We Get the Culture We Deserve

The situation at the OC Register for Tim Mangan is very frustrating. He has been given the People section, dramatically reducing his time to devote to classical coverage. He is one of our country’s finest music critics working in a county that has a rich supply of classical music performances, many very significant. I guess we should be grateful that he still has a job. What I don’t understand is where is the outrage from our music public? The same goes for Opera Pacific, R. I. P. During these crazy times, if we don’t come forward we could lose really big. Contributions are, of course, important. More important is participating, buying a ticket and attending, bringing others. As someone once said, "we get the culture we deserve."

Respecting Your Food

On our ever expanding list of must watch films is Temple Grandin. Saw it last night. Claire Danes is the title character who is autistic and becomes an influential pioneer in the development of more humane treatment of cattle in livestock farms and slaughter plants, certainly important for foodies who, or need to develop, respect for what they eat.. I was not only bowled over by Claire Danes' performance but also by the score by Alex Wurman. The music at first reminded me of Philip Glass but takes it own emotional turns, perfectly matching the dramatic development. The work of both Danes and Wurman are among the 14 Emmy nominations garnered by the film. The award ceremonies are on August 29. The DVD is now out or you can go to HBO on demand and see it. Wonderful film.

On the subject of confronting and respecting your food, I urge all to read Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter. It is the upbeat account of raising poultry, rabbits, pigs and bees in the middle of a rundown neighborhood in Oakland. It is hilarious, brilliant and especially poignant.

Life goes on somehow

As a new season is soon to be upon us, I am reflecting on this year 2010 and remembering the great personalities that have left us, people that meant a great deal to me and the music world in general.

Ernest Fleischmann died in June. He was one of the true giants of our classical music business. He has been eulogized by some of the best music chroniclers of our time. When I first came to Orange County, I received an angry phone call from him threatening to sue the Philharmonic Society if we persisted in using that name in L.A. Times advertising because it confused his LA Philharmonic patrons. We had recently changed our name from the Orange County Philharmonic Society to the Philharmonic Society of Orange County (Philharmonic Society for short). I responded saying that being sued by the LA Philharmonic over this would be the greatest piece of publicity imaginable for us. No matter how high the attorney fees, they would never surpass that amount we would have to pay a public relations firm to achieve the same amount of notoriety. He laughed and we became fast friends from that time forward.

Music critic Alan Rich was a one of a kind. When we would occasionally stick our neck out, he was there for us. Sometimes, he stood alone with us. He was a passionate writer, not always happy with what he heard in the concert hall.

A number of years ago, Mitch Miller and I had a huge squabble over the number of pops concerts he was to conduct the Rochester Philharmonic for which I was president. He was about to turn 80 at the time, and I was looking to the future at a time when I thought he might be ending his career. What a miscalculation! He just passed away, a year short of his 100^th birthday.

I was very saddened to learn of the death of Joan Murray in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was president of the Symphony and Opera Association when I was in my first stint there as an executive director. Joan was absolutely the most committed volunteer that I have yet to encounter. She was involved in everything and taught me a great deal from our hundreds of conversations.

Life goes on somehow. The music will never stop as long as we can all pick up the fallen harnesses left by these magnificent people and trudge onward. They did the same for us.

Opening Night of the BBC Proms

To wrap up our summer Philharmonic Society festival trip, we finished in London with a couple of plays – Warhorse and Pricilla, Queen of the Desert - and the opening night of the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall with a performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Here is a clip of that performance:

Youtube has disabled the embedding for this second video I want to share with you, so here is a link to another clip of the 2006 Proms final night conducted by my old friend Sir Mark Elder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ0oCmDXrVk

Food in London is great. Try St. John, J. Sheekey (the best seafood) and Just St. James (in early summer you have to have the Jersey gold potatoes and you will find Nutbourne Wine here).

Glyndebourne, East Sussex, England

Glyndebourne is the ultimate opera theme park. You are in beautiful East Sussex, 50 miles south of London, in countryside with fields of sheep, herds of deer, rolling downs and the occasional fox. Glyndebourne has superb productions in wonderful acoustics, dining at the long interval either in one of the restaurants or at a meadow picnic, and people- watching the fascinating, British opera goers, all right out of Central Casting. Weather permitting (which it did for us), the effect is a life experience. Here is our group of Philharmonic folks in one of our better pictures taken by our driver Graham, who is the best, by the way.

The vocal discovery of this trip to Glyndebourne – the Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee. His Macduff moment in Verdi’s Macbeth was stunning. He has a big voice and a passionate presence on stage. I missed him at the Bowl in Dudamel’s Carmen first of August. Reports from that performance echo my Glyndebourne experience. Check him out and keep him on the radar.

Look for and drink Nutbourne Wine while you are in Sussex.

Soprano Véronique Gens

Our Aix group also enjoyed a performance of Gluck’s Alceste conducted by our friend Ivor Bolton who has brought his Mozarteum Orchestra to us a couple of times. Soprano Véronique Gens was Alceste. What a gorgeous sound and superb acting! Here is sample of her remarkable voice as she sings Fauré’s beautiful Après en rêve (After a Dream). This was my first time to hear her live. Do you know of her voice?

Le Rossignol

Saw two amazing performances. The first was an evening of Stravinsky’s music staged by the genius Robert Lepage called "Le Rossignol e autre fables" (The Nightingale and other tales). LePage used finger puppets, mimes and even put the orchestra on the stage and flooded the orchestra pit where the action took place. Here is a video of Le Rossignol production we saw (click on the 3rd diamond in the time bar). Gorgeous music. Very unusual staging, reminiscent of Vietnamese water puppets. Please enjoy.

CONTEST: NAME DEAN'S BLOG!

At the beginning of August, the Philharmonic Society started the contest below to name my blog. The deadline is August 31 and the winner will get two tickets to the performance at of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Renée and Henry Concert Hall on March 3, 2011. Good luck. Let us hear from you!!

CONTEST: NAME DEAN'S BLOG!
We need your help to name Dean's blog! Can you come up with something fun and original that has "Dean" stamped all over it? Send us your ideas! Winner will receive one pair of tickets to the Vienna Philharmonic performance at the Renée & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall on Thursday, March 3, 2011, 8pm.

Submit all entries via e-mail to contactus@philharmonicsociety.org with "Name Dean's Blog" as the subject line. You can list up to 3 ideas for Dean's blog name. Don't forget to include your name, e-mail address, and phone number.

One entry per person. Multiple entries will be disqualified. Should more than one person come up with the same blog name, credit will go to the first person who submitted it. Contest will run until August 31st. Happy brainstorming!

Please enjoy,
Dean Corey

Cooking class at La Villa des Chefs

While in Aix, our group took a cooking class at La Villa des Chefs given by one star Michelin chef René Berger. It was a blast.


Among other wonderful ingredients, we used Limousin beef. This is an animal native to France from around the Limoges region. The breed is 20,000 years old and is portrayed in a number of prehistoric cave paintings. We have eaten it in Paris at Le Severo, the place for steak frites. We pan seared filets at our cooking class. The flavor was amazing because the filet was marbled with some fat, unlike the normally tender but blah tasting filets we get here. Look at the marbling on one of pieces before we put it on heat. Beautiful to behold!

We washed it down with some wonderful local red wine. Domaine Richeaume is a red produced just outside Aix, a very tasty blend of Cabaret Sauvigon and Syrah – rich, intense and deeply fun. The beef and wine you can find the United States if you put in an enormous effort. It is easier to go to Aix. Please enjoy.

Keeping your cool in Aix-en-Provence

We just came back from a festival trip in Europe with some of our Philharmonic Society patrons, something we try to do every summer. The festival in Aix-en-Provence is very cool. The town is fun. Hanging out in anyone of the cafes along the Cours Mirabeau is the thing. Sipping wine, sampling the local cuisine is what you do along with people watching. Jessica Alba walked into our restaurant. It’s hot. Very hot. For that matter, she’s hot. Here is a shot of a shady street which is highly recommended if it is going in your direction.

You can easily pick out the tourists. They are walking on the sunny side of the street, and dying. The locals of course stick to the shady side. It pays to be observant. Do avoid heat stroke. Please enjoy the shade in the OC this summer should it ever get hot again.

If music be the food of love...

I have started a blog. This is my first entry. I going to write about one of the things I like to do best which is to experience new pieces of music, performers, food and wine. Discovering new musical talent is a big part of my job. The music and the food come along with the territory. I am rather obsessive about it all and I hope that you will join in.

As a young orchestra musician I was encountering a lot of new stuff. Foods and wines that I would never normally encounter were suddenly made available at post-performance receptions in some pretty amazing homes. I was playing horn with the Mostly Mozart Orchestra in New York. At my very first rehearsal, the piano soloist was amazing. I asked a colleague who he was. "Alfred Brendel" was the reply. "Never heard of him." That, however, sent me on a journey of discovery that I am still on. And I would like to share it with you. Next time, music, food and wine in Provence, Glyndebourne and London.