Night After Night

Island life.

Undiscovered Islands with Signal and So Percussion at Galapagos Art Space
The New York Times, May 25, 2009

From sea to shining sea.

New York Festival of Song at Merkin Concert Hall
The New York Times, May 21, 2009

Moving out.

The New York Philharmonic will enter a brave new era when Alan Gilbert, a young, energetic native New Yorker, takes over as the orchestra's music director this fall. Sadly, however, one of the organization's most gifted executives won't be around to take part in the coming metamorphosis. The Phil announced today that Matías Tarnopolsky (pictured left), its erudite, articulate, eminently capable vice president of artistic planning, has accepted the position of director at Cal Performances, a prestigious performing-arts presenter based at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tarnopolsky, who was included in TONY's roundup of the top behind-the-scenes movers and shakers in the New York arts community last year, will leave the Phil in July. After the jump, an official statement from the Phil.

New York Philharmonic president Zarin Mehta had the following to say of Tarnopolsky's departure in a statement e-mailed around this afternoon:

It is with mixed emotions that I write to inform you that Matías Tarnopolsky, Vice President, Artistic Planning, will be leaving the New York Philharmonic in July. Matías has been offered a wonderful and prestigious opportunity as Director of Cal Performances, the major high-quality presenting organization on the West Coast, based at the University of California at Berkeley.  Cal Performances produces over 100 performances per season, including music, dance and theater, and, in addition, has an extensive education program.

As my colleague and artistic partner, Matías has been an invaluable member of the Senior Management team of the Philharmonic since joining in January of 2006.  He and Lorin Maazel have maintained a wonderful working relationship throughout Lorin’s tenure as Music Director, and Matías was instrumental in planning the search for Lorin’s successor and the inspired choice of Alan Gilbert, commencing in September 2009.

I know that Matías deeply regrets not being able to be here to work with Alan and to enjoy in person the results of the artistic plans he has laid and relationships he has brought to us.  But I also know that he is poised and ready to assume a leadership role at a major organization like Cal Performances.  They are indeed lucky to have him and I know you will join me in wishing him, his wife Birgit, and children Sofia and Tomas, every success in their new life in Berkeley.

Meanwhile please know that I am actively working with Matías and other colleagues to ensure a smooth transition until a successor is found.

We'll miss Tarnopolsky's warm, approachable demeanor, clear-eyed competence and understated zeal for all things musical, but wish him extraordinary success in his richly deserved new venture.

[Posted this afternoon on The Volume]

Under the sea.

"The Voice of the Whale Project" at the American Museum of Natural History
The New York Times, May 20, 2009

And we bid you good night.

Guarneri String Quartet with David Soyer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The New York Times, May 19, 2009

Blog breakout.

News of important new entries into the blogosphere arrived today from multiple sources. Alex Ross, whose vital site just turned a spry five years old (congrats!), brings word of a new blog from Philip Kennicott, whose elegant, insightful words are regularly to be found in the Washington Post, where he is Culture Critic. I suspect Philip also continues to maintain an entertaining column in Gramophone but, alas, I can't be sure: my place of work accidentally allowed my subscription to lapse some months ago, a problem I've yet to address....

Bryant Manning, more-or-less formerly of Time Out Chicago and currently -- hopefully increasingly -- with the Chicago Sun-Times, showed us earlier today at Mysteries Abysmal that Lawrence A. Johnson surely does get around. Having successfully launched South Florida Classical Review not quite one year ago, Johnson fired up a new site, Chicago Classical Review, this morning. Given the nearly identical visual design of this blog and its older sibling, one suspects a movable franchise in the making.

Also today, Douglas McLennan announced the newest addition to the ArtsJournal blogstellation: Creative Destruction, by orchestral conductor John Dodson. Doug's post about the new blog tells the story of a marvelous turnaround at the small, feisty Adrian Symphony in Adrian, MI, engineered by Dodson and executive director Susan Hoffman, now with the Cleveland Orchestra. "We've been confined by who we think we are, and by what we think we are," Dodson's first post concludes. Food for thought.

(Photograph: The fiberglass pig in front of legendary NYC dive Rudy's Bar & Grill, snapped on Saturday afternoon during the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, immediately posted to Twitter and now borrowed from my TwitPic page.)

Playlist:

The Moody Blues - Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (Eagle); Lovely to See You: Live from the Greek (Image)

Nas - Illmatic (Columbia)

Cornelius Dufallo - Dream Streets (Innova)

King Crimson -Poplar Creek Music Theatre, Hoffman Estates, IL, June 22, 1984 (DGMLive.com download)

Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock 'n Roll and Black and Blue (Rolling Stones/UMe)

George Frideric Handel - La Diva: Arias for Cuzzoni - Simone Kermes, Lautten Compagney Berlin/Wolfgang Katschner (Berlin Classics)

Bruno Mantovani - Concerto for Cello and Orchestra - Jean-Guihen Queyras, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken/Günther Herbig; Philippe Schoeller - The eyes of the wind - J-GQ, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Alexander Briger; Gilbert Amy - Concerto for Cello and Orchestra - J-GQ, Orchestre de Paris/Gilbert Amy (Harmonia Mundi, due June 9)

Joell Ortiz/DJ Green Lantern - Covers the Classics (free mixtape download via OnSmash)

Claude Debussy - Chansons de Bilitis - Sasha Cooke, Pei-Yao Wang (free download from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum music library; thanks to Friedrich Kuhlau for pointing out this generous collection)

Anaal Nathrakh - In the Constellation of the Black Widow (Candlelight, due June 30)

UGK - 4 Life (Jive)

George Frideric Handel - Alcina - Joyce DiDonato, Maite Beaumont, Sonia Prina, Karina Gauvin, Kobie van Rensburg, Vito Priante, Laura Cherici, Il Complesso Barocco/Alan Curtis (Archiv)

Ernö von Dohnányi - String Quartets Nos. 2 & 3; Zoltán Kodály - String Quartet No. 2 - Guarneri String Quartet (RCA Red Seal)

Power Tools - Strange Meeting (Antilles)

Emeralds - What Happened (No Fun)

David Lang - The Little Match Girl Passion; For Love Is Strong; I Lie; Evening Morning Day; Again (After Ecclesiastes) - Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen/Paul Hillier (Harmonia Mundi, due June 9)

Jon Balke - Siwan (ECM, due June 23; listen to samples here)

Live Skull - Positraction (Caroline)

Kiss - Alive III (Mercury)

Rapoon - Time Frost (Glacial Movements)

Inner child.

CD review: GUSTAV MAHLER: SYMPHONY No. 4
Miah Persson, soprano; Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Iván Fischer.
Channel Classics CCS SA 26109; CD.
The New York Times, May 17, 2009
(ArkivMusic, Barnes & Noble)

Pleased to meet me.

Now here's a pleasant surprise: Night After Night has received an honorable mention in a list of New York City's best music blogs as reckoned by Mapcidy, a fascinating interactive NYC arts and culture site. Especially given how unhappy I've been about my overall lack of activity here since last fall, it's a genuine treat to make an appearance in a list dominated by the real powerhouse pop blogs -- resources I tap practically every day, like the mad-indispensible Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum, Nah Right and Arjanwrites.

Among the other blogs mentioned, I'm impressed with the spirit of a relative newcomer cited not by Mapcidy, but rather by an anonymous commenter: Knox Road, based in New York and Washington, D.C.

Have a look at the list, do some exploring, save some bookmarks, update your blogrolls. (I plan to do some of that myself.) And sincere thanks to the folks at Mapcidy for the gracious, unexpected citation.

Playlist:

Van der Graaf Generator - ColosSaal, Aschaffenburg, Germany, January 23, 2009 (audience recording)

Nadia Sirota - First Things First (New Amsterdam)

Suffocation - Blood Oath (Nuclear Blast; out July 14)

Gioachino Rossini - La Cenerentola - Teresa Berganza, Nicola Monti, Sesto Buscantini, Mario Petri, Teatro San Carlo Naples Chorus, Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mario Rossi (Opera d'Oro)

Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers and Goats Head Soup (Rolling Stones/UMe)

The Dead - Izod Center, East Rutherford, NJ, April 29, 2009 (soundboard recording)

George Frideric Handel - Ezio - Karina Gauvin, Ann Hallenberg, Sonia Prina, Marianne Andersen, Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani, Vito Priante, Il Complesso Barocco/Alan Curtis (Archiv)

Franz Schubert/Luciano Berio - Rendering; Aribert Reimann - Metamorphosen on a Minuet of Franz Schubert; Hans Werner Henze - Le fils de l'air: Erlkönig; Hans Zender - Schubert-Chöre; Kurt Schwertsik - Epilog zu Rosamunde - Bamberg Symphony Chorus and Orchestra/Jonathan Nott (Tudor)

Jörg Widmann - Lied for Orchestra; Wolfgang Rihm - Erscheinung; Bruno Mantovani - Mit Ausdruck; Dieter Schnebel - Schubert-Phantasie - Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Jonathan Nott (Tudor)

Bruno Mantovani - La Sette Chiese; Streets; Eclair de lune - IRCAM, Ensemble Intercontemporain/Susanna Mälkki (Kairos)

Tony Malaby - Paloma Recio (New World)

King Crimson -Poplar Creek Music Theatre, Hoffman Estates, IL, June 22, 1984 (DGMLive.com download)

György Ligeti - Piano Concerto; Chamber Concerto; Melodien; Mysteries of the Macabre - Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Peter Masseurs, ASKO and Schoenberg Ensembles/Reinbert le Leeuw (Teldec)

György Ligeti - Cello Concerto; Violin Concerto; Clocks and Clouds; Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel - Siegfried Palm, Frank Peter Zimmerman, Katalin Károlyi, Cappella Amsterdam, Amadinda Percussion Group, ASKO Ensemble/Reinbert de Leeuw (Teldec)

Unsuk Chin - Akrostichon-Wortspiel; Fantaisie méchanique; Concerto for Piano and Percussion "Doppelkonzert"; XI - Pia Komsi, Samuel Favre, Dimitris Vassilakis, Ensemble Intercontemporain/Kazushi Ono, Patrick Davin, Stefan Asbury, David Robertson (Deutsche Grammophon)

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 4 - Miah Persson, Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer (Channel Classics)

Unsuk Chin - Rocaná; Violin Concerto - Viviane Hagner, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal/Kent Nagano (Analekta)

Mayhem - Ordo ad Chao (Season of Mist)

Marduk - Panzer Division Marduk (Regain)

Web of influence.

Ensemble Intercontemporain at Alice Tully Hall
The New York Times, May 12, 2009

Ghost in the machine.

CD review: CHRISTOPHER TIGNOR - 'CORE MEMORY UNWOUND'
Christopher Tignor, computer keyboardist, violinist, pianist; Colin Jacobsen, violinist; Margaret Kampmeier, pianist.
Western Vinyl WEST061; CD.
The New York Times, May 10, 2009
(Western Vinyl; Barnes & Noble)