Clef Notes

Personal appearance by your humble blogger at Artscape

2009-07-18T12:38:51Z

If you're heading to Artscape and find yourself running out of things to do, feel free to drop by the Sun's tent on the northwest corner of Charles and Mt. Royal on Sunday between 4 and 5 p.m. I'll be there for a meet-and-greet with readers, and it would be fun to see you there (not to mention terribly mortifying if no one shows up).

County supervisor asks Los Angeles Opera to remove Wagner focus from 'Ring' fest

2009-07-17T16:54:52Z

Wagner is still causing trouble. That brilliant bastard, whose anti-Semitic views earned him extra favor with the Nazis who came to power 50 years after the composer's death, is the understandable focus of a large-scale festival the Los Angeles Opera has planned in conjunction with the company's first presentation of the complete Ring Cycle in spring 2010.

Last month, I received an email from a music critic, Carie Delmar, who wrote:

I am the daughter of Holocaust survivors and I am opposed to an arts festival that is being touted by Los Angeles city and county leaders as the most massive arts festival to hit LA since the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival. The idea for the festival came from Placido Domingo and others within the umbrella of the Los Angeles Music Center, including music director James Conlon, who saw the financial benefits of such a festival to raise money to fund the company’s $32 million “Ring” cycle ... In spring 2010, the company will present three “Ring” cycles in concert with this arts festival – Ring Festival LA – which is basically a Richard Wagner Festival. More than 60 arts and educational organizations will present concerts, lectures, seminars and special events focused on or inspired by Wagner ... It is a known fact that Wagner was a rabid anti-Semite who ...

inspired Adolf Hitler and was the forerunner of the Nazi doctrine. Wagner wrote essays depicting Jews as insect life with hopes of their destruction. Hitler used Wagner’s music as a score or backdrop for his speeches at Nazi rallies and even as Jewish victims were hauled off to concentration camps. I believe that Ring Festival LA is an affront to Holocaust survivors who still associate Wagner’s name and music with the horrors they endured during the Nazi era. I have started a protest campaign to broaden the festival so that more composers are included to take the focus off Wagner ...

Supervisor Mike Antonovich agrees with me, that the festival should be broadened to include other composers. LA Opera called it a Wagner festival at the onset. After much pressure from the Jewish community, Rabbi Adlerstein at the Wiesenthal Center and from newspaper articles, LA Opera now has taken Wagner’s name out of much of their marketing materials and exchanged it for the word, “Ring.” They have also added a paragraph in their “Overview” to acknowledge Wagner’s anti-Semitism, and a couple of lectures are planned to address his racism. But the festival still has about 60 other events that add up to a Wagner festival, which serves to glorify the man ...

Also what makes this so disheartening to me is that some major patrons are Jewish and they are supporting this festival. One is E. Randol Schoenberg who is President of the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles. Eli Broad has contributed $6 million to the “Ring” and I have heard $3 million to the festival. The organizer, Barry Sanders, is also Jewish and prominent in the Los Angeles community. These Jews have totally forgotten their heritage and the Holocaust in their efforts to promote Los Angeles Opera. Elitism and power seems to be winning over values and morality. I am very grateful that Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who is not Jewish, understands the significance of such a misdirected festival.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich officially asked the L.A. Opera to make changes in the focus of festival, an action that set off plenty of discussion. My colleague at the Los Angeles Times, Mark Swed, jumped in with a counter-argument:

The supervisor’s proposition would be a cultural public relations disaster for Los Angeles, since the mounting of any "Ring" is an occasion of civic pride and our provocative $32-million production by German artist Achim Freyer is of international interest. It would bankrupt L.A. Opera, which has been "Ring" obsessed for a decade. It would harm Los Angeles' economy: The tourism industry is banking on a “Ring” windfall, and the "Ring Festival" brings together 50 different arts organizations. And it's even bad for the Jews.

That Wagner contributed to 19th century anti-Semitic literature is hardly news ... Wagner was a complicated man and his relationship to Jews was and remains confusing. This is hardly news either ...

Hitler’s regard for Wagner is also extremely well documented. In Antonovich’s statement, he notes that Wagner supplied the "de facto soundtrack for the Holocaust." But it is highly debatable that Wagner, who had supported anarchist and anti-Fascist causes of his day, would have approved of Nazi tactics. Besides, Hitler loved and appropriated many other composers. The Nazis did not hesitate, for instance, to pervert Beethoven and his message of brotherhood ... Should we not also consider, then, asking the Los Angeles Philharmonic to cancel Gustavo Dudamel’s free performance of the Ninth at the Hollywood Bowl in October?

... As a staple of Western civilization, "The Ring," whatever you think of it, is inescapable. This means that we need more attention focused on Wagner, not less, if we are to understand why Seattle is gaga about its “Ring” cycle this summer, and why L.A. Opera, New York's Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera are all going through the extraordinary effort and expense of making new “Ring” productions ...

So let the Wagner Festival go forth and let the conversation be vigorous. That’s our best defense against intolerance. And I recommend Supervisor Antonovich perhaps educate himself about Wagner's operas. The downfall of Wotan is an object lesson for any politician who takes an indefensible position.

I have to say that I am surprised that, in 2010, such a heated debate should have broken out in this country. I would never downplay the hideous aspect of Wagner's personality, nor make light of Hitler's appropriation of the composer's music, but I think we ought to be able to deal with the issues with perspective. Great art is great art. Wagner's Ring is great art. That's one reason many Jewish conductors have mastered the score, from Mahler to Barenboim. (That Wagner entrusted the premiere of his ever-so-Christian Parsifal to a Jewish conductor, Hermann Levi, says something, too.)

Any Wagner festival that attempted to "glorify" the man would be rightly challenged. I don't think the L.A. fest has any such intention. Wagner the incredibly creative, revolutionary artist deserves to be acknowledged and studied. I'm terribly naive, I know, but I still believe that a totally evil person cannot create beautiful art. Hitler's inconsequential drawings are a case in point. Wagner's operas reach a level of such transcendent beauty and power that they must reflect, it seems to me, some tiny, redeemable portion of his soul.

The simple truth is that the world of music would be a much poorer place without his work. So the Ring will go on, as it must. The debate over Wagner will go on, too, of course, just as it should.

PHOTO OF LOS ANGELES OPERA PRODUCTION OF 'DIE WALKURE' COURTESY OF LOS ANGELES OPERA (Monika Rittershaus, photographer); SUN ARCHIVE PHOTO OF RICHARD WAGNER

Artscape has a classical music side, too

2009-07-17T09:22:59Z

Although best known for its visual arts and pop/rock/jazz concerts, the annual Artscape extravaganza has its classical side. Here are some free events that should provide a welcome break from the heat and mobs outside.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will give a concert at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Meyerhoff; backstage tours and an "instrumental petting zoo" (sounds spooky to me) are also planned that day.

Local opera organizations have programs, too, all held at Corpus Christi Church (110 W. Lafayette). First up is a tribute to the immortal ...

Maria Callas. This Baltimore Concert Opera presentation will be narrated by Fabrizio Melano, a friend of Callas, with music performed by soprano Francesca Mondanaro and pianist Jim Harp (5:45 Friday).

Opera Vivente offers "I Hear America Singing: A Musical Celebration of the American Spirit," which promises folk, pop and more (2 and 5:30 p.m. Saturday).

And American Opera Theater will present John Dowland's A Pilgrimes Solace from 1612, performed by mezzo Monica Reinagle and guitarist Andrew Dickenson (2 and 5 p.m. Sunday).

Interspersed with the opera will be recitals by local organists (1 and 3:15 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 3:30 p.m. Sunday).

BALTIMORE SUN FILE PHOTO OF MARIA CALLAS

Famed musicians' union lawyer arrested for embezzling

2009-07-16T14:14:20Z

That outbreak of schadenfreude you may notice around the country could be orchestra management folks getting news about their national nemesis, lawyer Leonard Leibowitz, arrested this week in New York and charged with embezzling $150,000 from a union fund at the American Ballet Theater.

Hired for many years by unions across to the country to represent players at the negotiating table, Leibowitz was famed for his strong tactics -- and for damaging orchestras hit with strikes he had advocated.

I remember covering a tense contract negotiating session at the ...

now-defunct Florida Philharmonic back in the 1990s. It was clear which way Leibowitz was leaning early on. When I asked for a reaction on how the meetings were going, his response was, "Sometimes you just have to strike to get their attention."

As it turned out, a strike was narrowly averted that year, but not the next time.

Of course, I'm sure he did lots of good things for musicians along the way. And he may even be able to explain his current situation to the satisfaction of the court. Meanwhile, I suspect he won't be generating heaps of sympathy in some corners.

Baltimore Concert Opera brings out the applause meter for open auditions

2009-07-15T14:22:53Z

I stopped by Baltimore Concert Opera's public auditions Tuesday evening -- the second of two nights in a row -- at the Engineers Club. Most opera auditions, of course, are held privately and, needless to say, do not include an applause meter. But this attempt at a Baltimore's-Got-Talent approach was meant to turn the process into more of a fun event by announcing that audience reaction would figure into hiring decisions by the young company, which presents un-staged operas at the club with piano accompaniment.

I have to say right upfront and unequivocally (to use a Sonia Sotomayor phrase from her first day of hearings) that something about this concept, and the execution of it, didn't quite feel right to me, but the modest crowd on hand Tuesday seemed to have a good time.

I heard 11 singers; another six were scheduled after intermission (17 were on the program Monday). The quality varied, from the professional to the student-like (one participant's intonation troubles veered dangerously close to Florence Foster Jenkins territory), but almost everyone revealed sound musical instincts. I heard two stand-outs.

Soprano Leah Inger used her bright, clear voice, with its fast vibrato, to compelling effect in an aria from Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. The applause meter registered accordingly, and Baltimore Concert Opera's general director, baritone Brendan Cooke, called for more. Inger obliged with some stylish, if slightly less polished, Donizetti.

Also earning a two-aria shot was tenor Rolando Sanz, who gave impassioned accounts of popular Puccini and Massenet pieces. The very top range proved wanting, but the rest had considerable color and strength.

I also enjoyed the confident, dynamic performance of Sempre libera by soprano Abla Lynn Hamza (she wasn't asked for more); and the vibrant work of soprano Natalie Conte, who wasn't always firmly on pitch, but exuded personality and style in Lehar and Puccini favorites.

Conte is currently onstage with Cooke in the Young Vic's Pirates of Penzance. A couple of other cast members from that production took part in the BCO auditions, including baritone Jason Buckwalter, who set the applause meter on fire. But the engaging singer did not actually produce enough solidity of tone, especially at the upper and lower ends, to warrant so much carrying on in the audience.

No question, though, about the reaction to the hard-working pianist, Jim Harp, a model accompanist for each performer. When he was given a solo bow, the meter moved quickly and decisively into the red.

PHOTO OF ROLANDO SANZ COURTESY OF ROLANDOSANZ.COM

1934 film 'The Firebird' provides good laugh to start the day

2009-07-15T13:38:52Z

As overly devoted readers of this blog will have learned, Turner Classic Movies plays practically round the clock at our house on a little set in the kitchen. We don't turn that particular TV off (the button disappeared into the set years ago and it's a major pain to get the thing rebooted if it ever does lose power), and we keep it tuned to TCM most of the time.

Overnight, it's in mute position and part of the fun for me when I crawl into the room for my early morning tea is to see what's playing and, if it's unfamiliar, try to judge whether it's worth turning on the sound. Something from the '30s was playing today and, although it looked very stagey, something made me go for it.

A young, obviously upper crust woman was dancing in a big room of some mansion to music on the Victrola, which, as I un-muted the TV, turned out to be ...

Stravinsky's Firebird. So far so cool. But it gets better.

Her mother walked in, immediately stopped the record and said something to the effect of: "It's a good thing your father didn't hear this. Don't listen to this again. We believe that classical music is enough for you." Hilarious.

I can't wait to see the whole 1934 movie, which, as I discovered, is titled The Firebird and directed by William Dieterle. It's a murder mystery involving a guy who, I gather, lures women to his pad with the promise of playing that daring Stravinsky's ballet score for them. What a pick-up line. It sure beats "Do you want to see my etchings?" Now I'm dying to find out if the composer approved or loathed the use of his music in this ever so tawdry manner.

A little more on the Rufus Wainwright opera

2009-07-14T22:15:12Z

La Cieca, the indomitable voice of the entertaining, ever-so-bitchy blog Parterre Box, makes an astute comment about Prima Donna, the first opera by moody-voiced singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright:

A piece like 'Prima Donna' is exactly the sort of thing (or at least one sort of thing) that the New York City Opera ought to be offering. It would sell like crazy, foster the most intense debate both online and in the meat universe, and just generally be scandalous.

That the leading role seems to have ...

'Lauren Flanigan' written on it in letters of fire doesn’t hurt either. Lauren as an insane camp opera singer? That’s what Ethan Mordden calls 'Gable as Rhett casting.'

Given how little (so far) outright bashing from the press Prima Donna has generated, it seems that the piece may well have legs and could certainly be a box office boon in several places. Hmmm. Maybe one of the existing or planned operatic troupes in Baltimore will take the risk. We could use some "intense debate" and scandal.

Sel Kardan, former director of Shriver Hall Concert Series, to head Colburn School in L.A.

2009-07-14T16:30:37Z

Sel Kardan, who led the Shriver Hall Concert Series with considerable success for several years before becoming president of the Music Institute of Chicago, is heading West to take the helm of the Colburn School in Los Angeles. Colburn has both a tuition-free conservatory and a community school. Read more here.

Distinguished conductor Edward Downes and his wife commit suicide

2009-07-14T14:11:28Z

This sad news in from the AP:

British conductor Edward Downes, a longtime stalwart at the Royal Opera and maestro of the first-ever performance at Sydney's iconic Opera House, has died with his wife Joan at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland. He was 85 and she was 74. The couple's children said Tuesday that the couple died "peacefully and under circumstances of their own choosing" on Friday at a Zurich clinic run by the group Dignitas. "After 54 happy years together, they decided to end their own lives rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems," said a statement from the couple's son and daughter, Caractacus and Boudicca.

The statement said Downes, who became Sir Edward when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991, had become ...

almost blind and increasingly deaf. His wife, a former dancer, choreographer and television producer, had devoted years to working as his assistant. British newspapers reported that she had been diagnosed with cancer. Dignitas founder Ludwig A. Minelli said he could not confirm the deaths due to confidentiality rules.

Downes' manager, Jonathan Groves, said he was shocked by the couple's deaths, but called their decision "typically brave and courageous."

... Born in 1924 in Birmingham, central England, Edward Downes studied at Birmingham University, the Royal College of Music and under German conductor Hermann Scherchen. In 1952 he joined London's Royal Opera House as a junior staffer — his first job was prompting soprano Maria Callas. He made his debut as a conductor with the company the following year and went on to become associate music director. Throughout his life he retained close ties to the Royal Opera, conducting 49 different operas there over more than 50 years. He also had a decades-long association with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, where he became principal conductor and later conductor emeritus.

Downes was known for his support for British composers and his passion for Prokofiev and Verdi, on whom he was considered an expert. In the 1970s he became music director of the Australian Opera, conducting the first performance at the Sydney Opera House in 1973. He also worked with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra and ensembles around the world.

The couple is survived by their children, who said their parents "both lived life to the full and considered themselves to be extremely lucky to have lived such rewarding lives, both professionally and personally." The family said there would be no funeral.

Introducing a new feature: Music we've been missing

2009-07-14T11:37:16Z

When you consider how much classical music has been created over the centuries, it's kind of pathetic how little of it we actually hear, especially in concert halls and opera houses. An awful lot of programmers and audiences, and far too many musicians, prefer staying largely within a narrow path of the tried and true, the familiar and already popular.

I understand box office concerns, of course, but there should still always be room for something different, something that takes the blinders off our ears and wakes us up to what we have been missing.

So I'm starting a humble little feature on the blog that will regularly highlight an example of the musical trove that, for one reason or another, has been widely overlooked. I won't just focus on music of the past; there are many living composers whose valuable work is ignored in favor of the well-worn stuff that comes back year after year. (Feel free to make your own suggestions along the way.)

To start, I let today's date -- July 14 -- determine my choice, since this happens to be the birthday of ...

a British composer whose beautifully crafted music is all too rarely encountered on our shores: Gerald Finzi (1901-1956). When was the last time you went to a concert and found his Eclogue on the bill? I've never heard it live, and only rarely on the radio. This gentle work for piano and strings deserves much more attention.

This is early music week in Baltimore

2009-07-13T15:42:51Z

Two mid-week concerts offer music from medieval, Renaissance and baroque eras.

The fine Peabody Consort, led by Mark Cudek, will explore two enticing areas of repertoire -- pieces used in early productions of Shakespeare plays, and Sephardic music from medieval Spain. This concert is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday (the 14th) at ...

the Bolton St. Synagogue, 212 W. Cold Spring Lane. Admission is free.

The engaging ensemble known as Harmonious Blacksmith will perform a colorful sampling concertos by Vivaldi, Bach and Telemann at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (the 15th) at the Engineers Club in Mount Vernon Place. Tickets are $20, with $5 rush seats for students.

Rufus Wainwright's debut opera, 'Prima Donna,' opens to mixed reviews

2009-07-13T11:53:50Z

You will recall that singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright was invited by the Metropolitan Opera, no less, to compose a work for the company, but the project hit a snag. The Met announced that Wainwright's insistence on writing Prima Donna, his first opera, in French, rather than English, was unacceptable, so the deal was off. My sources tell me a different tale, for what it's worth -- that Met officials listened to some of the score at an early stage in the creative process and found it ever so slightly wanting.

Whatever the full story (as Tony Tommasini points out, if the Met can produce an opera by American composer Philip Glass sung in Sanskrit, it seems odd to reject an opera by a Canadian-American composer sung in French), Wainwright was hardly deterred. His opera, which tells a Norma Desmond-like tale of a troubled, aging diva named Regine and her effort to start singing again after a long silence, was quickly snapped up by ...

the Manchester International Festival, where it was premiered over the weekend. The reviews that I've spotted are, unsurprisingly, mixed. One thing that was a clear hit, I gather -- Wainwright's provocative arrival at the theater, dressed as one of opera's greatest composers.

Here's a sample of the reactions:

THE GUARDIAN/ALFRED HICKLING

The first thing to point out is that this is no mere rock star's vanity project, though few stars are quite as vain as Wainwright, who swans to his seat in the stalls sporting a top hat and silver-topped cane, having apparently decided that the best way to announce himself as an opera composer is to grow a beard and dress up as Verdi.

The score itself comes clothed as Strauss, Massenet and Puccini; Wainwright would seem to be on a mission to drag opera back into the late 19th century. But his gift as a melodist and an orchestrator are in no doubt, having been proved on a series of albums which are mini-operas in their own right.

NEW YORK TIMES/ANTHONY TOMMASINI

As a longtime admirer of his music, I wish I could report that Prima Donna fulfilled his ambitions for writing a fresh and personal new opera. He certainly brings deep talents and potential to the challenge ... There are inspired touches and disarmingly beautiful passages in this mysterious, stylistically eclectic work ... But Mr. Wainwright’s score and his attitude toward the drama often seem muddled, as if he were relying too much on his keen musical and theatrical instincts lest he overthink and impede his imagination ...

In his songs Mr. Wainwright will evoke Hollywood strings, a hint of Carmen or a brass band, and the listener goes along for the stylistic ride. But in an opera of some two and a half hours the extended passages in sundry styles make you wonder what is going on. Is it ironic? Cavalier? Intentionally maudlin?

Some of the most captivating moments are the simplest musically ... The opera ends with a tender aria for Régine, a long-spun melody with a gentle accompaniment riff: in other words, a Wainwright song. Would that there had been more of them.

THE INDEPENDENT/LYNNE WALKER

[T]his flimsy plot is spun out into a cheesy piece of full-length music theatre. The only surprise was that Wainwright didn't create a part for himself, the primo uomo having made a grand entrance into the theatre dressed up as Verdi, with a beard grown for the occasion, his companion making a remarkably realistic Puccini. The buzz was palpable before the curtain rose. Flanked by his sister Martha and mother Kate McGarrigle, Wainwright, basking in flash photography, seemed in no doubt as to who was the star of this show ...

Musically, Prima Donna is at best banal, at worst boring. The orchestral writing is lumpy, leaden and repetitive, so that the merest flash of inspiration – a dashing musical signature for example – is welcomed with relief as an original idea. Wainwright didn't need to pay homage to all those dead composers he adores by including so many fragments of their scores in his own opera.

More details on instrumental album Michael Jackson started before his death, and his love of classical music

2009-07-10T20:36:47Z

TV and film composer and conductor David Michael Frank may have been one of the last persons to collaborate with Michael Jackson on an artistic project. The pop singer’s untimely death left that project in an uncertain state. Initial reports suggested that Jackson planned to do an album of “classical music” he had written; the pieces were to be orchestrated by Frank. Actually, Frank says, the pieces were closer to film music and would have gone into an all-instrumental album had Jackson lived. The Baltimore-born Frank, interviewed by phone in California, gives an account here of his experience with the King of Pop:

Four or five months ago, I received a call from Michael Jackson’s longtime personal recording engineer, Michael Prince, who told me Michael was looking for someone to arrange some music for orchestra. I thought it was going to be for the tour he was going to do. For the next month or two, he would call, saying, ‘Michael Jackson says he’s going to call you.’

At the end of April, another Michael, Michael Jackson’s personal assistant, called me and asked me to come the next day at 10 a.m. and asked me the make and model of my car. I drove to the Holmby Hills home. I drove up to the front door, and was met by an assistant who told me to go inside. I was met there by a woman dressed like a housekeeper, but with a white turban on her head. She said, ‘Michael Jackson will be with you shortly.’ About two minutes later, he came down the stairs.

I was reluctant to shake his hand because I had heard that he was concerned about germs, but he immediately stuck his hand out and gave me a very firm handshake. He was very skinny, but not the least bit frail. He was wearing a suit and a hat. He was going to rehearsal later for the tour. He said, ‘You look familiar.’ I told him a long time ago I worked on a TV tribute to Sammy Davis, Jr. at Shrine Auditorium [that he had participated in]. I told him I had met him briefly there.’ He said, ‘I never forget a face.’

He told me, ‘I have three projects going on simultaneously.’ One was the tour that the whole world knew about. The other two I believe no one knew about. One was to be an album of pop songs. Then he said, ‘The other one is that I want to record an album of classical music’ — what he called classical music.

He said he listened to ...

classical music all the time; it was his absolute favorite. I was impressed with the pieces he mentioned: Aaron Copland’s Rodeo, Fanfare for the Common Man and Lincoln Portrait; Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. I mentioned Bernstein's On the Waterfront. Then Michael mentioned that he loved Elmer Bernstein's film music, too, and he specifically mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird.

I realized that almost all the classical pieces he mentioned are childlike, very simple and pretty, like Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. He also mentioned Debussy several times, specifically Arabesque [No. 1] and Clair de lune. He was very soft-spoken when were talking about music, but when he got animated about something, he was very changed. When he mentioned how he loved Elmer Bernstein, and I said I liked the Magnificent Seven score, Michael started singing the theme very loudly, almost screaming it.

He said, ‘I’m making a CD.’ Then his son, Prince Michael, came in, and Michael asked him to find a CD player. Paris found one and brought it in with Prince. Michael played the CD. It was very pretty music. He said, ‘But a section is missing.’ He played a second piece. And he said, ‘But a section is missing, too. But I can hum it to you.’ I asked if there was a piano in the house, and he said there was one in the pool house. We headed out there, but Michael stopped when he saw the dog was outside, soaking wet from being in the pool. He didn't want us to get splattered. It was kind of funny. Michael got another assistant to hold the dog while we went to his pool house.

I sat at the piano and Michael hummed the missing part of one of the pieces. I had taken a little digital recorder with me and asked if I could record him. He was in perfect pitch. I tried to figure out chords to go with it as he hummed. He said, ‘Your instincts are totally right about the chords.’

We talked about classical music some more. I played some Debussy pieces. Michael seemed very happy and I think he felt very comfortable with me. He mentioned Leonard Bernstein again, and I played some of West Side Story. He told me he had met Bernstein once and that Bernstein had said he was a big fan of Michael’s.

Back in the house, whenever he’d go from room to room, you’d hear, ‘I love you, Daddy.’ ‘I love you, Paris.’ They all seemed pretty normal and happy.

Michael was very anxious to get the pieces orchestrated and record the music with a big orchestra. I suggested we record it at the Fox, Sony or Warner Brothers lot. I asked if he could have someone call me to discuss the budget and he said he would take care of it. When I left there were several fans outside the gate.

[Later] I talked to Michael on the phone. He asked me how the project was going and I said I was waiting to hear from someone so we could set the deal. I suggested we could record the music in London while he was doing the show there. He liked the idea. He again brought up Arabesque.

I laid the music all out on my computer and started on the orchestrations. Finally, a week before Michael died, his manager, Frank Dileo, called and asked me for an email with the budget and an electronic mock-up of the music, the costs of orchestration.

Now I have no idea what’s going to happen with this. I’m hoping the family will do something to get this done. I will not bring it up [with them] until after what I think is an appropriate time.

My guess is that each piece would be seven to ten minutes long. [Each one] is more substantial than a song. It’s very pretty music. One piece had an Irish quality about it. I suggested that we could use a Celtic harp. The pieces sound like pretty film score music, with very traditional harmony, and definitely very strong melodies. One of them was a little John Barry-ish, like in Out of Africa -- that kind of John Barry score. I could hear [in my head] sweeping strings and French horns in unison.

I told Michael I was going to use one of Leonard Bernstein’s batons I had bought at auction when we did the recording. I knew he would have gotten a big kick out of that. I guess I still will use that baton if I ever get to conduct the music.

PHOTO OF DAVID MICHAEL FRANK COURTESY OF THE COMPOSER

In honor of Michael Jackson's interest in classical music, as reported by David Michael Frank, here's a performance of Debussy's 'Arabesque' that the late singer apparently held in high regard:

BSO turns 'Psycho'-tic, performing Bernard Herrmann's vivid score live with Hitchcock's film

2009-07-10T11:55:20Z

The concept of performing live soundtracks to famous movies is one of the more entertaining and insightful ideas to come around in the orchestra business in recent years. For lovers of film scores, it means a rare chance to hear the music in a whole new light, not mixed in, but right out front, played in real time with what is being projected.

It would be easier, of course, to deliver such scores in a regular concert format, but this approach is much more fun. That was the case a couple years ago, when the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presented The Wizard of Oz, and it's the case this week with Psycho, which boasts one of Bernard Herrmann's most telling and economical scores. (In today's paper, I have an article about the Psycho project.)

Thursday night at Strathmore, the effect wasn't totally overwhelming, as I had hoped. Even with 40 strings on stage, the sound ...

didn't always come across with in-your-ear force. The famous shower scene, for example, with its brutal, high-pitched slashes, could have used a few more volts.

Still, it was great to be able to savor so fully the inegnuity of Herrmann's score, with its almost minimalist writing, and his expert sense of how even just a couple of slowly rocking chords can intensify a scene. The ensemble played with considerable polish throughout, conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos, whose timing never erred as the wonderfully creepy action unfolded on a screen above the stage -- the prisitine print of the film was another distinct plus. The presentation repeats tonight at the Meyerhoff.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BSO

NEA Recovery grants benefit several Baltimore-area arts groups

2009-07-09T18:51:38Z

While politicians and bloviators in the various media debate whether the federal stimulus package has actually produced any results, a whole bunch of arts groups around the country can point to honest-to-goodness money awarded this week by the NEA.

The grants, totaling $50 million, are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and are aimed specifically at helping organizations retain arts jobs that would otherwise be lost because of the economic downturn.

Here are some of the local recipients:

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: $50,000

Greater Baltimore Youth Orchestra Association: $25,000

CenterStage: $50,000

Baltimore Museum of Art: $50,000

Museum for Contemporary Arts: $25,000

Baltimore Clayworks: $25,000

Fells Point Creative Alliance: $50,000

Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts: $250,000

Maryland State Arts Council: $318,600