NOT A SOCIAL DUTY

posted by James Reel

Several people have been e-mailing and even calling me to comment, mostly positively, on my column about deserting the Tucson Symphony. Here are some pertinent remarks from a former professor at one of America's major music schools, quoted anonymously because without permission:

I read your critique of the TSO with great personal interest. I agree that programming could be more creative and inventive. But I wonder whether the innuendos your article contains regarding Conductor Hanson's culpability are only inferred by me, or whether you really believe that to be the case. Perhaps your analyses and critiques should be directed at the Board of Directors (many of whom may be affluent but hardly musical programming experts) and management. How about exploring that avenue? For a number of years are seats at the TSO concerts were next to those of a former president of the symphony board and his wife.If their reactions to programming of symphonic works different from the standard historical repertory are symptomatic of Symphony Board members, it is easy to reach theconcluion why the conductor is unnecessarily hampered by external forces that have nothing to do with the music being performed.. There are many of us who prefer to hear music live. The accoutrements of elaborate headsets and in-the-home sound equipment attempting to emulate the concert hall are undesirable to satisfy our internal and external musical experience. And that is not because of Social Duty. but because music is intended to be heard live, and not to be listened to as a patchwork of "takes" by the latest technological devices to reflect some sound engineer's concept of perfection!

DEFECTION REJECTION

posted by James Reel

And already a response to my TSO defection from a faithful KUAT listener and TSO subscriber, with an important point to make:

Read in Cue Sheet you will not renew your TSO subscription for 08-09 season. i agree with your reasoning, but not to the point of not renewing our subscriptions. Yeah, we have CDs and KUAT-FM, but TSO is our live symphonic music and we will support it forever, even in the Convention Center Music Hall. Perhaps with our continued support a new music hall will evolve. Without our support it will not. i am disappointed in your decision to not attend TSO concerts. i respect and enjoy your TSO concert reviews. More importantly, your reviews might influence musical expression and future programing.

DEFECTOR

posted by James Reel

In the latest Tucson Weekly, I announce my retirement from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra audience:

For the first time in 30 years, I'm not renewing my Tucson Symphony Orchestra season subscription. I made that decision when I realized that I'd skipped a few concerts last season because of travel or illness, and I didn't care. If I don't regret missing concerts I'm having to pay more and more money for, why should I spend that money in the first place? It isn't that the TSO is a bad orchestra; far from it. You won't confuse it with the Boston Symphony, but it's a perfectly able professional ensemble from front to back, much better than the band it was back in the 1970s, when it boasted some fine individual players (especially the principal woodwinds), but spotty work across larger sections. Even so, the programming becomes less and less inspired every year. Most concerts are dominated by thrice-familiar pieces; anything new or unusual occupies only about five minutes of any program. (The big exception next season is Daniel Asia's Symphony No. 5, but that is a rare occurrence.) Like every arts organization, the TSO earns its tax-exempt status as an educational rather than an artistic endeavor, and education shouldn't be limited to kiddie concerts. Adults need to be introduced to new things, too. But when I read the schedule for next season, there are only a couple of things that look more attractive to me than staying home and watching a video.

There’s much more to it, which you can read here.

ONE CELLIST, ONE VIOLINIST, ONE WILD MAN

posted by James Reel

In my continuing effort to catch you up on my contributions to Strings magazine, here are links my contributions to the March issue. First, a profile of a tall, dark and handsome cellist who has made a few appearances in our neighborhood (mostly Green Valley):

IF YOU’RE NOT LOOKING BEYOND the chronology and vital statistics, Zuill Bailey’s career in music seems like one big happy accident. As a four-year-old, Bailey literally ran into a cello backstage, and even before anybody could pick up the pieces (luckily, it was a cheap cello), young Zuill had decided that would be the instrument for him. He grew up in a place abounding in classical music, where Mstislav Rostropovich was one of the prime attractions on a regular basis, so taking up the cello just seemed as ordinary a pastime as skateboarding. Later, still in his teens, Bailey won several competitions that put him on tour performing, so by the time he finished his education, he already had a solo career in full swing. Later still, Bailey’s wife got a temporary appointment in El Paso, Texas, and while the couple was staying there—ostensibly just for a few months—Bailey was asked to run a music series, which he has done from his now-permanent El Paso home ever since. All the while, he’s continued to perform around the world: touring Russia with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra; performing with the Toronto Symphony and conductor Itzhak Perlman; appearing with major orchestras in Chicago, San Francisco, and Dallas; doing the Dvořák concerto in Colombia and Peru; concertizing at Carnegie Hall; and playing all the Beethoven cello sonatas to sold-out audiences in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yet, aside from happening to grow up surrounded by music, Bailey’s success is by no means a matter of luck. His dark good looks make him highly marketable, but he’s also highly musical, with a distinctly personal expression, and that’s something that requires careful cultivation. “I was given wonderful opportunities,” he says, “but I had to work very hard along the way.”

The full article is here. Then there’s a piece in which violinist Anthony Marwood of the Florestan Trio talks about life in a trio, and beyond:

Make the music speak. When violinist Anthony Marwood, cellist Richard Lester, and pianist Susan Tomes, all members of England’s Florestan Trio, studied with esteemed Hungarian violinist Sandor Végh, they came away from the sessions with those words as a mission statement. Violinist Marwood says, “Végh wanted to pass along to us an old European tradition that he felt was fast disappearing, which is very much about ‘speaking music,’ about going for the specific tonal colors that are appropriate, not necessarily trying to smooth everything out. He hated the idea of vibrato used to coat the theme—musical ketchup, just poured on everything. He emphasized using vibrato with great care and intention, and making sure that the real expression actually comes from the bow. That was fundamental to him and the school of playing that he was from.

The full article lurks here. Also on offer is a brief review of a quartet CD that features, in part, music by Raymond Scott.

Unless you remember the early 1950s, you probably don’t know Scott’s name, but you certainly know some of his music. Scott worked at CBS radio in the 1930s, running an oddball jazz combo called the Raymond Scott Quintette and playing witty originals with such eccentric titles as “Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals.” Scott went on to other things, including serving as bandleader on Your Hit Parade, writing music for Broadway, assembling (in 1946) one of the world’s first electronic-music studios, and inventing one of the first analog synthesizers. In 1943, Warner Bros. bought the rights to Scott’s back catalog, and composer Carl Stalling began working Scott’s maniacal music into popular cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny and pals. Scott’s “Powerhouse” was sure to back-up action in industrial settings, and decades later it accompanied the animated antics of the popular MTV cartoon characters Ren and Stimpy. Read about the CD here.

EAR TO THE BOOKS

posted by James Reel

Daily newspapers have been reducing or eliminating their book-review sections during the past year or so (they've spent a decade trying to appeal to non-readers, so why waste space covering reading?), but NPR is expanding its book reporting, especially online. Says Publishers Weekly:

National Public Radio has expanded the book coverage on its website, adding weekly book reviews, and has hired six new book reviewers—including a graphic novel reviewer—and added more features to an already existing lineup of author podcasts, critics' lists and other book-focused content. Among the new slate of reviewers joining NPR.org are Jessa Crispin, founder of the literary blog Bookslut.com; John Freeman, book critic and a former president of the National Book Critics Circle; and Laurel Maury, freelance comics and graphic novel reviewer and a longtime contributor to _PW Comics Week_.

You can read the news item here, and visit NPR's book page here.