Celebrity Series of Boston Blog

Cheese or Corn?

You may have noticed a new name attached to the ol' Celebrity Series Blog of late. The Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers (of The Exhibitionist fame) was the first to call me on the blog's lack of a suitably literary moniker. I thought about it for awhile, then I stopped thinking about it and a name just presented itself (ok, lots of names presented themselves, but I succombed to reasonableness).

Aisle Be Seeing You. Hmm, I thought, it's in English, it has pun appeal, but what I can't decide is . . . whether the name Aisle Be Seeing You is cheesy or corny.

Any thoughts?

Gradimir Pankov: Changing Les Ballets

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal in Ohad Naharin's Minus One

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal artistic director, Gradimir Pankov, has been updating this venerable Canadian institution since he tooks the reins in 2000, hiring a bevy of new dancers and eschewing the company's older repertoire for newer works. The effect has been a revitalization of the company (not that previous directors did not make significant contributions, of course). Back in April, Laura Bleiberg of the Orange County Register previewed the Company's enagagement at the Irvine Barclay Theatre:

"Each successive artistic director put his or her stamp on the company. Its current director, Gradimir Pankov, certainly has done that. Instead of building on the repertory of the past, Pankov has tossed out much of it, adding works by young Europeans, such as Belgian Stijn Celis and Didy Veldman of Holland (whose ballets were featured in the fall 2006 engagement in Los Angeles)."

Pankov on his changes to the repertory:

"'If we want to bring the company to other dimensions, we have to renew the repertory to make the repertory unique and put the company in the position where the company cannot be compared to another one,' said Pankov, who was born in Macedonia in the former Yugoslavia."

Read all of A Different Dimension.

The 50 year-old Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal makes its Boston debut (!) March 28-30 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

WGBH gets a new piano and so much more

WGBH's new home

The new WGBH Educational Foundation complex in Brighton is impressive in scale, scope, detail, color, and location...in almost every way one can imagine (Does it sound like someone got a tour?). Right down to the cafeteria(s). Right down to the new radio studio(s). Right down to that radio sudio's new piano...

Read the story of WGBH's new Hamburg Steinway piano on The Collaborative Piano Blog.

See the photos of its arrival the new studios on flikr.

It's amazing, all right. But it's no less than the home WGBH deserves.

Jeremy Denk's Mad Libs Classical Concert Review

Some funny people are fine musicians. Some fine musicians are also funny. I don't know which best describes pianist/blogger/funny guy Jeremy Denk (Rob Kapilow's What Makes It Great? May 10), but his Mad Libs Classical Concert Review post is, as they say here in New England, wicked funny.

And Denk's post is already inspiring other humorists, such as M.C. of The Standing Room.

El Scream.

Going up to Harlem to Learn from James P. Johnson

Garrison Keillor reviewed Wilfred Sheed's new book on George Gershwin, The House That George Built, With a Little Help From Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty, for the July 22 New York Times Book Review. Keillor has praise for Sheed's prose, among other aspects of the book, but I was struck by Keillor's writing about music in his review. As you may have heard, Mr. Keillor has a way with words himself:

"George Gershwin is the main man, though Sheed traces the jazz song back to 1914 and Kern’s “They Didn’t Believe Me” (“And when I told them how beautiful you are, they didn’t believe me”), not some jiggly novelty tune but elegant, swingy, “a perfect loosey-goosey, syncopate-me-if-you-care, a relaxed and smiling American asterisk-jazz song.” Gershwin is the president of the fraternity, the all-American golden boy, hyperactive, booming with self-confidence, who went up to Harlem to learn from James P. Johnson and Willie (the Lion) Smith and whose ascent was swift (“no songwriter ever wasted less time reaching his prime”) and who, when he reached the top, was openhearted and went out of his way to praise and encourage his brethren."

Read Garrison Keillor's complete review.

Heather In The Wings

Charles Ives? Ned Rorem? William Bolcom, Chopin and Meredith Monk? saxophones? baseball? Where has In the Wings been all my blog reading life? Heather Heise writes about music in Oakland, California.

Yet another tip of the mouse to Terry Teachout.

Whatever Happened to Regional Critics?

Arts critic Terry Teachout (the honorable and venerable) had this to say in a recent, typically spot-on Wall Street Journal column (from July 7) about the future of arts criticism:

"To be sure, it's hard for medium-size regional newspapers to attract serious critics, but it can be done. Indeed, a well-edited regional paper is often the best possible place for an up-and-coming young critic to learn his trade. I got my start reviewing second-string classical concerts for the Kansas City Star 30 years ago. Now that such entry-level jobs are drying up, I fear for the future of arts journalism in America.

Any artist who's been side-swiped by a lame-brained critic will doubtless be tempted to cheer this news. Before such aggrieved folk break out the Dom Perignon, though, they should pay heed to the warning of Virgil Thomson, who dominated American music criticism in the '40s and '50s: 'Perhaps criticism is useless. Certainly it is often inefficient. But it is the only antidote we have to paid publicity.' If you think you can do without that antidote, more power to you -- but you'd better be prepared to buy a lot of ads."

Read all of Whatever Happened to Regional Critics?

You can also read much more of Terry's work at Terryteachout.com

Thanks to The Rest is Noise for the heads up.

Kiri Te Kanawa announces farewell recital program

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has filled us in on her October 14 Farewell Recital program with pianist Warren Jones. She will sing selections by Mozart, Richard Strauss, Duparc, Poulenc, Jake Heggie, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, and Puccini. Dame Kiri will take the Symphony Hall stage at 5pm. The complete program can be found here.

One last time...

Radio Boston

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls . . . welcome WBUR's Radio Boston.

Seán Curran gets a gig at the opera

Sean Curran rocks out at Dance Across the City in 2005

Choreographer Seán Curran isn't sitting at home on the sofa waiting for his Celebrity Series gig in October. Curran has been frying big fish. Specifically, a fish called choreographing the Sante Fe Opera production of Richard Strauss' Daphne. He gets a smidge of a mention in a review from The Santa Fe Reporter, "Seán Curran choreographs his dozen skillful dancers with appropriate Bacchic frenzy," but I'll bet there will be more talk about this bend in Curran's road.

Seán Curran brings his Seán Curran Company to the Tsai Performance Center October 26-28, an engagement that will include the world premiere of Curran's Social Discourse.