Patricia Corbett leaves $30 million to the arts

Several local arts organizations were notified today of the final gifts of arts patron Patricia Corbett, estimated to be more than $30 million. The two who will benefit the most from her largesse are CCM and Music Hall. Click here to read the story.

Eleventh hour gift saves Columbus Symphony -- for now

The Associated Press is reporting that a large donation was made to the Columbus Symphony, announced by the board of trustees Monday. Had there been no gift, the orchestra would have folded today.

Symphony to be honored today on Fountain Square

City Council will present a proclamation to CSO music director Paavo Jarvi today, 12:15 p.m. on Fountain Square, in honor of the orchestra's five-country, 12-city European tour this month, playing to sold-out concerts in Paris, Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam and Madrid.

Downtown Cincinnati Inc.'s Mindy Rosen had the idea after attending several events to honor Team Lachey.

"I thought if we can honor a talented choral group why not the world-famous CSO too? " she says.

The event is open to the public.

Photo: The orchestra rehearses in Hamburg. Courtesy Carrie Krysanick

The high cost of playing gigs for freelancers

The news coming out of Columbus reminds me of how many freelance musicians live in our area (partly thanks to CCM), who drive to Columbus, Dayton, Charleston, Louisville and other areas to work. But now that gas is through the roof, what's happening to their expenses? Take a look at this excellent analysis on this blog.

Are you a freelance musician? Is driving all the way to Columbus cutting into your earnings?

Columbus Symphony musicians reject "final offer"

I'm wondering if the Columbus Symphony will cease to exist, given the state of affairs right now. Last Thursday night, the musicians in the Columbus Symphony voted to reject the orchestra board's final offer for a new contract.

The offer included a 40 percent pay cut for the 53 full-time musicians, from $55,200 to $33,000. Musicians were also required to pay 30 percent of their monthly health insurance premiums. Part-time musicians, now paid $150 per rehearsal and concert, would be reduced to $100.

Douglas Fisher, president of the Central Ohio Federation of Musicians Local 103, tells me that 10 to 20 local Cincinnati area musicians regularly play in that orchestra.

Here's a link to the Columbus Dispatch story.

And here's a link to a letter to the citizens of Columbus, from principal clarinetist David Thomas.

What do you think? Should Columbus continue to support a symphony?

What will this mean for area musicians who play with that orchestra?

CCM remembers Gerhard Samuel

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) presents the CCM Philharmonia Orchestra and choirs in two performances of Beethoven's "Coriolan Overture" and Symphony No. 9, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Corbett Auditorium.

Conducted by Mark Gibson, director of orchestral studies, and CCM student AikKhai Pung, both concerts feature the Philharmonia Orchestra with the combined voices of the CCM Chamber Choir, Chorale, and University Men's and Women's choruses.

The performances are dedicated to the memory of Gerhard Samuel, beloved former CCM professor and internationally recognized composer and conductor, who died in March in Seattle.

Joining the orchestra and choirs for the Ninth Symphony are student vocal soloists: (April 25 performance) Helen Lyons, Catherine Martin, Anthony Zoeller and Nathan Stark, and (April 26) Danielle Walker, Claire Maloney, Anthony Beck and Noel Bouley.

Tickets:
$10 general admission, $5 non-UC students, UC students FREE

www.ccm.uc.edu or 513-556-4183

Violin superstar performs, gives master class

Whenever Pinky is in town, it's an event. The Israeli violinist Pinchas Zukerman performs Bruch's Violin Concerto in G Minor with the Cincinnati Symphony tonight through Saturday. And on Friday afternoon, he'll be at CCM to host a master class with string students, free and open to the public.

Zukerman has been in international news lately. Last month, he was invited to play the most expensive musical instrument in the world in Moscow, before an invited audience of 160.

Lawyer Maxim Viktorov, a Russian collector, puchased the Guarneri del Gesu violin at Sotheby's in February for $3.9 million, a record. Until Zukerman's performance of Bach, Mozart and the last movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto, it had not been played in more than 70 years.

Del Gesu violins are even more rare than the instruments made by Antonio Stradivari.

Here are Zukerman's appearance details:

For CSO concert information, click here.

PINCHAS ZUKERMAN MASTER CLASS
Time: 3-5 p.m.
Location: Room 1630 Corbett Center for the Performing Arts, CCM Village
Admission: FREE, no reservations required

Delta: Two mechanicals delay CSO return home

About 80 symphony musicians, staff members, conductor Paavo Jarvi, musicians with children and I were wondering if we'd ever get home Saturday, as we flew from Madrid to CVG.

Our Delta flight out of Madrid was delayed two hours because of a cabin pressure problem -- on the runway, it felt like we were at 2,000 feet. Ears popped and babies screamed. Mechanics tinkered and we took off, albeit not with a great feeling of confidence.

We arrived at JFK, where Delta was actually holding our connecting flight -- only to be told after boarding that there was a problem with the rudder. That one couldn't be fixed. Somehow, Delta found us an empty plane, and we arrived at CVG about four hours late. (Do they have planes just lying around, now that they've cut flights?)

Have the airlines become flying junkyards?

What's your worst travel story?

Photos: Waiting for new boarding passes. Below, in Madrid they shrink-wrap luggage. I'm told it's to keep your possessions from being stolen.

Sold-out shows, scalpers end CSO tour

The CSO's 12-city tour of Europe is now a blur. Like most of the other concerts on this tour, the final three in Spain were sold-out triumphs. Barcelona, where the orchestra played in 2004, has an extraordinary hall, Palau de la Musica Catalana, a riot of decoration, peacock-colored stained glass, frescos -- all capped by a ceiling that looks like a Tiffany lamp.

What I enjoyed about this hall last Thursday was the casual crowd, which had drinks on a patio outside, as well as inside at a wonderful bar. And nearly every hall had audience seated behind the orchestra, where people leaned over to watch the musicians play, or watched to see how Jarvi communicated with them.

On Friday, the CSO played its final concert in Madrid's Auditorio Nacional -- at the impossible hour of 10:30 p.m. The concert ended around 1 a.m.

But this was Spain, so people were just starting their evening. Amazingly, a full orchestra concert preceded the CSO's in the same hall -- Madrid's orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin and starring the Chinese pianist Lang Lang in Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Slatkin came backstage -- where Paavo Jarvi's name was already taped onto his dressing room door -- and greeted some old friends in the orchestra, including his former youth orchestra student, Catherine Lange-Jensen.

What amazed me -- both concerts were sold out, with scalpers outside selling tickets.

Other images of Spain - a sudden thunder-and-hail storm in Barcelona... and the fantastic market right off the Rambla; audience members outside the Palau de la Musica before the concert.

Would you like to have seating behind the orchestra at Music Hall? A patio and bar for drinks and appetizers?

Scenes and memories from the road

A few impressions from the European tour:

The falling dollar and sticker shock everywhere. Starbucks check:

A tall latte in Paris: 3.80 Euro -- more than $6
A tall latte in Dusseldorf: 3.10 Euro
A tall latte in Madrid: 2.70 Euro

One musician's bill for hotel laundry in Paris: 300 Euros (don't even ask how much that is)

Price of one drink in hotel bar while band is playing: 45 Euros

Cafes and bars in every concert hall.

The entire bass section in one elevator in Paris.

Being in Paris.

The tradition of bringing out flowers to the soloist and the conductor.

The different dynamics of the audience in each of the five countries. Most extroverted: Paris, followed by Spain.

Every hall offers a new aural experience.

You have to buy your program in some halls (3 Euros).

Some halls offer free child care (Photo: Papageno and Papagena announce babysitting in Dortmund.)

Audiences of all ages (Dusseldorf had the only "oldish" crowd), including children with parents in Spain.

Concerts in Spain that begin at 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. (tonight's Madrid concert will end around 1 a.m.)

A sudden hail storm in Barcelona.

Paavo Jarvi and the orchestra bringing down the house every night.

Kids on tour.

Field trips on musicians' days off: The horn section went to a horn factory in Mainz and timpanist Patrick Schleker and principal percussionist Bill Platt were picked up in Dusseldorf, taken to the Adams Timpani factory in The Netherlands, to lunch in Belgium and back to Dusseldorf.

Bass player Boris Astafiev flew to Copenhagen for the day from Dusseldorf, on discount airline Air Berlin. And Peter Norton and Charles Bell decided to walk to Cologne from Dusseldorf. They almost made it...

Efficient, clean and pleasant trains -- the best way to travel!

Memo to The Banks Working Group

In the two or three hours I had to see Valencia, I decided to walk through the beautiful Turia Gardens, which was full of people walking, running, biking, children playing in playgrounds... it goes on and on through the whole city. Then I came across this other "city" -- an extraordinary new City of Arts and Sciences at one end of the park, designed by Salvatore Calatrava.

It includes an opera house, Imax cinema, planetarium, science museum and an open-air oceanographic park. I've taken a few photos, but you can also visit Web sites; and here's the official one.

Memo to Banks Working Group: How about some creative thinking like this??

Photos: Public art in the Turia Gardens, the new Opera House and Performing Arts Center (Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía); the Science Museum (left); planetarium and Imax theater (in the hemispheric).

Valencia

Valencia -- what a beautiful city! We flew there on Wednesday via the very efficient Czech Airlines. A plus for all of us was that the concert hall was walking distance from the hotel. A negative is that in Spain, you can't find any food until about 7:30 p.m.

But when I got to the hall, I noticed it had a beautiful atrium facing the fountains in the Turia Gardens, where there were two big bars and tables where people were eating tapas, having coffee or wine. This is something that has been sorely lacking in Music Hall, yet every single hall we have visited here has a cafe or nice bar with sandwiches, cake, tapas, drinks...

Here's a link to the review from Valencia.

By the way, there should be some photos from Paris, Dortmund and Hamburg up on our interactive Web site by now, I hope. Someone else is posting those for me.

Photos:

Cellist Norman Johns reflecting before the concert in Valencia.
Cellist Susan Marshall-Peterson and violinist Rebecca Kruger Fryxell, on the plaza behind the hall.
The Palau de la musica, Valencia

On being green .... and courting business abroad

Here's another story I was chasing while in Europe with the CSO. I think this is the first time we've reported that the city wants to improve the Mill Creek corridor. When I first moved to Cincy from San Francisco some 30 years ago and drove down I-75, I cried...

In the photo: David Smith from Duke Energy, Holly Childs from the City of Cincinnati and one of Cincinnati's existing German investors, violinist Janine Jansen (tour soloist), Neil Hensley of Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber and Dr. Harald Mothes from Girindus, which has its U.S. facility in the City of Reading. Thanks to Neil Hensley.

Dusseldorf's Tonhalle

This was such an unusual hall, I wanted to show you photos. I'm pasting my review, because it doesn't appear to be on our Web site yet:

DÜSSELDORF – It may be one of the oddest concert halls in the world, but it's also one of the best-sounding in all of Germany. On Monday evening, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra performed its final German tour concert in Düsseldorf's famous Tonhalle, situated directly on the Rhine.

The audience, which was attentive and engaged, erupted in bravos following Paavo Järvi and the orchestra’s performance of Schubert's Symphony No. 9, "The Great." Even after the musicians played two encores, the crowd stood and wouldn't let them go.

The Tonhalle was originally built as a planetarium in 1926, which explains its unusual round shape and domed roof. The city made it a concert hall in the '70s.

The Cincinnati Symphony last played here in 1995, but few people recalled that it had such excellent acoustics. In fact, this turned out to be one of the most beautiful-sounding spaces of the 12-city European tour. The Tonhalle underwent a major renovation in 2005, and clearly the architects got it right.

Its circular public area is a maze of stairways leading up to the auditorium, as if climbing into a bowl. At intermission, people jammed the bars on the balconies, or promenaded the circle down below.

The theater, seating about 1,900, had some empty seats, but it was, nevertheless, a fine turnout for a Monday. Sitting in the Tonhalle is a bit like being inside a giant blue egg, with small lights strategically sprinkled about to simulate the night sky. The seating sloped down to the orchestra, which was surrounded by light wood.

Mozart's Overture to "The Marriage of Figaro" was resonant yet clear, and the musicians sounded superb, even though they had performed the previous two nights in Hamburg and Dortmund.

Tour soloist Janine Jansen charmed again with her warmth, spontaneity and enormous beauty of tone in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Besides dazzling technique she has the ability to transport the listener by communicating her genuine joy for the music.

One of the other joys of this performance was the glowing sound of the winds in this space. Järvi anticipated Jansen’s every move, and the collaboration was seamless.

What followed was possibly the finest performance of Schubert's Great C Major Symphony so far on this tour. Järvi's tempos were unhurried and beautifully paced, and the musicians played their hearts out. The string ensemble has become so unified as to sound as one instrument. The trombones and horns glowed and orchestral soloists played expressively.

Järvi’s view was lyrical, yet depth, drama and spontaneity were always present. The audience cheered its approval, and then held its collective breath through the encores: Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5 and Sibelius' "Valse Triste."

"Ach, dass war schön," (Ah, that was beautiful), sighed one woman, as she left.

In the audience were guests of Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, including representatives from the offices of the Mayor of Düsseldorf and the United States Consulate General, as well as local industry leaders.

After a day off on Tuesday, the orchestra bids "Auf wiedersehen" to cold, rainy Germany and heads down the home stretch to Spain.

In the news

I just spoke with Paavo Jarvi in the lobby of our hotel, to talk about his tour impressions as we leave Germany for Spain tomorrow. From our conversation, I think the biggest difference between this tour and the one in 2004 is the enormous amount of press the orchestra is getting. Suddenly, Cincinnati is on everybody's radar screen. Critics from Europe's four biggest papers were all at the Concertgebouw. Hamburg also got lots of notice, including Die Welt, which gave it a rare rave review.

Jarvi has spent nearly every day doing radio and press interviews -- and we're talking big features in newspapers that have lengthy, intellectual articles (think New York Times).

In Vienna, the producer of the city's biggest radio station did a two-hour show featuring Paavo discussing just the Cincinnati Symphony's CDs.

On the orchestra's free day in Paris, he did two newspaper interviews, plus one for radio and two for France's most prestigious music magazines, Diapason and Le Monde de la Musique. Those interviews were videotaped, and might be on their Web sites (I am looking for them...)

Arte France (television) did a big feature on the Jarvi family of conductors and will air a 45-minute feature just about Paavo soon.

And Stereoplay Germany named Paavo Jarvi and the CSO's latest Prokofiev disc their pick of the month (above).

By the way, there's considerable preview press in Spanish for the concerts coming up in Spain.

Here's a link to my Paris review.

Photo: Paavo acknowledges the Parisian fans at the Salle Pleyel on Thursday night. AP Christophe Ena

George Clooney sighting in Paris

The CSO's Carrie Krysanick was walking down the Champs-Elysees in Paris when she stumbled upon a mob of people waiting for the opening of George Clooney's new movie, "Leatherheads" on Friday April 11. She didn't hang around to see the arrival of Clooney and Renee Zellweger, but the fan gossip sites have the news... Apparently they lunched at Cantine du Faubourg after the premiere.

So here's my question for the publicists: Why didn't someone arrange for a box seat for them at the CSO concert the night before? I'll bet George would have gone...

Concert coat etiquette

We are back in Germany, in Dusseldorf, and now I know what to expect when I go to a concert. You must check your coat. It seems to be a big infringement if you do not, although so far I have not been arrested. I had my coat on my chair in Frankfurt and Munich, and I did get a few glares. One man even sneered something to me about "sein mantel" -- your coat. So when I got to Vienna, I asked Tina Breckwoldt with the Vienna Boys' Choir -- what's the deal?

Fire laws, she said. She thinks it is a federal law in Germany and Austria. Furthermore, you must look for the right coat check to match your row and seat. Achtung!

So, imagine how relieved I was to get to Amsterdam, and see that people just threw their coats on a rack. My friends there, Dr. and Mrs. Sten Drop, said it's not the law, but "it's just not done" to sit on ones coat.

In Paris, they could care less. The Parisians sat on their coats, dropped things, coughed and were generally noisy but very enthusiastic and engaged. I loved them.

Sticker shock

As any American abroad will tell you, the dollar is sinking against the euro at an alarming rate. Most of us want to bring home a few little souvenirs, but even a couple of tea towels and knick knacks add up to $100 pretty quickly. I could not find a simple cotton dress for a small child for less than 80 -- which is $128.

A main course in a nice neighborhood restaurant in Paris will set you back at last 30 euros = $48 (1 euro = $1.60). But one can eat well in Paris for less. I do love the "bistro" culture there. On Sunday night, I wandered around the corner from my Left Bank hotel and the corner bistro was packed with students, a big table of what seemed to be music professors, and many others. I ate very well for about 15 euros.

After meeting up with several French friends -- former Cincinnatians Monique and Bernard Fortat (who lived in Fairfield) and Marion Henrion (Wyoming) -- it became clear that the French, too, are very worried about the economy -- especially the "bourse" -- stock exchange. They pay 1.35 to 1.50 euro per liter of gas -- close to $9 a gallon!

Where will it all end? Bernard is not optimistic about tourism in France this summer. There are few Americans traveling abroad, now. He thinks that eventually the euro and dollar will be equal, and what will that mean for the world economy?

Photo by Mark Cleghorn

Meet the CSO's new principal trumpet

Somewhere on the road with the CSO last week, I found out that Robert Sullivan, the trumpeter who is with us on tour, has been appointed the new principal trumpet of the orchestra. He will succeed longtime principal Phil Collins (check out the link to Phil's blog on this site).

Sullivan won over more than 50 trumpeters who were invited to audition. More than 100 applied for the spot.

Sullivan comes from the Cleveland Orchestra, where he has been assistant principal trumpet since September 2003. Previous to that appointment, he was associate principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic for 11 seasons.

One of the funny things that happened to him on this tour was in Vienna. He and other brass players walked into a music store, Musikhaus Votruba, and there on a brochure about trumpets was Sullivan's picture. The shop keeper did a double-take. It turns out, Sullivan designed a new B-flat and C trumpet for Yamaha a few years ago -- called the "New York Model." Here's a link to his bio on the Yamaha site.

Sullivan, a native of Boston, will begin Sept. 8, but you'll have a chance to hear him during the May Festival.

Vienna Boys' Choir

This is what I did on my day "off" in Vienna last week. If you didn't see the story, here's the link.

Cincinnati has two local boys who are current members of the choir, Jacob and Noah Markowich of Westwood. I enjoyed visiting the movie set when the choir, known as the Wiener Sangerknaben, were making a film. It was fun to find them in a small room rehearsing for their scene with their director, Gerald Wirth, and also to walk through the room with the "extras," dressed somberly for their roles.

Photos, by Lukas Beck:

We have a gallery of photos on our site taken by Lukas Beck for the Enquirer, but I want to point out also, that the director, Curt Faudon, a prize-winning New York-based director/producer, can be seen in some of the shots. Here he is in the center, behind the camera facing local boys Noah, left, and Jacob Markowich of Westwood.

Wiener Sangerknaben director Gerald Wirth leads the choir in a Schubert Mass for the film.

The Minoritenkirche near the Hofburg Palace in Vienna's center was the movie set while a crew filmed a scene for the upcoming feature film-documentary, "Silk Road" (working title).

Revisiting the Concertgebouw

The reviews that I saw auf Deutsch in Germany were glowing. One of the headlines there was "The most German orchestra in America."

I'm including a review from The Netherlands' leading national newspaper, translated by former Cincinnatian Dr. Sten Drop of Rotterdam, who attended the concert with his wife Petra:

"Wenneke Savenye. NRC Handelsblad 10-4-2008

Jansen finds Järvi flawless

Never before has the Cincinnati Symphony orchestra - according to
Paavo Järvi "the most European orchestra of America"- played in the
Concertgebouw. This month the orchestra - founded in 1895 and directed
by illustrious figures like Richard Strauss (oops, he was never a music director, but likely guest-conducted) Leopold Stokowski and Fritz Reiner and Eugene Ysaye- gives 12 concerts in 5 European countries. Nikolai Luganski and Janine Jansen are alternating soloists.

In Amsterdam, Jansen - who made her debut already in 2005 with the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra with the Tchaikovsky violin concerto- impressed with her lyric
and intrusive interpretation of the Britten violin concerto in D Minor. Taken by
this melancholic piece, Jansen played the moving opening movement with
stilled profundity and instrumental refinement, but in the sweeping
vivace her musical engagement surfaced again.

In dialogues full of temperament with the sensitive playing orchestra, Jansen reached at some points chamber music clarity. After a spectacular solo cadenza,
Jansen and Järvi and the orchestra unfailingly (flawlessly) were of the
same mind in the macabre melancholia of the passacaglia.

The encore was the sarabande from the 2nd partita for solo violin by Bach.

After Járvi had already had shown in his carefully built-up but too
muscular view of Arvo Pärts "Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten," the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra exhibited a warm-blooded string section, which played with great nuance, and the brass section exploded in golden glory during the sonorous and
expansive interpretation of the 10th Symphony by Shostakovich.

It became clear also in the encore - a sultry (sensual) waltz by
Sibelius- why Järvi considers his orchestra so European: the Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra combines the sonority and instrumental discipline of many American
orchestras with a remarkable refinement in sound colors and dynamics."

Photos: Paavo Järvi greets guests of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, which is present at three tour concerts. Watch for a story about that tomorrow or ...?

The Chamber's Ellen van der Horst, president, with Paavo and Cincinnati city manager Milton Dohoney

Scenes from the "mall" in front of the Concertgebouw, including the the Rijksmuseum, below (closed because it's undergoing the biggest rebuilding, renovation and modernization program in its history), and the Van Gogh Museum (a corner can be seen). Outside the hall, there were several soccer games going on.

April in Paris

Finally, after three incredibly grueling days of planes and airports, we made it to Paris. I have to say, I stole a look at the musicians faces during the concert Thursday night in the Salle Pleyel,and they looked dead tired.

Here's some of the story as to why I've been incommunicado for a couple of days. Our Mercure hotel in Amsterdam's outskirts had no internet. Everything was down. Kaput. So from the time I arrived in Amsterdam until 3 a.m. the next day, when I dictated my review over the phone for the first time ever, I was trying to log on. Except for a lovely dinner with a Dutch friend, I totally missed Amsterdam.

But the concert in the Concertgebouw was the most amazing I've ever heard. The acoustics are so perfect, one cannot play an ugly sound. (See photo above.)

At 6 a.m., I was up to get ready for the plane to Paris. The orchestra flew Air France, and we all had an unpleasant surprise when we arrived at the airport -- baggage surcharges. Inter-city flights charge you per kilo for any checked bags over 20 kilos -- total. Musicians do not pack light (except for violist Bob Howes...) Some people paid close to 200 euros in extra fees.

But then we were in Paris!

What I really have enjoyed in all of these halls, is the public spaces. Both the Concertgebouw and Paris' Salle Pleyel have undergone renovations recently, and added comfortable seats and cafes. It was fun to see everyone dash for the bars and get their champagne and little sandwiches.

What fun, also, to walk outside the hall onto the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore and see people crowding all the bistros along the street, late at night.

A bientot!