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Should Arts Programming Be Free?
Students arrive at Schermerhorn Symphony Center to attend a Nashville Symphony Young People’s Concert. January 26, 2016
We are nearing the end of the concert season and the end of the school year. For many of us, this is the time of year to review our expense budget for the past year and make plans for next year. In looking back over our accomplishments here at the Nashville Symphony over the past year — and the considerable investment of time and resources required to accomplish them — one recent incident has me concerned about how effectively we can continue to serve the community with free programming offered at no cost to students, teachers and schools.
BACHanalia 2016
our friend Sebastian
Next Friday, April 15, from 5 – 11 pm, more than 100 Nashville musicians align efforts to perform the 10th Annual BACHanalia at Christ Church Cathedral, 900 Broadway in downtown Nashville. This unique, beloved event is a continuous, six hour concert of our friend Sebastian’s music presented once a year as a gift to the community. Click here for the church’s official announcement of the event.
In past years I have brought student ensembles to perform in this event, and this year I am fortunate to be performing myself. I was also very lucky, and was leaked a sneak peak at BACHanalia 2016‘s performers and selections, which I am now going to share with you here, dear readers of Off The Podium. Warning: Spoilers Ahead!
Intersection Brings the Ondes Martenot to Nashville
Nashville’s contemporary music ensemble intersection will present their spring concert Key of Intensity at the end of the month. Featuring music by Tristan Murail, Claude Vivier, Alain Lalonde, Darius Milhaud and Jonny Greenwood, this unique event is a showcase for the ondes Martenot, a rarely heard instrument invented in 1928. intersection is bringing not one but two ondes Martinet players here from Montréal for the concert, which will be held on April 28 at 7:30 pm at The Platform.
2016 Jazz OnStage: Birth of the Cool
Last night I had the great fortune to be a part of a fine ensemble of musicians performing our very first Jazz OnStage: part of the OnStage series of free chamber music concerts at the Nashville Symphony.
The OnStage series has been a part of the Nashville Symphony’s community engagement programming for many years now, and I’ve written about these programs in a number of previous posts here on Off The Podium. The concept of the program is simple: on selected weeknights throughout the season, Nashville Symphony musicians present an early evening chamber music concert in which the audience is seated on the stage with the musicians, and the program includes the opportunity for dialogue between the musicians and the audience.
The Ballad & The Requiem
dress rehearsal: directing MCYO and the NSA Festival Choir in Seven Choruses from Mozart’s Requiem, April 30, 2012, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville
My grandfather died nearly 22 years ago. At that time I was living near New York City, and I drove to his memorial service at a church in Eastern Pennsylvania. More than two decades later, I don’t remember too many things from that experience, unfortunately – my wife and I had a newborn baby, and we had a lot of things on our minds at the time. I do, however, have two strong memories from that day.
The first memory is that it occurred on the day of a solar eclipse, and I remember standing out in the church parking lot after the service and looking at a shadow of the eclipse in progress on a piece of paper with my uncle, who commented on how much Grandpa (a scientist and a doctor) would have loved the eclipse, and no doubt would have prepared a much better way to observe it.
The other memory, which is stronger, and the first thing I remember when I think about that day, is standing in the pew during the service singing A Mighty Fortress is Our God along with everyone else there, and my eyes filling with tears as I sang it. I was told that day (by someone, I don’t remember who now) that this was my grandfather’s favorite hymn.
Meet Telemann
To his 18th century contemporaries, Georg Philipp Telemann was the most famous, influential, and highly-regarded German musician of the day. Four years older than his friends J.S. Bach and Händel – both of whose reputations have now eclipsed his – Telemann was more prolific than either, wrote sacred and secular, vocal and instrumental music in virtually every genre, published on a nearly unprecedented scale, and did more than any other musician of his time to break down barriers that kept music a separate and elite component of civic, court, and church ceremony to elevate the role of music in the life of the middle class.
Elgar, Poulenc, & Lauridsen at West End United Methodist
the combined Chancel & Sanctuary choirs of West End United Methodist Church perform Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna under the direction of Matthew Phelps ~ March 6, 2016, Nashville
The last week has been a flurry of music and activity – the symphony was in the hall rehearsing Rossini, Brahms, and Strauss on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for three performances: our annual High School Young People’s Concert on Friday morning, and Classical Series concerts on Friday and Saturday night. Also on Saturday, we held the first round of our annual Curb Concerto Competition – sixteen teenage instrumentalists competed for cash prizes and the chance to perform a concerto movement with the Nashville Symphony on the stage of Laura Turner Hall! – and on Sunday afternoon we held the competition’s finals. This coming Saturday is our first ever auditions for our new program Accelerando. It’s been a very busy time of year for the Education staff at the Nashville Symphony!
After the final round of the competition was over on Sunday, after photos had been taken and I said goodbye to the finalists and their families, I dashed off a quick email to the symphony’s publicist with details for the press release and then made my way across town to West End United Methodist Church for a special late afternoon concert.
Understanding Accelerando: FAQ
Our very first auditions for Accelerando are around the corner: applications and all supporting materials are due by Friday, March 4, and auditions will be held at W.O. Smith Music School on Saturday, March 12.
For the last two months, our Education & Community Engagement Department here at the Nashville Symphony has held information sessions out in the community and fielded many questions by email and phone as we seek to find the right students to begin this groundbreaking program this year.
Accelerando is a unique music education initiative distinct in many ways from other music education programs in Middle Tennessee. In order to foster greater understanding of the goals of Accelerando, what the program entails, and who is eligible to participate, I have compiled here a list of some of the most frequently asked questions we have received about Accelerando – together with some responses.
Pictures at an Exhibition
Viktor Hartmann: Plan for a City Gate in Kiev, watercolor, 1869
Modest Mussorgsky (1839 – 1881) was a Russian composer best known today for a few celebrated works, including Night on Bald Mountain – a musical depiction of a “witches sabbath” most often played on Halloween programs and other programs depicting musical grotesqueries – and Boris Gudunov, an opera based on a drama by Pushkin: the butt of one of the first classical music jokes music majors learn in undergraduate school:
Q: Why did Mussorgsky only write one opera?
A: Because one Boris Gudunov.
His most beloved composition today is Pictures at an Exhibition, which was originally written as a large suite for solo piano but is best known to the listening public as a large-scale symphonic work in its orchestration by the French composer Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937).
2016 SphinxCon: Ignite to Action
Earlier this month I traveled to Detroit to attend SphinxCon – the 4th annual conference on diversity in the arts presented by The Sphinx Organization. This was my first experience attending this conference, and it was a good experience, and particularly relevant to the work my department has been intensely engaged in: we are now in the midst of launching the Nashville Symphony’s new diversity program Accelerando. Our very first auditions for Accelerando will be held on March 12.
I returned to Nashville a week ago for a schedule turned upside down due to snowstorms, but many of my impressions from the weekend in Detroit have stayed with me, and I’ve tried to write down some of them here before the march of time goes on much longer and they recede into the background.
Walter Bitner 