SOUSA MEMORY

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 30th 2006 at 10:45

    Listener Robert E. Harris, a retired chemist, offers this thought after the past weekend's Tucson Symphony Sousa concerts:

    My late father-in-law, Jerry A. Harn, was as teetotal as could be. He was city attorney for Galesburg, Illinois in the 1930's.   When Sousa and his band came to town ...

WHOSE SIDE?

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 30th 2006 at 7:37

    One thing that has long bugged me about the Arizona Daily Star, one of my ex-employers, is the Sunday “Reader Advocate” column. The Star just doesn’t understand what the person in that position is supposed to do.
    Consider this key sentence from Debbie Kornmiller’s most recent column, concerning ...

SOUSA ON PARADE

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 27th 2006 at 7:13

    The serious-minded among us assail orchestral pops concerts, when we condescend to think about them at all, as showcases of superannuated pop stars cynically programmed to pander to a crowd that will in the end have no reason to support the orchestra’s performances of its core classical repertory. Perhaps ...

DEATH BY TOILET SEAT

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 26th 2006 at 7:50

    I’ve got two theater stories in the current Tucson Weekly, and the editorial staff manged to put the word “edgy” into both subheds.
    First, an approving review of the latest at Live Theatre Workshop:

    OK, so you sit down at Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz knowing only that ...

THE CELLO TYPE

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 26th 2006 at 7:34

    Oboeinsight points the way to a blog I’ve managed to overlook: Daily Observations, the musings of Charles Noble, the Oregon Symphony’s assistant principal violist. According to his profile, “Charles enjoys cooking, hiking, cycling, reading, and blogging.” Sounds like my kind of guy, except for his adherence to the ...

INVISIBLE CULTURE

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 26th 2006 at 7:13

    Veteran San Francisco music critic Robert P. Commanday offers a pointed criticism of the state of classical music coverage in American newspapers:

    Pick any city, look at its newspaper, and you'll find attention to classical music diminished to the basic minimum. It will focus on the "big ticket" events ...

COPLLAPSING TOWER

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 26th 2006 at 7:05

    The bankruptcy of Tower Records will have absolutely no impact in Tucson, aside from those few people who order from it online (and they can easily switch to a variety of other music sellers). Tower never established a store here, despite rumors of imminent arrival that had local shop owners ...

REVIEW: TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/GEORGE HANSON

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 23rd 2006 at 8:44

    Over the weekend, I learned that two married friends of mine, people who don’t often go to classical concerts, had attended the Tucson Symphony’s program on Friday night, the same night I went. “We looked at each other,” said the husband, “and said, ‘When did Tucson get such ...

TSO WEB SITE, CONTINUED

From the desk of James Reel on Sunday, October 22nd 2006 at 16:03

    Last time, you may recall, former Tucson Symphony employee Jan Crews criticized Drew McManus' low ranking of the TSO's cyberspace presence in his annual survey of orchestras' Web sites. You might want to go here to review Jan's comments, with links to the original material, because now Drew ...

MY WEEKLY READER

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 19th 2006 at 7:02

    With Thursday comes my appearance in the Tucson Weekly. Two stories this time. First, anaother in what looks like it’s becoming a weekly series on local gay theater:

    Eugenia Woods is producing four new plays in a single weekend, but she's not thinking of the project as merely ...

VAPORWRATH

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 19th 2006 at 6:48

    Computer freaks sometimes use the term “vaporware” to refer to software that some company like Microsoft announces with much ballyhoo but never gets around to actually releasing. Maybe we should apply the term “vaporwrath” to indignation and denunciation based on complete ignorance of something that has offended in absentia.
    Consider ...

ZUILL BAILEY

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, October 17th 2006 at 6:26

    The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music will bring cellist Zuill Bailey to town for an Oct. 22 concert at the Leo Rich Theater downtown. Here's an article I wrote about him that appeared three years ago in Fanfare.

Zuill Bailey—A Cellist Breaking Barriers

BLOGROLL UPDATE

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 16th 2006 at 7:00

    While I'm busy cataloguing new CDs for music director Steve Hahn to add to the November schedule, I'll just take a moment to return opera singer turned opera marketer Rich Russell to the blogroll. I keep forgetting to put him back where he belongs, now that he's ...

UNASKED QUESTIONS 3

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 13th 2006 at 6:40

    Part of an occasional series in which I whine about sloppy journalism …
    This article tells us that 100 people showed up to support a school superintendent who seems in danger of losing his job eight months before he retires. It also tells us that three school board members who apparently ...

INSIDE THE TSO WEB SITE

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 12th 2006 at 7:38

    Jan Crews, a former Tucson Symphony Orchestra employee, noticed my post about the orchestra’s low ranking in Drew McManus’ annual survey of orchestra Web sites. (Go here and scroll down for a list of several more detailed articles by Drew on the survey.) Jan has some enlightening comments about ...

TRIPLE PLAY

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 12th 2006 at 7:33

    Three theatrical items from me in the latest Tucson Weekly. First, there’s an introduction to a group that’s trying to move itself out of Phoenix and into Tucson:

Joe Marshall's back in town, and he's looking for company. Specifically, he's looking for an audience for ...

RESPONDING TO CRITICS

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 11th 2006 at 7:59

    I’m a bit slow catching up on this, but last week oboist-blogger Patricia Mitchell pondered, as she does from time to time, what she should do when a music critic doesn’t get it—particularly when a critic makes a factual error, like crediting her for an orchestral solo ...

TAKÁCS GETS NOTICED

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 6th 2006 at 6:57

    I assumed there'd be no local coverage of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music's presentation Wednesday night of the Takács Quartet. But, surprise, here's notice from the Arizona Daily Star. (The accent is even going in the right direction!) It would be nice if chamber music ...

FLAWED ACCENT

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 6th 2006 at 6:24

    Arizona Daily Star editor Bobbie Jo Buel used to say of Spanish words printed in the paper, "If they don't have the right accent, they're misspelled." If that applies to all languages, not just Spanish, then there's big trouble on the arts page today. About the worst ...

BELOVED?

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 6th 2006 at 5:58

    According to the Star's preview of Arizona Opera's presentation of Verdi's Macbeth, "Revzen said the production sets a new standard for staging Verdi's most beloved opera." Does Arizona Opera general director Joel Revzen truly believe that Macbeth is "more beloved" than La Traviata, Aida or Rigoletto ...

CORRECTION

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 5th 2006 at 8:22

    In my review of Endymion, I have a passing reference to last season's Rogue adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead, which I wrongly attribute to Joe McGrath. (I should have known better; I saw and praised that production.) Rogue Theatre's Cynthia Meier gently reminds me: "And just ...

MOONSTRUCK

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 5th 2006 at 7:49

    In the latest Tucson Weekly, my review of a stage adaptation of Keats’ Endymion:

    Endymion, the handsome young Greek shepherd-king, has fallen in love with the goddess of the moon. To unite with her and achieve immortality, he must undertake a long journey through forests, into the underworld, to the ...

FUNERARY VIOLIN

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 5th 2006 at 7:27

    A most excellent musicological hoax: A fellow named Rohan Kriwaczek has gotten a reputable publisher to issue his Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violin. According to a New York Times summary, it’s supposedly “a nonfiction account of a little-known genre of music that was condemned by ...

TAKACS QUARTET

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 4th 2006 at 8:42

    The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, on whose board I sit, is presenting the Takács Quartet in concert tonight. (Coincidentally, I wrote the cover story on the group for the forthcoming November-December issue of Fanfare.) I seriously doubt that the local papers will review tonight's concert, but here ...

BRAHMS THE WISEASS

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 4th 2006 at 8:08

    Jan Swafford, who wrote one of the best biographies of Johannes Brahms and who taught at the University of Arizona one year, and with whom I've had the pleasure of serving on a couple of panels, exposes Brahms as a master of sarcasm and ironic self-deprecation here. Not exactly ...

NO MORE MR. NICE GUY

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 4th 2006 at 7:58

    Yesterday afternoon I drove to a coffeeshop at Speedway and Tucson Boulevard to meet an actor/playwright/producer who is moving his theater company from Phoenix to Tucson. It turns out I’d reviewed this fellow—favorably—in the first show he acted in upon moving to town a few ...

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 2nd 2006 at 6:31

    What do Burt Bacharach and Karlheinz Stockhausen have in common? Find out here.