Celebrity Series of Boston Blog

Yogi Berra, meet Eugene Ormandy

In his autobiography, Perfect Pitch, Nicolas Slonimsky passes along this compendium of conductor Eugene Ormandy's mangled syntax and meaning collected from rehearsals of the Philadelphia Orchestra by an orchestra member. I mean no disrespect to the great conductor, it simply wouldn't be as funny if it were someone of lesser stature:

"[Ormandy] spoke English with considerable mobility, but for some reason lapsed at rehearsals into a lingua franca - sans syntax, sans grammar, sans sense. A disloyal member of the Philadelphia orchestra collected a priceless anthology of Ormandian sayings:

'It is not together, but the ensemble is perfect.'

'Suddenly I was in the right tempo, but it wasn't.'

'This is one bar you should take home.'

'There is a number missing, I can see it.'

'Please follow me because I have to follow him and he isn't here.'

'I need one more bass less.'

'I don't want to confuse you more than absolutely necessary.'

'We can't hear to balance it yet because the soloist is still on the aeroplane.'

'Something went wrong. It was correct when I studied it.'

'Who is sitting in that empty chair?'

'He is a wonderful man, and so is his wife.'

'I told him he would have a heart attack a year ago but unfortunately he lived a year longer.'

'It's difficult to remember if the notes are right, but if I listened they would be wrong.'

'The moment you slow down you are behind.'

'The tempo remains pianissimo.'

'The soloist was so sick he almost died for three days.'

'I don't mean to make you nervous, but unfortunately I have to.'

'Even when you are not playing you are holding me back.'

'If you don't have it in your part leave it out because there is enough missing already.'

'Thank you for your cooperation, and vice versa.'

On another Slonimsky note, check out the images of signatures from his guestbook here.

Yo-Yo live on WGBH radio

Hear Yo-Yo Ma perform amidst pastoral splendor at Tanglewood
(you'll be listening from wherever it is you hang out)

First ballot cello hall of famer, Yo-Yo Ma, performs with the Tanglewood Center Orchestra and conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto (son of renowned cellist and MIT-grad Miguel Prieto) at 2pm this Sunday, August 3. If you are among those of us who aren't going to be in Lenox this weekend you can listen on WGBH 89.7 FM or online at wgbh.org/classical.

Of course, Yo-Yo Ma will also be performing two separate, distinct, different, and really not at all the same programs on March 8 & 9 at Symphony Hall with The Silk Road Ensemble for the Celebrity Series of Boston. Check these shows out and more at www.celebrityseries.org.

Academy of St Martin personnel change for April 2

I have an item to announce that makes me decidedly ambivalent. Pianist and conductor (or conductor and pianist, if you prefer) Murray Perahia has had to cancel his appearances with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Those cancellations include our much anticipated April 2 concert at Symphony Hall.

That's the bad news (insert appropriate emoticon here). The good news is that the illustrious Sir Neville Marriner, the founder of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, will be on hand on April 2 to conduct. Sir Neville has never appeared on the Celebrity Series at the helm of the Academy of St Martin, though he did once conduct the Minnesota Symphony. Sir Neville will be bringing along with him an up and coming young pianist, Yuja Wang. Wang is a student of the illustrious pianist and educator, Gary Graffman, at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Here is a link to Wang's web site.

Read our press release on the change.

Take a Concertgebouw: Eichler on The Royal

Mariss Jansons in action

Jeremy Eichler was rather impressed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Maestro Mariss Jansons' concert on Friday evening:

"The subtlety of the group's multi-dimensional sound was first glimpsed in the Debussy. Despite some overall diffuseness of textures, daubs of color rose up from the strings. The woodwind blend was wonderfully distinctive, and the subtle horn sound wafted in from the back of the stage like an ocean breeze."

Read all of A Virtuoso Instrument from Amsterdam.

I hate to break it to those of you who weren't in attendance, but the only way one could not have been impressed by this concert is if the works on the program were not to your taste (and even then...). The Concertgebouw is a phenomenal orchestra that produced a multitude of truly fine musical moments.

Still, I couldn't help but be touched by a non-musical moment: Watching the a head-on shot of Jansons at the podium on a back stage monitor (why don't we always have that camera shot that back stage?) someone noticed a gentleman in the fourth row just over the Maestro's shoulder wearing a Teddy Bruschi jersey.

I hope they return soon...

Camerata Ireland changes March 7 program

Camerata Ireland and conductor Barry Douglas will be making their Boston debut on Friday, March 7 at Jordan Hall. They have made some changes to their program since it was announced. You can find the new program and other information here.

Concertgebouw: kids dig it...

Just found this bit from Brandon Shaw, a music student at Azusa Pacific University. He recently attended the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra concert in L.A. Here's a bit of Brandon's post:

"I went to Walt Disney Hall tonight and saw the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam. They played Strauss’ Don Juan and Mahler V. They were fantastic. It was an experience unlike any other form of entertainment out there today. I was not only entertained. I was enriched. There are people out there who still love classical music and see the beauty in it and can appreciate it, even in our simple-media focused culture. These people will continue to enjoy what is one of the most wonderful forms of art."

Read the rest of Brandon's post here.

For all you Brandons out there in the Boston area, Concertgebouw is yours to discover tomorrow at Symphony Hall. Yes, there will be student rush tickets. www.celebrityseries.org

"A symphony fantastique at Davies" - Concertgebouw conquers SF

Maestro Mariss Jansons

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Mariss Jansons are on the West Coast now, which is the opposite of how European orchestra's typically find their way to Boston. Today's San Francisco Chronicle features a review of the Amsterdam-based orchestra's two performance engagement at Davies Hall. Here's a bit of the understandably gushing praise:

"Davies Hall spilled over with orchestral light - limpid and diaphanous in the finely drawn textures of Debussy's evocation of the sea, sparkling brightly in a marvelous "Don Juan," blazing to fiery life in a terrifying "March to the Scaffold" and "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath" in the Berlioz. Warm amber light kept rising from the cellos. The woodwinds sent out strange, arresting pulses."

Read all of A symphony fantastique at Davies.

Mariss Jansons and The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra visit the Celebrity Series and Symphony Hall Friday evening at 8pm. Tickets are still available.

Barry Douglas on Penderecki

Barry Douglas

Pianist Barry Douglas played the world premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki's 2007 version of Resurrection (conducted by the composer) with the Cincinnati Symphony on December 7. A 2-segment video of Douglas's interview on WGUC in which the Douglas discusses a wide range of topics can be found here.

Barry Douglas makes his way to the Celebrity Series and Boston's Jordan Hall with Camerata Ireland on Friday, March 7.

Craig Smith, 1947-2007

Craig Smith

Craig Smith was the founder of Emmanuel Music and an artistic beacon in Boston; that is an inadequate summarization of one so devoted to music, and who touched so many lives. It is well beyond my rhetorical powers to do justice to his remarkable life and career. Others more skilled and more knowledgeable have undertaken that task, since Mr. Smith died on November 14. I have been assembling obituaries and remembrances as they have appeared.

The Celebrity Series had the privilege of presenting three performances in which Criag Smith took part. The first was as part of an evening of collaborative music-making by pianist Judith Gordon in January of 2001. Mr. Smith joined soprano Lisa Saffer, mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal, tenor William Hite, baritone Mark McSweeney and Gordon for Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes. A rather small part of a full evening, but it is testament to Mr. Smith on two counts, both that he was included and that he came.

The second was conducting the ensemble he founded, Emmanuel Music, in an all-Mozart program with pianist Russell Sherman at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in January 2002.

And in 2006, Mr. Smith conducted Emmanuel Music from the orchestra pit of the Wang Theatre for our engagement of the Mark Morris Dance Group in Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato (set to Handel's music). He also conducted the work's premiere at Theatre Royal de la Monnaie where he was Permanent Guest Conductor from 1988-91.

Boston Globe (Jeremy Eichler)

The New York Times (Allan Kozinn)

Emmanuel Music remembrance

The Boston Phoenix (Lloyd Schwartz)

Los Angeles Times (Mary Rourke)

New England Conservatory

Opera News online

The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross)

Blue Mass Group

Radio Open Source (includes Smith conversation with Christopher Lydon)

Soho the Dog (Matthew Guerrieri)

The Hub Review (Thomas Garvey)

UPDATE: Composer John Harbison will become acting artistic director of Emmanuel Music. A brief announcement in a Boston Globe column can be found here.

A few recollections of our Berlin Philharmonic concert

There were many superlative musical moments at the Berlin Philharmonic's Celebrity Series concert on November 19. Here are just a couple of moments that caught my attention:

One that will remain with me is the beatific expression on Ben Heppner's face as he listened (and occasionally mouthed the words) to Thomas Quasthoff singing Der Abschied, the sixth and final song in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. Heppner appeared to be as moved as the audience (and why not? it was moving stuff) by the performance. Heppner, of course, sang beautifully himself; and being no fool, he chose to thoroughly enjoy the confluence of Philharmonic, Rattle and Quasthoff.

Following the completion of the Mahler - after which there was, rightly, no encore - before going back on stage for yet another series of bows, Sir Simon Rattle turned to Quasthoff and in reference to Quasthoff's recent forays into jazz singing, suggested an encore, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered? I'll be bewildered if you don't mind."

Extra: I almost forgot how pleased and proud many of us on staff were of the prolonged, cough-free silence that followed the end of Das Lied von der Erde; not only because hacking, cell phone rings, talking, and even snoring are apparently a pandemic in concert halls these days, but because noise became an issue on this very tour. So the silent Celebrity Series audience conjured a mixture of feelings, from "Way to go, Boston!" to "Thank God I didn't cough!"