Moving on

New things.

... Sunday morning I will open my eyes in a new home - and I do mean home. I've really lucked out with a cute little rental house in Southeast Portland, near 36th and Division. There are front and back yards and a front porch. A pocket garden will likely take shape this spring. A roomy basement practically begs for live performance. (was it only eight months ago that I was again sitting in my boxers among a tall stack of boxes?) This will be my 3rd Portland home in 17 months.

... I am locking myself in said new home all day Tuesday and Wednesday to finish reading the Ariosto Orlando Furioso, and to study the Alcina score through and through. Yes, the production - Handel's Alcina produced by the Cascadia Academy this February in Astoria, Oregon - is a solid "go." I couldn't be more thrilled; and I have a lot of work to do.

... Much much music to sing over the next three weeks, and some is new to me (or to my voice, if not my ears). This weekend: Trinity Cathedral's "Lessons and Carols." Next weekend: Trinity Consort's "Baroque Christmas at Trinity." Two weekends later: Messiah and Russian liturgical music for the holidays; PBO/Cappella Romana. Then it's Christmas. Then quick into 2008. Then Kansas City for a brother's wedding, then Carter-Messiaen Project at CMNW, then Seattle Chamber Music Fest, then Alcina, then...

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemens land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

Emily Dickinson

Opera ad-lib

Formula courtesy of La Cieca.

The 2020 season for Gresham Grand Opera promises an eclectic mix of steamy and rough-n-tumble works, as well as a gala iPod featuring the saccharine personality Hilary Clinton as special horse.

The humpy classic, Ned Rorem`s "La mangia di Astoria" boasts a new production directed by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, with costumes by Harvey Milk. This repugnant staging updates the action to Fantasy Video on Burnside in the early part of the 786th century. Soprano Natalie Dessay stars as Sweet Georgia Brown, a virginal lamp-post who for most of the opera is disguised as a mysterious pink candle. Natalie Dessay is perhaps best known from Sex and the City where she sang the lilting melody Blow Gabriel, Blow.

The neglected masterpiece "Der kussnichtbumsen" will be revived for only 580 performances. You probably already know the famous "baby bonnet Chorus" which was used on the soundtrack of the Academy Award winning film The Silence of the Lambs. Due to the length of this work, all performances will begin at lunch-time.

Finally, the company will present the Powell's Books premiere of the opera "The Life and Times of Lynn Cheney" in a co-production with Portland Opera and Opera Theater Oregon. The libretto is by J-Lo, based on the play Sweet Bird of Youth, and the music is adapted from the works of Bjork by maestro Carlos Kalmar. Exciting newcomer Mary, Queen of Scots makes her operatic debut as the rough heroine, and the men in her life are portrayed by Al Gore, Tony Tommasini and Attila the Hun.

Generous support for Gresham Grand Opera`s cold hard cash was provided by the Thomas Lauderdale Foundation and the National Endowment for the sweater.

Agonism of teh internets

My brilliant oldest brother, Tom Beaudoin, is - to use his own words - now experiencing blogolization.

He jumps into the fray with a thoughtful post on, well, the whole nature of blogging to begin with. As always, he looks for spiritual resonances (this is what theologians do)... (italics are mine)

"...[Andrew] Keen is polemical about the whole business, inveighing that "Blogs have become so dizzingly infinite that they've undermined our sense of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imaginary." ("Cult of the Amateur," p. 3)

I'm sure that's an overstatement, but it might also be that dogpiled in the polemic is a worthy spiritual question: what sort of availability for self and others is fashioned in and through the writing and reading of blogs in general, and our use of the Internet in particular?

There are other technological 'mediations' in my everyday life that I am able to live with, without this 'Catholic agonism', but blogs and the Internet are an ongoing source of unease for me...

I wonder if others who, like me, conduct so much of their business, maintain so many of their friendships, and relate to so many of their students and colleagues, on the Internet, also share this unease, and whether there are interesting and helpful things to be said about it theologically. To use Ignatian language, I wonder again and again whether I am simply not 'composing the place' of my Internet time well enough to either house or critique my own practice."

Welcome, Tom! He's one of a handful of contributors to America Magazine's In All Things. Yes, it's a Catholic publication.

Taste/See

The thought entered my sugar-sated mind while munching the remnants of a nummy chocolate Top Pot(tm) donut which I should not have been munching.

I was walking down West Burnside, somewhere between Powell's Books and that record store (truly, it's a record store) a block away whose name I can never remember (I've never been inside, it's too too hip). I had just finished a conversation with an interesting person that may or may not have been career-related, and I was processing that conversation.

The thought - a fragment, a hang-nail, a sixteenth note scooting by after a pungent dotted eighth - was this:

I observed myself observing myself.

I knew the exact moment to which this stray phrase was referring. And I also knew, without having to verbalize it to the empty concrete on my gray-breath Burnside travel, exactly why I was having this thought then, err now.

People speak of "The Brecht Effect," a type of distancing device. Of coolly distanced musical personages, singer Amy Winehouse and conductor Franz Welser-Most come first to mind. Both are awash in talent, no doubt. Winehouse: she of the blowsy well-deep alto and scandalous drug and alcohol addictions. Welser-Most: he of the clinical, poker-faced orchestral conducting and recipient of the moniker "worst than most." Both exhibit enormous talent. Both keep emotional investment at arm's length.

I can sometimes relate.

It was in this interaction, a healthy dialogue and sometimes-monologue, that I watched myself step back from the interaction as it continued, to monitor my process and my language and my thoughts. And yet I continued to mono/dia-logue. This didn't go on for minutes (I don't think so at least), just maybe 30 seconds, but it happened more than once.

And it made me wonder, munching on that little doughy treat: "What happened there? Did I lose a train of thought? If not, why did I not fully commit to the moment, to the interaction? Why do I sometimes take myself out of the moment to appreciate or analyze or consider the moment? Why am I afraid (maybe?) of being effusive, of owning my full self, of being me completely? Why not just enjoy the damn donut instead of pulling back to consider the donut?"

Of course considering the donut is not, by itself, a bad thing. All donuts need considering. It is the consideration which often improves the very quality of the donut. We know our mouth waters for the donut when we are able to articulate our very desire for it.

But in human interaction this becomes dangerous. People call it "checking out." I don't want to check out - I want to check in, and stay for a while. I want to be so sure of what I am singing/saying/writing/doing/etc that there is little room for the check out, at least during the event itself.

PS Rameau is running through my veins today, and it makes me exceedingly glad.

PPS I hope you will excuse my constant misspelling of donut herein.

What's next

Rehearsals fire up again tonight for Trinity Consort, the resident period band and chorus at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral led by dynamo keyboardist/conductor Eric Milnes (below). We're performing selections from the Bach Christmas Oratorio, Rameau's In Convertendo and Charpentier’s Dialogue of the Shepherds and Angels, December 8th and 9th. Milnes brings players from around the world; the chorus are some of Portland's best ensemble singers.

(wow - I just found a YouTube video of the Consort in rehearsal last year - nice stuff).

The only disappointment for me is that we performed much of this repertoire on last season's Consort holiday program, and most of it has been recycling for several seasons now, according to longstanding Consort members. Wouldn't it be nice to offer something new? (then again, PBO does pull out the Messiah every season... and that's both a crowd-pleaser and a cash cow; I'm singing in it, with Cappella Romana, again this year)

Oh and I move to a new place in SE Portland this weekend. Who wants to help?

Around the corner

This is very special.

A milestone

Sometime after 9 pm on Wednesday I received my 10,000th visitor to From Every Corner. (s/he was from Portland, and arrived here via a google search for "Portland Vocal Consort." Yes, I can see your every move.) Thanks for joining me here, however you come to me.

Off to post-Thanksgiving Seattle adventures (Seattle Public Library, some holiday Christmas tree lighting, dinner at Boat Street Cafe, then Capitol Hill of course).

Turkey-lurkey time!

Off to Seattle with A + M for T-Day.

Enjoy!

A promising debut; a puzzle takes shape

1) Ryan Heller's Portland Vocal Consort gave an exciting debut concert last Friday. From my review in WW:

The real revelations for the Consort came after intermission. In choice selections spanning five centuries and three languages, Heller hinted at the stylistic range and chops of his charges. “You like that?” Heller seemed to ask with each stylistically divergent piece. “Then how about this ?”

From a 16th-century antiphonal motet to a Moses Hogan spiritual, the Consort clicked off virtuosic coloratura, strode confidently through slippery harmonies and basically sang their hearts out. Sure it felt more like a warp speed choral history tour than a thoughtfully cohesive program, but so what? What other choirs in town have this type of adventurous spirit?

2) I'm having fun trying to put the pieces together for Portland Opera's 2008-09 season. Accoding to baritone Clayton Brainerd's website, he's opening their next season as Don Fernando in Fidelio. We know that Rigoletto (definitely with Jossie Perez as Maddalena, and my first guess would be company favorite Maureen O'Flynn as Gilda; it's a signature role of hers) is part of the season, too.

And tenor Anthony Dean Griffey is scheduled to make his company debut, but it's unclear yet in what opera and role. (Peter Grimes? Lennie in Of Mine and Men? Weill's Mahagonny?) No, wait - I bet it's Florestan in Fidelio, a new role to his voice that he tried out with Milwaukee's Florentine Opera Company in 2005.


Anthony Dean Griffey's Florestan to Erika Sunnegardh's Leonora in Milwaukee. Florestan has apparently spilt grape Kool-Aid all over himself.

Ciao, del Sesto!

Seventeen years into her tenure, general director Janice Mancini del Sesto announces her retirement from Boston Lyric Opera.

I'm sorry, but it's about time.

The company has been artistically stagnant for some years. Del Sesto's "they asked - we programmed!" mentality hasn't helped the company an ounce.
I began attending BLO productions while an undergrad at NEC; over eight years in Boston, I must have gone to nearly a dozen BLO productions. I can't recall a single memorable performance.

The 2002 "Carmen on the Common" is an exception. But what was probably del Sesto's greatest achievement - a landmark event that attracted more than 140,000 people to an outdoor production of the Bizet opera on Boston Common over two days - also might have signaled it was time for her, and the company, to move on. "Carmen on the Common" was the type of event that catalyzed a community in a specific and powerful way. It was the talk of the city for months before and after.

And yet, after announcing an historic follow-up with a planned "AIDA on the Common," first scheduled to take place in summer of 2004, then pushed to September 2006, the company failed to raise the necessary funds. The production was cancelled 9 months before it was to have happened. That must have stung for del Sesto.

There's also the increasing competition from the bold and imaginative newer Beantown opera company, Opera Boston. Yes, I've sung and assistant directed for this company. But they're on to something good, and BLO is feeling the pinch because of it. (BLO's 2007-08 season: Puccini La Boheme, Donizetti L'elisir d'amore, Mozart Abduction from the Seraglio; one of them a new production to Boston. Opera Boston's 07-08 line-up: Golijov Ainadamar, Handel Semele, Verdi Ernani; all of them new to Boston audiences).

I certainly wish del Sesto and the BLO the best in their next chapters. It's tough to imagine what the BLO is going through, with both an administrative and artistic leadership change of the guard concurrently (their admirable music director, Stephen Lord, is moving on at the end of the 07-08 season). But maybe this type of radical change is just what the company needs.

Romney brothers... who's hottest?

**Essential frivolous (I just spell-checked that baby) posting ahead**

Your vote is needed.

Of the quintet of male offspring from Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's loins (ummm), who rawks your socks most? Is it...


1. Ben Romney
Scruffy, brown-eyed Ben would slay the Portland queers. What a soft widdle face!


2. Craig Romney
That's Craig with the tyke. Instant turn-off?



3. Josh Romney
That's right Josh. You're all man.


4. Matt Romney
Bwahahaaaahaha. "Deep-fried twinkies" indeed. Amayzing photo.


5. Tagg Romney
Blindingly white teeth! And he has his dad's eyebrows.


C'mon, let's see those votes. The polls close at 11:59, Thanksgiving eve.

Macho macho man

From today's New York Times, a cute story about Harvard footballer slash emerging operatic tenor Noah Van Niel.

Ahem:

"As he approached high school, his dual interests were epitomized by two of his idols — the N.F.L. fullback Mike Alstott and the Danish tenor Stig Rossen.

Van Niel wore the No. 40 throughout high school and attended one of Alstott’s football camps in Florida. Family photographs show a 13-year-old Van Niel wearing a replica Alstott jersey during a trip to London to see “Les Misérables.” That performance got him entranced with Rossen, and the two exchanged letters. When Rossen wrote back, he also sent a CD. Van Niel liked Rossen in part because he could relate to his barrel chest and wide frame.

“He saw other men like Pavarotti or Stig Rossen who were in the position of playing roles that he admired,” Maureen Sayres Van Niel said. “It allowed him to keep being in that world without feeling threatened or insecure about his masculinity.”"

That's Van Niel, confident in his masculinity, far right in a performance of Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffman." Very butch with the hand on hip, dude.

Salut!

I welcome new blog guests from the following disparate locales:

*Alameda, California
*Bron, Rhone-Alpes, France
*Brussels, Belgium
*Charleston, South Carolina
*Chicago, Illinois
*Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
*Trussville, Alabama
*Vancouver, Washington

News bag

... Boston's inimitable conductor, pianist and Emmanuel Music founder, Craig Smith, has passed on.
... Richard Speer slays Portland Pecha Kucha.
... Portland Art Museum unveils a new van Gogh - see above. (which, nyah-nyah-nyah, I've already seen in person, thank you)
... The Broadway stagehands' strike continues on.


This weekend's agenda:
Friday, Nov 16: Ryan Heller's new Portland Vocal Consort.
Saturday, Nov 17: PBO + Richard Egarr = Mozart and Haydn.
Sunday, Nov 18: New music for makin' love, courtesy of OR Symphony players at Celebration Works.

Thank me later

Opera Chic gives me no amount of endless joy.

But she has officially topped herself.

Allons! The road is before us!

To be read by me at D + E's Boston wedding, six hours and 22 minutes hence...
from Whitman, Leaves of Grass, "Song of the Open Road:"

"Allons! To that which is endless as it was beginningless,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you,
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,
To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls.

Whoever you are, come forth! Man or woman come fourth!
You must not stay sleeping or dallying there in the house,
Though you built it, or though it has been built for you.

Allons! The road is before us!
It is safe – I have tried it – my own feet have tried it well – be not detain’d!

Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the school stand! Mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! Let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law!
Friends, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;

Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"

NEA/Columbia 7

(The 2007 Columbia/NEA fellows, resting in Central Park between bouts of cultural hyperactivity. Critics are not, as a rule, especially clued in to haute couture. See photo above.)

Maybe this is not the right "career path" for me. (Then again, maybe it is?)

After ten days of dialogue and debate, lecture and class, performance attending and networking, I may be just as unsure as I was at the start about my complete passion for the field of classical music journalism and criticism. Is this really to what I want to dedicate my life's work and energies?

The Institute itself was the kind of experience that can be tasted but not immediately talked about. I want to savor it, let it sit on my tongue, not just for seconds but for days. Ever since my return to Portland, bleary-eyed and (still) hungover on an early Saturday night, I've been hammered with the same blunt question: "How was it???" I've been mostly unable to offer much in the way of answer.

"It" was lively and deadly and thrilling and sometimes awful and completely unique and an experience for which I am most grateful. I saw a good range of quality New York performances, heard works and ensembles and soloists that I'd never heard live before (it was my first live Creation; first time hearing the Cleveland Orch and NY Phil live; and the first time in my life I was so disgusted with the low level of performance and compositional competence on a new music program that I walked out at intermission. Thanks, ACO!), engaged in fantastic argument and dialogue, and made some new and likely life-long friends.


(Note the absolute intensity with which I am engaged in this tour of Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Lichtenstein Theater)

I received constructive feedback on my writing from three very different writers and personalities: Tony Tommasini from the NYT, Justin Davidson from New York Magazine, and the inimitable Joseph Horowitz. I got good food-for-thought on Portland's classical music scene from administrators, editors, writers and fellow musicians. Some of this will be leading to a slew of articles in WW and Crosscut.com in coming weeks.

But... I still await That Big Moment. You know, when it's 2:20 am and you're typing a blog entry on your laptop but then the whole room goes black and suddenly there's a roar of brass and strings and a blaze of light as ten thousand pink LED's burst on in your apartment, it's so shocking you're knocked off your little chair and Jessye Norman no no Anna Netrebko (outfitted in a fabulous silvery strapless something, no doubt) descends on a soft pink cloud singing that ecstatic final two minutes of Poulenc's Stabat Mater, right from the "Paradisi Gloria!", and you stumble to your feet and squint to see your future flashing bright as lightning on a fifty-foot screen:

"This Shall Be Your Work!" it will read.

"Get To It!"

And then you hop on board that little cloud with Anna (she's so loving, so soft!), and sail off into your dreamy future, right as the brass and strings dig into those final three delicious chords: Bummm... BUMMMMMMMMM... BAMMM!!!

Then you wake up, and your life has begun again.


(Final night at the Institute - dinner at Brooklyn's Noodle Pudding, after Denk + Ives on the Barge. Back row, L to R: Michael Morain, Des Moines Register; Anya Grundmann, NPR Music Producer and Institute co-director; Daniel Ginsberg, Washington Post; Jesus del Toro, Rumbo; Elizabeth Brixey, Columbia Missourian. Front row, L to R: Jeremy Denk, affable pianist; SMB, Willamette Week and Crosscut.com, and the illustrious Bryant Manning, Chicago Sun-Times & Time Out Chicago)

Can they bring Rufus?

Elaine Calder, Oregon Symphony president, has recently said this:

"We do need to hear from people who currently don't attend our concerts, but might. That's a tricky piece of market research which has to be performed by professionals."

Great news, Elaine! I've saved you the trouble of retaining an expensive consulting firm by flinging open my little AT&T Samsung and calling four non-musician friends in the city, all of whom I guessed (correctly) to be Symphony non-attenders. I did a quick minute-long survey with each of them, offering the following results:


Chuck, 32 years old, marketing vice president:

Do you attend the Oregon Symphony?: No.

Why not?: I don't know why, uh, I don't know what's going on. They don't advertise or speak to me, they don't communicate to me through their marketing. Oregon Symphony, Portland Symphony...?

What sort of programs would interest you?: They need to do some advertising to tell me what's going on there... something that intrigues my interest. I'm probably not a symphony type of person though.

Why not?: Symphonies are kind of long... uh, well... actually I've never been to the symphony - ever, in my life. That's sad, huh. Why don't you take me?


Kyle, 25 years old, college administrator:

Do you attend the Oregon Symphony?: No.

Why not?: Because I just moved to Oregon and I didn't know that we had a symphony.

What sort of programs would interest you?: Discounted rates for younger patrons would help. I like stuff that's a little bit more edgy and experimental, something less standard than the typical classical stuff. You can only hear Vivaldi so many times by so many different symphonies before you get irritated with it.


Megan, 27 years old, PhD psychology student:

Do you attend the Oregon Symphony?: No.

Why not?: Uh, why not? Limitations of time and finances.

OK, so if time and finances were not issues, would you attend?: Possibly, yeah... I don't know enough about the Oregon Symphony to know if I would like what I heard.

What sort of programs would interest you?: [laughs] Uh, I don't know. I have no idea. Broad, varied programs. Combinations of new music and the classics.


Tony, 30 years old, service professional:

Do you attend the Oregon Symphony?: The what?

The Oregon Symphony...: Uh, no... I don't think so. Should I?

That's your call. Why don't you?: Sweetheart, I don't know what the hell you're talking about... symphony? There's a Portland Symphony?

No, but there's an Oregon Symphony. Would you be interested in going to one of their concerts?: If I haven't heard of it then it must not be any good. What kind of shit to do they play?

Classical music, mostly: [exaggerated sigh] I don't know about that. Sleepy time.

What sort of music or programs would interest you?: Can they bring Rufus? His Judy Garland show is pretty fierce.

Not that institution, response

This is what I've penned for Crosscut as further thoughts on the Oregon Symphony:


I’ve received voluminous responses to my recent think piece here on the Oregon Symphony. Among the many emails and website comments, one refrain caught my ear especially: “if you’re going to criticize the Symphony, why not at least offer some suggestions or recommendations?”

Sure thing. Here are five things the Oregon Symphony might consider as it trims the organizational fat and, in the face of disaster, reinvents itself for the future:


1. Get out into the community.
The Symphony needs a bigger and more diverse audience. Portland neighborhoods and surrounding communities need more opportunities to hear and participate in first-rate classical music. The Symphony has recently begun engagement programs with the Eastern Oregon communities of La Grande and Cove, but what about engaging in residencies, partnerships and chamber music concerts in Portland’s urban core? Also, individual Symphony members could be empowered as a more active voice of the Symphony through Symphony-sponsored public school outreach, increased appearances on local concert series (or on the MAX streetcars?), and maybe even by blogging on the Symphony website.

2. Bring in a composer in residence.
There are two bright, sophisticated and articulate Oregon composers that could ably assist the Symphony in its programming of new music, and in finding the right balance and context in its contemporary programming. David Schiff – erudite writer/critic, accomplished composer, lover of jazz and Reed College professor – is one. Robert Kyr – a smart composer based at University of Oregon, involved in the Oregon Bach Festival’s contemporary programming – is the other.

3. Put the music in context.
Sure, cute program titles like “Classical Elegance” and “Spanish Splendor” might be eye-catching. But if you look deeply into the musical, historical or other thematic elements that tie Oregon Symphony programming together, you’ll come up empty-handed. What if the Symphony organized its programming in a more creative and cogent way, offering audiences new ways of making connections between, say, a Haydn Symphony and a new work by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho? What about trying out a mini-festival organized around a composer, a time period, a trend or a place?

4. Get clued into hot American classical artists, and bring them to Portland.
I’m not sure where Oregon Symphony artistic administrator Charles Calmer gets his ideas about what guest artists to bring to Portland, but he might consider booking some of the best and brightest young American classical musicians on today’s scene. Singers like Joyce DiDonato, Nicole Cabell or Thomas Meglioranza. Conductors like Marin Alsop (can you believe she spent several years at the Eugene Symphony and yet never appeared once in Portland?) or James Gaffigan (he’s the assistant conductor in San Francisco, and hugely talented). Pianists like Jeremy Denk, Pierre-Laurent Aimard or Bruce Brubaker; violinist Gil Shaham or how about rock-star cellist Matt Haimovitz?

The obvious response to this list of artists might be: so what, nobody in Portland’s heard of them and they won’t sell tickets? Let’s hope that this new Oregon Symphony will not only be about meeting its bottom line, but also about serving as an orchestra of distinction for important American classical artists, and maybe even as a place to spot a rising star in the field.

5. If you’re going to bring in a pop figure as consultant and spokesperson, utilize their talent and visibility in a full and meaningful way.
Forgive me for not stating this before, but I’m a huge Thomas Lauderdale fan. Since publishing last week’s screed, I’ve been gently reminded of his classical background and his deep history with the Oregon Symphony. That doesn’t make me less skeptical about how his great talents will (or will not) be fully utilized by the Symphony – that remains to be seen. But my hope is that, like any great partnership, Lauderdale’s unassailable charisma, star attraction and especially his passion for the Oregon Symphony will translate into exciting and singular new ideas.

Cinderella, OSO, OTO

I'm busy crafting a response to the comments on my Crosscut Oregon Symphony piece (yes, this may include "possible solutions and ideas for the Oregon Symphony").

I'm also writing "a tale of two opera companies" for a new Crosscut feature, comparing the work from scrappy young company Opera Theater Oregon and the city's major opera institution, Portland Opera.

Both productions veered from heartening to heartbreaking, for different reasons.

There's gonna be some changes made

Seven months into the blogosphere, and it's time for some changes at From Every Corner.

The idea of mixing arts criticism/journalism and a grab-bag of Portland and "personal" news may stick around, or it may not. Some themes have emerged which may be developed. Some may fall away.

I welcome any feedback you, reader, may have on your experience here. What brings you back? What writing is most compelling? Is it too all-over-the-map?

I'm also working closely with AB for a fresh look for the thing.

More soon.

Not that institution, continued

OK, the blogosphere is starting to hum about my Crosscut piece on the Oregon Symphony + Thomas Lauderdale = ???.

Charles Noble, assistant principal viola of the orch, weighs in with this:

"Clearly, Beaudoin does not know of Lauderdale’s training as a classical pianist, for he seems to find Lauderdale lacking in his knowledge of classical music and for some reason, as a person who wouldn’t deign to stay for the entire length of a concert that he just introduced."

Allow me to clarify here that I'm well aware of Lauderdale's classical training - and that I consider him to be a tremendously talented pianist. But I'm not sure what exactly that may have to do with his evolving "partnership" with the Oregon Symphony. He and Elaine Calder have spoken in veiled terms about new programming initiatives - they point to the Symphony's decision to book Eartha Kitt with the orch this February as a prime example. I'm sorry, but there better be some more interesting examples of the value of this partnership for it to appear as anything more than merely cosmetic.

Noble goes on...

"The problem with armchair quarterbacking, however, is that you only see the public side of the story. When you’re bringing an institution of the size and stature of the OSO back from the brink, there are system-wide changes, some subtle, some not, that must be made. Most everyone (myself included) is focusing on what goes on front-of-house. I would argue that what goes on in the back office is equally important. And changes are happening, I just can’t say what they are - yet. I think that the way the symphony presents itself to the community will change drastically, but over time, not overnight."

Here I wholly agree with Noble; of course "back of house," organization-wide changes are necessary in bringing the organization to fiscal health and stability. Nobody is expecting overnight magic. But, in an organization with nothing left to lose, the Symphony is uniquely poised to make radical and sweeping changes to its vision, its programming, the very nature of who it is and what it does. In addition to sound fiscal and management leadership, visionary artistic leadership is needed. Who again is providing that?

"I for one applaud the decision to embrace Thomas Lauderdale’s collaboration with the symphony: the OSO gave him (via Norman Leyden) his big break with orchestras (including a Rhapsody in Blue performance on Norman’s Sunday afternoon concerts), and he’s giving back to the institution that made some of Pink’s biggest high-profile (Boston Pops, Hollywood Bowl) concerts possible. Thomas has always been keenly interested in the OSO - in what was being played, how the orchestra sounded, and the health of the orchestra. He’s finally being given a hand in helping us out, and not a moment too soon. I don’t think that it’s a move made out of desperation, but rather a long-overdue but welcome partnership that should have been undertaken years ago."

I can see where Noble is coming from - Lauderdale is not disingenous in his enthusiasm for the Oregon Symphony. I truly hope this burgeoning partnership will prove more intricate and fruitful than current appearances suggest.

Not that institution

The Northwest news and arts online journal called Crosscut, for whom I am more frequently contributing lengthy news and critical commentary, has published a "think piece" of mine on the Oregon Symphony, which began its life during the NEA/Columbia program (in workshop with New York Magazine's Pulitzer Prize-winning classical music/architecture critic, Justin Davidson).

The article is here. Some teaser grafs...

... as I listened to the [Oregon] symphony play a respectable if safe season-opening concert, I wondered what [Thomas] Lauderdale's enthusiastic endorsement of the symphony really meant. Why was this Portland pop star, the city's current cultural ambassador to the world, being pimped as a spokesman for our increasingly conservative and debt-saddled flagship orchestra?

His newly visible participation seems shrewdly designed to reposition the Symphony as a cultural institution as hip, as necessary, and as unmistakably Portland as Lauderdale himself. There's one problem, though. The Oregon Symphony is not that institution.

Lauderdale's pre-concert endorsement appearance is the kind of desperate and calculated tactic the Oregon Symphony is employing not only to improve box office numbers but, far more worrisome, to call attention away from real artistic, financial, and leadership problems. The Symphony is failing, and not just financially.

Let's just get it out there

Yes, you are just like everybody else; though of course you are not just like everybody else.

Your mind dazzles; your feet pound out a fervent beat. There was that fourth tune in the elevator; the blue silk tie; the t-shirt with the pixilated heart. It doesn't add up.

"She had made fresh starts before and things had not turned out as she had hoped, but she believed in the swift decision, the unforeseen intervention, the uniqueness of her fate."

It's not that I'm disappointed in you. I'm disappointed in me.