Atherton's Self-Effacing New Concert Hall
Normally the way you get a story is of no interest to the reader, but this one is different — "pertinent data" was especially difficult to find ... about something that should
be publicized with relish.
It all started more than a week ago, with a message of interest from the Music@Menlo PR folk in New York:
Music@Menlo celebrates the grand opening of the new Center for the Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton with a special performance on Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 4 p.m.An interesting item, indeed, although the concert is sold out by now, but what of this new center, and where to look to find out all about it? Starting with the school's own Web site, there was only this:Music@Menlo's artistic directors, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, along with clarinetist Anthony McGill, offer a program of chamber works by Beethoven and Brahms.
A preconcert reception for all ticket holders begins at 2:30 pm at the new venue (555 Middlefield Road, in Atherton, California).
Thursday, October 8 — Saturday October 10 — M-A Performing Arts Center Opening Events! More information TBA soon.Called the school, whose secretary referred me to the principal. Phone messages and e-mail got no response. Meanwhile Music@Menlo PR in New York found the e-mail address for the "communications officer of the school district."
Back to the Web, where I found a reference to Antoine Predock Architect. Called there, turns out the company participated in the competition, but did not win the contract. No matter, a helpful assistant referred me to Fisher Dachs Associates. (Architects communicate more readily than school officials.)
And there, at last, was some of what I was looking for:
- Menlo Atherton High School
Architect: Hodgetts + Fung
Completion Year: 2010 [must refer to the whole project, see below]
Location: Menlo Park, California
Acoustician: Akustiks
Building Size: 24,000 square feet
Capacity: 482 seats
The Performing Arts Center was designed to create a gathering place for the Menlo Park and Atherton communities as well as M-A students. The Center will house a 482-seat theatre with professional quality sound and lighting equipment, a 250-person capacity multiuse space that will double as a student cafeteria, and facilities for the music program that include rehearsal rooms and ample storage space for sheet music and instruments.
Dudamel Gala to be Web Cast
A lot is going on in Los Angeles as Gustavo Dudamel is taking over as music director of the Philharmonic. Fans who were hoping to attend the Oct. 3 "Bienvenido Gustavo!" concert at the Hollywood Bowl but were turned away at the box office in August now have a way to participate in the event.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced that it will show the concert for free on its Web site in high definition. Viewers can go to the orchestra's official site to see the concert beginning at 4 p.m. PDT.
The telecast will remain available for 24 hours.
The concert will feature ensembles and youth groups from around the Southern California area. Dudamel will conduct the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and the Philharmonic.
Emergency Surgery for Levine
Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony Music Director James Levine, scheduled to conduct in Boston today, has withdrawn from performances for at least the next month. He is undergoing "immediate surgery for a herniated spinal disc."The 66-year-old conductor has had a series of health problems, even as he continued to pursue a dizzyingly busy schedule through decades; he conducted 2,456 performances at the Met alone.
Trittico x 3
Surprised myself by seeing the San Francisco Opera production of Puccini's Il trittico three times — so far. It is such a vocal treat that I am now an Il tabarro" convert, although still sour on Suor Angelica. Gianni Schicchi got old decades ago, but appearances notwithstanding, this is not a bellyaching message ... quite to the contrary.
in the Il tabarro finale
Photo by Cory Weaver
Patrick Summers and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra play so well, and the Patricia Racette-Paolo Gavanelli-Brandon Jovanovich (our Siegmund-to-be) Tabarro is so gloriously sung, that I am now reconsidering a lifetime of dissing the piece.
As I say, no such conversion applies to Suor Angelica, but when Racette and Ewa Podles confront each other, that is Opera with a capital O, and it rhymes with Goosebumps. Add to that big performances in tiny roles among the sisters, especially those by Merola/Adler alumnae Catherine Cook (who is also wonderful in Tabarro as La Frugola), Daveda Karanas, Meredith Arwady, Leah Crocetto, Heidi Melton, Daniela Mack, and Tamara Wapinsky.
Racette's little-girl/big-voiced Lauretta is hilarious, David Lomelí's Rinuccio is impressive, the S.F. Opera Center mob is just wonderful, especially when the voice of Arwady's Zita is shaking the walls. The Gavanelli Michele-Schicchi doubleheader is a wonder. Andrea Silvestrelli's Il Talpa and Simone makes one wish time away to hear sooner his (2011) Fasolt and Hagen in the War Memorial.
Whether you are anti-Trittico (as I used to be) or pro, there are only two performances left (Sept. 30 and Oct. 3). I doubt you'll find a better-cast production anywhere. Incidentally, there are video excerpts from the San Francisco production on the Opera Web site.
Un-forgetting Music
With the opening last weekend of Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, 42nd Street Moon — the Greg MacKellan-Stephanie Rhoads "uncommon musical theater" — began a
multiyear celebration of the musicals of composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Ira Gershwin. Says MacKellan:
Stephanie and I have a great fondness for the works of Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin. Their names don’t necessarily carry the glamour of Cole Porter’s or Ira’s brother George, but their careers both spanned more than 40 years, and gave American popular music some of its most enduring standards.The 2009-2010 season is titled "Forget Your Troubles," presenting infrequently performed works of Broadway greats Berlin, Porter, Gershwin, Kern, and Hammerstein.Our celebration begins in the spring of 2010 with Ira Gershwin’s earliest Broadway hit, Lady, Be Good! and Jerome Kern’s final Broadway musical, Very Warm for May. Coming up in the following two years will be Kern’s Princess Theater musical Oh, Boy!, and his English musical with Oscar Hammerstein, Three Sisters; back-to-back productions of Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing [presented last by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony] and its sequel, Let ‘Em Eat Cake.
In Call Me Madam, Klea Blackhurst stars as Ambassador Sally Adams, U.S. envoy to the duchy of Lichtenburg, where her down-to-earth and unorthodox manner surprises and charms the local citizenry. In the score: "You’re Just in Love," "It’s a Lovely Day Today," and "The Ocarina."
In October, it's Harold Rome's Destry Rides Again; November will bring the Cole Porter-Moss Hart Jubilee.
Music of the Andes
SUKAY Carnaval de Bolivia will present a concert celebrating the music and dance of the Andes, at the Brava Theater on Oct. 17. (The venue on San Francisco's 24th Street was known previously as The York.)
Sukay (a Quechua word meaning "to open the earth and prepare it for planting") features Eddy (charango), Quentin (zampoñas), and Gabriel (charango, guitar) Navia, pan-pipe virtuoso Miguel Sisniegas, and Bolivian samba and jazz percussionist Fernando de Sanjines. Traditional South American instruments used by the musicians are made of wood or shell, such as pan-pipes, notched flutes, rattles and drums, with roots in the Inca culture.
Also participating: the dance troupe Renacer Folklorico de Bolivia and Cuban singer Fito Reinoso.