ArtsWatch

Richard A. Doran, the civic leader and friend to the arts who died a year ago, will be remembered (with likely a tear and more than one chuckle) at a benefit concert scheduled for April 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square. The program is still coming together, but performers will include violist Roberto Diaz, actor Henry Gibson, pianists Gary Graffman, Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn conducting The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
I don't know about Gibson, but I can think of ways in which all of the others benefitted from Doran's advice and advocacy. It's probably even fair to say that Diaz would not be director of the Curtis today had it not been for Doran.
Tickets are $100, and benefit the Curtis Institute of Music's Richard A. Doran Memorial Fellowship Fund and the the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia's Richard A. Doran Memorial Concert Fund presenting Curtis students and alumni.
Information: 215-893-1709.

Pennsylvania Ballet gets $80,000 to help it acquire Kazimir’s Colors by contemporary Italian choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti (pictured). Headlong Dance Theater will receive $40,000 for Unbraiding, "a five-month-long research and choreographic project inspired by the company's association with choreographer Tere O'Connor." The Kulu Mele African American Dance Ensemble will net $40,000 for travel to Guinea to work with Marie Toure and M'Bemba Bangoura.
Those are three of the 22 artists and groups receiving a total of $901,000 in grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts through its Dance Advance program. The grants range in size from $10,000 to $80,000. Plus, many of the grants to groups will come with an additional 10 percent for operational support.
Here's a complete list of recipients.

The Philadelphia Orchestra doesn't announce its 2008-09 season for another week or two. But there are lots of clues out there already.
Carnegie Hall says the orchestra is visiting four times, and it's safe to assume the programs there are repeats of programs here. Charles Dutoit, in his first season as interim music director, arrives with pianist Martha Argerich in the Prokofiev and Shostakovich first piano concertos. Simon Rattle takes on Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust with soloists Magdalena Kožená (pictured), Giuseppe Sabbatini and Thomas Quasthoff. André Previn celebrates 80 by leading Strauss’ Symphonia domestica and, from the keyboard, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24.
Guest conductors will be scrutinized for their music director potential. In addition to Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski returns. And young Canadian conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin is making his debut with the Philadelphians.

Mayor Nutter has appointed or reappointed eight members to the Art Commission. They are:
José Alminana, principal at Andropogon Associates, Ltd., the Philadelphia landscape architecture firm.
Moe Brooker, professor and chair of the Basics Department at Moore College of Art and Design.
Sean Buffington, the new guy in town, president of the University of the Arts.
Arts veteran Karen B. Davis, president of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia.
Emmanuel Kelly, AIA, the distinguished architect who is principal at Kelly/Maiello Architects and Planners.
Robert Nix, III, counsel with Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP. Nix is also president of the Fairmount Park Commission.
Robert Roesch, the sculptor who is chair of the Department of Sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Patricia Alexander Sanfor, president of Alexander Perry Inc, a full service design firm.

In a bit of wordplay not quite worthy of Ben Franklin, my review of the Star Wars show at the Franklin Institute has a little hidden message for the sharp-eyed reader. First person to guess it gets a free CD from me.

Mark Swed, the LA Times' music critic, raves about the Mahler 6 Eschenbach led with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Writes Swed: "The only evidence we have of Mahler performing is a piano roll, and the composer was more like Eschenbach than not."

And speaking of Eschenbach, his new recording of Shostakovich 5 with the Philadelphia Orchestra will be released March 11 (Ondine). I haven't heard it yet, but of all the electronic artifacts of Eschenbach's short era, this might be the one everyone should own. A Shostakovich 5th with Eschenbach and the Philadelphia in Carnegie Hall is still remembered as an incredibly unified, red-hot interpretation. Other performances of it have been almost universally loved.
A review of the new CD will appear in The Inquirer shortly. If you can't wait until March 11 to get it, check the gift shop in the Kimmel Center, where it could be available as soon as Feb. 28.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art doesn't like to brag, but it is regularly loaning out works for exhibitions in Japan, Paris and New York - and right now, near D.C. If you happen to be at Mount Vernon for President's Day (or any point through January) you can visit the fruits of a passion for presidential plates that manifested itself in the collection of Robert L. McNeil Jr. The fancy stack of china, which McNeil donated to the PMA, covers 21 presidential administrations. The one at left belonged to Mr. Washington.

The Huffington Post has an opinion about the Philadelphia Orchestra's new presentation of the concert experience and its repackaging of subscriptions. "Idiocy" is the word the blog's author uses. I have a different point of view. "Smart" was my characterization of the orchestra's strategy.
The 2008-09 brochure, by the way, gets mailed to subscribers in a few days.
Any other thoughts out there?

"Priceless" is the demure response one gets when inquiring about the value of art in most museums, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art barely even likes to acknowledge that there is relationship between art and money in discussing its collection. But a piece in the New York Times about the pending sale of a Monet makes it possible to triangulate. The canvas, the 1874 painting “The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil,” is expected to sell for $35 million. One Christie's expert says there are only three other comparable works by Monet on the same subject, and one of them (pictured) is in the PMA.

More than 1.400 arts leaders and supporters will gather in Philadelphia June 20-22 as Americans for the Arts, a national cultural lobbying, policy and service organization, holds its annual convention here.
"Visitors to the convention will discover a historically rich city that has evolved into one of the most exciting, vibrant arts communities in the country,” said Peggy Amsterdam, president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the convention's local host.
Convention attendees will hear about the role the arts are playing in the presidential election and visit public art projects.This year marks the 50th anniversary of the city's percent-for-art programs, which require developers to spend a percentage of their construction costs on public art. Philadelphia's percent programs, run by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority and the city, were the first such programs instituted in the country.
“In this historic election year, we are delighted to have this most important cultural policy conversation happening here in Philadelphia under the leadership of Americans for the Arts and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance,” said Olive Mosier, director of Arts and Culture at the William Penn Foundation.
Futurist Andrew Zolli will deliver the keynote address on June 21.
- Stephan Salisbury

The Kimmel Center's visiting-orchestra series this year was a little less glittering and interesting than previous years, but it's hard to imagine any orchestraphile not getting excited about next season's roster. (Of course, orchestra fans usually find something to complain about.)
Look for a piece in The Inquirer Thursday about the entire 2008-09 Kimmel season.
Pictured: Mystery Conductor