Kronos Quartet

The Kronos Quartet has played a significant role in the Philharmonic Society’s pursuit of new work. They have been with us countless times, including performances of Alfred Schnittke’s beautiful piano quintet with the composer’s widow Irina as pianist, Ghost Opera by Tan Dun, Terry Riley’s Sun Rings and the West Coast premiere of Henryk Górecki’s Third String Quartet.

In 1999, Kronos performed Steve Reich’s Different Trains. Later that spring, we presented the West Coast premiere of Reich’s The Cave. This was quite a production with five video screens, 18 laser disk players, instrumentalists and singers performing live to precisely prepared video that perfectly fit the music (or the other way around?). Steve Reich is certainly one of, if not the most, important living American composers. We are honored to be a small part of his world. He was a pioneer of so-called minimalist music. I love his take on it:

"The point is, if you went to Paris and dug up Debussy and said, 'Excusez-moi Monsieur…are you an impressionist?' he'd probably say 'Merde!' and go back to sleep. That is a legitimate concern of musicologists, music historians, and journalists, and it's a convenient way of referring to me, Riley, Glass, La Monte Young [...] it's become the dominant style. But, anybody who's interested in French Impressionism is interested in how different Debussy and Ravel and Satie are—and ditto for what's called minimalism. [...] Basically, those kinds of words are taken from painting and sculpture, and applied to musicians who composed at the same period as that painting and sculpture was made [...]. "

Reich’s work is often poignantly moving and about our own time. The Cave explores the thread of Abraham, linking Israelis, Palestinians and Americans. Different Trains references different train whistles and track sounds – some from the composer’s childhood as he traveled coast to coast and others that were used to transport contemporaneous European children to their deaths under Nazi rule. Recently performed at the Ojai Festival, his Daniel Variations of 2006 uses text from the biblical book of Daniel and from the words of Daniel Pearl, the American-Jewish reporter, kidnapped and murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan in 2002. A new work for our concert, WTC 9/11 is from the same sensibility. Serious stuff. WTC 9/11 is made possible by a commissioning consortium of which we are a part made possible by a generous gift from Don and Karen Evarts. We are also grateful to Elizabeth and Henry Segerstrom for their sponsorship of this performance.

Ukuleles have gone viral

During the early days of my music career, I was a buyer for a chain of music stores in Texas called Brook Mays Music Company. I bought reeds, mouthpieces, guitar strings, band instruments, metronomes, every instrument imaginable and banjos. Yes, banjos. Everyone had to have one. The movie Deliverance was in the theaters, and the public went wild for the dueling banjos. I never caught the fever. There was a New Yorker cartoon of the time depicting a rehearsal hall with a terraced orchestra of banjoists along with a tuxedoed conductor standing next to devil. The caption read, “This is your room, maestro.”

Steve Martin plays the banjo—very well, I hear. I think he is very funny but I am not following his banjo career. I was pretty much the same with anything about the ukulele. In my early life I have had several dogs with fleas but only one out-of-tune ukulele. The names Don Ho and Arthur Godfrey never screamed “PARTY!” to me. I would have liked to have known Tiny Tim if only to get closer to Miss Vicky. George Harrison had a go at the instrument.

Then, along comes Jake.

The Phenomenon.

The New Yorker says, “Jake Shimabukuro is revolutionizing the perception of the ukulele. [You'll hear] the Hawaii native's lightning-fast fingers and revolutionary playing techniques and get a preview of his… album Peace Love Ukulele (Hitchhike Records, January 4th, 2011). …join gigantic festival audiences all over the world and millions of viewers on YouTube in enjoying the rock, blues, funk, classical, bluegrass, folk, flamenco, and jazz he plays—with just four strings and two octaves to work with.”

Ukuleles have gone viral.

Japanese Sacred Court Music

Gagaku, Japanese for 'elegant music', is the oldest classical music in Japan. Introduced into Japan along with Buddhism from Korea in the 6th century, gagaku can also accompany classical dance performances called bugaku. Gagaku musicians belonged to special guilds who were not allowed to perform this music for the general public. We are grateful to curator Barbara Ruch, director of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University, for making our performance of Japanese Sacred Court Music possible for our JapanOC festival, as well as South Coast Plaza for its generous sponsorship.

Philharmonic of Poland

The history of the Opole, Philharmonic of Poland can be traced back to the years immediately following World War II. One of Poland’s leading orchestras, the Philharmonic of Poland was founded in 1947 and became the resident orchestra of Opole. In 1952, a major performing arts center was built in the city of Opole as a permanent home for the orchestra. In June of 1969, the orchestra was awarded the State Award for Arts Excellence by the Ministry of Culture of Poland in honor of the great Polish Composer Jósef Elsner.

Their program for us is drawn from the heart of the romantic orchestral repertoire. My favorite Brahms symphony, the third, has the lovely horn solo in the slow movement, one that I have played many times. I still get sweaty palms when that passage begins. It is still a Liszt year. The E-flat Concerto is one of his most often performed works. For those of you who are not familiar with the piece, it is often called “The Triangle Concerto” for reasons that will become obvious. Richard Strauss’ Don Juan closes the concert, another barn burner for the horn section.

Midori = 'Green'

Midori is, of course, the name of one of our most cherished violinists and also the Japanese word for green. In this spirit, I found a passage in her website that demonstrates that she is a “green” violinist as well. She writes:

"My violin is very sensitive to weather and dryness in the air, so I've found that hanging just-washed wet towels is a handy trick to add moisture to the air instead of running the humidifier, plus it avoids the energy use of a clothes-dryer. To save energy, I power down my computer every night, as even keeping it in “sleep” or “idle” mode wastes electricity. I have a pact with myself to turn off the lights every time I exit the dressing room in the concert halls. I hope that soon we will see a serviceable solar-powered metronome, much like the solar-powered calculator which has now become the standard."

This is an important message for all of you violinists out there who would like to be greener. Midori is a great musician, teacher and creative programmer as well.

Dudamel and a Cause to Celebrate

El Dude has arrived with an extremely eclectic LA Phil program which will be followed by our annual gala (which we are not calling a gala). It is “Celebration Gustavo!” chaired by Marsha Anderson. Thanks, Marsha! Thanks also to Deborah Borda, President and CEO of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, and Elizabeth Segerstrom for being our honorary chairs.

All would appear well, despite the doom and gloom that pervades the media with dour reports of declining attendance, funding and recording sales. All of this may be true, but it seems like there is always a battle going on. I love Charles Rosen’s take on it. He says, “The death of classical music is perhaps classical music’s oldest tradition.” It has never been easy but it is always worth it. When we can bring together such superior talent, generous supporters and ardent audiences, it is a cause to celebrate. Thank you, one and all.

Vienna Philharmonic

The Vienna Philharmonic has been a fun project. This is their third visit to Orange County and the first to the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. They will be making debuts in Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Palm Desert and San Diego. We put the tour together so we could have a performance here. When we found out a few years ago that they had a tour cancel during this time period, we jumped on it. We are most appreciative of our marvelous colleagues Matias Tarnopolsky at UC Berkeley “Cal Performances,” Celesta Billeci at UC Santa Barbara “Arts and Lectures,” Sandy Lewis at Palm Springs Friends of Philharmonic, and Christopher Beach at La Jolla Music Society, as well as Dieter Flury and Clemens Hellsberg from the Vienna Philharmonic. Collaboration is a great thing. Semyon Bychkov and the Vienna Philharmonic will perform in Orange County two weeks from today on Thursday, March 3rd.