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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572041

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In this podcast, both composer Daron Hagen and librettist Paul Muldoon talk about how this opera was created.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.669020-21

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.572051

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Photo: Mark Dellas

I am a musician. I have known that simple fact since my seventh birthday, when I wrapped my arms around the little guitar that had been a gift from my father, when I breathed the dusky fragrance of wood and varnish, when I touched the grainy fingerboard that would become my personal road to enchantment. Despite challenges, I have never had one moment of regret about that calling, nor a second of doubt about the vital role that music plays in the world around us. As a conductor, I have witnessed thousands of audiences – literally millions of listeners – come to the concert hall and leave, two hours later, in a place they would never have been able to imagine when they arrived frazzled and distracted, earlier that evening.

I feel a certain conflict of emotions as I write this essay- gratitude certainly, for being given this opportunity to talk about the importance of the art form, but also a profound sorrow that classical music somehow finds itself desperately in need of advocates. Why should that be especially so in troubled economic times? We feel betrayed perhaps by Wall Street greed, by ineffectual governance, by political leadership. But music has never betrayed us, never let us down. It constantly gives back to us, as a boundlessly beautiful repository of the past or a vibrant mirror of our current society. The need for music is not learned – it is “hard-wired” into our being. Even infants respond to it and understand it. As we grow, our exposure to music sharpens our brains, awakens a heightened sense of individual awareness, helps us develop an appreciation for beauty and value.

The ancient Greeks in their extraordinarily sophisticated society understood the tremendous power of music. Plato himself espoused careful planning of the number of hours young people should listen to music in certain keys – so powerful was the influence of each key that it would have strong affects on the long-term personality and character of the young listeners! In my many visits to schools, I have observed that the musicians in the orchestra, band, or chorus are most often the students on the dean’s list, on the student council, in clubs and after-school activities and are often involved in community service as well. A strange coincidence? I don’t think so – I am convinced that the making of music teaches them the skills – discipline, patience, respect and dedication – that enable them to succeed in all their endeavors.

We remain for all of our lives extremely sensitive to that power of music, whether or not we choose to (or even can) articulate that power. I have always been fond of Garrison Keillor’s words: “An orchestra concert is where people go to find their souls. Having worked so hard to lose them, people come and sit in the dark under the spell of music and are reminded of their humanity”. What happens? That room full of people – all with different issues on their minds – experiences together a force that we can never fully explain. Listening, our sense of time changes, our focus sharpens, our problems fade, our priorities shift.

We all know that the “music business” has a strong positive affect on our economy. Facts and figures will bear out the statement that concerts bring many times their cost back to the community. But that is truly besides the point. Music has a profound affect on our psyche, our understanding of ourselves, our view of a world grown astonishingly small. In a global community where solutions will be found through creativity, ingenuity and imagination, music holds the key to nurturing the values that will help us find answers to seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Why do we need music as a nation, as citizens of the United States? There are those that would claim that Americans are not an artistic people. I could not disagree more strongly. Americans invented film, jazz, modern dance, musical theater, country music, abstract impressionism. We are an expressive, innovative, imaginative – even audacious people. Our art echoes our essential American-ness – our willingness to experiment and to take risks, our desire to share and borrow and change, our egalitarianism, our inclusiveness, our endless curiosity and humor. This American art echoes every culture in the world, and has spread to the furthest reaches of the globe. The arts are how we explain ourselves and come to know ourselves. They are woven into the very fabric of our complicated democracy and into the lives of our people. They are, in a very real way, the sum of our collective soul. The American orchestra is at the center of the arts in our country, and the cornerstone of our cultural society. Orchestras preserve our heritage, foster diversity, encourage creativity, and stand as a shining paradigm for excellence.

What do we remember and value from great civilizations of the past? Certainly it is not their business plans, their economic challenges, their financial success; not their wars, their fleeting conquests, their eventual collapse. We remember the beautiful legacy of their artistic life – the paintings, poetry, architecture, music, gleaming as brightly centuries after their creation, still able to move and touch us. Through their art, we realize that these long-dead creatures were really not so very different from us, filling their small parcel of life with as much beauty as they could. What will our great-grandchildren inherit from us? What will they remember? Will the economic recession of the early 21st century color their world? Or will the next century – most probably more complex and more intense than ours – still look to the nobility in the arts as a touchstone for what is truly valuable?

In times of economic difficulty, the arts, rather than languishing as a discretionary luxury, becomes more vital to the human condition. Through the arts, we honor our past, celebrate our present and dream our future. The very best of who we are is inherent in the arts, and the arts are at the core of the continual re-invigoration of our humanity.

Garnering two nominations this year, the Naxos world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man picked up a Best Classical Contemporary Composition nomination for the Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy®, and Grawemeyer award-winning composer. The album, which features conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic, also brought in a nomination for the recording’s soloist, Israeli-born soprano Hila Plitmann, who received a nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance.

The Pacifica Quartet, recently named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, was honored with a nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance for its acclaimed Naxos recording of Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5. The second volume of this series is due for release in February 2009. Renowned producer Judith Sherman picked up a nomination for Producer of the Year for her work on the Carter String Quartets on Naxos and 4 additional albums.

A Choral Performance nomination went to chorus master Henryk Wojnarowski and conductor Antoni Wit for the Naxos recording of Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. A Best Engineered Album (Classical) nomination went to engineer John Newton for his work on the Naxos recording Respighi: Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions, Rossiniana, which featured conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

NAXOS OF AMERICA DISTRIBUTED LABEL ARTISTS NOMINATED FOR GRAMMYS®

Artists from British-based label Chandos received 5 nominations in multiple categories this year. Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary featuring the Phoenix Chorale, conductor Charles Bruffy, and produced by Blanton Alspaugh, was nominated for Best Classical Album (Awards to Artists and Producer). Additionally, Mr. Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale were nominated in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category for this recording. Another Chandos choral recording, Rheinberger: Sacred Choral Works, conductor Charles Bruffy (with the Kansas City Chorale and Phoenix Bach Choir) earned nominations for Best Surround Sound Album and Best Choral Performance. Finally, a Best Orchestral Performance nomination went to conductor Rumon Gamba and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for their Chandos recording D’Indy Orchestral Works, Volume 1.

A EuroArts production earned two nominations in the categories of Best Classical Album (Award to Artists and Producers) and Best Opera Recording (Award to Conductor, Producer, and Principal Soloists) for their DVD recording of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny. The performance featured conductor James Conlon, soloists Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald; the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus; and was produced by Fred Vogler. This is the first Grammy® Awards in which DVD recordings of operas are eligible for nomination. Only the audio portion of the DVD is considered in the nominating process.

Also in the category of Best Opera Recording nominations went to conductors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs for their CPO recording of Jean Baptiste Lully’s Psyché with the Boston Early Music Festival (Mr. O’Dette and Mr. Stubbs also were nominated last year for their CPO recording of Jean Baptiste Lully’s Thésée with the Boston Early Music Festival).

Renowned Italian conductor and Baroque-specialist, Rinaldo Alessandrini was nominated for his Naïve classique recording of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.

Finally, violinist Elmar Oliveira earned a nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra for his Artek recording of Violin Concertos by Ernst Bloch and Benjamin Lees with John McLaughlin Williams conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

In this interview he talks about the challenges of setting Dylan’s lyrics, and how, by reading just the words, he realized that Bob Dylan is one of the finest of all American poets.

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Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559331

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Living in Budapest some years ago, I thought it was virtually a rule that radio stations and concert halls were required to play Bartók, Liszt, Kodály or sometimes even Ligeti and Kurtag…

… Listen to the two incredibly beautiful concertos on this record, and you won’t recognize even an iota of music from Hungary…

… The recording by Naxos is well focused, and the program notes by Keith Anderson—Naxos’ very first annotator—are, as always, informative and detailed…

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Each year ASCAP presents the Morton Gould Young Composers Award. It’s an opportunity for young rising star composers to win some prize money and a much valued boost in status. I attended the ceremony with composer Alex Kotch who was being honored that night. Of course the Concert Music Awards ceremony also honors established composers, musicians, and directors for their significant contribution to classical music. Among this year’s honorees were Joseph Jennings (composer and director of Chanticleer), David Lang (educator and composer), compoer John Corigliano and conductor JoAnn Falletta.

After receiving their medal the young composers had a short excerpt of their work played while each of the established honorees gave a short speech. Their speeches were just about the most gracious and touching I’ve ever heard. Falletta, a Naxos artist and conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic, told a particularly inspiring story about Corigliano, who was doing a one-week residency with the Buffalo Philharmonic during a brutal cold snap in March. During this time the orchestra premiered and recorded his “Three Hallucinations from “Altered States” / Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan”. Falletta recounted how the collaboration breathed new life into the orchestra and the city of Buffalo. She said the city was as excited about classical music as she’d ever seen.

The Corigliano/Falletta recording will be available from Naxos later this year. You can find albums featuring performances and music from such ASCAP award presenters as Schickele, Falletta, Corigliano, David Del Tredici, Steven Burke, Sebastian Currier, Stephen Paulus, and David Lang on Naxos.com and Classicsonline.com. However, there are no viola jokes.

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