In Thursday’s (3/15) Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin writes about the Mann Center’s plans for this summer season, which include six performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra, “down from … the more recent norm of nine. The Mann has tried to get more, but the orchestra says its busy summer in China, Colorado, and Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has made scheduling at the Mann difficult.… The summer season starts early, May 11, with a free concert that represents an expanding relationship between the Mann and the Curtis Institute of Music. The orchestra of the Curtis, with conductor Rossen Milanov, performs Brahms and Bernstein on its way out of town for dates in Europe.” The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will perform two concerts in July, the first featuring works by Tchaikovsky and Dvořák, led by Music Director Manfred Honeck, and a second program led by Eímear Noone.” Mann President Catherine Cahill “acknowledges that the Mann Center for the Performing Arts has moved far from the days when artistic director Charles Dutoit could program plenty of Gershwin and Copland, but Martinu and Schoenberg, too, plus a nearly complete multiyear Mahler cycle. With delicate finances, no corporate sponsor for the classical season, and capacity for 14,000 listeners … the trend is not likely to be reversed anytime soon. Said Cahill: ‘We’re in a position where we just can’t take any risk. The Mann is truly the everyman venue.’ ”
Posted March 15, 2012
