Excerpted from Strings magazine, May 2004 , No. 119.

London Calling

Two of London's biggest venues are to get major overhauls this year. Wigmore Hall, the city's chamber-music jewel box, will close its doors from June through September for a $5.2 million renovation. The legendary acoustics won't be touched, but the uncomfortable seats, leaky roof, and unreliable lighting will be improved. While "the Wig" is usually closed every August, keeping it shut tight for four months will be rough on London's music lovers.

The Barbican Centre, which had its main theater tinkered with a few years ago, will have its lobbies and entrances revamped in a $21.4 million, three-year project. Located at the heart of an enormous, concrete-covered housing-and-office complex, the Centre can be famously difficult for visitors to find, so new signage and lighting can only improve matters.

One of the resident orchestras at the Barbican Centre is the London Symphony Orchestra, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Planned concerts will mark the symphony's connections with various composers, conductors, and musicians. Highlights include concerts to mark conductor Bernard Haitink's 75th birthday (June 13–17); a Leonard Bernstein tribute conducted by Bernstein protégée Marin Alsop, shown at left, (July 11); and two performances of the Beethoven Violin Concerto by Russian virtuoso Maxim Vengerov (September 29 and 30).

There's also a star-studded gala planned for June 9, 100 years to the day that the London Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert, conducted by Hans Richter at the now-defunct Queen's Hall. A book about the LSO (Orchestra: A Century of Triumph and Turbulence by Richard Morrison) was released in December.

—Inge Kjemtrup

Science Project

It's only fitting that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has named Laurie Anderson as the space agency's first artist-in-residence. After all, the New York-based violinist and performance artist uses hi-tech gear in her lavish multimedia shows, and her 1982 breakthrough album—an art-rock masterwork—was entitled Big Science. In recent months, Anderson—who a NASA spokesman describes as still being in her "research phase"—has toured several of the agency's facilities while gathering inspiration. Those sites include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (home of the Mars Rover Project), the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, where she received a crash course on nanotechnology. Anderson will create a public work based on her space-based science project later this year, but she's already shared a few thoughts about the experience with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "I just love thinking about vast amounts of time and space, and I like realizing how infinitely tiny we are, our whole species," she told ABC radio host Fenella Kernebone. "This is nothing, we are nothing, and yet in a funny, perverted sort of way it gives me a lot of hope and interest in being alive and being a human being. It doesn't depress me to think that I'm a bug."

—Greg Cahill

The Silence was Deafening

Except for a beeping watch in the opening bars and some rather forced coughing during the section breaks—was the audience weaned on the Rocky Horror Picture Show?—listeners who stumbled onto the BBC's live broadcast of John Cage's 4'33 heard, well, nothing. The critics, for the most part, greeted Cage's once-shocking musical koan (four minutes and 33 seconds of silence) with a collective yawn, although one said he lost respect for conductor Lawrence Foster when he "theatrically mopped the sweat from his brow" after the first section—an action only television viewers could later appreciate. Perhaps the critics didn't grasp the technical difficulties the BBC faced in broadcasting the event—for instance, Radio 3 had to turn off the emergency backup system it routinely uses to "fill" dead air. The wags, on the other hand, had a field day. One wondered who transcribed the piece for orchestra—it premiered after all for solo piano. Another was perplexed by Radio 3 controller Roger Wright's statement that the orchestra had rehearsed the piece with Foster. And, perhaps most appropriately, one newsgroup contributor's posting was simply blank. Is that Cage I hear laughing in the background?

—James Keough

Milan Museum Reopens

 

Visitors to Milan, capital of Italian fashion, art, and gastronomy, might be interested in taking a little trip back in time to visit Castello Sforzesco and imagine—with the help of the extraordinary art collections kept there, including the work of Leonardo da Vinci—the magnificence that marked the 15th-century rule of the Dukes of Sforza. The castle, which was named after Francesco Sforza, former duke of Milan, was built around 1450 and became a fortified palace around 1476. Today it houses the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali, a collection of about 700 rare musical instruments of various types including some unusual members of the violin family. The museum recently reopened after an extensive two-year restoration project. Natale Gallini, a music enthusiast, and his son, Franco, gathered many of these rare instruments over a period of 40 years from throughout Italy and Eastern Europe. The curator of instruments of the violin family is Claudio Amighetti, a teacher at the International School of Violin Making in Cremona. One of the more spectacular instruments is a 1662 viol by Giovanni Grancino (shown here), one of the few in the world to preserve the original Baroque neck. Other exhibits include violins by Rogeri and Andrea Guarneri, and a 17th-century pochette (pocket-sized violin) made by Antonio Cati. "The majority of our visitors are foreigners," says museum director Claudio Salsi. "But we are doing all our best to have the Milanese come and rediscover the collections held in Palazzo Sforzesco. We have set up an intense program of concerts, seminars, and conferences."

—Patricia Kaden

Cutting Edge

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) recently honored 19 chamber-music ensembles, festivals, and presenters for their adventurous programming during the 2003 concert season, at a ceremony held at Chamber Music America's annual conference in New York City. This is the 17th year for ASCAP's Adventurous Programming Awards. Among those honored with first-place awards were the Moab Music Festival (festival category), Boston Musica Viva (chamber ensemble in the self-presenting/new music ensembles category), and the Anchorage Concert Association (presenting organization with nine or fewer concerts).

Musical Chairs

The Juilliard School has announced the appointment of David Soyer to its 2004–2005 cello faculty. Soyer was raised in Philadelphia and studied with Diran Alexanian, Emanuel Feuermann, and Pablo Casals. Soyer also is on the faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and Boston University. . . . The Takács Quartet will be the new associate artists of the South Bank Centre in London during the 2005–2006 season. The ensemble replaces the Alban Berg Quartet, associates since 1987. The Alban Berg will remain at the center with the title Quartet Laureate.

Yale Competition

The Hugo Kauder Society will host its inaugural string-quartet competition (for ensembles with an average age of less than 35 years old) between June 18 and 20 at Yale University's School of Music in New Haven, Connecticut. The competition is presented in association with Yale University and the New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas. Three of America's foremost chamber-music authorities—Aldo Parisot, Joel Lester, and Stanley Ritchie—will be at the event to award the three prizes offered at the competition. The top prize is $10,000 and a public performance sponsored by the society.

Great Britten

The Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition will take place in London from July 24 through August 3, at Goodenough College and the Barbican Centre. To qualify, entrants must have been born on or after July 25, 1974. The competition offers a first prize of £15,000 together with a Naxos recording contract and an extensive international concert program. The final round of the competition will be held with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Barbican. Prize winners will perform August 3 at the Laureates Gala Concert with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. Applications for the competition are due by May 14. The competition handbook and application are available at www.britten-competition.co.uk/download.htm.

Roman Holiday

Robert McDuffie will preside over the first annual Rome Chamber Music Festival at Villa Aurelia in Italy. The inaugural concerts at this international affair will be held June 15–24. Among those on hand will be violinists McDuffie, Yoon Kwon, and Nicholas Mann, violists Lawrence Dutton and Hsin-Yun Huang, and cellists Mario Brunello and Antonio Lysy.

Celtic Twist

Irish fiddler Kevin Burke (shown above) will host a weekend of master classes at the University of Portland in Portland, Oregon. Burke, recipient of the 2002 National Endowment for the Arts and National Heritage Fellowship, will instruct a dozen players at each of two sessions held May 28–31. There are two fellowship positions available offering free tuition, room, and board. The weekend will culminate with a concert by Burke and renowned bluegrass musician Tim O'Brien. For details, email Brongaene Griffin at brongaene@mt-nw.org.

Passings

Violin maker Ole Steffen Dahl, a native of Denmark, died on January 10 in Ohio. He was 84. As a teenager, Dahl apprenticed at the Emil Hjorth & Sons violin firm in Copenhagen to learn the fine art of stringed-instrument making and repair. After World War II, during which he served in the resistance movement, Dahl and his wife Diana settled in Chicago, where he began his long career working as a violin maker, first for Lyon & Healy and later for Kenneth Warren & Son. In 1967, he opened his own shop in Bloomington, Indiana. . . . Bassist Malachi Favors, a founding member of the influential avant-garde jazz band the Art Ensemble of Chicago, died of pancreatic cancer on January 30, at Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago. He is believed to have been 77 at the time of his death. He took up the bass at 15 and studied with hard-bop players Wilbur Ware and Paul Chambers before working with trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard and—later, in the Art Ensemble—Lester Bowie

 

News, from the US or abroad, is always welcome. Please mail to Greg Cahill, News & Notes, Strings, PO Box 767, San Anselmo, CA 94979; fax to (415) 485-0831; or email to greg@stringletter.com.

 


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