SFRV Concerts This Week

San Francisco Renaissance Voices' last concert of the 2009-10 season is this weekend and next. Called The Armed Woman, it features works by Isabella Leonarda (1620-1677), Maddelena Casulana (1544-1590), Francesca Caccini (1587-1640), Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729),Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), and others.

Dates, times and locations:

July 31 - 7:30 pm
Seventh Avenue Performances, 1329 - 7th Avenue, San Francisco

August 1 - 4:00 pm
First Presbyterian Church of Alameda, 2001 Santa Clara, Alameda

August 8 - 4:00 pm
All Saints' Episcopal Church, 555 Waverley, Palo Alto

Tickets are $15-20; you can buy on line at Brown Paper Tickets (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/browse.html) or at the door.

A Clue about the SFO Werther Production

San Francisco Opera is holding an open-casting audition looking for three, that's three, supernumeraries who will double for Ramon Vargas, who is, of course, singing the title role. Here are some details, if you're thinking of trying out:

First, you need to be approximately 5' 10". Second, it's best if you understand that this is a non-singing, non-speaking, non-dancing volunteer role. Third, supers are governed by fairly strict rules.

You will be on stage in full makeup and costume, in front of thousands of people at each performance. That sounds like fun to me, but might not be for you.

So, we know that there's a concept of some kind that will involve multiple Werthers on stage. I've seen a few productions recently with a similar, ah, feature: Willy Decker's Die tote Stadt and Achim Freyer's Gotterdaemmerung. Whether Werther will benefit from this kind of treatment, well, we'll see.

For the rest of this posting, I quote directly from the press release.

The public casting call will take place on Monday, August 9 at 7:00 p.m. in the Ballet Studio of the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Requirements:

• Males with approximate height of 5 feet 10 inches tall (dark hair preferred, but not required)
• Must be 18 years of age or older
• Supers must have flexible schedules as planned rehearsals change frequently and often take place during regular business hours
• Supers must be able to commit to attending all dress rehearsals (from August 10—September 15; exact dates/times to be announced) and performances (September 15, 18, 22, 26, 28 and October 1)
• Acting or performing arts experience is preferred

To reserve a place in the casting schedule, members of the public interested in auditioning should call (415) 551-6205 and leave name and phone number, or send an email to supers@sfopera.com. Calls/emails will not be returned unless there is a change to the audition schedule. Super roles are limited and are cast at the discretion of the stage director.

San Francisco Renaissance Voices Music Camp!

SFRV has a new educational director (and of how many small choruses can that be said?), Irene Gallardo, and she is starting off with what sounds like a fantastic idea: Renaissance music camps for children. Yes, we will eventually have teens and young adults who grew up with some exposure to this wonderful repertory, for whom it's not exotic or strange!

Here's information directly from SFRV. The first camp is a one-day event next Saturday, so sign up your 7 to 11-year-old right away:

San Francisco Renaissance Voices is dedicated to helping develop the next generation of music lovers and musicians and is delighted to announce the development of our Music Camp for Young Lords & Ladies. Designed to introduce children ages 7-11 to the music of the Renaissance using a variety of entertaining, interactive activities this program will be led by Irene Gallardo, San Francisco Renaissance Voices' newly appointed Coordinator of Educational Programs.

A pilot of Music Camp for Young Lords & Ladies using the theme of "Scarborough Faire" (the largest European trading faire of the Middle Ages and Renaissance) will be held from 9 am until Noon on Saturday, August 7, 2010 at Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1329 Seventh Avenue in San Francisco (between Lincoln & Judah Streets). Participants in this pilot will attend for half-price of the regular Camp ($20) and will leave at the end of the Camp with all printed materials, the craft they have made and a recorder (type of flute).

Pre-registration is required and participation is limited. To request an application or for more information contact Ms. Gallardo at: SFRVEducation@yahoo.com or 415.664.2543 x3. Soprano Irene Gallardo has sung with San Francisco Renaissance Voices since the group began in 2004. Currently she also teaches general music and develops curriculum as Music Program Director and Supervisor for Rhythm & Moves, an independent company that provides music and physical education to private and public schools. She is a certified music teacher in the State of California and holds a BA in Music Education from Bethany College; making music education available to a broad range of communities is her personal passion.

San Francisco Classical Voice Music Teacher Listings

SFCV is starting a free music teacher listing service, expected to launch in October. Teachers can sign up here.

If you're looking for an instructor for your child, I'll throw in a few thoughts.

Every kid is different. No single instructor will be great for each child. Don't be afraid to audition a few teachers, to call them and ask questions, etc. If I were looking for a music teacher, I'll look for someone with a variety of experience with good references; I'd ask about whether the teacher puts together duet pairs or small ensembles; I'd want to observe a couple of lessons, if possible. I'd want a teacher who could work well with my particular child, in terms of both motivating and challenging the child, applying enough praise while making it clear where the child could do better.

Blogging to Resume Later Today

Back from a short vacation that had its moments but left a great deal to be desired: we spent way, way too much time in the car (most of four days out of a nine-day vacation) and for me that is the opposite of being on vacation. There were some fine moments anyway (Dog Beach in San Diego, the humpback whales and Minke whale in Monterey), but....

I will also be catching up on the many, many interesting comments on the last few postings.

Heather Mac Donald Makes the Same Mistake as Terry Teachout

Alex Ross quotes her on his blog: the audience "could not be more unequivocal" in rejecting new and modern music. Mac Donald, whose full article is here, fails to realize that the so-called classical music audience is highly segmented. The NYPO's subscription audience might flee when they see the names Stravinsky and Janacek on a program, but eager single-ticket buyers snapped up every last ticket to the recent performances of Le Grande Macabre. The audience is there, the programming, not always.

And keep in mind some numbers Alex published a few years back: in 1970, New York City had two (2) new music ensembles. Today it has 50.

Anthony Rolfe Johnson

I'm sorry to read this morning of the death of tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson, 69, of Alzheimer's disease. He never sang at San Francisco Opera and I never heard him live, but I've got some of his excellent recordings. Rest in peace.

The Next Other Minds Festival

A long heads-up: the next Other Minds Festival will be March 3-5, 2011, in San Francisco. Next year's featured composers are a fascinating group: Louis Andriessen (Netherlands), I Wayan Balawan (Indonesia), Han Bennink (Netherlands), Kyle Gann (USA), Janice Giteck (USA), David Jaffe (USA), Jason Moran (USA), and Agata Zubel (Poland). The Festival is at the SF Jewish Community Center; Festival passes are on sale now!

Another Performance Archive

Boston's venerable Handel & Haydn Society has an on-line archive of all of its performances, going back to December, 1815.

Wednesday Miscellany

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers is putting on a haiku contest, via Facebook; yes, I forwarded the press releases to Patrick already....in other violin news, Lara St. John, about whom I blogged long ago, and her brother Scott St. John, have a new recording of two Mozart Sinfonia Concertante, recorded with The Knights. Unfortunately, the press release doesn't include a URL for the recording, so I'm linking to her home page....

The Hot Air Music Festival presents Musical Textual: Where Music and Text Combine, on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 21 and 22, 7:30 p.m. both days, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. No link yet, but the program's tasty: Elliott Carter's song cycle A Mirror on Which to Dwell and a new fully-staged song cycle by Wolfgang Thompson and Matthew Cmiel. The price is also right: $10 advance/$15 door; advance purchase via Brown Paper Tickets.

A plea to publicists: could you possibly put the important information in the body of email rather than in a separate PDF? And include links? And make the links obvious and hard to miss?

Even more violin/new music news: the intrepid Cornelius Duffalo, of ETHEL and Ne(x)tworks, continues his Journaling series in New York City, with a program on August 15, 2010, at The Stone in NYC. He's playing music by ijay Iyer, Joan Jeanrenaud, Kenji Bunch, Paola Prestini and Daniel Felsenfeld....looking at The Stone's August schedule, I see that pianist Sarah Cahill is also playing there, on August 3.

Hoisted From the Comments

Here's one of the comments on my previous posting, Help Wanted:

Music, of all the arts, is the one that does not and should not require explanation or education. If it works at all it should talk directly to the inner listener, beneath the layers of pretension or persona.

If the music has more going for it that simply satisfying the short-term pretensions of elitists and pseudo-intellectuals then it will survive on its own merits, if not it will die out as the fad passes and audiences move on.

Also, music is not literature. A child doesn't need to know anything to enjoy and appreciate music. I'm not talking about instant gratification, nor am I saying that the experience cannot be deepened or improved with time, but you do hear people criticising those who don't "understand" certain strands of modern music where the suggestion is that they lack the intellectual capacity or taste (whatever that is) to appreciate it.

Music ultimately should be able to transcend education and intellect and culture in a way that literature, for instance, cannot (or cannot always).

Here's the short version of my reaction: what bullshit.

Here's the longer version.

All music is culturally mediated, that is, we understand, or think we understand, that with which we grew up. I "know" something about western tonal music - and I use that term in its most technical meaning - because so much music since 1750, not just notational concert music, conforms to its melodic, harmonic, and structural conventions.

But when I listen to Indian classical music or Chinese classical music, you bet I need some help. I have no gut-level understanding of the structural or melodic conventions of Indian classical music; I didn't grow up with it, the scales and tunings are different, the structures are unfamiliar.

It's not a failing of the music that I need that help. It's my personal lack of experience with and exposure to that music.

I think - no, I know - that many people aren't willing to put in a little work to understand music that doesn't immediately appeal to them. That's their failing, not that of the music. My anonymous poster cites children's supposed ability to simply understand music without explanation. Hello - I'm an adult. I want to know and understand things in an adult way. It's seriously anti-intellectual to use children's understanding of music as a model for what is good music.

Let's try another approach. Take these two statements.

• Wow, that's great music. I want to learn more about it.
• I just don't get that stuff. I want to learn more about it.

My anonymous commenter would have me believe that in the first case, nothing is wrong, but in the second case, the music is at fault. Sounds like bullshit to me.

Help Wanted: Microtonal Music

We all have our musical blind spots - deaf spots? - and I've discovered in the last couple of years that one of mine is microtonal music. I've heard works by a few composers who write microtonal music and I've read a little of what they're written about scale development and related issues.

I simply don't know how to listen to it. By that I mean that even with repeated hearings, it just sounds out of tune to me. I believe I am not hearing the pitches in their proper relationships. I clearly need more practice, but I also need help.

I'd appreciate a couple of things from anyone who would like to comment.

• Pointers to works I should hear.
• Advice on how to listen.

Thanks in advance!

Christine Brewer: WHY is She Not Singing Every Dramatic Soprano Role in the Repertory??

I ask you: why oh why is the world's greatest living dramatic soprano not singing all of the Strauss big-girl roles, all of the Wagner big-girl roles, all of the Korngold big-girl roles....you get the point. Yes, she is a big girl herself, but OH THAT VOICE. No one else combines beauty and power the way she does.

Tim Mangan is Back in Business!

Go read his new blog, Classical Net, right now!

Charles Mackerras

Sir Charles Mackerras has died, age 84, according to a report from Australia. Hilariously, the obituary calls him "a noted authority on Mozart and the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan."

Mozart, indeed; among his recordings is a superb Idomeneo, with Barbara Frittoli, Ian Bostridge, LHL, and Anthony Rolfe Johnson. But the composer with whom I most closely associate him isn't Sir Arthur Sullivan, it's Leoš Janáček. Mackerras was as responsible as anyone for Janáček's entrance in the standard repertory, between his editions, recordings, performances, and advocacy. 

I was lucky enough to hear Mackerras a few times at San Francisco Opera, in Vec Makropoulos (my first Janáček, and yes, it made quite an impression), in Rusalka, the Rosenkavalier I walked out of in sheer annoyance (we arrived on time for the imagined 2 p.m. curtain and had to stand through act I) and in the splendid Semele of a decade ago. I heard two performances of the Handel, one with Mackerras and the other with William Lacey. At this distance in time and without notes, I can't give you the specifics, but the two demonstrated nicely the difference between the great and the good.

Rest in peace, Sir Charles. You were one of the greats.

OC Register Kills Arts Blog

From the south comes the shocking news that the OC Register has "decided that this blog has lived its span."

That's the extent of the explanation posted on the Arts Blog yesterday by Register music critic Tim Mangan, a shining light of the Arts Blog. In the comments, he says that it was not his decision.

What a mistake this is! It's 2010, and new and social media are where it's at, ways to reach audiences within and outside the regular sphere of a newspaper's influence. The Arts Blog has a loyal readership, including yours truly.

If you read the Arts Blog and you have thoughts about this, send them to Rebecca Allen, rallen@ocregister.com.

For Sale

Beverly Sills's three-bedroom co-op on the Upper West Side, where she lived for 40 years; $6.995 million. It's at 211 Central Park West, at 82nd, around the corner (or maybe it's across the street) from the American Museum of Natural History. I wonder how many times I've walked past it.

The Musical Tie-In

Frederick Lawrence has sung at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center as a member of the New York Choral Society. The press release doesn't say whether he's a tenor or a bass.

Jim Olesen to the white courtesy phone, please. Perhaps you can recruit President-Elect Lawrence for the chorus.

Brandeis Update, Part XIV (or whatever)

Brandeis has chosen a new president, Frederick M. Lawrence, who is currently the Dean of George Washington University Law School. There's a press release on line here.

I don't know a thing about him; I just hope he'll be able to repair the damage done to the university by the Rose Art Museum scandal.

I hear, also, that the university has hired Sotheby's to look into alternatives to selling items from the Rose collections. I don't really understand this. What's needed is more and better fund-raising. Last year's crisis was a great opportunity that no one took advantage of: okay, we'll keep the Rose as is, but we need to raise this much money. Oh, well.

Administrative Note of Some Consequence

There's a good chance that sometime this month I will disable anonymous posting.

You will be able to continue posting pseudonymously, as some of you already do. (CK Dexter Haven!) You'll be able to post using a Google account, Open ID, or Name/URL. These choices are always visible on the comments dialog box.

I myself post on the Internet under my own name 98% of the time, for reasons of accountability and credibility. I use a pseudonym very rarely and only to protect the privacy of family members.

I use the "front page of the Times" test to determine how I feel about saying XY in public. If I'm not comfortable when I apply that test, maybe I should think twice about posting at all.

Under Arrest: Mikhail Pletnev

The Russian pianist was arrested in Thailand on charges of raping a 14-year-old boy. He is out on bail, says (oy) it is a "misunderstanding." The boy and his mother are reported to have gone to the police.

Long Beach Opera's 2010-11 Season

The wildly adventurous Long Beach Opera has another great season of offbeat and rare operas coming up:

• Medea, by Cherubini (since I'm in the middle of Berlioz's memoirs, this is especially intriguing)
• Akhnaten, by Glass (West Coast premier of the fully-scored version - Oakland Opera Theater did a reduced version a few years ago with Paul Flight in the title role)
• Moscow, Cherry Town, by Shostakovich (I'd never heard of it either!)
• The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang

What a lineup!

Performance Archives in General

I've just added a link list of on-line performance archives to the sidebar. As of now, the ones I'm familiar with are at the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, New York Philharmonic, and BBC Proms. If you know of other on-line performance archives, please let me know and I'll add them to the sidebar.

Archives of the Promenade Concerts

The BBC has unveiled an online archive of the Proms concerts, going all the way back to 1890. Big, big kudos and thanks are in order.

It takes a tremendous amount of time and careful research to put together this kind of an archive, and it's invaluable to anyone doing research about the Proms, repertory, and the artists who appeared on the programs. I can now find out with a few keystrokes which works Eva Turner sang in what years, rather than painstakingly spending hours going through programs. (The search returned 71 items from 1934 through 1948, not long before she retired. Perhaps the most surprising items were her appearance as a Rheinmaiden for the Goetterdaemmerung Act III scene with Siegfried and singing Verdi's greatest soprano aria, "Tu che le vanita" from Don Carlo, the latter in her very last Proms appearance. If she ever appeared on the operatic stage in either of these roles, I'd like to hear about it.)

My one suggestion would be making it possible to view all details of a season, not just a list of the concerts.

Cesare Siepi

Word comes to me that Cesare Siepi has died, age 87. The great bass sang a wide range of Italian roles, especially those of Verdi and Mozart, and was the Don Giovanni for many years. A film of a Salzberg production of Don Giovanni, with Furtwangler conducting, shows his special magnatism and the quality of his vocalism. His repertory also included Boris and Gurnemanz.

I saw him only once, as Don Giovanni in 1981 in San Francisco. His Leporello was Giuseppe Taddei, also the only time I saw Taddei. This was long before I knew much about voices and singing - I'm sad to have seen two of the greatest of their generation in that production without having a clue.

RIP, Cesare Siepi.