♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS....

Inside the Wanamaker Organ

Thursday, December 11, 2014



Most Philadelphians don‘t realize that the largest working musical instrument in the world is built into one of the city's landmarks, the former John Wanamaker Department Store, now Macy's, at 13th and Market streets.

The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ at Macy's is a 7-story-high contraption bigger than most people's houses, even rich people's. The vast maze of 28,677 pipes and baffles and bellows and wires and wooden stairways lies hidden behind what many of us have always thought was the Wanamaker Organ.

• Friends of the Wanamaker Organ at Macy's Philadelphia



http://www.philly.com/philly/video/daily_news/NDN28253572_20141211_Inside_the_Wanamaker_Organ.html

[nitpicker1]

'Bit of debacle' on way to Gold Guitars

Home » News » Regions


By Hamish MacLean on Sat, 30 May 2015
The Regions: Southland

It has been a long road to Gore for Nick Stone and Daniel Pfeifer.

The Christchurch duo called SansTribe will perform today in the 42nd annual New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards.

But the duo ''had a bit of a debacle'' in Dunedin this week, where they were performing, when Stone's cousin had a fall and required 15 stitches. The pair took him to hospital late at night before driving to Gore yesterday to perform.

Running on very little sleep, the men played in the duet category and the New Zealand song competition auditions and learned at the last minute that entries were still open for the Freeze Ya Bits off Busking auditions.

''We thought 'why not; let's give it a shot.'

''It went really good, eh. It was a lot of fun. Everyone in Gore just seems to be in the best spirits at the moment with the festival on.

''The sun was out - it was pretty much the ideal conditions to be busking.''

Soaking up the ideal conditions over the three-day Gold Guitar Awards competition will be about 700 competitors and a crowd of 5000 is expected to stream through the doors for the three shows over the weekend.

Gold Guitar Awards convener Philip Geary said he couldn't play a note, but was a fan of country music and wanted to solidify Gore's reputation as New Zealand's country music capital.

Kaylee Bell, overall winner in 2007, and Cameron Luxton, winner in 2014, had set the bar high, but the quality of contestants continued to improve, Mr Geary said.

And while country music might not be everybody's genre, the Gold Guitars had started to rub off on even those who weren't fans, he said.

Today, the truck show starts at 8am at the Livestock Supplies Yard and the parade is at 2pm. More Freeze Ya Bits off Busking auditions begin at noon in the main shopping area and the finals start at 4.30pm at the Heartland Hotel Croydon.

The intermediate and junior finals start at 7.30pm today at the Gore Town and Country Club Stadium.

Senior section auditions start at 8.15am tomorrow at the Gore Town and Country Club Stadium followed by the 40-plus and 60-plus finals.

The senior finals begin at 7.30pm tomorrow.

http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/344143/bit-debacle-way-gold-guitars

[nitpicker1]

Kelvin Cummings wins 2015 New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards gallery
BLAKE FODEN

 Last updated 00:42, June 1 2015
Sporting a cowboy hat, checked shirt and jeans, Kelvin Cummings strides onto the stage.

He may look the quintessential cowboy, but the newly crowned 2015 New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards winner says what excites him most about performing is the chance to showcase the new wave of country tunes.

When the high school music teacher from Palmerston, north of Dunedin, stumbled across Randy Houser's 'Like a Cowboy' by chance while streaming country music from a Las Vegas radio station, he instantly knew he'd take it to the Gold Guitars stage.

He performed in Gore for the first time as a 12-year-old, but didn't return to the Gold Guitars until about three or four years ago.

"I wanted to get back into the scene again because country music has changed so much over the years with the likes of the country radio stations that are available through iHeart Radio.

"It's opened up a whole lot of really cool things for me and allowed me to give it a whole new flavour rather than just singing the traditional, well-known songs."

read the rest at
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/69005115/kelvin-cummings-wins-2015-new-zealand-gold-guitar-awards

 ... other section winners
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1505/S00425/top-country-music-winners-announced.htm

[nitpicker1]

Opera took 30 years to bloom

Home » Lifestyle » Magazine


Mon, 8 Jun 2015

Life has many stages, and some are the best, writes Mike Crowl.

On April 28, 2012, at the Mayfair Theatre, I watched an enthusiastic cast present the premiere of a musical I'd written.

Grimhilda! had taken about 30 years to get to this point.

Back in the late '70s I'd been musical director for A Statue for the Mayor, which featured young actors and singers.

Afterwards, I thought, I can write something like this, and produced 20 minutes of a ''children's opera''.

It duly went into the proverbial bottom drawer.

The computer age dawned, along with a marvellous music program called Sibelius.

I took out the opera, put it on the computer, and played it to an old friend of mine, who enthused about it.

But 20 minutes wasn't going to go anywhere, so back it went into the bottom drawer again.

Sometime later I met a woman who is now a very good friend.

I acted in some plays with her, and realised she had the knack of seeing the bigger picture in terms of scripts.

She and I started the children's opera from scratch.

Out went most of the original script and most of my favourite music!

For the next year we hammered away at getting the story to work, gradually honing it into a script.

I wrote a lot more music.

By this time I was a member of a theatre group, Stageworks.

They graciously agreed to become the show's production company.

An old friend said he'd direct it.

We advertised auditions, and found four great children to alternate the two main roles, along with a wonderful actress to play the frenetically nasty Grimhilda.

Other actor/singers joined us, some of them, in due course, becoming good friends.

Naturally, the process of getting the show on stage wasn't straightforward.

I learned a great deal about advertising, funding and shoestring budgets in the months leading up to the performances.

We found a musical director, pulled together an orchestra, and even managed to find an electronic keyboard to produce the essential celesta sound, after inquiring on Twitter.

An unassuming guy from a local church did an excellent job on the sound.

Other theatre groups helped with props.

Dunedin people are great!There was an added bonus that night.

My daughter, who was then living in Auckland, flew down to Dunedin (without telling me beforehand) to see the premiere.

My 6-year-old grandson's verdict on the show: ''That was awesome, Granddad.''

• Mike Crowl is a Dunedin writer, musician and composer.

http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/344711/opera-took-30-years-bloom

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

• Elephants dancing to JS Bach

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

A well known piece by Sergi Rachmaninoff for orchestra and piano....





Now how is this for sheer genius (and maybe a bit of virtuoso madness) with the same piece....

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Missing for 35 years, the stunning discovery of a stolen Stradivarius

By GEOFF EDGERS | 5:38AM EDT - Thursday, August 06, 2015


Roman Totenberg performs with the Stradivarius in the 1950s. The violin disappeared after a performance by Totenberg in 1980
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. — Photograph courtesy of the Totenberg family via NPR.

A RARE, 281-year-old Stradivarius violin stolen in 1980 from a beloved musician and teacher has been found, according to Nina Totenberg, the National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent and daughter of the late violinist Roman Totenberg.

The prized Strad, crafted by the famed Italian luthier in 1734, disappeared after a performance by Totenberg in 1980 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Later today, at the U.S. Attorney's office in New York City, the instrument will be returned to his three daughters. Nina Totenberg declined to speculate on its value, though a Stradivarius violin sold for more than $15 million in 2011.

Roman Totenberg, a Polish-American violinist who played with major orchestras and became a leading teacher in the Boston area, died in 2012 at the age of 101.

“The agent said to me, that's his one regret, that they didn't get it back in time for him to see it and play it again,” said Nina Totenberg. “He was practicing two weeks before he died in 2012. But you know, I like to think that somewhere, somehow, he and my mother know about this. And who knows, maybe they made this happen.”


Totenberg, the Polish born violinist and influential teacher continued to teach until his death at the age of 101.
 — Photograph: Bill Greene/The Boston Globe.


The Ames Stradivarius was recovered by the FBI in June. — Photograph courtesy of the FBI, New York.

Totenberg rarely, if ever, spoke about the Strad, his daughter says. It had been stolen from his office on a Thursday night after a concert on May 15th, 1980.

“It was like a death in the family,” said Totenberg, who will accompany her sisters, Jill and Amy, to today's ceremony. “You just move on. But I'm sure he thought about it.”

The story of the Strad's disappearance and recovery, as told by Totenberg in an interview, is a surreal tale that sounds like a cross between “The Thomas Crown Affair” and a Robert Ludlum novel. That night, Totenberg, 69 at the time, had performed a concert at the Longy School of Music, where he served as director. The instrument was taken from his office during a post-show reception. Totenberg's suspicions centered on a young musician, Philip Johnson, who he saw milling about after the performance. But Totenberg never had enough solid evidence to convince legal authorities to search the musician's home.

It took 35 years, but in the end, he was right. Johnson, who moved to California in the 1980s, died of cancer in 2011 at the age of 58. He left his ex-wife an instrument in a locked case. It wasn't until earlier this year, Totenberg said, that Johnson’s ex finally cracked the combination lock. She found the Stradivarius and sought an appraisal from an expert. The appraiser examined the violin, contacted the FBI Art Theft team and it was seized. The Totenbergs repaid the insurance company the $101,000 doled out back in 1980 so they could reclaim their father's violin. The sisters will sell the Strad, but not to just anybody.

“What we know is that we're not selling to somebody who is a collector unless it's with a specific purpose of being played by somebody,” Totenberg said. “We all agreed it has to be sold for the purpose of performance.”


A valuable Stradivarius violin, just recovered after being stolen in 1980 from Roman Totenberg, is on display as it is
presented to its late owner's daughters Jill, left, Nina and Amy Totenberg, at the Department of Justice in New York,
on Thursday. The antique Ames Stradivarius violin of 1734 was made by the Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari
of Cremona. — Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Washington Post.


Jason Masimore, assistant U.S. prosecutor and violinist, plays a violin as another valuable violin, a Stradivarius, just
recovered after being stolen in 1980 from Roman Totenberg, is prepared before it is presented to its late owner's
daughters at the Department of Justice in New York. — Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Washington Post.

Nobody knows how much the instrument will fetch. Totenberg bought it for about $15,000 in 1943.

To celebrate the recovery, the Totenberg sisters plan to meet for lunch after today's presentation. Every evening, around 6 p.m., Roman Totenberg would have a shot of vodka along with cheese and crackers.

“We drank a shot of vodka to him when we buried his ashes,” said Totenberg, “and we're going to do the same at lunch.”

• Geoff Edgers joined The Washington Post staff as national arts reporter in 2014. Before that, he worked as an arts reporter at The Boston Globe.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Roman Totenberg, world-renowned violinist and teacher, saw students until the day before his death

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/missing-for-35-years-the-stunning-discovery-of-stolen-stradivarius/2015/08/06/c458be58-3bf4-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

The piano: Keys of the future

By ANNE MIDGETTE | 8:41PM - Saturday, September 05, 2015


Steinway piano details. — Photograph: Scott Suchman/The Washington Post.

A PIANO, it's said, can emulate an entire orchestra: Its range extends from thunderous fortes to streams of liquid notes.

Yet the majority of people who talk about piano sound today are talking about the sound of a single manufacturer: Steinway.

For several generations of musicians and music lovers, Steinway has come to represent the acme of piano sound. Like Kleenex or Xerox, the name stands for a whole class of object. More than 98 percent of concert pianists choose to perform on Steinways, according to figures collected by, not surprisingly, Steinway itself.

In a field so reliant on nuance and subtlety as classical music, it's striking that a single manufacturer should hold such sway. Especially since the brand may not actually be better than its competitors.

“The problem is that each Steinway is so different,” says Joey Calderazzo, an acclaimed jazz pianist who recently became a Blüthner artist. “I have no idea what I'm getting.” He adds, “If you find a Steinway that's a good one, it's as good as any other piano out there. [But] one in 30 Steinways are good. And you have other piano brands that are actually kind of changing the game.”

There's the exclusive Fazioli, a still-new piano (established in 1981) emerging as a favorite of some world-famous artists. There's the CFX, with which Yamaha has cemented its ascendancy from mere workhorse status to one of Steinway's major competitors. And there are other brands with history as long as Steinway's: Bösendorfer, Steingraeber and Blüthner.

“If I could have any piano I wanted,” Calderazzo says, “Steinway would probably be six or seven on the list.”

He's not alone.

“When I play on Steinways, especially the American ones, I see what an unsubtle instrument it is,” the pianist Angela Hewitt told Canada's Globe and Mail in 2008. “So it makes me a little sad that so many pianists work on these instruments and think that it is the best, because there is so much more you can do with a piano.”


Pianos at Downtown Piano Works. — Photograph: Dan Shykind/Downtown Piano Works.

The supremacy of Steinway is no accident. It's the result of focused hard work: on the pianos and on the brand. The company aggressively woos artists and institutions with the strategy and tenacity, some say, of a car salesman. Appearing on the Steinway Web site as a Steinway artist is a valued imprimatur; straying from the fold can earn censure. (The pianist Garrick Ohlsson was banned from using Steinway instruments for a period in the 1970s after he praised Bösendorfer in public.) Being a Steinway school, the company argues, attracts donors and students.

This year, Wolf Trap became a Steinway institution after decades of association with Yamaha. “I've played Yamahas I love and hate, and Steinways I love and hate, and everyone else has, too,” says Kim Witman, the head of the Wolf Trap Opera. “I think from a branding perspective, a lot of folks on our board and folks here always would have loved to see us aligned with Steinway.”

Institutions that want to remain independent, such as Florida State University's College of Music, have to work hard to resist. The school believes that its students are best served by being exposed to a variety of instruments. Yet when Anne Garee, the director of the piano technology program, is trying out new pianos for possible purchase, she often sees evidence of Steinway’s power. She covers up the manufacturer's names when musicians are testing out the instruments; when she uncovers the names after they've played, some change their minds.

“If you walk on stage,” Garee says, “and see a Brand Something and a Steinway, no matter what, [most performers] will forgive the Steinway. People are not listening as freely and honestly as they could.”

The classical music field, with its devotion to maintaining traditions, has been fertile ground for the development of what Ohlsson has referred to as Steinway's “monoculture”. Like most of the instruments of the modern orchestra, the piano hasn't fundamentally changed since the late 19th century. Steinway's ascendancy dates from the same period, and every time the company changes hands — most recently in 2013, when it was purchased by the hedge fund Paulson & Co. for $512 million — there are ripples of anxiety in the classical music world.

Yet historically, Western piano technology has thrived on competition and innovation — witness the Classical period, when Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and their contemporaries were constantly trying out different instruments, and manufacturers were constantly adapting them. There were distinct schools of sound, the Viennese more subtle, the English more focused on power and force. Steinway, despite its German origins, represents the dominance of the English school: louder, more strings, a massive iron frame, hammers mounted not on the keys but on the body of the piano. England won: In the 20th century even the quintessentially Viennese Bösendorfer switched to the English action.

At the highest end of the piano spectrum, the differences between instruments are subtle: a $100,000 piano tends to make a pretty great sound, regardless of who built it. Indeed, connoisseurs may overstate the differences: A recent set of studies demonstrated that even soloists couldn't always distinguish between a Stradivarius and a new violin.

“Some people might argue that there are categories of tone that are particular to brands,” says FSU’s Garee, “but it's been my experience that the stereotypical sounds have not always been there. I've played Yamahas that sounded like Schimmels, Schimmels that sounded like Hamburg Steinways; I've heard so many that defy the rules. Unless you're playing dozens and dozens of pianos, most of us don't have the perspective” to identify which manufacturer is “best”.

And few pianists actually test out a wide range of concert-quality instruments. Soheil Nasseri, a 37-year-old concert pianist originally from Rockville, Maryland, who had to contend with a terrible Yamaha at a recent recital at Strathmore's new hall, AMP, is deeply committed to Steinways. “Generally speaking,” he says “the Steinway is the only piano that has the kind of color possibilities, consistently, that allow an artist to make music on the very highest level.” But, “Having just said that,” he adds, “I have to say I played on a Bösendorfer in Germany that was as good as the best Steinways I've ever played on.” He admits he hasn't tried out many other brands.


A detail shot of a Steinway piano. — Photograph: Scott Suchman/The Washington Post.

Whatever the brand, selling pianos hasn't gotten any easier. The recession in 2008 sparked a downturn in piano sales, and thus in production in Steinway's U.S. factory, and the company left its historic flagship building in Manhattan at the end of last year and moved to new headquarters. Yet it has prevailed: Its New York branch is the only major American piano manufacturer left.

But other high-end manufacturers are working to make themselves more appealing. Several leading brands have top-of-the-line instruments that represent decades of work at developing prototypes, whether animating an existing line, such as the Yamaha CFX or the Shigeru Kawai, or creating a new one, such as Fazioli.

There have certainly been a number of innovations in recent years. Some Faziolis have four pedals rather than the usual three; the Australian firm Stuart & Sons makes instruments with up to 102 keys, 14 more than the 88-key norm. Some Steinway artists have been trying to push the envelope, under Steinway's aegis: the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard helped spark the development of a louvered, transparent lid, known as “Sound Mirrors”, while earlier this year Daniel Barenboim unveiled a new piano, designed with the builder Chris Maene, which is supposed to meld the power of a modern concert grand with some of the sound qualities of a fortepiano, largely thanks to the arrangement the strings in parallel rather than in diagonal criss-cross. Also this year, the Hungarian pianist Gergely Boganyi unveiled a futuristic-looking instrument made partly of carbon fiber.

The real game-changers in the piano market, though, are innovations in electronic and digital sound — and here Steinway has been playing catch-up. Yamaha's Disklavier is a concert instrument that doubles as a contemporary player piano, able to reproduce a live performance without an actual player touching the keys. The same manufacturer's Clavinova is a high-end electronic upright with concert-piano action and sampled sound that seamlessly blends with acoustic instruments — but can be set to be heard over headphones.

“Steinway no longer has technical innovations; it has no patents,” says Dan Shykind, the admittedly biased co-owner of a Yamaha dealership, Downtown Piano Works in Frederick, Maryland, which regularly presents world-class artists in its tiny concert hall. “Yamaha has the market cornered on technology.”

Even a passionate Steinway adherent like Nasseri agrees.

“More important than our whole conversation about the Steinways being great in the concert hall and doing magical music-making,” says Nasseri, “is that Yamaha has invented the silent system.” He adds, “Now you can turn off the sound altogether and play the piano in the middle of the night and the neighbors won't hear it, but it sounds like you're in a concert hall. That is just a revolution. If anybody is making strides in pianos, it's Yamaha.”

Whether they're fans or detractors of Steinway — and there are many of both — top artists are looking not for bells and whistles but the inspiration that comes from playing on a superb instrument, superbly prepared by a knowledgable technician. And inspiration, of course, is as individual as a player — and as a top-of-the-line piano.

“When the piano responds on all dynamic levels, from pianissimo to sforzando and fortissimo, and gives the pianist tonal palette, you never want to leave that piano bench,” says Garee. “It's when that particular instrument went together, when all the stars went together, material science, geometry, engineering, and the resilience of the piano hammer to respond to its soundboard. When all that comes together, it doesn't matter what brand it is. It's magic.”

• Anne Midgette came to The Washington Post in 2008, when she consolidated her various cultural interests under the single title of chief classical music critic. She blogs at The Classical Beat. View her archive.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Pianos that strike a chord with adherents

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/the-piano-keys-of-the-future/2015/09/03/9bbbbfee-354c-11e5-94ce-834ad8f5c50e_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

• tenThing

[nitpicker1]

Dame Malvina retires from stage

Created 27/11/15
 
One of New Zealand's top opera singers is bowing out after 50 years on the stage. Dame Malvina Major says she will now spend her time helping the next generation, including Kiwi group Sol3 Mio.

The 72-year-old, once crowned New Zealand Entertainer of the Year 1992, said her days were now spent teaching at Waikato University and travelling overseas visiting top music institutions.

"My time is now devoted to the young people," she said on Newstalk ZB this morning


Dame Malvina admitted the shift from singing on stage to teaching was different.

[Alicat]

Dame Malvina retires from stage

Created 27/11/15
 
One of New Zealand's top opera singers is bowing out after 50 years on the stage. Dame Malvina Major says she will now spend her time helping the next generation, including Kiwi group Sol3 Mio.

The 72-year-old, once crowned New Zealand Entertainer of the Year 1992, said her days were now spent teaching at Waikato University and travelling overseas visiting top music institutions.

"My time is now devoted to the young people," she said on Newstalk ZB this morning


Dame Malvina admitted the shift from singing on stage to teaching was different.

Dame Malvina - one of the greats of the NZ music world. She has already contributed much to the up and coming opera singers and is a great role model.

[Alicat]

A friend and I went to Handel's Messiah on Saturday night at the Michael Fowler Centre conducted by Nicholas McGegan. It was magnificent, The choir was made up of singers from numerous local choirs and were quite frankly the very best choir I have seen live in a Messiah performance. I found out afterwards when I spoke to their Chorus Master, that they had had two rehearsals before their rehearsal with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Nicholas McGegan was brilliant - thoroughly entertaining and his pre-concert talk was a load of fun. Many Conductors find it necessary to turn the work into a slow durge, however McGegan took the entire work at a fast pace and it made it a very exciting performance.

One thing really irked me though. After the overture, first aria and chorus, the doors opened to let the late-comers come in and take their seats - right up the front of the concert hall. While the walked to their seats - disturbing the packed out auditorium - the bass soloist and conductor stood there waiting so as to begin the next aria. The performance was being recorded so that made for a double shame. Then, about 10 minutes later someone's cellphone rang. The offender let it ring. A few moments later it rang a second time.

Personally, I would not have let the late-comers in until interval.

Irks aside, the whole work was magnificent and the entire audience on their feet for a standing ovation at the end was thoroughly deserved.

Bravo NZSO and the wonderful conductor and soloists.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

John Button seemed enthralled with Saturday evening's performance of the Messiah, judging by his critique piece published in today's Dominion Post.

He stated it was the best performance of Handel's Messiah he had ever attended and the entire article gushed praise for the conductor, the orchestra, the choir and the soloists.

I imagine John Button would have attended a huge number of Messiah performances over the decades.

[Alicat]

John Button seemed enthralled with Saturday evening's performance of the Messiah, judging by his critique piece published in today's Dominion Post.

He stated it was the best performance of Handel's Messiah he had ever attended and the entire article gushed praise for the conductor, the orchestra, the choir and the soloists.

I imagine John Button would have attended a huge number of Messiah performances over the decades.

I have also attended numerous performances of the Messiah as well as playing in the orchestra. It was the best Messiah I have been to as well. Considering we went to see Teddy Tahu Rhodes as bass. He was replaced by someone else much to our dismay but the replacement did a damn fine job. The Conductor moved around so much his feet were actually off the ground on a number of occasions. He was pretty much dancing!

[nitpicker1]

Sung in "The Tempest" ?

From a poem by William Shakespeare



 

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Ivory, at the tip of a complex issue for traveling orchestra members

By T.R. GOLDMAN | 10:20AM EST - Friday, January 01, 2015


Musician Joseph Grimmer's bassoon previously had a piece of ivory attached, but because of the recent ban on ivory made from elephant tusks,
the traveling musician changed the ivory to plastic. — Photo: Betsy Hansen/The Washington Post.

IT'S a mere quarter of a gram of ivory — about  1/100  of an ounce — embedded at the bottom tip of many violin bows. But because it comes from the tusks of the African elephant, its presence — often on the bow tips of viola, cello and bass players as well — has become a major headache for U.S. orchestras and soloists leaving the country for tours overseas.

Overlapping state, federal and international rules designed to stop the horrific poaching of the world's largest land animal have resulted in a regulatory web that has enveloped the rarefied world of the symphony orchestra, the tiny clique of artisans who make bows and the thousands of professional string players across the country. (Then there's the odd bassoonist, whose instrument sometimes has an ivory band around the bell, and a subset of bagpipers who perform on instruments with more than half a dozen ivory parts.)

In a classic Washington case of unintended consequences, the Obama administration's widely lauded efforts in the past two years to impose a near-total ban on ivory importation has ensnared not only classical musicians, but also builders of pipe organs, guitar players, cane collectors, antiques dealers and even members of the National Rifle Association who collect, trade and sell weapons with ivory rifle stocks or ivory pistol grips.

But it is arguably classical musicians, especially those who travel outside the United States for concerts, auditions and even teaching gigs, who have squawked the loudest, and in a large number of cases have changed out the offending ivory components in their instruments — or simply decided to leave behind that $100,000, ivory-tipped, early-19th-century François Tourte bow.

Navigating the guidelines

No musician wants to be seen as supporting the poaching of African elephants, whose population as recently as 1979 was more than a million but is believed to have collapsed to below half of that. It's just that few, if any, musicians think their ivory-tipped cello bows are contributing to the poaching crisis. “I'm a big animal freak. I think what [conservationists are] doing is wonderful; shut these poachers down,” said Lewis Lipnick, the National Symphony Orchestra's contrabassoonist. “But no one is going to kill elephants for bows or bassoon bell rings.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has the job of enforcing the ivory import ban, acknowledges as much. Guidelines laid out by Fish and Wildlife, which is part of the Department of the Interior, “provide adequate assurances” that taking a musical instrument in and out of the country “would not contribute to either the illegal trade in elephant ivory or the illegal killing of elephants.”

The catch, of course, is following those guidelines, which involves walking a fine line between two federal statutes — the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the African Elephant Conservation Act of 1989 — and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES.

“The whole realm of ivory is one of the more complicated areas of wildlife law,” said Craig Hoover, a former officer at the World Wildlife Fund and now chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Management Authority and the government's point person on ivory regulations.

And it's been made even more complicated by efforts to carve out exceptions so that string musicians can, for example, travel with ivory-tipped bows. “We've created some additional complexity explicitly to accommodate certain activities,” Hoover said, in what is certainly a bureaucratic understatement.


An 18th century violin bow adorned with an ivory tip. — Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post.

First, a musician who wants to go abroad and whose instrument contains ivory needs to obtain a CITES musical-instrument certificate, or “passport”. To do that, the musician must provide proof that the African elephant that yielded the ivory used in the instrument was “removed from the wild” before February 26th, 1976, the date African elephants were listed in one of the three CITES appendixes. Depending on the pedigree of the musical instrument, it may be possible to obtain a date of manufacture from the maker. But often, it is not.

“I've got five drum sets, and some of my drums have ivory inlays,” said Raymond Hair Jr., the international president of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents about 85,000 musicians in the United States and Canada. “I don't have the receipts for any of them. No musician keeps that stuff for 30 to 40 years.”

Jumping through hoops

But even if you can prove that your ivory-tipped viola bow was made well before the 1976 cutoff date, “that's the least burdensome part of the process,” said Heather Noonan, the chief lobbyist for the League of American Orchestras.

In fact, the challenge only becomes more complicated. Musicians traveling with a CITES passport have to leave and re-enter the country through one of 18 U.S. ports designated for animal material, which includes not just ivory but, for example, also the hawksbill sea turtle — another protected species from which material is harvested for use on the grips of bows. “If you have a tortoiseshell frog, an ivory tip and a whalebone winding, I'd say, ‘Bring something else’,” said Christopher Germain, a Philadelphia-based violin-maker, referring to the baleen whalebone thread that is sometimes wound around the bow grip.

Indeed, that's exactly what happened when Germain spent three days with the National Symphony Orchestra in early December assessing some 70 violins, violas, cellos and basses, and 110 bows. The orchestra is leaving in early February for a European tour.

“We found four or five bows with whalebone or tortoiseshell, and that's just too difficult to permit,” said orchestra manager Cynthia Steele. “I was told you would have to identify the actual subspecies of whale used, and the tortoiseshell bow would have to have been purchased before 1973.”

Otherwise, Steele said, the NSO will be applying for CITES permits for the 46 bows its members are taking with ivory tips, the 16 bows with white oyster, which, although not a banned substance, must still be declared, and the 21 bows with water-monitor-lizard skin on the grip.

“People are relieved there is a process now, and they can take these 46 bows with them.” Steele said. “A few years ago, a lot of people were worried they'd need to get a new bow.”

Of course, if your violin happens to be older — 200- and 300-year-old violins are not uncommon in major symphony orchestras — and has any Brazilian rosewood, a CITES-listed plant species, you must pass through one of 15 U.S. ports where Department of Agriculture inspectors check for endangered plants. And if your bow has ivory and your violin contains Brazilian rosewood, there are just nine U.S. ports with both Fish and Wildlife and Agriculture Department inspectors.

And that's not all. If you are not traveling through a designated port between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., you have to pay a $105 overtime fee for an inspector to come in early or stay late. And you have to email the Declaration for Importation or Exportation of Fish or Wildlife form to the Fish and Wildlife port office 48 hours ahead of time.


An 18th century violin bow adorned with ivory. — Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post.

‘You feel like a criminal’

It was this sort of hassle that led bassoonist Joseph Grimmer, whose July 22nd post in his blog lays out in detail every step of the process, to finally have the ivory bell ring on his 1956 bassoon, made by the venerable German company Heckel, removed and replaced with plastic.

“The whole thing feels like, well, you've bought this instrument and played it for decades and then you find out there's contraband on it,” said Grimmer, the principal bassoonist at the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, referring to the ivory ring. “You feel like a criminal. It's very bizarre.”

But he said it also felt wrong to damage the physical integrity of a nearly 60-year-old instrument. “When I was at Heckel, I asked if they did any ivory removals, and they seemed very offended.”

The complexity of the rules and the vagaries of the inspection process have scared off some musicians from traveling with bows that do not even have elephant ivory but a widely used and perfectly legal substitute: ivory from long-dead woolly mammoths uncovered by hunters or the thawing of the Arctic permafrost.

Although it is possible to tell the two materials apart by examining the angle of the cross-hatching on elephant and mammoth ivory — the so-called Schreger lines — violist Kristen Linfante said she could never be sure that the Fish and Wildlife inspector on duty would make the correct determination, although the onus is on the inspector to prove any suspicion that the substance is from a regulated species rather than from a mammoth. As a result, she noted, when her Baroque ensemble, the Cleveland-based Apollo's Fire, made its debut this summer at the BBC Proms, its most important show ever, “I had to play on a $100 Baroque bow.”

Right now, there is a lengthy, proposed rule by the Fish and Wildlife Service that, when the final version is released sometime this year, should at least make the current rules permanent. So controversial is the subject that Hoover says more than a million comments were received, most of them robo-comments, but at least a few thousand of which were substantive.

The League of American Orchestras said the best solution would be a “personal effects” exemption for musical instruments sent by cargo, although it's unclear whether Fish and Wildlife agrees. Meanwhile, says the league's lobbyist Noonan, “folks just want to know how they can get through this process so their tours aren't jeopardized.”

The complexity of the ivory rules has even led some foreign orchestras to question whether it's worth a tour to the United States, says longtime New York bowmaker Yung Chin, who is president of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. Some may have been spooked by the 2014 seizure at Kennedy Airport of seven bows belonging to members of the Budapest Festival Orchestra because they had what Fish and Wildlife officials believed were ivory tips.

Although the bows were returned when the musicians left the United States, “some very famous orchestras have openly said: ‘Is it worth it to come to the U.S., to come to New York?’” says Chin. In 2012, according to the league, foreign guest artists were hired by U.S. orchestras to play in the United States more than 1,200 times.

“I don't know one person in my trade is in favor of the hunting and killing of elephants, I personally think it's abominable,” he added. “But people should think about the sustainability of the arts as well.”

• T.J. Goldman is a freelance writer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/ivory-at-the-tip-of-a-complex-issue-for-traveling-orchestra-members/2015/12/30/fb0c818e-8a49-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from Fairfax NZ....

• An orchestra in each hemisphere

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from San Francisco Classical Voice....

• Vallejo Symphony Taps Marc Taddei for Music Director


Read more on Vallejo Symphony's Facebook page.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Yet another Samoan, baritone Benson Wilson, has won NZ's premiere singing competition, the Lexus Song Quest (once known as the Mobil Song Quest) and is now off to London to further his opera-singing career.

They might have to look at renaming it the Samoan Song Quest at this rate.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

A FULL HOUSE at Wellington's Michael Fower Centre auditorium on Saturday evening....





A couple of reviews of the concert....

• Concert Review: Orchestra Wellington, Mozart 1791 (by John Button — The Dominion Post)

• Orchestra Wellington, Orpheus Choir, clarinet in brilliant Mozartian form (by Lindis Taylor — Middle-C)

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Dominion Post....

Concert Review: Orchestra Wellington, To The Memory of An Angel

Marc Taddei drew some of their finest playing out of Orchestra Wellington.

By JOHN BUTTON | 12:03PM - Sunday, 11 September 2016


Violinist Wilma Smith was superb and uncompromising during Saturday's
Orchestra Wellington concert.

• To The Memory of an Angel

• Orchestra Wellington, conducted by Marc Taddei with Wilma Smith (violin).

• Music by Mahler, Berg and Schubert.

• Michael Fowler Centre, September 10th.

• Reviewed by John Button.

A FAMOUS VIOLINIST once said, “I will never play the Berg Concerto in concert. I might record it but live I would seem like an under powered incompetent.”

Of course, this important violin concerto is played in concert, but not all that often, and it is true that the violin has little opportunity for display and is frequently drowned beneath the orchestra; it is a subtle work full of quotes and references, with its  memory of the death of the young Manon Gropius not exactly worn heart on sleeve.

It was played superbly and uncompromisingly by Wilma Smith (it is worth noting that her teacher Louis Krasner commissioned the work), and in an act of typical Marc Taddei imagination, the Wellington Youth Choir sang the Bach chorale that Berg quotes in the concerto's second section.

Adding point to the concerto, it was preceded by the Adagio from Mahler's uncompleted Tenth Symphony (Manon Gropius was the daughter of his widow Alma and the architect Walter Gropius) . It is a powerful piece that illustrates, in graphic fashion, Mahler's depression at the state of his health and his wife's affair with Gropius. The orchestra might have been a touch underpowered in the strings in this work, and took a little time to warm up, but it was still very well done.

The concert concluded with Schubert's final symphony — the Ninth — composed in 1825, a year after Beethoven's Choral Symphony. Like most of Schubert's works, it was not performed until after his death, and only after Schumann discovered the work. It is a huge piece — with all repeats it can last nearly an hour — and I have heard many a dreary performance, but Taddei gave us a reading of great urgency and vitality. He removed some of the repeats — very sensibly — and drew from Orchestra Wellington some of their finest playing.

All sections were razor sharp, drawing the obvious conclusion that with such imaginative planning and the increasing quality of the playing, these concerts thoroughly deserve the large audiences they are attracting.

• Orchestra Wellington (website)

• Orchestra Wellington (Facebook)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/84135911

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Dominion Post....

Concert Review: Orchestra Wellington, Nutcracker

A terrific combination of imaginative programming and excellent playing.

By JOHN BUTTON | 8:04PM - Sunday, 16 October 2016


Michael Houstoun was completely inside Bartok's world during Orchestra Wellington's
concert on Saturday night, with a masterly account of the piano part.

• Nutcracker

• Orchestra Wellington, conducted by Marc Taddei and Vincent Hardaker with Michael Houstoun (piano) and Arohanui Strings.

• Music by Berlioz, Bartok and Tchaikovsky.

• Michael Fowler Centre, October 15th.

CLEVER MARKETING and Taddei's homespun approach to his audience has achieved highly impressive attendance numbers; numbers that are bound to be maintained with both imaginative programming and excellent playing.

This concert continued the trend as, in a continuation of this year's theme, we heard both Bartok's final completed concerto and a large chunk of Tchaikovsky's last ballet — The Nutcracker. And both were exceptionally well played. Bartok's Third Piano Concerto is amongst his most popular works, with its autumnal poetry a surprise to those who had expected a more abrasive creation. And Michael Houstoun was completely inside Bartok's world with a masterly account of the piano part — few pianists judge the deceptively simple slow movement as well as he did — and the orchestra under Taddei gave him highly sensitive support.

The Nutcracker — the Second Act — was superbly alive. The playing was immensely assured, with all sections showing out, but one has to acknowledge that Taddei's experience as a ballet conductor was the telling factor (that makes next year's theme of the world of Diaghilev even more tantalising) and the large audience responded with great enthusiasm.

The concert opened with the annual visit by the youngsters of the Arohanui Strings, that wonderful Sistema-inspired programme run by Alison Eldredge, and together with some of their tutors from Orchestra Wellington they played a small medley to the delight and appreciation of the audience. After this, Vincent Hardaker, the orchestra's assistant conductor, led Orchestra Wellington in a bracing performance of Berlioz' Beatrice and Benedict Overture.

• Orchestra Wellington (website)

• Orchestra Wellington (Facebook)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/85398070