Producing Effective Conductor Videos

January 9th, 2014

By: Edna Landau

When it comes to producing performance videos, conductors would seem to be at a greater disadvantage than other artists. Every process that is central to the advancement of their careers, such as applications for music directorships, orchestra staff positions, training programs or competitions depends on the submission of sample performance videos. Yet most professional orchestras in the U.S. forbid the recording of rehearsals and performances that would provide these conductors with the footage they need. There have been occasional instances when some orchestras’ playing committees have assisted a conductor in securing a waiver to allow a recording for the sole purpose of helping them to advance professionally or gain employment. More often, the only way for conductors to circumvent this problem is to try to record performances that they lead with college or conservatory, festival, youth or training orchestras. Some conductors have put together pickup groups consisting of professional musicians familiar to them and with whom they have a good rapport. There is no reason why these recordings should be inferior in quality, from a production standpoint, to what  might be achieved with a professional orchestra. Yet I have noticed great variety in the videos that I have been asked to review by conductors who are applying for conducting programs or auditions with an orchestra. This prompted me to consult with a few colleagues, two of whom work at orchestras which recently concluded a round of assistant conductor auditions.  I am happy to share their advice with our readers.

Evans Mirageas, Vice President for Artistic Planning at the Atlanta Symphony, stressed the importance of shooting the video from the back of the orchestra with a full frontal view, close enough to frame the conductor so that their gestures can be seen clearly, but also leaving enough “middle distance” so that one can see the players’ reactions. Lighting should be good and the image needs to be clear. Audio should be of the highest possible quality and the microphone should be judiciously placed so as to yield the best balance in sound. I asked Edward Yim, Vice President, Artistic Planning, for the New York Philharmonic about the length and variety of excerpts they like to be offered and specifically what they look for. He told me that they like to be offered whole movements, when possible, of contrasting works and that they look for a clear beat, effective use of both hands, expressiveness, musical imagination and a real connection with the orchestra. This includes the ability to get a certain sound out of the orchestra. Essentially, they are looking for a conductor who can make the notes come to life.

Should conductors submit rehearsal footage along with performance excerpts? This may vary from orchestra to orchestra. The Atlanta Symphony likes to see both. They value the opportunity to witness the conductor’s communication skills in rehearsal and their ability to effectively bring across their ideas in performance. I spoke to Jesse Rosen, President and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, which organizes and presents the biennial Bruno Walter National Conducting Preview. He would counsel conductors who are asked to provide rehearsal segments to be sure to show something that demonstrates that they improved the results. He also advises that performance samples be long enough so that the viewer can discern the conductor’s grasp of the form and architecture of the piece. He and his colleagues find it extremely helpful if the dvd or video file is clearly labeled to enable easy navigation through the selections.

In my opinion, most conductors would be well advised to show their video samples to a teacher or mentor before submitting them. They might point out instances when the conductor may be looking into the score at critical moments, such as changes in tempo and dynamics, or major cues, and not providing the musicians with the eye contact they require. They also possess the objectivity to steer the conductor away from a segment in which they may come across as being overly transported by the music, at the expense of providing musical direction to the orchestra. In such cases, the conductor might be able to select other excerpts which give more positive evidence of their connection with the musicians. Such input can be invaluable in helping a young conductor put their best foot forward. .

© Edna Landau 2014

 

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“GOSH MAN I’VE GOT A TUNE IN MY HEAD”. ELGAR PART TWO

January 8th, 2014

edward-elgar-deathbed-photograph

By Albert Innaurato

That is Sir Edward Elgar playing possum. He arranged this photograph of himself “dead”. The flowers are a nice touch, don’t you think?

The quote is from a note Elgar got up from composing the “trio” section of his first Pomp and Circumstance March to send to a friend. He was right, it remains one of the most famous tunes in all Western music. The entire march says much about Elgar’s curious duality. As usually played, the work sounds like an over scored piece of French ballet music with an organ. But in score It begins in a wild, threatening way; the trio is meant to contrast but the tune is colored by a typical Elgar gambit, a major sixth collapsing into a minor third. This ambiguity makes that melody wrenching, suggesting an element of doubt. Is the Pomp the reality or camouflage for carnage? Elgar’s answer sounds superficially affirmative but the substance doesn’t. None the less, the world premiere engendered a very unEnglish riot of acclaim.

The Enigma Variations (they include an organ too), premiered in 1899 when Elgar was 41. It was an international sensation; even Gustav Mahler conducted it in New York. What strikes me is that poor Mrs. Elgar, C.A. E., gets rather shrugged off, but, A. J. Jaegar, Elgar’s publisher and very close friend gets the grandiose Nimrod movement, another tune everybody knows. It is much extended in the score and milked by many conductors. What does that mean? Jaegar was a crucial ally; did Elgar love him more than Alice? Surely not sexually, but was there a passion he didn’t have for her?

Sir Edward, as he was by 1908, wrote his First Symphony, the clinching triumph of his career, played over 100 times in its first year. It opens with a memorable tune in A flat major, which functions as a kind of motto. There is a contrasting theme which appears surprisingly in D major (not the dominant of A flat) but while Elgar moves through a number of distant keys, some unpredictable, the movement, indeed, the symphony never loses a very diatonic feel, especially for 1908. The whole seems patterned on Brahms’ Third, one of only two symphonies Elgar lectured on, the other being Mozart’s g minor, no 40. The second theme in the last movement is a near quote of Brahms’ second theme at the same place, and the entire symphony, despite some surprising detours, ends predictably.The crushing logic and inevitability of Brahms let alone Mozart is not there. And although Mahler is criticized for the variability of individual movements in his long symphonies, there isn’t one measure not inevitably related to every other in each of the completed symphonies. And if you really want to upset an Elgarian, point out that the same is true of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, stripped of its story and some vocal grandstanding, it is an amazing achievement. Can one feel the same about Elgar’s First?

Elgar met another Alice, Mrs. Stuart-Wortley and fell in love with her. He had done some philandering but he and Windflower, as he nicknamed her, had an intense, probably erotic relationship, confirmed by a large cache of letters Elgar wrote her (the windflowers he pressed into many of them are still intact). Her daughter destroyed the responses and also cut Elgar’s more explicit pages. The couples stayed friends; it’s not clear if Mr. Stuart-Wortley understood or cared, but Mrs. Elgar did. She wrote a heart broken poem and left it for Elgar to find after she died. It plunged him into a deep depression. But in the short time they were closest, Windflower inspired the passionate Violin Concerto of 1910, Elgar’s last great public success. The gorgeous soaring melody that is a development of the second theme in the first movement is often referred to as the Windflower theme.

Sir Edward told Windflower she inspired the beautiful start of The Music Makers of 1912. But it’s also likely that she inspired one of his most gorgeous works, the short Sospiri, also of 1912, a work of naked longing and sorrow (the title means sighs). Perhaps it marks the end of their intimacy? If Lady Mary, of Downtown Abbey liked music, she might have owned this piece and after her husband’s sudden death, played it, weeping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzJ__a1e184

By then, Elgar’s star had dimmed; his second symphony, also inspired by Windflower, had failed and WW 1 made him seem suddenly old fashioned.

The Second  Symphony was vehemently dismissed. It’s less straight forward than the First, though claims of a “modernistic” manner are greatly exaggerated. Brahms once again looms large.  Elgar has some wonderful tunes and they are often spread through the orchestral in unusual ways, probably making them harder to hear at first. The epigraph is from Shelly, “rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight” and indeed, the symphony is full of longing for delight and lament for decay. At the end of the score there are the names “Venice -Tintagel” — he had been with Windflower in both places. Venice suggests rotting beauty, and Tintagel, associated with The Arthurian Legends, inevitable ruin.  “I have revealed myself”, Elgar wrote of this work. Perhaps, though not always interestingly, but the second movement, a funeral march of accumulating power, is very moving.

Well, we’ve had a few days without spankings and such, but soon the end of Elgar and then Tallis and Vaughan Williams.

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DOWNTON ABBEY AND ELGAR, 5O SHADES OF VAUGHAN WILLIAMS AND YES, BENJAMIN BRITTEN!

January 6th, 2014

English Landscape 004

BY Albert Innaurato

In John Elliot Gardiner’s Bach — Music in the Castle of Heaven there are some penetrating remarks about Henry Purcell. Ralph Vaughan Williams is buried right next to Purcell in Westminster Abby. Vaughan Williams and Sir Edward Elgar had ended the idea that Purcell was the final great English composer. And then, Benjamin Britten had donned the armor and waded into the cliche that England was “the land without music”.

At Downton Abbey they would have had some Elgar 78’s, perhaps. And in 50 Shades of Gray, the BDSM fantasy, mention is made of Thomas Tallis, a name connected with RVW. And goodness knows what Benjamin Britten might be connected with — some version of Larry Kramer’s play called The Abnormal Heart? But away from soaps and saddles, I realized it had been a long time since I had thought about Teddie (as Elgar liked his few intimates to call him) and RVW, and that 2013 had been the fiftieth anniversary of Ben’s death. My far less tactful self had written about the biographies and documentaries “investigating” Ben at

Benjamin Britten: THE BITTER WITHY – mrs john claggart’s sad life

but that’s because I love Britten despite the inevitable re-evaluation going on. Although not free of degrees of homophobia and horror (Ben was a pederast, probably not sexually active), some of it makes sense. I too am sorry Ben wrote so many operas. Yes, it was brave that he and the tenor, Peter Pears, lived as a couple, fairly openly, when all homosexual acts between men were criminal in England. Those who lament Ben’s vocal works when early masterpieces such as Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge and the Berg besotted but powerful Sinfonia da Requiem, and the later, magnificent Cello Symphony and Third Quartet all demonstrate a heart stopping power might at least have a point worth arguing. However, the more radical assertion that the phenomenally productive Britten was “written out” after Peter Grimes in 1945 is ridiculous.

But I realized that I had never been interested in Elgar and knew only a little about him and Vaughan Williams. I read the compendious Edward Elgar: A creative Life by Jerrold Northrop Moore, the interesting Edward Elgar and his World by Byron Adams and Michael Kennedy’s responsible The Life of Elgar. I also looked at scores, thanks to the Great Central Library of Philadelphia and listened to what looked interesting.

There are many prominent worshipers of Elgar. but I must confess to thinking his life was more interesting than his music. I am unable to embrace the many religious choral works, though it’s true that Elgar is far more imaginative than his rivals,  with remarkable textures and some risk taking (a shofar is blown at the start of the Dawn section of The Apostles and his use of tam-tam and other percussion to support it has remarkable atmosphere.) He also had a significant melodic gift and considerable theatrical flair. Britten recorded a perceptive, decidedly unsentimental Dream of Gerontius, Elgar’s masterpiece in this line. I wanted to stop the music long before the (lovely) end. 

But surely The Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, and for many people the First Symphony are imposing? Elgar was primarily a melodist and a very gifted one; that’s not a problem in short pieces, but symphonic work needs an intellectual and harmonic construct that is clinching beyond whatever themes a composer spins.

Before going into more of Elgar’s music there is his life. Anyone who knows something about it has seen those formidable pictures of him that personify Empire.
 
 
275px-Edward_Elgar
 
 
But they are all posed, every single one. Elgar was one of the first composers to deliberately manufacture a look as a publicity ploy. He wanted to personify the aristocratic Edwardian. There are almost no candid pictures. He even arranged his deathbed photograph, “playing dead”, so he would look exactly as he wished when he actually died a few days later.
 
Yet, his background was poor and Catholic. He never had a composition lesson, learning what he could from books and from studying the scores he could borrow. Elgar, of course, had first imitated those composers he admired then tried to find his own voice. I’ll never forget Leonard Bernstein sitting at the piano and deconstructing The Enigma Variations. He’d just had a bad experience recording them with the BBC Symphony, and he showed how nearly every single notable turn was “borrowed” with small modifications from familiar Nineteenth century compositions. Luckily Teddie’s father was musical and taught him violin and piano.  One of Elgar’s early jobs was playing in a madhouse! Eventually, he took on other musical odd jobs, earning too little to have a future.
 
One day, the heiress, Alice Roberts came to him for piano lessons. She was a poet, plain, and eight years older. Eventually, they married; she was disinherited. But she had money of her own and took Elgar to London where she used her formidable will and family connections to set him up as a composer. She was rather like Richard Strauss’ wife: she made her husband work. He was lazy, had an eye for the ladies, but worse, was subject to paralyzing depressions and talked often of suicide. Though she was able to keep them afloat financially, they needed whatever royalties Teddie could earn and he needed her unshakable belief that he was a genius destined for acclaim.
 
But space has run out — clear out the dining room you nutty but personable downstairs staff — and get the unguents and bandages ye much bespanked of 50 Shades. We will continue…

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Leo Who?

January 2nd, 2014

by Sedgwick Clark

Forgotten repertoire is usually forgotten for a good reason. But the industrious Pacifica Quartet and Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin hit pay dirt with the Piano Quartet of Leo Ornstein at Zankel Hall on November 19. Ornstein (1893-2002) studied violin at St. Petersburg Conservatory. After his family migrated to New York City, he received a scholarship at the Institute of Musical Art (later Juilliard), where he studied piano. His early works, in the teens, were apparently the essence of enfant-terribleism. Vivian Perlis and Libby Van Cleve quote a horrified review in London’s Daily Mail, March 27, 1914, in their Composers’ Voices from Ives to Ellington (Yale, 2005), a must read for anyone interested in American music:

“WILD OUTBREAK AT STEINWAY HALL

A pale Russian youth dressed in velvet, crouched over the instrument in an attitude all his own, and for all the apparent frailty of his form, dealt it the most ferocious punishment. Nothing as horrible as Mr. Ornstein’s music has been heard so far—save Stravinsky’s ‘Sacrifice to Spring’ [sic]. Sufferers from complete deafness should attend the next recital. . . .”

He gave the first performances in America of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and Sonatine, Schoenberg’s Drei Stücke, Op. 11, and Scriabin’s Ninth and Tenth Piano Sonatas. “In about 1920,” write Perlis and Van Cleve, “at the height of his performing career,” Ornstein abandoned his performing career to compose and teach. His modernist style became more lyrical, of which the Piano Quintet (1927) is an example. It was commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the notable philanthropist who commissioned such works as Bartók’s Fifth Quartet, Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète, Prokofiev’s First Quartet, Ravel’s Chansons madécasses, Schoenberg’s Third and Fourth quartets, Poulenc’s Flute Sonata, and Copland’s Appalachian Spring.

The Pacifica foursome and Hamelin have been performing Ornstein’s Piano Quintet nearly everywhere the past year, and they will record it for Hyperion this month. Nearly 40 minutes long, it’s a spooky piece. The driving intensity of the opening movement’s Allegro barbaro alternates with exotic lyricism, perfectly integrated by the impassioned Pacificans and flawless fingerwork of Hamelin. French influences pervade the middle Andante lamentoso, which momentarily segues into the “Little Egypt” or snake charmer hoochie-coochie music (“All the girls in France . . .”) popular in America in the first three decades of the 20th century before returning to the initial lyricism. Bartókian folk dance influences the final movement, which ends quietly.

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in her review on the Times web (11/22) perceptively characterizes Ornstein’s style in this work as “Late Late Romanticism” and wonders why it isn’t in the standard repertoire. Good question.

The Pacifica’s ardent Beethoven’s B-flat Quartet, Op. 130, with its original Grosse Fuge final movement, was a crowd pleaser, but to me was no competition after that spellbinding Ornstein discovery.

Perlis, incidentally, was Musical America’s Educator of the Year in 2011, and Van Cleve wrote our tribute to her. Vivian pioneered her invaluable oral history recordings of American composers and performers while at Yale University, and Libby succeeded her as director of the school’s Oral History program.

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Kušej Saps Verdi’s Forza

December 27th, 2013

La forza del destino at Bavarian State Opera in December 2013

By ANDREW POWELL
Published: December 27, 2013

MUNICH — Martin Kušej’s new staging of La forza del destino for Bavarian State Opera opened Dec. 22 and is due for streaming tomorrow. Well cast, it alas trivializes the feud and the questions of honor and destiny that excited Verdi and his librettist Piave, despite being the busy company’s second try in eight years at this jumpy work.

At the second performance (Dec. 25), Anja Harteros soared as Leonora, her voice radiant and expressive. Nadia Krasteva’s Preziosilla sounded firmer than four years ago in Vienna, where she operated as a cowgirl. Jonas Kaufmann simulated tenorial heroics as Alvaro, but leaden tempos in Act III audibly strained him. Ludovic Tézier introduced a solid, resonant Carlo, Vitalij Kowaljow a menacing Guardiano (and Calatrava). Renato Girolami savored brief humor as a foam-container-meal-doling Melitone.

Though reportedly booed on opening night, conductor Asher Fisch ably commanded the structure and balances (as he had done for Don Carlo here in January 2012). His clinical discipline recalls the Verdi of Karajan without the orchestral megalomania, but also without Karajan’s flair in cantabile lines. Chorus and orchestra sounded splendid.

Kušej does not sustain the pace of Piave’s conception or inform its twists of fate. Instead he weakens the opera with banal settings and a political agenda all his own. Much of the time, we are on the premises of what appears to be a poor (American) evangelical church; Leonora gets a head-to-toe dunking in baptismal water. Visual references to Guantánamo and an Act III detour to Abu Ghraib, rather than propelling a feud, suggest anti-Americanism.

The production follows Verdi’s 1869 Milan score, modified in Act III according to a Franz Werfel scheme used for the 1926 Munich premiere of La forza del destino (under a 31-year-old Karl Böhm).

Photo © Wilfried Hösl

Related posts:
Kaufmann Sings Manrico
Boccanegra via Tcherniakov
Verdi’s Lady Netrebko
Portraits For a Theater
Manon, Let’s Go

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Volodos the German Romantic

December 22nd, 2013

Arcadi Volodos

By ANDREW POWELL
Published: December 22, 2013

MUNICH — Somewhere between the patent introspection of his new Mompou CD* and the tags of his early Stateside career — “big bravura pianist,” “new Horowitz” — lies an accurate description of Arcadi Volodos. It may simply be this: German Romantic, as in Schumann and Brahms, with impressionist flair.

That was the take, anyway, from a commanding, technically flawless Bell’Arte recital Dec. 12 here at the Prinz-Regenten-Theater, and it is buoyed by the disc. The 41-year-old pianist from St Petersburg stands distant from the trajectory of his rise: 1998 Carnegie Hall debut, Berlin readings of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky concertos (1999 and 2002). He still plays with strength and vision, but what distinguishes him now is a command of form and the willingness to disturb it in expressive ways.

Stardom, meanwhile, has improbably blurred thanks to the presence of another St Petersburg pianist with what trademark authorities might term a confusingly similar name, Alexei Volodin, 36. (No also-ran, the latter gave a recital himself Dec. 15 at the Mariinsky.) Even so, allegiance to Volodos has held firm, particularly here in Germany, and to its credit his record label Sony Classical has stayed with him.

Schubert’s 1815 C-Major Sonata opened the recital, stitched up with its Allegretto (D279/D346). It seemed a weak choice until Volodos testily hammered and carved his way through, knowing exactly what he wanted from the music. We heard the sound of Beethoven.

The pianist stressed formal commonalities in the standalone pieces of Brahms’s Opus 118 (1893) and allowed contrasts to make their point without emphasis. Full, deep tone colors throughout, and natural lyricism in the framing sections of the A-Major Intermezzo and in the Romance, lent due character. In the final measures of the E-flat-Minor Intermezzo, as poetic cap, Volodos mustered a monumental stillness. (His reported recent success in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, with longtime collaborator Riccardo Chailly, is consistent.)

After the break and a fluent Schumann Kinderszenen, Volodos boldly energized the same composer’s C-Major Fantasie (both 1838), its three movements speaking with phenomenal power and passionate unity. For the Finale (Langsam getragen, durchweg leise zu halten), he coaxed a mood of poignant reflection unmatched even by Pollini in the famous 1973 recording (made across town here at the Herkulessaal).

The CD* of miniatures by Federico Mompou (1893–1987), recorded last December in Berlin, is a worthy issue in these times of superfluity. Few distinguished recordings have been made of the Spaniard’s music, and Volodos commits himself intensely to it, judging from his liner essay as well as his playing. Although the output is often related to Satie, Mompou’s late imaginative world (not the style) lies closer to Debussy in his Préludes.

Volodos declares the four Música callada sets (1951, 1962, 1965, 1967) to be peaks of achievement: “ … the music [Mompou] spent all his life moving towards … wrested from eternity, as if it already existed in the Spheres … .” He plays eleven of the pieces, from the total of 28, drawing on all four sets in a sequence his own. This “quietened music” is both abstract and personal, the product of an old solitary man, but not one at death’s door; Mompou lived another twenty years after completing Set 4. Many pieces are “Lento,” a marking that satisfies the composer for divergent exercises in peace (VI), pain and emptiness (XXI), and generalized remoteness or stillness. Others, such as the Moderato XXIV of 1967, flow so plainly and concisely that a marking is hardly needed. The many chilly passages in the Música callada tend to be broken by warm chords in unexpected places.

Volodos revels in the myriad nuances of these valued miniatures and, as in Brahms, downplays contrasts in favor of coherence. He finds fantasy here and there, catches the fleeting moments of excitement, and instantly lets ideas go when they must. The interpretations are light of touch and magical.

Half of the disc holds short independent works, most of them tellingly shaped. In Preludio 12 (1960) and elsewhere, Volodos shows Vlado Perlemuter’s knack for placing just the right weightings in pale adjacent phrases to support a long idea, saving music that could easily sound aimless. The much earlier (1918) Scènes d’enfants suite, home of the cute encore Jeunes filles au jardin, receives an imaginative traversal. Sony’s release is strikingly packaged with photographic details of Antonio Gaudí buildings in Barcelona, the composer’s home town, although typos mar its booklet. The company might now want to entice Volodos into documenting the remaining Música callada.

[*In August 2014 the disc received an Echo Klassik Award.]

Photo © Sony Music Entertainment

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Time to Catch Up

December 20th, 2013

by Sedgwick Clark

Our Musical America Awards party was on Tuesday (12/17). As always, I got behind on my weekly blogs while preparing for the party. As always, in receiving their awards, our honorees spoke eloquently in words that left us all in awe of their commitment to their art. Susan Elliott provided a full report on our Web site the next day. For the record, the honorees were:

Audra McDonald, Musician of the Year

George Benjamin, Composer of the Year

Pablo Heras-Casado, Conductor of the Year

Jeremy Denk, Instrumentalist of the Year

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Ensemble of the Year

Shostakovich at Juilliard

A month ago in this space I raved about a November 15th Juilliard Orchestra concert and urged readers not to miss the following Monday’s concert (11/25) of early Shostakovich works conducted by Vladimir Jurowski: selections from the composer’s film score to The New Babylon (1929), a suite from music for a 1931 variety show, Hypothetically Murdered, and the teenage composer’s First Symphony, which was unusually clear and cogent in Tully Hall’s tight acoustic.

A quick scan of orchestral personnel revealed this to be an entirely different, and equally musical, group of players. The concertmaster, Francesca Rose dePasquale (a Master of Music student from the great family of strings that played in the Philadelphia Orchestra and Boston Symphony), was scintillating in her many solos throughout. A distinguished career will undoubtedly be hers.

I Remember Rosenkavalier

Based on memories of past Rosenkavaliers at the Met, I urged readers to see the current revival of the 1969 Nathaniel Merrill production before its rumored replacement. I caught it again on 12/7, and barring a new paint job I’m afraid I see the wisdom of its retirement (while quaking at the thought of what gawdawful updating a la the Met’s Las Vegas Rigoletto we might be in store for). I’m sorry to report that the cast had the notes but little more and that Edward Gardner’s conducting eviscerated the Met orchestra’s customarily sumptuous tone from first note to last and provided scant lilt in Strauss’s glorious waltzes.

We all have bad nights. A constant opera goer in my apartment building saw the next performance—four days later, from her usual seat in the Dress Circle, with the same cast and conductor—and said that it was far better than what I describe above.

Looking Forward

My week’s scheduled concerts (8:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted):

12/22 Carnegie Hall at 3:00. MET Orchestra/James Levine; Peter Mattei, baritone. Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; Symphony No. 7.

12/27 Metropolitan Opera at 7:30. Verdi: Falstaff. James Levine, cond. Oropesa, Meade, Blythe, Cano, Fanale, Maestri, Vassallo.

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Beware of Simple Answers!

December 19th, 2013

By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.

Dear Law and Disorder:

I work with an artist whose current US visa expires in January 2014, but he has one engagement in the US on March 8, 2014. The promoters are saying that he won’t need to renew his visa and can just use ESTA, however, we were under the impression that he would need a valid US visa. Is this correct?

You are absolutely correct. He will require an O-1 visa.

ESTA stands for “Electronic System for Travel Authorization.” ESTA is an on-line registration system for citizens of countries who participate in the United States Visa Waiver Program (“VWP”). Citizens of VWP countries are not required to visit a US consulate and apply for physical visitor visa (B-1/B-2) to enter the US as visitors. Instead, they are only required to have a valid passport from a VWP country. However, they are required to register on-line through ESTA and be pre-authorized before they can enter the US.

The key, of course, is that the VWP program only allows citizens of VWP countries to enter the US as “visitors.” As such, they can only engage in visitor permitted activities: shopping, sightseeing, business meetings, etc. Under US Immigration Law (frustrating and circuitous though it may be), professional artists who enter the US as visitors are not permitted to engage in ANY public performances–regardless of whether or not an artist is paid, regardless of whether or not tickets are sold, regardless of whether or not the performances is for a benefit or a gala, regardless of whether or not the performance is for a university or non-profit, regardless of whether or not you can afford the visa process, regardless of whether or not the artist lives 100s of miles from the nearest US consulate, regardless of whether or not the artist has previously performed in the US as a visitor, etc, etc.

While artists frequently do sneak in as visitors and perform, this poses far more risk to the artist than to the venue or promoter. If the artist is caught, the worst that happens to the promoter or venue is that the artist can’t enter the US and the concert may have to be cancelled. However, a fraudulent VWP/ESTA entry can result in the artist having his VWP privileges revoked, or worse.

I am currently working with a prominent artist who wanted to take a last minute engagement, didn’t have time to petition for a visa, much less go to the consulate, and decided to enter the US as a visitor. Unfortunately, his concert had been prominently advertised, he was caught by the one of the few border officers who actually follow classical music, and was refused entry. For the next five years, the artist must now formally request a “waiver” anytime he wants to obtain a proper O-1 visa to perform in the US. As you may imagine, this has caused considerable stress to his management because a “waiver” request adds an additional 3 – 4 week delay in processing the artist’s visa. In addition, his VWP privileges were revoked, meaning that he must go through the time and hassle of applying for a formal B-1/B-2 visitor visa even if he legitimately only wants to enter the US as a visitor.

I doubt seriously that the promoter was intentionally giving bad advice. More than likely, the promoter was ill-informed. Which only underscores the responsibility of each of us to take the time to learn and figure out the correct answers for ourselves rather than rely on hearsay or anecdotal information. Whether you’re dealing with visas, taxes, licenses, or liability, if the answer seems too simple, it probably is.

________________________________________________________________

Hi Everyone! “Law and Disorder: Entertainment Division” will be taking a holiday break. Our next post will be on January 8, 2014. Many thanks for a wonderful year of great questions and challenges. Keep them coming! 

OFFICIAL HOLIDAY WISH CONVEYANCE

From Brian Taylor Goldstein and Robyn Guilliams (collectively, the “Wishor”) to you (“Wishee”):  

Please accept without obligation, implied or implicit, and weather permitting, our non-assignable and non-exclusive best wishes for a sold out, standing room only, royalty abundant, lavishly licensed, critically acclaimed, non-cancelable, infringement free, profusely booked, copiously commissioned, richly funded, tax-exempt, crisis deficient, and artistically inspired celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious and/or secular persuasions of your choice, including their choice not to practice any such religious or secular traditions, along with an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, spiritually enlightened, politically correct, low stress, low carb, high HDL, non-addictive, financially successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2014, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform or operating system, mental and/or physical incapacities, visa classification period, sexual preferences, political affiliations, and/or dietary preferences of the Wishee.

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For additional information and resources on this and other GG_logo_for-facebooklegal 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.

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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!

 

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

A Full-Time Labor of Love

December 19th, 2013

By: Edna Landau

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

As the year is about to draw to a close and the holiday gift giving season is upon us, I have decided to shine a spotlight on an individual who for the past fourteen years has given an extraordinary gift to music lovers in southern California and beyond. His name is Jim Eninger and every week during the concert season, he publishes The Clickable Chamber Music Newsletter for Southern California, an exhaustive summary of virtually all concerts taking place in the area, which is disseminated for free to over six thousand subscribers. (A typical print-out of this newsletter runs over thirty pages.)

When Mr. Eninger first launched the newsletter, he researched and compiled the comprehensive list of concerts himself, an investment of forty to sixty hours a week. Today, he has streamlined the process by suggesting that performing artists post their concert information directly on the website of Performing Arts LIVE, a valuable resource founded and maintained by fellow chamber music devotee Michael Napoli, who is its Executive Director. He then provides a link to the website in his newsletter so that his readers can peruse the comprehensive list of concerts in their own browsers. A particularly valuable section of Jim Eninger’s newsletter is called “Highlights and Hidden Gems: Select Concerts Not to be Overlooked.” This section typically includes the concert program as well as background information about the performers, which is generally infused with Eninger’s well-informed impressions from past performances. On occasion, he sends separate attractively prepared e-flyers to his readers about some of these concerts, having always enjoyed graphic design as a sideline. Mr. Eninger told me that he tries to feature fledgling series with high artistic merit that need extra help taking root. What a noble goal!

In recent years, with the help of a dedicated group of volunteers, Mr. Eninger has been able to expand the newsletter to include items of general interest to his readers, as well as reviews of recent chamber music concerts and interviews relating to upcoming concerts. (I particularly enjoyed the following listing, accompanied by a link: Dan Kepl interviews skydiving duo pianists Gavin Martin and Joanne Pearce Martin on the eve of their concerts with Camerata Pacifica.) Volunteers also contribute content regarding guitar, vocal and orchestral concerts in the region.

Who is Jim Edinger? In a Los Angeles Times article by Chris Pasles entitled “His Grapevine, an Arts Lifeline”, we learn that he is a retired TRW aerospace engineer. He enjoyed classical music as a child and took in occasional symphony concerts and opera performances during his student days at Stanford. While working at TRW, he learned about the South Bay Chamber Music Society and began attending their concerts. (He later became their president.) The precursor of today’s newsletter was an e-mail that Eninger sent out called “Chamber Music Letter from the South Bay”, informing people about upcoming concerts of the society. Jim Eninger’s activities as an impresario have always intersected with his “clickable” hobby. He co-produces the Classical Crossroads Concert Series with Artistic Director, Karla Devine, regularly proposing artists for her consideration, and is also actively involved with the planning and running of the Sundays at Two concerts at Rolling Hills Methodist Church. He has been an active supporter of the Beverly Hills Auditions and is proud that today, the Auditions provide a significant showcase for young performers to be heard in multiple concerts by a consortium of over fifty southern California chamber music presenters. All of this is pretty remarkable for someone who never had a formal music education. His generosity and dedication inspire immense praise from leaders in the southern California music scene.  Neal Stulberg, acclaimed pianist, conductor and Director of Orchestral Studies at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, has said: “Jim is one of the people for whom Los Angeles is named.” Movses Pogossian, Professor of Violin at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and Artistic Director of the Dilijan Chamber Music Series told me: “Jim certainly deserves to be serenaded and worshipped for all the service that he renders our community. He has been absolutely invaluable to countless small music organizations (such as our Dilijan Chamber Music Series, which can’t afford “real” advertising), spreading the most important information to his many subscribers week after week for many years. I have learned so often about wonderful concerts happening in the area because of Jim and his newsletter. Especially touching and useful is his support of start-ups and talented young performers. He lives for music and it is always wonderful to see him and his lovely wife Mary at many concerts in town. Heartfelt thanks and appreciation. My hat goes off to him!”

Bravo to you, Jim Eninger, as you enter your 15th season as Editor-in-Chief of your invaluable newsletter. May you continue to produce it and inspire present and future chamber music aficionados for many years to come.

To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.

©Edna Landau 2013

Note to our readers: To receive the Clickable Chamber Music Newsletter, please make your request via e-mail to JEninger@yahoo.com.

“Ask Edna” will resume on January 9. A very happy holiday season to all.

Posted in Ask Edna, For Chamber Music Ensembles | Comments Closed

Radiale Vokalnacht

December 13th, 2013

my_brightest_diamond[1]By Rebecca Schmid

Vocal music, in all its forms of expression and social relevance, was the subject of a Radiale Vokalnacht at the Radialsystem on Dec.7. It was an opportunity to catch the vocalist-instrumentalist-composer Shara Worden, otherwise known as My Brightest Diamond, who performed with drummer Earl Harvin and accompaniment from BerlinJazzVocals. After the a cappella ensemble opened the evening in the main hall with an Australian polyphonic number, Worden appeared in one of her most successful songs, “We added it up,” strumming an amplified ukulele in a fitted white blazer and signature poof-hairstyle.

A trained opera singer, she was in top form as she crooned about the attraction of opposites—a trite sentiment that she manages to give depth with clever lyrics and catchy but deceptively simple tunes. The replacement of her original orchestration with BerlinJazzVocals was not entirely convincing but created an organic continuity as the audience joined, with few tone-deaf contributions, for the refrain “love binds the world.”

Her choral work “The Pleiades,” about a Native Indian rite involving the constellation, emerged with soothing harmonies but not the most inspired lyrics— “How many stars can you see in the Pleiades,” sang the chorus. The song “That point when,” to dreamy synthesizer and lulling percussion, had more dramatic impact. Worden tuned up an electric guitar for the ethereal, poetic final number, “From the Top of the World,” with sensitive rhythm from Harvin and not so subtle serenading from the JazzVocals.

The rotating program followed with the choice of three different events. On the top-floor dance studio, a Pecha Kucha Night unexpectedly presented a series of lectures. A social scientist touched on the benefits and dark sides of community singing. The presenter of a public choral concert in Germany, Brussels, Norway and England touted his event’s goal of breaking walls “both visible and invisible.” More convincing were the founders of Kiezoper Berlin, a grassroots organization which has staged operas in clubs and industrial spaces with the aim of making the art form more accessible.

If one was left wondering about the purpose of the ad hoc mini-conference, the following act in the main hall provided some food for thought—although no conclusions. The all-female Carmina Slovenica deals, in the words of event curator Laura Berman, with the “abuse of religion” and how its structures “ultimately topple.” The all-female chorus, in its Berlin premiere, performed works from Jacob Cooper to Rachmaninoff to Sirian orthodox chant in choreographed situations that merge spiritual transcendence with a heavy metal aesthetic and abstract theater.

While the performance had moving moments—such as in the earnest, military execution of Boaz Avni’s “Kyrie”—the girls should have perhaps ended the show after they all fell to the ground, presumably under the weight of societal oppression. The buckets of clementines which subsequently scattered across the stage did little to emphasize the narrative about subjugation and the will for freedom.

The evening further included a vocal workshop with Christina Wheeler called Your Voice is Your Oyster and the performance Glacial Revisited with Audrey Chen on cello, voice and electronic. At that point, my head was reeling.

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Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Closed

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