Art-songs from the pop charts

The New York Times' Stephen Holden reviews performances by singer-songwriters Amos Lee and Rodney Crowell and the Brazilian-Polish baritone Paulo Szot, singing Latin American popular songs, in Lincoln Center's American Songbook series:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/arts/music/27song.html?_r=1&ref=music

Holden is one of The Times' pop-music critics, but his review reads as if he were covering Lieder recitals. Which he was, actually: If a popular song outlasts its initial burst of popularity, and proves amenable to various interpretations in various settings, it becomes a "classic." Popular songwriters, from Stephen Foster to Stephen Sondheim, already figure in today's art-song repertory.

If a contemporary pop song proves to be worth repeating and can make the transition from amplified, theatrical presentation to a more intimate, acoustic setting, in time it may find its way into classical or semi-classical recital programs. It's already happening with the music of Radiohead; and it's not hard to imagine some mezzo-soprano interpreting Joni Mitchell or some baritone dipping into the songbag of Willie Nelson.

Any song recitalists out there thinking about exploring recent pop repertory? Look into the songs of Kate and Anna McGarrigle. (Or has someone beat you to it?)

Violence and violins

The Richmond Symphony, University of Richmond Schola Cantorum and James River Singers explore "Music in Times of Civil Unrest," in print in Style Weekly, online at:

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=34A959AFDC7C4FF8955492BF31F63468

In the same issue, my review of the new disc of concertos by Beethoven and his forgotten contemporary, Franz Clement, by violinist Rachel Barton Pine, who performs on Jan. 31 at Virginia Commonwealth University:

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=7BFD70EF0C3842BAB0F51AD3776CA019&AudID=C3A7C1EDE4E54E24AF4637F9AAFFD1B6

Deep red in Cincinnati

The Cincinnati Symphony ran a $3.8 million deficit on an operating budget of $39.9 million in 2007-08, one of the largest shortfalls disclosed to date in a nationwide (soon to be worldwide?) flood of red ink swamping arts organizations.

the orchestra's endowment lost nearly $20 million in value last year, the Cincinnati Enquirer's Janelle Gelfand reports:

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090127/ENT03/901270343

All synced up

The performance of John Williams' "Air and Simple Gifts" at President Obama's inauguration was actually a recording. Violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Gabriela Montero played along to the recording, inaudible to all but the few spectators seated near them, for the benefit of television cameras.

It was too cold for the musicians to give a reliably good live performance, The New York Times is told:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/arts/music/23band.html?_r=1&hp

Appearing to give live performances of pre-recorded music is commonplace at big public events that are televised, assorted experts explain.

And no, Ma did not play the carbon-fiber cello, widely touted before the event.

Other than that . . .

Richmond Symphony recasts series with move downtown next season

The Richmond Symphony is betting almost all its chips on the new downtown Richmond CenterStage theater complex, scheduled to open in September.

In a letter to patrons, the orchestra announces that next season it will move its mainstage Masterworks concerts back into the Carpenter Theatre (formerly Carpenter Center), presenting Saturday night and Sunday matinee performances. This will mark the end of Monday night concerts, which the symphony has staged since its debut in 1957.

Pops concerts also will return to the Carpenter Theatre, continuing on Saturday nights, with an additional Sunday matinee for the Christmas-season "Let It Snow!" program. The 1,750-seat venue will be used for a single performance of Handel’s "Messiah."

The symphony will discontinue its Kicked Back Classics casual concert series after this season, replacing it with a "Lollipops" series of educational family concerts, staged at the Carpenter Theatre on Saturday mornings.

The only subscription series to maintain a suburban presence will be four chamber-orchestra concerts. In recent years, they have been festivals centering on composers (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Haydn). The series will be renamed "Metro Connection," with concerts at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland paired with performances at other, yet to be named venues in the metropolitan Richmond area.

David Fisk, the orchestra's executive director, writes that the changes follow audience "surveys and comments over the past 18 months." He adds: "[E]very effort is being made to assure that there is ample, safe, affordable downtown parking."

Stravinsky's revenge

From Soho the Dog (http://sohothedog.blogspot.com/):

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0MzRtch__Pybbmuk_VABWHESg8ynre0kQqVTkI5jfcdxClN2pqlHdl4HMFm-9D6bxTK1OqH3gB37nlEQna-LaXNRpUVGZrpXmSFuxRhROckZaBaRoIK4FiJM9MIQo4GrYruOl7J8o6gI/s1600-h/superlenny.jpg

Review: inaugural music

The pundits’ verdict on President Obama’s inaugural address – low-key, straightforward, somber – applies as well to the event’s signature music: not the customary Sousa marches and ceremonial tunes, but the pieces unique to this occasion.

Aretha Franklin sang "America (My Country ’Tis of Thee)" as a church singer, rather than a jazz or pop song stylist. Age has lowered the 66-year-old singer’s top notes and some of her vocal flexibility; but she may have tempered the soulful flourishes in any case, because of the profound historical resonance of the ascension of this country’s first president of African descent. R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the occasion, so to speak.

John Williams’ new piece for the inauguration, an Air with Variations on the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" (best-known as the main theme of Aaron Copand’s "Appalachian Spring"), was comparably understated, contrasting sharply with the triumphalism and/or emotional button-pushing that characterize his film music. The short piece, played by violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Gabriela Montero, has a short stretch of jazzy busyness but for the most part seems to aim for plain-spokenness with a wistful, nostalgic undercurrent.

The most musical moments of the ceremony – to use "musical" in its broadest sense – were spoken, in the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s spiritually affirmative yet playful benediction, in which old-time country preaching (and quotation of James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing") evolved into jazz poetry.

Update: Williams "was falling over himself to convey messages about patriotism and solemnity and austerity and profundity" in his inauguration work, but wound up merely filling "downtime before the main event," writes Anne Midgette in The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012003560.html