August 2008 Archives

There are lots of slso blog fans out there and I always enjoy hearing from you. I sometimes get a shout out from folks down at the Phoenix Symphony, so I wanted to let them know that one of their own, David Nischwitz, visited Powell yesterday as part of his tour of orchestras as a League of American Orchestras Fellow. He is one of five spending the year gaining knowledge of the management side of the business. David stopped by my office to say hello before he goes on to the orchestras in Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Cleveland (Cincinnati might be in there too, but you know about me and memory, see post "The Death of the Death of Classical Music"). David is a St. Louis native and used to work in the Powell Box Office, the springboard to many great careers! You can read about David here, and then learn more about the LAO by touring its site, if you so choose.

Vladimir Horowitz

As if the debacle at Busch Stadium wasn't enough, a truck somehow got a piece of the Powell marquee last night.

You go to bed with visions of Brewers crossing home plate, one after another, and wake up to police tape wrapped around your concert hall.

Damage is minor. Everybody's OK. The Box Office is open for business. Cards will come back.

While I was away the stagehands got a new roof over their backstage office, with a trap door to the fly gallery, meaning that when they are not enraptured by the music coming from the stage they can regale each other with stagehand lore without the fear of their hearty, pirate laughter interrupting Kelly Kaduce singing a death scene or something.

Composer Glenn Branca recently responded via email to a series of questions I sent him concerning the performance of his Symphony No. 13, "Hallucination City" for 100 electric guitars, which will be played at the Pageant as part of the SLSO's Guitar Festival in November. I asked him about the "play it loud" factor of the work. Here is an excerpt from his response:

"Electric guitar music is loud. That's the point."

He says much more than that, and discusses the "play it loud" factor very articulately, but I love his lead.

I've just learned why the SLSO deserves its plaque from the good folks who run the World's Largest Catsup Bottle Festival in Collinsville, Illinois (home of the World's Largest Catsup Bottle). The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra provided the good folks in Collinsville with a certificate for tickets that was used for the World's Largest Catsup Bottle Festival fundraiser. I believe the plaque is going to be on display proudly in our Box Office.

Once there were some painters who saw the world had changed, and who began to incorporate their perceptions of the changed world in new and different ways in their art. Their paintings began to appear in small galleries and salons in Paris.

Early in the film Sideways, the protagonist Miles (Paul Giamatti) gives his rather unrefined friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) a lesson in wine tasting. They stop at a northern California vineyard; ask for a pour of the local pinot. Miles sips and describes what he tastes, even putting a hand to one ear as if he's trying to hear the softest woodwind: "A little citrus. Maybe some strawberry. Mmm. Passion fruit, mmm, and, oh, there's just like the faintest soupçon of like, uh, asparagus, and, there's a, just a flutter of, like a, like a nutty Edam cheese."

I'm thinking about connoisseurship, and how connoisseurship can take the fun out of things (a night at the concert hall, for instance), and how it doesn't. And maybe tomorrow I'll be able to write some of these thoughts down. Tune in tomorrow.

It's amazing how articulate David Robertson can be even on the other side of the world. Doesn't the blood just rush to your head down there? Anyway, here is an op-ed piece from The Australian. David and family are in Sydney, where both he and Orli are performing with the Sydney Symphony, although on separate programs. (For those of you who are new to the slso blog, David is married to pianist Orli Shaham.) When David mentions combining works by des Pres, Mozart and Kurtág, he's not offering up an abstract concept - David conducted that program in his opening season as music director of the SLSO in 2006.

I met with Principal Tuba Mike Sanders to conduct a "Meet the Musician" interview for the September Playbill. Mike has been with the orchestra since 1991, when Leonard Slatkin was music director. I sometimes ask musicians to talk about some of their most memorable performances, but I've come to discover that it's a tough question for performers with so many concerts under their belts. Mike, however, offered up three of his favorites unbidden, one for each music director with whom he's worked. They are:

By official proclamation of Mayor Francis Slay, today is Christine Brewer Day in St. Louis! In honor of our local soprano, who just happens to be an international opera star and a very special friend of the SLSO (she returns to Powell for Verdi's Requiem February 13-14, 2009), I'll link to the Playbill article Jeannette Cooperman wrote as a preview to the phenomenal Fidelio last spring. In "Sound Maintenance" you'll read about the power of chicken soup for the vocal soul, and other tips for keeping the voice in peak condition.

Violinist Emily Ho just got back from Chicago where she was playing with the CSO over the summer and immediately went into mild shock at the heat and humidity back home. But after the she got acclimated, or air conditioned, she gave me another one of her top picks for this season: "Strauss Burleske.  I first heard it on a DVD of a Berlin New Year's Eve concert (with Claudio Abbado and Martha Argerich) and I've been dying to play it ever since." Emily gets to play it with David Robertson and Emanuel Ax, and you get to hear it January 30-31, 2009.

With David Robertson and family in Sydney, another recent traveler is Saint Louis Symphony Chorus director Amy Kaiser, who just got back from the Berkshires where she saw 10 (count 'em, 10!) Elliott Carter concerts at the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood. Now she leaps into The Lord of the Rings Symphony, in which the chorus sings in seven languages, five of which are fictitious.

I don't know which is the greater example of David Robertson's sense of daring:

I just received official word that season tickets have left the building. Those of you who have already ordered your SLSO 2008-2009 Music that Moves You Season can expect a packed little envelope of anticipation.