JanUary 2017

memBers gUide A Noise Within Turns 25 THE FOUNDERS TALK ABOUT TAKING THE COMPANY FROM DIY TO SOCAL’S THEATER DNA | PAGE 

JanUary Birthdays Witold Lutosławski Plácido Domingo Nicholas McGegan Nikolai Medtner FROM THE PRESIDENT | PAGE 2 Jacqueline Du Pré Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Welcoming the New Year and KUSC’s New Talent Peter Eötvös Wilhelm Furtwängler Francis Poulenc ON THE AIR | PAGE 4 Jean-Pierre Rampal Weekend Programming Highlights Alexander Scriabin Aaron Jay Kernis

cover story from the president The New Talent & Initiatives Taking Us into 2017

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that 2017 is off to a good start. I am particularly excited about the New Year for KUSC. In November, John Van Driel started at KUSC as Chief Content Officer, overseeing programming day-to-day and strengthening our strategy for programming and THE HUMAN CONDITION, promotion including social media, our website and UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL all the new digital tools available to us. John came to us from Canada after a long and How A Noise Within Built their Company and impressive career in classical radio in Toronto. He Their Signature Style – by Kelsey McConnell and his wife Helen were ready for a new adventure after successfully launching their children, and Twenty-five years ago, the co-founders of A Noise Within, actors Geoff Elliott agreed to make their home in to work and his wife Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, raided their bank account to put on a with us. We are very fortunate John decided to join production of Hamlet at the Masonic Temple in Glendale. A quarter-century KUSC. He hit the ground running, and we all love later, they’re still at it, but now with a permanent home in Pasadena built for having him here. them, and a large and devoted following. Geoff Elliott still directs and acts in This will also be an important year for our some of the productions; Julia Rodriguez-Elliott also discovered an aptitude for directing and is now most often backstage. One thing that hasn’t changed: national initiative, Classical Music Rising. Several the company’s devotion to the classics. years ago we brought a handful of stations together to talk about how we could join forces to GE The great plays do not get old. They really speak to the human condition and the strengthen our services. We developed a robust human condition has never changed, and it will never change. That’s why I know the and ambitious agenda and recruited more than 30 kind of live theater that we do is not an endangered species. additional classical stations to partner with us. KMc Your first production took place in 1991. What inspired that, and how did it all We had our first meeting of the expanded group come together? in August, and the energy and excitement in the GE We really wanted to put our money where our mouths were when it came to room was amazing! Together we will increase producing plays. At that time there was a third artist director, Art Manke, and the awareness of the important work we do in our three of us decided to just do it and see if there was an interest and a need for it. communities, explore digital opportunities, share And sure enough, it snowballed after that production. information, and develop strategies to attract the next generation of audiences and talent. I have JR We all three trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in and the honor of leading the steering committee for ACT was very focused on the classics, on rotating repertory, on having a resident company and having an educational component. So when we got to LA, producing the project with talented colleagues in New York, theater in that way was part of our DNA. We were looking for opportunities to do Seattle and the Twin Cities. that kind of work and at that time there really weren’t a lot of them. So we were Thank you so much for your support, which following an artistic impulse and the craving to do the kind of work we were trained makes the year ahead of us so exciting. You have to do. helped us grow into the largest classical station KMc For that first production you actually built the stage and put seats around in the country, and you are helping us continue three sides of it. Twenty-five years later that’s still your stage configuration. What to attract new talent and raise awareness of the experience does that give your audiences and performers? value of classical music and the arts nationally. I GE It’s a wrap-around experience for the audience. The proscenium stage is what look forward to all that we will accomplish this year most people are used to, but we found it to be distancing between the audience with your help. and actors. We built that first thrust stage partially out of necessity. Church pews had been left in the space, so we ran around Los Angeles looking for wooden pallets

Brenda Barnes cover photo: a noise within’s pasadena home. 2 photo by christopher alvarez cover photo: a noise within co-founders geoff elliott and julia rodriguez-elliott. photo by tim neighbors and stacked those on top of each other and put the church pews around them. The pews tore down barriers between audience members, because they had to sit together and touch elbows. There was a communal aspect to what was going on and that really stuck for us. JR I love the communal part of it, because you’re having a conversation—it’s not that the audience is here and the artists are there. We’re all in the same space together having a dialogue around these great plays. I also believe that because of the proximity we’re performing the classics up close and personal. That humanizes the work in a very unique way. It also means that depending on where you sit, you find yourself seeing the play through different characters’ perspectives. KMc You’ve been in your beautiful new building for five years now. You started fundraising for the move in 2008, which was brave of you. JR Well, we weren’t choosing to be brave. The campaign went public in July 2008 and then the world changed in November. GE It was crazy. On a daily basis, we would look at each other and wonder “what are we going to do if this thing doesn’t work”? When you go through that kind of baptism by fire you become incredibly grateful for a physical plant like that and the support that we have. It’s an extraordinary place to be. JR It’s very humbling how strongly people believed in this mission and in this theater. We had people tell us they weren’t going on vacation THE HUMAN CONDITION, that year because they wanted to donate to the campaign instead. KMc I read that 30% of your resources go to education and outreach programs, is that right? UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL JR That’s right. Our Classics Live program brings students to see productions. All tickets are subsidized, but a portion of them come full- scholarship, and we serve about 120 schools. And then we have our Summer With Shakespeare program, as well as year-round conservatory How A Noise Within Built their Company and classes. Their Signature Style – by Kelsey McConnell GE When we started this thing, I can’t say I cared that much about the education component, I just wanted to act. In fairly short order we began to realize how powerful these programs were, and the actors couldn’t wait to get out of costume and be a part of these discussions with the kids. So many of the kids had never seen a play, much less a classical play. The way it affected them was very moving. It was very powerful. You don’t forget that.

King Lear is A Noise Within’s next production. It opens on February 21st. Still to come this season are productions of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!, and Man of La Mancha. For dates and tickets visit anoisewithin.org.

Kelsey McConnell is KUSC’s Assistant Program Director, and Executive Producer of Arts Alive, Saturdays at 8AM on KUSC.

San Francisco Symphony’s Latest Debussy For many, their first exposure to the young was the conductor’s Boston Symphony record shelf recording of the Debussy Images for Deutsche Gramophon (436615), one of the classiest versions from the by jim svejda 1970s and still one of the best to this day. Not only did it feature the supremely responsive Boston Symphony of the Munch era, but also the warmly embracing yet brilliantly detailed sound of Boston’s Symphony Hall. The conductor’s new recording—like all the ’s recordings made since their Decca contract ran out—was made live in concert in the problematic acoustic of Davies Symphony Hall, whose sound was improved by the 1992 renovation but is still less than ideal. (Then, too, little could be done with the building’s outward appearance, which continues to resemble an indignant cheeseburger.) Like most of the live recordings the Symphony has made in the dismal Barbican, the San Francisco Symphony’s SFS Media albums make Davies sound much better than it actually is. Still, while the sound is generally clear and to the point, it lacks a powerful sense of atmosphere. The result is an Images that comes off sounding more plain-spoken and matter-of-fact than it probably is. This is particularly obvious in Iberia’s opening movement, Par les rues at par les chemins, which has a clinical, almost forensic feel. By that same token, Les parfums de la nuit is deprived of any of its exotic smells, while Le matin d’un jour de fête goes through DEBUSSY the motions, stubbornly refusing to catch fire—as it does to thrilling effect in the Boston recording. Images. Jeux. La plus que lent; Michael Tilson Thomas, cond; The far more challenging Jeux fares much better, as the actual physical sound is not as vitally important San Francisco Symphony; to final meaning of the piece. Thomas teases the phrases and shapes the larger paragraphs superbly, SFS MEDIA 821936-0069-2 while the can be heard at its most flexible and adroit. If not as magical as Haitink’s matchless Philips recording (438742), then it’s still a very fine version and one that would have been even more so with jim svejda hosts the evening genuinely competitive recorded sound. program on weeknights from 7 pm to midnight The ’s “cabaret” arrangement of La plus que lente—complete with that spectacularly incongruous and the record shelf cimbalom part—rounds out a somewhat frustrating collection. One of the premiere partnerships in sundays at 10 pm. 3 American music certainly deserves better. Classical KUSC Members Guide NON-PROFIT is published monthly by the ORG University of Southern U.S. POSTAGE University Communications PAID SANTA ANA, CA 3434 S. Grand Ave., CAL 140 P.O. Box 7913 PERMIT 4849 Los Angeles, CA 90089-2818 Los Angeles, CA 90007-0913 President Brenda Barnes VP|Program Director Bill Lueth Address Service Requested Director of Corp Aff airs and Underwriting Abe Shefa Executive Producer Gail Eichenthal

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WeeKend highlights january 2017 on the air KUSC SOCAL SUNDAY NIGHT: Sunday, January 29 | 7 pm Sunday, January 22 | 10 pm SANTA BARBARA IN CONCERT Quire of Voyces A conversation with Baroque violinist turned HOST: ROBIN PRESSMAN Nathan Kreitzer, conductor mainstream conductor, Andrew Manze. Sunday, January 1 | 7 pm William Byrd: Sing Joyfully Festival Mozaic Orchestra René Clausen: Magnifi cat Sunday, January 29 | 10 pm Scott Yoo, conductor Ralph Vaughan Williams: Rest The Record Shelf Record Reviews. Kristin Lee, Daniel Gee: O Lord, Thou Hast Made Us for Jim Svejda off ers critical reactions to the latest Mozart: Serenade in E-fl at, K. 375 Thyself (Commissioned for the Quire of Voyces) compact discs. Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4 Orlando Gibbons: Hosanna to the Son of David Mozart: Adagio and Fugue in C minor Thomas Weelkes: All People, Clap your Hands BROADCASTS Mozart: Symphony No. 35, H a ff n e r Michael Eglin: Prayer (Commissioned for the Saturday, January 7 | 10 AM Quire of Voyces) Verdi: Nabucco Sunday, January 8 | 7 pm Hubert Parry: My Soul, There is a Country Levine, conductor; Monastyrska, Barton, Thomas, Music Academy Festival Orchestra Stephen Paulus: Hymn to the Eternal Flame Domingo, Belosselskiy Larry Rachleff , conductor Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture THE RECORD SHELF WITH JIM SVEJDA Saturday, January 14 | 10 AM Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn Sunday, January 1 | 10 pm Puccini: La Bohème (St. Anthony Chorale) The Alternative New Year’s Day Concert. Rizzi, conductor; Pérez, Phillips, Fabiano, Lavrov, Van Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun A tonic to the traditional Philharmonic Horn, Plishka extravaganza. Sunday, January 15 | 7 pm Saturday, January 21 | 10 AM Community Arts Music Association Sunday, January 8 | 10 pm Gounod: of Santa Barbara Elgar in Stereo?! Part 1. Noseda, conductor; Damrau, Grigolo, Madore, The fi rst of two programs in which Sir Edward Petrenko Sunday, January 22 | 7 pm conducts his own works in true 2-channel stereo. Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra Saturday, January 28 | 10 AM Heiichiro Ohyama, conductor Sunday, January 15 | 10 pm Rossini: The Barber of Seville Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 Reformation Elgar in Stereo?! Part 2. Benini, conductor; Yende, Korchak, Mattei, Muraro, Beethoven: Concerto No. 5 Emperor In the second of two programs, recently- Petrenko discovered stereo recordings of music by Sir , conducted by the composer.