5/9/2012 - N.Y. Philharmonic makes French look easy



N.Y. Philharmonic makes French look easy
by Timothy Mangan, The Orange County Register


The New York Philharmonic launched its tour of California on Tuesday in Segerstrom Concert Hall with a pleasing program of mostly French music. Local audiences were getting their first look at Alan Gilbert, 45, the orchestra's music director since 2009, as head of the group. He has a reputation as a tasteful and intelligent musician and he lived up to it.

Is Gilbert the right man for the New York Philharmonic? It's a question that always seems to dog this orchestra's music director – it dates back at least to John Barbirolli, who took over from Toscanini – and therefore is, in some ways, hard to take seriously. At any rate, a single concert does not a question answer. Another arose, however. Is the New York Philharmonic the right orchestra for Gilbert?

It seemed to me Tuesday that he asked the orchestra for things it didn't quite grant him. There was a mismatch between signals conveyed and music produced. Gilbert is not a particularly flashy or suave figure on the podium, but his motions are big and clear and animated. There was plenty of excitement in his manner and incision in his beat; the orchestra, at times, sounded as if it were playing for someone else.

It remains a great orchestra, though, no worries there. The musicians jump any hurdles thrown at them with ease. The strings are well unified, elegant and calm about it. The brasses are big and menacing. The woodwinds are smooth and cohesive, with fine soloists. It is all very professional, just not invariably electrified. One remembered the sizzling orchestra (this same one) that Lorin Maazel brought here in 2006, and noticed the differences (not all of them bad).

Ravel's "La Valse," which closed the program, received the most satisfying performance of the evening. Gilbert focused strongly on shadowy details in the orchestration and showed a great sense of style in the waltz theme – sculpting, lifting, pausing. The curves of the phrasing had an apt wooziness. The flow of the work was nicely controlled, held back, then released for the nightmarish close.

The orchestra performed without the use of risers. This leant an open and spacious sound to "La Valse" and a powerful breadth at the end. In Debussy's "La Mer," which preceded it, the configuration seemed to take some of the punch out of it. At any rate, the performance proved more a beautiful painting of the sea than a voyage in the open air upon it. The surges were muted, the sting of the wind and spray dampened. It was lovingly played and nicely tailored, but it lacked snap and was soft around the middle. The strings were poised to a fault.

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5/7/2012 - LA Times' 2012 Faces to Watch: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs an all-Bach program



L.A. TIMES’ 2012 FACES TO WATCH BY MARK SWED:
AMERICAN PIANIST SIMONE DINNERSTEIN PERFORMS ALL-BACH REPERTOIRE
Part of Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar

IRVINE, CA—The Philharmonic Society of Orange County presents Simone Dinnerstein, one of today’s foremost Bach interpreters, on Monday, June 18, 2012, 8pm, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Performing for the first time in Orange County, Simone Dinnerstein makes her debut at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall showcasing unique interpretations of BACH: French Suite No. 5 in G major, BWV 816; BACH: Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826; BACH: English Suite No. 3 in G minor, BWV 808; BACH: Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825. This concert is part of the week-long 2012 Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar, which runs from June 17 to June 24.

One of Mark Swed’s selections for the Los Angeles Times’ 2012 Faces to Watch, the American pianist gained international attention through the remarkable success of her self-financed recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Released in 2007, the recording quickly ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was mentioned on numerous “Best of 2007” lists, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker.

Ms. Dinnerstein has since signed with Sony Classical, and her first album, Bach: A Strange Beauty, was released in January 2011, once again earning the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Classical Chart and making the Billboard Top 200, which compiles the entire music industry’s top selling albums in all genres. In 2011, she was the bestselling instrumentalist on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart and also included in NPR’s 100 Favorite Songs from all genres. Sony released Dinnerstein’s latest album, Something Almost Being Said: Music of Bach and Schubert, in January 2012. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “eloquent and fine” and her performance as a “stately beauty,” the album reached No. 2 on the Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales. Something Almost Being Said combines J.S. Bach’s Partitas Nos. 1 and 2 with Schubert’s Four Impromptus, Op. 90, and was recorded by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

Her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 2005 opened doors to many venues around the world, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London’s Wigmore Hall. She has performed at prominent festivals such as Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals, and the Stuttgart Bach Festival. Dinnerstein also plays concerts throughout the U.S. for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Through this program, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system, and performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women. Organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, these performances at non-traditional venues underscore Dinnerstein’s unconventional journey to success.

Dinnerstein’s passion for piano composition, music, and the instrument itself, started at the age of 4. However, her lessons did not begin until age 7, which, for a future pianist, is late in life. At age 15, her musical personality had already developed and she had many opportunities for possible success—moving to London to study with Maria Curcio as well as an invitation to study at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia—but her parents thought she was too young to be away from home. At age 18, she decided to make these postponed plans a reality. She dropped out of Juilliard to return to London and study with Ms. Curcio.

She later returned to Juilliard to finish h



5/7/2012 - Philharmonic Society Announces its 2012-13 Concert Season



THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY ANNOUNCES ITS 2012-2013 CONCERT SEASON

Highlights Include:

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestra Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Montiverdi Choir

Yo-Yo Ma returns to Orange County with pianist Kathryn Stott

A recital by violinist Itzhak Perlman

Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Pianist Louis Lortie celebrates the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth

Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to O.C. for the first time since departing the LA Phil


IRVINE, CA – Now in its 59th season, the Philharmonic Society today announced its 2012-2013 concert season. As Orange County’s oldest and most recognized music presenter, the Society continues to present the highest caliber of signature classical music presentations, orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists from around the world. This year, the Society is proud to continue the Donna L. Kendall Classical Series for its fourth season.

“Our 2012-13 season will be my second to last season before retiring in summer 2014,” says Dean Corey, Philharmonic Society President and Artistic Director. “At the end of this upcoming season, I will have been with the Philharmonic Society for exactly 20 years, and I am selecting my remaining concerts with care.” Highlights for the upcoming season include recitals by world-renowned soloists cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Louis Lortie. Returning to the Orange County scene are Gustavo Dudamel with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The Society continues its multi-year Beethoven celebration—Beethoven: The Late Great—a musical exploration curated by Dean Corey into the final transcendence of one of the greatest composers of all time. After watching the play 33 Variations, the story of a terminally ill musicologist racing against her own mortality trying to solve the riddle of why Beethoven wrote 33 variations of Anton Diabelli’s silly little waltz when he was only commissioned to write a single one, Mr. Corey was inspired to curate a number of Beethoven performances from his late period for the Philharmonic Society so audiences could explore this curious time in the composer’s life. To present these great late works, he was determined to bring in only the best, with appearances by the Tokyo String Quartet and Brentano String Quartet performing some of Beethoven’s last five string quartets and recruiting talented pianist Marino Formenti to learn the complete Diabelli Variations during the 2011-12 concert season.

This season, Dean Corey will personally guide audiences during pre-concert talks for all Beethoven: The Late Great performances. The celebration features renowned Beethoven interpreter Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir with two blazing performances of Beethoven’s late masterpieces—the Ninth Symphony and the Missa Solemnis—the second of which will be heard in Orange County for the first time on period instruments, as well as Esa-Pekka Salonen’s triumphant return to southern California with the Philharmonia Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Also part of the celebration are the first and last of Beethoven’s late string quartets, performed by the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

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5/6/2012 - Alan Gilbert adds his personal touch to New York Philharmonic



Alan Gilbert adds his personal touch to New York Philharmonic
by James C. Taylor, Special to the Los Angeles Times


NEW YORK — Listening is very important to Alan Gilbert.

It is not surprising for a gifted musician to have attentive ears, but to succeed as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, you have to hear much more than just the music.

Before taking his first leadership post at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 2000, Gilbert made his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and since appearing on the podium of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1998, Gilbert has clearly been listening to what been going on in Southern California.

"I look at the model for what happened in L.A. with Esa-Pekka Salonen with great interest," Gilbert says over coffee in his Lincoln Center office, adding, "I was always very comfortable when I was in L.A. as a guest conductor. I always felt, 'This is the place where what I'm doing is understood.'"

This week, the New York Philharmonic performs in Los Angeles for the first time this century — and for the first time at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The last time America's oldest symphony orchestra performed in L.A. was in 1999, at UCLA's Royce Hall under the baton of its 23rd music director, Kurt Masur.

On Wednesday, the orchestra will be led by the 45-year-old Gilbert who — like the L.A. Phil's Gustavo Dudamel — is in his third year as music director. The Disney concert will be a good representation of the Gilbert era, because it features a new piece by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg (which just received its world premiere Thursday at the philharmonic's home, Avery Fisher Hall) as well as two established pieces by Dvo¿ák and Tchaikovsky. On Tuesday, the orchestra performs an entirely different program at Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Hall; on Thursday, it brings a mix of the two programs to Santa Barbara's Granada Theatre.

Lindberg is a composer Gilbert has championed since Day 1 of his regime. His first concert as music director began with "EXPO," another world premiere by Lindberg that marked the first time in almost half a century that the New York Philharmonic performed a new piece in an opening-night program.

Gilbert may represent change to many philharmonic listeners — many of them wealthy, conservative patrons who prefer a steady diet of the classics — but he is hardly a radical outside agent of change. He says he doesn't elevate the importance of new work over old, making the point that a Bach festival next season is as challenging for the orchestra as modern music — and to him equally exciting. "Besides," Gilbert says, "to quote Duke Ellington, 'There's only two kinds of music, good music and bad music.'"

Indeed, as he recently rehearses the rumbling, tempestuous opening bars of the Lindberg Piano Concerto No. 2 (which will be performed by Yefim Bronfman at Disney Hall), Gilbert looks less like a firebrand at the podium — with his preferred look of untucked blue polo shirt and jeans — than he does a suburban dad on a weekend presiding over a family picnic.

It's worth mentioning that the New York Philharmonic is in many ways part of Gilbert's family. Both of his parents played with the orchestra (his mother, violinist Yoko Takebe, will be performing on the tour) as did his sister Jennifer, now concertmaster with the Orchestre National de Lyon.

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4/30/2012 - Bonnie Hall appointed VP of Development at Philharmonic Society of Orange County



BONNIE HALL APPOINTED VICE PRESIDENT OF DEVELOPMENT AT PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY OF ORANGE COUNTY


IRVINE, CA—The Philharmonic Society of Orange County, the area’s oldest presenter of classical music, announced today that Bonnie Hall has been named Vice President of Development, a key appointment to the Philharmonic Society’s leadership team, effective immediately, and will report to Dean Corey, President and Artistic Director of the Philharmonic Society.

“Bonnie is an experienced arts professional and will be a tremendous asset to the Philharmonic Society,” commented Dean Corey. “In her new role, Bonnie will oversee a department that raises funds through business and corporate sponsorships, major gifts from individual donors, capital campaigns, planned giving, and extensive support from membership contributions and will lead all fundraising efforts to meet our organization’s objectives, viewing all of the Society’s activities, concerts, programs, special events, contacts and relationships as opportunities to market the organization and raise funds. We look forward to the work we can perform with her on board.”

Bonnie has a strong track record in program, resource and organizational development for cultural, historical and educational organizations. She served as the Founding Executive Director of Arts Orange County for 14 years, during which the nonprofit arts council was consistently ranked as a model in the state. During her tenure, the arts council served a broad range of cultural organizations with grants, training, centralized marketing assistance; provided leadership on arts education issues; and created research and tools to report to community leaders about the growth and health of the county’s cultural sector. Prior to her work representing the county’s cultural sector, she served as Associate Director for the Laguna Art Museum and Director of Development for South Coast Repertory, helping each achieve new levels of artistic excellence and national prominence. Before moving to Orange County in 1983, Bonnie served as the Assistant Director of Alumni Relations with Occidental College and as Photo Librarian and Exhibits Assistant with the California Historical Society, managing the statewide organization’s History Center in Los Angeles and representing the organization in the community.

Bonnie Hall has served as a panelist for the California Arts Council and chaired Orange County’s 3rd National Philanthropy Day Celebration for the Association of Fundraising Professionals. A classically trained soprano, she is also a former Board member of and singer with Orange County’s Pacific Chorale.

She is a founding Board member of the Orange County Tourism Council, currently serving as a Supervisorial appointee to the Board, and has been a conference speaker on Cultural Tourism. Since late 2008, she has been working as a consultant and writer specializing in cultural and heritage tourism, marrying her interest in history with her experience managing cultural organizations in Southern California. She is particularly interested in bringing authentic stories of places alive, for both visitors and destinations.

Ms. Hall graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a B.A. in American Studies and Phi Beta Kappa honors. She also holds an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, with specialties in Arts Management and Strategic Planning.