Noted Endeavors with Ran Dank and Soyeon Lee: For-Profit or Not-for-Profit, That is the Question

October 28th, 2014

Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors interview international prize-winning pianists (and husband-and-wife) Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee, founders of the concert series Music by the Glass.

Noted EndeavorsKate and Ran discuss their reasons for wanting to be a not-for-profit organization. They explain, step-by-step, how and why they came to their decision and why it seemed to be the best plan for them. They created their unique series, Music by the Glass, in 2013 to create “an intimate, exhilarating and stimulating musical experience.” We interviewed Soyeon and Ran just a few weeks before their first baby arrived. Noah Lee-Dank is now a happy bouncing baby boy, and MBTG continues to thrive.

To read more about MUSIC BY THE GLASS please go to:
musicbytheglass.com

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Enter the Cockroach, Stage Left

October 23rd, 2014

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.   

Dear Law and Disorder:

My artist has an O-1 visa which expires in April 2015. We want to add a new engagement in May 2015. Can we just file for a “visa extension” or do we have to file a whole new petition?

Your question contains the implication that filing for a “visa extension” is somehow a different or easier process than filing “a whole new petition.” Understandably, many people like to presume that an important government agency with a lofty name such as United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which operates under the supervision of the even loftier agency known as the Department of Homeland Security, has employed the utmost care and sophistication in crafting procedures and regulations that are efficient, coherent, and germane to its mission. Instead, USCIS is more like an absurdist play where the role of USCIS is portrayed as a giant cockroach holding a bouquet of balloons and pushing a baby carriage full of bouncing pink puppies. Oh, yes, and the cockroach is wearing a green fedora and a polka-dot bow tie. It also periodically excretes caramel apples. Nothing is what it seems!

Simply put, the term “extension” is not a short cut around the visa petition process. Anything that requires USCIS approval–amending a visa, adding time to a visa, changing support staff, correcting a mistake on a visa, etc.—requires a shiny, new visa petition, along with the requisite petition forms, filing fees, union consultation fees, documents, and evidence. There are no shortcuts. However, in practical terms, if you are dealing with a recently filed petition, then you will probably just be cutting, pasting, and copying from the recently filed petition. Aside from the fees and costs, it shouldn’t take you much time at all.

So what does the term “visa extension” actually mean? It refers to the box you check on the I-129 visa petition form. If the artist is present in the United States, doesn’t want to leave, and wants additional time added to their visa so they can stick around and perform the additional engagement, then you check box 4(c) in Part 2 of the I-129 form indicating that the artist is present in the United States and wants to “extend” his or her visa. On the other hand, if the artist is outside of the United States and needs additional time so they can re-enter the United States to perform an additional engagement, then you check box 4(a) in Part 2 of the I-129 form indicating that the artist will either enter before their current visa expires or will pick up a new visa at a consulate. Aside from checking different boxes, everything else is the same. Either way, you are still required to prepare and file “a whole new petition.”

To address what I suspect is an additional source of the terminological confusion, there is, indeed, a provision buried in the USCIS regulations that permits an individual who holds an O-1 visa to obtain a 1 year “extension.” However, this only applies to an O-1 who will be doing the same job for the same employer under the same terms as listed on the original O-1 petition. As the O-1 visa category covers more than artists, this was intended to cover a foreign individual who holds a full time job with one employer and simply wants to keep doing what he or she has been doing (ie: a corporate executive). In other words, except, perhaps, for an artistic director or administrative position, this will rarely, if ever, be applicable to a performing artist. Moreover, as the grinning cockroach will gleefully remind you, even this requires a new petition, filing fee, forms, and supporting materials, so it doesn’t actually save anyone much in terms of time or expense anyway. Like everything else in this absurdist play, its simply there to toy with your senses

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For additional information and resources on this and otherGG_logo_for-facebook 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!

 

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Posted in Artist Management, Law and Disorder: Performing Arts Division, Touring, Visas | Comments Closed

Noted Endeavors with Talea Ensemble: Getting Grants – How To Ask For Funding

October 21st, 2014

Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors interview Elizabeth Weisser, violist and Alex Lipowski, percussionist, of Talea Ensemble.

Noted EndeavorsCommitted to promoting new, groundbreaking music by commissioning and programming progressive works, Talea Ensemble allows audiences to gain exposure to new composers and to explore cutting edge music. Percussionist Alex Lipowski is the Executive Director and Elizabeth Weisser, violist, is the director of development. The ensemble aims to increase awareness and understanding of new music through outreach by participating in residencies, performances and projects for broad audiences.

To read more about TALEA ENSEMBLE, go to
taleaensemble.org.

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The Oblique Censor, Part 3 of 3

October 20th, 2014

 By James Conlon

The following post is adapted from James Conlon’s Keynote Address at the symposium “Music, Censorship and Meaning in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union: Echoes and Consequences” on August 9, 2014 presented by the Ziering-Conlon Initiative at the Colburn school with the cooperation of the Orel Foundation.

A public cannot clamor for what it doesn’t know. It can only be hoped that a public can be motivated by curiosity, and made to be open to what it doesn’t yet know.

And so, oblique as it may be, there is a powerful invisible force that is actually functioning to separate out works based on their monetary worth. Classical music, from the time of the Medicis has always depended on patronage. It has never–and I believe cannot–stand the test of a for-profit business venture. It loses, not makes, money. The decisions made in performing arts administrations is rarely about what will make money, but rather, what will lose less.

Which brings me to the point of some of the challenges of bringing “Recovered Voices” composers into the contemporary environment. The problems encountered are not unique to the lesser-known composers who were suppressed during the Nazi Regime. They are extensions of phenomena already described.

The eventual goal of “Recovered Voices” is to integrate this music into concert programming so that it need not fall under any category related to the life experiences of the composer, nor the historical conditions under which they wrote.

The most common obstacles I have encountered in trying to interest people in “Recovered Voices” are attitudinal. Their refrains are familiar. “There are no lost masterpieces” (what would they have said to Felix Mendelssohn in 1829, when he first presented the Matthew Passion in Leipzig; do they think that only masterpieces survived the destruction of Pre Columbian Art by the Conquistadores?), and the corollary, “How good can it be if I have never heard of it?” (Implying that one’s own acquaintance with a piece of music is a prerequisite for any possible worth it might possess.) That many so-called music lovers ignore certain works is due to …yes, their ignorance of the works. The oblique censorship in those attitudes aggravates the difficulties in interesting the public in lesser-known works.

The problems are not limited to the public. Many musicians themselves are very conservative in their tastes, and also resistant to new music, whether contemporary or something from the past that is new to them. Some of the press is well informed, objective and constructive. Unfortunately not all: some are content with facile and flippant reactions, passing judgment on the basis of limited knowledge of the terrain.

When asked, as I often am, how this music is received, my answer is: generally, quite well. The problem is not so much getting people to like it, but getting them to listen to it in the first place. At LA Opera we generally gave a maximum of four performances of each “Recovered Voices” opera, but the audience that was there was vociferous in its appreciation. There were some who returned more than once to hear these operas. Many people still will not buy a ticket, but those who have tend to return for more.

I am not now, nor have I ever suggested, that under the very broad umbrella term of “Recovered Voices” that there are hundreds of lost masterpieces. First, I am not inclined to throw that term around promiscuously. Every piece cannot, by definition, be a masterwork.  Nor need it be.  We do not live by masterworks alone. A Rembrandt pencil sketch is not the Night Watch, but it is still Rembrandt. Bastien und Bastienne or Mitridate, Re di Ponto are not Don Giovanni, but they are still Mozart. My mission is to play many of the compositions that were weeded out, not by objective musical judgment, but by the Nazi regime for self-serving political and racist motives.

When they are played and listened to by a larger segment of our concert-going public, and played repeatedly by fine, committed musicians, it will be a more appropriate time to make judgments about their ultimate worth and where–and whether–they fit into that ever-evolving canon of works which are referred to as classical.  Those judgments are now being made mostly on the basis of fleeting acquaintance if not downright ignorance. I am advocating that we make more of an effort to play a sizeable amount of very good music that had been arbitrarily removed from our cultural patrimony by unqualified individuals.

The oblique censor militates against this. I am not insisting that everyone like every piece from this period. De gustibus non disputandum est. I just want to be sure that everyone has a chance to taste this music before they decide whether or not they want it as nourishment on a more regular basis.

Posted in A Rich Possession | Comments Closed

Noted Endeavors with eighth blackbird: What Makes You Stand Out – Identify Then Brand It

October 14th, 2014

Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors interview Matthew Duvall and Lisa Kaplan of the acclaimed new music ensemble, eighth blackbird.

Noted EndeavorsCombining “the finesse of a string quartet and the energy of a rock band,” this ensemble will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2015. The three-time Grammy Award-winning group commissions new works from composers and choreographers, enjoys residencies at such prestigious schools as the University of Chicago, Curtis Institute and others, and performs worldwide with great acclaim. The name “eighth blackbird” derives from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens’s evocative, aphoristic poem of 1917: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

For more about eighth blackbird, go to:
www.eighthblackbird.org

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At the Majestic, in Casual Concert

October 10th, 2014

Terry_Riley_224_(c)_Chris_Felver_14122461123By Rebecca Schmid

“This is not a minimalist piece,” announced Cameron Carpenter in onstage discussion of Terry Riley’s At the Royal Majestic, an organ concerto which made its German premiere with the Deutsches-Symphonie Orchester Berlin (DSO) at the Philharmonie on Oct.9. His feet laced up in knee-high converse sneakers, Carpenter proceeded to play an excerpt revealing what he perceives as the influence of late Romantic composers Vierne and Widor.

Riley’s approximately 35-minute work, as conductor Giancarlo Guerrero next demonstrated with the orchestra, wearing daily dress for the DSO’s Casual Concert series, nevertheless has passages revealing the roots of the minimalist master, with repeated, almost primitive rhythms in the strings. The composer, present to dissect the music before it was performed in entirety, said with a laughing, Buddhist air of reflection that he was interested in anything that led the way to “ecstasy.”

Riley weaves together a huge spectrum of material, from ragtime, to rock, to neo-Romanticism, into a nearly cinematic spectacle that is tailor-made to Carpenter’s virtuosity and showmanship. The opening movement is inspired and named after the drawing “Negro Hall” by Swiss artist Adolf Woelfli, whom the composer imagined encountering black American culture for the first time.

A gospel-like passage on the organ gradually ushers in the orchestra, from chimes, to percolating woodblocks, to a drum set creating an Ives-like parallel realm. The ensemble comes together briefly in atmospheric swirls of color until the music takes on sharper edges, with shifting rhythms, protesting chords from the soloist and a stand-off in the woodwinds.

The inner “Lizard Tower Gang”—named, quite literally, after a tower the composer built for the reptile creatures in his backyard—emerges with eerie glissandi, chirping winds and polytonal layers that, as the composer articulates in program notes, “juggle chaos and symmetry.” It is the shortest and most mysterious movement, ending in a cadenza-like teaser that yields to atmospheric strings and inquisitive bassoons, as if marveling at the infinity of nature.

The final movement evokes a pilgrimage to the sacred mountain of Kailash in Tibet with a winding collage of textures, culminating in a monumental chorale of organ and brass. As Carpenter noted in his introduction, however, the soloist has the last word, with a swipe across the entire top keyboard and booming pedal clusters that yield to a slinky, jazzy melody—minimalist in its utter brevity—before the instrument fades out into nothing.

The performance was all the more powerful given the intimate introduction by the performers and composer in the DSO’s relaxed setting. Downstairs in the foyer, where pink lighting lent a club-like atmosphere, the young German band Xul Kolar and the DJ Johann Fanger played for the after party. I mostly saw 40-somethings dancing rather than the younger folk presenters are scheming to attract, but still, shouldn’t every concert feel this fresh?

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Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Closed

The Beauty of Nature (Trained and Untrained): A Schumacher Ballet Film

October 9th, 2014

By Rachel Straus

Helene Davis, of Helene Davis PR, was good enough to send this beautiful film promo, featuring Ashley Laracey and Harrison Coll in the upcoming work Dear and Blackbirds by Troy Schumacher. Filmed by Schumacher, the duet was shot in Telluride, CO. Ah, mountains, prairie and dark cumulous clouds. The two statuesque dancers’ serious yet delicate interchanges mysteriously harmonize with the monumental landscape.

Click here to see:

Dear and Blackbirds

Schumacher’s pick-up company, composed of New York City Ballet dancers, will present two world premieres, Dear and Blackbirds and All That We See, at New York University’s Skirball Center on October 29 and 30. Both ballets have been composed to commissioned scores by 24-year-old Ellis Ludwig-Leone, who works as musical assistant to Nico Muhly and whose aesthetic is decidedly romantic.

Schumacher founded Ballet Collective in 2010 and has danced in New York City Ballet’s corps since 2006. On September 24, his first City Ballet commission Clearing Dawn, to Judd Greenstein’s “Clearing, Dawn, Dance,” premiered. It will be performed again at the former New York State Theater on October 9, 11 and 13.

Clearly, Schumacher is inspired by nature. His titles are a give away. He invokes his dancers to move like reeds in the wind.

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Bring Out Your Dead!

October 9th, 2014

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.   

Dear Law and Disorder:

Many years ago I hired an attorney to create an LLC for me, but I wound up never using it. Recently, I was presented with another business opportunity, but I’d like to have an LLC to do this. Can I still use the original LLC even though it would be for an entirely different purpose? I’d hate to have to hire an attorney to create a new one as the last one was very expensive.

When you create a corporate entity, such as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), a C-corporation or S-corporation, its like creating a living creature. It has its own legal identity, pays its own taxes, and can sue and be sued entirely separate from its owners. However, like leaving a fish abandoned in a fishbowl, if you ignore it, don’t feed it, and don’t change the water, it will die.

Corporate entities such as LLCs are created and formed in the state where they are located. Once formed, most states require the payment of a yearly registration fee to keep the entity “alive.” If the fee is not paid, the entity will be listed as “inactive” (ie: put into a medically induced coma.) While you can often pay the past due fees and make it “active” again, if it stays “inactive” for too long it will be removed from life support and you will have to start all over again. Also, even if you could somehow resurrect a dead corporate entity, unless they were originally created to be generic, such entities can’t be used for different purposes than those for which they were originally created. For example, if you created an LLC to represent artists, you can just use the same entity to operate a record company or produce a play.

However, whether you are creating a new corporate entity or resurrecting an old one, the process does not require an attorney and should never be “very expensive.” I have heard of people paying attorneys $5000 – $10,000 for this process which is, quite frankly, insane. Creating an LLC, C-corporation, or S-corporation in most states only requires a simple form or two (most of which can almost always either be downloaded or completed on-line) and the payment of a registration/filing fee. Often, its advisable to consult with an attorney or an accountant (or both) about the various legal and tax implications of different corporate entities, as well as to flag any potential business or legal pitfalls. Also, if your entity will involve more than one owner or partner, then you will want an operating agreement or shareholder agreement, and possibly even some by-laws to make sure everyone knows who’s in charge, how decisions are made, how to bail out, etc. However, unless you are creating an entity which will be involved with complex securities and exchange transactions or plan to do a corporate takeover of Apple or AT&T, the forming of the entity itself is quite simple. If you can complete your name and address (which I do acknowledge is more challenging for some that others), you can create and register an LLC.

___________________________________________________________________

For additional information and resources on this and otherGG_logo_for-facebook 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!

 

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Posted in Arts Management, For Profits, Law and Disorder: Performing Arts Division, Limited Liability Companies, Non-Profits | Comments Closed

Noted Endeavors with Eliran Avni: You Can’t Do This on Your Own – Building a Successful Team

October 7th, 2014

Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors inverview Eliran Avni, founder of Shuffle Concert.

Noted EndeavorsPianist Eliran Avni was on the elliptical machine at the gym when his mp3 player jumped from a Pretenders song to the first movement of Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, nearly causing him to lose his balance. That experience of extreme stylistic juxtaposition morphed into his idea for Shuffle Concert.The audience is handed menus at the door, as in a restaurant, and selects the musical items that it wishes to hear. A “musical deck of cards” is shuffled randomly each night and the ensemble serves what the audience requests. The result is a surprising, entertaining and unique event. In a short time Shuffle Concert has become an international success.

To read more about Shuffle Concert, visit their website:
www.shuffleconcert.com

Posted in Noted Endeavors | Comments Closed

Ballet Goes to Broadway, Again

October 4th, 2014

By Rachel Straus

The blogosphere is alive with news about the current forays of New York City ballet principal dancers Robert Fairchild, Megan Fairchild, and Tyler Peck into Broadway.

Robert Fairchild will appear in An American in Paris in the role originated by Gene Kelly. The production will premiere in Paris and will come to Broadway in the spring. Former New York City Ballet resident choreographer Christopher Wheeldon will provide the choreography.

Megan Fairchild, Robert’s older sister, recently made her Broadway debut (September 21) in the Broadway revival of On The Town. Originally conceived by Jerome Robbins and based on his 1944 hit ballet Fancy Free, On The Town requires that Fairchild dance, sing and act in her role as Ivy Smith, the small town girl who comes to the big city.

Then there is Tyler Peck, who Robert Fairchild recently married. She will premiere in the new Susan Stroman musical Little Dancer at the Kennedy Center on October 25. The musical is inspired by the relationship between painter Edgar Degas and Marie van Goethem, the poor ballet student who modeled for his sculpture “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” (1881).

The movement of dancers between The Great White Way and the mirrored precincts of the ballet studio is nothing new. What is of note is the development of the Fairchild-Peck dance family dynasty, which also includes Megan Fairchild’s husband Andrew Veyette, another New York City Ballet principal dancer. Veyette excels in Broadway-style City Ballet works such as NY Export: Opus Jazz, where sharpness and grit rather than classical aplomb are emphasized.

Clearly this dancing foursome, who are mature dancers, are looking beyond their careers at City Ballet and ballet, in general. It wouldn’t be surprising if they started a televised dance program, one that presented their shared interests in ballet, Jazz dance, big business (in the performing arts), and self-marketing.

What is not certain for these intrepid ballet dancers is whether their current or upcoming work on Broadway will launch them into a new performing sphere. Much of that success depends on the ability of the choreographers who are, or will be, directing them.

The other ingredient for success is the development of a different kind of stage personality. Highly successful musical theater performers, whether it be Nathan Lane or Sutton Foster, take the material and make it quirky (or comically) their own.

So, in honor of iconic performers and legendary director-choreographers, here is a little slide-show movie about Jack Cole, George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins, who worked extensively with ballet-trained dancers, from Gwen Verdon to Vera Zorina to Chita Rivera. Together they made numerous enduring Broadway and Hollywood musical theater dance numbers. All three men developed their choreographic voices by breaking the so-called boundaries between the dance forms. All three woman showed that great dancing technique looks like play instead of performance.

To see the slide show movie, press on this link:

Ballet Goes Broadway, Back Then

 

 

 

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