Congratulations to New York Polyphony for receiving their second Grammy nomination for a Christmas CD, Sing Thee Nowell (BIS). It includes pieces from the Renaissance, traditional holiday classics, and new compositions by Andrew Smith, John Scott, and Michael McGlynn. Like all of their previous CDs, the programmed works are superlatively performed and thoughtfully interpreted. Last minute holiday shoppers take note!
By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.
I work for a small performing arts organization which performs each year in a tax-payer funded, non-traditional space. The venue makes itself available for rental as an event space. In the past, we have been allowed to pay them a reduced rental rate in exchange for a full-page ad in our program and recognition as a lead sponsor. Additionally, we regularly receive glowing reviews in local and national media that prominently feature color photos and positive mentions of the venue, which our audiences and reviewers (and we!) view as critical to our work and to our experience. This year they have asked for additional money in order to cover what they claim are increased maintenance costs. This would be a significant burden for us, as we are a small non-profit and we are already cutting expenses. We did not budget or anticipate an increase rental fee. They have suggested that they will waive the fee increase if we agree to bill them as a “presenter.” We are certainly open to the idea, but would like to understand what “presenter” typically means in this context. What would that word represent to our audiences and other organizations? What could we reasonably ask of them, financially or otherwise, in exchange for such billing? The venue does not produce, and rarely hosts other arts performances.
“Presenter” is one of those performing arts industry terms that can take on many different connotations and meanings depending upon the context and whom you ask. Legally, on its own, it is not self-defining. Like terms such as “hold”, “commission”, or “cancellation”, there is no official grimoire of terms or official definitions that are “industry standard.” Contractually, it means whatever the specific parties agree it means.
The better, or, should I say, more meaningful question is what implications listing them as a “presenter” would have in the minds of third parties critical to you and your organization, such as your audience, reviewers, and donors. In this context, the term “presenter” becomes more of a branding or marketing issue than anything else.
For most folks within the performing arts industry, being a “presenter” carries a curatorial implication. A presenter is usually perceived as an individual or organization that has used its own artistic judgment to select a production or performance that reflects its mission, has artistic merit, and meets the standards expected of the presenting venue or institution. However, the general public typically approaches this far differently.
Many venues produce and present performances as well as rent their spaces out to others. Most people do not realize this, much less make a distinction—or even care. Whether the Vienna Philharmonic performs at Carnegie Hall or Applebees, the average audience member, rightly or wrongly, usually assumes that wherever they are physically sitting at the time is the entity that is responsible for producing or presenting the performance they are watching. (Chicken wings and Mozart—what a concept!) Its sort of like blaming the waiter for over-cooking your steak—whoever presents the meal will enjoy the credit or the blame.
If your venue is asking to be billed as a “presenter” then it probably means they want to be seen as having discriminating tastes in deciding whom to allow to pay their rental fee. Perhaps they want to leverage some artistic credibility for marketing purposes or perhaps they are simply trying to justify their public funding by showing that they are more than just a commercial rental space. Either way, they obviously want to ride your coat tails. Fine. You wouldn’t be the first entity to leverage a little artistic integrity in exchange for survival. By acknowledging them as a lead sponsor, your audience has probably been giving the venue credit for the success of your performances anyway. Just make sure that your program, credits, billing, and other marketing materials continue to emphasize that it is you and your artistic team that are responsible for your work. And make sure that your written agreement with them clearly specifies the exact wording of the billing they will receive. Leave nothing to misinterpretation or chance. You might even ask to have approval over any marketing or publicity the venue issues on its own.
As for what you could reasonably ask of them, financially or otherwise, in exchange for such billing: There is nothing to “ask.” They have already set the price. You would agree to credit them as a presenter in exchange for letting you rent the space for a lower fee. Now is not the time for counter offers to try and get further concessions from them. Your immediate goal should be to avoid having to find a new venue or spend money you didn’t budget for, not win a negotiation challenge on “The Apprentice.”
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS
We will be taking a short break from the blog until January 7, 2015.
Please click on the photo to enjoy our gift to you.
Presenting the Dancing GG Arts Law Holiday Elves: Brian, Robyn and Ann
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For additional information and resources on this and other
legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com
To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.org.
All questions on any topic related to legal and business issues will be welcome. However, please post only general questions or hypotheticals. GG Arts Law reserves the right to alter, edit or, amend questions to focus on specific issues or to avoid names, circumstances, or any information that could be used to identify or embarrass a specific individual or organization. All questions will be posted anonymously and/or posthumously.
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THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:
THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!
The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty email, filing a lawsuit, or doing anything rash!
Talk about flute star power! Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors interview the innovative ensemble, Flutronix.
Nathalie Joachim and Allison Loggins-Hull are two remarkable flutists who have created Flutronix. The duo has been described by the Wall Street Journal as “a unique blend of classical music, hip-hop, electronic programming and soulful vocals.” Both are composers, producers and performers and have collaborated with an impressive range of artists. Flutronix music has been broadcast on popular radio stations around the world. They are regularly sought after as clinicians and educators by institutions like The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, and The University of Michigan. They’ve also been featured in TV segments on Telemundo, BK Live, The Daily Buzz and an internationally broadcast ESPN super bowl commercial as well as in a leading Japanese fashion magazine.
For more about Flutronix go to:
Flutronix.com
By ANDREW POWELL
Published: December 13, 2014
MUNICH — Passive accompanist and intent visionary: Gianandrea Noseda managed to be both Nov. 18 in his debut program with the busy Bavarian State Orchestra. For Dvořák’s Violin Concerto (1879) he indulged David Schultheiß in a lyrical reading that generally took its time, ignoring chances in the outer movements to drive rhythms more forcefully. The soloist (and first concertmaster) worked without ostentation. He phrased exquisitely, made the countless dances dance, and clearly relished the supply of melody, presenting the work as a confident if mostly tranquil whole. Fine woodwind contributions brightened the proceedings.
Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony (1907) followed the break at this Akademiekonzert in the orchestra’s ornate crimson home, the National Theater. Now Noseda was in his element, revealing obvious enthusiasm and instinct for the music. Conducting from a pocket-book score, he made these opera musicians sound as if they played Rachmaninoff every week, quashing notions that their mixed schedule prevents adequate rehearsal for concerts. He found ideal balances between the strings and winds, apparently with ease. He allowed partial themes to fall naturally in place, climaxes to build themselves, and unity to emerge through gentle emphasis on material shared between the movements. He injected little dashes of suspense, pounced on and relished each accelerando. But he never overplayed his hand. It was a richly executed performance, urgent in the second movement, duly rapturous in the Adagio, and nowhere identifiable as the interpretation of a non-Russian.
Photo © Wilfried Hösl
Related posts:
Horn Trios in Church
Benjamin and Aimard
Concert Hall Design Chosen
Thielemann’s Rosenkavalier
Kaufmann, Wife Separate
By ANDREW POWELL
Published: December 11, 2014
MUNICH — Could leaders here finally be moving ahead with a sorely needed new concert hall? Plans and sketches released this morning indicate progress on what has been an excruciatingly slow drive to supplement, or really supplant, the small Herkulessaal and hideous Gasteig venues.
As presented by chief advocate Konzertsaal München e.V., the intention now is to abandon consideration of redeveloping part of Munich’s Museumsinsel and instead opt for a more practicable project on land just north of the Hofgarten, across the quiet cul-de-sac Galeriestraße. Designs show an airy, curvacious white structure with below-ground parking.
The working name is “Neues Odeon,” a reference to the city’s fabled former Odeon concert hall a block away from the site. Galeriestraße would be pedestrianized, robbing visitors to the Altstadt of a somewhat hidden and cheap place to park, and the new hall would consume half of the somber and scarcely frequented Finanzgarten. That said, this latest location will feel right to many concertgoers here.
Visualization © Markus Krempels
Related posts:
Concert Hall Design Chosen
MPhil Bosses Want Continuity
Nézet-Séguin: Hit, Miss
Nazi Document Center Opens
Meccore: Polish Precision
Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors talk with Eric Jacobsen about choosing repertoire.
Hailed by the New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative programming projects. As co-founder and Music Director of the adventurous orchestra The Knights and a founding member of the dynamic string quartet Brooklyn Rider, he– along with his co-founder brother Colin Jacobsen– may take credit for helping to ensure “the future of classical music in America” (Los Angeles Times).
For more information about Eric Jacobsen, go to:
jacobseneric.com.
Tre Voci
Works by Debussy, Takemitsu, and Gubaidulina
Marina Piccinini, Flute; Kim Kashkashian, viola; Sivan Magen, harp
ECM New Series CD 2345
One of his last completed works, Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (1915) has been variously construed as a crystallization of Impressionism into a neoclassical mold, a nod to Debussy’s French compositional ancestors Rameau and Couperin, and an outlier in an otherwise venturesome output. I’m of the opinion that it is none of these things. Instead, the work is a late career example of the composer seeking out what was for him new formal terrain and compositional challenges. The performance on this ECM recording by flutist Marina Piccinini, violist Kim Kashkashian, and harpist Sivan Magen is utterly beguiling, with fluid interplay between the players, rhythmically decisive execution, and incandescent voicing of the work’s entrancing harmonies.
Toru Takemitsu frequently mentioned Debussy as a significant touchstone for his work. And then I knew ‘twas Wind’s title is inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem. This piece for the same forces as Debussy’s sonata is clearly written as an homage. Yet at the same time, it has a different style of pacing, an ebb and flow and a textural fragility that distinguish it from its predecessor. Sofia Gubaidulina’s Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten adopts the works of multiple poets as reference points: Iv Oganov and Francisco Tanzer. The latter’s lines even make an appearance at the end of the piece as a spoken word component. Frequent harp glissandos and pianissimo effects from the viola are offset by alternately angular and voluptuous flute melodies. A surprising, yet engaging, response to Debussy.
Music of Peter Lieberson Volume 3
Piano Concerto No. 3
Viola Concerto
Stephen Beck, piano; Roberto Diaz, viola;
Odense Symphony Orchestra, Scott Yoo, conductor
Peter Lieberson (1946-2011) was a composer capable of creating affecting works in a wide range of styles. He was well known for collaborations with his wife, mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; songs resplendent in lyricism. On the other hand, many of his earlier compositions were written in a more modernist vein. Later concertos for piano and viola point out that the composer covered a great deal of musical terrain between the two aforementioned approaches .
“Leviathan,” the first movement of Piano Concerto No. 3 (2003), pits incisive piano lines against muscular gestures from the orchestra. Alternating between richly hued and fragile passages, in “Leviathan” Lieberson convincingly threads his way through an intricate structure. “Canticle,” the piece’s second movement, revels in an extended triadic language. At its outset, roles are exchanged; here the piano is often the more assertive party with the orchestra supplying a lush and sustained background. Eventually there is a changing of the tide, with gentle gestures from the piano being offset by arcing lines and punctuating percussion from the orchestra. The concerto’s final movement is a Rondo. The main motive here, a polytonal chordal cascade, is presented in various permutations and is contrasted by far flung episodes. Of considerable interest are the sudden contrasts one finds here. Varying motives and meters, and transformations of harmony and orchestration provide a bevy of (pleasant) surprises. Soloist Steven Beck plays with thoughtful grace and, where required, strongly articulated virtuosity. Scott Yoo leads the Odense Symphony in an assured performance that takes the concerto’s many contrasting sections and technical demands in stride.
The first movement of Lieberson’s Viola Concerto (1992, revised in 2003) is a catalog of the many ways that you can treat the interval of a minor third. It serves as a motto in the solo part, but also infiltrates the orchestra quite thoroughly: from the flutes right down to the double basses. The second movement, a Scherzo, keeps the minor third around, but often treats it as an ostinato from which ornate altered scales emerge. The piece’s final movement features an expansive and ardent Adagio section, with some lovely cadenza passages and a tapering denouement, capped off (relatively late in the game) by a boisterous Allegro. This features a reintroduction of (you guessed it) that minor third in a variety of new guises. The Viola Concerto is an excellent example of a composer restricting himself to a particular palette, yet allowing a plethora of permutations from it to emerge. And while there are passages in which harmonic centers are ambiguous, the overall musical language of this piece is more conservative than Piano Concerto No. 3. Not that this is a bad thing; it demonstrates the composer’s versatility. One only wishes that Lieberson could still be here to enjoy the stirring rendition of this piece provided by soloist Roberto Diaz and, once again, the stalwart Odense Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Yoo. This is one of my favorite recordings of 2014.
By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.
Dear Law and Disorder:
We have arranged for one of our foreign groups to perform a showcase at the upcoming APAP conference in New York. Will they need artist visas? Obviously, we’d like to avoid that time and expense. The artists are all from Europe and could enter as visitors under ESTA. Couldn’t we just say that the performance is intended to educate presenters and the US market about the group and is, thus, “educational”?
Nice try. Please see the bailiff on the way out to make arrangements to pay your fines and penalties. While visitors to the US are permitted to attend seminars or engage in “short courses of study”, the education must be for the benefit of the visitor, not the audience. When traveling through the demented kingdom of US arts immigration, never take a circuitous route through the fire swamp of cute arguments and clever schemes on the rare occasion when a straightforward path may actually present itself.
The official rule is and has always been that artists cannot perform in visitor status (which means either entry with an actual visitor visa or entry through the visa-waiver/ESTA programme.) If an artist performs in the US (and does not have either a student (F) visa approved for “practical training” or a similar training-based visa such as a J or M), then the artist must have either an O or P visa. It doesn’t matter if the artist isn’t being paid. It doesn’t matter if tickets are free. It doesn’t matter if the audience is enthralled, inspired, impoverished, infirmed, intoxicated, or indifferent. Any performance in front of an audience triggers the need for an O or P visa.
HOWEVER, an artist IS allowed to enter the US in visitor and/or ESTA status and perform if the performance constitutes an “audition.” Several years ago, USCIS clarified that “showcases” at official booking conferences such as Arts Midwest, APAP, etc. could qualify for this exception provided certain conditions were met:
(1) The showcase cannot be open to the public (regardless of whether or not tickets are sold or free);
(2) The performance can only be for the benefit of registered conference attendees; and
(3) The artist(s) cannot engage in any other performances while in the US.
So, if your showcase is of the variety that are held in one of the ersatz performance spaces at the Hilton and open only to official, registered conference attendees with official, multi-beribboned badges, then you are in luck. On the other hand, if your showcase is of the kind that are held around New York City in an actual performance space where the general public will be attending, but APAP conference registrants can come for free, then your artists will need O or P visas. In other words, its not enough merely to call a performance a showcase—it must be an APAP-only showcase or it doesn’t count.
If you believe that your artists qualify for the showcase/audition exception, then I would still strongly recommend that each artist travels and enters the US with a signed letter from you, on your official letterhead, confirming their entry and departure dates and confirming that all of the above-conditions are met.
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For additional information and resources on this and other
legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com
To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.org.
All questions on any topic related to legal and business issues will be welcome. However, please post only general questions or hypotheticals. GG Arts Law reserves the right to alter, edit or, amend questions to focus on specific issues or to avoid names, circumstances, or any information that could be used to identify or embarrass a specific individual or organization. All questions will be posted anonymously and/or posthumously.
__________________________________________________________________
THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:
THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!
The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty email, filing a lawsuit, or doing anything rash!
Manon, Let’s Go
December 11th, 2014By ANDREW POWELL
Published: December 11, 2014
MUNICH — Puccini lost even before the curtain went up Nov. 15 on Hans Neuenfels’ conceptual new staging of Manon Lescaut for Bavarian State Opera. Anna Netrebko, its titular star, abandoned the project in quiet disgust, understandably it turned out. Disaster did not follow, but the night and the subsequent run will long be remembered for what might have been, musically.
The company broke the sorry news Nov. 3 after securing a substitute in Kristine Opolais. It cited “unterschiedlichen Auffassungen,” divergent opinions, between star and director and lamely lamented the stresses of theater life. It had not, apparently, considered managing those stresses so that no cast change was needed. In any case, the neat explanation rang hollow: Netrebko has a history of flexibility with Regietheater. She had signed on with a régisseur known for strange concepts and was no doubt looking forward to the highly visible introduction to Germany of a successful new role.
Sure enough, a more accurate picture emerged within days, in Der Spiegel and from the horse’s mouth. While the Russian soprano remained atypically mute, Neuenfels, 73, echoed the conversation in rehearsals that caused the rift. Netrebko had conveyed views about the choice facing Abbé Prévost’s 1731 material girl — between a life of passion with penniless des Grieux and one of wealth with Geronte — that he, Neuenfels, found “lächerlich und degradierend,” laughable and degrading, to women. He had reasoned back: “Möglicherweise findet man es in Russland als Frau gar nicht schlimm, sich von einem alten, reichen Mann aushalten zu lassen,” or, Maybe in Russia it is not considered at all bad for a woman to let herself be kept by an old rich man — this, not incidentally, to an actress whose own family endured deprivation and hunger at the start of her career. Bottom line: your views are no good, and probably because you are Russian. Bravo, Herr Direktor!
The cast change would not have mattered so much had Netrebko not triumphed in February in her role debut as Puccini’s Manon, and before an Italian audience under Riccardo Muti’s strict tutelage. But she had. Tapes demonstrate she was red hot for this role this year, with clear Italian, a dramatic command of the evolving character gleaned from years as Massenet’s protagonist, and, especially, rich tones to wield in all sorts of expressive ways.
Opolais has sung here often since her radiant first appearance in 2010 in a lyrically conducted (Tomáš Hanus), perversely staged (Martin Kušej) Rusalka, not always equaling that achievement. She is an enchanting presence on stage, an excellent musician, a game and cooperative colleague. The voice never makes an ugly sound, but it wanes in volume as it descends (there is no “chest voice” of substance), and her Italian wants stronger consonant projection.
On opening night Opolais (pictured) teamed magnetically with her des Grieux, Jonas Kaufmann. Both gave their best in Act IV, she singing to the boards for heft in Sola, perduta, he sailing high as a generous embodiment of Gallic desperation. Throughout Act II, alas, the soprano’s relatively monochromatic voice and missing gravitas limited the music: a little morbidezza helps in the singing of In quelle trine morbide, and Tu, tu, amore! Tu? at the start of the duet requires intensity and volume. Markus Eiche, as the immoral Lescaut, sounded glorious but strove in vain for italianità. Ditto for Sören Eckhoff’s loosely regimented choristers. Vivid supporting contributions came from Okka von der Damerau, a vocally lush Musico; Dean Power, a spright Edmondo; and the veterans Ulrich Reß, cast inexplicably as a hypertrichotic Maestro di ballo (hand is pictured, lower left), and Roland Bracht, a credible and clear Geronte.
The Bavarian State Orchestra showed astonishing sensitivity to Puccini’s freshest score, finely tracing its melodic ideas, scampering through the momentary ironies, deftly tinting the myriad and occasionally peculiar textures. It was an evening of great acumen and discernment for the brass, notably the trombone group, where an oversized cimbasso provided discreet assistance. Everything came across new and instant as propelled by Alain Altinoglu, Munich’s first master Puccinian in many seasons.
Neuenfels’ staging, which returns next July and will be streamed, advances the action to “Irgendwann,” whenever. It is black, framed in white neon. Its black-clad protagonists emote under seldom-varied white light. Stripped of time and place, the French cautionary tale is spun with the aid of projected texts auf Deutsch, plugging holes the director perceives in the Italian libretto and injecting wisdom and whimsy, little of it profound or funny. Early example: “‘When a coach comes, the opera begins,’ said Giacomo Puccini.” Neuenfels uses the choristers — Act I’s students, Act II’s guests, the gawkers at Le Havre — to toy around more invasively, mockingly, endowing them with flame-red hair to ensure we watch.
The action is closely calibrated to shifts in the score, but the rootless and sterile settings, combined with Neuenfels’ propensity to play with paraphernalia and gags of his own invention, send the opera down a path that is at odds with the brutal application of law and the personal destruction driving the music. Result: a diminished dramma mitigated somewhat by a powerfully bare Act IV.
It is intriguing to contemplate how much of this production would still have worked had its director been fired last month after offending Netrebko. Chances are, all of it. One imagines a late but efficient Bavarian State Opera team scramble to prepare for opening night without Neuenfels, mounting Manon Lescaut with the planned and more gifted soprano. In business, it would have been that way, and one wonders why a public theater is any different. Instead the company’s management allowed hurtful on-the-job remarks to deprive Munich, and the world, of what would certainly have been a momentous series of performances. Prima il regista, poi la musica.
Photo © Wilfried Hösl
Related posts:
Verdi’s Lady Netrebko
Blacher Channels Maupassant
Portraits For a Theater
Petrenko’s Sharper Boris
Mélisande as Hotel Clerk
Tags: Abbé Prévost, Alain Altinoglu, Bavarian State Opera, Bavarian State Orchestra, Bayerische Staatsoper, Bayerischer Staatsopernchor, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Commentary, Dean Power, Der Spiegel, Giacomo Puccini, Hans Neuenfels, Kaufmann, Kristine Opolais, Manon Lescaut, Markus Eiche, München, Munich, Netrebko, Okka von der Damerau, Review, Roland Bracht, Ulrich Reß
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