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Arizona Week on Friday will look at the fiscal situations with the state's 15 county governments as they work toward their legal deadlines for passing state budgets.
Financial issues abound among the counties.
In Maricopa, the supervisors held budget hearings today and are trying to determine what to do about up to $100 million of misspent money in the Sheriff's Department's jail budget, as detailed in the Arizona Republic.
In Pima County, the supervisors passed a tentative budget last week, including an increase in the sales tax rate, although Democrat Sharon Bronson told Arizona Public Media's Christopher Conover in an interview last week that most homeowners will see smaller tax bills because of reduced property values.
In Pinal County, the supervisors last week cut $2.1 million, including 20 layoffs, as reported in the Casa Grande Dispatch.
Other counties face their own difficulties.
We will interview officials of the associations that help lobby on behalf of Arizona's counties and supervisors from two or more counties, for Friday's Arizona Week.
May 23rd 2011 at 13:53 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
This May 24 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Paul Paray, an exceptional French conductor best known for his early-stereo hi-fi Mercury recordings with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, many of which were reissued on CD, and even in buffed-up SACD format (the latter taming Mercury's original over-bright sonics). You can read a little bio I wrote of Paray for the All Music Guide here, and, more importantly, listen to samples of his work through the day (Tuesday) on KUAT-FM. Stylistically, he was something of a French Toscanini, but had the benefit of an orchestra a bit superior to Toscanini's NBC Symphony, and of course much better sonics. We'll have Paray conducting items by Chabrier, Berlioz, Saint-Saens (including the "organ" Symphony), Bizet, Schmitt, Ravel and Debussy, and even Rossini, Lisz and, Dvorak (the "New World" Symphony). We'll cap it all about 6:20 p.m. with a recording of one of Paray's own compositions, the Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc.
Classical Music,
May 23rd 2011 at 7:28 —
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The depth and breadth of knowledge among the three journalists on today's Arizona Week panel brought home the realities of the state's culture of political and civic leadership.
Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts, tucsoncitizen.com Editor Mark Evans and Tucson Weekly writer Mari Herreras discussed those realities in understandable terms.
They spelled out that the key reality is that Republicans are in charge and call the shots. Others need not apply -- not Democrats, not Libertarians, not Greens, not independent voters.
Yet, the state's voter registration lists show a much more even division, about one-third Republican, a little less than one-third independent, and a little less than that Democratic. Libertarians and Greens bring up the rear with low single-digit percentages.
The key, Evans and Roberts said, is to switch to an open primary system that allows for nonpartisan elections. The problem, Herreras said, is that it will take state political leadership to bring about such a change. The leaders in control won't do it because it would potentially lead to their losing power.
Leaving the system in place as it is means there's one approach to solving problems -- fiscal, educational, environmental and in all other realms. Little or no odds for compromise or bipartisan solutions.
Audacious leadership training programs such as the Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy featured on the program thus are fairly limited in what they can do to drive improvement in many of the state's key issues, the journalists concluded.
That's why we continue to ask for Arizona's best and brightest journalists to be on Arizona Week.
May 20th 2011 at 17:36 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
From a past issue of Fanfare ...
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 8 • Simone Young, cond; Hamburg PO • OEHMS CLASSICS OC 638 (2 multichannel SACDs: 82:41) Live: Hamburg 12/2009
Simone Young has been working her way through a cycle of the very first versions of those Bruckner symphonies that were later heavily revised; her interpretations have been largely effective so far, and this latest installment is no exception. This is the first version, 1878, of Bruckner’s Eighth, an edition that has been issued on disc several times in the past; the most easily available have been Eliahu Inbal/Frankfurt RSO on various Teldec releases (75:35), Georg Tintner/Ireland NSO on Naxos (89:28), and Dennis Russell Davies/Linz Bruckner Orchestra on Arte Nova (80:30). As you can see, Young’s is one of the more leisurely versions of this edition—compared to Inbal, she takes a lot more time in the outer movements—but, without rushing, she always keeps a tight rein on the unruly score, always maintaining a focused through-line, not letting the music break apart into discrete units, and refusing to wallow in the moderate-paced and slow sections. Yet she does allow enough elasticity for the smaller details to emerge along the way. The performance is notable for its clarity and balance of voices, although at the climaxes the woodwinds can’t make themselves heard in competition with the strings and blaring brass.
It’s especially striking how Young illuminates how beholden Bruckner’s first movement is to the opening movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, although the episodic Bruckner lacks Beethoven’s staying power—Bruckner pauses for breath often, whereas Beethoven maintains unbearable tension throughout his movement. At least Young doesn’t let Bruckner sound like he’s stepping off the podium every few bars just to get his heart rate down, which can happen in other performances; she finds natural rhythms in the periodic release of tension.
This version of the first movement, by the way, ends triple forte, not softly. Other major differences between this and later editions: the trio of the second movement is substantially different; the first three movements require only double woodwinds and four horns, the section not expanded until the final movement; the Adagio is 38 bars longer, and includes more cymbal crashes (and a different climactlic key); the Finale is 62 bars longer.
I especially admire Young’s treatment of the Adagio, which is played with clarity and integrity, not soppy piety; she’s very good at holding it together without slighting its internal contrasts.
The SACD surround mix has lots of presence, although there are balance problems at the climaxes, as noted.
Personally, I think most of Bruckner’s later changes to the score actually improved the symphony, but Simone Young and her Hamburg forces make an exceptionally strong case for this original version. James Reel
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 3, “Polish.” The Voyevoda: Entr’acte; Dance of the Chambermaids. Dmitri the Pretender and Vassily Shuisky: Introduction; Mazurka. Serenade for Nikolai Rubinstein’s Name Day. Eugene Onegin: Entr’acte; Waltz; Polonaise • Neeme Järvi, cond; Gothenburg SO • BIS 1468 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 76:53)
I was so underwhelmed by the launch of Neeme Järvi’s Tchaikovsky Fifth (see Fanfare 29:2) that I haven’t bothered to follow his Tchaikovsky cycle. But now that I’ve heard his treatment of the “Polish” Symphony, I wonder what I’ve been missing; this performance is terrific.
Although the “Polish” Symphony (named in honor of its Polacca finale) is seldom recorded outside of complete cycles, most conductors who bother with it tend to carry it off quite well; indeed, you’re not likely to go wrong with nearly any major-label recording of the work (aside, suprisingly, from the listless Ormandy on RCA and Gilbert Levine on Telarc). Even so, Järvi’s account ranks among the very best. True, the quick reading of the introduction is hardly a marcia funebre in tempo or spirit, but it carries a high degree of anticipation that is rewarded in the movement’s main matter, which is festive but not manic (a perfect bookend with the quasi-Polish-themed CD’s concluding item, the Onegin Polonaise). There’s a nice, singing delivery of the lyrical sectinos without dragging everything down. Each movement of the symphony is equally well characterized.
The excepts from Tchaikovsky’s very early opera The Voyevoda (not to be confused with the later symphonic poem of the same name, which Järvi has also recorded) includes some delicate woodwind playing from the Gothenburgers, and the dances are full of Russian character. Picking up the Polish theme, the Mazurka from Dmitri the Pretender really does dance with a nice spring, and after all this Järvi’s equally sympathetic treatment of the familiar Onegin items can hardly fail to please.
The BIS sonics, as usual, are absolutely splendid, if you turn up the volume a bit to improve the orchestral presence rather than its loudness; there’s very precise section placement left-to-right and front-to-back, with true timbres and an absolute lack of congestion, even during the moments of big sonic impact at the climaxes and outbursts. James Reel
Classical Music,
May 20th 2011 at 7:53 —
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Arizona Week explores civic leadership in the state for Friday's program, looking at a new initiative kicked off this spring in Phoenix.
The Flinn-Brown Leadership Academy held its first class with 25 people from around the state wanting to improve their skills and get up to speed on a wide range of state political and civic issues. The group completes the program Friday, and its founders and two members of the class sat for interviews today in Phoenix.
That's where the complexity comes in. Normally, our on-location interviews are one-on-one -- me speaking with one person. In this instance, we had two interviews back to back, and both were one-on-two -- me speaking with two people at a time.
Steve Riggs, Bob Lindberg and Dominick de Leon were undaunted in their setup and approach to the shoot, accommodating my request to do it this way without pause.
First interview was with Jack Jewett, president and CEO of the Flinn Foundation and founder of the leadership academy, and Nancy Welch, vice president at Flinn overseeing the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership.
Second interview was with Flinn-Brown Academy Fellows Lisa Urias, of Urias Communications in Scottsdale, and Paul Brierley, director of organization for the Arizona Farm Bureau in Gilbert.
May 19th 2011 at 15:07 —
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Are good leaders made or born?
In Arizona, if it’s the former, there’s now a way they can be made. If it’s the latter, that same way purports to make them better.
It’s called the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership. Its centerpiece program, a civic leadership academy, holds its first graduation on Friday, when it will turn two dozen Arizonans back to their communities with fresh perspective on the state’s top political and civic issues.
They also take with them what they learned from public policy experts and others -- the traits and tools of leadership.
Participants spent ten two-day sessions together in Phoenix, hearing from experts on the state’s fiscal system and budget, the economy, education, water, immigration and border issues and a half-dozen other key topics.
It was all focused on fulfilling the leadership center’s mission to ensure that Arizona’s future leaders “have the commitment, knowledge and skills to work together to carry out creative, long-term solutions to pressing problems."
The key phrase in that statement may well be “to work together.” For in this day of political divisiveness when politicians don’t bother even paying lip service to the notion of bipartisanship, getting people to work together on the issues will clearly be the heaviest lift.
Graduates of the academy were admitted on, among other things, the condition that they step up and seek a position of leadership in the community, in civic and/or political life.
The key measure of the program's success could well be how well its graduates do at bringing together disparate political and civic factions for focus on Arizona's crucial issues.
May 18th 2011 at 15:11 —
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