Ron Bierman - Page 7

Cristian Macelaru made a favorable impression as guest conductor here last year and was scheduled to return again, a sign that he may have been on the short list of possible choices for Jahja Ling's replacement. But the San Diego Symphony has selected Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare as its new music director. That may have been a factor in M?celaru's decision to step in for Franz Welser-Most with the Gewandhaus Orchestra instead of appearing at the Jacobs Music Center in San Diego this past weekend. Not a problem. Young American conductor Case Scaglione did not disappoint as Macelaru's replacement.

The Etienne Charles sextet's concert at La Jolla's TSRI Auditorium proved yet again that the Athenaeum's jazz program coordinator Dan Atkinson hasn't lost his touch. The series, which he founded in 1989, consistently features some of the best jazz musicians in the country in as many as 18 concerts a year. Atkinson has an unerring ear for talent, often booking terrific young musicians not yet widely known. That's why the La Jolla Athenaeum has been named one of the world's great jazz venues by both DownBeat and JazzTimes magazines. Before Etienne Charles came onstage, Atkinson's exceptional contributions to jazz in San Diego were formally recognized by both the Jazz Journalist Association and the city. Journalist Robert Bush first presented a 2018 Jazz Hero award on behalf of the association and then announced that San Diego had declared the day of the concert "Dan Atkinson Day."

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with pianist Chick Corea performed this past weekend as part of the San Diego Symphony's jazz series. When I last heard the band two years ago without Corea, I thought it was in a bit of a rut, and I can see why Wynton Marsalis, its usual leader, chose the pianist to stand in for him while he's on a composing break. Corea uses harmony and rhythm in a modern style very different from that of the Swing Era big bands like Ellington's that Marsalis had in mind when he formed the orchestra in 1988. He must have seen Corea as a refreshing addition at a first concert with him in 2011. In any event, 'rut' was no longer an appropriate term for many of the intricate arrangements premiered at that concert and reprised here last Saturday.

The San Diego Opera's production of Daniel Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas was premiered Saturday at San Diego's Civic Center. Much has been made of the influence the magical realism of Nobel-Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez had on Marcela Fuentes-Berain's libretto, but most of the magic is in Catan's music. In this production, the voices and staging added another helping of enchantment. What little magical realism there is in the libretto, compared to Marquez's inventive, often disorienting novels, was largely lost in the mix.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra, with first violinist and music director Joshua Bell, performed Friday night at San Diego's Jacobs Music Center as part of the La Jolla Music Society's ongoing Orchestra Series. Over the years the series has featured only the best of the world's symphony orchestras, including many that often appear in world top-ten lists. The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, a chamber orchestra with only 43 musicians rather than the 80 or so usually on the stage in a symphony orchestra, isn't competing with the top ten, but it's still worthy of a world-class tag, especially with Joshua Bell as music director and soloist. For much of its 60-year history, the orchestra has performed without a conductor, which is why Bell gives the downbeat and occasional cues from his first-chair seat in the violin section.

I spoke recently with Elaine Alvarez who will be singing the lead role this weekend in the San Diego Opera's production of Florencia en el Amazonas by Mexican composer Daniel Catan and librettist Marcela Fuentes-Berain. Alvarez told me that when she got a call from the San Diego Opera's General Director David Bennett, 'I was at a train station in France, and it was cold. I started jumping up and down! And he was like, 'Do you think you're going to be ready to sing this? Is this in line now with where your voice is.' And I'm like, a hundred percent! Yes! Yes! Yes!' Spanish was her first language, Florencia appealed to her Latin heritage, and she knew her voice was ready. She'd sung Beatrice in Catan's earlier opera Rappaccini's Daughter and was delighted with the opportunity to make her San Diego debut with another of his works.

Edo de Waart has become a welcome repeat guest-conductor for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. His no nonsense, experience-based authority at the podium appears to have won the respect of players, Symphony management-and certainly, San Diego audiences. Friday's finale brought an immediate standing ovation and sustained shouting and applause throughout an unusual four curtain calls. Since standing Os have become almost perfunctory, it was a pleasure to participate in one that was actually deserved.

The San Diego Opera's 2018-19 season will feature three grand operas at the city's Civic Center and three smaller-scale productions at other venues. Seasoned opera buffs are likely to fill the 3000-seat Civic Center for The Marriage of Figaro, Rigoletto, and Carmen. But elaborate three-hour productions are a hard-sell for inexperienced listeners, many of whom believe that 45-seconds is about right for 'in-depth' news reporting. That's where the opera company's highly successful 'Detour Series' of shorter and more contemporary-feeling performances comes in. The two operas in that series next season are an English adaption of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, and Three Decembers, a chamber work by Jake Heggie, one of today's most successful operatic composers. The Detour series and the season conclude with 'One Amazing Night,' a recital devoted largely to Puccini and Verdi.

The San Diego Opera's new production of Puccini's Turandot held rapt attention throughout its three acts in spite of a dark plot that's implausible even for opera, and a lead character less loveable than Lady Macbeth. Powerful men from other kingdoms flock to win Princess Turandot's hand by answering three riddles. This being long before the internet, none of the men seem familiar with them when Turandot asks for solutions. This is a serious oversite on their part. Twelve suitors, in the past year alone, have experienced the beheading failure entails. The 13th, Calaf of Tartary, succeeds only to have Turandot renege on her promise to marry the one who has the answers. When her father the emperor insists an oath is an oath, Calaf puts his head on the block again by swearing he will die if Turandot discovers his name by morning, otherwise she must marry him. She agrees, determined to discover his name before the sun rises.

ise Lindstrom has returned to San Diego to sing the lead in Puccini's Turandot. We spoke for nearly an hour in a rehearsal room at the San Diego Civic Center where she'd just finished working on makeup for the performance. You might think that someone with Lindstrom's powerful voice would have known, and been told from the age of twelve or so, that she was destined to become an opera star. But it didn't happen that way for the well-known dramatic soprano, nor is it likely to for any other would-be diva. No matter how potentially great your voice is, it takes a bit of luck and a whole lot of hard work to become a success.

Sameer Patel, Associate Conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, made his subscription series debut with Liszt's Les Preludes, the fifth symphony of Sibelius, and the world premiere of Adam Schoenberg's violin concerto Orchard in Fog. Les Preludes is one of 13 tone poems written by Liszt. He invented the single-movement form as a way to evoke specific scenes or moods. Liszt sites a poem by Alphonse de Lamartine in the score, but it appears it wasn't his original inspiration since Les Preludes is an adaptation of an overture written for an abandoned larger work based on a different text.

Maria de Buenos Aires, a 90-minute opera by Astor Piazzolla and librettist Horacio Ferrar, is the latest in the San Diego Opera's innovative Detour Series. According to the company's website, the series name indicates its productions are stops on 'a route that is different from the ordinary.' Piazzolla's opera is decidedly such a stop. Unlike probably any other operatic work, far more of the libretto is spoken than sung, dance scenes feature tango rather than ballet, and the surrealistic libretto intensifies mood and emotion, much as music does, without adding much clarity to the plot line. That leaves a lot of space for production crew creativity. Director John de los Santos took advantage. He kept the cast in eye-catching motion and tailored scenes to make major plot lines clearer. Still, Piazzolla and Ferrar weren't after realism. Without a complete rewrite of the libretto, the opera, or tango operetta as Piazzolla called it, will have as much in common with the paintings of surrealist painter Salvador Dali as Puccini's verismo.

The Mingus Dynasty Septet plays often at the Jazz Standard in New York City, one of the top jazz clubs in the country. La Jolla's Athenaeum Library brought them to San Diego for two performances that included a tribute to Charles Mingus's Tijuana Moods album, originally recorded in 1957 and finally released in 1962. The septet, appropriately enough, played first in Tijuana. The following night I was at the TSRI Auditorium near the UCSD campus to see a repeat performance of the all-Mingus program.

Conducting with a combination of precise hand signals and smooth sweeping arm gestures, Jader Bignamini went all-out to please and entertain in his guest appearance with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and he succeeded. The familiar works he selected seemed to form a spectacular five-movement concerto for orchestra.

Bruce Stasyna, San Diego Opera's chorus master, will also lead the orchestra in the company's upcoming production of Astor Piazzolla's Maria de Buenos Aires. We met in the Civic Center's Copper Room recently to discuss that, his career, and more.

Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare opened his San Diego Symphony Orchestra guest appearance with Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture. Payare conducted with vigorous dramatic motions, and the orchestra responded by bringing the work's romantic themes and stirring gestures to life. Principle English horn player brought exceptional warmth and beauty to the score's first solo. She wasn't unique in her excellence. Every soloist and section managed even demanding tempos and dynamic changes with pleasing tone and precision.

Conductor David Danzmayr opened his guest appearance with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra with Mid-20th century Polish composer Gra?yna Bacewicz's Overture of 1943. It was a intelligent choice; her music deserves to be programmed more often. Although she received many awards and commissions during her lifetime, her name is largely unfamiliar to contemporary audiences. The overture is a brisk workout for every section. The piece's little more than five minutes features rapidly scurrying strings, heroic brass, virtuosic wind solos and boisterous percussion. Danzmayr's demanding interpretation built excited anticipation for what was to follow. The overture is a terrific way to open a concert.

If a spouse transitions from one sex to another in a state where gay marriage is illegal, is the marriage still valid? There are many possible reactions to that question, including heated discussion, juvenile giggling, or reactionary distaste. Composer Laura Kaminsky chose empathy for those most directly affected. The result was her first opera, and it is a striking statement at a time when empathy for anyone different is in short supply. As one, a chamber work for two singers and string quartet, does a compelling job of describing a transgender's struggle with sexual identity. It is the latest offering in the San Diego opera's d tour series, which features smaller-scale works outside the usual operatic repertoire. Kaminsky's choice of artistic partners was as fortunate as her timing. Kimberly Reed, a transgender woman, and Mark Campbell, one of today's most successful librettists, collaborated to produce a story that feels real and has emotional impact.

Jazz fans were at San Diego's Balboa Theatre to see Chris Potter, one of the best sax players in the world, and bass-playing legend Dave Holland. But why was half the audience in saris?? Well, the other five musicians in the Crosscurrents band are from India, and some of them are far better known in San Diego's Indian community, not to mention India itself, than either Potter or Holland.

As One, Laura Kaminsky's first opera, premiered in September 2014. While many contemporary operas are performed once and never heard again, it has been staged more often every year since then, and is already scheduled at nearly a dozen venues for 2018. In a recent phone interview Kaminsky and I spoke about that success, her peripatetic career, and what influences the music she writes.