AmericanEnsemble Crossing Consider the setting. Sitting 4,000 feet above sea level, El Paso boasts Borders stunning vistas, punctuated in the evening by brilliant sunsets. “When people think about El Paso, they always think of Clint Eastwood movies and the tum- bleweed blowing across the road,” says Zuill Bailey, artistic director of El Paso Pro-Musica, the city’s 30- year-old classical music presenter. “Everybody who comes here is shocked by how gorgeous it is.” El Paso’s Kathrin Berg Pettit and Zuill Bailey El Paso’s appeal is never more evident than in January. While the rest of Miraflores, a ten- the country endures the acre garden estate bitter dead of winter, the in Montecito, CA, city enjoys dry, mild is the home of weather. It’s an ideal time Music Academy of for EPPM, with Bailey and the West. administrative director Kathrin Berg Pettit at the Staging It’s not as if the 135 fellows of the barrier between students and audiences is helm, to stage the El Paso the Music Academy of the being dissolved” says Rick Feit, MAW’s VP for Chamber Music Festival, Ground West (MAW) lack for musical artistic programs and operations. “You see their which this year celebrated guidance. They’re all students growth over the summer—the loss of some its 18th outing with a or graduates of leading conser- tightness. [The stage] doesn’t feel like foreign month’s-worth of concerts vatories, so they’ve had the best territory.” and music-related film musical education our country The fellows all enter at a high level of technical events. Participants included can offer. But the experience of the eight-week accomplishment—one factor that allows the Daniel Hope, Orion Weiss program, based in Santa Barbara, California, is faculty encourages them to focus on expression and Leon Fleisher—the considerably different from what they’re likely to rather than technique. “In faculty discussions, subject of a special week- encounter in school; instead of concentrating on we talk about how we can help students feel end that included two the technical skills needed by professional musi- comfortable about communicating their music,” concerts and a screening cians, the Music Academy emphasizes collabora- says Feit. “Making mistakes is okay: The urgency of the documentary Two tion and performing. Instrumental fellows get and passion of their music-making is the thing. Hands. come here. When we have a 500–800-seat concert numerous occasions to face audiences through- The student who stands out here is the one who The festival takes its shape from the city’s sprawling hall that’s full, that’s nothing compared to what we’re geography. El Paso sits right across the border from Oboist David Weiss out the summer, whether in public masterclasses isn’t engaged.” doing in the community—at schools, libraries and Juárez, Mexico; the two communities are, for all conducts a MAW or in chamber and orchestral concerts. In the In addition to its fellows and faculty, MAW senior centers. The concert is just the cherry on top. intents and purposes, blended, with many people masterclass. vocal program, fellows participate in a fully brings in guests artists who perform and offer “The people of El Paso deserve the best, and they’re staged opera. masterclasses; this season’s festival (its 61st) offers, who live in one city and work in the other. “It’s not a getting it,” Bailey says. “You can tell the difference An enthusiastic and among others, composer William Bolcom and normal city: It’s a walking border,” says Bailey. “It’s when these amazing musicians come to town. It loyal audience creates his wife, singer Joan Morris; pianists Vivian very exotic—an island in the middle of the desert.” becomes very normal for there to be something to do a supportive, informal Hornik Weilerstein, Joseph Kalichstein and Bailey sees the festival as serving this combined com- and talk about every day for the month of January. atmosphere at concerts, Gilbert Kalish; violinists Donald Weilerstein and munity, as well as Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty Then in February, everybody’s kind of shell-shocked helping the fellows William Preucil; the Takács Quartet and the miles away. and amazed it’s over—because it’s completely and earn their performing Canadian Brass. The roster provides a bounty “Our vision is to reach the community,” says utterly invigorating.” stripes in as relaxed an for the audience. But the center of the Music Bailey. “The musicians set up residency when they www.eppm.org environment as can be Academy’s activities remains its students. imagined. The musi- “Because it’s relatively intimate, and there are so cians are encouraged many public demonstrations,” says Feit, “we’ve not only to play, but to given them permission to just make music—to talk to the audience. do the thing they love doing.” “There’s a sense that www.musicacademy.org

10 march/april 2008 11 AmericanEnsemble Jack Chan has been appointed administrative director of the Chamber Music Conference & Composers' Forum of the East. Chan, a bassoonist and arts administrator, succeeds Beth Anderson in the position.

Ann Chaitovitz, an expert in artist rights, copyright and new Latin The teaming of media technologies, has been named executive director of the viola and guitar is Future of Music Coalition in Washington, DC. She succeeds Leanings unusual enough. But Jenny Toomey, an FOMC co-founder, who has been appointed soon after violist program officer for media and cultural policy in the Media, Arts Carlos Boltes started and Culture Unit for the Ford Foundation in New York City. working with gui- tarist Scott Hill, he revealed another Anne Berquist has been named executive director of the Arts weapon in his arsenal—the charango, the Council of Greater Kalamazoo and will relinquish her position as traditional South American stringed executive director of Fontana Chamber Arts. Before coming to

instrument, formed from either wood or SEGUES Michigan in 2001, Berquist was director of administration and the dried shell of an armadillo. The two director of studies at the Conservatoire National de Region musicians soon joined forces as the d'Amiens and a professor of cello and chamber music at the Alturas Duo, giving Boltes has a chance Conservatory of Versailles and Saint-Malo. to display his prowess in both instruments, with Hill’s guitar as a constant. The Alliance of Artists Communities announced the appoint- The duo makes its home in Hartford, ment of Caitlin Strokosch as its new executive director. Strokosch Connecticut, but in its music-making has worked for the alliance since 2002, most recently as program usually looks far south of staid New and communications director. She has also served as general man- England toward South America. Boltes ager of the chamber choir Bella Voce, and as executive director of and Hill are vigorously committed to CUBE, a Chicago-based new music ensemble. new music, and many of the works they program and commission have a strong The Ottawa Chamber Music Society announced the appoint- Latin flavor. Take, for instance, the 2006 ment of Glenn Hodgins as its executive director. Hodgins, a commission El vuelo de tu alma (The Flight pianist, was an arts administrator with the Tafelmusik Baroque of Your Soul) by the Chilean guitarist Orchestra and Chamber Choir in Toronto. OCMS also announced composer Javier Farias—a frequent collab- that the members of the Gryphon Trio—cellist Roman Borys, vio- orator. The five-movement work, based linist Annalee Patipatanakoon and pianist Jamie Parker— will be on music of the Chilean songwriter and the artistic programming directors and artists-in-residence for the political martyr Victor Jara, includes a 2008 Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. section for solo baritone charango that takes the form of a taranta—an impro- Carlos Boltes and Scott Hill with visatory flamenco. Another commission, front of the room, playing traditional pass- No mas muertes by David MacBride, uses (large to small) classical guitar, Venezuelan CUATRO, viola, and acaglias; Sauvalle has arranged a number guitar, viola and narration to commemorate three charangos (baritone, of these for guitar. the Mexicans who have died trying to cross WALAYCHO, and regular) For Boltes, who was born in Santiago, the border into Arizona. the duo’s Latin focus amounts to a musical Alturas supplements its Latin-tinged to the coastal island of Chiloé. There they homecoming. He played the charango as commissions with field research—trips to attended jamborees where folkloric bands a youth, and even with his viola prowess, Chile, where Boltes and Hill travel the played, one after another, to raise funds the folk instrument holds a special place length of the country and meet with folk for community causes. “For example, if in his heart, as does the music of his home musicians, gathering material for their own someone needs to fix a roof, whatever you continent. “This gives me the chance to work. They went with Sergio Sauvalle, a can do, you involve yourself,” says Hill. do what I know the most,” he says. prominent guitarist and ethnomusicolo- “It’s a fundraiser—like Hillary’s fundraisers!” www.alturasduo.com gist (in Hill’s words, “the Bartók of Chile”) The bands march from the back to the

12 march/april 2008 13 AmericanEnsemble Recording the Elgar: Ani Kavafian and Arnaud Sussmann, vio- In Memoriam lins; Wu Han, piano; Fred Sherry, cello; Paul Neubauer, viola Jerome Ashby, horn and Wagner tuba, New York Philharmonic J. Stanley Ballinger, violinist; former president, New England Conservatory George Gaber, timpanist, percussionist and teacher H. Wiley Hitchcock, music scholar and editor Elaine Lorillard, co-founder, Newport Jazz Festival Leonard B. Meyer, musicologist Danny Newman, music publicist Cecil Payne, baritone saxophonist Oscar Peterson, pianist Frank Morgan, saxophonist Karlheinz Stockhausen, composer Carlos Valdés, conguero Henrietta Yurchenko, ethnomusicologist

Record stores have closed up test drive of their stereo system, who don’t care for CDs in stores. The two ventures are entirely separate, make them available to the whole chamber music For the shop. iTunes rules the roost. download quality, and really want to know what but as the couple helps launch the new label, they’re community. In my opinion, it’s the organization’s Record Nonetheless, chamber music the best of the best can be. using lessons learned from their ArtistLed experiences. responsibility.” (The initial two releases will be joined lovers still cherish CDs. “I accept that the iPod is a very convenient thing For both labels, live concerts are a cornerstone for next fall by a recording based on “American Voices,” That’s part of the thinking for the younger generation,” Wu Han continues, building awareness. “Once you have that trust with a series of concerts of American music given this behind CMS Studio Record- “but I still believe there are those in our society that your audience, they’ll always come back,” says Wu February.) ings, a new venture from the want that extra edge of [digital] information. Put it Han. The Chamber Music Society, aside from the “One thing that’s not going to change is that the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The this way—if I can have both worlds, why not?” loyal New York audience for its 18 core instrumen- audience will buy music,” Wu Han continues. “How new label recently released its initial two recordings. One other element that CDs offer: They’re talists, also has national exposure through radio you get to them—that’s going to change. You should The first combines Beethoven’s E-flat minor piano actual physical objects, as opposed to digital files. broadcasts, providing another avenue for promotion. keep yourself very flexible and cover as much ground quintet with two works by Dvorˇák, the second pairs They allow for notes and artwork; people can hold The label has the enthusiastic support of the as possible. The music itself is always the easiest part. works by Elgar and Walton them in their hands. “When we go on tour,” Wu Society’s board, due It’s what between the public and musicians—you One thing that makes the venture remarkable is Han says, “do you know how hard it is to sign a partly to its focus on have to figure out how to conquer those manmade that the Society has a separate deal with Deutsche download?” rarely recorded works. barriers.” Grammophon for iTunes recordings; the download Wu Han and Finckel’s office looks down on a “Bringing back all this www.chambermusicsociety.org service now carries three Chamber Music Society shuttered Tower Records store—a reminder of the great repertoire, to releases. But according to pianist Wu Han—who seismic shifts that have affected the record industry play one concert in with her husband, cellist David Finckel, serves as in recent years. But the couple knows a lot about New York—it’s not artistic director of the Society—the two projects marketing CDs in the changed environment. Their enough,” says Wu serve separate purposes. “This particular label,” she own label, ArtistLed, featuring recordings of some Han. “We have to says, “is going for those who really want to have a of their non-CMS performances, sells none of its bring them back and

14 march/april 2008 15 AmericanEnsemble

The Scenic The city of Juneau has a on hors d’oeuvres and listening to blues and classical spectacular setting on the concerts. Route Gastineau Channel. Its Linda and her husband, Paul Rosenthal, moved to mountains rise 4,000 feet Fairbanks in 1969 (“on a whim,” she says), expecting above the center of town. to stay in Alaska for a year. Instead, the two violinists Thirty glaciers flow from the have lived in the state ever since, and fostered a veri- Juneau Ice Cap. Visitors can table mini-industry in chamber music. Paul founded enjoy kayaking, dogsledding, rafting, biking, hiking the Sitka Chamber Music Festival in 1972; Linda and glacier hiking; fishermen can cast for salmon and followed with Juneau Jazz & Classics in 1987. The halibut. One thing it does not offer, though, is a festival started as one long weekend, and has now performing arts center. But for Linda Rosenthal, grown to ten days of concerts and outreach events. founder and artistic director of Juneau Jazz & This year’s festival, held May 16–25, will feature the Classics, that has hardly been an impediment to Apollo Trio, composer Bruce Adolphe and bass player staging a thriving annual music festival. “I look on all David Brown, among many others. of Juneau as my venue,” Rosenthal says. Jazz & Classic’s growth is largely due to the enthu- Aside from indoor venues—a lecture hall, a high siastic support of local individuals and corporations. school auditorium, the atrium of a state office build- “I had the feeling that Juneau would welcome anything ing—the festival takes advantage of Juneau’s spectac- musical that was good,” Rosenthal says. “They’ve ular terrain. Jazz & Classics has staged concerts at the embraced it with open arms.” base of the Mendenhall Glacier, and on top of www.jazzandclassics.org Mount Roberts—acces- sible via tram or a nice, bracing hike. Its popular cruises take audiences out into Auke Bay toward the Lynn Canal, giving them the chance to spot humpback whales and sea lions while sip- ping cocktails, munching

Carla Cook performs with Matt Wilson’s Arts & Crafts at Juneau Jazz and Classics. 16 march/april 2008