Confessions of a Teenage ‘Metro Gnome’
György Ligeti’s fluxus score to ‘Poème Symphonique’ spends little time discussing the performance of the work itself. Instead, he addresses a more pressing matter: acquiring 100 metronomes. Music stores, newspaper advertisements, and Maecenas are some of the sources that Ligeti encourages to bribe with program note recognition etc. If a rich patron were to simply buy Ligeti 100 metronomes, the piece would be “dedicated to him alone.”
When Artistic Director Tom Morris pitched the project to me in 2007, he lowered the cone of silence. “We’ve located the metronomes, but now I need you to assemble a team to set them off at the opening night concert.” Six cardboard boxes of time-keeping devices had just arrived from a performance of ‘Poème Symphonique’ in Austin, Texas. We were armed and ready.
Ten tables with ten metronomes each ringed the bowl at the opening night concert. Pianists Amy Williams and Helena Bugallo gave the signal to my team and the clicking commenced. While the sound of one metronome is regular and percussive, multiplied one hundred times, the result is quite different—imagine rain on a tin roof. But one by one, the upward pendulums froze until the heroic last stand of the final metronome. Beats away from death, the wooden pyramid hypnotized the audience. A long pause was observed when the last click sounded.
Albert Behar is a composer and past intern at the Ojai Music Festival. He is currently running around Paris with an accordion in search of jazz manouche. To find out more about his French alter-ego visit: http://accordion.albertbehar.com
Getting To Know Christianne Stotijn
This week mezzo-soprano and 2012 Festival artist Christianne Stotijn will be performing Mahler 2 and 3 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, as part of the Phil’s month-long Mahler Project. Delft-born Stotijn is known throughout the world for her passionate and nuanced interpretations of lieder. Here are five things we’ve learned about Stotijn in preparation for her arrival in Ojai:
– She’s not only a singer, but an accomplished violinist as well.
– She is the recipient of several awards, including the ECHO Rising Stars Award (2005/2006) and the Nederlands Muziekprijs (2008). In 2007, she was selected as a BBC New Generation Artist and her recording of Tchaikovsky songs with pianist Julius Drake won a BBC Music Magazine award.
– Stotijn has performed with leading orchestras throughout the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and now, the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
– She has appeared in major roles with the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera House in Convent Garden, the Nederlandse Opera and the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels.
– BBC Music Magazine hails her as “that artist in a thousand whose personality shines through in everything she does.”
From what we’ve learned, Stotijn is an artist who is not to be missed and we’re excited to welcome her to Ojai in June. You can catch Stotijn in Ojai throughout the Festival weekend, where she will be performing works by Shostakovich, Wagner, and William Bolcolm, among others. Click here to see her concerts and to buy tickets to the 2012 Festival.
And if you can’t wait until June, here’s a little behind-the-scenes YouTube video to tide you over: Christianne Stotijn Recording Schubert, Berg, Wolf
Learn more about Christianne Stotijn at her website.
Boston Glober Reviews Leif Ove Andsnes Performances
2012 Music Director Leif Ove Andsnes began his U.S. tour last week stopping in Boston to perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Boston Globe music critic Jeremy Eichler described the performance in his review — “Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with soloist Leif Ove Andsnes. This excellent Norwegian pianist plays with a rare blend of fluidity and control, and his Beethoven last night grew more daring and boldly profiled as the work progressed, ending with a finale that was irresistible.”
Happy New Year from the Ojai Music Festival
Happy New Year! January is a time when most of us take stock on our success last year and how we want to improve ourselves going forward. For the Festival, January is the time when the staff really starts to feel the clock ticking very quickly toward June and all of the exponential number of details that need to be addressed (upcoming gala, brochures, annual fund appeals, program book notes, corporate sponsorships, education concert, and did I mention fundraising?).
However, January is also the time when we typically implement new systems we have been developing since the last Festival ended. This week, we are implementing our new financial software, Financial Edge, that links directly to our ticketing and fundraising software. This should allow us to streamline our data entry, improve our reporting and analytical capabilities, and reduce the amount of paper forms we need to use. Like the previous two software modules, the Financial Edge installation is funded by a generous Arts Regional Initiative grant from the James Irvine Foundation to improve our Financial Sustainability with better tools. Needless to say, we are both excited and a bit nervous for such a big change. It is important for us to implement this change now before the upcoming wave of single ticket sales (if you haven’t bought your subscription yet—it is best to do it this month before the single tickets go on sale!) and expense checks related to the Festival that start going out in May.
This is just one of a few new “resolutions” for us—one which most of you would never know about (or maybe even care about!), but it should have a big benefit to helping the Ojai Music Festival operate with greater efficiency and provide us with more powerful data needed to navigate a growing Festival through a rapidly changing landscape. Here’s to better bean counting!
LOS ANGELES TIMES TOP 2011 DANCE PICKS INCLUDE MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP
The Festival’s 2013 Music Director Mark Morris received high praise from the Los Angeles Times for the revival of Morris’ two-act masterwork, “L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, ed il Moderato, ” described as both classic and innovative. The production was presented as a collaboration between last May by the Music Center and the LA Opera.
Listen to the KUSC 2015 Festival Preview
Listen to the 2015 Festival Preview with Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris and Gail Eichenthal of KUSC:
Special thanks to:
