News Updates (12/18/03)
Don’t be looking for the Ciompi Quartet during the holidays, unless you happen to be in China. That’s where the Duke-based ensemble is spending part of the winter break. The foursome – and pianist Jane Hawkins – arrived in Shanghai on the evening of December 9, and they have been spending full days after recovering from jet lag. Those days include masterclasses (at the Shanghai Conservatory, on December 11, and in Guangzhou, on December 22) and concerts in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ninpo, Beijing, and Guangzhou. The December 9 concert was to have been televised, complete. The quartet’s repertoire for the tour includes Erwin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces for String Quartet, Zhou Long’s Chinese Folk Songs, and Schumann’s Piano Quintet. The travelers will be in Hong Kong on December 23 and then return to the United States. Triangle residents will be able to hear the Schulhoff here, at the NC Museum of Art, on January 11. See our calendar for details.
The Asheville Symphony Orchestra has announced its short-list of finalists for the position of Music Director. The candidates are Daniel Meyer, Assistant Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Mickelthwate, Assistant Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Timothy Hankewich, Resident Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony. The finalists will lead concerts in Asheville early next season before one is selected to replace incumbent Music Director Robert Hart Baker, who leaves the ASO podium at the end of the current season. Meyer will be guest conductor for the ASO’s Masterworks concert on September 18, 2004, Mickelthwate directs on October16, and Hankewich appears on November 20. Tea-leaf readers will note that Mickelthwate is also a finalist for the Winston-Salem Symphony’s conductor sweepstakes and that one of the candidates not selected as a finalist by the NCS was the senior conductor of Hankewich’s orchestra in Kansas City. For the ASO’s complete press release, see http://www.ashevillesymphony.org/pressrelease103103.html [inactive 4/04].
Former UNC professor and pianist Michael Zenge is halfway through an “Absolutely Amadeus” series at the University of New Mexico, where he is presenting all the keyboard sonatas of Mozart. CVNCers who may be planning a trip west may wish to make note of the remaining concerts – December 21 and January 25. For more information, see http://www.unm.edu/~finearts/events/calendar/dec.htm#december [inactive 12/04] and January’s schedule, when it is posted.
Duke-based composer Stephen Jaffe’s new Cello Concerto will be premiered by David Hardy and the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. The premiere performances are scheduled for the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall on January 8 at 7:00 p.m. and January 9-10 at 8:00 p.m. For tickets or more information, see http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showEvent&event=NECSG [inactive 10/06]. And for a preview, published by The Washington Post , see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49846-2004Jan2.html .
Congratulations to Scott Hill, director of various choirs at the Durham School of the Arts, who has received one of the Durham Arts Council’s Emerging Artists Grants. Hill is retiring at the end of this school year, but she’s hardly the retiring type; she’ll use her grant to launch a new career directing a Durham children’s choir.
[Updated 1/4/04]
Compiled by John W. Lambert
