BLYTHE SPIRIT posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, November 19th 2008 at 8:14

If you enjoyed seeing and hearing mezzo Stephanie Blythe in Arizona Opera’s production of The Mikado over the weekend, you’ll be happy to hear that Musical America has named her vocalist of the year ...

REVIEW: LINCOLN CENTER CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY DOWNLOADS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, November 18th 2008 at 8:56

If you’re enjoying our Thursday broadcasts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, you might be interested in reviews of a couple of the organization’s downloads I wrote for Fanfare magazine ...

PODIUM GARB posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, November 17th 2008 at 8:32

There’s been plenty of talk about how orchestra players should dress on stage, but have you given any thought to what conductors wear in rehearsal?

OBAMA/NIELSEN posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, November 14th 2008 at 9:34

This week’s New Yorker cover by Bob Staake is especially striking for the way it blends several common images into an immediately recognizable message, even if that message is a bit hard to articulate. Bear with me, because this post will really be about music, but first look at the image ...

CD REVIEW: MUSICA SONORA/DIA DE LOS MUERTOS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 31st 2008 at 8:53

The Day of the Dead is upon us, a fine time to call to your attention a CD by the local early-music vocal ensemble Musica Sonora. The group has available a CD recorded during a 2006 concert featuring Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Officium Defunctorum, or Requiem Mass, and it’s a perfect tie-in with Day of the Dead activities in the Spanish-speaking New World ...

NED ROREM LIVES! posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 27th 2008 at 7:47

Last week, embroiled in radio fundraising, I didn’t have a chance to note the 85th birthday of Ned Rorem, one of America’s finest composers but a fellow perhaps better known as a sometimes disturbingly frank diarist ...

THESE FLATS DON'T RUN posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, October 23rd 2008 at 7:26

Pianist Jeremy Denk seems to have been too busy to blog recently, but now he’s back with mandatory reading: he imagines that he can interview Sarah Palin about Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata.

JONESTOWN--THE OPERA! posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 20th 2008 at 7:45

This press release just in from Tucson composer Dan Buckley ...

STOP WRINGING YOUR LIVER-SPOTTED HANDS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, October 20th 2008 at 7:33

So the classical audience is aging? Well, so is the general population, and composer Matthew Guerreri has crunched some numbers that show that both overall life expectancy and the age at which people start pursuing grownup interests (like classical music) have risen at almost the same rate. See it here

EXCEPTION TO THE RULE? posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 15th 2008 at 8:11

In trying to bust what he calls myths that encourage a rosy view of the health of classical concerts, Greg Sandow finally does what few other participants in this discussion bother to do: look not just at orchestral attendance, but at chamber-music series as well ...

BETTER THAN NOTHING posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, October 14th 2008 at 7:28

Here are three CD reviews I wrote for Fanfare, in which I give tepidly positive recommendations ... a rather tricky sort of review to write, and unfortunately the sort we have to write most often. Rare is the CD that merits either a rave or an all-out attack. Here we go ...

ARIZONA OPERA ON ARIZONA SPOTLIGHT posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 10th 2008 at 8:37

On KUAZ's Arizona Spotlight today, I contribute a segment about Arizona Opera's new season ...

BRUCKNER THIRD AND A MASS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 8th 2008 at 7:47

Have I posted these two reviews I wrote for _Fanfare_? This site still has no search function (nor a blogroll or provision for a sidebar of links of any kind), so I'm not sure what's here already and what's not. Well, even if you've read these ...

GRAY AUDIENCE? posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, October 3rd 2008 at 8:14

While I have your attention, here's a good article from the Los Angeles Times debunking the notion that the graying audience for classical music is either a new or tragic thing ...

BEETHOVEN AND HANDEL posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, October 1st 2008 at 10:08

Here are a couple more reviews I wrote earlier this year for Fanfare: Beethoven chamber music, and Handel organ concertos.

BALAZS BLAST-OFF posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 30th 2008 at 8:42

The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, which I help direct, is running an underwriting spot on KUAT-FM promoting this season’s first concert, tomorrow night (October 1). The spot promotes Trio Solisti playing music by three composers: Franz Schubert, Paul Schoenfield and Modest Mussorgsky. One composer was left off that list, whether to keep the spot within its 15-second limit or because whoever wrote it thought he didn’t have a recognizable name: Frederick Balazs. But that name should be immediately recognizable to classical music lovers who have lived in Tucson since the early 1960s ...

TWO BIG SYMPHONIES posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, September 29th 2008 at 10:35

Here are reviews I wrote for Fanfare a few months ago of recordings of two oversized symphonies. The more famous of the two fares poorly in the hands of its conductor, but the obscurity is a real winner in every way.

STARS STRUCK posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 24th 2008 at 7:54

Norman Lebrecht makes the case against appending stars to reviews. My sentiments exactly.

THE SOUND OF NO HANDS CLAPPING posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 23rd 2008 at 8:26

Many of the people who discuss ways to attract new audiences to classical concerts advocate ending the “snooty” practice of prohibiting applause between movements. But the fact that a movement has ended doesn’t mean that the whole thing is over...

SPECIALISTS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 19th 2008 at 8:33

English writer on music Norman Lebrecht can’t be trusted when he makes pronouncements on the state of the classical recording industry (for him, the decline of the major labels means the end of the world, ignoring the fact that small labels are taking up the task with greater competence and elegance than the majors). But he does opine intelligently on other matters ...

MENDELSSOHN, EARLY AND OFTEN posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, September 17th 2008 at 7:42

This morning I played something from Itzhak Perlman’s Concertos from My Childhood CD, a collection of pieces that many violin students learn and present in recital, then abandon as they turn professional. The first “real” violin concerto that advanced students take up is usually Mendelssohn’s. I just turned in an article for Strings magazine about that work, in which Daniel Hope and Nicola Benedetti talk about their love of it, despite learning it young, recording it and performing it everywhere. Here’s an excerpt ...

A PASSIONATO posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, September 12th 2008 at 8:11

If you’ve been frustrated by the utter failure of the iTunes music store and other download purveyors to handle classical music in a logical way that is rational to classical-music lovers—in other words, not littering the catalog with crossover junk, making it easier to search by composer than by artist—a new download service has just opened in Britain ...

LAST WORDS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 9th 2008 at 6:59

Here are reviews I wrote for Fanfare of recordings of the last, incomplete works of two prominent Austrian composers ...

CONCERTO REVIEWS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, September 4th 2008 at 7:06

Here are a couple of reviews I wrote a few months ago for Fanfare, covering very recommendable recordings of concertos by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Glazunov ...

LOOKING THE PART posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, September 2nd 2008 at 8:10

Terry Teachout has posted an old thought piece expressing ambivalence over whether or not opera singers should be attractive ...

DOWNLOAD REVIEWS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, August 25th 2008 at 10:45

Deutsche Grammophon has been making a substantial effort to expand into the digital download market. Here are reviews I wrote for Fanfare of two of DG's download-only releases.

JENNIFER KOH AND MUSIC@MENLO REVIEWS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, August 22nd 2008 at 8:25

All I’ve got in the latest issue of Strings is a pair of CD reviews: one of Jennifer Koh’s latest CD, String Poetic, with music by Jennifer Higdon, John Adams, Lou Harrison and Carl Ruggles, and another of Music@Menlo’s 2007 festival concerts.

RHEINBERGER SUITES posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, August 19th 2008 at 7:55

Here's a review I wrote for Fanfare of something off the beaten path: romantic music for solo strings and organ ...

PROKOFIEV AND GANDOLFI posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, August 6th 2008 at 8:54

Here are two more reviews I wrote earlier this year for Fanfare ... one devoted to a 20th-century Russian, the other to a 21st-century American ...

MOZART ON A DIET posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, August 1st 2008 at 7:35

A review I wrote for Fanfare recently, concerning chamber versions of Mozart piano concertos ...

MIDORI GOES TO SCHOOL posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 8:41

All right, now we’re getting caught up with my contributions to Strings magazine. The current issue contains my cover feature on Midori’s ambitious efforts as a music educator ...

THE OTHER AMADEUS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, July 22nd 2008 at 7:52

We’re almost caught up with links to my articles for Strings magazine that appeared during the blogging hiatus. A couple of issues back, I wrote a piece on the string music of a very interesting figure ...

BEER TASTE ON A CHAMPAGNE BUDGET posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 21st 2008 at 7:24

Former singer and current opera marketer Rich Russell offers a nice metaphor linking orchestral programming to the beer selection at his local bar ...

PEARLMAN MAKES IT TO THE END posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, July 15th 2008 at 7:24

A very short review I wrote for Strings magazine:

Handel: Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 Nos. 7-12. Martin Pearlman conducting Boston Baroque (Telarc 80688) ...

CRITICISM, POP AND CLASSICAL posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 14th 2008 at 10:17

Greg Sandow is re-opening a conversation about why pop-music criticism can seem more engaging, and more engaged, than classical criticism ...

MORE ON CRITICISM posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, July 10th 2008 at 8:12

Violist-blogger Charles Noble provides some interesting statistics linking newspaper and orchestral demographics, and critic Justin Davidson, one of the few who does still have a job in the mainstream media, offers a solution to the decline in professional arts criticism in American communities ...

WHY I NEED A BLOGROLL posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, July 8th 2008 at 7:05

When Arizona Public Media switched to this new blog platform, my old blogroll, with links to other sites of consistent interest, went away. I'm sure our tech guys will eventually get around to telling me how I can reinstate it, but for now I'll just have to be more conscientious about linking to specific items I run across. For starters ...

MUSIC ED AND ORCHESTRAL AUDIENCES posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 7th 2008 at 8:02

More comments are rolling in following my column detailing why I’m no longer a Tucson Symphony season subscriber. Here’s a missive from a friend; I’ll quote her anonymously, since I haven’t gotten clearance to reveal her identity.

THE ENEMY WITHIN posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, July 7th 2008 at 7:15

Martin Bernheimer, in the Financial Times, assesses the peril to professional arts critics in American newspapers. Much of what he writes is spot-on, if not really news at this late date. But what’s stirring up dissent online is his contention that “A primary cause of our imminent extinction must be the Internet. ... On the Web, anyone can impersonate an expert. Anyone can blog. Credentials don’t count. All views are equal. Some sort of criticism may survive the American media revolution, but professional criticism may not.”

ONE CELLIST, ONE VIOLINIST, ONE WILD MAN posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, July 2nd 2008 at 8:51

In my continuing effort to catch you up on my contributions to Strings magazine, here are links my contributions to the March issue.

SAVALL'S VESPERS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, June 27th 2008 at 8:56

Having just played a Jordi Savall recording of Marin Marais on the air, I remembered that his recording of Monteverdi's Vespers, one of the best ever, is back in print in better sound than ever before. Here's the review I wrote for Fanfare.

BRUCKNER SEVENTHS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, June 25th 2008 at 9:01

Somehow my editor at Fanfare has gotten it into his head that I'm a Bruckner fan, so he sends me most of the new Bruckner SACDs to review. Here are two reviews I've penned in recent months of recordings of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony.

"STRINGS" THINGS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, June 24th 2008 at 7:27

During my period of blogus interruptus, I lost several opportunities to point you toward material I publish hither and yon. Whatever did you do for entertainment and edification while the blog was gone? Well, you probably thought of something. But now I can gradually catch you up on some of my other efforts.

LINCOLN CENTER RECORDINGS posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, June 18th 2008 at 7:54

For a recent issue of Fanfare, I wrote a feature on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s self-published recordings, and reviewed the label’s first two discs. You may have heard the concert versions of these pieces on the Society’s radio series, but the artists went into the studio after the concerts to make the CDs. Here’s my opinion of the results:

THE CLASSICAL KICK posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, December 28th 2007 at 7:36

    NewMusicBox has published an essay by composer Roger Rudenstein that’s exactly on the mark in its account of how classical music lost favor with the American public in the 1960s and later, and what can be done to advance the classical cause today. One thing Rudenstein is not afraid ...

PULLING 'STRINGS' posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, December 28th 2007 at 7:34

    The latest issue of Strings magazine is online, and a fair chunk of it is by yours truly. Most prominent is the cover feature on a fine violinist with whom you may be unfamiliar:

    Yumi Hwang-Williams started playing new music quite casually, back when she was a violin student at ...

REVIEW: BEETHOVEN/PAAVO JARVI posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, December 21st 2007 at 11:07

    For a forthcoming issue of Fanfare:

BEETHOVEN Symphonies: No. 3, “Eroica”; No. 8 * Paavo Järvi, cond; German Ch Phil Bremen * RCA 88697-13066-2 (hybrid SACD: 69:32)

    The most important Beethoven symphony cycles on SACD are DG’s two-channel reissue of the early-1960s Karajan set, which I reviewed in Fanfare ...

BEHAVE posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, December 20th 2007 at 7:32

    From the Seattle Weekly, here’s refutation of the silly notion that audiences at classical concerts need to be free to be noisy, restless nuisances. Look: If you can’t manage to sit down, shut up and pay attention, you shouldn’t be allowed out of the house, not even ...

SIR TOMMY ON SIR EDDIE posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, December 19th 2007 at 7:43

    If you believe that my occasional swipes at the music of Edward Elgar—for instance, here, here, here (one that apparently alarmed TSO concertmaster Steven Moeckel) and here—are out of line, consider what conductor Sir Thomas Beecham said of Elgar in his autobiography, A Mingled Chime:

The better side ...

REVIEW: TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/GEORGE HANSON, CONDUCTOR posted to Cue Sheet

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, December 14th 2007 at 8:27

    If the Tucson Symphony’s current cycle is distressingly cautious—three shameless crowd-pleasers from an orchestra and music director formerly willing to take a chance with such substantial new works as John Corigliano’s First Symphony—at least the performances are vibrant, secure, and get right to the heart of ...