Davy Sturtevant and SoMar Dance Works’ “Dis-Ease: A Coming Out”
Ups and Downs Erie Times-News ShowCase, 25 March, 2010
2 comments March 25th, 2010
Archive for March, 2010
Ailey II at Mercyhurst College
“II” Is the One Erie Times-News ShowCase, 25 March, 2010
Add comment March 25th, 2010
Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw” at SUNY Fredonia
An Intriguing “Turn” of Events Erie Times-News ShowCase, 25 March, 2010
Add comment March 25th, 2010
Erie Philharmonic Pops “That 70s Show”
Stayin’ Alive Erie Times-News ShowCase, 25 March, 2010
Add comment March 25th, 2010
Musica Pacifica at Penn State Behrend
Walls and Windows Erie Times-News ShowCase, 18 March, 2010
Add comment March 18th, 2010
Alexander Ghindin at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Jamestown, Gleb Ivanov at the Struthers Library Theatre
The Empire Strikes Back Erie Times-News ShowCase, 18 March, 2010
Add comment March 18th, 2010
Air Force
I’m a baseball fan, but there was a time when I almost deserted my natural pastime. It was the annis horribilis of 1994 when a work stoppage canceled the World Series. It was the culmination of many years of labor strife fundamentally caused by a deep mistrust between the owners and the Players Association, the union that represented the players. Frightened by the damage that this enmity had created, both to the owners’ gate receipts and to the players incomes and endorsement deals, the two sides have worked together, warily at times, to ensure the health of the game.
And everyone has won. Baseball’s revenue numbers are at historic highs, as are player contracts.
I’m reminded of this by the recent announcement that WQLN-FM will broadcast portions of Erie Philharmonic on the second Wednesday of each month during the 11:00 hour of the “Classics with Wally Faas” program.
At one time, the Philharmonic was a staple of the WQLN schedule. But labor strife intervened. I wasn’t party to it, of course, but it probably went something like this:
MUSICIANS: Our contract treats radio broadcasts as a performance for which we should get paid.MANAGEMENT: We don’t make any money on the broadcasts. Where will we get the money to pay you?
Both sides were right, but like the baseball example, neither side trusted the other enough to compromise. The Phil lost a valuable marketing vehicle, the players lost some extra income (to which they were contractually entitled), WQLN lost a piece of prestige programming and local music lovers . . . well, we just lost. Period.
So it’s heartening that some agreement was finally reached, and the proof is in the listening.
The inaugural broadcast on March 3 featured a performance of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with soloist Antonio Pompa-Baldi from the concert that opened the Phil’s 2008 season. Listening to the broadcast, my first thought was, “Gee, why can’t we have an orchestra like that in Erie?” That’s how solid this performance sounded. Overexposure has worn away what affection I might have had for the Grieg, but I have to say that the old warhorse sounded fit and frisky in the hands of Pompa-Baldi, Daniel Meyer and the Phil. What possible harm could come from hearing this?
And it was a nice touch to include an interview with the Warner Theatre recording team of Tom McLaren and Dan Sullivan (my old program director and engineer from the “All That Jazz” days at the Q) telling war stories about capturing the Phil live in the old house.
Future broadcasts will include Turina’s “Oración del torero,” Op. 34 on April 14 (a performance I recall as being short and effective), the deathless “Carmina Burana” on May 12 a “Carmen Suite” to end the season on June 9.
Will listeners on the air translate into fannies in the seats? That is the million-dollar question, and we won’t know the answer for a while. Still, like the chicken soup remedy for a cold, it may not help, but it can’t hurt either.
Moreover, it tastes good.
Add comment March 14th, 2010
Alexander String Quartet at Allegheny College
The Musical Is The Personal Erie Times-News ShowCase, 11 March, 2010
Add comment March 11th, 2010
Erie Chamber Orchestra plays Prokofiev and Haydn, Erie Civic Music Assn. Double Grandé Pianos
Crazy Old World Erie Times-News ShowCase, 11 March, 2010
Add comment March 11th, 2010
Judgment Day
In the entertainment business, a tentpole is a blockbuster that is big enough to support all of the creative product that surrounds it. “Seinfeld” used to do that on Thursday nights for NBC, and one could argue that the Verdi Requiem was the tentpole for this Philharmonic season. It’s a big work by a brand name composer with an irresistable and universal program (nothing more fundamental than death, redemption and eternity, is there?). Because it’s by Verdi, drama comes as standard equipment.
But it’s also a complicated machine calling for four vocal soloists, double chorus and augmented orchestra. So, when the downbeat is given, the Requiem is about Judgment Day in more ways than one. Last evening’s Erie Philharmonic performance didn’t exactly reach heaven, but neither should it be consigned to musical hell.
That’s where most Phil performances with chorus have headed, but not last night. Fortified by the Grove City College Touring Choir, the Erie Philharmonic Chorus was strong and often precise (the double fugue of the Sanctus were wonderfully clear). Hats off to Jason Bishop (Erie) and Douglas Browne (Grove City).
The vocal soloists, resident artists from the Pittsburgh Opera were up and down all night. Mezzo Lindsay Ammann cracked her entrance note in the Liber scriptus then sang strongly the rest of the evening. She got better as the music got higher and louder. Liam Moran had the hangdog look of a younger, rangier Ringo Starr. His mournful face reflected the lamenting music Verdi gives the bass, which he dispatched in a soft-grained way. Because this is Verdi, the big moments are given to the tenor and soprano. Noel Baetge’s Ingemisco was sweet-toned and small-scaled. Soprano Danielle Pastin had a real sense of Verdi’s storm-and-truth style, and her Libera me was frequently touching if also a bit rough-and-ready.
Perhaps the Phil needed the risers for the chorus, but keeping the winds on floor level made them inaudible from my seat (Row T, center of the house). It’s a shame, because there is much characterful wind writing here. Big ups, though, to Daniel Meyer for stationing four trumpets in the balcony for a shivery Tuba mirum.
Meyer seemed at his best in the score’s reflective moments. The Kyrie was nicely shaped and the Offertorio was lovely, but why, oh why did it come after an intermission? The interval following the Dies Irae sequence completely destroyed the sense of passage from darkness to light, damnation to devotion, that Verdi surely intended. Meyer’s reading clocked in at a fairly brisk 65 minutes. Does the Philharmonic management really think that music lovers can’t sit that long for a work about eternity without a potty break?
Whoever programmed the intermission deserves a Day of Anger all his own.
1 comment March 7th, 2010