News Updates (1/25/04)
 
After a substantial gap in its broadcasting activity – the gap covers most of Gerhardt Zimmermann’s long tenure as Music Director – the NC Symphony will be heard again on the radio in our state, thanks to a deal arranged with WDAV, Davidson’s NPR station (at 89.9 on the FM dial). The eight-program series, which begins February 8, encompasses concerts recorded in Meymandi Concert Hall during the 2002-3 season. These will be posted in our Western calendar in due course and listed as well in our Triangle calendar, since the performances will also be streamed online. Meanwhile, the programs are posted at WDAV’s website, at http://www.wdav.org/nav1024.cfm?cat=2&subcat=109 [inactive 8/07].
 
According to a 1/18 report in the Winston-Salem Journal, three artists currently involved with the Fletcher Opera Institute at the NCSA have won the NC District Auditions of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions held 1/10 in Charlotte. Baritone Krassen Karagiozov, soprano Emily Amber Newton, and mezzo-soprano Dawn Pierce, all students of the NCSA’s Marilyn Taylor, will now move on to the Southeast Region Finals in Atlanta, on 2/22.
 
A news report from Cleveland’s Plain Dealer reveals that Robert Chumbley, President and CEO of the Arts Council of Winston-Salem, will leave North Carolina as of April 1 to head the Cleveland Opera. The story is at http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/
1074854179256801.xml?earos [inactive 7/05] and also in http://triad.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2004/01/19/daily38.html [inactive 2/06].
 
Former NC Symphony Associate Concertmaster Jeff Thayer has been named Concertmaster of the San Diego Symphony, effective July 1. San Diego’s orchestra is led by Jahja Ling, who was one of the finalists for MD of the NCS.

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News Updates (1/18/04)
 
Death of Brynar Mehl, Ballet Master of The Asheville Ballet
 
Ann Dunn, Director of the Asheville Ballet, has reported the 1/15/04 death of Brynar Mehl, Ballet Master of the company, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, following a heart attack. Friends will gather this afternoon (1/18/04) at 4:00 p.m. at the Fletcher School of Dance to remember him with dance, music, poetry and food.
 
Dunn writes, “Brynar Mehl, dancer, teacher and choreographer, was born in the Great Lakes Region and raised in Southern California where his professional dancing career began under Anna Sokolow. In New York City, he danced for her with the Manhattan Festival Ballet, under Alica Alonso in her Giselle and Coppelia , and with Charles Weidman at New York City Opera.
 
“Mehl’s lifelong teacher and mentor was Margaret Craske, from whom he acquired a sense of the great value of teaching, and with whom he shared an appreciation of the work of Meher Baba. He met Baba in 1962 and considered that the turning point in his life. Other profound influences were choreographer Anthony Tudor and ideokinesiologist Andre Bernard.
 
“Mehl danced with Merce Cunningham [and his] Dance Company in many signature works such as Rainforest and Winterbranch . He created roles in several pieces and was given one of Cunningham’s own solos. He toured three continents with the company and helped Cunningham set the direction and establish standards for dance on film and tape in the landmark Westbeth Video Project. He is one of two people credited with bringing the Cunningham technique to Europe.
 
“Mehl also danced in musicals at Lincoln Center, on Broadway, with Agnes de Mille, and in Hollywood with Donald O’Connor, Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan and Perry Como shows.
 
“Mehl taught and created choreography for schools and companies all over the world, from San Francisco to Paris, to Alaska, to London, to Brussels, to Vermont, to Texas. At the time of his death he was Ballet Master for The Asheville Ballet and taught at Fletcher School of Dance, The International Ballet Academy, and Western Carolina University.
 
“His friends, colleagues and students mourn the loss of a gentle and noble soul, a consummate artist, a most generous teacher, and a beloved amie .
 
“A service of memory and celebration of Brynar Mehl’s life will be held at Fletcher School of Dance this Sunday January 18 at 4:00 p.m. Call 828/258-1028 for directions. For information on a gathering of the Meher Baba community, call 828/251-1611.”

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More on the NC Symphony’s New Music Director
 
by Marvin J. Ward
 
In a press release posted January 14 [linked from the news item immediately below], the NC Symphony announced that the three-year-long search for a replacement for retired Music Director Gerhardt Zimmermann has been cut short, the position offered to Grant Llewellyn, and accepted by him. This was the product of the general enthusiasm of the musicians and the listeners to his two guest conducting appearances in March and November 2003. The three remaining finalists who were scheduled to reappear this spring will be offered the option of canceling if they choose.
 
It would appear to this writer, who heard both of the aforementioned concerts, that this is a musical match made in heaven. This bold action itself speaks volumes about the search committee, the orchestra’s players, and the candidate. Llewellyn demonstrated vividly his charm, class, and charisma in addressing the audience on both of these occasions, and the musicians with whom I spoke all lauded these qualities when talking about working with him in rehearsal and performance, in addition to his equally evident musicianship and musicality, of course. Llewellyn’s decision shows a great deal about his character as well, and makes the clear statement that what matters most to him is high quality music making rather than high profile appointments. The NC Symphony produces fine music – the colors that it produced in Debussy’s La Mer in the latter of these performances under his baton springs immediately to mind. Its players are fine musicians both individually and collectively, and Llewellyn has recognized this and decided that he would like to associate himself with them. It is not unlikely that after he has been in the Tar Heel State a few years, the position of Music Director of the NC Symphony will in fact become a high profile appointment. It was courageous of the search committee to make this decision and risk offending the three remaining finalists, all of whom already have high profile appointments. We hope and trust that they will not be; surely they understand the need for the right match.
 
It leaves the major issue of the transatlantic commute that I raised in my overview of the first nine candidates who conducted the orchestra during the 2002-3 season (and which is now in our archives) to overcome. A solution has been found for the first transitional year, to allow Llewellyn to keep prior commitments, having him spend only six weeks in NC, and increasing this to 14-16 weeks in the subsequent seasons of his four-year renewable contract. Nonetheless, the NC Symphony and its patrons across the large state are accustomed to having a music director who resides in Raleigh, and Llewellyn will not do so because of his family, which will remain in Wales. Having a local residence is not quite the same, and the NC Symphony administration, the musicians, the patrons, and the NC and Triangle music world will need to make a significant adjustment in mentality to accommodate this.
 
Llewellyn will also keep his other US appointment, held since 2001, as Music Director of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society. This is not a “high-profile” appointment, either, but it is one he clearly enjoys, and he has already greatly revived that very old organization in quality, enthusiasm, and reputation. This writer has recently relocated to Northampton, MA; indeed, the November performance was one of the last NCS concerts he heard before leaving the Triangle in early December. Across Massachusetts, Llewellyn is a known, respected, and loved name and person in the musical world. He was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood in 1985 and assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra 1990-93. The NC Symphony offer was made to him by its President and CEO David Chambless Worters in Boston immediately after a Handel and Haydn Society performance of Handel’s Messiah , an hour’s worth of excerpts from which were broadcast statewide (perhaps nationally?) on public radio. People up here will be rooting for his success down there, to be sure. This writer believes success is pretty much assured, and regrets having to participate in it vicariously.
Editor’s note : Llewellyn’s NC concerts have not been formally announced by his new orchestra’s marketing department, but the dates and programs for his pending Raleigh appearances, and the names and programs of the season’s guest conductors, are posted at the NCS’ website, at http://www.ncsymphony.org/subscriptions/concerts.cfm?id=1 [inactive 10/05, and surely the rest of the 2004-5 events will be revealed soon. Readers who are eager to hear Llewellyn before September may check the websites of his other orchestras – in Boston and in Wales – or travel to the Roundtop Festival, in Texas, for a June 19 concert of Mozart and Elgar with the Texas Festival Orchestra.

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News Updates (1/15/04)
 
Llewellyn Gets the Nod
 
As noted in Jeffrey Rossman’s review of the NC Symphony’s January 8 concert in Chapel Hill , our state orchestra has appointed Grant Llewellyn its new Music Director, cutting short its lengthy search process and leaving the fate of concerts scheduled to be led by the other three “finalists” – Andrea Quinn (2/12-14), Jahja Ling (3/4-6), and Roberto Minczuk (4/15-17) – up in the air, as of this writing. The announcement was splashed all over the commercial media, nationwide. Readers who missed it may read the “official” press release, at http://www.ncsymphony.org/news/detail.cfm?nid=92 [inactive 9/06], or visit a fancier page, heavy on the graphics, at http://www.ncsymphony.org/intro.cfm [inactive 9/06] . CVNC ‘s reviews of Llewellyn’s concerts here are at https://cvnc.org/… and https://cvnc.org/…, and a review of his May 2003 performance with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra is at https://cvnc.org/….

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Arts Leadership Crisis in the UK
 
A 1/14 article in The Independent (London) notes the “trend towards foreigners taking the best jobs in British art” and describes a £1m program intended to remedy that situation. The story is at http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=480717 [inactive 6/05].

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Spoleto 2004 & Short Takes (1/1 & 1/3/04)
 
Rare and Diverse Operas Highlight the 2004 Spoleto USA Season
 
by William Thomas Walker
 
Not for the first time, choice and unusual opera selections dominate the announced schedule of the 28th annual Spoleto Festival USA, running May 28-June 13 in historic Charleston, S.C. For the first time in its history, the festival will repeat an opera, Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos , in an ideal venue, the faux-Georgian Dock Street Theatre. We still vividly recall their 1984 performance of this connoisseur’s opera in this jewel box, where Dawn Upshaw made her professional debut, as Echo. This new production will reunite Spoleto Festival Music Director for Opera and Orchestra Emmanuel Villaume, director Charles Roubaud, and Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova, who entranced 2003 festival audiences with a stunning Lakmé . Petrova will sing the showy coloratura role of Zerbinetta. Costumes will be by Katia Duflot with sets by Jean Noel Lavesvre.
 
The story of Romeo and Juliet inspired some of Bellini’s most tender and elegiac melodies. Conductor Silvio Barbato, director Paul Curran, and designer Kevin Knight promise “a smartly updated production” of his I Capuleti e i Montecchi . The role of Giulietta will be sung by soprano Hoo-Ryoung Hwang, whom we found pleasing in last year’s Lakmé. Mezzo-soprano Theodora Hanslowe will sing the role of Romeo. Let us pray that the “update” won’t be too jarringly anachronistic!
 
For the truly adventurous with both time and money to spare, there will a presentation of two complete cycles of the Chinese opera, The Peony Pavilion, by Tang Xianzu. The press release notes that “of the 300 forms of opera in China, Kunju is considered the most elegant and most lyrical to Western ears. One of the great Chinese cultural treasures, The Peony Pavilion is a true Kunju masterpiece. Written over 400 years ago, this epic tale of a love more powerful than death magically unfolds over six episodes, encapsulating all corners of Ming society from invaders to bandits and scholars to courtesans. Director Chen Shi-Zheng’s spectacular production features over 160 characters, more than 600 hand-embroidered costumes, and an 1,800-gallon pond filled with ducks, goldfish, and water plants! Qian Yi, who mesmerized Spoleto audiences in the 2002 performance of Ghost Lovers (also directed by Chen Shi-Zheng), stars as the young maiden Du Liniang. This will be the final time this production will be performed. It has received rapturous press from New York to Paris.
 
The unfailing heart of the festival, the Bank of America Chamber Music Series, is back, featuring three performances of eleven programs. Held in Dock Street Theatre, it will again be hosted by its founder/director, Charles Wadsworth, who will be honored in a separate 75th birthday gala on June 1. Among the returning favorites are the St. Lawrence String Quartet, clarinetist Todd Palmer, flutist Tara O’Connor, violinists Chee-Yun and Corey Cerovsek, violist Daniel Philips, cellists Andrés Díaz and Alisa Weilerstein, pianist Wendy Chen, and soprano Courtenay Budd; other artists will include the much-admired young pianist Jeremey Denk.
 
Emmanuel Villaume will direct two concerts featuring the enthusiastic young players of the Spoleto Festival Orchestra. The June 2 program appears rather conventional from a critic’s point of view – Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and a short work by Canadian composer R. Murray Schaefer, “4:40,” featuring the St. Lawrence String Quartet. The second concert, not to be missed because of the unique acoustics of Memminger Auditorium, will be a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, on June 9. Festival concerts in this venue have always been outstanding because of the closeness between the audience and the performers.
 
Features of the five concert Intermezzi series will be a solo piano recital and a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 with Andrew von Oeyen, another piano recital by Louis Lortie, and Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” coupled with Schubert’s Fifth Symphony.
 
More “cutting edge” music can be heard on John Kennedy’s four-concert series, Music in Time.
 
In addition to its usual two concerts in the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul, the Westminster Choir will feature works by Ralph Vaughan Williams in their June 7 concert: “Serenade to Music,” “Five Mystical Songs,” and “Dona Noblis Pacem.” For the latter, the Westminster Choir will be joined by the Charleston Symphony Chorus. Joseph Flummerfelt will conduct the choirs and Spoleto Festival Orchestra.
 
See http://www.spoletousa.org/ for the full schedule, which also includes dance, jazz and theatre events. Unusual among these will be Mikhail Baryshnikov in a new work by Rezo Gabriadze; The Doctor and the Patient , a theatrical event incorporating text and movement with music by Shostakovich, tangos, and Georgian folk songs. Nina Ananiashvili will dance with the Moscow Ballet Theatre, a troupe created from leading soloists and members of the Bolshoi Ballet especially for this Spoleto appearance.
 
In February, Central Piedmont music lovers will have two chances to sample the special quality of the festival when the Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music Tour gives performances in the region. On February 25, they will appear in Owens Auditorium, Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst as part of the Classical Concert series. The program will be repeated February 26 in George Washington High School Auditorium, Danville, Virginia, as part of the 51st season of the Danville Concert Association. The touring group will consist of the inimitable host and founder Charles Wadsworth, the irrepressible clarinetist Todd Palmer, violin virtuoso Chee-Yun, and cellist Andrés Díaz – four artists who have formed the heart of the successful post-Menotti ensemble – along with tour newcomer Wendy Chen, replacing veteran pianist Stephen Prustman.
 
[Edited 1/11&13/04]
 
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T.J. Anderson, currently residing in Chapel Hill, was feted in Boston in early December; the concert, presented by the Harvard Wind Ensemble and Boston’s Share a Composer Week, honored the composer in his 75th birthday year with performances of “Fanfare for the Boston School Volunteers” (1986) and “Boogie Woogie Concertante” (2003), a concerto for piano and winds played by soloist Donal Fox and conducted by Thomas Everett. The first half of the concert included music by Ulysses Kay, William Grant Still, Julian Work, and John Lewis. Anderson celebrations continue locally on January 18 when the Mallarmé Chamber Players present the premiere of “Songs of the Spirit,” for cello and piano. See our calendar for details.
 
Guitarist and occasional CVNCer Roger Allen Cope was recognized for his many contributions to music and education during a year-end luncheon in Flat Rock, hosted by the Foundation of Blue Ridge Community College, at which he received the Dr. Eliza B. Graue Extra Mile Award and a cash stipend. The certificate reads: “Presented to Roger Cope, Fine Arts – Music Faculty, …for positively impacting the lives of your students.” His colleagues at CVNC join in congratulating Cope for this award.
 
Fans of former Raleigh resident Sergiy Komirekno will want to know that he will perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra on February 22. The pianist, who is now based in California, was one of three finalists selected to compete in the Fryderyk Chopin Society of Texas International Piano Competition in Corpus Christi (http://users.interconnect.net/jgc00/page3.html [inactive 12/04), the results of which could take him to Warsaw. Komirenko studied with John Ruggero during his NC years. And in a related development involving a member of Ruggero’s studio, Lucie Cizkova, an exchange student from the Czech Republic, has been selected to perform with the Durham Symphony in March, during that orchestra’s Young Artists concert. See our calendar for details.
 
News compiled by John W. Lambert