NEWS: New West Symphony names three finalists for music director position

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Southern California News Group

The Thousand Oaks-based New West Symphony has named three finalists for its vacant music director position and concurrently filled out most of its 2017-2018 season. Two of the finalists will lead programs in the upcoming season at the orchestra’s three homes: Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Santa Monica. The other candidate will lead the opening concert of the 2018-2019 season.

The winner will replace Marcello Lehninger, who left last year to become music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony in Michigan. The GRS was led for nearly two decades by David Lockington, who left there to become the Pasadena Symphony music director — yep, the wheels of the car go round and round …

The three conducting finalists are:
Tania Miller, who last season celebrated her 14th season as music director of the Victoria Symphony in British Columbia. Miller, who will turn 48 next month, is the oldest of the candidates and the only woman finalist.

Miller, who led the first NWS concert last season, will conduct the final concert in the 2017-2018 schedule on May 12 and 13. Her program will include Wagner’s Tannhauser Overture, Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, along with Liszt’s Totentaz and his Piano Concerto No. 1. 2009 Van Cliburn International Competition gold medalist, Haochen Zang, will be the soloist in the Liszt works.

Kynan Johns, who will lead programs on January 25, 27 and 28. The concerts will conclude with a warhorse, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (Pathetique), but the program will also include a world premiere by Bruce Boughton written for the Lyris Quartet, which was founded by New West Symphony Concertmaster Alyssa Park. Johns is the only one of the three without a current music director position.

Fawzi Haimor, recently named music director of Württenbergische Philharmonic Reutlingen in Germany. His start date there is in September, which probably pushed his NWS “audition” concert back to the 2018-2019 season opener. Haimor, 34,was formerly resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Chicago Tribune columnist/critic John Von Rhein notes: “The Chicago-born conductor Fawzi Haimor, whose father is Jordanian-Lebanese and whose mother is from the Philippines, sees it as his duty to promote the work of Muslim and Arabic composers. One of the very few Muslim conductors pursuing an international career, he also has made it part of his mission to encourage younger musicians of similar ethnic and religious background to take up the baton.”

New West Symphony season:
In addition to the concerts led by Miller and Johns, the season includes:
Season Opener
The October 6, 7 and 8 concerts will feature Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 combined with music from Argentina and Spain. Grant Cooper, who annually leads the Pasadena Symphony’s Holiday concerts, will conduct this program. Flamenco dancer Siudy Garrido will perform the ballet El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla as part of the program.

Mauceri and Bernstein’s 100th
Mauceri, the former music director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, returns to Southern California November 18 and 19 for a program that includes selections from On the Town, West Side Story, Candide and other Bernstein works. One hopes that he will include his special raconteur moments.

Zuckerman and Forsyth
Pinchas Zukerman, who in addition to being a superb violinist and violist, has been increasing his conducting gigs during the past decade. With the NWS, he will appear as both soloist and conductor on March 9, 10 and 11. His program, which concludes with Schubert’s Symphony No. 5, opens with Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Cello in B-flag Major, with Amanda Forsyth playing the cello part. Forsyth is a founding member of the Zukerman ChamberPlayers.

Classical Vienna
A guest conductor not one of the finalists, Andrew Grams, will lead a program of Viennese music on April 14 and 15, which will include Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, with Till Fellner as the soloist.

All of the NWS concerts play at the Thousand Oaks Performing Arts Center and at the Oxnard PAC. At least three of the programs also play in a Santa Monica venue not yet named (last year it was The Broad Stage).

Information: www.newwestsymphony.org
_______________________

(c) Copyright 2017, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Facebook Twitter Plusone Pinterest Reddit Tumblr Email

OVERNIGHT REVIEW: Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” at Hollywood Bowl

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily
News

______________________

 

Walt Disney’s Fantasia

Hollywood Bowl
Orchestra, John Mauceri, conductor

Friday, August 19 Hollywood Bowl

Next performances: Tonight at 8:30; tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.

Info: www.hollywoodbowl.com

______________________

 

John Mauceri returned to Hollywood Bowl last night leading
the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra — the ensemble he founded 20 years ago — in the
same program with which he left the HBO five years ago to become Chancellor of
the University of North Carolina School of the Arts: Walt Disney’s Fantasia.

 

Technically that’s not correct. Last night wasn’t Fantasia, nor was it what we saw five
years ago. Rather, it was an evening that used portions of segments from the
1940 movie that was originally a financial failure but is now considered a
landmark, along with other elements. They coalesced into a program that absolutely
honored Walt’s spirit, since Disney had envisioned Fantasia as a movie that, as Mauceri said last night, would always
be something new with segments being added and replaced each time it was shown.

 

One reason this program works so well is Mauceri, who
received a standing ovation when he came onstage from many of the 13,580 in
attendance. The 66-year-old New York native remains the platinum standard in
conductors who converse with the audience, delivering important information
with erudite wit. Throughout the evening his comments enlightened the audience
as to the movie’s importance in a multitude of areas (e.g., the fusion of music
and animation, the film’s technical achievements, and its history). He also offered
several interesting tidbits about conductor Leopold Stokowski, who was a major
contributor to the film and with whom Mauceri studied when he was 27 and
Stokowski was 90.

 

The most interesting parts of the evening were four segments
that didn’t make it into the 1940 movie.

 

Debussy’s Claire de
Lune
had been completed in 1942 and eventually appeared in a 1946 Disney
feature entitled Make Mine Music. The
original animation was discovered 50 years later and animators’ use of two
egrets in moonlit water combined with Debussy’s ethereal music proved to be
magical, although to these ears it might have been even more effective using
the composer’s original piano score rather than Stokowski’s orchestral
arrangement.

 

The animation for Sibelius’ The Swan of Tuonela was never completed but the chalk and pastel
storyboards, shown while the orchestra (with Cathy Del Russo on English horn)
played Sibelius’ tone poem with touching tenderness, were gorgeous and, as
Mauceri pointed out, demonstrated part of the pains-taking, hand-drawn
animation process employed in the era before computers.

 

The backstory to Destino
is even more convoluted. In 1946, Disney, Spanish surrealist painter Salvador
Dali and Disney artist John Hench collaborated on this project, using the music
of Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez. The piece lay forgotten until Roy E.
Disney resurrected it and produced a six-minute film in 2003 that was nominated
for an Academy Award for “Best Animated Short Film.” As might be expected with
a Dali project, the art was, indeed, surreal but the music — which used the
soundtrack singing of Dora Luz while the orchestra played the accompaniment —
proved to be haunting.

 

The fourth segment came in the form of an encore: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblee, another of the shelved segments that was later
adapted into the Bumble Boogie
segment of the 1948 cartoon Melody Time.

 

To no one’s great surprise, Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours seemed to be the most popular with the audience;
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring were
truncated even more than the original film segments. The opening, Stokowski’s
bloated arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and
Fugue in D Minor,
appeared to be the hardest for Mauceri and the orchestra
to synch with the film; overall, however, they held together amazingly well
throughout the evening.

 

The printed program ended with Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, with the final
segments accompanied (or, in the case of Waltz
of the Flowers)
overpowered by fireworks. I yield to no one in my
admiration for the Souza Group’s pyrotechnic wizardry, fireworks do sell
tickets, and much of the audience seemed to enjoy the aerial display thoroughly
but if you were interested in the music (and the animation), forget it. On the
other hand, there really isn’t a section that lends itself to fireworks with
the possible exception of Stravinsky’s Firebird
Suite
from Fantasia 2000. Even
Walt couldn’t envision Fantasia being
accompanied by fireworks at the Bowl in 1940.

 _______________________

 

Hemidemisemiquaver:

When I first saw this program’s Sunday start time listed
at 7:30 p.m. start time, I wondered if it would be dark enough at the Bowl to
make it work. The answer is yes.

The often-changing hues of the Bowl’s iconic shell offered
a colorful backdrop to the program although, ironically, they made me think more of
Warner Bros. Looney Tunes, rather
than Disney.

_______________________

 

(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved.
Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Facebook Twitter Plusone Pinterest Reddit Tumblr Email

PREVIEW: “Fantasia” — sort of — to play at Hollywood Bowl this weekend

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily
News

______________________

 

Walt Disney’s Fantasia

Hollywood Bowl
Orchestra, John Mauceri, conductor

Friday, August 19 and Saturday, August 20 at 8:30 p.m.

Sunday, August 21 at 7:30 p.m.

Hollywood Bowl

Info: www.hollywoodbowl.com

 

54669-Mickey-Sorcerer.jpg

Mickey Mouse as The
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
in Walt Disney’s 1940 landmark Fantasia.

______________________

 

Year in and year out some of the best Hollywood Bowl
programs involve motion pictures being projected on the Bowl’s large screens
(including one suspended over the orchestra), often while an orchestra plays
the movie’s musical scores. This weekend offers what may be one of the more unique
uses of that format with a program based on the 1940 Walt Disney movie Fantasia.

 

John Mauceri returns to conduct the Hollywood Bowl
Orchestra, an ensemble he founded 20 years ago, playing selections from the
score of a movie that Walt Disney at one point considered a failure but today
is considered a landmark for its daring blend of classical music and animation
and for its innovative melding of art and technology.

 

For those who have never seen Fantasia, the movie is a series of animated segments set to
classical music. However, what you’ll see this weekend is not the entire work
and not in order. Six of the seven segments will be screened: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the first
movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral
Symphony,
an extract from Stravinsky’s The
Rite of Spring,
Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice,
and Ponchielli’s Dance of
the Hours.
A suite from Tchaikovsky’s The
Nutcracker
will conclude the evening, accompanied by fireworks. What’s
missing are the Night on Bald
Mountain/Ave Maria
sequence, the Meet
the Soundtrack
intermission section, and the narration by Deems Taylor.

 

However, the evening will include two segments — Sibelius’ The Swan of Tuonela and Debussy’s Claire de Lune — that had been prepared
in 1940-41 for an update of Fantasia (in
fact, Walt Disney originally envisioned that the movie would be updated
frequently but financial problems from the movie’s opening, along with World
War II, torpedoed that idea during Walt’s lifetime).

 

The program will also offer Destino, a six-minute animated short made by the Walt Disney
Company in 2003 but originally conceived in 1946 as a collaboration using art
by Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali and Disney artist John Hench set to
music by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez (Bette Midler refers to this
section in her narration sequence in Fantasia
2000). Destino
was nominated in 2003 for an Academy Award for Best Animated
Short Film.

 

Fantasia was
groundbreaking when it opened in 1940 (Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review, wrote, “motion
picture history was made last night”). 
Not everyone was enthralled; classical music purists often object to the
cartoon sequences and, indeed, it is hard to hear The Sorcerer’s Apprentice without seeing Mickey Mouse (pictured at
the top of this post) in your mind.

 

Part of Fantasia’s importance
was in its use of technology. Disney had already developed the multiplane
camera and used it for Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs,
but Fantasia gave it
an even more extensive test.  Fantasia was also the first motion
picture to employ multi-point stereophonic sound to give the moviegoer a sense
of being surrounded by a live symphony orchestra.

 

When the movie was originally released in 1940 and 1941 it
played in just 13 cities with limited showings using a specially designed
system called “Fantasound.” Ultimately, World War II and the cost of erecting a
“Fantasound” system in any given theater or playhouse made the original release
of Fantasia a financial loser.

 

However, the movie was re-released in several versions as
new technologies in both projection and sound were able to improve the viewing
experience and ultimately, it became a moneymaker for Disney.

_______________________

 

(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved.
Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Facebook Twitter Plusone Pinterest Reddit Tumblr Email

NEWS AND LINKS: 9/11 Concerts beginning to appear on schedule

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily
News

 

The question about how classical music will commemorate the
10th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks isn’t really “how” but “how many?” Because
9/11 falls on a Sunday this year, most churches will likely pay tribute in
their worship services. However, details of special musical events are also
beginning to emerge.

 

The Pasadena Master
Chorale
will honor the day with a performance of Faur’s Requiem at 4 p.m.
at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church. Artistic Director Jeffrey Bernstein will
lead the concert, which will open with four a cappella American works: a
traditional setting of Psalm 137, By The
Waters of Babylon;
Virgil Thompson’s My
Shepherd Will Supply My Need
; Words
To Be Spoken
, by Ross Lee Finney; and Bernstein’s own arrangement of America the Beautiful.

 

The Faur Requiem is a logical choice for this type of
concert. As Bernstein notes, “Perhaps the lightest of the well-known Requiem
settings, Faure’s Requiem is tuneful and direct, ending with music of ethereal
beauty and promise.” Soprano Krystle Casey and Baritone Cedric Berry will be
the soloists in the Requiem, which will be accompanied by Edward Murray on the
church’s pipe organ. DETAILS

 

Incidentally, the PMC will present a summer concert entitled
“My Spirit Sang All Day” on Aug. 14 at 4 p.m. at La Crescenta Pres. Bernstein
will conduct music ranging from Purcell, Elgar, William Billings and Ralph
Vaughan Williams to Ernst Krenek and Matthew Harris. DETAILS

 

The first group out of the block on 9/11 commemorations
was the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
which will use its Hollywood Bowl concert on Tuesday, Sept. 13, as a tribute to
those who died in the attack. The program will include the other “most obvious”
musical choice — Mozart’s Requiem — and pair it with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Bramwell Tovey, who
for the past two seasons was the Phil’s principal guest conductor at the Bowl,
will lead the orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale and soloists Heidi Stober, soprano;
Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano; Nicholas Phan, tenor; and Matthew
Rose, bass-baritone. Chichester
Psalms
calls for a boy treble but he hasn’t been named yet (at least the
name isn’t on the Web site). DETAILS

 

BTW: the Bowl’s concert on 9/11 will be a rock concert
featuring The National;

Neko Case,
with special guest T Bone Burnett
; and Sharon Van
Etten
in what the HB Web site describes as “an evening of
triumphant, powerful and poetic American rock music [celebrating] our spirit
and resolve under the stars of the summer sky.” DETAILS

 

Muse-ique, Rachael
Worby’s new ensemble, has announced it will participate in a free concert of
American music at 6 p.m. on the steps of Pasadena’s City Hall, but no details
have been forthcoming.

 

More will surely arrive in the in-box during the weeks
ahead.

_______________________

 

(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved.
Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Facebook Twitter Plusone Pinterest Reddit Tumblr Email