalists from around the country to sharpen our skills and knowledge to better serve the communities we write for. It struck me as a bit serendipitous to get this opportunity at an exciting point in classical music in Lexington, what with the changes afoot at the Lexington Philharmonic and growing achievements by the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre and Symphony Orchestra, as well as other ensembles and programs here.

I was already excited when my packet of advance materials arrived, and I have become even more stoked  since.

That's because the readings seem to indicate an intent to look at classical music in America today, at how it became what it is today and where it is headed. The readings have included selections from Joseph Horowitz's Classical Music in America: A History of it's Rise and Fall, and an essay by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross that is frankly my favorite recent work on music.

Put your hands together for classical music

The opening night concert of the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington was an exhilarating celebration of music and talent, complete with applause between movements of String Quartets by Beethoven and Mozart. Copyrighted photo by Pablo Alcala for the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com.

As you approach the black crepe paper birthday, you find yourself developing a firm idea of what you believe and why you believe it.

In my case, one of the things I’ve been solidifying my views on is the classical concertgoing experience.
Most of you know there are widely accepted conventions about attending a classical concert: dress up, clap only at the correct times, and stay seated until the concert comes to a complete stop. Over the several decades I've been attending classical performances, my view has evolved from periods of embracing tradition to rebelling against it. Now, I find myself somewhere in the middle, but at least I know why I am there.

Let me get the most potentially controversial one out of the way first:

Clapping: The protocol is that you do not clap during a full performance of a multi-movement piece, like a symphony or concerto, until the work is completely finished. The logic is that applause breaks the audience and the musicians’ concentration.

This is the classical concert convention I would most like to see drop kicked back to the 19th Century.

Yo-Yo Ma interview

If you are interested in cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who will be performing at Danville's Norton Center for the Arts in March, you'll want to read this interview on Alex Ross' blog.

Philharmonic adds a dash of Latin flavor to its season

The Niles Quartet is (L-R) Ella Chang, violin; Jessica Tzou, violin; Andrea Kleesattel, cello; and Lauren Nelson, viola. Photo courtesy of the Lexington Philharmonic.

The Lexington Philharmonic kicks of a season-long Hispanic outreach program at 8 tonight (Sept. 20) with a concert by the orchestra's Niles String Quartet at the Central Branch of the Lexington Public Library. The free concert will kick off the Festival Latino de Lexington with works by Alberto Ginastera, Joaquin Turina and Isaac Albeniz. That concert will not only set a tone for the festival, but for the Niles Quartet's entire season, as the ensemble will perform works by Latin composers at schools and in its public concerts throughout the season, capping off with a March 2 performance at the Bell House.

Next month's MasterClassics and family concert will be another effort in the Phil's Hispanic outreach, a partnership with the Lexington Hispanic Association and La Voz de Kentucky, as the guest artist will be guitarist Pablo Sainz Villegas. In addition to performing the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez with the Orchestra and conductor Kayoko Dan on Oct. 26, Villegas will visit elementary schools in the area and participate in a meet and greet/community jam session Oct. 22. Villegas will also perform with the Philharmonic at its family concert Oct. 28 and at a concert at Somerset's Center for Rural Development, under the baton of George Zack, Oct. 29.

~ If you thrilled to Jon Nakamatsu's piano playing Friday night with the Philharmonic, you'll be interested to know that BBC Music Magazine just gave his new CD of works by George Gershwin a four-out-of-five star review. The disc, featuring Nakamatsu with Jeff Tyzik and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, contains Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, Rhapsody in Blue and -- sense we a theme here? -- Cuban Overture.
 

Joe Beach bows out

Joe Beach in the workshop at his home in June.  Copyrighted photo by David Stephenson/Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky.com.

Joe Beach told Lexington Philharmonic music director George Zack that he wouldn't leave the orchestra until Zack left.

"It's the first promise to me he's ever broken," Zack said at Friday night's Masterclassics season opener.

At 88, Beach has elected to bow out one year before the maestro. At "two octaves old," as he says, some of the demands of playing concerts have become a bit much, though he certainly looked spry Friday night, accepting a viola-shaped plaque commemorating his military service as a Marine in World War II and his lifetime of service to music in Lexington. Then, at Zack's request, he hopped onto the podium to conduct the Star-spangled Banner. (Attempt at photo, below, by me.)

Zack described Beach as a friend and mentor, saying he showed the maestro how set up a rehearsal and how to treat an orchestra, and added that Beach has forgotten more about music than he will ever know. Beach was director of bands and orchestra at Henry Clay High School for years and was one of the founding members of the Philharmonic. With his departure, his son, violinist Larry Beach, is the only founding member of the orchestra left in the ensemble.

As Friday night's concert approached, there was some uncertainty as to how Beach would be recognized, because he did not want a big to-do. That characteristic showed at the end of his national anthem. He took one quick bow, mostly obscured by the open piano, and plowed back to his seat in the viola section.

Addressing Beach, Zack said that he had programmed a season of Beethoven and Brahms, Beach's favorites, "and you aren't even going to stick around and play it."

For a man who deserves recognition though, it was the perfect way to go. Last night's concert felt sort like a ballgame where the coach pulls the star player out just before the game is over so that player will get his or her own ovation. Zack's other two concerts with the orchestra this year are big choral works: Messiah in December and Beethoven's Ninth in April. Then, a year from now, it's Zack's grand finale, where it will be all about Z.

Friday, it was all about Joe Beach, as it should have been.

Links:

~ If you haven't seen it, don't miss He'll Miss the Music, Jamie Gumbrecht's video about how Zack programs the Philharmonic.

~ Check out Loren Tice's review of last night's concert, Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist John Nakamatsu, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

George Zack video 4

Jamie Gumbrecht worked her keister off to put together the fourth installment of our George Zack exit interviews. It's a great little clip of Zack conducting the orchestra and talking about how he programs for the ensemble.

Best bets for the coming arts season

Sunday, SUNDAY, SUNDAY is the day your 2007-08 arts preview section will be in the Herald-Leader. You can get the information online, but in print it is 10 pages packed with concerts, plays, exhibits and other cultural opportunities for Central Kentucky.

If you’re like me, after reading it, you’ll be excited. Anyone who says there’s no culture in the Bluegrass has to argue with the 10 pages of our special section. Good luck with that.

Like any season, there are a few dates in the 2007-08 calendar that are particularly intriguing. So, here are some of the events that pop off the page for this observer:

The Lexington Philharmonic’s conductor search
The Phil has built in marketing hooks for the next two seasons. First, there are the final four concerts from music director George Zack (Sept. 14, Dec. 14, April 25 and then the grand finale next September). And included in those concerts are a Brahms piano concerto, Messiah and two Beethoven symphonies, including the Ninth. Then, there’s the real “get your score card” event of the two-season search for his successor. We have five guest conductors slated to come across the Singletary Center stage between now and March, playing an interesting mix of music and hosting a diverse group of soloists including a classical guitarist and an organist. The concerts will be compelling opportunities to sit back and wonder what it would be like to see the conductor du jour on the podium all the time and pick a favorite as the announcement of Zack’s successor approaches, in the spring of 2009. Kayoko Dan, photo left, will be the first contestant, conducting the Oct. 26 concert.

UK Opera Theatre’s world premiere
In the past decade and a half, the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre has done a lot of noteworthy stuff, including grooming a Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition winner and several singers who have gone deep into that competition, going overseas to record a great American opera and hiring one of the most noteworthy figures in opera education. Collaborating with the San Francisco Opera for the co-world premiere of Thomas Pasatieri’s Hotel Casablanca Oct. 12, 13, 19 and 20 is yet another milestone. The first production was in August as part of San Francisco’s opera training program, and this review snippet from the Contra Costa Times’ Georgia Rowe should whet your appetite for the new opera: “The Hotel Casablanca is one of those rarer-than-hens-teeth works: contemporary, well-crafted, richly musical and riotously funny, with a brisk two-hour running time and plenty of roles for energetic young voices.”

Actors Guild presents the masters
In recent years under the leadership of Deb Shoss and now Richard St. Peter, Actors Guild has been supplementing its contemporary fare with more and more classics. This year we get a high-water mark with two certifiable masterpieces and four shows by iconic playwrights. It feels funny to say August Wilson and William Shakespeare are making their debuts with any company, but they are with Actors Guild, which presents Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom from Sept. 12 to Oct. 7 and the Bard’s Hamlet from Oct. 17 to Nov. 11. (Adam Luckey, photo left, will play Hamlet.) Then, we get David Mamet with Boston Marriage from Jan. 30 to Feb. 24 and Tom Stoppard with Arcadia from March 12 to April 6.

George C. Wolfe comes home
For more than two decades, Frankfort native George C. Wolfe has been making Kentucky proud with his Tony Award-winning directing career, as a celebrated playwright and his leadership of New York’s Public Theatre. Actors Theatre of Louisville is bringing Wolfe home in several ways this season. The fall calendar includes Spunk, three Zora Neale Hurston stories adapted for the stage by Wolfe, from Nov. 13 to Dec. 16. Then Topdog/Underdog, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama which Wolfe directed off and on Broadway, plays Jan. 17 to Feb. 3. Finally, the man himself comes to create and direct a new work at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, Feb. 24 to March 30.

Kronos Quartet are (l-r) violinist John Sherba, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, violinist David Harrington and violist Hank Dutt.

Kronos Quartet inaugurates Transylvania University’s new concert series
The Dorothy J. and Fred K. Smith concert series gets an amazing launch Oct. 10 with the Kronos Quartet playing Haggin Auditorium on the Transy campus. My enthusiasm for this performance went into orbit when I saw the program, which you can check out at the Kronos website. It includes Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet and Scott Johnson’s It Raged.

See you there.

Change of plans for the Phil's November Masterclassics

Considering this is the first big audition season for the new music director at the Lexington Philharmonic, an e-mail with the subject line, "Lexington Philharmonic announces changes to November MasterClassics concert," will snap you to attention. But no one is dropping out of the race. Conducting candidate Alexander Platt (photo, right) will still be on the podium, but the soloist will be pianist Natasha Paremski, instead of Conrad Tao, who was released from his contract for another engagement. The change also prompts a program change, with Paremski (photo, left) playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major (Emperor) instead of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 in c minor, which Tao was set to play. A scheduled performance of Aaron Copland's Quiet City has also been cut from the Nov. 16 concert. I guess it's hard to complain about hearing the Emperor concerto, unless you were really looking forward to the Shostakovich and Copland.

~ In other Phil news, the orchestra has announced that the Sept. 14 season opener will be the final concert for violist Joe Beach, a co-founder of the Philharmonic and the longest-serving musician in the orchestra.  In July, Margaret Buranen wrote an excellent article on Beach for our Communities section, in which he said that at 88, he's just, "two octaves old."