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Violin News & Gossip, Op. 3, No. 24

March 25, 2007 at 5:24 PM

3/21/07- Violinist Joshua Bell has been named the winner of this year’s Avery Fisher Prize, which carries a $75,000 honorarium. The prize, which Bell will receive in April, honors career achievement. According to the Associated Press, which posted a Q&A interview with Bell, “The award is named for the late classical music benefactor and electronics wizard who helped fund Lincoln Center. Previous winners include cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianists Emanuel Ax and Andre Watts, and violinists Sarah Chang and Midori.”

When the reporter asks what Bell hasn’t yet done, the answer is illuminating: “I’m embarrassed to say what I haven‘t done — 20th century violin repertoire, I’ve done only a few. I haven‘t done the Bartok, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Berg (concertos). ... The problem is I am playing too many concerts and juggling all that I have done and introducing one concerto a year — often a new one. ...

Also, the older I get the harder it is to learn, particularly by memory. I don‘t like using music for concertos but I may just resign myself to all concertos I learn now. ... because anything I learned as a kid, I can drop it for 15 years (and) I can bring it up again and it will be right there. But things I‘ve learned as an adult, you have to keep drumming it back into your head again.”

Interestingly, the first place I encountered this news was in the Sky Valley Journal of Sky Valley, Wyoming, which posted the article on its website just a few minutes after AP did. For space, the paper edited out many of the AP reporter’s questions, which is amusing but confusing. So here’s a link to the Washington Post version, which managed to find room to print the Qs as well as the As.
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For those who have been wondering how this prize-winning year would unfold for Augustin Hadelich after he won the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, I have received an update from IVCI.

On April 17, Hadelich will present his first concert in Indianapolis as the reigning Competition champion. His partner, for this and other tour appearances, will be pianist Yingdi Sun, the 2005 International Franz Liszt Piano Competition first prize winner.

The Indianapolis concert kicks off the American leg of the “Pure Gold Tour”, part of the prize package that each artist won as first prize winners in each of their respective competitions. During March, the artists are performing in six venues in The Netherlands and Germany. In the United States in April, they will perform several dates in Indiana and Pennsylvania, as well as on the famed Dame Myra Hess series at the Chicago Cultural Center. That April 25th performance will be simulcast on WFMT-98.7 FM and over the station’s website, www.wfmt.com.

At Lincoln Center in November 2007, Hadelich will present a solo recital at the Reade Theater. In January 2008, he will make his Carnegie Hall orchestral debut, performing the Brahms Double Concerto with cellist Alban Gerhardt and the Fort Worth Symphony. This will be followed by his Carnegie Hall solo recital debut on March 28, 2008 in Stern Auditorium. Then, in May 2008, he will perform in collaboration with Midori at the Rose Theater.

The 2007-08 season will also mark Hadelich’s professional recording debut with three orchestral CDs: the complete solo violin sonatas of Telemann and the complete violin concerti of Hadyn for Naxos; the Tchaikovsky concerto with the Saarbrücken Radio Orchestra; and a recital CD with pianist Robert Kulek on the AVIE label.

Congratulations again, Augustin!

Musician News

4/7/07 - Violinist Tricia Park will perform a recital designed to celebrate the friendship between composer Johannes Brahms and violinist Joseph Joachim at the University of Iowa. She joined the Iowa faculty as first violinist of the Maia String Quartet in 2005.

3/31/07 - Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Kimberly Fisher will be the guest soloist of the Great Hall Chamber Orchestra at its spring concert at Bryn Mawr College.

3/24/07 – The Florida Orchestra presented a concert with a lot of “violin power”: concertmaster Jeffrey Multer soloed in a program of Mozart while another fine violinist was on the podium: Scott Yoo, who, as a violinist, won the 1988 Josef Gingold International Violin Competition, now the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Last year, Yoo made his first appearance as violinist and conductor with the San Francisco Symphony.

3/22/07 – The Worcester (MA) Telegram & Gazette ran a profile of violinist Kyung Sun Lee, who often performs with her pianist/conductor husband, Brian Suits.

3/22/07 - Lincoln Center presented the Daedalus Quartet with a 2007 Martin E. Segal Award. The $5,000 awards, to be used for career advancement, are given annually to two rising young artists in recognition of outstanding achievement. Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey was the other recipient.

3/21/07 - More than a year after a series of ailments forced him to cancel all of his engagements, Seiji Ozawa has returned to conducting with a series of opera performances in Japan, reports PlaybillArts.com. “Ozawa, now 71, was obliged to withdraw from all of his performances through 2006 due to severe bouts of pneumonia, shingles and related ailments. His next scheduled appearance at the Vienna State Opera, of which he is music director, will be with a production of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer beginning April 29.”

3/21/07 – Violinist Benjamin Hudson, concertmaster of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, soloed with that orchestra in Bach's Violin Concerto, BWV 1056 in a Denver performance.

3/210/7 – Violinist Anna Lee is a recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. She will receive an award of $10,000 to help her continue her music studies and assist her with music-related needs. You can hear Anna, who is 11, on the NPR website.

Orchestra News

The Foundation for the Santa Fe Symphony and the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have received a $1 million gift from Eddie and Peaches Gilbert, BGK Properties, and the Garfield Street Foundation. This gift will underwrite a series of showcase concerts featuring renowned soloists over the next six years, among other things.

The Houston Symphony’s “A Touch of Class(ical) and all that Jazz 2007” Ball on March 2 raised $1 million for the orchestra’s education and outreach programs. This is the second year in a row in which the Symphony Ball, organized by the Houston Symphony League, has reached the seven-figure mark.

The San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas have been nominated for a Rose d’Or award (for international television programming) in the category of Best Arts Documentary for their “Keeping Score” program on Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” A jury of international television professionals winnowed more than 350 submissions to a field of 72 nominees; this documentary series, seen in the United States on PBS since 2004, is the only American contender. In related news, the radio series titled “The MTT Files,” to be distributed by American Public Media beginning next month. Michael Tilson Thomas hosts the eight one-hour shows.

Midori’s Orchestra Residencies Program has announced its recipients for the 2008-09 season: the Elgin Symphony and Youth Orchestras and the Mobile Symphony and Youth Orchestras. During the spring of 2009, violinist Midori will spend about a week in each community, working with the youth orchestras, performing with the affiliated adult orchestras, and participating in community education and outreach projects.

3/23/07 – The Grand Rapids Press reports that the Grand Rapids Symphony has been awarded a $40,000 grant by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation “to develop a two-year plan to integrate diversity planning into other aspects of the organization, including marketing and recruiting board members and staff.” The paper adds: “Last year, the Grand Rapids Symphony received a $55,000 grant from the Battle Creek-based Kellogg Foundation to support a ‘Young, Gifted & Black’ scholarship fund to pay for private music lessons to promising young African-American students.”

3/21/07 – According to the Charlotte Observer (NC), the musicians of the Charlotte Symphony “have agreed to a pay cut next season, they announced Wednesday. They'll give up two weeks of work, and forego most of a pair of raises called for in their contract. As a result, the base salary will fall to $34,770 from this season's $36,000. The terms change the five-year contract agreed on in 2003, when talks broke down in a seven-week strike.” The changes are expected to save the orchestra about $400,000, compared with the original agreement. “Renegotiating the contract was one of several suggestions from a consultant who studied orchestra operations last fall. Orchestra board members, following another of the recommendations, increased their donations by a total of about $60,000, Osborne said. The board's action helped persuade the players to agree to the pay cut, said violinist Elizabeth Pistolesi, chairman of the committee that represents the players.”

Maura, he's coming May 30 - June 1, 2008. It would be great if you could come!

Neil

From Anne Horvath
Posted on March 26, 2007 at 3:25 AM

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