ArtsWatch

Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, which helps artists and cultural organizations find free legal assistance on a variety of matters, will merge with the Arts and Business Council of Greater Philadelphia.
Karen B. Davis, president and chief execuive of the council, said the merger "just made sense."
Both organizations have operated independently for about 30 years.
"It's really about effectiveness," said Davis.
The council, perhaps best known for its Business Volunteers for the Arts program - which links arts organizations and volunteer business professionals with expertise in everything from organizational governance to systems technology - has not focused on individual artists in the past. Davis said the merger with the volunteer lawyers group would provide an opportunity for doing so. She said the council planned to develop other programs assisting individuals with everything from web site design to data-base building.
"We've never really done that," said Davis. "We've left it to them to tap the legal community." Now the volunteer lawyers programs will provide an in-house model for developing a sheaf of programs, she said.
According to the council, about 700 lawyers have provided an average $1 million annually in pro bono services for artists over the past three decades.
The council, affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia, was formed in 1981.Last year, according to council figures, about 700 volunteers provided 12,400 hours of direct service to 200 arts organizations.
A reception announcing the merger is scheduled for Tuesday, March 11, from 6 p.m. to 8 p,m. at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Broad and Cherry Streets.
- Stephan Salisbury

If you missed Monday night's Transfigured Night and other works at the Curtis Institute of Music, you can still hear the concert here. For the first time, Curtis put up an entire Field Hall recital for streaming and downloading. Very cool.
Pictured are Curtis students and violist/Curtis director Roberto Diaz.

The National Constitution Center has received a $1 million contribution from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation - paid out over four years - for the expansion of educational programming, particularly within the center's Family Theater, officials announced Wednesday.
At the same time, the center announced the reopening of its Living News theatrical show, which focuses on news-related constitutional issues that have an impact on daily life. The productions are presented to student groups, grades seven through 12.
Joseph M. Torsella, president and CEO of the NCC, said the funding would provide for creation of additional theatrical productions, presentations to larger numbers of students, production of new curricular material and maintenance of the theater.
The Living News program reopened on March 10 and runs through June 13. Performances, which feature professional actors interacting with audiences, are presented at 10 and 11 a.m. and 1 and 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. The National Constitution Center is located in the 500 block of Arch Street.
- Stephan Salisbury

The Fairmount Park Conservancy, a private, nonprofit fundraising affiliate of the park, raised about $675,000 Tuesday night at its annual benefit dinner. Conservancy president John Binswanger, who is also a member of the Fairmount Park Commission, said that over 300 attended the dinner, this year honoring Mayor Nutter at the Rittenhouse Hotel on Rittenhouse Square, a venerable part of the 9,000-acre park system.
The conservancy raises funds to benefit the park - many private donors, such as foundations, have rules prohibiting them from giving directly to a public agency - and has initiated a number of restoration and educational programs, such as the refurbishing of Boxer's Trail near the east bank of the Schuylkill River, a meandering route once used for training by Joe Frazier and others. The conservancy has also spearheaded renovation of the the South Garden of the Fairmount Water Works and several neighborhood parks and has a number of educational park programs in the pipeline.
- Stephan Salisbury

Perhaps an equal partner with Christopher Wheeldon in the creation of Carnival of the Animals was John Lithgow, who not only narrated the piece in 2003 when it was premiered by New York City Ballet, but also wrote that narration. Pennsylvania Ballet hoped to sign Lithgow for Carnival of the Animals with the company late this season, and it did, but Lithgow had a clause in his contract allowing him to back out if other more compelling work presented itself before a certain date.
That date, March 1, has passed, and a Pennsylvania Ballet spokeswoman says Lithgow will at least be here to narrate opening night in June.
But what about the other performances?
"We have confirmation that John will definitely do opening night," said the spokeswoman. "We are still working with his agent to see if he will commit to any additional performances."
This Carnival of the Animals, by the way, uses the familiar Camille Saint-Saëns score, but tells the tale of Oliver Percy, a young boy who spends the night in New York's Museum of Natural History.
Addendum: Pennsylvania Ballet says Lithgow will do opening night, plus the two performances on June 7 (noon and 8 p.m.). For the other performances, Houston actor Paul Hope will narrate.

She's doing it again. Zoe Strauss, the Philadelphia photographer and installation artist, is holding a sale. She's putting up an exhibition of 231 new and selected works May 4 under I-95 in South Philadelphia. Here's the really fun part: selected pieces will be available as color photocopies for $5 each. This is the 8th year Strauss has set up her own gallery under the overpass at Front and Mifflin Streets. In addition to this site, Strauss' work has been seen at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
PennDot has presumably checked the site for structural integrity.

After so many cancellations from singers, Tristan at the Met may or may not be "cursed" (to use manager Peter Gelb's pleasantly 19th-century and rather operatic adjective). But Verdi's Ernani might have different associations for Angela Meade, left, whose performance drew some pretty splendid critical reaction Friday night when she stepped in for Sondra Radvanovsky at the last minute. The 30-year-old soprano - who is a student at the Academy of Vocal Arts and on the roster of Astral Artistic Services - said she was "a little nervous for the first 15 minutes" on stage. It apparently wasn't obvious. She "showed a vibrant voice with nice color and an assured technique," wrote AP critic Ronald Blum. "She sang like an old pro from start to finish, combining for moving duets with Marcello Giordani (Ernani) — she happens to share the same voice teacher as Giordani, Bill Schuman."

When pianist Rudolf Buchbinder sat down for rehearsals with the Philadelphia Orchestra Tuesday, he brought with him a special message. Buchbinder said he spoke with Wolfgang Sawallisch on Easter Sunday, and Sawallisch asked him to extend his greetings to the musicians. The elegant Buchbinder plays Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Philadelphians Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

(Here is a longer version of a review appearing in Tuesday's Inquirer)

By Peter Dobrin
INQUIRER MUSIC CRITIC
You don’t notice the greatness at first. Yevgeniy Sharlat’s Piano Quartet, unveiled at an Astral concert Sunday afternoon, starts with melodies that must be deduced, almost like one of those pixilated puzzles whose image can only be seen if you stand back far enough.
But then patterns begin to emerge. You get the sense that material is being taken apart, put back together. Those patterns begin to emit a certain mood. And in places the mood grows quite emotional. I was particularly taken with the section in which the viola pizzicato accompanies a piano music-box part – only to be interrupted by a bright outburst, a contradiction, from the piano. Here you were sure the two instruments were saying something to each.
That’s often the definition of greatness in music – when something as abstract as pure tone starts to tap you on the shoulder with a message to look outside of music, and this new work does that emphatically. Sharlat, born in Moscow and educated at Yale, Curtis and Juilliard, was commissioned to write his Piano Quartet by Astral Artistic Services, and it might be one of the most compelling works to enter the chamber music literature in some time. His aesthetic is unique, and yet it evolves even during the course of the work. Some sections build in intensity. Elsewhere, so little happens that the instruments pretty much loiter – until the piano comes along with a slap of sound. There’s something creepy and generally disorienting about one movement, where nothing seems to resolve but rather merely relents when it gets taken over by another idea. At one point the piece totally dissolves into a moment of deep despair when the piano descends into the far reaches of the bass.
Sharlat creates a section where the four instruments almost ignore each other. Their self-involvement might be complete, until you notice it’s all adding up to a wonderful rhythmically charged drone. And this is where the composer leaves you off, with a distinct Brahms-meets-Gorecki intensity.
The piece is dedicated to Andrius Zlabys, the impressive Astral pianist who recruited guest violinist Pavel Ilyashov, violist Anton Jivaev and cellist Wendy Warner for this Philadelphia premiere at the Trinity Center (the world premiere was given Saturday night at a community music school in Trappe, Pa.).
The musicians played the new score with the kind of confidence that only comes with efficient rehearsing, and which was less obvious in some of the other works on the program. Three of the players gave the local premiere of Dmitri Levkovich’s Piano Trio – the first movement of which was like a more impressionistic Rachmaninoff Vocalise, with a second movement fugue on a rather Shostakovichian theme.
Astral also commissioned Luis Prado’s Piano Quintet, “Suite de Baile,” infused with Spanish folk tunes and perhaps more cheery than some of the music audiences here might remember from the composer’s days in Philadelphia (he lives in Madrid now). The first movement, “Procesión,” was especially effecting, an evocation of a passing band whose music is heard only partially as it approaches and departs.
Heard even more distantly, in Mahler’s early and unfinished Piano Quartet, was the Mahler we know. I’m glad to have heard the piece, which developed its material in a narrow and unimaginative way, if only to be cheered by the reminder that genius is one of those things that sometimes strikes later in life.
Contact music critic Peter Dobrin at 215-854-5611 or pdobrin@phillynews.com. Read his blog at http://go.philly.com/artswatch.