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League’s Essentials of Orchestra Management
Emerging Artists Hit The Unmute Button
Composers in a Time of Trauma
League of American Orchestras 77th National Conference Save the Dates: June 1-3, 2022 | Los Angeles, CA leagueconference.org
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Prelude
P
ick your metaphor—roller coaster, crapshoot, whack-a-mole—the sheer unpredictability of the global pandemic and the swift spread of the Omicron variant have forced life o nce again into a state of near-constant recalibrations, revisions, shutdowns, returns. That’s not to make light of the tragic impact of COVID-19, which is r eal and heartbreaking. Still, it’s no small irony that when orchestras began to return to relatively normal music-making this fall with in-person concerts, Omicron became omnipresent. Just as we were getting used to them, vaccine mandates and mask requirements for audiences, musicians, and staff suddenly seemed inadequate. As this issue of Symphony went to press, orchestras were postponing and then cancelling concerts out of, as the phrase goes, an abundance of caution. While that’s absolutely the right thing to do, enormous changes at the last minute are making uncertainty a certainty. Orchestras have risen to these challenges with resilience. And at many orchestras, the nation’s reckoning with social injustice means that a growing expansiveness in programming is now expected. Works by women and composers of color, whose contributions have for too long been ignored, are being commissioned, performed— and, in a shift from the past practice of one-and-done premieres—getting multiple hearings. Orchestras are continuing to find fresh ways to connect with their communities. Artists often show the way forward, and this issue reports on how composers are responding to the issues of the present day with new scores, new solace, new provocations. At the same time, canonic works are being reconsidered in ways that bring novel insights into music we all thought we knew. Maybe, to use another metaphor, it’s a sea change for orchestras.
symphony T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E L E AG U E O F A M E R I C A N O R C H E S T R A S
VOLUME 73, NUMBER 1 / WINTER 2022
symphony® the award-winning quarterly
magazine of the League of American Orchestras, discusses issues critical to the orchestra community and communicates to the American public the value and importance of orchestras and the music they perform. EDITOR IN CHIEF
Robert Sandla
MANAGING EDITOR
Jennifer Melick
PRODUCTION AND DESIGN
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symphony WINTER 2022
Brice Toul
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Crystal Birns
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Concert Artists Guild
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John Mac
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ABOUT THE COVER Michigan’s Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra performs at Hill Auditorium on September 11 to open its 2021-22 season, led by music director candidate Lina Gonzalez-Granados. What was it like to return to concert halls this fall? Fantastic—and weird. The full story is on page 38. 4
TH E M AGA Z I N E OF T H E L E AG U E OF A M E R I C A N ORC H E S TRAS
2 Prelude
by Robert Sandla
6 The Score
Orchestra news, moves, and events
14 In Memoriam: Chester Lane
Chester Lane worked as an editor at Symphony for nearly four decades and was the League’s longest-tenured staff member.
16 Forward Thinking
League President and CEO Simon Woods speaks with Lang Lang about the roots of his success: the pianist launched his career performing with U.S. orchestras.
22 At the League
Essentials of Orchestra Management, one of the League’s signature professional-development courses, is getting an update, staying relevant to the present— and future—of orchestras. by Heidi Waleson
28 Changing the Face of Volunteerism
Volunteer groups at orchestras are seeking younger and more diverse volunteers to better reflect today’s society and to connect with their communities. by Rita Pyrillis
34 Coping With COVID
The League of American Orchestras is helping orchestras by researching and reporting what they—and their audiences—need as they deal with the pandemic.
38 Transfigured Nights
A recent concert road trip proved how much in-person concerts have been missed by audiences and musicians alike. by Jennifer Melick
44 Time Signatures
How are composers responding musically during a fraught time? Five creators share their experiences. by Hannah Edgar
50 New World Stages
Many emerging musicians were about to make their marks at orchestras nationwide when the pandemic hit. As concert life gradually returns, what’s next? by Brin Solomon
56 Guide to Emerging Artists 66 League of American Orchestras Annual Fund 68 Coda
Violinist Ray Chen’s social-media embrace has expanded with a virtual space where musicians can connect while maintaining practice and high skill levels during the pandemic.
Text marked like this indicates a link to websites and online resources.
WINTER 2022
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The Score NEWS, MOVES, AND EVENTS IN THE ORC HES TRA INDUS TRY
Orchestras had to forego seasonal performances of Handel’s Messiah in December 2020 due to the pandemic. Grateful audiences returned this December for a brief flowering of Messiahs around the country, following the implementation of vaccine and mask requirements for singers, musicians, and audiences—just prior to the arrival of the virus’s Omicron variant. Among orchestras performing Messiah were the Knox-Galesburg Symphony Chris Lee
in Illinois, the Erie Philharmonic and Johnstown Symphony in Pennsylvania, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, The New York Philharmonic performs Handel’s Messiah at the Riverside Church in New York City, December 2021.
D.C. At New York City’s Riverside Church, the New York Philharmonic and singers from the period-instrument ensemble Apollo’s Fire performed Messiah led by Jeannette Sorrell, artistic director of Apollo’s Fire. Leading up to Messiah, the Philharmonic and John Jay College of Criminal Justice co-presented “The Unanswered Questions: Handel and the Royal African Company,” a discussion exploring whether or how to separate a work of art from the morality of its creator, given Handel’s investments in the transatlantic slave trade. Panelists included Handel scholar and professor emeritus at MIT Ellen Harris; ethnomusicologist and Juilliard professor Fredara Hadley; composer, vocalist, and librettist Imani Uzuri; and Philharmonic Vice President of Artistic Planning Patrick Castillo. WQXR’s Terrance McKnight moderated. “The Unanswered Questions” series was launched in
Chris Lee
October with a conversation on how and why artists and institutions address issues in the criminal justice system, Conductor Jeanette Sorrell and countertenor John Holiday at a New York Philharmonic performance of Handel’s Messiah, December 2021.
complementing Philharmonic performances of Anthony Davis’s You Have the Right to Remain Silent.
OMICRON IMPACT Live, in-person concerts began to resume this fall, as declining COVID-19 infection rates and the growing acceptance of precautionary measures such as vaccine and mask mandates meant that the orchestra scene could start to get back to sort-of normal. In early December, a new coronavirus variant, Omicron—fast-spreading though apparently less lethal—emerged and quickly went global. By late December, sharp spikes in COVID infections caused orchestras, concert halls, and performing arts centers to announce postponements, cancellations, and artist substitutions. The information in this issue of Symphony is correct as of press time, but the pandemic continues to evolve, with new developments and scientific findings that affect orchestras and their audiences virtually every day. The League of American Orchestras’ website, americanorchestras.org/, offers resources concerning the COVID-19 guidance that federal agencies have prepared for employers, community-based organizations, and hosts of large gatherings. Some resources are in the form of recommendations, while others are mandatory rules. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Department of Labor, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) have issued details of the legal requirements for employers throughout the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issue guidance to help businesses and employers contain the spread of the coronavirus. The World Health Organization (WHO) maintains updated guidance on mass gatherings, situation reports, and global research. Learn more at https://americanorchestras.org/learn/covid-19/cdc-coronavirus-planning-guides/.
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The Score
Nathan Zucker
Nashville at 75
Brad Paisley (in cowboy hat) presents the 2021 Harmony Award to the musicians of the Nashville Symphony. Representing the musicians are, left to right, concertmaster Jun Iwasaki, violinist Johna Smith, and tuba player Gil Long. At far right is Nashville Symphony President and CEO Alan D. Valentine.
In December, the Nashville Symphony celebrated 75 years with an anniversary concert at Schermerhorn Symphony Center led by Principal Pops Conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez. The event, which raised $1 million for the orchestra’s free music education programs throughout middle Tennessee, featured violinist Itzhak Perlman and the orchestra in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and spotlighted three living American composers: Carlos Simon (The Block), Joan Tower (Made in America), and Kenji Bunch (Groovebox Fantasy). The Tower work was featured on a Nashville Symphony recording that won multiple 2008 Grammy Awards. Perhaps most significantly in this difficult pandemic year, the Nashville Symphony musicians were given the orchestra’s annual Harmony Award at the event for their perseverance in the face of major challenges. The award, typically awarded to an individual who embodies “the harmonious spirit of Nashville’s musical community,” was presented to the musicians by country music singer/songwriter Brad Paisley, recipient of the orchestra’s 2013 Harmony Award.
In October, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra made history when it announced that Nathalie Stutzmann (right) has been appointed as its next music director— the first woman to serve in that role at the ASO. This fall, she will succeed Robert Spano, the orchestra’s music director from 2001 to 2021. Stutzmann, a native of France, is also currently the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal guest conductor and chief conductor of Norway’s Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. She made her first appearance in Atlanta as music director designate in October, when she conducted music by Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and Missy Mazzoli. In March 2022, she will conduct the ASO in Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration and Mozart’s Requiem, also featuring the ASO chorus. Stutzmann has had a distinguished career as a contralto, and also studied piano, bassoon, and cello. Stutzmann studied conducting with Finland’s Jorma Panula and was mentored by Seiji Ozawa and Simon Rattle. Stutzmann’s future conducting dates include the Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Hamburg NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Helsinki Radio Symphony, and Brussels’s La Monnaie.
Brice Toul
Nathalie Stutzmann, Atlanta Symphony’s Next Music Director
Symphony Magazine Article Wins Award
“Anti-Black Discrimination in American Orchestras,” an article published by Symphony magazine and written by Aaron Flagg, won an ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for an article in the concert music field. Published in Symphony’s Summer 2020 Issue, the article is a sweeping examination of the orchestra field’s historic and ongoing lack of ethnic and racial diversity, particularly as pertains to Black artists, board members, and administrators, and proposes steps to improve equity and inclusion. Aaron Flagg is the chair and associate director of Jazz Studies at the Juilliard School, a member of the League of American Orchestras’ Board of Directors (where he is secretary), and chair of the League’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee. Announced in October, ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson awards for pieces in the music criticism and pop music categories also went to The New York Times and City Journal. Read “Anti-Black Discrimination in American Orchestras” at https://americanorchestras.org/anti-black-discrimination-in-american-orchestras/.
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Associated Press
San Francisco Conservatory
The Score
Students test the 200-seat Barbro Osher Recital Hall at the San Francisco Conservatory’s new Bowes Center, scheduled to open to the public in February.
Yo-Yo Ma performs at Barbro Osher Recital Hall in the San Francisco Conservatory’s newly opened Bowes Center.
Up in San Francisco
Josh Reynolds
Lima Symphony
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music opened its new Bowes Center for Performing Arts to students this fall. Located across from Davies Hall, home of the San Francisco Symphony, the 12-story structure includes classrooms, student and public housing, a recording studio, and performance spaces. The 170,000-square-foot Bowes Center, designed by Mark Cavagnero Associates, effectively doubles the school’s space. It is within walking distance of SFCM’s Ann Getty Center, the Conservatory’s home since 2006. The building also includes 27 rent-stabilized apartments, which upgrade and replace units from the site’s previous building for its prior tenants. The three performance spaces are the Cha Chi Ming Recital Hall on the ground floor; the 200-seat Barbro Osher Recital Hall on the eleventh floor, overlooking Civic Center; and the black-box Technology Hall. The building includes offices for faculty, staff of Opus 3 Artists, and broadcasting facilities for KDFC Classical Radio. The building is set to open to the public in February, and the Conservatory says most performances will be free.
Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Students attend a Lima Symphony Orchestra concert.
Youth to the Fore It has been a tough year for young musicians to perform and rehearse together, due to the pandemic. In 2020-21, the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra presented a virtual version of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf on YouTube, in place of its annual Peter and the Wolf at Symphony Hall. This fall, the BYSO began rehearsing in person with Music Director Federico Cortese (above left), and in November they returned to Symphony Hall, live and in person, for Peter and the Wolf, led by Cortese and narrated by Genevieve Lefevre, a 2020 Harvard College graduate and previous BYSO violist. All audience members were required to present proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test, and CDC-approved masks were mandatory. In Ohio, schoolchildren filled Lima’s Crouse Performance Hall this fall (above right) for the Lima Symphony Orchestra’s “M is for Music,” a young people’s concert in which Music Director Andrew Crust and actress Mary Jane Pories introduced students to classical music. “You see the kids come in, and they don’t know what to expect,” said Lima Symphony Executive Director Elizabeth Brown-Ellis. “But they’re up and dancing, they’re hearing music that they recognize, and music that makes them feel something, and they just love it.” 8
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The Score
Some of today’s most exciting orchestral music is premiering onscreen, with scores by composers whose influences range from classical to hip-hop, rock, jazz, and experimental music. In November at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented “Reel Change: The New Era of Film Music,” a series of concerts curated by film, television, and video game composers Kris Bowers, Nicholas Britell, and Hildur Guðnadóttir. Guðnadóttir’s program featured her own music from Joker and Battlefield 2042, plus music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alvin Lucier, Kaija Saariaho, Mica Levi, Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt, and György Ligeti that was used in films. Bowers’s program featured music from his scores for King Richard, Green Book, When They See Us, and Bridgerton, plus a world-premiere Horn Concerto, with Andrew Bain; Bowers’s program also included music by Shigeru Umebayashi, Owen Pallett, Arcade Fire, Björk, Jason Moran, and John Brion. In addition to music from his scores for Vice, The Underground Railroad, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Don’t Look Up, Britell’s program included music from Jackie (Mica Levi), Mr. Turner (Gary Yershon), Malcolm X (Terence Blanchard), and There Will Be Blood (Jonny Greenwood).
Kyle Kaplan and Atsushi Nishijima / Amazon Studios
Next-Gen Film Music in L.A.
Cinematographer James Laxton and director Barry Jenkins on the set of The Underground Railroad, which has a score by Nicholas Britell. Film scores by Britell and other contemporary composers were recently featured by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
GOOGLING EDMOND DÉDÉ On November 20, Google marked the 194th birthday of Black Creole violinist, conductor, and composer Edmond Dédé (1827-1901) by replacing its homepage logo with a “Doodle” in his honor. On the Google Doodle page, Kyle Bradshaw notes that the artwork was commissioned from Haitian-American artist Lyne Lucien, and “depicts Edmond Dédé conducting an orchestra, with a violin and clarinet behind him.” Born in New Orleans as the son of a bandleader, Dédé was a young violin prodigy. But with few opportunities as a Black musician in the United States, he left to study at the Paris Conservatory, later moving to Bordeaux, where he established himself as a conductor at the Grand Theatre. The ballets, operettas, overtures, and songs he composed were popular in France but gained little traction in his home country. Google reports that many of his compositions are preserved in Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale and U.S. universities.
Google Doodle celebrating composer Edmond Dédé, November 20, 2021
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The Score
Playing in Peoria In November, the Peoria Symphony Orchestra presented HerStory: A Musical Tribute to Betty Friedan, a concert marking the 100th birthday of Betty Friedan, born in 1921 in Peoria, Illinois. Friedan was best known as author of The Feminine Mystique and co-founder of the National Organization for Women. The centerpiece of HerStory was the world premiere of PSO composer in residence Stephanie Ann Boyd’s Everywoman: A Friedan Centennial Memoire, which tracked Friedan’s “personal triumphs and tribulations … from her college-age musings to the world-changing victories in her call for equality.” Everywoman was narrated by Deborah F. Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; events leading up to the concert included a screening of 28 Minutes with Betty Friedan, a 1999 interview in which Friedan discussed her upbringing in Peoria, and a “Lunch and Learn” conversation with Boyd, Music Director George Stelluto, and violinist Sirena Huang, soloist in Boyd’s Sybil violin concerto on the same program. To cap it all off, Peoria Mayor Rita Ali and the City Council issued a proclamation recognizing the orchestra’s Friedan commission.
Peoria Symphony Orchestra Music Director George Stelluto and Executive Director Susan Hoffman hold a proclamation by the City of Peoria recognizing the orchestra for its Everywoman: A Friedan Centennial Memoire commission.
Ka d e e m J o h n s o n
Caroline Tompkins
a P u m f re y / D e c c
Chris Wit zke
J u s t in
Musical America honorees Mitsuko Uchida, Teddy Abrams, Missy Mazzoli, and Davóne Tines.
Musical America’s 2022 Awardees: Uchida, Abrams, Mazzoli, Tines Pianist Mitsuko Uchida has been named 2022 Artist of the Year by Musical America, publisher of the annual International Directory for the Performing Arts, edited by Clive Paget, and of the daily Musical America news site, edited by Susan Elliott. Also receiving awards in other categories were Teddy Abrams, music director of the Louisville Orchestra (Conductor of the Year); Missy Mazzoli (Composer of the Year); and bass-baritone Davóne Tines (Vocalist of the Year). As was the case last year, the awardees participated in a ceremony that took place online, due to the pandemic. Paget hosted the December 5 Facebook Live ceremony, during which each awardee was interviewed by a friend or colleague; interviewers included composer John Adams (Abrams); violinist Jennifer Koh (Mazzoli); opera director Yuval Sharon (Tines); and pianist Jonathan Biss (Uchida).
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MUSICAL CHAIRS Pennsylvania’s Johnstown Symphony Orchestra has elected MARK ADDLEMAN to serve as board president for a two-year term. ANTHONY C. BALL has been named executive director of the New York City-based Little Orchestra Society, succeeding Joanne Bernstein-Cohen, who died in August. The Wichita Symphony Orchestra in Kansas has appointed RYAN BEEKEN as director of the Wichita Symphony Chorus. The Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra in Indiana has appointed MACKENZIE BRAUNS as principal bassoon, MICHAEL CHU as principal second violin, and REBECCA SALO as principal horn. SARAH CALDERINI has been hired as the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra’s executive director.
Florida’s Jacksonville Symphony has appointed MARIANNE RICE, its director of music education and community engagement, to the newly created position of vice president of education and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Missouri’s Kansas City Symphony has named JOHN ROLOFF as its chief operations officer. ERIK RÖNMARK has been named president and CEO of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, succeeding Anne Parsons, who previously announced she is retiring. Florida’s Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra has appointed MARY SAATHOFF as its inaugural director of philanthropy.
The Western Piedmont Symphony in North Carolina has appointed KELLY SWINDELL as executive director. The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and Music School has named BRAMWELL TOVEY principal conductor and artistic director; he has been serving since September 2018 as artistic advisor and conductor. JAMES O. WELSCH has been appointed music director and symphonic orchestra conductor for the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestras. Indiana’s Fort Wayne Philharmonic has named current Associate Conductor CALEB YOUNG to the newly created position of guest conductor for engagement.
Oregon’s Britt Festival Orchestra has hired RENIA SHTERENBERG as general manager.
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has appointed TONG CHEN as assistant conductor. VICTORIA CHUNG has joined Virginia’s Richmond Symphony as principal oboe. JUSTIN CUMMINGS has been selected as the Knoxville Symphony’s principal bassoon. DEVAN JAQUEZ is the orchestra’s new principal flute. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has named KEVIN JOHN EDUSEI principal guest conductor, effective with the 2022-23 season. ANNE EWERS will retire as president and CEO of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center in June. This fall, the Kimmel Center and Philadelphia Orchestra became one organization, headed by orchestra President and CEO Matías Tarnopolsky. ADAM HANNA has joined the Oklahoma City Philharmonic as principal trombone. The Venice Symphony in Florida has appointed JESSICA HUNG associate concertmaster. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has named JACOB JOYCE and MOON DOH to two-year terms as assistant conductors. WELZ KAUFMANN has been appointed as managing director of Arizona’s True Concord Voices and Orchestra; Kaufmann retired as president and CEO of Illinois’ Ravinia Festival in 2020. California’s Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera has selected GIULIANO KORNBERG as executive director, effective in February. He has been serving as the organization’s chief revenue and development officer. Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Music Director LOUIS LANGRÉE has been named director of the Opéra-Comique in Paris. He will retain his music director posts in Cincinnati (through 2024) and at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City. Chamber Music America has named KEVIN KWAN LOUCKS as chief executive officer, succeeding Margaret M. Lioi, who is retiring. Early Music America has selected DAVID McCORMICK as executive director, succeeding Karin Brookes. ROBERT NEU has joined Utah Symphony | Utah Opera as vice president of artistic planning. The Louisville Orchestra has hired GRAHAM PARKER as interim executive director. ANTHONY PARNTHER, music director of California’s San Bernardino Symphony, will conduct the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra at its Carnegie Hall debut in April, replacing the late Michael Morgan. Indiana’s Carmel Symphony Orchestra has selected CARA PITTENGER, a percussionist, as its new executive director. The Pierre Monteux Memorial Foundation has named STAN RENARD as executive director of the Monteux School and Music Festival in Hancock, Maine, effective with the 2022 season.
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BMOP records at Mechanics Hall
The Score
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Artistic Director Gil Rose during a recording session in Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts.
BMOP’s “History, Race, and Justice on the Opera Stage” Boston Modern Orchestra Project, perhaps best known for commissioning and recording music by living composers, has announced a new initiative with the Boston-based Odyssey Opera company: “As Told By: History, Race, and Justice on the Opera Stage,” a five-year series of performances of operas by Black composers. Gil Rose is artistic director of both organizations. The series will launch in June 2022 with the New England premiere of Anthony Davis’s 1986 opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, with bass-baritone Davóne Tines in the title role. Also planned are performances in 2023, 2024, and 2025, respectively, of Nkeiru Okoye’s 2014 Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom, William Grant Still’s 1949 Troubled Island, about Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Ulysses Kay’s 1991 Frederick Douglass. In 2026, BMOP and Odyssey Opera will perform the commissioned world premiere of an opera by Jonathan Bailey Holland about Martin Luther King Jr.’s years in Boston, framed by the journey to Selma, Alabama. The initiative will encompass recordings on BMOP’s record label, BMOP/sound, and education programs in partnership with Castle of Our Skins, the Boston-based organization dedicated to celebrating Black artistry through music.
Holiday concerts, a December tradition for many orchestras, were greatly missed by audiences in 2020, when most of them were put on hold due to the pandemic. Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra returned to Symphony Hall in December 2021 for three weeks of holiday concerts. Music included Duke Ellington’s version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Mexican Christmas songs by Silvino Jaramillo, a medley of holiday spirituals, and seasonal songs signaling the arrival of Santa at Symphony Hall. Seven matinees for children featured music from Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Highlights included the Tanglewood Festival Chorus returning after a two-year hiatus from performing as an ensemble to present favorites such as the “Hallelujah” Chorus, and a sensoryfriendly holiday concert was given for people on the autism spectrum and their families. At all concerts, masks and proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID test were required. 12
Winslow Townson
Symphony Hall Express
Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall in December 2021, where holiday pops concerts—and Santa—returned this year.
WINTER 2022
Christopher M. Howard
The Score
The San Francisco Symphony and dancers from Alonzo King LINES Ballet at the orchestra’s “Re-Opening Night” concert at Davies Symphony Hall, led by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, October 1, 2021.
Re-Opening in San Francisco On October 1, Esa-Pekka Salonen led the San Francisco Symphony in its first opening-night concert since he became music director last season. Dubbed “Re-Opening Night,” the event at Davies Symphony Hall featured Collaborative Partner Esperanza Spalding and the San Francisco-based contemporary dance company Alonzo King LINES Ballet. The program included John Adams’s Slonimsky’s Earbox; Alberto Ginastera’s Estancia Suite featuring choreography by Alonzo King and dancers from LINES Ballet; and Silvestre Revueltas’s “Noche de encantamiento” from his film score La noche de los Mayas. The concert culminated with singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding performing Wayne Shorter’s Pegasus and excerpts from Gaia with the orchestra. What would opening night be without a party—or parties, in this case? The celebrations, held outdoors due to the pandemic, included a pre-concert welcome on Davies’ outdoor terrace and an after-party on Grove Street. Proof of vaccination against COVID-19 was required in Davies Symphony Hall, and patrons wore face masks during performances. For those who couldn’t attend in person, in November the concert was broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances and streamed on PBS.
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The Score
It’s not often that even one harp takes center stage at an orchestra concert. In November at Benaroya Hall, the Seattle Symphony performed a work that featured two harps: the commissioned world premiere of Hannah Lash’s new double harp concerto. The composer and Seattle Symphony Principal Harp Valerie Muzzolini were soloists in the concerto, subtitled “The Peril of Dreams.” Lash has described the four-movement piece as “a symphony expressed through the lens of a double harp concerto…. The third movement is a kind of Tarantella or death dance—a short, poisonous spike of energy before the somber, tragic final movement in which the harps drift nobly further and further from the orchestra.” Associate Conductor Lee Mills stepped in at the last minute for Music Director Thomas Dausgaard—who had just led his first concerts with the orchestra after returning to the United States from Denmark following 20 months of COVID-related visa delays, but had briefly fallen ill. A premiere for pandemic times, for sure.
James Holt
Seattle Harp Dreams
The Seattle Symphony performs the November world premiere of Hannah Lash’s double harp concerto, “The Peril of Dreams,” with the composer and Principal Harp Valerie Muzzolini as soloists, led by Associate Conductor Lee Mills.
In Remembrance: Chester Lane, Symphony Magazine Senior Editor, 74 It is with great sadness that we report the death of Chester Lane, who worked as an editor at Symphony for nearly four decades. Chester died suddenly on November 24 while visiting friends in Winchester, Virginia. Marianne Sciolino, Chester’s wife of 13 years, states that he died from heart failure, and had not been sick. The League of American Orchestras’ longest-tenured staff member, Chester joined the magaChester Lane at work at Symphony magazine. zine—then known as Symphony News and published bimonthly—in December 1979, when the League was headquartered in Northern Virginia. Beginning with the February/March 1980 issue, his writing appeared in 210 successive issues of the magazine: unsigned news reports, columns, and bylined features including profiles of orchestras, musical artists, and administrators, as well as articles on repertoire, programming, education, community engagement, patron relations, and League training activities and services. He was recognized with an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 2002 for his article “Music Close to Home: The Vital Role of Community Orchestras in America,” which appeared in Symphony’s November/December 2001 issue. In 2017, Chester stepped down from Symphony to take up a position as communications director at Sciolino Arts Management, which represents established and emerging classical musicians, and worked alongside his wife, Marianne Sciolino, the firm’s CEO and founder. He wrote for Symphony on an occasional basis and pursued writing opportunities and personal projects in the classical music field. Chester Tevis Lane was born in Washington, D.C. on January 21, 1947 and raised in Nyack, New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He held a bachelor’s degree cum laude in English literature from Harvard College and a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He studied piano at the Longy School and New England Conservatory. A lifelong choral singer, he was a member and past board president of New York’s Canterbury Choral Society. Saluting Chester’s service to the orchestra field at the League’s 2017 National Conference, Jesse Rosen, then the League’s president and CEO, commented, “Chester Lane is known and admired by all our colleagues, and has been a faithful and eloquent storyteller for orchestras for more than 35 years.” Chester took music seriously, but those who worked alongside Chester also remember his lighter side, in particular his puns, often referred to as “Chesterisms.” Offhand quips—“If you are finished, please press the pound sign or hang up, or hurl the phone across the room,” “I want to start a ladder company called Lord of the Rungs, but I’ll get sued by the Tolkien estate”—could erupt at any point during the day, often leaving colleagues groaning or shaking with laughter. In addition to his wife, survivors include daughters Hannah and Rachel; a son, Cory; a brother, David; sisters Julie and Dinah; and three grandchildren. At press time, details were being finalized for a memorial event to be held in January at St. Paul the Apostle Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
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WINTER 2022
The Score
FLORENCE PRICE, ON PAGE AND ONSTAGE David Anorak
At New York City’s Kaufman Music Center in November, students from the Special Music School cheered when classmates appeared onstage to celebrate the publication of the children’s book Who is Florence Price? Students Special Music School students read from Who is Florence Price?, a new children’s book they and their classmates wrote from the public school researched, wrote, and about the composer, at New York City’s Merkin Hall, November 2021. illustrated the book about composer Florence Price (1887-1953), whose music is having a renaissance at American orchestras after decades of neglect. The book started as a classroom project with teacher Shannon Potts, and the Special Music School initially published the book on its own, shortly before the pandemic. Later, Kaufman Music Center Executive Director Kate Sheehan sent it to Robert Thompson—president of G. Schirmer, which in 2018 acquired the worldwide rights to Price’s music catalog—who agreed to publish the book. At November’s event, students’ readings from the book were interspersed by performances of Price’s music. In her foreword to the book, composer Jessie Montgomery wrote, “The writers were able to recognize the complex social context of Price’s life, diving in to the core issues of racial and gender discrimination she faced while pursuing her passion for music…. When we pay attention to the full story of our history, we can continue to be more empowered and inspired.”
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Forward Thinking
The Roots of Success
Pianist Lang Lang is an international star—but he forged his career here in the U.S., where he moved as a teenager to study and then performed with American orchestras large and small. It was a formative experience that he still values, as he resumes touring, runs a foundation that connects young people around the world with classical music, and takes on new artistic challenges.
Craig T.-Mathew/Mathew Imaging
By Simon Woods
sat with Sawallisch in the hall, and Lang Lang, then 17, came onstage and played a Haydn sonata followed by the Brahms Op. 118 Pieces. Unusually for Sawallisch in an audition, he didn’t interrupt the playing and ask him to jump to the next piece. He let Lang Lang play the whole Brahms set, and at the end he turned to me, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Das war sehr schön” (“That was very beautiful”). Coming from Sawallisch, this was praise indeed. He immediately invited Lang Lang to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1999 we had an Asia tour planned, and I tried to persuade the Chinese presenters to take Lang Lang as soloist. After weeks of declining to take an
Olaf Heine
Simon Woods, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras
F
rom the late 1990s to the mid2000s, I was artistic administrator at the Philadelphia Orchestra. One day in 1998, pianist Gary Graffman, then president of the Curtis Institute of Music, called to tell me about a student—which in itself was already unusual, as Gary didn’t have the habit of calling me. I remember his words quite well: “He has a somewhat unusual name, but he’s extraordinary, one of the very best students I have ever had in my career, and I wonder if you could arrange for Maestro Sawallisch to hear him play.” So I arranged it, and a few weeks later, Lang Lang came to the Academy of Music to play for Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch. I
Lang Lang in Berlin, 2020.
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WINTER 2022
Courtesy of Lang Lang
Courtesy of Lang Lang
Forward Thinking
Lang Lang moved from China to Philadelphia as a teenager to study piano at the Curtis Institute with Gary Graffman. At left, early studies with Graffman; right: Lang Lang the Curtis graduate with Graffman, who influenced his playing and aesthetic.
unknown name, they finally relented, and Lang Lang played the Mendelssohn First Piano Concerto with Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Great Hall of the People’s Republic in Beijing. The rest is history. Except not quite…because there’s a missing chapter here, which is the way Lang Lang’s career was propelled forward by dozens of engagements with smaller American orchestras way before he became an international star. Recently, Lang Lang sat down with me over Zoom to share his memories of this special time in his life, his affection for Gary Graffman, his deep respect for American orchestras, his commitment to his International Music Foundation and its educational mission, and his journey to playing the Goldberg Variations all over the world. SIMON WOODS: When Gary Graffman called me in 1998 and said, “You’ve got to hear his amazing student, he may be the best student I’ve ever had,” how old were you? LANG LANG: I was 15. SIMON WOODS: Presumably when you started with Gary, you were still adjusting to being in a different country. What was your first impression of being at Curtis and being in America after growing up in China? LANG LANG: I left China to study with Gary. Studying with him is very different than studying with anybody else, even in America. Gary was not a typical AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
professor. He’s such an open-minded person. He taught me so much beyond American culture. He told me how wonderful the Chinese arts were, and he was even speaking Chinese to me the first semester—the basic things. He could say crescendo, diminuendo, dolce—those musical words in Chinese. He said, “Please play Bach” in Mandarin. He wasn’t talking like Chinese people, but he knew some vocabulary, and that’s how he communicated with me. I was shocked. I was like, oh wow, somebody’s talking Chinese to me.
Gary Graffman was always trying to inspire me to understand the meaning behind music, to never use the same mind to understand things. That is something that I never learned from anybody else. SIMON WOODS: What was special about how he worked with you and what he did that was different from lessons in China? LANG LANG: He is a great artist. The way he’s showing me the piano, it’s not just piano, he’s showing me the entire orchestra. I remember he always used the
orchestral sections to make examples of piano sound. He told me, “You cannot make the piano sound. You have to do trumpet. You have to think, this is the Philadelphia Orchestra cello section. You need to think, this is the Chicago Symphony’s brass section. You need to think, this is the beautiful sound of the violin section of Vienna Philharmonic.” He was always trying to inspire me to understand the meaning behind music. He was always telling me to never use the same mind to understand things. That is something that I never learned from anybody else. SIMON WOODS: Has that way of thinking about music stayed with you? LANG LANG: Yes. One thing that’s very important was that he’s broad-minded with repertoire. When I came to America, I never heard Spanish music before. I never played Brahms before. I played mostly at that time Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, a lot of Eastern European because the Central Conservatory had strong ties with the Russian school or the Eastern European schools. The repertoire I learned from Central Conservatory in Beijing was mostly Eastern European romantic. I came to America and realized how important Brahms, Debussy, Scarlatti, Handel, Haydn, and other composers are. My repertoire became much bigger. This was thanks to Gary, who didn’t want me to keep playing so much Chopin, Tchaikovsky. He said, “You really have to broaden your repertoire.” This is why I 17
Courtesy of Lang Lang
Forward Thinking
Lang Lang takes a bow after a 1999 performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
In a way, American orchestras are more multitalented and much more open toward popular culture. This is quite different than other parts of the world. came to America. I had told him, “Gary, I want to win all the competitions in the world.” And he said, “Stop it. You should really focus on learning the repertoire that you are not used to playing.” SIMON WOODS: Shortly after that, your career started and you began playing with orchestras around America. Tell me about those early experiences and what it felt like to play with an orchestra—with relatively little experience. LANG LANG: My career was building up with American orchestras—from Lubbock, Texas to Garden State Philharmonic in New Jersey, and Longview, Texas. There are a lot of wonderful places. I remember going to Lubbock, Texas—me and my father switching three different airplanes and then taking the bus. My father said to me, “Wow, your American tour is really adventurous.” Going to New Mexico, we landed in Albuquerque and then switched to a car ride to Roswell. I loved those experiences. I love to play with those wonderful musicians like
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South Bend, Indiana, the Fresno Philharmonic, the Fort Collins Symphony, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. SIMON WOODS: What was your impression of playing with regional American orchestras? How did you find the musicians, how did you find the atmosphere and the welcome? LANG LANG: In the beginning, obviously as any musician you want to play with the biggest ones—New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, LA, San Francisco. But in the beginning, I was the number five or six replacement on the Milwaukee and Indianapolis symphony lists. And probably number ten on the Philadelphia Orchestra sub list. My first time playing Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4, I played with South Bend Symphony, and that was really great because I didn’t know that concerto well. I remember going to Lafayette and New Orleans in Louisiana, and Birmingham, Alabama. My first time playing the Mozart C Minor Concerto was in Lubbock, Texas. Those orchestras really played their hearts out for me. SIMON WOODS: Did you get a sense of how beloved these orchestras are in their communities? One of the beautiful things about American orchestras is this intense local pride. LANG LANG: Absolutely. My first performance of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto was in Longview, Texas. The community was so welcoming. In the very beginning of my career, I always stayed
in somebody’s home—a couple of music lovers would take in young musicians, let them and their parents stay in their home. I could practice at their home. They loved music, they loved helping young musicians. In Longview, after the performance we went to a community Sunday brunch. Everybody was talking about the concert. It was amazing how the community loved their orchestra. We’re talking about music and they’re showing me the local food and nature. In Louisiana, a young couple and their daughter took me to the river after I played Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. I remember the little girl was like, “Hey Lang Lang, there’s an alligator!” SIMON WOODS: In a way we could say that in the beginning of your career you were “made in America.” Is there anything in particular that is individual or unusual compared to other places in the world where you work? LANG LANG: You have so many different nationalities in U.S. orchestras, you basically see almost a U.N. orchestra. In many U.S. orchestras, you see people from everywhere, and they graduate maybe mostly from the American conservatories, from Curtis to Eastman to Colburn to Cincinnati. It’s truly international, and this is something that looks very different than the rest of the world.
The pandemic really showed how fortunate we are to be musicians. WINTER 2022
Stephan Hoederath
SIMON WOODS: What does that do to the sound and personality of American orchestras? Does it mean that they’re more versatile? LANG LANG: I think American orchestra can play more styles than the rest of the world. If you take an orchestra like Philadelphia Orchestra, they can do amazing Russian music, incredible Germanic repertoire, and also a lot of contemporary music. In a way, American orchestras are more multi-talented and much more open toward popular culture. This is quite different than other parts of the world. SIMON WOODS: One of the things that has been very meaningful for you in your career has been giving back to young people. Tell me about the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and particularly about your Young Scholars program. What are you trying to achieve there? LANG LANG: We have two key programs: Young Scholars and Keys of Inspiration. With Keys of Inspiration, the idea is to provide music classes to American schools, and to schools in China and Europe, although we are focused more into the public school system in this country. We know it’s very challenging, because many schools in the U.S. don’t teach music. This is something that we are trying to change. At the moment, we have more than 70 schools in the U.S. taking our program. The idea is that everybody should play the piano—not just listen. We want them to play together, and therefore in each of the schools we have around 30 smart pianos. When the
Lang Lang in St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, for his performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
Courtesy of Lang Lang
Forward Thinking
Taking a bow at his September 2021 performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Thomas Wilkins led the concert.
teachers are teaching it’s almost like a DJ. He has headphones and everybody else has earphones. He talks to each student, and each one practices with the music on the screen of the iPad. People are learning music in a very enjoyable way, almost like playing a game. When they play with only one hand, they have the entire orchestra accompany them. When they play the left hand, they have the entire orchestra accompanying them or doing the melody parts. That way, when they start playing, they don’t feel they are by themselves, and they don’t get disconnected. There’s a little community, learning music at the same time, almost like a conversation. They can also sing and create. This is the way I think music should be presented. SIMON WOODS: You have the technology up and running in 70 schools. So what comes next? How do you take talented students and advance them? LANG LANG: On top of this Keys of Inspiration program, we have another one called Young Scholars, which is nurturing the next generation of prodigies. They are the best young pianists from around the U.S. between the ages of 6 and 16 years old. Every year, we provide them a performance in Weill Recital Hall or Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. Some of them play with me or another touring artist in Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, or Walt Disney Concert Hall. They have a chance to shine on stage, and they also become ambassadors for our Keys of Inspiration
It took me more than 25 years to be ready to play the Goldberg Variations. programs. We’re trying to have inspiration from different generations passing this wonderful flame. SIMON WOODS: Have you started to think about partnerships between your program and orchestras? LANG LANG: Yes, we had some collaboration in the past with orchestras, like the Seattle Symphony and Vancouver Symphony. I’m doing another program called 101 Pianist Festival, where we get 100 pianists together, including one more—sometimes me, sometimes someone else. We play like a piano symphony! We are teaming up with orchestras around the world and we’re trying to create this piano symphony everywhere we go. SIMON WOODS: Let’s talk about the pandemic. When we were talking last, you said this was a time of deep reflection for you. Everybody’s had their own particular experiences of the pandemic. Tell me what it was like for you. LANG LANG: The pandemic really showed how fortunate we are to be musicians. During the pandemic, my professional colleagues and I were quite depressed, and worried that we would never get back on stage. This was a very
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Heather Jasner
Forward Thinking
Lang Lang’s International Music Foundation aims to connect young people around the world with classical music. Here, he works with students in the U.S.
Courtesy of Lang Lang
sad, very dark period, very difficult for musicians. I was fortunate to perform several concerts in China during this time, but it was a very limited number. Some of the European festivals did concerts, again very limited. I remember a few incredible concerts that musicians did in a castle or a church on their own. That was very touching. But obviously you cannot do this for long. Thank God, this year we are able to come back. At the first concert after we were allowed to be onstage, everybody was crying. That was an emotional time.
Lang Lang with young participants in his Keys of Inspiration music program.
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I want to send all my love and gratitude to American orchestras, and to the people who believed me in the very beginning—which started with American orchestras. SIMON WOODS: Did you use this period to study new repertoire, think up new ideas? LANG LANG: Yes. I also was practicing a lot of new pieces. But the most important work during this time was the birth of my son. This is probably the most important work my wife and I ever did. SIMON WOODS: What lies in the future? Do you have musical ambitions that you’d like to fulfill? You’ve done everything, you’ve played the major repertoire with the greatest orchestras and done incredible media projects. LANG LANG: This current tour is very important because it’s the Bach Goldberg Variations. I’ve been dreaming to play this piece from ten years old, and to play the Goldberg Variations all over the world is a dream come true. SIMON WOODS: Why did you wait so long?
LANG LANG: This piece is incredibly hard to understand. It’s Baroque music, not even written for the piano, it’s for harpsichord, also with a lot of Baroque organ technique. I needed to learn authentic ways of understanding and analyzing this type of music, and how the ornamentation works in French and Italian style. After learning that, I needed time to digest. Like a good red wine, it needs some time. It took me more than 25 years to be ready. SIMON WOODS: Did it challenge you to think in new ways about your technique? LANG LANG: Absolutely. There is also the strategy of how to handle this—I never played any piece longer than 45 minutes, and this is 90 minutes without break. It’s another game altogether. SIMON WOODS: This magazine is for American orchestras, for musicians, managers, people who love American orchestras. What’s your message to American orchestras? LANG LANG: This is a very difficult time for all of us. But I want to send all my love and gratitude to the great American orchestras, and to the people who believed me in the very beginning—which started with American orchestras. This has been a great journey with you all, and I can’t wait to have more wonderful musical experiences in the future with you.
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TH E LE AG U E O F A M E R I C A N O RC H ESTR A S IS PLE A S E D TO H O N O R TH ES E M E M BE R O RC H ESTR A S C E L E BR ATI N G N OTE WO RTH Y A N N I V E R SA R I ES TH IS S E A S O N . 125 YEARS 100 YEARS
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Oregon Symphony (OR)
Alabama Symphony Orchestra (AL) New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJ) Orchestra Iowa (IA) Portland Symphony Orchestra (ME) South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SD) Toronto Symphony Orchestra (ON)
Amherst Symphony Orchestra (NY) Anchorage Symphony Orchestra (AK) Baton Rouge Symphony (LA) Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (IL) Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra (CT) Evanston Symphony Orchestra (IL) Houston Youth Symphony (TX) Lubbock Symphony Orchestra (TX) Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras (MD) Nashville Symphony (TN) New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZ) Queensland Symphony Orchestra (AU) Symphony of the Mountains (TN) Symphony Tacoma (WA) The Phoenix Symphony (AZ) Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra (WA) West Suburban Symphony Society (IL) Winston-Salem Symphony (NC)
Berkeley Symphony Orchestra (CA) Columbus Indiana Philharmonic (IN) Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies (MN) Monroe Symphony Orchestra (LA) North Mississippi Symphony Orchestra (MS) Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PA), celebrating Heinz Hall, 50 years as home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Richmond Philharmonic Orchestra (VA) Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic (VA) Wilmington Symphony Orchestra (NC) Yakima Symphony Orchestra (WA)
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40 YEARS 25 YEARS
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The Washington Idaho Symphony (ID)
Auburn Symphony Orchestra (WA) Austin Symphony Orchestra (TX), celebrating Peter Bay, 25 years as Music Director Holyoke Civic Symphony (MA), celebrating David Kidwell, 25th season as Conductor Marquette Symphony Orchestra (MI) Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes (NY) Peninsula Youth Orchestra (CA) Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Music Institute (PA), celebrating Louis Scaglione, 25 years as CEO Piedmont Symphony Orchestra (VA) South Coast Symphony (CA)
Boston Landmarks Orchestra (MA) Green Mountain Youth Symphony (VT) Lake Geneva Symphony Orchestra (WI) St. Thomas Orchestra (NY) Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia (WA) Symphony San Jose (CA) The Orchestra of the Americas (DC) Verdugo Young Musicians Association (CA) Washington Symphony Orchestra (PA) Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra (CT)
Hendricks Symphony (IN) Johns Creek Symphony Orchestra (GA)
New Orchestra of Washington (MD) North Valley Symphony Orchestra (AZ) Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (QC), celebrating Maison symphonique de Montreal, 10 years as home to the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Worcester Youth Orchestras (MA), celebrating Jonathan Brennand, 10 years as Artistic Director
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At the League
Managing Change
Essentials of Orchestra Management has long been one of the League of American Orchestras’ signature professional-development courses: an immersive, intensive boot camp in how to succeed at running an orchestra. Now Essentials is getting an update, staying relevant to the present—and future—of orchestras.
Abigail R. Collins
By Heidi Waleson
The 2019 Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar in Los Angeles. This summer, Essentials will take place at place at the Juilliard School in New York City.
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early two years of the global pandemic have had a dramatic effect on everything, including how orchestras are run. This summer, when the League of American Orchestras’ Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar returns after a pandemic-enforced three-year hiatus, there will be new areas to explore. For Jennifer Barlament, executive director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and a core faculty member of the Essentials
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program since 2017, one of those areas is attention to change management. “That’s what we have all been doing 24/7,” she says. “What we have been able to achieve in the midst of major disruptive change has to do with the level of skill that we have in bringing people together, listening to voices, and creating a strategic plan.” Pre-COVID, Barlament says, orchestra managers “were not set up for flexibility. Artistic planning was about how to build a grid and be locked
More than 450 people have participated in the Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar since its launch in 2000; many of them now hold leadership positions in the f ield. WINTER 2022
At the League
Students of past Essentials seminars have formed strong personal and professional alliances.
and loaded 18 months out. During the pandemic, we realized that there is great value in being able to respond to world events. We can do in-person and virtual events. We can keep people safe and healthy and do concerts. We can have incredible pre-planning and also be flexible and responsive.” In late July and early August of 2022, between 30 and 35 current and aspiring orchestra administrators will gather in New York City for the League’s intensive, 10-day Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar, learning from top professionals in the field and from each other. The program, which took place at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles from 2015 through 2019, will now be presented by the League in collaboration with Juilliard Extension, using the Juilliard School’s housing, classrooms, and other resources; participants will receive a non-credit Juilliard Extension certificate upon completion. Essentials is aimed at early and mid-career professionals, musicians, career changers, and students, as well as experienced orchestra administrators wishing to expand their knowledge. “Essentials of Orchestra Management is more essential than ever,” says League President and CEO Simon Woods, who was the director of Essentials from 2018 until he became the League’s leader in 2020. “Essentials is a beloved program, and we’re excited to unveil its new identity. There are alumni from Essentials and its predecessor programs working across the orchestra field, and many of them credit Essentials as a career-defining moment. Now we’re taking the program to the next stage in its evolution, combining the League’s depth and experience in curriculum development with the resources of one of the music world’s most
AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
The League of American Orchestras’ hallmark professional development seminar, Essentials of Orchestra Management, will return to New York City after nearly a decade, presented in collaboration with Juilliard Extension. Taking place July 24-August 2, 2022, Essentials gives early- and midcareer orchestra professionals the knowledge they need to advance and enhance their careers. THE 10-DAY SEMINAR OFFERS: • An immersive, 360-degree view of the orchestra field; • An academically rigorous curriculum, developed and taught by leaders in the orchestra field; • A diverse cohort of peers, offering a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds; • A dedicated core faculty, who will be present for the entire program, as well as adjunct faculty in specialist areas; • A classroom environment that encourages discussion and the open exchange of ideas; • Individual and group coaching. Essentials of Orchestra Management is made possible by generous grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Abigail R. Collins
While Essentials’ nutsand-bolts approach remains, broader topics, such as equity, organizational culture, and generational change, have grown in importance.
inspiring educational institutions.” The League anticipates a higherthan-usual number of applicants, given the pent-up demand after three years off. Scott Faulkner, principal bass of the Reno Philharmonic and former executive director of the Reno Chamber Orchestra, who assumed the directorship of the seminar after Simon Woods, explains, “We decided not to do Essentials virtually in 2020 and 2021. You can teach finance over Zoom, but the culture of the intensive, residential seminar—the context, the relationships, the networking inside and outside of the sessions—is central to the experience.” David Styers, the League’s director of Learning and Leadership Programs who administers the program, also expects to see an increased number of applications from career changers: “people who were spurred by the pandemic to follow their passion.” While the League has offered management training programs since the 1950s, the Essentials prototype was launched in 2000 by veteran orchestra manager Peter Pastreich. Since that year, more than 450 people have participated in the seminar, many of whom now hold leadership positions in the field. Faulkner was an Essentials student in 2002, when it took place in January at the League’s New York office. A bass player, he had
Learn more about Essentials and register at americanorchestras. org/essentials.
Participants in the 2019 Essentials of Orchestra Management course.
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Abigail R. Collins
At the League
Sharing a moment at the 2019 Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar.
Abigail R. Collins
of understanding. The seminar’s teaching style has evolved over the years, “from the transfer of knowledge from elder statesmen in the field to more of a conversation,” Faulkner says. “We encourage the students to push back at things—and we push back at them, if warranted. We see it as part lecture, part think tank.” For example, in the wake of COVID, the use of digital media is likely to be a major topic this summer. “I expect that the younger students will be more fluent with this subject,” Faulkner says. The 9 a.m.-6 p.m. schedule covers three to four topics a day, grouped thematically. It will feature presentations and panel discussions, but also interactive elements like small-group sessions, role-playing, debriefing, synthesis, and plenty of space for questions, as well as a group capstone project. The core faculty members are present at all the sessions, Barlament says, “to underline, illuminate, repeat, and ask questions.” Another
just become executive director at the Reno Chamber Orchestra, and recalls, “I was starting from scratch. Essentials was the most important training I had as an executive director.” The program has evolved in its two-decade history. While its nuts-andbolts approach, with how-to sessions on finance, governance, union negotiations, artistic planning, marketing, and related topics, remains, finding a balance with broader topics, such as equity, organizational culture and generational change, has grown in importance. “It’s a combination of technical skills, like how to read a spreadsheet, and thinking about
Essentials of Orchestra Management is “a combination of technical skills, like how to read a spreadsheet, and thinking about what our future is,” says Jennifer Barlament, executive director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and a core faculty member of the Essentials program. 24
what our future is,” Barlament says. The core faculty—Faulkner, Barlament, and Alexander Laing, principal clarinet of the Phoenix Symphony—are planning sessions with the aid of Styers and John-Morgan Bush, formerly of the League and now Juilliard’s director of Lifelong Learning. As in the past, the core faculty’s teaching will be supplemented by contributions from about 25 guest presenters, all experts in their subject matter and many with orchestra management backgrounds. “There are plenty of management training programs out there, but there’s no need for translation at Essentials,” Styers says. “This program is unique in showing how the management of an orchestra is different from management of businesses, other non-profits, even other arts organizations. The topics cover the breadth of what an executive director has to think of in all types of orchestras—major orchestras, small-budget orchestras, youth orchestras, orchestras with unique structures. Essentials tries to scale every idea for every size orchestra. No one majored in orchestra management in college, and Essentials is the crash course that you didn’t get in your academic life.” Seminar participants receive a reading and video list that they are expected to digest before they arrive, so everyone, regardless of experience, starts with a common base
Pasha Kalachev
Core faculty for Essentials of Orchestra Management, from left: Alexander Laing, principal clarinet, Phoenix Symphony; Jennifer Barlament, executive director, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Essentials Director Scott Faulkner, principal bass, Reno Philharmonic; and Simon Woods, president and CEO, League of American Orchestras.
Essentials “is unique in showing how the management of an orchestra is different from management of businesses, other non-profits, even other arts organizations,” says David Styers, who administers Essentials as the League’s director of Learning and Leadership Programs.
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“Digging into how orchestras attract, maintain, and remain relevant to the audiences of the future is ultimately one of the most essential parts of Essentials,” says Essentials Director Scott Faulkner, who is principal bass of the Reno Philharmonic and former executive director of the Reno Chamber Orchestra. key role of the faculty is mentoring, both in formally scheduled meetings and impromptu consultations. “That’s some of the most important work we do,” she says. Seminar participants will also attend concerts and evaluate those experiences from an orchestra manager’s point of view.
Chris Cooper
New Dimensions Philosophical questions about the future of orchestras that became even more
urgent during the last two years will be a theme throughout the seminar. The killing of George Floyd in 2020 sparked a national reckoning about racial justice, and arts groups were among the many sectors to take a harder look at themselves as a result. Work on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) had already been instituted as part of the Essentials curriculum in previous iterations. However, faculty member Alexander Laing notes, “Orchestras have been slow to recognize and act on this area, commonly referred to as EDI. I think that what has happened in the country and the world since the last time Essentials convened will certainly have the impact of growing the understanding across the field that American orchestras are not neutral or a-racial institutions.” The first full day of the 2022 Essentials seminar includes a three-hour block devoted to EDI. And this year, Faulkner says, all core and guest faculty will be expected to include EDI in their presentations, discussing how those topics touch their area of expertise. The experience of running an orchestra during the pandemic, requiring dramatically new approaches to issues like flexibility and team management, will also be disseminated through the Essentials curriculum. Barlament says that the “plate spinning” experience of managing in the face of constant change
This summer, the League of American Orchestras’ 10-day Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar will take place at the Juilliard School, at Lincoln Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
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Claudio Papapietro
At the League
“Everyone is thinking, ‘What is business as usual now?’ That’s a theme for the Essentials seminar: how do we continue best practices and also adapt,” says John-Morgan Bush, Juilliard’s director of Lifelong Learning.
was eye-opening. “Ironically, it was really fun in certain ways,” she recalls. “It made the whole endeavor seem more engaging and exciting. Everyone had to get in there together, work through problems simultaneously, and consider all the implications. The management structure had been getting less siloed in general, and who gets to participate in any discussion was changing. That sped up in the pandemic. All these things that had been gradually coming along got put on fast forward. People had nascent ideas that are now suddenly important. The idea of the Philadelphia Orchestra recording all the works of Florence Price—that was not on the table two years ago. It’s a time of clarity and change for institutions.” John-Morgan Bush, who administered the Essentials seminar at the League before moving to Juilliard, says, “COVID-19 has forced us to imagine so many different ways of engagement. For example, Juilliard really expanded engagement in the arts through media and harnessed creative energy for new formats. And everyone is thinking, ‘What is business as usual now?’ That’s a theme for the seminar: how do we continue best practices and also adapt? We are looking at the far future of orchestras, not just the immediate future.” Immediate impacts of COVID are on the agenda as well; for example, will audiences return, and in what kind of numbers? Faulkner says that the seminar will encompass data from the League, researchers who have partnered with the League on several studies, and the marketing and communications experts
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At the League
at the seminar. In addition, he expects that there will be “a wealth of experience in the room from the students themselves about what they have seen and done at their home orchestras. I’m also sure there will be success (and horror) stories about how orchestras got music to their audiences, as well as how their box-office staffs have been screamed at by folks who don’t like mask and vaccine requirements. The multi-tentacled pandemic issue is one of the big topics that will inform most of the sessions. It will be addressed explicitly in both tactical and philosophical ways.” At Essentials, the question of change and the future of orchestras hovers over any discussion of how to read a spreadsheet, build a community engagement program, work with a board of directors,
Essentials was “an unbelievably meaningful experience. It prepared me for my upcoming role and provided me with a network that will serve me throughout my career. What a gift!” –Jessica Satava, executive director, Johnstown Symphony Orchestra “It was fantastic to get to know a group of people with such a different array of backgrounds and levels of experience. Everyone is so passionate.” –Ignacio Barron Viela, executive director, Billings Symphony Orchestra “I led a regional orchestra as its executive director for 10 years. At the start of my tenure, I attended the League’s incomparable Essentials course, the gold standard for management training in the intricacies of the orchestra enterprise.” –Melanie Clarke, former executive director, Princeton Symphony Orchestra
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or negotiate with musicians. Asked what topic might best exemplify the learning in the seminar, Faulkner pointed to the issue of culture, and the Peter Drucker quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” “As classical music organizations, we are blessed and burdened by our 300 years of history, and doing things a certain way,” Faulkner says. “What’s the baby? What’s the bathwater? What can be shed?” Like many of his colleagues, Faulkner sees the COVID experience as an opportunity for a reset. “What have we learned about artistic planning? There’s no going backward in electronic media and digital, so what does and does not work?,” he asks. “For-profit companies devote lots of resources to planning for failure; orchestras don’t. So how can we build in capacity to take some chances? The bottom line is, change has to happen. Orchestras need to include more people and voices from different generations and backgrounds. These kinds of issues start with governance, and having boards committed to evolving out of our molds. Digging into how orchestras attract, maintain, and remain relevant to the audiences of the future is ultimately one of the most essential parts of Essentials. It remains to be seen how we will make Generation Z love us, so that we can survive another 100 years.”
Alexander Laing, principal clarinet of the Phoenix Symphony and Essentials core faculty member, says, “What has happened in the country and the world since the last time Essentials convened will certainly have the impact of growing the understanding across the f ield that American orchestras are not neutral or a-racial institutions.”
Learning in the Classroom and Beyond Faulkner and the rest of the Essentials faculty and leadership look forward to a lively cohort of “smart, energetic, insightful students” this summer. Learning takes place not only in the classrooms, but in the corridors, at evening pizza party/war stories get-togethers, and late-night conversations reminiscent of college life. The dormitory setup will be a bit different from those college days, however—Styers is hoping to ensure that every participant gets a single room—and a logistical necessity, new this year, is the New York State and Juilliard requirement that all participants be vaccinated. A mask mandate will depend on rules in force at the time. Students of past Essentials seminars have formed strong personal and professional alliances. Former classmates get together for reunions and tap each other for advice. The faculty also remain a supportive resource for alumni. “I talk to alums pretty frequently,” Barlament says. “They might have something come up and want to talk to someone who knows them but is not tied to their institution. At Essentials, you are able to get close to people quickly, understand what they care about, and stay in touch over the long term.” Styers points out that the League regularly evaluates its programs to determine whether they are relevant. The demand for Essentials has never flagged. “There’s always the next generation,” he says. “Some of these people were just children when the program began. There are constantly new people who need to go through this experience to ground them, as well as the people who are changing careers. We keep it fresh, and it can go on for another 20 years and be relevant to the children being born today.” “I love teaching this course,” Barlament says. “Spending time with these participants—dedicated, curious, open-minded, passionate people—makes me feel optimistic about the future of orchestras. I wish everyone had a chance to experience that up close.” HEIDI WALESON is the opera critic of the Wall Street Journal and author of Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America (Metropolitan). WINTER 2022
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Changing the Face of Volunteerism Volunteer groups at orchestras are seeking younger and more diverse volunteers to better reflect today’s society and to connect their message and mission with their communities. By Rita Pyrillis
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his season, orchestras around the country will be performing more works by women and composers of color than ever before, signaling the growing push for diversity in the arts. From expanding their musical offerings to recruiting musicians from underrepresented groups to hiring diversity officers, orchestras are seeking to create organizations that reflect the cities in which they’re based. But one segment of the orchestra world is struggling to catch up: volunteer organizations. The days of the “Ladies
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Auxiliary” are long over, when the wives of prominent men hosted fundraisers attended by the wealthy, and mostly White, elite. One measure of America’s changing social mores: in 1980, the League of American Orchestras’ Women’s Council, which brings together volunteers from orchestras nationwide, was rebranded as the gender-neutral Volunteer Council. Today, volunteer groups are seeking to attract younger and more diverse members that reflect today’s realities. “In the past these organizations were by invitation only,”
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says Janet Cabot, a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra League and the League of American Orchestras’ Volunteer Council. The League’s Volunteer Council comprises members of volunteer
and Los Angeles Philharmonic, among others, have been making strides in the areas of gender and racial and ethnic diversity among their composers, musicians, and staff, but recruiting diverse
The days of the “Ladies Auxiliary” are long over. associations affiliated with orchestras nationwide and provides support and professional development for volunteers at orchestras throughout the country. “The Madison League was formed in 1956 and back then most women didn’t work outside of home,” says Cabot. “The volunteers were the wives of prominent business leaders. It was a way to tap into pots of money. Over time that started to change. It stopped being invitation only and men were included. The next challenge is getting younger and more diverse members who love classical music.” “Many symphony volunteer organizations are interested in incorporating equity, diversity, and inclusion,” says Julie Meredith, president of the Volunteer Council and former president of the Utah Symphony Guild. “Each year the Volunteer Council hosts a series of informal ‘Strategic Conversations’ for current and incoming presidents to have open discussions and learn from what other organizations are doing. Our Fall
volunteers has proven difficult. One reason is that orchestras continue to be overwhelmingly White, making it hard to attract volunteers from underrepresented communities, according to Barbara Lake, a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Affiliates, which are volunteer committees that are grouped by neighborhood, and of the League of American Orchestras’ Volunteer Council. “We have a problem recruiting volunteer members because they don’t see diversity in the orchestra,” she says. “We haven’t addressed the problem directly. The LA Phil Affiliate Committees are a very large volunteer group of 900 volunteers and 17 committees, each with a different purpose and in a different geographic location. I’m president of the Southwest Heights Philharmonic Committee, which is primarily African American.” Lake said that the Southwest Heights volunteers have been closely involved with the LA Philharmonic’s
LEAGUE VOLUNTEER COUNCIL The Volunteer Council of the League of American Orchestras is made up of community leaders who have demonstrated outstanding support for their orchestras and are committed to the League’s goals. Council members represent volunteer associations affiliated with orchestras from coast to coast and across the entire spectrum of budget tiers. Their leadership provides representation, support, and professional development to volunteer delegates throughout the country via quarterly publications (Volunteer Notes), a volunteer project database, strategic conversations for presidents and presidents-elect (a series of Zoom meetings on topics pertinent to their roles and responsibilities), awards
Community members are more willing to donate their time and money when they see themselves reflected in their orchestras.
recognizing outstanding programs and initiatives by volunteer groups, and programming at the League’s annual National Conference. The Council is committed to the
2021 participants requested a session on how to attract a diverse membership. We learned that to attract diverse members, organizations must be intentional in their strategies and look at what diversity is in their community in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity. There needs to be a commitment from top leadership and that commitment must be brought to the attention of the community.” Organizations like the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), which recently moved into a new Frank Gehry-designed home in the southwest Los Angeles neighborhood of Inglewood. YOLA, which offers after-school musical training to high schoolers in areas lacking in arts education, was founded in 2007 under the aegis of LA Phil Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel. Along with other initiatives, Affiliate Committee members operate the LA Philharmonic’s Symphonies for Schools program, which provides a free concert
ongoing education of its members to meet the current and future needs of volunteer associations in support of their orchestras. Learn more at https:// americanorchestras.org/learn/ volunteering/league-volunteercouncil/.
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In November of 2019, the West Suburban Friends volunteer group of Chicago Sinfonietta held a fundraiser and the Sinfonietta gave a concert celebrating Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. Sharon Hatchett, second from right in photo with other West Suburban Friends, reports that members of the area’s Indian community stated this was the first time they knew of that a symphony orchestra focused on the festival.
“People of color will donate more to organizations that reflect their communities and that they have a relationship with,” says Sharon Hatchett, former president of the Southside Friends of the Chicago Sinfonietta and current member of the League’s Board of Directors.
Doris Parent, vice president of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access strategies (IDEAS) at the Philadelphia Orchestra, sees volunteers as brand ambassadors who carry the message and mission of the orchestra into their communities.
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Janet Cabot, a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra League and the League’s Volunteer Council who is seen here at a December 2021 Madison Symphony event, says, “In the past [volunteer] organizations were by invitation only. Over time that started to change. The next challenge is getting younger and more diverse members who love classical music.”
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and field trips to elementary and high school students, and Toyota’s Symphonies for Youth, aimed at children ages 5 to 11. “Those are the big events for the volunteers,” Lake says. “We get the kids off of the buses, make sure they’re seated, offer tours to the Hollywood Bowl, and we also operate the Music Mobile, where kids can play and touch instruments.”
first step is to examine existing membership by polling volunteers about diversity and asking for ideas on how to improve. The next step is taking a look at recruiting methods and looking for sometimes ignored barriers to membership, such as the cost, convenience of scheduled meetings and gatherings, and other practices. According to an informal survey of 12 Volunteer Council member organizations conducted in the spring, 92 percent had dues ranging from $25 to $100 and 38 percent required or recommended buying concert tickets. (Read the survey at https:// americanorchestras.org/re-energizing-membership/.) Other findings include:
Volunteers as Stakeholders Volunteers play a variety of roles in the governance and operation of an orchestra, from selling tickets to organizing fundraisers to community engagement and more. And all of them are vital to the success of the organization, according to Doris Parent, vice president of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access strategies (IDEAS) at the Philadelphia Orchestra. She sees • 23 percent required attendance to at least one fundraiser them as brand ambassadors who carry the message and mission • 23 percent required attendance to at least one meeting of the orchestra into their communities. • 31 percent required participation in event planning “Volunteers are a key stakeholder group,” Parent says. • 15 percent required invitation from a member to join “They spearhead their own events alongside the orchestras and work closely with them. They do a lot to build awareness. Here Among goals of the survey, Parent says, was finding out they organize our opening night. In 2020 they produced a very “Where are you always recruiting from? Is it always word of creative digital event that incorporated diversity and inclusion mouth? Don’t get hung up on only race and ethnicity. Look at and developed sponsorship packages that incorporated free gender, age, all different backgrounds. What are your applicacommunity tickets for students.” The online event featured tion rules? Do you ask people attend 20 orchestra performancperformances by soprano Angel es? Maybe don’t be so prescripBlue, who is Black, and Chitive on the numbers. Allow nese pianist Lang Lang as well Volunteers play a variety of roles for differences.” For example, as an orchestra performance of younger people might prefer a Seven O’Clock Shout by comcocktail hour to an afternoon in the governance and operation of poser Valerie Coleman, who is tea, or a virtual meeting to a an orchestra, from selling tickets to Black. face-to-face meeting. The Philadelphia Orches“As volunteer organizaorganizing fundraisers to community tra formalized its commitment tions emerge from the panto diversity last year when it engagement and more. All of them are demic, diversity is even more promoted Parent to its excritical,” says Julie Meredith. vital to the success of the organization. “It has been shown that diverse ecutive ranks after she spent more than a year assessing its teams are more likely to raddiversity practices as part of the ically innovate and anticipate orchestra’s IDEAS initiative. She joined the orchestra in 2011 shifts. Those organizations that embrace equity, diversity, and as senior director of corporate and foundation relations. inclusion typically outperform those that do not in terms of When it comes to attracting volunteers, Parent says the creativity and overall effectiveness. The Volunteer Council is
Barbara Lake, a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Affiliate Committees and the League’s Volunteer Council, says that orchestras and their volunteer organizations must better represent diverse communities.
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Mary Palmer, a past president of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra board of directors who began helping the orchestra develop a diversity strategic plan five years ago, says that community involvement is the key to greater diversity: “That’s where it begins.”
“Organizations that embrace equity, diversity, and inclusion typically outperform those that do not in terms of creativity and overall effectiveness,” says Julie Meredith, president of the Volunteer Council at the League of American Orchestras.
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Mary Palmer, in first row at far right, was among the board members and friends of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra who toured the new Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts before its opening in January. The Orlando Philharmonic will give its first full concert in the hall this March.
committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion and stands ready to assist volunteer organizations across the country.” Developing a Diversity Strategic Plan The effort to recruit more diverse volunteers comes at a critical time for orchestras as they seek to connect with new communities and bring in new patrons. With ever-present worries about potential audience decline, there is now an additional concern that the pandemic could accelerate that trend, shuttering concert halls and forcing the cancellation of in-person fundraising events. The League’s Volunteer Council signaled its commitment to diverse voices with its newest class of leaders. Three Black women were elected to the Council this year, thanks in large part to the efforts of member Sharon Hatchett, who has been pushing for greater awareness of the need for diversity in the Volunteer Council. Hatchett, who joined the Council in 2016, is its first Black member. She joined the League’s board of directors in February of 2021. “It’s still an educational journey for everyone,” Hatchett says. “When I was chair of member recruitment at the Volunteer Council, I tried to educate our committee on diversity and provide ideas on ways to be intentional about recruiting diverse volunteers. We coordinated with the League on getting a list of orchestras around the country and their volunteer groups. We looked at geography, diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, and age to take into account the changing demographics of the country. One of my objectives was to provide educational information to the volunteers so they can be a voice to help their orchestras on this journey.” Hatchett understands that community members are more willing to donate their time and money when they see them-
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selves reflected in their cities’ orchestras. She previously served as president of Southside Friends of the Chicago Sinfonietta, which has championed diversity and inclusion since it was founded in 1987. More than 35 percent of the Sinfonietta is staffed by musicians of color, and over 45 percent of those are women, according to the organization. “People of color will donate more to organizations that reflect their communities and that they have a relationship with,” she points out. “There is value in exploring ways to create those relationships. Volunteers can help our orchestras with diversity efforts. We are the boots on the ground in our communities.” Mary Palmer, past president of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra board of directors and a music educator, began helping the central Florida-based orchestra develop a diversity strategic plan five years ago. She formed an advisory group of 35 board members and community leaders to help increase diversity on the board and among musicians, staff and volunteers. Community involvement is the key to greater diversity, according to Palmer. This summer the orchestra performed a series of chamber concerts called Summer Serenades that offered a volunteer-run brunch before the performance. Concert tickets were $35, and the brunch was an additional $25. “The volunteers organized the food and decorated the room and made people feel welcome,” she said. “It wasn’t a fundraiser. It was an event to get people involved and interested in the orchestra. Anyone could come. We sold some season tickets and we generated interest. That’s where it begins.” RITA PYRILLIS (Mnicoujou Lakota) is a freelance writer in Evanston, Illinois. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, Los Angeles Times, and Newsweek, among other publications.
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R A LP H VAU G H A N W I LLI A M S ( 1872 - 1958 ) Join the celebrations to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the great British composer, in 2022-23
In a long and productive life, hardly a music genre was left untouched or failed to be enriched by Vaughan Williams’s work, which includes nine symphonies, five operas, music for film, ballet and stage, song cycles, chamber and church music and works for chorus and orchestra. During 2022-23 the music industry will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth on 12 October 1872; an opportunity for the widest range of performances internationally, both amateur and professional.
The popularity of Vaughan Williams’s most accessible works, the ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ and ‘The Lark Ascending’, has never been higher, with radio polls consistently voting these as listeners’ favourites, while Symphony No.5, with its beautiful Romanza slow movement, is one of the most popular of British symphonies. By contrast, Symphonies 4 and 6 show the composer at his most confrontational, alongside his Piano Concerto and William Blake inspired score, ‘Job’. The ethereal beauty of a ‘Pastoral’ Symphony is a heart-felt war requiem for fallen friends, while the ‘Sea’ Symphony’s rapturous setting of Walt Whitman is a favourite with choirs and audiences alike.
The composer’s works have been championed all over the world and to widespread acclaim, with complete symphony cycles and the major works recorded by internationally renowned conductors; to name a few: Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Mark Elder, Martyn Brabbins, Andrew Manze, John Wilson, Leonard Slatkin and André Previn.
Help for your project
Comprehensive information about the composer’s life and works can be found on The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society’s website. There is also a repertoire guide, to match works to your resources. We can provide advice on programmatic themes and programme notes, as well as communicate news of your RVW-related activities within our membership and to the wider world through our website, publications and social media. This is the ideal time to join The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society as we gather resources and work towards placing Vaughan Williams at the centre of global music-making.
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Research Studies
Coping with COVID
The League of American Orchestras is helping orchestras by researching and reporting how orchestras—and their audiences—are dealing with the pandemic.
CULTURE + COMMUNITY
IN A TIME OF TRANSFORMATION A SPECIAL EDITION OF
Key Findings From Wave 2 | November 23, 2021 ©2020 Culture Track
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he global pandemic has upended the status quo for orchestras and their audiences. Orchestras are improvising in real time as they adapt to ensure the safety of musicians, staff, and audiences with temporary shutdowns, postponements, shifts to digital music-making and chamber-scale concerts, and performances in the great outdoors. As COVID-19 evolved from its first iteration to the Delta and now the Omicron variants, new ways to keep the music playing while keeping everyone healthy—most recently, vaccine and mask requirements—are being tried and tested. Further, the national reckoning with racial injustice that emerged in the
wake of the murder of George Floyd and too many others mean that the classical music field is now examining its own longstanding lack of forward movement on equity, diversity, and inclusion. How are orchestras managing, experimenting, innovating? In the face of the ongoing pandemic, what do audiences expect of orchestras? What do orchestras expect of themselves? The League of American Orchestras is helping orchestras understand where they stand—and where they might head—with multiple surveys, studies, and research projects. Working with expert research partners, the League is asking orchestras and audiences, essentially, how and what they are doing, and then publishing the data after rigorous analysis. Recent studies
More than half of classical arts attenders in one survey say they hope that arts or culture organizations will change after the pandemic to become more relevant to more people. 34
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All graphics are from the Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation study.
from the League data partnerships with WolfBrown, TRG, and Slover Linett covering multiple topics are available at the League’s COVID-19 Data Partnerships webpages. With these data partnerships, the League is taking orchestra data to the next level, supplementing its substantial orchestra data and research work and connecting members with insights on audience behavior to help navigate the pandemic and plan ahead. On January 25, the League’s “Understanding Audience Motivations in a Time of Ongoing Uncertainty” webinar unpacks key findings from Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation—A Special Edition of Culture Track, a report by Slover Linett Audience Research and LaPlaca Cohen that
The League is taking orchestra data to the next level, supplementing its substantial orchestra data and research and connecting members with insights to help navigate the pandemic. analyzes a sample of more than 75,000 Americans and compares insights from the first 30 days of lockdown with audience perspectives more than a year into the pandemic. (The webinar was made possible by a grant from the Wallace Foundation.) Using insights from the Culture + Community study, the League webinar, available live and as a post-event recording at https:// americanorchestras.org/event/understanding-audience-motivations-in-a-time-of-ongoing-uncertainty/ reports on the level of participation in online cultural activities among classical music attendees (which is particularly high) and highlights opportunities for audience diversification through digital offerings.
Presenters María Huiza, strategist at LaPlaca Cohen, and Madeline Smith, project director and research operations lead at Slover Linett Audience Research, also explore what classical music attendees want more of in their lives as they engage with arts activities in the pandemic era. The webinar also provides insights from the general population that highlight a desire for change in the cultural sector and point to the possibility of a more relevant and resilient future for the arts. Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation: A Special Edition of Culture Track is a collaboration between LaPlaca Cohen and Slover Linett Audience Research. The study, which began in 2020, aims to connect the cultural sector with the experiences and needs of its communities and audiences during the pandemic and beyond. Reports of findings from successive nationwide Culture + Community surveys have been issued since 2020 and will continue. The Culture + Community study covers a wide spectrum of arts and culture. However, key findings that are pertinent to what the researchers term “classical” arts—including orchestras—have recently been released and are reprinted below. (Read more complete results from this study and other League research projects at https://americanorchestras.org/learn/resources-data-and-research/covid-19-data-partnerships.) Needs During Covid With respect to what kinds of things people want more of in their lives right now, classical attenders want connection with others to a much greater degree than other Americans (55% vs. 37%)—in fact, it’s number one on the list for classical attenders, whereas fun is the top quality for Americans overall. Almost all (99%) of classical attenders want arts or culture organizations to help their communities during the pandemic, primarily by providing moments of beauty or joy (69%), providing opportunities to laugh or relax (68%), bringing people of different backgrounds together (55%), and staying connected (50%). However, just a third of classical music attenders have seen arts and culture organizations actually helping their communities. But classical attenders are still much more likely to say that arts or culture organizations are important to them personally (81%) than Americans overall (56%). Online Activities The vast majority (86%) of classical attenders did some
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kind of online arts or culture activity over the past year (compared to 64% of Americans overall). Livestream performances (46%), pre-recorded performances (46%), and podcasts about arts/culture (38%) were the most common offerings used. While higher than Americans overall, just 29% of recent attenders had used online offerings provided by a classical music group (vs. 8% overall) over the past year. Among those doing arts or culture activities online, fewer than half of classical music attenders have paid for an online arts or culture activity over the past year (44% vs. 26% overall). Need/Desire for Change More than a third (36%) of classical attenders believe there is systemic racism in orchestras (compared to 28% of Americans overall). Notably, 74% of attenders believe arts or culture organizations should address social issues in their communities (76% for Americans overall). And systemic racial injustice is the issue most believe arts or culture organizations should address (46% of attenders vs. 42% overall). Classical attenders are also more likely than the general public to want to see arts or culture organizations involving their communities and collaborating with them to create programs (67% vs. 61% overall).
2019-2021, which highlights data from 27, mostly larger-budget U.S. orchestras participating in the COVID-19 International Sector Benchmark, as compared to the larger cohort of U.S. performing arts organizations participating in the Benchmark. The report compares ticket sales and donations from individual patrons for two specific time periods: November 2020-October 2021 and November 2018-October 2019. Learn more at https://americanorchestras.org/learn/ resources-data-and-research/covid-19-data-partnerships/trg-covid-19-sectorbenchmark/. The League of American Orchestras has partnered with WolfBrown’s Audience Outlook Monitor, which surveys and tracks audience attitudes about attending cultural events during and after the pandemic. Fifteen League-member
Recent studies from the League’s data partnerships are available at the League’s COVID-19 Data Partnerships webpages. orchestras participate in the study by asking their audiences multiple times about vaccination status, masking mandates, willingness to return to concert halls, concerns about COVID-19, and related issues. Read the full report at https://www.audienceoutlookmonitor. com/league-of-american-orchestras. The League will work with WolfBrown to examine audience attitudes about inclusion, diversity, equity, and access in the coming months.
More than half of classical attenders (54%) hope that arts or culture organizations will change after the pandemic to become more relevant to more people—on par with the national overall at 53%. And when the researchers proposed specific kinds of change, classical attenders expressed the most interest in affordable entry prices (63% vs. 53% overall), support for local artists (44% vs. 33% overall), and bringing new perspectives from outside their community (32% vs. 23% overall). Helping Orchestras with Data Partnerships The League of American Orchestras has partnered with TRG on Orchestras in Recovery: Ticket Sales and Donation Trends, AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
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Transfigured Nights The pandemic may not be over, but this fall felt different, as fuller indoor concert schedules resumed. A recent concert road trip proved how much in-person concerts have been missed by audiences and musicians alike. By Jennifer Melick
The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra’s September 11 concert at Hill Auditorium, led by music director candidate Lina Gonzalez-Granados.
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ast spring, after the dark winter of 2020-21 when so many concerts were put on hold, moved outdoors, or presented virtually in order to stem the spread of COVID-19, something wondrous happened: orchestras began announcing returns to indoor concert stages for fall 2021. Could it really be: concerts with audiences sitting in actual seats, in the same room with the musicians, making and hearing music in real time, in an acoustic space designed specifically for that purpose? The prospect of an in-person 2021-22 season seemed nothing short of miraculous. Tantalizing choices included world premieres, Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony, Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony, and even Handel’s Messiah and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, with chorus and vocal soloists. As vaccines became widely available in the U.S., and scientists gained more knowledge of which safety protocols best prevent the transmission and spread of COVID in
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indoor concert spaces, it seemed realistic that these announced concerts might really happen.
What was it like to return to concert halls this fall? Fantastic—and weird. Given what the past year and a half taught everyone—that nothing is ever 100 percent certain, and plans can change in an instant during a pandemic—getting to as many indoor concerts as quickly as possible suddenly seemed urgent. Outdoor events have been a fantastic stopgap option, and I had already traveled to several of those, but what I had in mind was an ambitious, monthlong Auto Grand Concert Tour of indoor orchestra season-opening concerts. Then the Delta variant arrived, and with it the realization that it might not be the smartest idea to tour as many as ten states. So the Grand Tour became a safer, scaled-down, two-part tour: a Detroit-Ann Arbor-Toledo loop, followed by a closer-to-home
loop in New York City and Princeton and Newark, New Jersey. So what was it like to return to concert halls this fall? Fantastic—and weird. Audiences are notably attentive and appreciative, and everyone is wearing masks. There is very little coughing, compared with the Before Times, for obvious reasons. Concerts are well-attended by and large, but not packed to the gills, sometimes due to pandemic capacity restrictions. Audience members and musicians I spoke to all expressed a newfound appreciation for a concert experience they say they may have previously taken for granted. The social element of concertgoing has returned, however difficult it can be to connect while masked. At many concerts, printed paper programs are replaced by digital programs accessed by QR codes. There are often temperature and vaccine-card checks at the door. By the time this is published, these concert protocols may already have changed. But here’s a snapshot of what it was like at the beginning of the first season since the pandemic that approached anything we used to think of as “normal.”
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Robert Cummerow
The Toledo Symphony opened its 2021-22 season with “An Evening with Rhiannon Giddens,” featuring the orchestra performing with Giddens and multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi in a program led by Music Director Alain Trudel.
Toledo, Ohio The season-opening concert by the Toledo Symphony Orchestra in Ohio, led by Music Director Alain Trudel, featured the orchestra with singer/songwriter/ banjoist/violist Rhiannon Giddens and multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. The combined forces performed music by Copland as well as orchestrated versions of songs from Giddens and Turrisi’s recent recordings of jazz, blues, country, Gospel, and Celtic music. At the September program at Toledo’s Peristyle Theater, Zak Vassar, president and CEO of the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts (the orchestra’s umbrella organization), welcomed the audience to “40 weeks of music and dance celebrating beauty. We can use beauty more than ever after the year we’ve had.” It was readily apparent how much the orchestra loves its music director: they played with passion and precision, and I was sorry not to be in town for the orchestra’s concerts later that month, featuring the orchestra and pianist Sara Davis Buechner in music by J.S. Bach, Florence Price, and Edward Elgar. Giddens seemed almost giddy as she announced selections from the stage; she said it was her first time singing with an orchestra since the pandemic began. September was not the Toledo Symphony’s first performance with an in-person audience since the pandemic, says Vanessa Gardner, director of marketing and communications at Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts: “We had already been performing for live audiences for much of last season. We started off
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performing to 15 percent capacity from September to early November of 2020, at which point we started livestreaming only. We welcomed live audiences back (again around 15 percent) in early March of 2021 and played to limited audiences through the end of last season, as well as livestreamed.” Looking back at that first pandemic year, Merwin Siu, the Toledo Symphony’s principal second violin and artistic administrator, describes the 2020-21 season as “a huge test of our flexibility and adaptability, as players, as a staff, and as a musical community. We performed a full season, with concerts every week”— sometimes with audience, sometimes without—“but every program was altered, often just days in advance of the concert, to be responsive to the COVID concerns of the moment. Losing live audiences [last] Thanksgiving was definitely a blow. In early March, we presented a program that began with Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. We hadn’t played in front of a live audience for nearly four months at that point. I remember feeling relatively normal through the warm-up. But that first upbeat, the first breath—all of a sudden, that presence went through my body like an electric shock. That first C-major chord was palpably different and more vital. I almost dropped my bow. I am immensely proud of our organization’s resilience, adaptability, and responsiveness. But that’s the one sensation that I can still feel, viscerally, months later.” Ann Arbor and Detroit, Michigan The same weekend as the Toledo Sym-
Merwin Siu, the Toledo Symphony’s principal second violin and artistic administrator, in a recent performance at the Peristyle Theater.
phony’s season opening was also the beginning of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra’s fall season. When the pandemic hit, the A 2SO (as the Ann Arbor Symphony styles itself) had been about to begin a music director search, after longtime Music Director Arie Lipsky stepped down in 2019. September’s concert was led by Colombian-American conductor Lina Gonzalez-Granados, the first of seven finalists set to lead concerts this season (the others are Perry So, Jacob Joyce, Kazem Abdullah, Oriol Sans, Morihiko Nakahara, and Earl Lee). The search committee plans to announce the next music director in the summer of 2022. The Ann Arbor Symphony performs at the 3,500-seat Hill Auditorium and at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. During the pandemic, the orchestra offered digital presentations, but Sep-
Merwin Siu, the Toledo Symphony’s principal second violin and artistic administrator, said at the March 2021 performance of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, “We hadn’t played in front of a live audience for nearly four months. That first upbeat went through my body like an electric shock. I almost dropped my bow.” 39
Jennifer Melick
Jennifer Melick
The audience applauds the Ann Arbor Symphony’s season-opening concert at Hill Auditorium in September, led by music director candidate Lina Gonzalez-Granados.
A sign in the lobby of the Hill Auditorium, where the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra returned to the stage in September.
Jennifer Melick
Courtesy Daniela Candillari
The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and soloist Zlatomir Fung in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, September 11, 2021.
Michigan Opera Theatre rehearses for September performances of Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s 2019 opera Blue at the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, on the Detroit River. The company returns indoors later this season.
At the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, a poster spotlights Jader Bignamini’s first full season as music director in 2021-22.
Audience members and musicians expressed a newfound appreciation for a concert experience they say they may have previously taken for granted.
able to catch one of the Michigan Opera Theatre’s performances of Jeanine Tesori/ Tazewell Thompson’s searing opera Blue, which premiered at Glimmerglass in 2019 and is about a Black police officer’s family whose son is killed by a White police officer. This was one of several pandemic-delayed performances this season of the opera, including dates this season in Seattle, Toledo, and Pittsburgh. Daniela Candillari conducted at the 6,000-seat outdoor Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, which faces the Detroit River, to a constantly moving backdrop of speedboats and ferries. It was a deeply moving performance, on a beautiful September evening in a scenic venue. (The Michigan Opera Theatre moves indoors for the rest of its 2021-22 season.)
tember 11 represented the ensemble’s first concert together since the start of the pandemic. Seats in Hill Auditorium were deliberately left empty for additional audience spacing, masks were required, and vaccine cards and negative PCR tests were checked at the door. As audience members greeted one another, the atmosphere was one of quiet expectation. Board President Carol Sewell stepped onstage and welcomed the audience “on the occasion of the return to live music.” Musicians—all masked except winds and brass when playing their instruments— tuned up, and then Gonzalez-Granados bounded onstage and launched into the 2019 tone poem Personas Invisibiles by
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Mexican composer Alejandro Basulto. The 13-minute work was inspired by the testimony of a Salvadorian transgender woman living in the U.S. as a refugee. In Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, with cello soloist Zlatomir Fung, the audience seemed to lean in with extra attention; you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. During the concert, which also featured Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, I noticed the second oboist put her mask back on during long rests in the music. September was too early to catch the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s season-opening program in October, led by Jader Bignamini in his first full season as music director. However, I was
During the Ann Arbor Symphony’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, with cello soloist Zlatomir Fung, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop.
Princeton, New Jersey The Princeton Symphony Orchestra has been performing throughout the pandemic, often in small groups, outdoors, or virtually, but not all together as a group, indoors, until this fall. Normally,
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the orchestra performs at the 900-seat Richardson Auditorium at Princeton University, but Richardson was not open to outside groups this fall, so concerts were moved to the McCarter Theatre Center’s 1,100-seat Matthews Theatre, “a natural fallback, being located just around the corner,” says Carolyn Dwyer, the orchestra’s manager of marketing and communications. The orchestra hopes to return to Richardson in February 2022. I caught the orchestra’s second fall program in November, with Music Director Rossen Milanov conducting Evan Williams’s sharp, wistful The Dream Deferred (inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem,” and premiered in 2017 by the New York City-based orchestra The Dream Unfinished), and two less frequently performed works from the standard repertoire: Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 (“Tragic”) and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15, with pianist Shai Wosner. Vaccine cards/negative PCR test results were checked at the door, tickets were scanned electronically, QR codes accessed program notes, and everyone was masked in the audience and onstage. Afterward, I spoke with Concertmaster Basia Danilow. For her, the “we’re back” moment happened at the first orchestra rehearsal: “I was just happy to see everyone. In this concert particularly, there were some beautiful moments in the Mozart with the soloist and the orchestra that were so intimate. It felt very beautiful. It was great to get our bearings again, and be together and have that extensive group interaction.” During the pandemic, Danilow says she did “a lot of chamber music, some remote things. We played Shostakovich 8th as a chamber orchestra, and we played the
Princeton Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Basia Danilow says the pandemic period “is going to shift the way we look at things. I’m very happy for the return to live music and being on the stage, but we really did learn a lot with all these Zoom performances, and recording yourself, and so on.” AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
Tchaikovsky Serenade. This orchestra has done a phenomenal job of not just maintaining but finding innovative ways to reach audiences. In the Morven Museum [where chamber concerts were presented beginning in 2020], people could sit on the lawn; it was a way to keep connected, to keep that thread of continuity. It’s a wonderful group of dedicated people: music director, musicians, administration. Everybody was safe and healthy, and they kept it going. I had work the whole year, because of them.” Danilow describes the pandemic period as “a learning experience in the string sound; when you’re a smaller orchestra, and distanced, this is very difficult. But it was a good exercise, in that it strengthened the bonds within the section. This year is going to shift the way we look at things. I’m very happy for the return to live music and being on the stage, but we really did learn a lot with all these Zoom performances, and recording yourself, and so on. You’re more appreciative of what you took for granted.” Newark, New Jersey The night after the Princeton Symphony concert, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra performed a program at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark featuring Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, the “Moldau,” “Sarka,” and “Blanik” movements from Bedrich Smetana’s Má Vlast, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with soloist Daniil Trifonov. Tong Chen conducted Starburst in her NJSO subscription debut as the orchestra’s new assistant conductor. Under Music Director Xian Zhang, Smetana’s Má Vlast was astonishingly vibrant—I have never heard this orchestra make such a full sound in this hall. The musicians played as one, and they played their hearts out. There was not a dry eye in the house after Trifonov’s encore, the Hess transcription of Bach’s “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,” a performance so quiet that it was almost devotional. Its message seemed to be: listen, listen closely. During intermission I spoke to Principal Horn Chris Komer, who echoed what many musicians have said about being grateful for return to in-person performances.“The first time we got together and played together, spread out, it was very emotional to see everybody, I’m
“The first time we got together and played together, spread out, it was very emotional to see everybody, I’m not going to lie. We hadn’t seen each other for like 8 to 10 months,” says New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Principal Horn Chris Komer. not going to lie,” Komer says. “We hadn’t seen each other for like 8 to 10 months, and finally we got all together to play music again. It was really great, but hard, because there was plexiglass between everybody, it was hard to hear, so it wasn’t quite the same experience.” Komer also occasionally plays with the Charleston Symphony in South Carolina, and he has a vivid memory of a moment in Charleston, his first time after the pandemic began when “an orchestra got to sit next to each other, and play like a normal orchestra. The first rehearsal was so moving. I was literally bawling the whole time. It was the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony, which is not my favorite piece, but that day, it sounded like the most beautiful piece I had ever heard in my entire life. It was so cathartic and moving. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, this what we get to do, and we kind of take this for granted a lot of the time, and it’s an amazing thing.” At the New Jersey Symphony, Komer feels that with Zhang as music director the orchestra has “taken that step, like a major-orchestra sound. She is so musical, and she puts out so much energy, there’s no way you cannot give back to her, because she is so passionate about every single moment. I am thrilled to be a part of this orchestra, and I love coming to work right now. It’s so great to be back, and it’s starting to feel like we’re back in the swing. Everyone was trying their best to stay in shape, but it’s hard! It’s a different kind of playing when you’re practicing at home and when you’re playing in a full group, really having a lot of power.” New York, New York New York City was hit hard by the pandemic early on, and returns to live, in-person concerts this fall have been 41
Princeton Symphony Orchestra Music Director Rossen Milanov shakes hands with Concertmaster Basia Danilow at the orchestra’s season-opening concert in October.
Princeton Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Basia Danilow says that for her, the “we’re back” moment happened at the first orchestra rehearsal: “I was just happy to see everyone.”
Dan Graziano
Meredith Whitfield for DreamPlay Media
Princeton Symphony Orchestra Music Director Rossen Milanov and Executive Director Marc Uys greet the audience on opening night of the 2021-22 season in October.
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Principal Horn Chris Komer says, “It’s so great to be back. It’s a different kind of playing when you’re practicing at home and when you’re playing in a full group, really having a lot of power.”
Pianist Daniil Trifonov with the New Jersey Orchestra and Music Director Xian Zhang at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, November 5, 2021.
well-attended—and pretty emotional—affairs. The Metropolitan Opera had been closed since the start of the pandemic, and it was hard not to get choked up even just listening to the audio webcast of the Met’s first public performance since the pandemic, Terence Blanchard’s history-making Fire Shut Up in My Bones. The city has an all-vaccinated mandate for indoor concerts, so when the Philadelphia Orchestra performed in Carnegie Hall’s gala season opening this October, instead of audiences walking the red carpet into the hall, they first had to stop at one of the vaccine-check tents outside. Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director, addressed the audience from the stage. “After 572 days, it gives me the greatest of joy to say welcome to Carnegie Hall,” he said, with a catch in his throat; the audience responded with prolonged clapping and stomping. Carnegie Board Chair Robert Smith said the evening was “a joyous and emotional homecoming,” and Philadel-
phia Orchestra Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin told the audience that not performing concerts onstage had been like being “deprived of circulation of energy together.” The orchestra began with Valerie Coleman’s 2020 Seven O’Clock Shout, which it had commissioned; the work includes the sound of people shouting and clanging pots and pans, distinctive features of New York City life during the height of the lockdowns in 2020. Carnegie’s resonant floorboards vibrated once again, and the double basses dug in thunderously. In Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, pianist Yuja Wang played the Andante movement at an exquisitely soft dynamic, and her transition to the third movement was magical, seemingly composed in the moment. The orchestra and Nézet-Séguin began Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at thrilling, breakneck tempo; throughout, the orchestra made the piece sound fresh, contemporary, revolutionary.
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At Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra performed Valerie Coleman’s Seven O’Clock Shout, which includes the sound of people shouting and clanging pots and pans, distinctive features of New York City life during the 2020 lockdowns. Carnegie’s resonant floorboards vibrated once again. The New York Philharmonic’s home, Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, is closed due to a big renovation set for completion in fall 2022. The orchestra’s season this year is happening mostly at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s venue and at Alice Tully Hall. At Tully, I caught an exciting October program of contemporary music by John Adams, Anthony Davis, and Missy
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Jennifer Melick
Chris Lee
Chris Lee
Carnegie Hall Executive and Artistic Director Clive Gillinson and Board Chair Robert Smith welcome the audience at the hall’s gala reopening concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Outside Carnegie Hall on opening night, vaccine checks and masks were mandatory for audiences, as is required at all New York City entertainment venues.
Chris Lee
Chris Lee
The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin greet the audience at Carnegie Hall, October 6, 2021.
Guest conductor Dalia Stasevska leads the New York Philharmonic in works by John Adams, Anthony Davis, and Missy Mazzoli at Alice Tully Hall, October 21, 2021.
Mazzoli, performed to a capacity audience. Making her Philharmonic debut, Dalia Stasevska conducted Davis’s You Have the Right to Remain Silent (2006; revised 2011)—a riveting depiction of “driving while Black” based on the composer’s encounter with the police in the 1970s; Philharmonic Principal Clarinet
“When I was still at my music stand on the stage, some folks were filing out, and several almost in unison stopped to say, ‘Thank you—we’re so glad to hear you play,’ ” says New York Philharmonic Principal Bass Timothy Cobb. “I said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ They said, ‘We’re glad we’re here! We’re glad you’re here!’ ” AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
Anthony McGill was the soloist. Also on the program were Mazzoli’s mesmerizing, spacey Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), and John Adams’s fiendishly difficult Chamber Symphony. After the concert, I spoke with Principal Bass Timothy Cobb, who was front and center in the Adams work. He described performing the Adams piece for the first time as “exhilarating. It is a virtuoso piece—wow. John doesn’t write any easy bass parts! But it’s rewarding, and I enjoyed it immensely. It’s a big bass part.” Cobb says it “feels great” to be back performing for audiences. “Just today, when I was still at my music stand on the stage, some folks were filing out, and several almost in unison stopped to say, ‘Thank you—we’re so glad to hear you play.’ I thanked them for coming, and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ They said, ‘We’re glad we’re here! We’re glad you’re here!’ ” During the pandemic lockdowns, Cobb says Zoom meetings and virtu-
New York Philharmonic Principal Bass Timothy Cobb was front and center in the orchestra’s recent performance of John Adams’s fiendishly difficult Chamber Symphony. He says it “feels great” to be back performing for audiences.
al interactions with fellow musicians became a sort of lifeline. “You miss the people so much. Your orchestra is your universe, your world. In an orchestra like the Philharmonic, every single player contributes in his or her own way, and you in turn respond to any one of these individuals at any given time. The Phil is like this gigantic sort of chamber group.” Now, he says, there is a “momentum building. My mind is jumping back to these surreal episodes where we were playing over at the Shed, different places. They were necessary baby steps. Every single one, we were able to build upon it. When we began programs at Tully and at Jazz at Lincoln Center, this weekly or biweekly schedule, then it starts to feel like, the audiences are there, we are playing, you begin to think about ‘What’s happening next week?’ There’s been this sort of groundswell.” JENNIFER MELICK is managing editor of Symphony magazine.
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TIME SIGNATURES
Composers have never shied from difficult subject matter or recent tragedies, but the period that began in March 2020 has been particularly challenging. There’s the pandemic itself, plus a surge of wildfires, floods, and other environmental disasters. The murders of Black Americans including George Floyd and too many others caused deep pain—and generated artistic responses. We asked five composers to share their experiences of how they are documenting, reflecting, and responding to this time with new orchestral works. By Hannah Edgar
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Science Festival, with talks by climate cellist Ifetayo Ali-Landing premiered hat is it like to create an researchers and filmed interviews that Joel Thompson’s breathe/burn, a cello orchestral work that responds Richman conducted with Maine scientists concerto written in remembrance of Breto the multiple traumas we’ve and researchers. onna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville lived through in the last two years—while Here, we profile five compospolice in her home in March 2020. This they’re ongoing, no less? ers who have created new works in past October saw the world premiere of For me, the idea of creating an response to recent tragedies, with results Jorge Martín’s El Paso Requiem by the El orchestral work responding to these trauthat will echo in concert halls in seasons Paso Symphony, El Paso Opera, and El mas is a bit like making an oil painting to come: Gabriela Lena Frank and her Paso Pro-Musica; the cantata was written of one’s living room going up in flames, Contested Eden for orchestra and dancin tribute to victims of the 2019 mass in real time. Of course, composers have ers, written in response to the wildfires shooting at a Walmart in that city. frequently taken on difficult and timely that ravaged California—again— subjects, writing and processing last year; Iman Habibi and his in the moment; take Shostakovich’s By any historical standard, our Jeder Baum spricht (Every tree Symphony No. 7 (“Leningrad”), speaks), which was originally which was written and first current period is a dark one. That scheduled to premiere the day of performed when the city’s resithe Philadelphia Orchestra’s pandents, including musicians, were has not stopped composers from demic shutdown in March 2020; starving. John Adams’s On the writing orchestral works that Adolphus Hailstork and his cantaTransmigration of Souls (2002), A Knee on the Neck in memory commissioned by the New York directly or circumstantially reflect ta of George Floyd; Missy Mazzoli Philharmonic and Lincoln Center’s and her “apocalyptic triptych” Great Performers shortly after recent events. exploring pandemic themes; the 9/11 terrorist attacks, sets, and bass-baritone Davóne Tines among other sources, text from and his collaboratively composed Vigil Many composers have responded to missing-person posters near Ground for Breonna Taylor, created with music climate change by creating new works: Zero. But by any historical standard, our producer/photographer/composer Igee to cite just one example, in March 2022, current period is a dark one. Dieudonné. Maine’s Bangor Symphony Orchestra None of this has stopped composAs these creators attest, the process will perform the pandemic-delayed ers from writing orchestral works that was never painless, nor was it necesin-person premiere of The Warming Sea, either directly or circumstantially reflect sarily cathartic. But for these artists, not composed by Lucas Richman, the orchesthe events of 2020. The theme of loss using their platform to say something tra’s music director. The work is being is central to many new works: in March was inconceivable. performed in conjunction with the Maine 2021, the Chicago Sinfonietta and
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GABRIELA LENA FRANK
Since I started working on Latin American themes, I had been mindful of exploiting subjects. That’s my family; I don’t want it to feel like I’m traveling in as an observer in some weird way. I had the same mindset about fire: We’re not a direct victim of it, though my family has evacuated, and we know people who lost their homes. I also didn’t want to trivialize it with action music about firefighters or tornado watchers. So, [in Contested Eden], I needed to approach something deeper that also wasn’t overly specific to California. There’s this string line in “in extremis,” the second movement, that’s going on while nothing is making sense. That’s what it’s like to live through COVID and all these disasters that are not normal: Somehow, you just go on and aim for hope. All the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra players recorded their individual parts remotely. The guy who put it together spent a lot of time lining everything up. I was blown away—my prediction that orchestra rehearsals were going to really suffer due to not being able to
convene [during extreme weather events] underwent a 180-degree shift. We’re still going to do something, even if we can’t get people in the room the way we want. And if this is what we can come up with within the first year, give us a few years. As people are feeling wary of continuing on Zoom, I think we need to imagine Zoom as 20 percent of our lives, not 100 percent. Start off with that—just 20 percent—then you see the benefits. Instead of flying in to accept an opera commission, maybe you could just have this wonderful Zoom session. Then, the next step is changing cultural values: The principal of your orchestra can play that Sibelius concerto, and you have amazing composers that live nearby that can be a composer-in-residence. Not only are we facing a future where people will boycott a concert for having soloists fly in, but heat waves will cancel summer festivals. Fires have already done that; floods have done that. Pandemics are not alone in causing that kind of havoc.
Mariah Tauger
Frank’s Contested Eden, a reflection on the California wildfires and climate crisis, premiered virtually at the Cabrillo Festival this past summer and is available to stream on YouTube and at Cabrillo’s website. In June, the Oregon Symphony will perform the West Coast premiere of Frank’s Pachamama Meets an Ode, which was co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and is set to original text by the composer that imagines a meeting between Beethoven and his Peruvian contemporaries from the Cusco School of Painters, with implications for the current environmental crisis.
Writing a piece about California’s wildfires, GABRIELA LENA FRANK says she didn’t want to “trivialize it with action music about firefighters or tornado watchers. I needed to approach something deeper. Heat waves will cancel summer festivals. Fires have done that; floods have done that. Pandemics are not alone in causing havoc.”
Above: Gabriela Lena Frank, left, with Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada at the Houston Symphony’s May 2017 premiere of her Conquest Requiem. In recent years, Frank has focused on climate change; during the pandemic, she added online lectures and readings on the subject and hosted fundraising concerts for fire victims and the local fire department in Boonville, California, the home of her Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music.
Crystal Birns
Left: The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music performed the world premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Contested Eden in 2021. The work, reflecting on California wildfires and climate crisis, is presented as a dance video, with choreography by Molly Katzman, filmed on location at previous wildfire sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Cabrillo Festival Orchestra musicians recorded the music remotely.
AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
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IMAN HABIBI
Hamid Payombarnia
Habibi’s Jeder Baum spricht premiered virtually by the Philadelphia Orchestra the same week as the pandemic shutdowns in March 2020, and the work opened the orchestra’s in-person season in fall 2021. Coming up for the composer, in June the Toronto Symphony Orchestra will give the world premiere of a new work by Habibi, one of five Toronto-based composers commissioned to write “Celebration Preludes” for the TSO in spring 2022. Habibi’s new song cycle on the works of Judeo-Persian poet Shahin Shirazi will be premiered by Canada’s Orchestre Métropolitain on October 20, 2022.
John Adams, Iman Habibi, and the Philadelphia Orchestra rehearse Habibi’s Jeder Baum spricht, which had its pandemicdelayed in-person world premiere in 2021.
I wasn’t expecting the response to Jeder Baum spricht at all. The Philadelphia Orchestra had sold 8,000 tickets for that weekend’s premiere; when I learned they were going to live-stream it instead, I thought, “Oh, we’ll get, like, a couple hundred people.” We saw the performance live, which was magnificent—the hall was empty, so the orchestra was resonating—and then came back to the hotel and saw that it already had 350,000 hits on Facebook. They hadn’t even put it on YouTube yet. I was completely in disbelief. I was very, very lucky that was how my pandemic started, because a lot of people became interested in my music. Jeder Baum spricht kind of foreshadowed the pandemic. This is a piece about climate change, but the two are also related: Scientists are telling us
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we’re going to get more pandemics because of climate-forced migration, and the melting permafrost is releasing all kinds of bacteria and viruses that have been dormant for millions of years. I spent a lot of the pandemic taking a directed study course on climate change called “Composing Earth” with nine other composers through the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. We’ve been learning from a scientist and reading about how to connect climate action with our music-making. For example, in classical music, you have progressions; you have point A and point B. It’s all transitions. But how relevant is it to write music with a gradual development process in a time when we’re constantly talking about the unprecedented? Even with Jeder Baum spricht, you hear very sudden shifts.
“Jeder Baum spricht kind of foreshadowed the pandemic,” says IMAN HABIBI. “This is a piece about climate change, but the two are related. I spent a lot of the pandemic taking a course on climate change called ‘Composing Earth’ with other composers through the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music.” That partially comes from the surprise of climate events hitting you when you don’t expect them. I can tell you that this couple of years studying climate change has transformed me to the point where—until I have some clarity about what the future is going to look like, and whether it’s going to be livable—I would say every piece I write is going to embody climate justice in some way. That much I know.
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ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK
Chris Christodoulou
Hailstork’s Symphony No. 4 (“Survive”) will be premiered by the Louisville Orchestra in February. A Knee on the Neck, a cantata composed in response to the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, premieres this March with the National Philharmonic, National Philharmonic Chorale, members of the Washington Chorus, and vocal soloists.
Adolphus Hailstork says he didn’t know about the 1921 Tulsa Massacre until the Harlem Chamber Players asked him to write a piece commemorating the 100th anniversary of the event. Hailstork’s Tulsa June 1921 (Pity These Ashes, Pity This Dust) premiered virtually in June 2021.
This has been my busiest year by far. I’m working on about 13 pieces right now. It’s like, “Oh, he’s retired, let’s sock it to him!” [Hailstork taught at Old Dominion University in Virginia from 2000 until the end of 2020.] I am appreciative to the pandemic for a lot of it; I have so much more time to write. I was able to finish my Fourth Symphony. It’s a nice problem to have. I first met Herb [Dr. Herbert Martin, Hailstork’s frequent librettist] through the Dayton Opera Company in the early ’90s. They wanted to have a celebration of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Herb is a scholar of his work. He also did the texts for [my scores] Crispus Attucks, Nobody Know, Paul Laurence Dunbar: Common Ground, Tulsa 1921 (Pity These Ashes, Pity This Dust), and now A Knee on the Neck. [The week George Floyd was murdered], there was no talking. Within a week, there landed on my computer screen a complete text of something Herb called a requiem. It was obvious in his text that he was angry, and his anger tied in directly with mine. I could not
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believe my eyes [watching the George Floyd video]. How many of us have actually witnessed a murder in slow motion before? I threw myself into it immediately. You know, composers sometimes write out of joy, and sometimes they write out of anger. We were working on jet fuel in terms of anger. But something had to be said. I was the same age as Emmett Till, and I lived through the Civil Rights era. The Tulsa piece was the same way: I didn’t know about the Tulsa massacre all my life until the Harlem Chamber Players asked me to write a piece about it. For the past 10 years or more, I’ve been more interested in expressing social concerns of mine. I wrote a piece for piano solo called Wounded Children as a tribute to those children held in cages—cages!—in the southwestern part of this nation. Then, the shooting of Black men by police over the past 10 years or more.… Some people think artists can or should be indifferent to this; to me, it’s an opportunity to speak out through their art.
The U.K.-based Chineke! Orchestra in a December 2020 streamed performance of Adolphus Hailstork’s work Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed at London’s Royal Festival Hall, led by Kalena Bovell. The work, about Martin Luther King Jr., was first performed in 1980 by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
“I threw myself into it immediately,” says ADOLPHUS HAILSTORK about A Knee on the Neck, his new cantata composed after George Floyd was killed. “Something had to be said.” The National Philharmonic will perform the cantata’s world premiere in March 2022.
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MISSY MAZZOLI
Caroline Tompkins
Mazzoli’s new violin concerto will be premiered by Jennifer Koh and the National Symphony Orchestra this February, with performances by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in March. The Norwegian National Opera will premiere her opera The Listeners in September 2022. During the pandemic she also wrote Millennium Canticles for Third Coast Percussion and Year of Our Burning for Denmark’s Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir.
Todd Rosenberg
“I didn’t start out envisioning the works I wrote during the pandemic as a triptych,” says MISSY MAZZOLI. “I’m not done with the third piece yet [a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh], but I composed that while staying at Ingmar Bergman’s house on Fårö Island, where people used to hide out to avoid the plague.”
all turn around so they’re singing with their back to the audience; in the second one, the “Blame” movement, the choir splits in half to face each other; and in “Alone,” everyone is spread all over the stage. Then, for Millennium Canticles, I imagined a band of survivors trying to recreate human rituals after the rest of the world has either totally changed or been destroyed. I’m not done with the third piece yet [an unnamed violin concerto for Jennifer Koh], but I composed that while staying at Ingmar Bergman’s house on Fårö Island, where people used to hide out to avoid the plague. Bergman’s The Seventh Seal was really important to me; it takes place during the plague, and it’s very much about how people react to illness. So, that concerto is also about ritual, but specifically ritual in response to mysterious illness. The second movement is called “St. Vitus,” which is a reference to St. Vitus’s Dance, the neurological condition; the fourth is called “Bone to Bone, Blood to Blood,” which was a medieval spell people would say if they broke a bone on the road. All three pieces are in five movements, actually, with the last being the reverse of the first—like the stages of grief.
The next couple months are like four seasons on top of each other for me, because so much stuff that was postponed is now happening. You’re catching me two days after a big premiere [the European premiere of her 2016 opera Breaking the Waves], when the feedback loop finally closed—after such a long time, I was able to receive the energy from an audience. For someone who makes work to feel less alone and help provide a common language for difficult things, performing in front of people is essential. I’m still waiting for that to happen for everything I wrote last year—like my fourth opera, The Listeners, which I finished over lockdown. I didn’t start out envisioning the works I wrote during the pandemic as a triptych. But by the time I finished the second piece—Millennium Canticles, for Third Coast Percussion—I was like, “Oh, there is a theme.” It started with a piece called Year of Our Burning that I wrote for the Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir in Copenhagen, which is obliquely about human relationships during the pandemic. It’s the first time I’ve played around with writing basic choreography into the score; in the first movement [“Darkness”], one by one, [the singers]
Civic Orchestra of Chicago musicians perform Missy Mazzoli’s Still Life With Avalanche in February 2021 on a program of contemporary works that reflect on the pandemic. Other composers on the program included Jeff Scott, Nicole Mitchell, Justina Repečkaitė, and Lisa Atkinson.
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Former Chicago Symphony Orchestra Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli acknowledges the audience following the CSO’s first performances of her work These Worlds In Us, led by Music Director Riccardo Muti in fall 2021.
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DAVÓNE TINES
Chris Kendig
Tines’s collaborative work Vigil has been performed by the Louisville Orchestra, at Lincoln Center in New York, and elsewhere; Tines’s Concerto No. 1: Sermon includes the orchestrated version of Vigil and was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra in May 2021. While Tines is best known as a bass-baritone, in recent years he has co-created a number of musical works together with composers and other artistic collaborators.
Bass-baritone Davóne Tines and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin perform Concerto No. 1: Sermon with the Philadelphia Orchestra, November 2021. Sermon includes the orchestrated version of Tines’s collaboratively composed work Vigil.
I was in the Netherlands five or six years ago for Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains, directed by Peter Sellars. Whereas most operas rehearse for three to six weeks, he uniquely requires a two-month rehearsal period, which gives you time to form relationships with people in different places. I was introduced to Igee [Dieudonné] by a colleague, and we hit it off. His whole world is this mix between rock, James Blake, and French Impressionism. Those were aesthetics I was interested in, too—I’ve always identified a certain soulfulness in French impressionism that I connect to R&B and gospel. The next long trip I had to Amsterdam, [Igee and I] improvised together. It was kind of a game: We would pick an aesthetic and a composer to imitate, then set time limits. So, in a minute and a half you’d have to improvise something that fit “Benjamin Britten” and “fast,” then go directly into “Charles Ives” and “slow” without stopping. What is Vigil came from the prompt “Fauré” and “gospel,” and it’s very literally what Igee played and I sang the first time—the text just came. We were like, “Wow, that was something.”
I went through last summer trying to figure out how to do some work in the world. At first, Vigil was more internal-facing—something that was cathartic and useful for a Black community. I showed it to my family, and they really appreciated it. But then I started thinking about what to share with Lincoln Center and the broader world, and how to make sure it’s doing something, not just creating a cathartic space. Instead of showing imagery of people mourning, we decided to provide steps at the end—essentially leading audiences through meditation, then action. The program I did with the Louisville Orchestra [in October 2020] was the first time I felt welcome to be in a more curatorial position. Orchestrating Vigil was a great opportunity to commission one of my closest friends and collaborators, Matt Aucoin, and I sang that version alongside Barber’s Dover Beach and the Black national anthem, as opposed to the American national anthem. Given the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville and everything connected to that, I thought it would be a really strong statement.
A screenshot from Davóne Tines’s September 2020 virtual Lincoln Center premiere of Vigil for voice and piano, composed in memory of Breonna Taylor. The following month, the Louisville Orchestra performed the live-streamed orchestral world premiere.
“At first, Vigil was more internal-facing—something that was cathartic and useful for a Black community,” says DAVÓNE TINES. “Then I started thinking about what to share with Lincoln Center and the broader world, and how to make sure it’s doing something.”
HANNAH EDGAR is a freelance music journalist writing most frequently for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader, with additional bylines in The Classical Review, New Sounds, WFMT.com, and New York Philharmonic programs.
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Many emerging musicians were about to make their marks at orchestras nationwide when the pandemic hit. Some put their careers on pause, while others performed online or used the time to address issues of racial equity and social justice. As concert life gradually returns, what’s next for emerging musicians in today’s shifting landscape? By Brin Solomon
I
t can be hard to launch an artistic career at the best of times, and the middle of a pandemic is hardly the best of times. Traditionally, an emerging artist might be urged to play as many concerts in as many places as possible to build their résumé, raise their profile, and expand their network of collaborators. With COVID-19 putting the brakes on both concerts and travel, this was hardly a viable way forward. And while many musicians and orchestras leapt online with virtual performances, often in wildly creative ways, some audiences tended to stick to more familiar names in a moment of uncertainty, especially with the internet doing away with geographical restrictions on which concerts they could attend. Now that vaccines are widely available, in-person performing has tentatively resumed in many places, and musicians are once again hopping from hub to hub to play with orchestras around the country and the globe. Nevertheless, many uncertainties still remain, from new variants with unknown properties to larger shifts in the politics of the classical music industry and the nature of live performance more broadly. Many performances originally slated for April of 2020 were postponed instead of cancelled outright, which means performers are now grappling with how to fit rescheduled gigs next to new commitments: the flux of a freelance schedule in
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full swing. Those who stepped away from their instruments while in-person performances were on hold are now having to build their stamina back up and re-develop their practice routines, a familiar challenge to any musician who takes a break to focus on other areas of life—or simply to recharge. Other challenges are more closely tied to the events of the past 22 months. Some musicians are mourning the loss of loved ones to the ongoing pandemic. Some audience members are still staying away from in-person performances, wary of testing the limits of the vaccines and comfortable in new routines of online engagement. In the wake of the deep and wide-ranging conversations about racial equity and social justice that started in the summer of 2020 and continue today, some artists are finding meaningful change afoot while others are running into the limits of how fast ensembles and venues are able—or willing—to change. It will be many years before the impact of this plague can be fully quantified, but one thing is certain: Whatever is coming, it’s the rising stars of today that will shape the future of the classical music world as the effects of COVID-19 continue to unfold. How are they navigating this shifting musical landscape? Here’s what four emerging artists and two leaders at nonprofits that support young musicians have to say.
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Kevin Kennedy
Sterling Elliott performs the Schumann Cello Concerto in A minor with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra and conductor Michael Morgan at the 2019 Sphinx Competition.
Sterling Elliott, cello
Sterling Elliott earned his bachelor’s degree from Juilliard this past May, but he already has a long professional résumé, including appearances with orchestras around the country as well as numerous awards, among them the 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant and first place in the Senior Division of the 2019 Sphinx Competition.
Concert Artists Guild
In February of 2020, I got a call to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it was a funny call, because the reason is that there was a concert lined up that involved the guest artists traveling to and from China. This was right around the time that China was in total lockdown, so that couldn’t happen, and they needed an artist who could perform, and I got the call. It was such an exciting opportunity, and I
Sterling Elliott
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had absolutely no idea what was around the corner. For it to all just shut down right then and there was unbelievable for the longest time. Playing with my friends is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done, so I didn’t want to stop doing that, and very early in the pandemic a friend and I recorded a piece asynchronously. We didn’t have a click track, and having to follow a partner’s musical ideas and rubato without any visual cues, entirely aurally, was very, very difficult. The end product was satisfying, but I did not find the process enjoyable. I did a few of these projects and I began to realize that everything I loved about music-making and collaboration was—for me— not evident in these projects; I was really beginning to dread them, and hate them, and scorn them. And that felt like it was defeating the purpose, so I stopped accepting that kind of gig. In the middle of 2020, [issuing statements about racial equity] almost became a trend that people were doing and then have dropped, but looking at things now, there are absolutely organizations and people that have made drastic changes. It’s a conversation that had never been new to me, growing up through the Sphinx Organization, which is designed to promote diversity in the arts, but this made me realize that it’s really about taking it into our own hands, whether the people around us are changing or not.
In the middle of 2020, [issuing statements about racial equity] almost became a trend that people were doing and then dropped, but looking at things now, there are absolutely organizations and people that have made drastic changes. – Sterling Elliott 51
Marco Borggreve
Brandon Patrick George
Brandon Patrick George, flute
Brandon Patrick George is perhaps best known as the flutist for the Imani Winds, the NYC-based wind quintet, but he also has a burgeoning solo career spanning genres and continents, including concertos, unaccompanied recitals, chamber performances, and collaborations with movers and shakers of the classical world.
Imani Winds
A group of friends thought it would be fun if we did a streaming salon where I played a recital for them. And that was really nerve-racking! In a concert hall, you’re all having this experience together, you can see each other, you can hear people breathing—that puts me at ease. So that was fun, but I did not feel inspired the same way I think other musicians
Brandon Patrick George is a member of the NYC-based Imani Winds ensemble. From left: Kevin Newton, Monica Ellis, Brandon Patrick George, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, and Mark Dover.
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did in terms of trying to stream things. I think it was actually very sad: You’re grieving this loss of your concert schedule, but there’s also this fear that you might get sick or your loved ones might get sick, and for me that was very emotionally draining. So I spent a lot of time practicing on my own and reading a lot of books, because I just couldn’t bring myself to do that kind of work. It’s been really special to be in front of people again. I feel, in a way, that I went from zero to one hundred, from not travelling at all to travelling too much. I didn’t have any flatout cancellations—most of my concerts were just postponed, which makes my year very full, adding all of these postponed COVID commitments to what would already be a full season. But that’s felt very good! I think most of the challenges in this moment for an emerging artist have nothing to do with the pandemic. You have ways of putting your material out there that artists 25 years ago didn’t have. That’s a unique opportunity, but how do you cut through all that? For me, it boils down to: What do you have to say? I remember artists who make a statement, even if I don’t remember every single thing about every single piece. So the real challenge is to create content that tells a story, that tells your story, that lets people know who you are. That’s personal. That’s yours and no one else’s. The more you can do that, I think the more success you’ll have.
What do you have to say? The real challenge is to create content that tells a story, that tells your story, that lets people know who you are. That’s yours and no one else’s. – Brandon Patrick George WINTER 2022
Ryan Brandenberg
Brittany Lasch
Brittany Lasch, trombone
but I have a recital coming up in May, and I’ll be very curious how that audience reacts to me playing an aerosol-producing instrument. I’m triple-vaxxed, and I’ll take every precaution, but I wouldn’t blame them for being skeptical.
The way we’ve turned to the internet so much more than we ever did before does make me think it’s going to be hard to pull people back into opera houses. From what I’ve seen, it seems 50/50 in terms of whether audiences want in-person concerts versus being happy with livestreams. And I’ll admit that part of me really enjoys the streaming, particularly from major orchestras in places that I can’t physically be at. It’s hard for me to say that I’d be uncomfortable as an audience member, because I’m performing now! But I think the accessibility that was created during COVID would be a great thing to have linger after this virus. When COVID first hit, I remember how many people started learning things I never bothered to think about, like video editing and overdubbing, and I distinctly remember making the choice not to do that, just because I felt that there were enough artistic voices on the internet. It was kind of nice to sit back and just hear what other people were doing. As a trombone player, especially for the younger generations, it’s going to be harder than ever to have a full-time career as a symphony orchestra player. It broke my heart to see massive orchestras not pay their musicians during the shutdowns. And it’s a hard argument! They weren’t working. But it’s never happened before: You win one of these jobs and you think you’re all set, and then a virus comes and takes everything away. I haven’t had many solo performances outside of my area,
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Ryan Brandenberg
An in-demand soloist at orchestras and bands around the country, Brittany Lasch is assistant professor of trombone at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and also principal trombone in the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra, where she was recently a part of the widely acclaimed production of Götterdämmerung that took place inside a parking garage.
Brittany Lasch performs with pianist Jason Wirth at the 2017 Astral National Auditions Winners Concert.
I have a recital coming up in May, and I’ll be very curious how that audience reacts to me playing an aerosol-producing instrument. I’m triple-vaxxed, and I’ll take every precaution. – Brittany Lasch 53
Simone Porter
Simone Porter, violin
by Simone Weil: “Absolute unmixed attention is prayer.” We’re in a field where duration is treated [by some] as a problem, and I love the idea that sustained attention could act as alignment with others in community instead.
Coming back to my instrument after taking time off, I definitely had some Bambi legs when it came to technique. Up until this fall, I had a different kind of sound—playing in my apartment is different than playing to a microphone for streaming, which is different than playing to a live audience. But also, there’s a whole lexicon of how you stick out from or blend in with an orchestra that almost disappeared when I was in my apartment for so long. Energetically and physically, I needed to expand again once I got into larger spaces. It felt a little funky the first time I got back into a full hall. Part of the reason I was taking time off from performing was that I was going to protests against police brutality pretty much every single day in LA. For me, and I think for a lot of my classical music friends, it was a time of existential crisis. We were torn between feeling love for the art and feeling very fed up with the system that distributes it. I see a lot of goodfaith action; I think the best of it is where the people who were already doing the work are amplified. The thing that seems to work the best is when there were already people doing this work and you just give them the mantle rather than tokenizing or ticking boxes. That seems to be happening more and more. I think there’s an instinct to program conservatively to bring audiences back, and while I understand that, I also hope to see initiatives that take this as an opportunity to draw people in in a different way, with different programming and different collaborations. I’ve become obsessed with this quote
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Princeton Symphony Orchestra
Since her solo debut at age 10, Simone Porter has traveled the country and world to appear with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic to the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. In addition to playing works from the standard canon, she also champions new music, working with living composers who are expanding the violin repertoire.
Simone Porter performs with New Jersey’s Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Rossen Milanov in October 2021.
Part of the reason I was taking time off from performing was that I was going to protests against police brutality pretty much every single day. For me, and I think for a lot of my classical music friends, we were torn between feeling love for the art and feeling fed up with the system that distributes it. – Simone Porter WINTER 2022
Young Concert Artists
Christina Baker
Chris Williams
Christina Baker, Director of Artist Management at Young Concert Artists
Chris Williams, Senior Vice President at Concert Artists Guild
People are excited to be back. Getting the houses that they had previously has been a challenge; we’re not 100 percent there yet, but the artists we work with are so happy to play live again. People are paying attention to racial equity; it’s very important to each of our artists. I think this generation is very special; they do have the answers. They’re the ones who are going to change everything.
Classical music is finally coming to the table in the online world. Young artists have the savvy and the energy to come into that zone and dominate that sphere. They’re also leaning heavily into questions of social justice, and really asking the difficult questions. Young artists are modern thinkers. The question is very real for them: Where will we go in this genre?
BRIN SOLOMON is a writer and composer living and working in New York City. Bylines include National Sawdust Log, San Francisco Classical Voice, I Care If You Listen, and New Music USA.
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Emerging Artists 2022 Our annual listing of emerging composer, conductors, ensembles, and soloists is inspired by the breadth and sheer volume of young classical talent. The following list of emerging talent is provided by League of American Orchestras business partners and is intended as a reference point for orchestra professionals who book classical series. It does not imply endorsement by Symphony or the League.
Dario Acosta
Instrumentalists
Matt Dine
Composers
Nina Shekhar Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Works performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and chosen as Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Composer Teaching Artist Fellow for 2021-22 season. 56
Hanzhi Wang, Accordion Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Groundbreaking Hanzhi Wang has been named Musical America’s “New Artist of the Month,” featured on WQXR’s “Young Artists Showcase,” and is the first ever accordionist signed to the Naxos label.
Alexander Hersh, Cello Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Soloist with the Houston Symphony and Boston Pops, recipient of the Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant as well as prize-winner at Ima Hogg, Schadt, Luminarts, and Hellam Young Artist competitions.
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Matt Dine
Xavier Foley, Double Bass Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 “A dazzling player who hears borders between styles as limitations best ignored” - Philadelphia Inquirer. A prolific composer and performer, Xavier will premiere his double-bass concerto with the Atlanta Symphony in March 2022.
Kaupo Kikkas
Akvile Sileikaite
Jonathan Swensen, Cello Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 First-prize winner at the 2016 Danish String Competition and 2018 International Khachaturian International Cello Competition, he recently debuted with the Iceland Philharmonic under Peter Oundjian and Copenhagen Philharmonic.
Fabian Ziegler, Percussion Schmidt Artists International, Inc. schmidtart.com (212) 421-8500 Percussionist Fabian Ziegler is an uncommonly talented young musician. Judging from his copious prizes and awards, the word is already out that he brings something special to those who hear him.
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Anthony Trionfo, Flute Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Anthony has performed with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Alice Tully Hall where he returns this season to perform the Andrew Imbrie Concerto.
American Pianists Association
Matt Dine
Vanessa Briceno
Instrumentalists
Martin James Bartlett, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Winner of 2014 BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition. Performances with the Royal Philharmonic and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and also under conductors Sir Bernard Haitink and Kirill Karabits.
Kenny Broberg, Piano American Pianists Association kennybroberg.com (317) 940-8445 Pianist Kenny Broberg is the winner of the 2021 American Pianists Awards, silver medalist of the 2017 Cliburn competition, and bronze medalist of the 2019 Tchaikovsky competition.
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Byeol Kim, Piano Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Hailed as “triumphant, virtuosic” (Cleveland Classical), she has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Chamber Symphony, and Pohang Philharmonic. Recent thirdprize winner of the 2021 Cleveland International Piano Competition.
Do-Hyun Kim, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Student of Sergei Babayan, second prize at the 2021 Busoni Competition. This season includes invitations with the Miami Chamber Music Society and Rising Stars Piano Series in Southampton, New York.
Nathan Lee, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Described by the New York Times as a “prodigiously talented” pianist with “musical insight and sensitivity”. Previous performances have included the Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and Buffalo Philharmonic.
Ying Li, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Highlights of her 2021-22 season include a German tour with NWDPhilharmoniker and conductor Jonathon Heyward, as well as recitals at Sala Verdi of Milan and Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series.
Chris Lee
Matt Dine
Christopher Goodpasture Piano Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Described as “exuding a depth of artistry and sublime musical sensitivity” (Toronto Concert Review), he is a top prize-winner of the Washington, Seattle, Iowa, and Dallas International Piano Competitions.
Matt Dine
I-Jung Huang
Ryan Brandenberg
Instrumentalists
Maxim Lando, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Past appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh and Vancouver symphonies. Recently performed Rachmaninoff Paganini Variations at Alice Tully Hall with Xian Zhang as winner of the 2021 Juilliard Concerto Competition.
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Jiyang Chen
Chris Lee
Matt Dine
Instrumentalists
Albert Cano Smit, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 First prize at the 2017 Walter W. Naumburg Piano Competition, leading to a recital at Carnegie Hall. Previous concerto appearances with the San Diego Symphony and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.
Zhu Wang, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Following his Carnegie Hall debut, The New York Times wrote, “Zhu fervently conveyed the rhapsodic sweep and mercurial fervor of the music... especially impressive during episodes of wistful, poetic tenderness.”
Steven Banks, Saxophone Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 His 2021-22 season brings performances of concertos by Glazunov, Ibert, Adams, Glass, and Mozart with Cleveland Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Westmoreland Symphony, and Erie Philharmonic, and appearances with Oregon Mozart Players.
Valentin Kovalev, Saxophone Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 A leader in developing the possibilities of the saxophone, he’s been a soloist with the New Russian Orchestra, Orchestra Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center, Tchaikovsky Big Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre de Strasbourg.
Chris Lee
Aristo Sham, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 An artist with “boundless potential” - Washington Post. Recent performances include the Hong Kong Philharmonic with Edo de Waart, English Chamber Orchestra with Raymond Leppard, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra.
Harmony Zhu, Piano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick NézetSéguin, Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia under Marin Alsop, Detroit Symphony under Leonard Slatkin, and toured with the Israel Philharmonic.
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Matt Dine
Matt Dine
Instrumentalists
Matt Dine
SooBeen Lee, Violin Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Having already appeared with every major Korean orchestra, she has also performed with the Detroit, Palm Beach, and Longwood symphonies. 2021-22 brings appearances with the Charleston and Bucks County symphonies.
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Lun Li, Violin Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Finalist in the J.S. Bach Competition, he served as concertmaster of the Pacific Festival Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. Festival appearances include Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Music from Angelfire, and Verbier.
Risa Hokamura, Violin Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Silver Medal, 2018 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, included Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony/Leonard Slatkin. Recent “Violin Virtuosos” concert with the Greensboro Symphony and Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra appearance.
Todd Rosenberg
Francisco Fullana, Violin Sciolino Artist Management samnyc.us (212) 721-9975 Passionate in repertoire ranging from Vivaldi and Bach to Szymanowski to world premieres. Artist in residence with the Baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire. An ardent educator skilled in working with youth orchestras and Latino students.
Tam Photography
Benjamin Baker, Violin Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Following launch of At the World’s Edge Festival (where he serves as artistic director), 2021-22 highlights include recital tour with Daniel Lebhardt, appearance with Long Bay Symphony, and recording with Royal Philharmonic.
Julian Rhee, Violin Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 With “poise and showmanship that thrills audiences” (The Strad), first prize winner of Elmar Oliveira International Competition and soloist with Milwaukee, Avanti, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Madison, and Eugene symphony orchestras.
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Peter Osborne
Instrumentalists / Vocalists
Xiaomeng Zhang, Baritone Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 Chinese baritone Xiaomeng Zhang enjoys a busy career thanks to his skillful technique and a voice described by the San Francisco Chronicle as both “sonorous” and “commanding.”
William Socolof, Bass-Baritone Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Following New York recital debut at Merkin Concert Hall, and in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center, he’ll appear with Alabama Symphony, New York Choral Society, and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.
Megan Moore, Mezzo-Soprano Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 She makes her New York recital debut at Merkin Concert Hall, and in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center. Spring 2022 brings her Metropolitan Opera debut in Brett Dean’s Hamlet.
Ann McMahon Quintero, Mezzo-Soprano Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 Mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero has lent her “warm, honeyed tones” (Baltimore Sun) to performances with Boston Baroque and the National Symphony Orchestra. The Defiant Requiem Foundation has brought her to Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall.
Keith Race
Rachael Laurin
Melissa White, Violin Sciolino Artist Management samnyc.us (212) 721-9975 Hailed as “elegant and thoughtful” in her recent Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra debut. Has worked with such conductors as Louis Langrée and JoAnn Falletta in concerti ranging from Mozart to George Tsontakis to Florence Price.
Jonathan Woody, Bass-Baritone Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 Bass-baritone Jonathan Woody has been praised for “charismatic” and “riveting” (New York Times) performances in early and contemporary music with ensembles across North America and as a soloist with Trinity Wall Street.
AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Jaclyn Simpson
Vocalists
Mary-Hollis Hundley, Soprano Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 The “riveting singing” (Richmond Times Dispatch) of soprano MaryHollis Hundley has earned her prizes from the Wagner Society, Met Council, George London Foundation, and Gerda Lissner Young Artist Institute.
Alexandra Nowakowski, Soprano Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Praised for her “silvery voice and pinpoint accuracy” (Opera News), she has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Verbier Festival, Columbus Symphony, and upcoming with the National Symphony Orchestra. 62
Whitney Morrison, Soprano Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 Opera News has called soprano Whitney Morrison “simply astonishing.” Morrison is a recent alum of the Ryan Opera Center at the Chicago Lyric Opera and a 2020 National Semifinalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Brent Calis
Suzanne Vinnik
Rachel Bires
Helen Zhibing Huang, Soprano Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 “With immaculate coloratura chops and nuanced acting” (Boston Globe), Chinese-born soprano Helen Huang excels in Baroque and Classical concert repertoire while also advocating for the works of contemporary composers.
Nola Richardson, Soprano Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 An “especially impressive” (New York Times) soprano, Dr. Nola Richardson has won all three American competitions focused on the music of J.S. Bach, honors that have led to her status as one of the country’s preeminent Baroque vocalists.
Spencer Britten, Tenor Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 Versatile Canadian tenor Spencer Britten boasts a “full voice and ringing tone” (La Scena Musicale) in core operatic repertoire, musical theater, and concert works ranging from Show Boat to Il Barbieri di Siviglia to Messiah.
WINTER 2022
2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Fay Fox
Vocalists
Daniel McGrew, Tenor Young Concert Artists yca.org (212) 307-6657 Praised for his “lovely, nuanced tenor” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), he is an active performer of a range of repertoire spanning opera, musical theater, and new music, specializing in early music.
Conductors Tabita Berglund HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Cameron Schutza, Tenor Athlone Artists athloneartists.com (617) 651-4600 Praised by Opera for his “clarity of tone and ringing high notes,” Met Council winner and Lauritz Melchior prize-winning tenor Cameron Schutza is in demand for his concert and opera performances worldwide.
Taavi Oramo HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Ensembles Performing with Orchestra Arkai Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Aizuri Quartet Concert Artists Guild aizuriquartet.com (212) 333-5200 Balourdet Quartet Concert Artists Guild balourdetquartet.com (212) 333-5200
Kyle Dickson Concert Artists Guild kylejdickson.com (212) 333-5200
Christopher James Ray Athlone Artists athloneartists.com/artists/christopherjames-ray (617) 651-4600
Michelle Di Russo Concert Artists Guild michelledirusso.com (212) 333-5200
Daniel Reith HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Empire Wild Concert Artists Guild empirewild.com (212) 333-5200
James Hendry HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Jiri Rozen HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Invoke Concert Artists Guild invokesound.com (212) 333-5200
Ben Manis Concert Artists Guild benmanisconductor.com (212) 333-5200
Nil Venditti HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Merz Trio Concert Artists Guild merztrio.com (212) 333-5200
AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
Chromic Duo Concert Artists Guild chromic.space (212) 333-5200
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
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2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Instrumentalists Cello Jamal Aliyev Concert Artists Guild jamalaliyev.com (212) 333-5200 Sterling Elliott Colbert Artists colbertartists.com/artists/sterlingelliott (212) 757-0782 Gabriel Martins Concert Artists Guild gabrielmartinscello.com (212) 333-5200
Antonina Styczen Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Annie Wu Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Guitar Jiji Concert Artists Guild jijiguitar.com (212) 333-5200
Thomas Mesa Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Sean Shibe HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Clarinet
Hao Yang Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Amer Hasan Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Domra/Mandolin Ekaterina Skliar Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Flute Beomjae Kim Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Adam Sadberry Concert Artists Guild adamsadberry.com (212) 333-5200 64
Percussion Britton-René Collins Concert Artists Guild brittonrene.com (212) 333-5200
Piano Dominic Cheli Concert Artists Guild dominiccheli.com (212) 333-5200 Hilda Huang Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Natalia Kazaryan Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Harp
Ariel Lanyi Concert Artists Guild ariellanyi.com (212) 333-5200
Rachel O’Brien Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Zhenni Li-Cohen Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Horn
Evren Ozel Concert Artists Guild evrenozel.com (212) 333-5200
Eric Huckins Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Oboe Mitchell Kuhn Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Ronaldo Rolim Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 Wynona Wang Concert Artists Guild wynonapiano.com (212) 333-5200 WINTER 2022
2022 EMERGING ARTISTS
Recorder Tabea Debus Concert Artists Guild tabeadebus.com (212) 333-5200
Trombone Brittany Lasch Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Viola Jordan Bak Concert Artists Guild jordanbak.com (212) 333-5200
Timothy Ridout HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Ariel Horowitz Concert Artists Guild arielhorowitz.com (212) 333-5200
Violin
Katie Hyun Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux Concert Artists Guild concertartists.org/charlottesalustebridoux (212) 333-5200 Timothy Chooi Colbert Artists colbertartists.com/artists/timothychooi (212) 757-0782
Geneva Lewis Arts Management Group genevalewisviolinist.com (212) 337-0838 Hannah Tarley Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999
Vocalists Bass-Baritone Jesús Vicente Murillo Athlone Artists jesusvmurillo.com (617) 651-4600
Countertenor Logan Tanner Athlone Artists athloneartists.com/artists/logantanner/ (617) 651-4600
Soprano Maria Brea Athlone Artists athloneartists.com/artists/mariabrea/ (617) 651-4600 AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
Tasha Koontz Athlone Artists tashakoontz.com (617) 651-4600 Samuel Mariño HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166 Julie Roset HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166 Johanna Wallroth HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166
Tenor James Ley HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166 Amitai Pati HarrisonParrott harrisonparrott.com +44 (0) 20 7229 9166 Gene Stenger Athlone Artists athloneartists.com/artists/genestenger/ (617) 651-4600
Helen Zhibing Huang Astral Artists astralartists.org (215) 735-6999 SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
65
League of American Orchestras With the support of our valued donors, the League continues to have a positive impact on the future of orchestras in America by helping to develop the next generation of leaders, generating and disseminating critical knowledge and information, and advocating for the unique role of the orchestral experience in American life before an ever-widening group of stakeholders. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the following donors who contributed gifts of $600 and above in the last year, as of December 1, 2021. For more information regarding a gift to the League, please visit us at americanorchestras.org/donate, call 212.262.5161, or write us at Annual Fund, League of American Orchestras, 520 8th Avenue, Suite 2005, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
$150,000 and above
Bruce & Martha Clinton, on behalf of The Clinton Family Fund ✧ Baisley Powell Elebash Fund
Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation $50,000–$149,999 American Express Melanie Clarke
Ford Motor Company Fund
Howard Gilman Foundation Martha R. Ingram
The Julian Family Foundation, Lori Julian National Endowment for the Arts The Negaunee Foundation Linda & David Roth †
Sargent Family Foundation, Cynthia Sargent ✧
The Wallace Foundation $25,000–$49,999
Paul M. Angell Family Foundation
Dr. & Mrs. Malcolm McDougal Brown ✧ Trish & Rick Bryan ✧
The Hagerman Family Charitable Fund, Douglas & Jane Hagerman Barbara & Amos Hostetter
Mr. & Mrs. Alfred P. Moore
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs New York State Council on the Arts Steve and Diane Parrish Foundation
Patricia A. Richards & William K. Nichols Sakana Foundation
Richard & Emily Smucker $10,000–$24,999
The John and Rosemary Brown Family Foundation William & Solange Brown
The CHG Charitable Trust ✧
The Aaron Copland Fund for Music
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Peter & Julie Cummings ✧
Alberta Arthurs
Marian A. Godfrey
Marie-Helene Bernard •
The Doerr Foundation
John and Marcia Goldman Foundation The Hyde and Watson Foundation Mark Jung Charitable Fund Alan Mason +
Peter & Catherine Moye Mary Carr Patton
Mark and Nancy Peacock Charitable Fund Drs. Helen S. & John P. Schaefer
Ms. Trine Sorensen & Mr. Michael Jacobson Penny & John Van Horn ✧
Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation $5,000–$9,999 Burton Alter Benevity
NancyBell Coe
Martha and Herman Copen Fund of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven Gloria DePasquale Marisa Eisemann
Lawrence & Karen Fridkis Mary Louise Gorno Jim Hasler
Robert Kohl & Clark Pellett Hugh W. Long Kjristine Lund
Anthony McGill † Robert Naparstek
Lowell & Sonja Noteboom Howard D. Palefsky
The Brian Ratner Foundation Michael J. Schmitz Helen P. Shaffer
Jennifer Barlament & Ken Potsic • Ann D. Borowiec
Dr. Lorenzo Candelaria
Daniel and David Els-Piercey
Steve & Linda Finerty Family Foundation Drs. Aaron & Cristina Stanescu Flagg Catherine French ✧
Gary Ginstling & Marta Lederer Ms. Sharon D. Hatchett
Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles Cindy & Randy Kidwell †
Joseph Kluger and Susan Lewis Fund John A. and Catherine M. Koten Foundation † Dennis & Camille LaBarre
Leslie Lassiter Charitable Fund John and Gail Looney William M. Lyons
Mattlin Foundation
Raymond & Tresa Radermacher Susan L. Robinson Jesse Rosen †
Deborah F. Rutter † Laura Street
Isaac Thompson and Tonya Vachirasomboon Melia & Mike Tourangeau Steve & Judy Turner Alan D. Valentine
Kathleen van Bergen
Doris & Clark Warden † Terry Ann White †
Simon Woods & Karin Brookes Edward Yim & Erick Neher • + Anonymous (1)
Norm Slonaker
$1,000–$2,499
Sally Webster, in memory of Nick Webster
Gene & Mary Arner
Connie Steensma and Rick Prins ✧ $2,500–$4,999
The Amphion Foundation
Jeff & Keiko Alexander Dawn M. Bennett
Peter Benoliel & Willo Carey
Beracha Family Charitable Gift Fund
WINTER 2022
William P. Blair III ✧
David Bournemann, Vice Chair, Phoenix Symphony Elaine Amacker Bridges Susan K. Bright
Doris & Michael Bronson Steven Brosvik •
Karen & Terry Brown Monica Buffington Janet Cabot
Charles W. Cagle †
Janet & John Canning † Leslie & Dale Chihuly Darlene Clark
Clear Pond Fund
Michele and Laurence Corash LOU Fund The Dirk Family
Dr. D.M. Edwards
Feder Gordon Family Fund
Courtney and David Filner • Henry & Frances Fogel ✧ Michele & John Forsyte • James M. Franklin †
Steve & Lou Mason ✧ David Alan Miller
Robert & Kathy Olsen Primo Artists
Barbara S. Robinson
Barry & Susan Rosen
Barbara & Robert Rosoff ✧ Mr. Donald F. Roth † Dr. Lee Shackelford Mrs. Pratichi Shah Robert N. Shapiro Cece Smith Irene Sohm
Daniel Song
Linda S. Stevens
David Strickland
Elizabeth F. Tozer & W. James Tozer Jr Marylou & John D.* Turner Gus M. Vratsinas Robert Wagner
Camille Williams
Donna M. Williams Sheila J. Williams
The League of American Orchestras recognizes those who have graciously supported the League with a planned gift as members of the League Legacy Society. Janet F. and Dr. Richard E. Barb Family Foundation Wayne S. Brown & Brenda E. Kee † ‡ John & Janet Canning † ‡
Richard * & Kay Fredericks Cisek ✧ ‡
Martha and Herman Copen Fund of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven Myra Janco Daniels Samuel C. Dixon •
Henry & Frances Fogel ✧ ‡ Susan Harris, Ph.D.
Louise W. Kahn Endowment Fund of The Dallas Foundation The Curtis and Pamela Livingston 2000 Charitable Remainder Unitrust † ‡
Paul Winberg & Bruce Czuchna
Steve & Lou Mason † ‡
William & Nancy Gettys
$600–$999
Walter P. Pettipas Revocable Trust
Martha Gilmer
Janet Lempke Barb
Gordon Family Donor Advised Philanthropic Fund
Wayne S. Brown & Brenda E. Kee †
Robert J. Wagner ‡
Joe T. Green
Bruce Colquhoun
Mr. & Mrs. Albert K. * & Sally Webster ✧ ‡
Nancy Greenbach
Scott Faulkner & Andrea Lenz †
Bill Hagens
Jack M. Firestone
Mary W. Hammond
Eric Galatz & Lisa Tiegel
Daniel & Barbara Hart •
Marena Gault, Volunteer Council
Dale Hedding
Michael Gehret
Howard Herring
Sarah J. Good
Patricia G. Howard +
Deborah F. Hammond
James M. Johnson
B. Sue Howard
Robert Turner & Jay James
Patricia G. Howard
James M. Johnson
Rhonda Hunsinger
The Junek Family Fund
Stanley L. Inhorn
Emma (Murley) Kail •
Eileen M. Jeanette
Peter Kjome
Sally & William Johnson
Donald Krause and Joanne Krause †
Russell Jones & Aaron Gillies
Gina Elisa Laite
Anna Kuwabara & Craig Edwards •
Bob & Charlotte Lewis
Robert Levine †
Ginny Lundquist
Patrick McCown
John & Regina Mangum
Barbara Pollack
Yvonne Marcuse
James Roe
Marin Community Foundation
Chester Lane* & Marianne Sciolino
Jonathan Martin
David Snead
Galena-Yorktown Foundation, Ronald D. Abramson Edward B. Gill, in honor of Jesse Rosen †
Matthew Aubin
Joe & Madeleine Glossberg
Drs. Misook Yun & James Boyd •
AMERICANORCHESTRAS.ORG
Judy Christl †
Charles & Barbara Olton † ‡ Rodger E. Pitcairn
Patricia A. Richards & William K. Nichols ‡ Robert & Barbara Rosoff ✧ ‡ Tina Ward • † ‡
Robert Wood Revocable Trust Anonymous (1)
The Helen M. Thompson Heritage Society
Named after the League’s first executive director and a passionate advocate for American orchestras, The Helen M. Thompson Heritage Society recognizes the visionary individuals who have not only provided essential support to the League through a planned gift, but have led the League through service on its Board ofw Directors. Helen’s own generous bequest to the League established an annual award to recognize the achievements of young orchestra professionals. ‡ Members of The Helen M. Thompson Heritage Society
Joan Squires •
Jeffrey vom Saal Charlie Wade
Christopher Wingert Elizabeth M. Wise
† Directors Council (former League Board) ✧ Emeritus Board
• Orchestra Management Fellowship Program Alumni + Includes Corporate Matching Gift * Deceased
67
Coda
The Virtual Violin John Mac
Ray Chen isn’t your standard violin virtuoso. Sure, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music at age 15, aced international competitions, makes acclaimed recordings, and performs with some of the world’s leading orchestras. But the Taipei-born musician, age 32, has carved out a distinctive profile with a longstanding embrace of social media: his YouTube videos have racked up millions of views; he’s all over Instagram and Twitter; if there’s a digital platform where he hasn’t played, it probably hasn’t been invented yet. Using social media, Chen aims to make classical music more accessible, more … well, relatable— and still brilliant. Here, Chen writes about how his latest digital project expanded his idea of what a musical community can be by creating a virtual space to help musicians connect while maintaining practice and high skill levels during the pandemic.
I
n February of 2019, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a competition project. We invited talented amateur violinists to play the first movement of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor and apply to win an invitation to perform at the Hollywood Bowl. Submissions steadily trickled in, but the floodgates truly opened on March 22, 2019, after I posted a video on the usual social-media platforms in which I spoke to potential applicants from backstage at the LA Phil. Within weeks, we had millions of views and over 800 applications from 72 countries. We expanded our global footprint, connected with younger audiences, and built a community beyond the typical concertgoer. Having a direct line of communication to your existing—and potential—listeners to share a personal and undiluted message is more revolutionary than it may seem. The rise of the social-forward internet has enabled artists, orchestras,
The power of the social internet never ceases to amaze me. I believe it will pave the path for classical music to better reach and inspire audiences, old and new. 68
and concert halls to regularly share and excite audiences about their amazing projects and collaborations. From ticket sales to merchandise, fan events and global fundraising initiatives, the opportunities that social media has brought my partners and me have been unprecedented. The power of the social internet never ceases to amaze me, and though it may be an unorthodox opinion, I believe it will pave the path forward for classical music to better reach and inspire audiences, old and new. In every project I take on, I seek to combine three key elements: performance, education, and community. The biggest challenge I’ve encountered has been building a sustainable combination. This is a universal issue, familiar to every content creator and artist. The existing media platforms are motivated and structured in ways that require us to constantly post content that can compete with “general entertainment.” But to me, classical music is closer to education and community than to entertainment. The path to greatness in the performing arts never ends, but the journey is arguably more valuable than the result. No musician, professional or otherwise, considers themselves “finally good enough”—it would be akin to complacency. Musicians are lifelong learners, and the spaces in which we thrive most
In every project I take on, I seek to combine three key elements: performance, education, and community. are those that enable education at every level. Pocket Conservatory, which my colleagues and I launched during the pandemic in 2021, allows musicians to stream their live audio while they’re practicing, rehearsing, or workshopping new material. We had initially conceived of Pocket Conservatory in 2021 as a space focused on connecting music students with worldclass instructors for online masterclasses that would inspire them to continue improving. As the project evolved, we found that the community that formed on the free app was more powerful than the classes themselves; it alleviated the loneliness of practicing on your own in the constant grind to improve. It made that solitary climb to the top into a hike with friends. Pocket Conservatory has become a space for musicians of any level to connect with one another, share practice, and track progress. Bringing them all together has made the future of the industry brighter and more diverse. It’s our duty to change with the times and help build that foundation wherever we can. WINTER 2022
League of American Orchestras 77th National Conference Save the Dates: June 1-3, 2022 | Los Angeles, CA leagueconference.org
HOSTED BY:
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, Los Angeles Photo of the Hollywood Bowl courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
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