BEYOND BORDERS : Yo-Yo Ma tries his hand at the morin khuur.

The High Road

The Yo-Yo Ma juggernaut is moving under a full head of steam, with a whistle-stop world tour of the Silk Road Ensemble that travels this summer to the 36th annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival. "The Silk Road: Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust" is a new international exhibition that will bring to the festival 350 musicians, artisans (ranging from calligraphers to puppeteers), cooks, and storytellers from more than 20 countries. The exhibition will be held June 26–30 and July 3–7 on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Ma created the nonprofit Silk Road Project in 1998 to promote goodwill by spotlighting the living arts of people living along the loose-knit network of trails on the ancient trade routes between Central and East Asia and the Mediterranean region. Ma is touring with the ensemble, which is performing three world premieres and seven works especially commissioned by composers from various Silk Road nations, from Armenia to Uzbekistan. The ensemble recently released Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet (Sony Classical), a 12-track CD on which Ma plays not only cello but also Mongolian morin khuur (a two-string bowed fiddle). In conjunction with the tour, the University of Washington Press recently released Along the Silk Road, a 144-page book annotated by Ma and several distinguished contributors. More than a million visitors are expected to attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. For information about the Silk Road Project, visit www.silkroadproject.org.

Live from the Barbie

If you're one of those people who likes a bit of Wagner in the wee small hours, then recent developments across the pond will have you feeling like lord of the ring cycle. A brand-new digital broadcasting system has recently been installed at the Barbican Centre in London, one of the U.K.'s premier arts venues and home to two of its foremost symphony orchestras, which is good news for U.S.-based classical musos. As the BBC has partly funded the project, it is now entitled to broadcast any of the Barbican's incredibly varied arts programs. And on January 20, it showcased its new technology with a selection of works by composer John Adams. The concert, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Adams himself, was broadcast live on the BBC Knowledge TV channel and simultaneously on BBC Radio 3, accessible worldwide at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.

"This places the arts in a central position in the electronic media," says Barbican managing director John Tusa. "I think everybody wants to make the experience of attending a concert and listening to music more available. I think this technology makes it possible."

While would-be Frasier Cranes previously had to endure jet lag and the miserable British weather to get their orchestral fix in the U.K., they now need only a computer, a modem, and a pair of headphones to transport themselves across the Atlantic. Other recent events worth logging on for have included Mstislav Rostropovich's 75th Birthday Gala Concert with the London Symphony Orchestra on March 27. On April 9 and 11, the Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin performed works by Mahler, and the BBC Young Musicians' Concerto Final will be broadcast on May 2. "It has always been our intention to take great classical music to the widest possible audience," says Clive Gillinson, LSO managing director. "And these new technological opportunities allow us to expand our horizons and present world-class concerts worldwide."

—Rufus Purdy

In Memoriam

Dorothy DeLay—the subject of Barbara Lourie Sand's book Teaching Genius: Dorothy DeLay and the Making of a Musician (Amadeus Press; 2000)—has died at age 84. The list of students who benefited from her considerable teaching skills reads like a Who's Who of the Violin, including Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Sarah Chang, Nigel Kennedy, and Gil Shaham, to name a few. DeLay began her teaching career in 1948 at Juilliard School of Music and was a respected instructor at the Aspen School. DeLay died March 24 at her home outside of New York City after a lengthy battle with cancer. In 1994, she received the National Medal of Arts. A memorial service was held in the spring.

Olympics of the Violin

A prestigious panel of jurors headed by violinist, violist, and conductor Jaime Laredo of Bolivia will preside over the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, a marathon 17-day event held September 6-22 at three Indianapolis-area concert halls. Other panelists include Cho-Liang Lin of Taiwan and the United States, Olivier Charlier of France, Herman Krebbers of the Netherlands, Malcolm Lowe of Canada, Tuomas Haapanen of Finland, Kyoko Takezawa of Japan, Dmitry Sitkovetsky of Azerbaijan, and Ida Kavafian of Turkey and the U.S. Contestants, vying for $250,000 in prizes, will test their interpretive skills on a new commissioned work by Richard Danielpour. The winner will perform a Carnegie Hall recital and record for the Naxos label. However, one of the most astonishing prizes is the loan of the 1683 ex-Gingold Stradivari violin and Tourte bow, made available to one of the laureates for the four years following the competition.

Sphinx Honors

Patrice Jackson, a 19-year-old cellist from New Haven, Connecticut, took top honors at the fifth annual Sphinx Competition, showcasing exceptional young black and Latino string players. The competition, held February 10 in Detroit, awarded more than $30,000 in prizes. Bryan Hernandez-Luch, a 24-year-old violinist from West Valley City, Utah, was the second-place winner, and Carl St. Jacques, a 21-year-old violist from Bloomington, Indiana, placed third. Gareth Johnson, a 16-year-old violinist from Wellington, Florida, took first place in the junior division.

The Tip on TMC

After 29 years, maestro Seiji Osawa will end his tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with a weekend of special concerts July 12-14 at the Tanglewood Music Center. The programs will feature Dvoràk's Cello Concerto with soloist Mstislav Rostropovich. Also marking a milestone at Tanglewood this season, conductor and composer John Williams (who turned 70 in February) will lead the Boston Pops Orchestra in a special "Film Night" on August 3 and will conduct the BSO the following night in a presentation of his new cello concerto, Heartwood, featuring Yo-Yo Ma. (The pair recorded the work earlier this year on the appropriately titled CD Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams.) Meanwhile, this year's Juilliard String Quartet seminar at TMC will include BSO principle violist Steven Ansell, cellists Bonnie Hampton and Norman Fischer, and violinist Andrew Jennings. The seminar will conclude July 2 and 3 in a marathon series of concerts.

Changing Partners

The Beaux Arts Trio has announced that British violinist Daniel Hope will replace Young Uck Kim for the remainder of the 2002 season. Kim is suffering from a neck injury.

Passings

The cello world lost an important artist and one of its most devoted and tireless servants with the death in late January of cellist and noted music scholar Dimitry Markevitch. Personally, I have lost a good friend who was always ready to help me with wise council, valuable suggestions, or an elusive piece of information. Born in Switzerland of Russian parents, Markevitch started cello at age six. He studied with Maurice Eisenberg at the École Normale in Paris and then at Tanglewood with Gregor Piatigorsky, who had first befriended and taught Markevitch at age seven. After playing in the New York Philharmonic for five years, Markevitch returned to Paris, teaching at the École Normale, directing the Conservatoire Rachmaninoff, and even managing a sewing-machine plant. The 1972 sale of his Stradivari cello financed his unfortunately short-lived Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland, where Markevitch continued to live, teach, and work until his death. During his lifetime, Markevitch found two lost Beethoven cello sonatas (a cello transcription of the Op. 3 string trio and Czerny's transcription of the "Kreutzer" sonata) and amassed one of the world's largest cello music libraries. He also wrote two books (Cello Story and The Solo Cello) and transcribed many works. But his most influential accomplishments concerned Bach's cello suites; Markevitch rediscovered the lost Kellner and "Westphal" manuscripts, initiating a tidal wave of critical editions of the suites. He used them to prepare his own 1964 edition and launched a trend by performing all six suites in Carnegie Hall.

Anger Management

Darol Anger is on a roll. The award-winning freestyle fiddler has several new projects in the works, leaving one to wonder where he finds the time to complete them all. In January, Anger started lining up players for Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster's next album, a big-name Nashville session for which Anger was serving as producer this spring. In February, he marked 23 years of collaboration with mandolinist and guitarist Mike Marshall (with whom he played in the David Grisman Quintet) with the release of the acoustic-concert CD At Home and on the Range (Compass). In March, the roots music super group Fiddlers 4—fiddlers Anger, Michael Doucet of Beausoleil, and Bruce Molsky, plus cello phenom Rushad Eggleston—released its much-anticipated eponymous debut disc on the Compass label, featuring tracks that range from Appalachian folk tunes to chamber music. (See our review on page 76.) Fiddlers 4 hit the road in April. In the midst of that flurry of activity, Anger also is performing concert dates (including stops at Merlefest and Wintergrass) with the Duo, Psychograss, the Rice/Anger/Marshall/Phillips Quartet, and the red-hot American Fiddle Ensemble (also known as Darol's "laboratory band"), featuring Eggleston, fiddler Brittany Haas, and flatpicking guitar virtuoso Scott Nygaard. That latter band blends folk, jazz, and classical styles into what Anger promises will be "a new frontier of American music." A new recording of piano and violin duets with Newgrange pianist Phillip Aaberg is due later this year and Anger's next jazz CD should be available in the fall. Add to that list youth concerts, clinics, and fiddle camp. Phew!

Learn more at www.darolanger.com.