ArtsWatch

Headlong Dance Theater is blogging its prep for the Fringe Festival. This photo comes from the blog in question. I have no explanation of what it means, but I admire its slightly disturbed mood. And isn't that what the Fringe is all about - never having to explain what your art means?

The 2007 winners of the Rocky Awards - given by DanceUSA/Philadelphia with Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe - are Renee Banson, Kim Bears-Bailey, Gwendolyn Bye, Silvana Cardell, Hellmut Gottschild, Roko Kawai (pictured), Dara Stevens Meredith, Painted Bride Arts Center, Rennie Harris Puremovement and Melissa Rector.
The awards are meant to "celebrate outstanding achievement in a production, a performance, a set design, or other accomplishment in Greater Philadelphia's dance and physical theater community. There are no categories, committees or ballots. Each recipient wins the honor of selecting a 'champion' to receive a Rocky in the subsequent year."
These arts awards are so named, in fact, we are told, in honor of the movie.

Astral Artistic Services, the 15-year-old group that assists young musicians in realizing their career potential, has hired its first executive director: Stuart Adair. Adair joined the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia in 1998, where he directed both the Business Volunteers for the Arts and Business on Board programs.
Astral has flourished under the firm but loving hand of president and founder Vera Wilson, in a city that hardly knew how badly needed its mission was needed. Astral doles out career advice and professional opportunities, and the public gets a chance to track developing careers - such as the one well underway for harpist Bridget Kibbey, pictured - at Astral's concerts.

Chanced upon Gary Graffman in Rittenhouse Square this morning. I never did think Graffman was putting aside the director's chair at the Curtis Institute of Music for a quiet retirement, but even I was surprised (and exhausted) as we practically ran down Walnut Street and Graffman recounted his summer: Moscow, Bolzano, Ischia (the volcanic island in the Gulf of Naples where William Walton had an estate). Graffman still teaches at Curtis; he has four students this semester (all Chinese-born, he says). He's been hearing Yuja Wang play a lot lately, and he had dinner with Lang Lang, who is to be the subject - at the age of 25 - of a biography. Actually, it's his second. A previous biography was published in China some years ago, even before his career took off. If Graffman is this busy at 78, another Curtis professor has him beat in a way. Legendary Curtis piano pedagogue Eleanor Sokoloff has two students this semester. She's 93. Must be something about that Curtis air.

The New York Times has a piece Thursday attacking the idea of tax breaks for philanthropy, and in it, the following arguments are put forward:
- “I don’t think we’re getting the bang for the buck for gifts to build football stadiums and concert halls, with all due respect to Carnegie Hall and other institutions,” billionaire William H. Gross says. “I don’t think the public would vote for spending tax dollars on those things.”
- “When foundations, corporations and individuals give money to the opera,” said Xavier Becerra (pictured), a California Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee who represents a district in Los Angeles populated largely by young working-class immigrant families, “my folks are very unlikely to benefit from those forgone tax dollars that could have been used for health care, for after-school programs for kids, for help in getting access to college education.”
This is a vast and complex subject - the idea that individuals get a tax break for giving money to schools, orchestras, hospitals and other nonprofits - but it's surprising to see these claims go unchallenged in the Times' story, which severely limits its usefulness.
First, the public does vote on whether to fund concert halls and sports stadiums - all the time. Many communities routinely approve such funding in special referrendums. The resulting facilities in turn generate tax revenues many times their initial investment by stimulating development.
Second, Becerra's cheap slap at opera (he didn't even need to mention ladies in fur and men in white-tie-and-tails) not only plays into an easy caricature of who attends opera, but also who does not. Most operas and orchestras do substantial outreach and education, presenting opera in school auditoriums and putting kids in buses to hear real orchestras in real orchestra halls for the first time.
I don't know who Becerra thinks his "folks" are, but working class immigrant families are exactly the constituency that can and should benefit from opera.
In fact, if you think about it, working class immigrant families practically invented opera in America.

Rehearsals for Rigoletto begin today, Monday. The Opera Company of Philadelphia's new production - built at its production center in Tacony - offers three big Philadelphia debuts: British baritone Alan Opie in the title role, Israeli soprano Chen Reiss as Gilda, and Metropolitan Opera tenor Matthew Polenzani (pictured), who has only done the Duke once before in concert, making this his stage debut for the role. The opera opens Oct. 5 at the Academy of Music.

This video clip of Gustavo Dudamel conducting at the Proms has been making the rounds for weeks, and I haven't been able stop thinking about what it means. You can't do this sort of thing with Mozart and Lutoslawski (well, probably not), but Dudamel uses Bernstein to point at how serious classical concert conventions have become. You can safely assume that orchestra CEOs, marketing and artistic administrators worldwide are examing it for clues to the future.

Last time the Philadelphia Orchestra Association negotiated a new labor pact with its musicians, in 2004, the orchestra's chairman called the players' contract a "roadmap to extinction." That word, "extinction," isn't exactly something most development experts would advise you to say out loud while you're trying to excite donors about a $125 million endowment campaign. Mayor Street eventually stepped in and brokered a deal.
This time around the public relations campaign has been a lot less alarmist. The current three-year deal expires this Monday the 17th at 12:01 a.m.; the first rehearsal is slated for Tuesday; opening night is the 20th. Talks continue, but both sides have so far refrained from the public mud-slinging of years past.
Good thing, since the $125 million endowment campaign is still not done.
That doesn't mean internal communication is any more civil this time, or that a strike is out of the question, though no one I've talked to thinks a strike is likely. A deal is still possible in the next few days, and so is a contract extension.
The essence of what the Association was looking for in 2004 was more flexibility in its ability to earn money from concerts - the right to split the orchestra in two for two concerts going on at the same time and concerts on Sundays. Expect more of the same this time. The Association would like players to agree to more "run-out" concerts - that is, concerts in the region in places an hour or two away - and musicians are balking.
For an institution that never lets you forget the good old days, musicians might take some time to research the archives. The orchestra once had an active presence in the region, with regular concerts in Baltimore and small towns across Pennsylvania. No one thought any less of them. And as recently as the 1960s, the ensemble would split itself in two to satisfy two audiences at once.
Everything old is new again. Now if someone can come up with a great idea for a Christmas album, the orchestra might recapture some of its former recording glory.
But would players agree?

The results, or non-results, of talks between players and management of the Philadelphia Orchestra will be presented to musicians Saturday night in a meeting at the Kimmel Center. They might hear merely a status report as negotiations continue; the old contract expires Monday the 17th at 12:01 a.m.
Or a contract proposal could be brought to players Saturday night, in which case musicians would vote on the deal Monday night - technically past the deadline.
The orchestra's website still indicates the hope of opening night going ahead Thursday with Christoph Eschenbach returning to start his last season as music director, leading The Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 1.
(Score: George Crumb's Makrokosmos I)

Even musicians who were short on details seemed pleased tonight, Saturday, leaving a meeting at the Kimmel Center to discuss a proposal for the next three-year contract at the Philadelphia Orchestra. The negotiating committee (whose chairman, trombonist Eric Carlson, is pictured) is recommending that players vote "yes" at Monday night's ratification meeting. Details to come, but it sounds like players got some raises and no change in healthcare in exchange for greater flexibility for management to schedule Sunday and run-out concerts. That would be the continuation of a trend in these talks started three years ago: players say "more money," and management says "give us the ability to earn more money."

Players of the Philadelphia Orchestra tonight (Monday) voted 75-8 (with two abstentions) for a new three-year labor deal. Musicians got an average 4.6 percent raise per year and no change in healthcare; and management got additional Sunday and "run-out" concerts and more flexibility on tour schedules.
The new musicians' base salary in the coming year is $119,600. President James Undercofler said he wasn't sure how many musicians made that minimum - perhaps a quarter of the orchestra. Which means 75 percent are making at least a little more. Many are making a lot more. Titled players - principals, assistant and associate principals - work under the rules of the collective bargaining agreement, but when it comes to salary, they negotiate their own deals.
(Score: The Rite of Spring, which opens the season Thursday.)

Among the musicians who showed up to vote for a new Philadelphia Orchestra contract Monday night was a surprise guest: Hai-Ye Ni. The cellist, named principal last season, played the year, and then did not win the approval of the orchestra's tenure committee.
The orchestra said that she would remain through the season at Saratoga and then be gone.
But a grievance was filed with the union, lawyers were called, conversations were had, and now she's back. Music director Christoph Eschenbach has agreed to extend her stay, giving her another year of probation.
The cellist, you might remember, came here from the New York Philharmonic, and has had a meaty solo career. In 1997, she was on the cover of Strings magazine, which called her "the cellist to watch." You can be sure she'll be watched here, given the already-strange history of her tenure, but I hope she'll be listened to - and listened to with pure and unbiased ears.
The bigger question, however, is whether there is an objective process in place for deciding tenure and other personnel issues. The tenure committee has already rejected her once, and other members of the orchestra lobbied for her reinstatement.
If at the end of the season they come up with a decision that some members of the orchestra are unhappy with, what then?
In other words, is there a process or isn't there? Will the Philadelphia Orchestra ever adopt a system for peer review that's divorced from internal politics and the will of small cabals making large noises?
One could reasonably expect Eschenbach to exercise some authority and respect the decision of the tenure committee. But he bears an unusual degree of responsibility in this case. Ni says that she received a letter from the orchestra, written on behalf of Eschenbach, expressing positive feelings about her performance, which she says indicated that it was safe to give notice to the New York Philharmonic (from which she had taken a leave of absence). This was in December, she said, well before the tenure committee made its decision. She then gave notice to New York.
How is she feeling about another season in the orchestra?
"I think I am more used to it now. The first year I had some adjustments to do. This year will be a little more smooth - I hope."

A page in tonight's (Thursday) Philadelphia Orchestra Playbill reveals the special guest for the Academy of Music's 151st Anniversary Concert and Ball on Jan. 28: Billy Joel. The name doesn't ring any bells with me, but perhaps it will mean something to more well-rounded listeners of a certain generation.

"A minority of audience members fell into the familiar trap of applauding after the vigorous third movement of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony, even though the symphony had one more movement to go. Instead of waiting out the applause as most conductors do, Muti took the disruption as an opportunity to deliver a calm, impromptu primer on how to be a good listener."

See the rest of the Chicago Tribune story.

There's a change in the air surrounding the Barnes Foundation's proposed move to Center City. Some part of that feeling, admittedly subjective, is hard to pin down. Other aspects of a possible change are more tangible. For one thing, Judge Ott has told Barnes trustees that they have some explaining to do.
And in a classic Philadelphia way, though Inquirer art critic Edward Sozanski has written repeatedly that moving the Barnes from Merion is a mistake, now the New York Times has weighed in, calling the proposed move "a crime," which means Philadelphia's stealth cultural and philanthropic leadership will probably pause to think twice about subverting what appears to be a growing public will to keep the Barnes where it is.
I keep waiting for this sensible truce to emege: Keep the Barnes where it is, build a Barnes interpretive center on the Parkway downtown with the compulsory gift shop and bookstore and a theater preparing visitors for the Barnes experience with a 20- or 30-minute documentary. Then bus visitors from the interpretive center out to Merion to see the Barnes.
Is $150 million really raised toward this project? If so, take $50 million to build the interpretive center, and put the other $100 million in endowment to save the Barnes from its ongoing financial troubles.
There. Is everyone happy now?

Six positions are being eliminated at the Kimmel Center. The cuts are for organizational rather than financial reasons, says new president Anne Ewers, though she says money will be saved. Gone is the Kimmel's part-time staff lawyer and very full-time head of development. Four less-senior-level positions are being created. Unrelated to the cuts are two other Kimmel departures: marketing and PR head David Wyeth, and PR director Paul Marotta. Those jobs will be filled, Ewers said ...The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has a deal for four CDs over the next four years, plus two more with their artistic director Ignat Solzhenitsyn as pianist, with record label Glossa Music. Solzhenitsyn has also signed on for another four years as music director through Oct. 2011 ...The Barnes Foundation has hired Margaret B. Zminda away from the Philadelphia Orchestra. She will remain the orchestra's CFO until December, when she takes over as the Barnes' senior vice president of business strategy and operations ... A total of $159,253 will go to 110 individual artists and community organizations in the five counties of southeastern Pennsylvania through the 5-County Arts Fund, a program of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts...The Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale is 40 years old, and the group was recently honored by City Council with a proclamation from the City of Philadelphia at City Hall ...The Print Center announced the appointment of John Caperton as the new curator of prints and photographs, and Hester Stinnett as the new president of the board of governors ...The Curtis Institute of Music has three new faculty members: Shmuel Ashkenasi, the much-admired first violinist of the Vermeer String Quartet; pianist Robert McDonald, the busy chamber musician and frequent recital partner to Midori; and Jennifer Montone, principal hornist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Friday afternoon's Philadelphia Orchestra Verizon Hall concert was stopped briefly to let a larger sound pass by. Christoph Eschenbach was conducting The Rite of Spring when a blast of electronic sound was released into the hall. He paused. The sound ended after about 10 seconds. The concert went on.
The cause was Verizon's sound system, which is kept on all the time, a Kimmel spokesman said. The computerized system cut off, and that noise was the sound it makes when the system is rebooting.
You might remember that Eschenbach was rehearsing The Rite of Spring in Verizon once before when he got interrupted - by water, when the hall's deluge system let loose. He dubbed the incident "The Rite of the Sprinkler."