Of Men and Mountains (2 day countdown)

I had an interesting phone interview with Bill Forman from the Colorado Springs Independent to preview my concert with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. It was a great discussion about music and the CSPO. He did stump me when he asked a great question about what I would add to my program if I were to add a contemporary piece of music. As I said in my blog yesterday, I intentionally did not put a contemporary piece of music on the program because that has been my area of focus for the past four years. My thinking was that the orchestra and administration would automatically assume that I could conduct contemporary music.

The question was tough on multiple levels. First, when you put a program together, you try to put together a satisfying program with all the included music. The best comparison is a meal – a great chef would try to put a meal that was satisfying on its own. Once the meal is planned, it’s tough to think of another dish you would add. That was the first challenge – what could I add to my already complete program? The next challenge was trying to think of a piece that would fit the rest of the program. This program is a very European program. An American piece would be perhaps to energetic and colorful. The Beethoven already provides that rhythmic energy. The Tchaikovsky is a romantic masterpiece with heart-on-the-sleeve emotional impact, so adding something of that nature might not work.

I felt like we would need something contemporary but European. The first thoughts that came to mind were Dutilleux and Aarvo Pärt. Part of the reason Pärt came up was because we are thinking of doing one of his pieces on an upcoming Opera Vista performance. So then the thought of rehearsal time came to mind. Dutilleux takes more rehearsal time than Pärt. I also thought that Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten was a good contrast. There is a solemn, almost sacred feel to that piece. It has a lot of dramatic tension but in a different way from the rest of the program.

So, when you read my answer to that question in the article, you now know why I came up with that idea.

Of Men and Mountains! (3 day countdown)

First, I want to wish my dad the happiest of birthdays.  He’s somehow been able to put up with me for 34 years of my life!  Congratulations to the Florida State Seminoles for killing my Blue Devils’ 25-game win streak.  FSU played a tough game.

So the reason for the title of this blog is that I’m soon off to Colorado Springs to work with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic for a week.  Get your tickets now.  I’m excited about the repertoire, the soloist, and the opportunity that the week presents.  I’ll be conducting Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 4, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.  It’s an interesting program.  (To read my thoughts on the first movement of Beethoven 7, check out my previous blog.)

A lot goes into putting a program together, but even more goes into putting an audition program together.  Most of you who know my work know that I am a champion of living composers and new music.  I wanted a program that gave the orchestra and public an idea of the variety of music that I could do.  I actually left contemporary music off the program because I figured it was already seen as an area of expertise.  (I’ve been running an opera company that performs only contemporary music for the past 4 years, after all!)

I’ll talk more about the program over the next few days.  The past few weeks have been busy because we’re trying to get the second half of Opera Vista’s season put together, and I’ve been preparing the pieces to conduct in Colorado.  (Plus the whole New Year’s resolutions bit…)  I leave for Colorado on January 16, so I’ll try to blog the entire trip.  Oh, and I owe you all a bunch of pictures from my Asia trip.  I’ll get those up with the Colorado Springs pics!

Asian Excursion (Part 4 – Ain’t no host like a Bangkok host)

Sorry this post is a long one! I had to cover the past few days since I haven’t been able to write the past few days.

I had an incredible visit to Bangkok. I finally met the composer of The Silent Prince, Somtow Sucharitkul. I arrived in Bangkok directly after the Asia21 Young Leaders’ Summit in Jakarta. (I’m getting a chance to see a good part of Asia that I haven’t yet – talk about being blessed with travel). I arrived at the incredible Rembrandt Hotel. (After a lengthy wait in Immigration and Customs.  My mom had sent some gifts for people in India, which I then had to explain to the customs guy – who was convinced for some reason that I had been in China recently).

Anyway, I arrived at the Rembrandt Hotel (thank you, Opera Siam). I walked in and they promptly told me that I would have to check in elsewhere. By elsewhere, they meant in the VIP lounge (again – thank you, Opera Siam). I don’t know why, but I still love nice hotels. Again, I’ve been lucky that most of the hotels people put me in when I conduct are nice hotels, and each time I walk in one, I smile. I hope I never lose that.

The first night I had dinner with Somtow, one of Somtow’s students, Darren (the stage director for Carmen), and Stefan (one of the singers). It was nice to finally meet Somtow. I felt like I had known him for years. (In some ways, I have – we collaborated on The Silent Prince, and the process lasted years, but it was nice to actually meet the person). I ended up back at the hotel and collapsed. I was exhausted.

The next day was sort of a free day for me. I ended up going to the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It was an amazing sight to see. I’ll post pictures of it below. I have to say I enjoyed seeing the aspects of Indian culture in the mix. On one huge wall was a pictorial representation of the Ramayana. (In fact, Rama is a title of the King of Thailand). I didn’t realize it was a Buddhist/Hindu monarchy. It was a cool experience.

The next morning started with an interview for Bangkok’s The Nation. It was a fun conversation. I finally had the opportunity (especially after decompressing) to discuss the experience of putting TSP on stage. What really struck me as I was discussing TSP with the Thai reporter was the enormity of the feat that Somtow pulled off. He wrote a new opera that brought the house down. After going through all the new operas submitted for the competition and all the new operas I see on a regular basis, the magnitude of writing a great new opera is truly incredible.

Somtow and I then met with Renuka Narayanan from the Indian Embassy in Thailand. Plainly put, she was a hoot! What a well-read and interesting person. Honestly, I was rather shocked that she was in the Indian foreign service. We had conversations about authors, philosophy, Somtow’s opera, and of course, India. She was a huge proponent of a tour of The Silent Prince as am I.

What Somtow was able to do is truly incredible.  He wrote a very Asian themed opera with musical influences from traditional Carnatic music. The story was based on a (perhaps for Western audiences) obscure Buddhist folk tale. It used non-stereotypical voice types like the male soprano. The triumph was that it spoke to an audience thousands of miles away of predominately young professional Texans. It’s a testament to the power of music, of course, but there is a lot of music that doesn’t speak across so many cultures like that. I think more than anything it’s a testament to the work that Somtow put into writing this opera. It’s definitely one that I would do again at the drop of a hat. It showed Somtow’s mastery of the art form.

So, given how I felt about his opera, it was great to finally meet him. It was also amazing to see the incredible talent that he’s drawing to Bangkok and to see the hours he’s putting in to making opera an important art form in a city that has never had it as it’s tradition. Thailand has a treasure and a lot to be proud of in Somtow!

My final evening there, Somtow and I met one of my new friends from the Asia21 Summit, Kwang Asadej Kongsiri. It was a fun dinner of Thai food. It was also rather humorous to find out that in some distant fashion Somtow and Asadej are related to each other. Asadej claims to not be an opera fan, but I think we can convert him. We had a long discussion with him on funding possibilities for a tour of Somtow’s The Silent Prince through Asia. One cool idea from Renuka earlier was to perform it at Lumbini, Buddha’s birth place.

You can see all the pictures under the Photo Gallery tab on my website.

Pictures of the Grand Palace in Bangkok:

Asian Excursion (Part 3 – Asia21)

The reason for my stop in Jakarta was as a delegate to Asia Society’s Asia21 Young Leader’s Summit. I admit up front that I wasn’t 100% sure what it was all going to be about. A friend of mine, Paresh Patel, kept encouraging me to apply, and he swore that I would find it a truly life-changing experience, and he was right.

The Asia21 Summit brought together leaders under the age of 40 from throughout Asia. As I mentioned in the last video in my previous post, on day 1 I was seated next to a lady from Afghanistan.  We had people from Australia, Tibet, China, North AND South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore… the list goes on. I heard some of the most amazing stories of human courage and resolve. There were incredible stories of empathy, compassion, and leadership. I can say that I left the conference completely moved, inspired, and feeling a lot more insignificant about the contributions I’ve made in my life.

There was one person who is the leading candidate for prime minister of free Tibet, Lobsang Sangay. He talked to us about how his father was a Buddhist monk who escaped with their family from Tibet when the Chinese took over. They escaped with three cows. Lobsang said that when they got to India, his father sold one of the cows just to be able to send him to a village school in India. (Lobsang later ended up at Harvard Law – talk about achievement).

As I said in a previous post, I ended up being seated next to a lady from Afghanistan on day 1, Nargis Nehan. She started an NGO in Afghanistan to fight for the rights of women and minorities. She told me that she had high hopes for Afghanistan. At the same summit was an active duty Colonel in the US Army, Col Michael Fenzel. He served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and also as Director for Transnational Threats at the National Security Council. He told stories about how he worked to keep his soldiers safe in Afghanistan while also promoting security and development for the country.

More stories to come – stories of Indian F-16 pilots, ex-child sex workers who overcame abuse and work with child-sex workers to help them dream again, Emmy award winning film-makers who penetrated Madrasas to figure out how children are convinced to become suicide bombers, to fighting drug companies over misbegotten patents to make sure third world countries can receive meds.  There were some truly incredible people at this summit – I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Nobel Peace Prize winner in there somewhere.

Asian Excursion (Part 2 – Jakarta, Day 1)

I’m a bit exhausted, so I didn’t want to type it all – so I videoed some of my commentary.  Here’s a bit on my arrival in Jakarta:

This morning, I woke up (after sleeping through the night!) and went to the Old Town (Kota Tua).  I spent a portion of my life in Batavia, NY, which is one of the reasons I’m a Bills fan.  Well, the reason for that odd segue is that I didn’t know that the word batavia is Dutch for ‘town.’  I stopped at an amazing cafe in the old town square called Batavia Cafe.  The upper floor was actual made of teak.  The entire cafe was amazing – it had that old school Casablanca air about it.  I then decided to walk from there to the the fish market.  Ok, this was probably not the most brilliantly thought out plan.  Given my knowledge of Jakarta geography and Indonesian… well, put it this way – if I had $1 for every time I thought “wow, this is a bad idea,” I could probably have financed OV’s next season.

I got to the fish market, which for those of you in Chennai is a lot like Luz bazaar crossed with a Beijing hutong.  It was a long and winding neighborhood of stalls and vendors.  I should have known, though, that people were rolling up their pants for a reason… At one point, they flooded the streets.  I came out of the fish market with jeans wet up to my knees.  Luckily I made it out – this was a rather maze-like neighborhood.  My luck continued with finding a taxi.

I then took the cab to see the Istiqlal Mosque.  What a HUGE mosque!  Lakewood church might need another building to catch up.  The cab driver was cool – he turned it into a tour of Jakarta.  (Didier, it reminded me of when we were in Talinn, Estonia on tour and we got the takso driver to give us a tour).  I finally ended up at the hotel in time to clean up for the start of the Asia21 Summit.

Here’s a bit about the summit:

The Asian Excursion (Part 1)

I know I have to post parts 2 and 3 of a previous blog, but since I’m actually in Singapore, I thought I’d write a few things now.  I’m on the start of a long journey through Asia.  Most of it was last minute, but luckily I was able to incorporate some of the things that I wanted to do.  The primary reason for the trip from a personal perspective was getting to India to see family.  One of the drawbacks to living so far away (US vs India) is that you see your family so rarely.  It’s been around 5 years since I’ve been, and as my dad keeps pointing out – nobody is getting any younger.  (Myself included!)

The trip is going to be a crazy one.  I left Houston on Nov 30 and arrived in Moscow on Dec 1.  I was in Moscow about 2 hours then took a 9 hour flight to Singapore.  I arrived in Singapore on Dec 2 at 5:00AM.  It was about 23 hours of travel time just to get to Singapore.  I leave Singapore around 1:40 in the afternoon to head to Kuala Lumpur where I change planes and go to Jakarta – where I arrive at 5:30PM.

My arrival in Singapore:

Here is a glimpse of why I love Singapore’s Changi Airport:

And the awesome food court:

And why jet-lag is no fun:

Alright, time to grab some food and get ready to hit the next flight.

 

Where I’ve Been, and How I’ve Been Staying Out of Trouble (Part 1/3)

It has been a truly crazy season.  Without a doubt, this has been the most intense start to an Opera Vista season we have ever had – and that’s a good thing!  The past few years, we’ve opened our season at Bayou Bend each September, and then we’ve only had Opera 101s until March when we have our annual Festival.  (We’ve had fairly light seasons).

This season, we decided to roll the dice and swing for the fences, and we did.  We opened the season at Bayou Bend.  Bayou Bend is still one of my favorite events of the year, and I am always thankful that we have that partnership.  About three weeks after Bayou Bend, we were in Zilkha Hall performing the world premiere of Somtow Sucharitkul’s The Silent Prince.

The Silent Prince was without question the biggest project we have ever undertaken.  To give you a sense of perspective, we had been building our annual operating budget to approximately $40K by last season (2009-10).  Needless to say, our growth was hit hard by the Great Recession coupled with the fact that by the point that we had reached eligibility for foundation and government funding only to see the market tank and nobody have any money.  (Most performing arts non-profits have to function for two full calendar years before they become eligible for funding from foundations and government organizations – we hit two years right at the peak of the Great Recession).

The 2009-10 season was like a kick in the gut to the OV crew.  To that point, we had seen a great deal of growth in our budgets and organization.  Last season was like a step back.  I think it was tough for a lot of non-profit organizations.  If I remember correctly, even Michael Kaiser of the Kennedy Center said that it was one of the most taxing years for non-profit organizations around the country.  It also left a lot of directors of those organizations in the doldrums.

So, you might ask – coming off such a tough season, why would Opera Vista decide the roll the dice and aim to perform an opera that cost literally twice the entire operating budget for 2009-10?  (The Silent Prince’s budget was about twice that of the entire 2009-10 season).  From an artistic perspective, we felt like we had built enough infrastructure to take on a project of such magnitude.  We were able to secure an amazing underwriter in Jefferies with the support of Ralph Eads.  More than all of that – it was time to bring Houston a great contemporary opera in a downtown setting like Zilkha Hall.  In a lot of ways, we were taking a play out of the Michael Kaiser playbook – we were focusing on our mission – bringing great new opera to the Houston community.

I’ll continue with more on The Silent Prince in Part 2/3 next week.  So much to talk about – my upcoming trip to Asia, my upcoming trip to Colorado Springs to conduct the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and the 2^nd half of the Opera Vista season.  I’m back, and when you hear The Silent Prince story, you’ll understand where I’ve been.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

It’s been a busy few weeks for me.  On a personal note, I am in a new apartment, so I had to deal with the wonders of moving.  (I have yet to meet anyone who is excited about moving – excited about being in a new place but not about the actual move).  In much the same way, Opera Vista is “moving.”  We’re not picking up and moving towns, but we’re in the process of completely changing what we do and how we do it.

We’re really excited that Crisp and Raw (thanks Zachary Hunt and Yvonne Boustany) have taken the time to work with us on our new logo (to be unveiled soon).  They are also working with us on a new website, so you’ll see an entirely new face to Opera Vista starting in the fall.  You’ll also see an incredible season of programming.  In the past, it has seemed as though we have not really been able to take this company into the programming that we believe is needed in Houston – mainly because we did not have the infrastructure to deal with it.  We’ve always been proud of the festival, and that is still the crown jewel of the season, but for the first time, we have planned an entire season for Opera Vista.  (I know there are some of you wondering what the season entails, but we won’t be announcing it until the wine dinner at Julia’s Bistro on July 29^th).  (Thanks to SAVAGE and Ashley Rundall for donating the invitations to that, and of course, thanks to Edward Sanchez for setting the dinner up).

As you can imagine, taking a company and putting a new face on it is daunting.  The questions of what that face/look should be, does it fit the long-term strategy of the company, does it match my shoes all seem to somehow impact the decision making.

It’s been a crazy busy summer for the board, staff, and volunteers, but I can’t tell you how excited we all are.  I went to one of my board member’s block parties the other day, and I was surprised at how many of his neighbors came out to say, “Oh, you’re the opera guy? James has told us all about Opera Vista!  When is the next production?  I think James is more excited about Opera Vista than his job!”  Let’s hope that’s not entirely true because we need James to keep his job, so he can donate and continue to be the board president of Opera Vista.  I can’t tell you how it feels to know that the projects I’ve designed along with Joe Carl White, Opera Vista’s Executive Director, have made the board so excited that their neighbors already know, and we haven’t even released the season yet!

In past blogs, I’ve continuously harped on about how it is the artistic director’s/music director’s duty to come up with interesting programming that excites the community.  It’s not an easy task, especially when you have finances as a big concern.  This season has proved to me that if you come up with new and interesting programming that gets people excited, the donations start to build.  (We accept checks and all major credit cards).

Go Big or Go Home?

Michael Kaiser has yet another great blog from his “Arts in Crisis” tour.  Two of Kaiser’s basic premises are to be creative in programming in ways that directly connect to the community and to plan far into the future.  They are both things that I philosophically agree with, but often for small organizations, they’re so busy trying to make sure that the current projects are fully funded and all the fires are put out that getting ahead of the game becomes tough.

He often talks about making sure that the programming is marketed well, but one of the things that Kaiser has not addressed is how you go about figuring out the right programming for your city.  It’s in some ways easy to say that an arts organization should be unique and creative for the city.  (Something I think that Kaiser is 100% correct on).  You cannot program in New York for the New York Philharmonic and be unique for that organization in the same way you program for the Colorado Springs Philharmonic and be unique for that organization.  I truly believe that you can program a lot of the same repertoire for each, but you handle them and build to them in different ways because the communities are different.

This is one reason the Artistic Director must get to know the community and must figure out how they are going to be unique and interesting in ways that appeal to the community.  The easy sell is to simply do more pops concerts and turn into an easy listening organization, but I cannot truly believe that this meets the mission of most arts organizations.  We can’t turn this into a race to the bottom.  If we do, we lose the social good we bring to our cities.  Now before people start bashing me for being ant-pops and anti-fun, I have to say I LOVE pops concerts.  I like a variety of music.  I just think that we can’t lose sight of the “art music” we do simply to make ends meet through doing more easy listening stuff.

Again, this puts a lot of the burden on the Artistic Director/Artistic Planner for the organization, which I think as an artistic director/conductor-type is a good thing.  The farther ahead of the game you can program, the easier it is to build the infrastructure necessary for a big project.  For Opera Vista, we are finally at the point of being able to do a big project.  (Mark October 15, 2010 in your calendars – seriously, we have a live elephant).

It’s taken four years of building infrastructure in the organization for us to be able to take this huge artistic (and financial – as my board is wont to remind me) risk.  We’ve reached the point as an organization that it’s almost necessary for us to shed the cocoon and fly.  Because of next season’s out of the box programming, we’ve won the trust of a wonderful PR company that is helping us with our branding.  Luckily by programming an opera that is so unique and exciting (did I mention the elephant and the Bollywood-esque dancers), we’ve picked up our first major corporate sponsor.  Stay tuned.  All this information will be on the website soon!  (And the website will be entirely new!)  So, Mr. Kaiser, you’re 100% right – it’s not just for the large organizations!

The Beautiful Game!

As most of you know, I’m a pretty die-hard college basketball fan.  (Another shout out to my 2010 National Champion Duke University Blue Devils!)  But, I’m pretty stoked about the World Cup starting tomorrow.  (A spoiler alert – I will most likely not talk much about music in this post).

I was listening to BBC’s World Have Your Say yesterday afternoon on KUHF’s HD channel 3, and they had an interesting discussion involving artists, poets and business folk.  The question was whether soccer is an art form.  (They also discussed whether soccer was one of man’s greatest inventions, but I’m going to skip that portion of the discussion).  What I found interesting were the number of artists who took offense (or since it was on the BBC offence) at the question having even been posed.  As a musician, many of the offended struck me as simply being jealous – of course in our culture, sports figures make more money, get more publicity, and are heralded more than artists.  I count myself as one who thinks that’s a bit of a shame, but as a sports’ fan myself, I’m not sure I’m in the position to argue much.

I do have to say, though, that I truly think there are some athletes who transcend the game and truly become artists.  (I also think there are some artists who transcend the mundane and truly become artists).  Michael Jordan is the first who comes to mind.  (The dark blue side of me cringes).  What he was able to do with the basketball was truly artistic.  My favorite Jordan moment was when he went up to dunk the ball, saw Sam Perkins coming over, switches hands and lays the ball in – all in midair.  Larry Bird was another one!  What passing ability!

But, the focus should be on the World Cup.  It starts tomorrow.  Pele is still the gold standard artist of the game, but in my memory, it has to be Zidane.  His ability to control the ball and rule the midfield was artistic.  Check out this video.  If a ballet dancer is considered an artist, why can’t great football players also be in the running?  (That can include Barry Sanders, Peyton Manning, or any number of American football greats.)

The level of mastery some of these players show is akin to a great musician, dancer, painter, or sculptor.  I was amazed that many of the arguments from the “sportsmen can’t be considered as artists” camp came because of the lack of intellectualism.  That argument is so elitist.  The training athletes go through to understand tactics, their teammates’ movements, what to do with the ball, etc. are pretty intellectually demanding.  Is it similar to understanding Camus?  No, but I can tell you there are some pretty “unintellectual” musicians who are brilliant artists.

In the end, art endeavors to create beauty and order.  Watching some of these players make such beautiful moves with the ball – hanging in midair, switching hands while a defender comes over to block you? – and these teams play with such order (Germany?) – how can we NOT see the art in it.

Enjoy a month of the beautiful game.  I know I will.  Allez les bleus!  (Please don’t let Domenech screw up a great team!)  Go USA!

Next week, I’ll tell you about the cool Opera Vista developments!