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The Charlotte Symphony will likely announce a balanced budget for the 2006-07 season soon, but the good news comes with a footnote. In order to cover its costs, the orchestra borrowed $700,000 from its endowment fund, with the intention of repaying the money once an ongoing $83m endowment drive is complete.
Read the full story here.
From a master class given near the end of Rubinstein's life:
(A lock of Beethoven's hair.)
Ludwig van Beethoven died on March 26, 1827, after four months of misery on a dirty straw mattress in Vienna. What brought on that downward spiral? Lead poisoning accidentally caused by his own doctor, says a recent journal article. Read the full story here.
Recently a WDAV listener was moved to write to the station about the new movie Vitus. You can see a trailer for it at http://www.sonyclassics.com/vitus/ .
It seems that every few years there's a new art house flick that delves into the oft neglected realm of classical music. This one tells the fanciful story of a prodigy's adjustment to his family's ambitions and the world around him.
The young leading actor, Teo Gheorghiu, has gotten raves for both his piano playing and his acting. In fact, the climactic performance in the film is from his actual debut at Zurich's Tonhalle.
I haven't seen Vitus, but I'm intrigued because it promises to be more than the usual exercise in artsy angst and utimate uplift. Movies with classical music themes so often get mired in the tragedy of a historic figure's life. They lose sight of the fact that this music is also fun and pleasurable.
Whatever the point of view, it's always encouraging to see classical music celebrated on the silver screen. It's especially gratifying when a movie captures the richness of the music in all its facets.
This one's shaken, not stirred.
"Anitra's Dance" from Greig's Peer Gynt Suite performed on wine glasses or "glass harp" by Glass Duo:
That gap? It's not so wide.
Saturday's broadcast of The MTT Files describes how conductor Michael Tilson Thomas gained new musical insight listening to James Brown and features an extensive interview with the late Godfather of Soul recorded at his home in Georgia.
Get a jump on the energy MTT taps into (and the not-so-wide divide between two performers with very different backgrounds) with this video of James Brown and Pavarotti bringing down the house with "It's a Man's World":
For another peek into the wide world of virtuosity, dig into this clip from a Larry Clinton Orchestra movie short. Behold, "The Philharmonicas" - an irresistibly goofy sextet of harmonica wielding hot shots:
(The group later thinned to "The Philharmonica Trio". Perhaps there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.)
When I think "Rachmaninoff", I don't usually think "laughter". This video changes that with one of the funniest twists on virtuosity I've seen:
Mike McKay checks in from WDAV's Scotland Tour.
Following a fabulous four days in the Highlands, our WDAV tour group headed back to Edinburgh. Before settling back in to this great city, though, we had a stop of several hours in that "holy land"-type city for golfers, St. Andrews. It's indeed home base for the sport, and those in the group who are golfers felt a special kind of completion at seeing the historic site for the first time (or in the case of one tour member who had played at St. Andrews, the second).
What we learned, though, is that there's so much more to St. Andrews than just the golf connection ...
as seems to be the norm in Scotland, it's steeped in history and legend, and we had ample time to walk through the town center. Especailly notable were the ruins of the cathedral and abbey that are the oldest in the country, and the University of St. Andrews, which of course has been the educational home of Britain's young princes. St. Andrews is sufficiently compact that all these locations were within easy walking distance, and the group made the best of that situation.
We proceeded to Edinburgh not on one of the clean, quick-moving freeways on which we've done much of our driving, but rather on The Coast of Fife tour, which took us through several charming coastal towns and villages. Fife is interesting in that it's referred to on road signs as The Kingdom of Fife, and none of the other regions of the country we've visited seems to have that royal designation.
I wrote earlier in the trip about the charms of Edinburgh, so I won't belabor that point, but I do want to mention one thing the group has agreed on which I think has been a surprise to many of us: the food in Scotland--not just in Edinburgh, but in all the places we've been--has been very, very good. It may be that this country's cuisine has been a bit tarred by the brush that's so often applied to England's food, and it shouldn't be. We've had excellent meals on the various restaurants the group members have sampled, and the dinners at our hotel in Pitlochry drew high praise. As I said, a surprise, and a nice one...
Our folks are using today and tomorrow to sample more of the performances that are part of the International Festival and Fringe Festival here. Yesterday was fun, because as we got back to the city we drove by what's called Sunday at the Fringe, and several hundred thousand people were gathered at a site called The Meadows to enjoy many of the performances that make up the Fringe. The diversity of the offerings, and of the folks who do the offering, is immense, so there's so much to choose from that the challenge is narrowing down the list of options.
On Wednesday we head back to the Carolinas (or in the case of one couple, back to Albany, NY), and most will be ready, I think. There are some in the group who were actually already in Europe before the bulk of the group arrived, and one of our members, Theodore Harvey, is not returning to the States, but will be flying on to Rome for a week.
A quick note about Theodore: he a cellist with the Charlotte Symphony, as well as a composer whose Sonata for Cello and Piano has been featured on Carolina Live (and will be again soon, as I recall). Anyway, Theodore arrived in Edinburgh with the group yesterday, and before his head hit the pillow last night he had been to four different performances. That's the kind of opportunity that's available here. And by the way, all of us were awakened in the middle of the night last night by a fire alarm, so several hundred chilled and sleepy people spent an unexpected getting-acquainted time in the courtyard outside our accomodations.
Our best to you, please keep the good thoughts and prayers coming our way, and we'll be coming your way quite soon...
Just for fun and as a foil to the pipe organ grandeur displayed in yesterday's entry, here's the King of Instruments pared down to the basics. The opening bars of Bach's Passacaglia in C Minor are played on a kitchen table. (Good thing he's not trying to play the fugue that follows.)
When China does it big, China does it REALLY big. Though the pipe organ hasn't traditionally been an instrument you'd easily find in China, a 6,000-pipe instrument, the largest in China, was recently installed in the Oriental Arts Centre, Shanghai.
Now, to find organists in China....
Yesterday's entry celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Warner Bros. classic cartoon, What's Opera, Doc? Today, an early parody of Disney's Fantasia. This 1943 Warner short, A Corny Concerto, puts the maestro's gloves on Elmer Fudd's four-fingered hands. Bugs, Porky and a family of swans (ugly duckling included) spoof Fantasia to the tune of two Strauss waltzes: Tales of the Vienna Woods and On the Beautiful Blue Danube.
More animated opera today. This time, quite familiar: What's Opera, Doc? (also known as "Kill de Wabbit" thanks to Elmer's famous line sung to the tune of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries).
Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this summer, What's Opera, Doc? was originally released to theaters by Warner Bros. on July 6, 1957. It features the speaking and singing voices of Mel Blanc as Bugs and Arthur Q. Bryan as Elmer.
In 1994, What's Opera, Doc? was voted by animators to be the greatest cartoon of all time in the book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals. To read the full story behind the creation of What's Opera Doc?, click here.
According to the Washington Times, when a Virginia High School student exposed mice to hard rock music ten hours a day for three weeks, their ability to navigate a maze they already knew decreased significantly.
A control group, exposed to classical music, improved their maze time.
The experiment was cut short because the mice exposed to hard rock mice killed each other. Read the full story here.
And stay tuned. It's got to be good for you, not to mention those around you.
Each of the forty-nine members of our WDAV tour group wishes you a wonderful day from bonny Scotland, and it's great to be able to report that everyone made it here (though not without some adventure in the Philadelphia airport) and everyone seems to be in good health and even better spirits.
Because of weather problems in Philly the day we departed, some of the people who were meeting us there and flying on to Scotland with the group almost didn't ...
...no need to give all the details, but know that two of us (with my being one of the two because of trying to make sure the other member of the pair made it to the Glasgow flight) got on the bird to Scotland with about two minutes to spare! It was a bit harrowing, but we were being looked after, apparently, so everyone made the flight.
Unfortunately, the weather in Philadelphia necessitated our taking off four hours later than scheduled, so we were comparably late arriving in Glasgow. Luther Wade, our tour guru (and host of Viva Voce on WDAV), was waiting for us, along with his gracious wife Marilyn and an interesting, articulate Scottish guide named Bruce. Bruce provided running commentary as the group took a bus ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and gave us some helpful insights into the, er, sites we'd see. Actually; he gave us some funnier insights into the Scots themselves, and that may be ever more helpful than the standard tourist info.
Glasgow is basically an industrial city, but to us, who'd been on planes for most of the previous twelve hours, it had a kind of Shangri-La beauty and attraction. Well, maybe not, but it did seem like a neat city in the short time we were there.
Edinburgh, by contrast, is the historic, cultural, financial and governmental center of Scotland, and it's easy to see why it's one of the world's prime tourist destinations. The history surrounds you as you tour the city, and it's at an interesting point in its history -- trying to maintain the best of the traditions that have formed it through the centuries, and trying at the same moment to adjust to the responsibility of being a modern, tech-savvy world center.
This day (Tuesday the 7th, as this is written) is basically the first full day our group has had to explore and spend time as they choose. We do have tickets tonight to the Edinburgh Tatoo--an event which attracts people from around the world--but the day has been a free one, and many in the group have spent it "getting their bearings" in preparation for the three days we spend back in the city at the end of our tour.
Tomorrow we set off for northern Scotland, visiting several towns and historic sites over a three-day period, and it'll be interesting to get a non-urban view of the country. We expect to be thoroughly steeped in Scottish lore and tradition while we're doing that part of the trip, and Luther says we're even going to take a cruise and look for the Loch Ness monster ... if we see the beast, and especially if it decides to chomp on someone in our delectable group, we'll bring back pictures.
Seriously, though, this is a terrific, diverse, interesting group of people, and all of us with a WDAV connection are honored to have played a part in making this trip possible. The group totals forty-nine, and it's easy to see that all of us care a lot about the station and about classical music. As the trip continues I'll send more messages your way via the blog (and thanks to Jennifer Foster and Rachel Stewart for making that possible).
Think a good thought and say a little prayer for us, as we journey deep into the heart of this lovely land...
After months of planning and anticipation, forty-nine hearty (and hopefully hardy) travelers are on the way to “The Land of the Mountain and the Flood,” to Scotland, as WDAV sponsors its ten-day journey to that wonderful land.
Most of the group departed from Charlotte, of course, but three of the travelers joined the main contingent in Philadelphia. They’re family members of Grant and Caroline Sharp (members of WDAV’s Gladys and Rom Sparks Society), and they came to Philadelphia from Albany, NY, and Atlanta. Once the whole group had gathered in Philly, it was on to Glasgow, where we were to be met by our tour gurus, Luther and Marilyn Wade.
The Wades have journeyed to Scotland so many times and had such extended stays there that it’s almost like a second home to them. As a matter of fact, even though the WDAV trip is a fairly long one—ten days—Luther is actually going to be in Scotland and England for a month, in part to cover a number of operatic events for a magazine for which he’s a regular contributor.
Our group’s itinerary takes us from our early-Monday arrival in Glasgow to Edinburgh, where a half-day city tour is planned. The next day is essentially a free day in the charming city of Edinburgh, and that night the group will attend one of the city’s yearly highlights, the Edinburgh Tatoo. Now before you visualize our group’s returning home with an assortment of inky adornments to various body parts, be assured this Tatoo is quite different – it’s a military-based spectacle that draws audiences from around the world.
The four days after that will be spent touring other areas of Scotland, and as the week progresses I’ll send more reports on what we see and how the group is doing. There seems to be a real sense of excitement among our travelers, many of whom have never been to Scotland before, and the sites and sights Luther has planned for us promise to make for a wonderful learning experience.
Our trip will then bring us back to Edinburgh, where group members are planning to take in some of the many events of the various Festivals. There will be formal musical opportunities from which to choose, and there are literally thousands of performances of various kinds that are part of Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival. It promises to be a kick, and our folks are ready…
So have a kind thought for us the next few days, say a prayer for our safety and health, and we’ll keep in touch right here. You be well, too!
A recent article in Tacoma, Washington's The News Tribune, "Will Ruffians Run from Mozart?", describes the city's plan to use the local classical station's signal to run off would-be hooligans:
Meet Tacoma’s new gang-busting squad – Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. Police and transit officials hope playing classical music at bus stops will shoo away unwanted gang activity.
The first speakers are being installed at the Tacoma Mall Transit Center and should start piping classical music radio sometime this week. They will be tuned 24 hours a day to KING 98.1 FM. You can read the full article here.
Maybe the Tacoma Police and Transit systems should start contributing to KING 98.1.
This Dynamic Duo's got flawless dynamics: Glenn Gould and Leonard Bernstein perform Bach together.