Westchester Philharmonic Blog

Mahler at the Movies

2012-02-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

Let’s hear some classical music...at the movies?

Most of us are used to experiencing classical music in the traditional way: pick up your program book, sit in a cushy red velvet seat, watch the musicians warm-up, experience the live sound as it reverberates off the walls and people around you, applaud (and, in our case, rise for a standing ovation, of course), discuss the uplifting performance with your friends and head home (to hop online and purchase more tickets!)

On February 18, we’re encouraging a different kind of experience: pick up your popcorn, put your soda in the cup holder, kick back and watch the big screen. Then, head down the street for a drink and a bite to eat with your fellow music lovers.

The LA Phil is offering classical music fans the chance to see Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic up-close and personal from the comfort of their local movie theatre. LA Phil LIVE broadcasts bring specially selected performances to theaters live from Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Dudamel’s home turf in Caracas, Venezuela.

Concert hall acoustics are impossible to replicate but on February 18th in-theatre audiences will experience Dudamel conducting Mahler's 8th Symphony plus tantalizing views of the orchestra in action, captured with multiple HD cameras in thrilling 5.1 surround sound.

The broadcast also includes an exclusive "backstage pass" look at the LA Phil–including interviews with world-renowned guest soloists, orchestra musicians, and Dudamel, who, in addition to his performances with the LA Phil, leads the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and is known for his involvement in the groundbreaking "El Sistema" music education system.

We’ve added to the experience by inviting movie-goers to a special post-concert soiree that includes a little food, drink and lots of conversation about the broadcast. We’ll gather at Hudson Grille in White Plains immediately after the show. Starting at 5 pm you can catch LA Phil Live at the City Center Theater in White Plains or the New Roc Stadium in New Rochelle. We’ve posted more details about this event, including how to buy tickets to the show and post-concert event, on our website.

Although a decidedly different way of experiencing classical music, our goal is to keep you listening and learning so, we hope you’ll join us.

Watch the LA Phil Live trailer!

Playing Our Hearts Out

2011-12-01T12:48:00.000-05:00

By Lenore Eggleston, Director, Marketing & Development

It’s been an incredible fall season for the Westchester Philharmonic. Those of you who were lucky enough to be at our concerts November 12 and 13 experienced something truly magical. There was an unexplainable energy in the house coupled with an excitement from the audience and musicians alike. The glowing feedback for our honored guests Japanese conductor Tomomi Nishimoto and the legendary harpist Ann Hobson Pilot has been pouring in.

"Once again, my family and I were overwhelmed by the music and musicianship of the November 13 concert. We are now in our third subscription year, and this was one of the most impressive performances we have attended, by the orchestra, by the wonderful conductor, Ms. Nishimoto, and of course, Ms. Hobson Pilot."

"Of all the guest conductors we’ve ever seen over the years, today’s was incredible. Tomomi Nishimoto was the most energetic and exciting conductor I’ve ever seen, ANYWHERE!"

"Magnificent concert!! Beautifully balanced, great conductor, great harpist, great orchestra!! They played their hearts out."

And then there was our experience with the students at the Japanese School of Greenwich who were visited by Maestra Nishimoto the week before her performances with us...

Their excitement was palpable as they listened to Maestra Nishimoto speak about her experiences as a student and what inspired her to become a conductor. We were touched that so many of the students then joined us for the performances the following weekend. They were among the throngs of enthusiastic fans eager to get backstage and shower Maestra Nishimoto with gifts and praise (for the first time we actually had to implement some backstage crowd-control!) Tomomi Nishimoto had not only inspired these young students but she created energy in the theater that was contagious to all – her artistry, honesty and dedication to the music were undeniable in the classroom and on the podium.

Experiences like the ones we had surrounding the November concerts are what the Westchester Philharmonic is all about. But it’s only through your generous support that the music can keep playing.

If you’re on our snail mail list you’ll get a letter in the mail shortly asking for new and increased donations to the orchestra. If you have been moved like any of our enthusiastic patrons quoted above, or wish to show your support for our efforts at bringing music and artists into classrooms across Westchester please send a little (or a lot of!) holiday cheer our way. We sure could use it.

Learn more about giving to the Westchester Philharmonic.

Image of Tomomi Nishimoto by Hideki Shiozawa.

Sheherezade, Saint Petersburg and my Russian mentor

2011-11-10T13:04:00.000-05:00

By Tomomi Nishimoto
Guest Conductor, Westchester Philharmonic &
Principal Guest Conductor, Russian State Symphony Orchestra
(Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra)

It is a profound honor to perform in my first concert with the Westchester Philharmonic. I am thrilled to conduct a uniquely beautiful piece by one of the greatest American composers of our time, John Williams, and to lead a fantastic harpist whom I deeply admire, Ann Hobson Pilot. Reading and studying this contemporary American music was an exciting new adventure for me; on the other hand, my relationship with Sheherezade is much deeper and more closely related to my musical roots.

I learned from two great masters of conducting while studying at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1996 and 1999 -- Prof. Ilya Aleksandrovich Musin and his former student Prof. Victor Fedotov. Prof. Musin was born in 1904 and died in 1999, experiencing first-hand much of the development of 20th century music, not to mention the birth and eventual demise of the Soviet Union. I was fortunate to be one of his last students and I am delighted to share with American classical music lovers (audience and artists alike) some personal episodes involving Mr. Musin.

Musin's teacher was Nikolai Malko, also a great conductor 21 years his senior. Malko had trained under such great 19th Century Russian composers/conductors as Glazunov, Lyadov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter had especially strong influence on Malko – passing on to him the tradition which was later established as the Russian Conducting School-style of conducting. Thanks to Musin, we can still study music according to the training method and principles of Rimsky-Korsakov himself, more than a century after the great composer’s death.

Relaxed after our classroom sessions, Prof. Musin would often share with me interesting tidbits about his former colleagues -- one frequent subject was Dmitri Shostakovich, his classmate at the conservatory in the 1920s:

"I met Shostakovich on the food line at the conservatory's cafeteria," Prof. Musin said, "With the same thick eyeglasses as you see in the photographs, he seemed a quiet and shy person at first. Soon, I discovered that he was a passionate fan of soccer, of all things. When he talked about the games, he was so excited and thoroughly enjoyed the topic."

"When Shostakovich was working on his first symphony, he asked me to play the piano with him, to check and revise the harmony and orchestration. It was immensely interesting and fun to play the score on the piano with our four hands. So, you know, I was the very first audience of Shostakovich's Symphony Number One!"

I had a chance to ask Prof. Musin some questions about the fifth symphony of Shostakovich -- one of my favorite Russian symphonies, then and now -- and learned a number of interesting things about this powerful masterpiece and its history.

As one of the most widely performed works by orchestras around the world, Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is played from a score with several errors and mistakes (in both notes and tempo). Unfortunately, the original score with Shostakovich's hand-written notes has never been found. But the score used by Yevgeny Mravinsky for the symphony's premiere in 1937 exists today (his performance with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra is available on video). Prof. Musin taught me to conduct this symphony as it was intended by the composer.

A contemporary to Musin, Mravinsky's life was opposite to Musin's. He experienced international fame as a star conductor. While I learned a lot from Mravinsky's great recordings, my sincere respect goes to Musin, who, although rather unknown beyond professional circles, left a legacy as a stellar educator. Among many other things, Musin was praised for his fair attitude in choosing and training students -- unlike some educators in his time, he was known to be free from racial or gender prejudice. His Jewish background, I may add, did not always help his career advancement, even during the Soviet era.

I am especially happy to perform Sheherezade with the wonderful musicians of Westchester Philharmonic because my mentor Prof. Musin especially adored Rimsky-Korsakov, who was his own teacher's teacher. Based, as everyone knows, on the tales of The Arabian Nights, the symphonic suite has melodies that represent actual places in Saint Petersburg -- uniquely synchronizing fantasy and reality, and successfully merging European and Oriental elements.

While studying Sheherezade at the conservatory, I was often amused by the idea that sections of the suite took place at locations nearby -- often city blocks I passed daily or the cathedral that I could see right from the classroom window. These are many of my fondest memories from Saint Petersburg.

Backrub for the Soul

2011-11-01T15:46:00.000-04:00

By Lenore Eggleston, Director, Marketing and Development

I don’t get massages that often (well, unless my husband buys me a gift certificate. Are you reading this honey?) but when I do I always leave thinking “why don’t I do this more often?” And although I work in the performing arts, I must admit, I don’t go to enough concerts. But every time I do make it out of the house I wonder the same thing: “why don’t I make more time for this?”

Life gets in the way, I guess, and we come up with a million excuses why we’re too busy to get those tickets or we wait until the last minute to decide and then flake out because they’re roasting Charlie Sheen on Comedy Central (oops, did I just admit that?) I know I won’t get the same lingering “ahhhh” from sitting on my couch that I’ll get from a good back rub or from hearing Beethoven’s Fifth and yet so often I choose to do something far less fulfilling.

I probably have one of the most varied job descriptions (doesn’t every arts management sucker, err professional?) but sometimes I get to do some pretty cool stuff. At our last concert, I tapped into my taxi driving skills and played chauffer for musical icon Lynn Harrell and his billion dollar cello (really should have paid for those higher insurance premiums). While it’s not always a pleasure waiting at the stage door, it does have its perks: I got to have ten minutes alone with a musical genius.

This time it was technically my job to be at the concert (no excuses required) and it was my responsibility to drive Lynn Harrell to and from the hotel but in those short minutes with him my soul got one heck of a backrub. He told me about his kids, his life in Santa Monica (why don’t I live there again?) and he told me about the day his father died….when he got the news he didn’t utter a word. He went straight to his room, grabbed his cello and played. Later his mom yelled: “how can you play your cello at a time like this!?”. “How could I not?” was his youthful reply.

And again, I was left wondering: how could I not get off my couch, open my heart and experience the gift that passes to us through these artists nightly in theaters across the country? (Never mind across the county, we have remarkable arts organizations right here in Westchester and a world-class orchestra of our own lifting up artists like Lynn Harrell, Kelli O'Hara, and Branford Marsalis!) There really is no good excuse. And the truth is, if I make the effort to step out of my everyday life and into the comfort of that warm theater surrounded by a few hundred other open hearts, I know I’m guaranteed something more than a massage (or Comedy Central) could ever give me: love.

[Shameless plug warning! Get some love November 12 and 13 when the Westchester Philharmonic features conductor Tomomi Nishimoto and harpist Ann Hobson Pilot. I’ll certainly be there…and not just because I have to.]

Lynn Harrell image by Matt Dine (c) 2011.

Tick, tick, tick…

2011-10-18T14:11:00.000-04:00

By Joshua Worby, Executive Director

In a rush to find solutions to the problem of orchestras losing “younger generations” to electronic media and other distractions, some industry professionals, who certainly have the right intention, have advanced a number of “enhanced experience” ideas that include giant video screens in the hall, cell phone interactions in the house, or having the musicians wear jeans and tee shirts on stage.

There is no question that orchestras must not stand on ceremony by sitting on their hands. The Great Recession notwithstanding, the need to innovate and continually push forward has always been true for every kind of art form in every discipline, and for every kind of business in every industry. But I do not believe the way to build new classical music audiences among younger generations is to effectively camouflage the product as something else, deploying tricks that ultimately distract from the music itself and “dumb-down” the experience. One’s listening apparatus (the brain) “drops out” while observing a close-up of the trombonist’s ponytail, or checking a tweet from a fellow audience member.

Some would assert that orchestras have no chance at all if they can’t first lure people into the hall with these novelties, the idea being that any exposure to classical music is better than none, and simple osmosis will imbue them with a newfound appreciation for the art form. I think that approach is more like getting your kids to eat Brussels sprouts by smothering them in melted processed cheese (the sprouts, that is). They don’t gain a taste for Brussels sprouts; they just start wanting melted cheese on everything. The nutritional value degrades to a net negative, just as I believe there is nothing gained, and probably much lost, by permitting, even encouraging audiences to indulge in various distractions during the very moment that the music is being made.

The best innovators know that some old-fashioned values are worth defending, and are in fact timeless. Steve Jobs didn’t try to change our behavior or our value systems, he expertly recognized the public’s latent demand – that is, stuff we didn’t know we wanted until he showed it to us – and we took care of the rest. As reported in the New York Times’ obituary:

“When asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: ‘None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.’”

I would posit the corollary that younger generations also don’t know what they don’t want. Orchestras would be better served by seizing on the latent demand that is universal to all human beings, the desire to have more beauty and meaning in our lives.

In thinking about the challenges faced by orchestras, I proceed from the assumption that there is inherent, incontrovertible value imparted by listening to a Mozart concerto. As touched upon in a previous post, I cannot define or quantify that value, but I know it exists, and I am far from alone, so we’ll have to accept it as an article of faith. If too many in the world today don’t accept that premise, it isn’t because our 250-year-old friend Mozart suddenly lost his touch in the past 20 years, or that the orchestra musicians are wearing the wrong clothes. And smearing Mozart with melted cheese is not going to change their minds.

Listening, it turns out, is a highly advanced skill, and that is where the degradation of values has occurred. Not to gripe, but we don’t cultivate that skill much any more, not just in music but in all manner of human interaction. We are more focused on being heard, or noticed, than on hearing and noticing our world…listening. Good listening skills have gone the way of penmanship and proper table manners. Show me skilled listeners, and I’ll put my money on the art every time.

Listening to classical music also requires a better-than-average attention span, a willingness to allow one’s mind to be monopolized for large chunks of time that far exceed, for example, the six-minute intervals of television content occurring between commercials. Multi-tasking? It’s a myth. One’s brain is either engaged in an activity or it isn’t. I’ve tested this theory by attempting to think and chew gum at the same time and discovered it’s impossible…you think and chew, think and chew, but not simultaneously. One cannot simultaneously listen to Ravel while texting the babysitter. To ever be able to fully enjoy that Mozart concerto means giving up forty minutes of everything else.

How do we get back those forty minutes?

We avidly encourage your comment.

The Power of Music

2011-10-11T13:04:00.002-04:00

By Executive Director, Joshua Worby

At the Westchester Philharmonic’s annual benefit dinner held on September 18th, we heard perform a young soprano, Enas Massalha, who is a member of the tiny minority of Israeli-born Muslims. (She was accompanied by a brilliant young South African pianist, Jean-Minette Cilliers.) Along with operatic selections by Verdi and Puccini, Enas sang popular favorites by Arlen and Loewe, and to everyone’s initial surprise and ultimate delight, successfully coaxed everyone to sing-along in “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

Sandwiching a vocal performance between the entrée and dessert course is never an easy task (“where’s my coffee?!”) but Enas confidently delivered a musical palate-cleanser that we all devoured.

She also sang, incantation-style, a gorgeous and stirring Arabic prayer that silenced the room. We learned it was Ya Mariam, a song of praise to the Virgin Mary.

Let that sink in for a moment. An Israeli-born Muslim singing an Arabic prayer to the Virgin Mary. Middle East peace negotiators, take note.

The thematic title of our benefit dinner was The Power of Music. For months leading up to the event we had wrestled with exactly how to explain what we meant by that, because although the idea is intrinsically understood by all, it tends to defy particular description.

We often think of the power of music to stimulate our senses and our intellects, to enchant and elate, to console and heal, to be a focal point for gathering people together. These are, shall we say, benefits imparted, defined outcomes, that nevertheless don’t quite describe what happens, inside, as we listen. But as we were being entranced by the melismatic strains of Ya Mariam, we knew exactly what had eluded us. And it still defies description.

Music can be melodically and harmonically described and analyzed, critiqued, placed in historical and musicological perspective, even explained by the laws of physics in scientific terms of frequency and amplitude, duration and envelope.

And yet for each of us in our own way, the power of music is colossally mysterious and meaningful. It is internalized and indescribable; a private and deeply felt revelation about ourselves and how we interact with the world; a new-found connection with others sharing it; an acquired wisdom about our past, or a renewed faith in our future.

We can never be quite sure how music will affect us once it enters our ears. All we can do – and must do – is keep listening.

(Photo by Elvia Gobbo)