Thomas May's Blog, page 11

“The Righteous” at Santa Fe Opera

Michael Mayes (David), Brenton Ryan (CM), and Greer Grimsley (Paul) in The Righteous; photo by Curtis Brown for the Santa Fe Opera

I reviewed Santa Fe Opera’s The Righteous for Musical America. The latest in the company’s distinguished history of commissions, The Righteous is an ambitious collaboration between composer Gregory Spears and poet-librettist Tracy K. Smith. The opera unfolds across the span of the Reagan era and features a large cast to tell the story of a charismatic Southwestern preacher who gets elected as state governor:

MusicalAmerica – At Santa Fe_ New Opera Depicts an Ugly Era & Hits Close to HomeDownload The Righteous Ensemble, photo by Curtis Brown for the Santa Fe Opera

James Robinson named General and Artistic Director of Seattle Opera

James Robinson: Seattle Opera’s new General and Artistic Director

Seattle Opera has announced that James Robinson will be its next General and Artistic Director — the fifth person to lead the company in its 61-year history. Robinson begins his tenure in a little less than a month, on 4 September 2024. He replaces Christina Scheppelmann, who is taking on the reins as General and Artistic Director of La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels starting in January 2025; she just completed her contract with Seattle Opera at the conclusion of the 2023-24 season.

From Seattle Opera’s press release:

Robinson comes to Seattle from Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL), where he has served as Artistic Director since 2008. During his tenure, Robinson transformed OTSL into one of the country’s most forward-looking opera festivals, commissioning 11 world premieres and presenting imaginative new productions of core repertoire. Many of these commissions have been recognized for their impact on the industry and produced by houses around the world. These include Huang Ruo’s An American Soldier, which was hailed in The New York Times’ “The Best of Classical Music 2018,” and Terence Blanchard’s Champion and Fire Shut Up in My Bones, the latter of which opened the 2021/22 season at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the first work by a Black composer to appear on that stage.

As a stage director, Robinson has developed a rich portfolio, having directed at least 75 new productions at the world’s top theaters and over 30 world premieres. He has also seen success with productions of standard repertoire. Robinson’s production of the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess opened the 2019/20 season at the Metropolitan Opera, and later won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. And in January 2004, Robinson directed a blockbuster production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen at Seattle Opera that sold more tickets than any opera in company history.

“We are thrilled to have a leader of James’s caliber join us as General and Artistic Director of Seattle Opera,” said Jonathan Rosoff, chair of the search committee. “An accomplished stage director and administrator, James is widely recognized as a leading creative force in this industry, and his productions have appeared at many of the world’s most respected opera houses. Between his steadfast leadership, his impressive record of innovation, and his deep knowledge of opera, we are confident that James will make an immediate impact at Seattle Opera and lead the company into an exciting and inventive new era.”

“I couldn’t be more excited to be joining the tremendous staff and board at Seattle Opera,” said Robinson. “Seattle is an opera town. It has opera in its DNA, and I am honored to be able to build on that rich tradition. I can’t wait to get to work creating art with and for the passionate audiences that have made Seattle Opera into the company it is today.”

One secret to Robinson’s success has been his community-based approach to programming, which begins at the grass-roots level long before artistic decisions are finalized. Along with former OTSL General Director Timothy O’Leary, Robinson spearheaded OTSL’s New Works, Bold Voicescommissioning program, which aimed to tell diverse, modern-day stories in partnership with the local St. Louis community.

“Like politics, all arts are local,” said Robinson. “It’s vital to include the community in decision-making processes, working with them to identify stories they want to see on stage. This is an area where Seattle Opera has established itself as a leader, and I look forward to continuing this work with communities across the Pacific Northwest.”

“Jim Robinson is one of our greatest visionaries—as a director, a commissioner of new work, and a producer,” said O’Leary, who now serves as General Director of the Washington National Opera. “He cares deeply that work is not just great artistically, but also resonates with the audience, and many of his commissions have been box office hits, attracting new and diverse audiences.”

Robinson’s work with companies of all sizes and with a wide range of resources has given him a keen insight into how opera companies can create art in a sustainable manner. During his time at OTSL, Robinson mounted productions of the highest quality while maintaining fiscal responsibility, streamlining the company’s workflow to allow for a more efficient allocation of resources. He also helped foster strong donor relationships that resulted in a $45-million legacy gift in early 2020, then the largest in the company’s history.

That ability to forge relationships has enabled some of Robinson’s most prominent artistic collaborations. “I have my opera career due to James Robinson,” said Terence Blanchard, whom Robinson first approached about commissioning an opera more than twelve years ago. “Jim saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. His capacity to make connections that others can’t see has allowed him to create new and exciting work. Having him as the new General and Artistic Director at the Seattle Opera is nothing short of a coup.”

When he arrives in September, Robinson will take over Seattle Opera’s $25-million budget, overseeing an annual season that features five mainstage productions and a slate of community programs, classes, and public events. Since its founding in 1963, Seattle Opera has become a cornerstone of the arts economy in the Pacific Northwest, employing more than 800 people in 2023. Recognized as an industry leader in efforts to diversify opera, Seattle Opera developed its Racial Equity and Social Impact plan in 2019 to guide decision-making at all levels of the organization. Seattle Opera is also a dedicated proponent of new American opera, mounting the world premieres of A Thousand Splendid Suns (’23) and the upcoming Jubilee (’24), as well as co-productions like X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (’24), which set a company record for the most single tickets sold to any contemporary opera.

“I am very happy that James will be taking the reins of this wonderful company,” said Christina Scheppelmann. “James has an impressive track record as a stage director and his extensive network will present tremendous opportunities for collaboration. I am sure he will accomplish great things at Seattle Opera, together with this amazing staff and supportive board. Seattle Opera is in good hands.”

Afghan Youth Orchestra & Zohra Orchestra: U.S. Tour

Afghan Youth Orchestra at Victoria Hall; photo (c) Carole Parodi

From press release: “Afghan Youth Orchestra (AYO) has returned to the USA for the first time since its U.S. debut in 2013. The premier ensemble of the displaced Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), the orchestra comprises 46 male and female musicians aged between 14 and 22, whose diverse backgrounds testify to the strength and resilience of the Afghan people. Together with ANIM’s celebrated all-female Zohra Orchestra and conductor Tiago Moreira da Silva, AYO will perform traditional Afghan and Western classical music, on both Afghan and Western instruments, in a pair of concerts at  Carnegie Hall (the final concert of the inaugural World Orchestra Week on Aug 7) and the Kennedy Center (Aug 8).

Marking the ensembles’ first U.S. appearances since the Taliban’s return to power and ANIM’s subsequent flight to safety, these performances represent potent acts of defiance against the regime that has not only outlawed music but also imposed gender apartheid in Afghanistan.

AYO returns to New York and D.C. under the baton of young Portuguese conductor Tiago Moriera da Silva. Performed on a combination of Western orchestral instruments and traditional Afghan instruments, including the rubab, sitar, tambur, and tabla, their program juxtaposes ancient ragas and folksongs with the conductor’s original arrangements of music by Brahms, Kodály, and Afghan composers Amir Jan Saboori, Ustad Din Mohammad Zakhail, and Ustad Nainawaz, the father of Afghan pop.

AYO will give the U.S. premiere of Saudade do Afeganistão, a multi-movement work by composer and former faculty member William Harvey that traces ANIM’s turbulent recent history, and ANIM’s mould-breaking Zohra Orchestra will interpret songs celebrating freedom and women’s rights. At a time when women in Afghanistan are prohibited from working, attending school, or leaving their homes unaccompanied, Zohra’s performance sends a powerful message of resistance, embodying the unwavering spirit of Afghan women.
 
At Carnegie Hall, where da Silva makes his house debut, AYO’s performance represents the final concert of World Orchestra Week (WOW!), a new festival that brings together seven youth orchestras from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States for a week of cultural exchange and music-making with internationally renowned artists in New York. AYO will be joined on Carnegie Hall’s main stage by members of the European Union Youth Orchestra, and the program will be expanded to include accounts of traditional Sufi songs by ANIM’s Qawwali vocal ensemble.”

Afghan Youth Orchestra & Zohra Orchestra: U.S. tourAug 7
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage)
World Orchestra Week (WOW!)
With Qawwali ensemble and members of the European Union Youth Orchestra
Conductor: Tiago Moreira da Silva
TRAD: Raga Pilo
TRAD: Raga Bhihag
Ustad SARAHANG: Tark-e Arezo Kardam (Qawwali)
TRAD: Peer Man o Murad Man (Qawwali)
TRAD, arr. Ahmad Zahir: Zendagi Akher Sarayad (Zohra Orchestra)
Ustad KHYAL: An Selsela Mo (Zohra Orchestra)
Amir JAN SABOORI, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: Sar-zamen-e-man
Sediq SHABAB: Pa Bismillah
SHANKAR-JAIKISHAN: Mera Joota Hai Japani
Johannes BRAHMS, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: 21 Hungarian Dances, No. 5
William HARVEY: Saudade do Afeganistão (U.S. premiere)
Zoltán KODÁLY, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: Intermezzo from Háry János
Nay NAWAZ, arr. Khaled Arman: Ay Nay Naway-e Jawedan
Ustad Din MOHAMMAD ZAKHAIL, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: An Afghan in New York
Michail THEODORAKIS, arr. Abdul Wahab Madadi: Watan Ishq-e-tu
 Tickets and further information are available  here . 
Aug 8
Washington, D.C.
Kennedy Center
Conductor: Tiago Moreira da Silva
TRAD, arr. Ahmad Zahir: Zendagi Akher Sarayad (Zohra Orchestra)
Ustad KHYAL: An Selsela Mo (Zohra Orchestra)
Amir JAN SABOORI, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: Sar-zamen-e-man
Sediq SHABAB: Pa Bismillah
SHANKAR-JAIKISHAN: Mera Joota Hai Japani
Johannes BRAHMS, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: 21 Hungarian Dances, No. 5
William HARVEY: Saudade do Afeganistão
Zoltán KODÁLY, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: Intermezzo from Háry János
Nay NAWAZ, arr. Khaled Arman: Ay Nay Naway-e Jawedan
Ustad Din MOHAMMAD ZAKHAIL, arr. Tiago Moreira da Silva: An Afghan in New York
Michail THEODORAKIS, arr. Abdul Wahab Madadi: Watan Ishq-e-tu
 Tickets and further information are available  here .

Dallas Symphony Channel: Schmidt’s “Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln”

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) has just released two additions to its Next Stage Digital Concert Series, now available on the DSO’s YouTube channel: Franz Schmidt’s Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln (The Book with Seven Seals) (above) and the DSO’s new Symphony Stream.

Notes the DSO: “Schmidt – whose 150th birthday arrives this December – was a late-Romantic composer who also wrote four symphonies, two operas, and works for piano and organ, but his monumental achievement was Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln, based on the prophetic vision of the final violent destruction of the world in the Book of Revelation. Grammy-winning Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Director Fabio Luisi led the performances of the work at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, March 1–3, 2024.

Born in 1874 in what is today Bratislava, Slovakia, but at the time was in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, Franz Schmidt studied composition and cello at the Vienna Conservatory, eventually obtaining a post as a cellist with the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra, where he frequently played under the direction of Gustav Mahler. He was also a brilliant pianist, and much of his career was dedicated to teaching cello, piano, counterpoint, and composition at the Conservatory. Luisi has long been a champion of Schmidt’s music in general and Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln in particular, conducting performances of the latter around the world, but the video release is especially appropriate this fall, as December marks the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Luisi explains:

“I believe that this work, together with Britten’s War Requiem and Frank Martin’s Golgotha, is one of the most important oratorios written in the 20th century. The visionary energy of St. John’s Revelation is put in music with both grace and power, actually, and quite surprisingly without bombast. It trusts old forms such as the fugue, developed in a very virtuosic manner, and therefore creates a connection with the older style of this genre, especially with Mendelssohn and, of course, Bach and Handel. I hope listeners are seduced by the energy, the gravitas and the important meaning of this work, which also features great vocal parts and fantastic choral moments.”

Music on the Strait: 2024 Festival

James Garlick and Richard O’Neill, co-founders of Music on the Strait. (Nora Pitaro)

The 2024 edition of Music on the Strait opens tonight with a concert at the new Field Arts & Events Hall in Port Angeles, WA. You can also livestream the concert, which starts at 7pm PT, on this YouTube page as well as on the Music on the Strait Facebook page here. The livestreams will also allow you to access the 6.15 pre-concert presentation with Lisa Bergman.

I wrote a preview for the Seattle Times here:

Music on the Strait has entered a new phase.  Among the Puget Sound region’s youngest festivals devoted to chamber music, MOTS kicks off this year on Aug. 1…

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Ani Aznavoorian’s Family-Made Cello

Ani Aznavoorian and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet at Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival; photo (c) Carlin Ma

A new post for The Strad on this month’s just-concluded Summer Festival presented by Seattle Chamber Music Society:

With its roster of several dozen internationally prominent musicians, the just-concluded 2024 edition of the Summer Festival presented by the Seattle Chamber Music Society involved a de facto summit of priceless string instruments in action….

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RIP Wolfgang Rihm (1952-2024)

Wolfgang Rihm giving an introductory speech at a museum concert, 2019 © Priska Ketterer / Lucerne Festival

The eminent German composer Wolfgang Rihm, one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers in Europe and a longstanding pillar of the Lucerne Festival Academy, has died.

From Lucerne Festival’s obituary:

“It is with sadness and at the same time with deep gratitude that we take leave of one of the greatest artists of our time and of one of Lucerne Festival’s most influential companions. Wolfgang Rihm was closely associated with Lucerne Festival not only as a composer but, since 2016, as Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy as well….”

And from Rihm’s publisher, Universal Edition, comes this tribute to the artist:

“With Wolfgang Rihm, the music world loses not only a gifted composer, but also a universal scholar, who was as concerned with the promotion of young talent as he was about his personal commitment to cultural policy…”

“Music resembles life, is a reflection of its processes.“– Wolfgang Rihm

How “Jubilee” Is Bringing Spirituals to the Opera Stage

Tazewell Thompson (photo: Jeffrey Henson Scales)

My preview of Seattle Opera’s world premiere of Jubilee, created and directed by the extraordinary Tazewell Thompson, has been posted at Opera Now. Jubilee will run on 12-26 October 2024 at McCaw Hall in Seattle.

In 1903, in his classic The Souls of Black Folk, the influential sociologist and activist W E B Du Bois famously declared that the African American spiritual ‘stands today not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side of the seas’. Du Bois singled out a group of performers for their role in bringing widespread attention to this legacy: ‘The Fisk Jubilee Singers sang the slave songs so deeply into the world’s heart that it can never wholly forget them again’….
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Happy 90th Birthday to Roger Reynolds

A toast to the luminously imaginative composer and musical thinker Roger Reynolds, who celebrates his 90th birthday today — and is still going strong. Within this year alone, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer has presented his latest opus, KNOWING / NOT KNOWING, described by Ken Herman as “a 21st-century secular oratorio … that deftly fuses recorded and live media, alternates chorus and the spoken word, and juxtaposes live drama with instrumentalists in order to pose probing questions about the nature and range of human knowledge.” (Here’s a vimeo link to an excerpt from KNOWING/NOT KNOWING.)

As Roger Reynolds continues into his tenth decade, the urge to extend the limits of musical perception and meaning beyond those previously known remains as powerful a motivation as ever.

In March, the Center for New Music and Associated Technologies (CNMAT) and the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, presented a colloquium and concert celebrating this milestone birthday year. The Center describes Reynolds, who has also been an influential mentor at UC San Diego for more than half a century, as “a composer, writer, producer, and mentor, pioneer in sound spatialization, intermedia, and algorithmic concepts … [and] an inveterate synthesizer of diverse capacities and perspectives. … [His] projects with individual performers and ensembles, theater directors, choreographers, and scientists involve challenging interpersonal collaborations.” He has been, for decades, a sought-after mentor at UC San Diego.”

Some (by no means all!) other recent projects include his latest “sharespace” work, Persistence (for cello and computer musician), the ongoing Passage series, and Xenakis Creates in Architecture and Music: The Reynolds Desert House, a collaborative book exploring the evolution of a house design by the Greek composer/architect for him and his partner Karen. Reynolds is also a member of the international, Montréal-based consortium ACTOR, and the originator of the Bridging Chasms initiative, which seeks to improve cross-disciplinary communications. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2023.

Reynolds has also been collaborating with the Danish percussionist, and conductor, and producer Mathias Reumert on the release of no fewer than four new albums. The first two these, Wind Concertos and Watershed V, have already been released on Reumert’s Ekkozone label; still to be released later in the year are The Promises of Darkness and Watershed V/’O’o.

Here’s a link to the booklet essay I wrote for the extraordinary two-CD set For a Reason, which appeared last year on neuma records. (The neuma label, which prizes itself on offering “food for the mind’s ear,” has an extensive catalogue of music by Reynolds.) For a Reason includes examples of Reynolds’s longstanding collaborations with violinist Irvine Arditti (whose own eponymous string quartet celebrates its 50th anniversary this year) and percussionist Steven Schick.

from Watershed V:

Damien Geter’s “American Apollo”

Composer Damien Geter

Damien Geter’s much-anticipated new opera American Apollo will be unveiled this weekend at Des Moines Metro Opera. The librettist is Lila Palmer and revolves around Thomas Eugene McKeller, a Black hotel worker who became a model for the painter John Singer Sargent.

“As a work of historical fiction, the opera imagines the story behind Sargent’s spare, nude portrait and sensual sketches of McKeller, whose image was transformed by Sargent into white-skinned Greek gods featured prominently in murals throughout Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Themes of erasure, the white gaze, and the intimate relationship between the two men are explored in this powerful new work,” according to DMMO’s website.

In the cast are baritone Justin Austin as McKeller, tenor William Burden as John Singer Sargent, soprano Mary Dunleavy as Isabella Stewart Gardner, with David Neely conducting and Shaun Patrick Tubbs directing.

Writes Geter in his composer’s note: “As a composer, one of my goals is to help bring to life stories that have long been ignored in the traditional canon, and more largely, across the spectrum of human experience. It is safe to say that many of these unknown or forgotten stories belong to Black people and other folks of color who, because of white supremacy, have not been represented to the fullest extent with regards to the vast array of personalities, emotions, and multi-dimensions that we see in real-life people. Stereotypes tend to run amok in opera when it comes to people of color. ..”

Synopsis here.

Info sheet on American Apollo here.

Discussion from 2020 of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s rediscovery of Sargent’s drawings of McKeller:

Damien Geter’s recent Richmond Symphony commission, Sinfonia Americana, is available here, conducted by Valentina Peleggi: