Celebrity Series of Boston Blog

They love us, they really love us!

Cecilia Bartoli

American Public Media's Performance Today can't get enough of the Celebrity Series, apparently, and who can blame them? We're swell.

Today (May 31, 2007) and tomorrow (June 1, 2007) Performance Today broadcasts will air selections from the Celebrity Series performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra from this past April 22. Today's broadcast will feature Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, Opus 70, and on Friday, the encore performance of William Walton's Allegro molto from Sonata for Strings (arranged from the String Quartet No. 2).

On Monday Performance Today will feature Cecilia Bartoli performing Handel from her October 23, 2005 Celebrity Series performance.

American Public Media's Performance Today reaches over 1.4 million listeners each week on 250 member radio stations around the US. The program is available for on-demand listening on their website, www.performancetoday.org, for seven days from the date of broadcast.

OK, so these broadcasts probably aren't a good measure of Performance Today's love of the Celebrity Series. It just might have something to do with the caliber of performer we present. No matter, we are gratified even by the reflected attention. I'll bet the performers are, too.

Paul Taylor on morale

"Sometimes I think a company's morale is more important than the choreography."

—Choreographer Paul Taylor, from an interview with Jeffrey Brown on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (2007).

The top 53 classical music blogs

Scott Spiegelberg, author of the blog Musical Perceptions, has published a list of the top 53 classical music blogs (50 plus ties) according to Technorati.

This blog does not make the cut, perhaps because of its multi-genre performing arts focus, perhaps from some other cause....it's the monkey, isn't it?

Peter Bates reviews BMOP concert for Stylus Magazine

Peter Bates has posted his Stylus review of the BMOP concert.

The Globe's Eichler on BMOP

Gil Scott-Heron

Jeremy Eichler's review of Saturday evening's Boston Modern Orchestra Project concert begins with a reference to Gil Scott-Heron's famous screed from 1970, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. After reading the entry I first congratulated myself ridiculously for getting the reference, and then thought what a good decision The Globe made in hiring this remarkable critic (and soon to be Dad). I'm not sure just whom I should be congratulating for pulling the trigger on his hire, so I'll throw my thoughts up here and hope that someone is vain enough to Google their professional decisions in search of my validation.

Exhibit A

Gil Scott-Heron, excerpt from The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers; The revolution will be live."

Exhibit B

Jeremy Eichler, from Maestro, is that a DJ with your orchestra? (Note: Neither Mr. Eichler, nor any of the Globe writers, write their own headlines. Just thought you should know, since I'm truly interested in having you visit these links...):

"The revolution in the idea of what an orchestra can be -- from a collective instrument designed for the traditional symphonic repertoire, into an omnivorous agent of the new -- has been underway for well over a decade now, even if it has not been widely televised."

There is also this from the same review:

"Under the poised direction of conductor Gil Rose, BMOP sounded full and fearless throughout the evening. This protean ensemble made sharing the stage with drum kits and electric guitars seem perfectly natural. For these fine players, it probably is."

Read all of Maestro, is that a DJ with your orchestra?

Last, but by no means least, Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky has posted some photos from the evening on his web site.

Globe and Herald preview BMOP

 
Gil Rose and DJ Spooky rehearse Anthony DeRitis' Devolution on Friday, May 18 at Sanders Theatre while James Otis looms in the foreground (full disclosure: in case it isn't obvious...this photo was taken by yours truly, not by a Globe or Herald pro)

The concert is over now, but the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's Saturday night performance at Sanders Theatre, part of our Boston Marquee series, got quite a bit of attention (deservedly so, of course) from local media, including Boston's two major daily newspapers (which two are the "major" daily newspapers, you ask, knowing there are several Boston papers issued daily? The answer is: the ones with their own zip codes are the majors, ok?).

The Boston Globe weighed in with Matthew Guerrieri's Roll Over Beethoven from page one of Friday's Living/Arts section. Matthew followed up, admirably and typically, on his blog, Soho the Dog with a few bits that ended up on the cutting room floor. I love that he does this. Why should those tasty bits of interview wisdom end up as butcher's leftovers to be made into journalistic scrapple, or worse, not made into anything. Serve while fresh, I say.

Keith Powers was next with his Boston Herald entry on Saturday, Modern orchestra blooms with Rose. Considering this paper's troubles of late, the effort was especially noteworthy. Kudos.

Cannonball Adderly once famously said of (some) New York jazz audiences, "You get a lot of people that are supposed to be hip, and they act like they're supposed to be hip, which makes a difference." Cannonball eventually found his really hip New York audience at a matinee performance at New York's Village Vanguard, and while recording there, told the house, "Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life. You don't decide to be hip, it just happens that way." With our Boston Marquee performance by BMOP, the Celebrity Series skipped the trial and error and managed to find something authentically hip. "Hip" in the sense that the event was authentic and it mattered (don't ask me what that means exactly, the audience could feel it). The concert featured the world premiere of Evan Ziporyn's Celebrity Series commission, Hard Drive, the North American premiere of Steven Mackey's Dreamhouse, and Anthony DeRitis' collaboration with DJ Spooky, Devolution, so it was bound to be perceived by many as something that "mattered." In actual performance, not only was it supposed to matter, it did matter. More than a state of mind, it was a fact of life.

John Amodeo on Brian Stokes Mitchell

John Amodeo has posted his review of Brian Stokes Mitchell's May 11 performance on EDGEBoston.com.

Emanuel Ax on applause

"I really hope we can go back to the feeling that applause should be an emotional response to the music, rather than a regulated social duty."
                                                                     —Emanuel Ax

Life begins at 40,000

They say 40 is the new 20, but don't believe 'em (alright, 'twas I said it, but don't ruin the drape). This blog just enjoyed its 40,000th page view and you don't really want me to roll back my emotional clock 20,000 page views, do you? Besides, it would only make me insufferable:

"Ah, remember that 20,000th page view?" And with a wry shake of the head, "We were so young then, so very young..."

Ballet Hispanico founder Tina Ramirez takes The Proust Questionnaire

 
Tina Ramirez

Tina Ramirez, Artistic Director of Ballet Hispanico
takes The Proust Questionnaire (Celebrity Series Version)

What is your idea of perfect happiness? 
Solitude.  Also, no aches and pains in my body.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? 
Frustration.  When I am not getting work done.

What is your most marked characteristic?
I’m always on to the next thing.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Sincerity

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Truthfulness

What do you most value in your friends?
Loyalty

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My quick temper

What is your favorite occupation?
Dancing

What is your favorite journey? 
On the ocean

Who is your favorite hero/heroine of fiction?
Anna Karenina

What books are currently on your bedside table? 
Biography of Elia Kazan

Who are your favorite composers?
Bach, or whoever’s music my company is dancing to at that moment.

Who is your favorite performing artist? 
Gwen Verdon

What is it that you most dislike?
Bad taste

Which talent would you most like to have?
Painting

How would you like to die?
In bed

What is your motto?
Live and Let Live

Ballet Hispanico and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra come to Boston's Citi Shubert Theatre this Friday and Saturday May 18 & 19 for two performances of Palladium Nights.