The Virginia Symphony and its assistant conductor, Matthew Kraemer, have won a $10,000 grant from the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation, David Nicholson reports in The Daily Press:
http://www.dailypress.com/features/dp-now_kraemer_0510may10,0,3407941.story
Odell Hobbs, the longtime Richmond chorusmaster and former chairman of the Virginia Union University music department, has died at the age of 71.
Dr. Hobbs, a scholar of the Negro spiritual and African-American classical, folk and church music, was a graduate of Howard University and Catholic University of Washington.
He taught at Langston University in Oklahoma from 1960-66 and was interim director of the Tuskegee Choir of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama from 1960-62. He joined the Virginia Union faculty in 1966 and founded its music department a year later. He served as the department's chairman and director of the Virginia Union Concert Choir until 1991, when he joined the faculty of Florida A&M University and became director of the Florida A&M Concert Choir. After his retirement, he returned to Richmond.
In later life, Dr. Hobbs directed The Choral Society of St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, VA, conducted instructional workshops and led several community choirs in the Richmond area.
Dr. Hobbs was a 2005 recipient of Catholic University’s Alumni Achievement Award for outstanding accomplishments in his field.
The Richmond Symphony Chorus, directed by Erin Freeman, will hold auditions for the 2008-09 season from 6:30-9:30 p.m. July 1.
The chorus rehearses from 7:30-10 p.m. Tuesdays. Next season’s repertory includes Handel’s “Messiah” and the holiday-season “Let It Snow” pops concert, Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms” and Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.” A chamber ensemble from the chorus will sing Haydn’s “Little Organ” Mass.
Prospective members must submit applications by May 31. Applications may be obtained by calling (804) 788-4717, ext. 109. More information is available on the Richmond Symphony’s website, http://www.richmondsymphony.com/
Ruben Zavenovich Vartanyan, the Russian-born conductor who since 1992 had led the Arlington Symphony and its successor, the Arlington Philharmonic, and conducted the Williamsburg Symphonia 
from 1993 until 2003, has died at the age of 71.
Vartanyan, a native of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and graduate of Moscow Conservatory, assisted Herbert von Karajan at the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic and Kirill Kondrashin at the Moscow Philharmonic. He was principal conductor of the Armenian State Symphony from 1967 until 1971, when he was named principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Bolivia.
He fell afoul of Soviet authorities after refusing to spy on Bolivia’s government. The Brezhnev regime allowed him to return to conducting at Moscow’s Bolshoi Opera in 1980. During a 1988 guest-conducting engagement in Bolivia, he defected and emigrated to the U.S., settling in Northern Virginia.
Vartanyan taught at Shenandoah College and Conservatory of Music in Winchester and George Mason University in Fairfax. He guest-conducted the Richmond Symphony in 1991.
Vartanyan’s obituary in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002508.html
Mark Russell Smith conducting
Karen Johnson & Madison Vest, violins
May 9, Bon Air Baptist Church
The Richmond Symphony’s four-part Bach Festival has been a mixed bag, programmatically and executionally, but this weekend’s finale marks a satisfying peak on both counts.
Throughout the series, the orchestra has see-sawed between "historically informed" Bach, fast-paced with low-vibrato strings and period-styled phrasing and ornamentation, and a more measured pace and the kind of modern instrumental sound applied to repertory from Mozart to Shostakovich.
This time the ensemble splits the difference stylistically, with an ornate Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068, its "Air on a G String" rendered as a brisk near-siciliano and other dance movements with similarly folksy inflections, and a more richly toned reading of the Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043, for two violins, strings and continuo.
In the first of three weekend performances, Karen Johnson, the symphony’s concertmaster, and Madison Vest, a 13-year-old prodigy making her second appearance with the orchestra, were assertive, technically assured and nicely contrasting solo voices, Vest’s second violin a shade warmer and more throaty than Johnson’s brilliant first. The respective violin sections followed their tonal leads, and the full string orchestra played with animation and transparency.
Some musicologists rate tone color as incidental or irrelevant in Bach. Conductor Mark Russell Smith and the symphony players disregarded that highly debatable bit of wisdom in the suite, playing up coloristic contrasts between high and low strings and between strings and trumpets to consistently fine effect.
The symphony's strings gave a warm and well-balanced, if occasionally intonationally shaky, account of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ "Bachianas brasileiras" No. 9, the last of the Brazilian composer’s homages to Bach and one of the most rhythmically striking of the set.
A 15-piece ensemble made good-humored and generally fluent work of Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9, a prismatic condensation of late-romantic motifs and rhetorical gestures that often sounds like a less than affectionate parody of a Richard Strauss tone poem – "Ein Heldenleben" for marionettes, maybe.
The program repeats at 7 p.m. May 10 at the Chicago Building, St. Paul’s College, in Lawrenceville, and 3 p.m. May 11 at Blackwell Auditorium, Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland. Tickets: $20-$38. Details: (804) 788-1212; http://www.richmondsymphony.com/
Gustavo Dudamel, the 27-year-old conducting sensation who becomes music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, will appear twice in Washington next season, leading the Israel Philharmonic and the orchestra from which he emerged, the Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.
Dudamel's concerts highlight the 2008-09 season of the Washington Performing Arts Society, the leading presenter of major classical touring artists in the mid-Atlantic region.
The WPAS schedule for the Kennedy Center in Washington:
* Oct. 4 – New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel conducting. Tchaikovsky: Suite No. 3, Symphony No. 4.
* Oct. 11 – Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Camerata Salzburg. Bach: Violin concertos Nos. 1-2, Concerto for two violins (second violinist TBA); Tartini: "The Devil's Trill."
* Nov. 15 – Vadim Repin (violin), Nikolai Lugansky (piano). Debussy: Sonata for violin and piano; Stravinsky: Divertimento for violin and piano; Beethoven: Sonata No. 9 for piano and violin ("Kreutzer").
* Nov. 18 – Israel Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel conducting. Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 ("Italian"); Brahms: Symphony No. 4.
* March 1 – Evgeny Kissin (piano). Program TBA.
* March 25 – Frederica von Stade (mezzo-soprano), Samuel Ramey (bass-baritone), Martin Katz (piano). Works by Copland, Berlioz, Offenbach, Gershwin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, others.
* March 28 – London Symphony, Valery Gergiev conducting. Prokofiev: Symphonies Nos. 1 ("Classical") and 6; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 (Alexei Volodin, piano).
* April 6 – Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Gustavo Dudamel conducting. Program TBA.
* May 2 – Louis Lortie (piano). Chopin: Etudes (complete).
* May 4 – Pittsburgh Symphony, Manfred Honeck conducting. Richard Strauss: "Death and Transfiguration;" Haydn: Cello Concerto in C major (Alisa Weilerstein, cello); Beethoven: Symphony No. 7.
* June 3 – Philadelphia Orchestra, Charles Dutoit conducting. Ravel: Piano Concerto for left hand; Liszt: "Totentanz" (Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano); Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances; Ravel: "La Valse."
The WPAS schedule for the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD:
* Oct. 14 – Andras Schiff (piano). Beethoven: Sonatas Nos. 22, 23 ("Appassionata"), 24, 25, 26 ("Les Adieux").
* Oct. 29 – Maurizio Pollini (piano). Program TBA.
* Nov. 2 – Midori (violin), Charles Abramovic (piano). Bach: Sonata in E minor for violin and clavier; Shostakovich: Sonata for violin and piano; Respighi: Sonata in B minor for violin and piano.
* Feb. 26 – London Philharmonic, Vladimir Jurowski conducting. Rachmaninoff: "Isle of the Dead;" Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major (Leon Fleisher, piano); Ligeti: "Atmospheres;" Richard Strauss: "Also sprach Zarathustra."
* March 3 – Joshua Bell (violin), Jeremy Denk (piano). Program TBA.
* March 11 – Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and Silk Road Ensemble. Program TBA.
* March 22 – Olga Kern (piano). Program TBA.
* March 29 – Richard Goode (piano). Program TBA.
* April 8 – Krystian Zimerman (piano). Program TBA.
* April 17 – Tokyo String Quartet, Lynn Harrell (cello). Haydn: Quartet in G major, Op. 76, No. 1; Beethoven: Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4; Schubert: String Quintet.
Subscription and ticket information: (202) 785-9727; www.wpas.org
The Columbus (OH) Symphony will stop paying its musicians and lay off its administrative staff at the end of May. The orchestra has canceled its summer pops concerts and "most likely its 2008-09 season, scheduled to begin in October," The Columbus Dispatch reports:
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/05/08/picnic.html
The 57-year-old orchestra had been running high deficits in recent years – a $1.4 million shortfall on a $12.5 million operating budget this year – and had reached an impasse with its musicians over a plan to reduce the roster of full-time players and shorten the season.
