Christoph von Dohnányi is slated to become music director laureate of the Cleveland Orchestra at the close of his tenure as music director in September 2002. He will be succeeded by Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst at the opening of the 2002–03 season. Dohnányi was named music director-designate of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1982 and took the post of music director in 1984.

Chamber Music magazine, published by Chamber Music America, announced that Publisher Leonard Levine stepped down from his post this past April. Founded in 1977, Chamber Music America supports the creation and performance of ensemble music around the country. Levine will continue his relationship with the magazine through his new marketing consulting practice.

The San Francisco Symphony is celebrating the appointment of its new concertmaster, Alexander Barantschik. Previously serving as concertmaster with both the London Symphony Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Barantschik will take his chair this fall. "For more than a decade it has been my great pleasure to make music with Sasha Barantschik," says conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. "I have found him to be an inspiring orchestra leader and a fantastic colleague, a musician who has truly distinguished himself in everything from the classic Romantic repertory to the most contemporary music."

The Minnesota Orchestra has named its next music director: Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä will begin a four-year tenure beginning in 2003. Current music director Eiji Oue will end his term at the close of this season. Before Vänskä steps in, a succession of guest conductors will lead the orchestra for a year-long centennial celebration.

Formed in 1964, the Guarneri String Quartet has long been the only extant quartet with all its original members. Now, however, the players (Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, violinists, Michael Tree, violist, David Soyer, cellist) are facing their first personnel change in 37 years: Soyer, the oldest in the group, is retiring because traveling has become too strenuous for him. His replacement is protégé and former student Peter Wiley. On May 9, 2001, to mark Soyer’s last East-Coast appearance with the group (Wiley had already taken over in more far-flung performances), the quartet gave a concert at Carnegie Hall that featured one of its staples, Beethoven’s Quartet, Op. 130, and Schubert’s Cello Quintet with Wiley as second cellist. It was a moving occasion, a gracious way to bid farewell to the outgoing player and welcome the new one, and the capacity audience responded with an outpouring of enthusiasm and affection.

"This is a very exciting and emotional time for us," Steinhardt now says of the change. "We’ve often performed with other people, but we’ve had a rule never to play string quartets with anyone else, so to sit down with another cellist is a little like defying a Biblical commandment." "Many people felt that we have no right to a change of personnel," says Tree, "and seemed quite shocked, almost as if a marriage they’d considered perfect were breaking up. But in our case, there was no unhappiness or dissatisfaction; it was only that the traveling got to be too much for David."

"He gave us his blessing to go on with another cellist," adds Steinhardt, "and Peter, David’s own student, was the logical choice. He went to Curtis and Marlboro, like us; we love and admire his playing and have worked with him many times. And we’ve known him since he was a boy. I remember him coming backstage when he was only 11; we became his heroes and then his mentors." Tree continues, "At first, he was reluctant to accept our invitation; he has great admiration for his teacher and felt sincerely that it would be difficult to fill his shoes."

"Peter is a wonderful cellist," says Steinhardt, "but you never know what the quartet will sound like with a new member. Now, after a great many rehearsals and about 25 concerts, we are delighted; it’s been a great pleasure. Of course, his playing and ideas are not the same as David’s, so we are forced to re-examine and change many of our assumptions—sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. The quartet will certainly be different."

A Golden Anniversary Tour for Mehta, Isreal

Fifty years ago this August Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic performed their first U.S. tour. In celebration of the anniversary, the ensemble will perform throughout the U.S. in late August. Mehta and the 110-member group will begin their tour at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, on August 22 and will continue on to Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia (August 23), then to the closing of the Tanglewood Music Festival (August 25–26), and finally to the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia (August 27).

Composer Brent Michael Davids, the Miró String Quartet, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival have embarked upon a unique musical quest. The trio has organized the Native American Composer Apprentice Program (NACAP), an organization designed by Davids along with GCMF Artistic Director Clare Hoffman and the Miró String Quartet, to nurture the musical talents of Native American students in northern Arizona’s Hopi and Navajo reservations. NACAP hopes to prepare students for music study at the college and conservatory levels, offer students a way to learn about professional careers in music, and bridge European-American and Native-American cultures.

This spring the three groups began working one-on-one with student composers. Davids and the Miró offered private lessons to students who began their own compositions for string quartet. In June, draft copies of the compositions were sent to the Miró, who provided recommendations and critiques. This September the student composers will travel with their final drafts to the Grand Canyon Music Festival to watch rehearsals for the festival’s week of concerts. Afterward the students will continue on to tour nine Navajo and Hopi reservations to perform the compositions.

An additional exciting aspect of the festival this year will be Davids’ composition The Last of James Fenimore Cooper, performed by the Miró String Quartet. The composition plays upon Davids’ own background as a Mohican. "After hearing jokes such as, ‘Oh, are you the second-to-the-last of the Mohicans?’ and variations ad nauseam, I decided to compose my own story, ‘The Last of James Fenimore Cooper,’" says Davids. The piece combines music with a story in which Cooper is transformed and forgiven for his representation of the Mohicans. The piece was commissioned for the Miró String Quartet by the Caramoor International Music Festival and is published by Blue Butterfly Group (see www.brentmichaeldavids.com for details).

The National Music Foundation is planning its fourth annual presentation of cash grants to teachers who focus on American music. The grants are awarded through the Foundation’s American Music Education Initiative (AMEI) and are open to teachers working with grades K–12. "We encourage any teacher who’s interested in American music to review our on-line database. There are 94 award-winning lesson plans dealing with popular music, classical music, jazz, blues, fiddle tunes, and everything in between," says Gloria Pennington, president and CEO of the National Music Foundation. Finalists will receive grants of $1,000; $500 will go to semifinalists. Applications and guidelines are available at www.usamusic.org or by calling (800) USA-MUSIC. Completed applications must be received by September 14, 2001, to be considered.

American Award Winners

The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced its 2001 Music Award Winners at its annual May ceremony. Chosen by committee members Jack Beeson (chairman), Leslie Bassett, Andrew Imbrie, George Perle, and Ned Rorem, the composers Gerald Plain, Allen Shawn, Bright Sheng, and Augusta Read Thomas each received $7,500 to apply toward the recording of one work. Three Charles Ives Fellowships, of $15,000 each, were awarded to three composers in midcareer: Sally Lamb, Russell Platt, and Erik Santos. Charles Ives Scholarships, $7,500 given to composition students of great promise, were handed to James Barry, Michael Djupstrom, Gabriela Frank, Huber Ho, Jonathan Newman, and Tom Swafford.

Canadian cellist Denise Djokic recently won the Russian-American Music Association Competition in Boston. Djokic, 22, was chosen out of 90 other participants. Along with four other finalists, she performed at Carnegie Hall as well as at the Gnesins Music Academy in Moscow. Djokic is also the winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Music Instrument Bank (in conjunction with an anonymous donor). As a result, for the next three years she will borrow the 1696 "Bonjour" Stradivari cello, valued at nearly four million dollars.

News From England

The UK’s Classical Brit Awards, held this past June, saw many surprises. A former factory worker, Russel Watson, won Album of the Year and Best Selling Classical Debut (the young tenor was discovered singing Nessun Dorma at a men’s club). Conductor Sir Simon Rattle also took several awards. Rattle’s recording of Mahler’s 10th Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic, won the Critic’s Award and the Orchestral Album of the Year, and Rattle was also honored with an award for his Outstanding Contribution to music. Nominees for the Critics’ Award also included Lynn Harrell, who was nominated for his CD of duos with Kennedy.

FINCKEL AT 20:
The multitalented musician
and composer died this spring.

Edwin Finckel, composer, jazz pianist, conductor, music teacher, and father of famed cellist David Finckel, died at the age of 83 this May in Madison, Wisconsin. Finckel wrote music for such performers as Gene Krupa, Sam Donahue, Les Brown, and Buddy Rich. Spanning a wide array of musical styles, Finckel also composed more than 200 orchestral works, ballets, concertos, and vocal pieces in addition to works for stage and screen. David Finckel’s recordings of his father’s selected works, on the ArtistLed label, include "Songs of Spring" (taken from the Spring Suite for chamber ensemble and narrator) and a suite for cello and piano, Of Human Kindness.

Barbara Krakauer, a violinist and teacher in New York, recently lost her battle with breast cancer. She died in Manhattan this past May at the age of 69. Krakauer was born in Brooklyn and studied with a variety of teachers including William Jones (Third Street Music School) and Ivan Galamian (Juilliard School). She began teaching in 1977 at a series of summer master classes headed by Zino Francescatti. Primarily a teacher, Krakauer also performed periodically with the Alaria Chamber Ensemble and other musical groups. In 1988, at the age of 57, she had her New York debut, a recital of 20th-century music.

Violinist and violist Mitchell Stern passed away on April 9 in New Jersey from complications following surgery for an aneurysm. He was 45 years old. Stern studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and worked under the tutelage of such distinguished teachers as Dorothy DeLay, Ivan Galamian, Arnold Steinhardt, Charles Castleman, and Margaret Randall. He went on to become a teacher himself at the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School. Stern was first violinist in the American String Quartet from 1980 until 1990, performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and was concertmaster of the American Symphony Orchestra from 1991 until 1994.