In Sunday’s (12/11) New York Times, Anthony Tommasini writes, “Classical music audiences seem more curious than ever, and performers have been emboldened over the past decade or so to take more chances. … Not that long ago the doomsayers were predicting the death of classical music. Yet during the 1990s the most innovative orchestras hired dynamic conductors with palpable enthusiasm for new music who had the capacity to excite their communities with fresh artistic vision, notably Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Michael Tilson Thomas, still on the job at the San Francisco Symphony.” Tommasini also discusses Alan Gilbert, who opened his tenure as New York Philharmonic music director in 2009 with a premiere of a Magnus Lindberg work, and mentions the Philharmonic’s productions of Gyorgy Ligeti’s La Grand Macabre and Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen. “Now that established institutions are doing better at embracing new music, ventures that once seemed suspect come across differently. … With contemporary music now prominent in the [Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s] Alice Tully Hall programs, its informal contemporary-music concerts at the Rose Studio seem a fresh addition to its offerings, not some side operation for the new-music set. The same is true for Contact!, the New York Philharmonic’s series of contemporary-music concerts, inaugurated by Mr. Gilbert. … Still, there are only two programs, each played twice a season. Unless the series expands, it will inevitably seem an offshoot.”
Photo from New York Philharmonic’s production of La Grande Macabre by Chris Lee
Posted December 12, 2011
