1. NEWS AND COMMENTARY 2008
SURPRISE APPOINTMENTS – Two recent music director appointments by mid-level American orchestras are more than a little surprising. The Milwaukee Symphony is a solid, reliable ensemble, finely honed in the 1970’s and 80’s by the late Kenneth Schermerhorn, a superb orchestra builder. The subsequent music directorships of Zdenek Macal and Andreas Delfs have brought European authority and rising orchestral standards to the Wisconsin ensemble. Now the orchestra has pulled off a coup. The renowned Dutch conductor Edo DeWaart will assume the group’s helm in the 2009-2010 season. DeWaart put the Rotterdam Philharmonic on the musical map over three decades ago. He did much the same for Australia’s Sydney Symphony during the 1990’s. This flying Dutchman has also held the music directorships of the San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. In 2009 he becomes principal conductor of the Santa Fe Opera, concurrent with his on-going directorship of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Indeed this conductor’s itinerary is really dizzying!

In an unusual move, the Milwaukee Symphony did not conduct a formal music director search. The orchestra’s management heard that DeWaart and his family had moved to a Milwaukee suburb. Informally they approached the conductor about a possible directorship. He had never led the orchestra or even heard it. Instead of a public concert, Milwaukee Symphony officials arranged for two days of private rehearsals during which DeWaart conducted works by Strauss and Elgar. Both conductor and musicians were impressed. DeWaart publicly stated that the Milwaukee Symphony was in better artistic shape than the San Francisco and Minnesota orchestras were when he first led them. (Credit is due the musically over emphatic but gifted Andreas Delfs for the orchestra’s good artistic health.) With a veteran conductor of DeWaart’s statue, this is the Milwaukee orchestra’s opportunity to break into America’s orchestral top tier.

Stranger still are recent developments at the Louisville Orchestra. Once known for its audacious championship of contemporary music, the orchestra has fallen on hard times with serious financial problems and a revolving door of music directorships. After a prolonged music director search and interim leadership from Raymond Leppard, the Louisville management decided to look to the past rather than the future. Jorge Mester, the orchestra’s music director in the 1970’s, was quietly reappointed to his old post. Mester, long a distinguished teacher of conducting at New York’s Julliard School, was not terribly popular during his previous directorship and was dismissed from his position for reasons that were never really clear. His return is a safe appointment and gives this troubled ensemble some time to plan for the future. Clearly bringing back a conductor of three decades ago (whose career has seen better days) is not the path to that future.

2. PETER LIEBERSON WINS 2007 GRAWEMEYER AWARD – The University of Louisville’s annual Grawemeyer Award for original musical composition has gone to Peter Lieberson for his Neruda Songs, a score that reflects the composer’s personal artistic journey and the tragic death of his wife – the mezzo-soprano Loraine Hunt-Lieberson. Lieberson is the son of the legendary record producer and executive Goddard Lieberson and the ballerina and actress Vera Zorina. Like many composers of his generation, Lieberson was, at first, attracted to atonality and serialism but tempered those stylistic gestures with more accessible lyricism. The Neruda cycle was the composer’s final token of love for his ailing wife who had fought a long battle with breast cancer. When Loraine Hunt Lieberson gave the premiere of the work with the Boston Symphony under James Levine in 2006 (and later performed the songs under Esa-Pekka Salonen and David Robertson), she knew that she did not have long to live. The sensuous, erotic lyricism of Lieberson’s setting of Pablo Neruda’s poetry has been widely acclaimed. Critic Norman Lebrecht proclaimed the score “the first great work of the 21st century.” The Grawemeyer prize is one of the most coveted and respected in the music world. Former winners include Gyorgy Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, Joan Tower, John Corigliano, Tan Dun, John Adams, and Thomas Ades. Peter Lieberson’s dreamy score joins a distinguished group of creative essays, many of which have joined the standard contemporary repertoire.


3. STEVEN HOUGH – Some critics have called Steven Hough “the world’s greatest pianist.” He is certainly one of the most exciting artists on the contemporary music scene. Hough’s talents do not end there. In the past year, he has made impressive strides as a composer. Hough premiered two Mass settings at London’s Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral. His Cello Concerto (The Loneliest Wilderness) was premiered by his friend Steven Isserlis with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Hough’s baton. Is a major conducting career far off? Hough has also written books and essays on music and Catholicism. Still, his pianistic brilliance continually astounds. In early December, 2007, Hough joined the Miami based New World Symphony (appropriately dubbed America’s Orchestral Academy) and conductor Mark Wigglesworth for Brahms’ Concerto No.1 in D minor. He gave the kind of demonstration of old fashioned; fire breathing keyboard virtuosity that has not been heard since the days of Vladimir Horowitz. He brought stormy grandeur to the opening Maestoso, tempered by an array of pianistic coloration that made the music sound new, as if experienced for the first time. In the Adagio, Hough’s phrasing elucidated the long arc of eloquence inherent in Brahms’ writing but rarely brought to fruition in performance. The fast tempo and remarkable accuracy and precision of Hough’s cascading arpeggios radiated joy and intense romantic fervor in the final Rondo. No matter what era the score Hough plays belongs to, he is the ultimate romantic. His Brahms was of the most incendiary variety. Maybe “world’s greatest pianist” is not an exaggeration after all!

4. DAWN UPSHAW WINS MACARTHUR
FOUNDATION GENIUS AWARD – The American soprano Dawn Upshaw has won the coveted MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. Presented each year to individuals who make significant contributions to the arts, sciences, and social welfare, the award comes with an annual five year grant of $100,000 which the recipient may use at their discretion. Upshaw was selected for her commitment to commissioning and nurturing the work of living composers. 

I first heard this wonderful soprano in 1984 at the New York’s Metropolitan Opera in a relatively minor role in Moussorgsky’s Khovanschina. (That production was conducted by Neemi Jarvi, not yet the international podium star he was to become.) At the time she was a member of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artists Program. Even then, she stood out for her pure, silvery vocal timbre, exquisite musicianship, and fervent delivery. It was obvious that she would not be doing small roles for long. Indeed her Mozart heroines became a mainstay of the Met and other major international houses. 

From the start, her vocal recitals always featured the works of American composers, John Harbison being a particular Upshaw favorite. (Harbison would compose the female lead in his opera The Great Gatsby for her.) In recent years Upshaw has transformed herself into a contemporary music specialist. She has commissioned and/or championed scores by Harbison, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Henryk Gorecki, and Osvaldo Golijov. She has also championed the great American songbook from Bernstein, Blitzstein, and Bolcom to Kern, Berlin, Weill, and Duke. Last season she collaborated with Harbison in a workshop for emerging American composers and vocalists at Carnegie Hall. In recent years she has turned to teaching, training a new generation of singers at Bard College and Tanglewood.

Upshaw’s commitment to gifted creative artists is unique. In typical fashion, she has stated she would use the bulk of the MacArthur Foundation grant to commission and record new vocal music. Upshaw has also become known as the “non-diva” – a good colleague and sensitive human being. This MacArthur Foundation Genius Award is well deserved recognition of one of America’s finest and most innovative vocalists. Congratulations to Dawn Upshaw – a true artist! 

Music News Continued >>