ArtsWatch

The Inquirer today follows Stephan Salisbury's story on how the city violated the Culture Fund's process to send $250,000 to the Philadelphia Orchestra. Today's story says many of the orchestra's board members were also donors to Mayor Nutter's campaign.
Not to beat a dead horse, but the overlap is more a consequence of the limited leadership pool in Philadelphia than payback (although I'm sure there's some of that). If you made a list of philanthropists to cultural groups, donors to political campaigns, generally civic-minded leaders and other community activists, you would find many of the same names popping up on five or six board lists.
Expanding the talent pool beyond the usual suspects would not only reduce the chances of back-room dealing, it would help alleviate donor-fatigue among people like orchestra chairman Harold Sorgenti, whose multi-tasking in philanthropy has been admirable.
How about a campaign to recruit more involvement from philanthropists and business leaders hiding in the suburbs?

Not many classical artists are getting signed by record companies these days - and getting signed doesn't mean what it meant in the days when the labels sold more than a few thousand copies per title - but Curtis Institute of Music pianist Yuja Wang is now with Deutsche Grammophon.
Her first release, Feb. 17, includes works of Liszt, Scriabin and Ligeti.

Mervon Mehta (pictured), the Kimmel's vice president for programming, is leaving the center. He'll be replaced by Kimmel-Philadelphia Orchestra veteran Tom Warner (not pictured). More here.

The New York Philharmonic will play the 600-seat Hanoi Opera House (pictured) during its Asia tour next season, the New York Times reports. Vietnam doesn't have the classical ambitions of some of its neighbors (Korea, China). But, says Philharmonic chief Zarin Mehta: “This is a country that we felt as Americans that we owed a visit to,” he said “We had a big war with them. The country was coming back, and we felt it was a good thing to reach out to the people there.”
The Philadelphia Orchestra, you might recall, broke the Vietnam barrier a decade ago.
The Philharmonic, in announcing its 2009-10 season (Alan Gilbert's first as music director), also revealed two interesting bits of artistic news: Riccardo Muti will return to lead concerts, and Vladimir Jurowski will make his New York Philharmonic debut.
Combined with his Met appearances and tour concerts at Lincoln Center, Jurowski is establishing a major New York presence.

The National Constitution Center has a new leader, at least temporarily.
Linda E. Johnson will become acting president and CEO when Joseph M. Torsella leaves at the end of January.
A member of the Center’s board since 1997, Johnson is resigning as CEO of the Free Library of Philadelphia Library Foundation to take the job. She is a veteran of various boards, from the Free Library to Hamilton College to the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network.
At the Free Library, Johnson, a lawyer, was working to raise money for a renovation and major expansion of the main branch.
The project is still happening, though a groundbreaking is not imminent.
"We were ready to go to groundbreaking, but with the situation with the branches and the economy, we decided not to go to groundbreaking just yet," said spokeswoman Sandra Horrocks.
About $105 million has been promised toward the project's $175 million goal, Horrocks said.
"We have a ways to go. We’re still fund-raising," she said.
A CEO search committee will be established, and today Johnson was put back on the Free Library Foundation's board.

Philadelphia Orchestra president and CEO James Undercofler will depart sooner than previously announced.
Rather than leaving in July, yesterday was his last day in the office. No successor has been found. In fact, the orchestra has only just hired a search firm.
To help cover the leadership gap, the orchestra is putting in place Philadelphia businessman Frank Slattery as acting executive director and CEO. He has started the pro bono post already.
More here.

Christoph Eschenbach has canceled his appearance at the keyboard this weekend in a Philadelphia Orchestra chamber-music concert because of what the orchestra says is "a minor hand injury." His conducting activities with the orchestra during the month of January will go on as scheduled, a spokeswoman says.
Pianist Natalie Zhu will appear in his stead in Schumann’s Andante and Variations, WoO 10, for two pianos, two cellos and horn at the concert scheduled for Sunday in the Kimmel's Perelman Theater.

Clarinetist Anthony McGill joins Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and pianist Gabriela Montero tomorrow in a new work of John Williams just before Obama takes the oath.
McGill, 29, a 2000 Curtis grad who is now a principal clarinetist in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, said this was "probably the greatest thing I’ve eve been a part of. It is humongous, to be a part of history, any inauguration. This one especially has a little bit of special meaning personally. It’s hard to even talk about it still."
The piece by Williams - he who writes Olympic themes and some most excellent movie scores - is about five minutes long.
"Not to sound cheesy, but definitely once you hear it you know what I am talk about: it sounds like America. It does," said McGill, who grew up in Chicago and moved away for school in 1994.
It's open, it's free, it has a lot of different, very American sounding music. And in its beginning it’s almost sorrowful and in the end triumphant. And yet there’s a lot of nostalgia in the piece as well. Once you recognize the melody, it sounds very American in the best sense of the word."
McGill has played with Yo-Yo Ma before. In 2001, with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, they collaborated on Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.
"I wanted to play with him again for a long time," said McGill.
Seven or eight years later, not a bad encore.
Here's a review of a recital McGill played here in 2005.

Young Concert Artists, the prestigious New York competition, has awarded seven first prizes for its 2008-09 International Auditions, and among them are current Curtis Institute of Music violin student Ray Chen (pictured) and 2008 Curtis grad Bella Hristova.
YCA has been a pretty reliable indicator of great musical things to come since its start in 1961. Among past awardees are Pinchas Zukerman (a 1966 winner), the Tokyo String Quartet (1970) and Emanuel Ax (1973).
Winners receive two of the things that are hardest to get for nascent musicians: professional management and performance opportunities.

Classical music had maybe its largest and most captive audience ever this afternoon when John Williams' Air and Simple Gifts debuted just before Barack Obama took the oath of the office.
An ensemble of clarinetist Anthony McGill, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Gabriela did the honors.
It was a relatively introspective choice for a moment that might have been relegated to bombast or boilerplate patriotism. Harmonies were hard to hear, but when clarinetist McGill introduced the melody, first in bits, it was unmistakable: "Simple Gifts," the 1848 Shaker song by Elder Joseph Brackett. Copland used it of course in Appalachian Spring (first called "Ballet For Martha," as in Martha Graham).
The Pittsburgh Symphony gives the Williams work another chance to be heard in concerts this weekend for which Montero was already booked to play Rhapsody in Blue.

The adaptation by Williams (pictured) was instrumental, but here are the words:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Turns out Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill and Gabriela Montero were not really playing at the presidential inauguration, the New York Times reports. Well, they were playing, just not that day. Well, they played that day, but that's not the performance everyone heard. They were doing the instrumental version of lip-synching.
Opinions, please.

Seems to me the economic crisis is going to provide cover for bad management at arts institutions who will now be able to blame forces they portray as out of their control. Take a look at this stunning quote from the president of Brandeis University in explaining why the school proposes to dismantle its Rose Art Museum and sell off 6,000 objects.

“This is not a happy day in the history of Brandeis,” President Jehuda Reinharz said tonight. “The Rose is a jewel. But for the most part it’s a hidden jewel. It does not have great foot traffic and most of the great works we have, we are just not able to exhibit. We felt that, at this point given the recession and the financial crisis, we had no choice.”

In other words, we've spent years neglecting the museum and not realizing its potential, so, well, let's just close it.
Read the whole story in the Boston Globe. It's pretty jaw-dropping.