REVIEW: TUCSON SYMPHONY/CHRISTOPHER O'RILEY
From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 30th 2005 at 8:58
Members of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra used to require some settling-in after their long summer break, but they and music director George Hanson were already in top form for last night’s season-opening concert. It was a program packed with flashy, colorful music, which is exactly the sort of thing the TSO does best.
Read MoreMR. NICE GUY
From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 29th 2005 at 7:42
One former director of a major local arts organization used to grumble around town that I couldn’t find anything nice to say in my reviews. Well, the guy didn’t give me anything nice to say; once he was eased out and the company offered more professional, intelligent productions, there was plenty to praise, although by that time I’d gotten out of the music criticism racket and become an Evil Editor.
Anyway, I am certainly capable of offering praise when it’s due, and I have almost nothing but nice things to say in the latest Tucson Weekly about two recently opened plays.
CHAMBER MUSIC
From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 28th 2005 at 7:46
One of the best appreciations of chamber music I’ve found in print comes from Andrea Lamoreaux, music director of Chicago’s WFMT-FM. Here’s the key paragraph from her notes for the recent Cedille release of Mendelssohn’s string quartets by the Pacifica Quartet.
Read More"THIS IS NOT FOX NEWS" (FOR NOW)
From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 27th 2005 at 6:52
There’s been a lot of yelping about public broadcasting’s perceived political bias, despite the fact that neither the liberal nor the conservative CPB ombudsman has found any. But it looks like we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Read MoreQUIZ SHOW
From the desk of James Reel on Monday, September 26th 2005 at 8:15
From time to time the contributors to Quizilla.com will come up with a personality test that allows me to pretend to be doing something intellectual while I’m completely wasting my time. One favorite is “What Key Signature Are You?” My current result, which is happier and sappier than the last time I took this, is “E-flat major—you are warm and kind, always there for your friends, who are in turn there for you. You are content with your comfortable life and what you are currently achieving; if you keep in this state you will go far.” This seems contradictory; how can one who is content with present achievements make any further progress?
Read MoreSENSES AND SENSIBILITIES
From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 23rd 2005 at 8:49
Carroll Rinehart is an evangelist for arts education and creativity in general, and like any evangelist he is well practiced in the delivery of his message. At lunch, he handed us a printout he may well give everyone he meets; it’s a sheet titled See Everything, Do Everything, Feel Nothing, displaying three quotes relating to Carroll’s interests.
Read MoreWHAT CHARACTERS
From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 22nd 2005 at 10:42
In the latest Tucson Weekly, I review two plays that are worth seeing despite certain flaws—and in terms of strengths and weaknesses, the productions are mirror images of each other.
Read MoreEMERSONIAN REFLECTIONS
From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 21st 2005 at 7:39
The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, which I help run, is opening its season tonight with a performance by the Emerson Quartet. This group’s concerts in Tucson almost always sell out—at least the concerts AFCM presents do—and with good reason. I suspect sometime in the near future we’d be well advised to book the quartet for a double engagement. The Emersons could easily offer an entirely different program the second night; indeed, unlike many other ensembles that offer the equivalent of a concert and a half for presenters to choose from, the Emersons generally travel the world with three or four different programs in their fingers.
Read MoreSAFETY IN NUMBERS
From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 20th 2005 at 9:09
Phil Rosenthal has a nice column in the Chicago Tribune about the success of National Public Radio in a difficult time for broadcast media. Rosenthal points out that NPR is bulking up its news divisions, and it has doubled its weekly audience, from 13 million to 26 million, in a little more than six years.
This is all well and good, but two things disturb me about today’s NPR.
AS IF MUSIC WEREN'T ENOUGH
From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 20th 2005 at 9:06
Burt Schneider, who used to announce from time to time on KUAT-FM but now serves as the local All Things Considered host on KUAZ, has pointed me toward an interesting reader’s list at Amazon.com. Someone has recommended 19 novels revolving around classical music. Most seem to be murder mysteries; my taste runs more to literary fiction, so I’ve read only two items on the list: John Hersey’s Antonietta and Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto; Patchett’s is by far the better novel of the two. Burt would add a 20th title: A Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers, a novelist I admire although I haven’t read this book, either.
Read MoreLOOK UNDER THE SKIRT
From the desk of James Reel on Monday, September 19th 2005 at 9:32
Beowulf Alley, the promising newish theater company operating out of the former Johnny Gibson building downtown, will open Criminal Hearts on Sept. 23. This is one of several scripts credited to "Jane Martin," supposedly a Kentucky-based writer who never gives interviews and has never been seen in public. The Beowulf Alley people are repeating the rumor that Jane Martin is actually the pseudonym of writer-director Jon Jory, the man who adapted and directed Pride and Prejudice, now on the boards at Arizona Theatre Company. You can find a summary of the identity issue here.
Read MoreHOWDY
From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 16th 2005 at 8:53
During the past couple of days, two bloggers have kindly linked to Cue Sheet: Rich Russell, who blogs mainly but not exclusively about the world of opera and choral music, and Greg Sandow, who (among many other activites) covers classical music for the Wall Street Journal and has a lot of great ideas about how to keep music connected to the audience. So if you’re new around here, welcome!
Read MoreMEETING OF MINDS
From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 16th 2005 at 8:44
Good lord—tragically hip UA assitant prof Charlie Bertsch and my old-school-feminist wife are both cited as experts on How to Read a Book in the same Arizona Daily Star article. Can you guess which one is the goth and which has the tattoos?
Read MoreTHE FISHER QUEEN
From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 15th 2005 at 8:49
In the latest Tucson Weekly, I interview Kate Fisher in anticipation of her performance here in the touring production of Little Women. I thought she was absolutely perfect when she starred in Arizona Theatre Company’s version of My Fair Lady a few years ago, and she’ll no doubt make a fine impression in her current gig, if she can avoid being upstaged by Maureen McGovern (who has never struck me as a spotlight hog, anyway).
Read MoreDISCRETION
From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 15th 2005 at 8:47
Introducing a flute concerto by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, just now, I mentioned that it wasn’t so unusual for a head of state to play an instrument; Nixon had the piano, and Clinton had the saxophone. I suppose I could have made a naughty double entendre by ...
Read MoreGLOATING
From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 14th 2005 at 7:19
If I sound a little tired today, it’s because I stayed up past my bedtime last night attending one of the three board meetings we directors of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music hold every year. After coming away from those meetings, I’m always a little elated and wonder why everybody else is whining about the sorry state of classical music in America.
Read MorePHOENIX RISING?
From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 13th 2005 at 7:13
Chris Casacchia has an article in the Phoenix Business Journal celebrating the second consecutive year in which the Phoenix Symphony has—miracle of miracles—balanced its budget. (Use the MSNBC link to avoid the nuisance registration procedure at the Business Journal’s own site.) But, as usual with coverage of the arts biz, the article omits some important context and analysis.
Read MoreIT'S A GOOD THING I GET UP AT 3:55
From the desk of James Reel on Monday, September 12th 2005 at 7:04
In case you assume I fritter away the day working on sodoku puzzles, here, in no particular order, are the things I need to do before crawling into bed tonight at 9.
Read MoreYOU GOT SERVED
From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 9th 2005 at 13:02
Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal theater critic and arts-blogger role model, discovers he’s been dissed by a previously unfamiliar blogger, investigates, and comes back with a magnificently withering put-down in the guise of a recommendation.
Read MoreACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE
From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 9th 2005 at 8:13
The editors of the glossy quarterly Tucson Guide (content not available online) asked me to write a preview of fall theater productions, and I was happy to comply; the magazine is run by good, smart people for whom I do a lot of freelance proofreading and write occasional articles on request. The only little problem this time was that Tucson Guide, intended as it is for tourists, new residents and upscale foothills denizens, is a relentlessly positive publication, and I am by no means a relentlessly positive reporter or critic.
Read MoreTHE WEAK IN REVIEW
From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 8th 2005 at 8:28
Norman Lebrecht, one of those writers who is great fun to read even though much of what he writes is wrong-headed, has, rather late in the day, produced this tribute to Anton Webern. It was Webern’s dire influence that killed public appreciation of classical music in the third quarter of the 20th century, when hack imitators with no musical talent insinuated themselves into American universities, declared that Webern was god, and cranked out arid little scores that were all formula, no inspiration. They presented it as music from the head rather than the heart, but the body part they actually employed was the colon.
Read MoreME, IN FISHWRAP NEAR YOU
From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 8th 2005 at 8:16
This being Thursday, I’m splattered across the arts section of the Tucson Weekly. Elsewhere, too. Loose-canon columnist Tom Danehy recounts being lured to a Fourth Avenue restaurant for lunch with Emil Franzi, Chris Limberis, Renée Downing and me.
Read MoreSLIPPED DISC
From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 7th 2005 at 7:49
Three new Marantz “Professional” CD players were installed in the control room last year, and one of them is now on the fritz. Somehow I feel handicapped having to work with only two players, even though I got along fine with two turntables back in the 1970s and early ’80s.
Read MoreDON'T CALL HIM MELLOW CELLO
From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 7th 2005 at 7:36
Harry, my cello teacher, called early yesterday afternoon to cancel this week’s lesson; he was frantically preparing to leave town for a week and a half. Fine, I told him; I’d fill the open cello slot on my schedule by reviewing Pieter Wispelwey’s new set of the Beethoven cello sonatas and variations on Channel Classics. Harry merely grunted. When pressed to elaborate, he groused about Wispelwey’s capricious interpretive choices, not to mention his tone. “He doesn’t even make it sound like a cello!” he complained. Then, with a laugh, “Our instrument has gone downhill since Jacqueline Du Pré bit the dust.”
Read MoreSITE-SEEING
From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 6th 2005 at 7:20
Alan Campbell, the morning (sometimes afternoon) man at KUAT-FM for nearly 10 years starting in the mid 1990s, stopped by this blog last week, e-mailed a hello and conveyed his regards to his former listeners. Since he retired, Alan has been more than a warm glow on an old vacuum tube; he’s one of the people who founded MUSIClassical.com, a very interesting site with way more features than I’ve ever had time to explore.
Read MoreHOW TO FAKE A CLASSICAL CONCERT REVIEW
From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 2nd 2005 at 7:52
Hey, kids! A fresh concert season is upon us, and your daily newspaper needs you! Editors have finally gotten over the silly notion that newspapers should waste money and office space on full-time classical music critics. For 20 years they squandered their resources on deadwood critics who claimed that only they were qualified to write reviews because they’d spent their lives going to concerts on their own time, collecting classical recordings, reading as much as they could about classical music, and maybe even playing instruments or writing their own compositions. How foolish! Anybody can review a classical concert. Here's how.
ON THE BOARDS
From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 1st 2005 at 8:07
Actors are ambling back onto Tucson stages after the usual summer dry spell (but not drought; there’s always something playing in town).
Read More
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