Jaap van Zweden, in his fourth season as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, will also become music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic starting in the 2012-2013 season.
Recently named Musical America's Conductor of the Year, and widely viewed as a major rising star, van Zweden will succeed another Dutchman, Edo de Waart, in the new position.
In a press release, van Zweden says, "This is an ensemble of 90 talented musicians which possesses great musicality as well as potential. It deserves its reputation as one of the best in Asia.
"My work as music director will go beyond the concert stage, and will include what I think are essential elements for the growth of the orchestra, such as the education program and advocacy for a world-class home for us in the West Kowloon Cultural District."
In the press release, Hong Kong Philharmonic CEO Michael MacLeod says, "Those who witnessed the four awe-inspiring concert that Maestro van Zweden conducted last November know he is a musician of the highest caliber. His work with the orchestra has been truly inspirational."
Most major conductors these days hold at least two appointments, usually on different continents. Van Zweden last year resigned from the two European orchestras he had headed, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra in Belgium.

Yes, Handel's beloved oratorio was composed for Lent, and it does trace the Christian story beyond the Nativity through the Passion, Easter and Ascension. But there's no dislodging it as a favorite for the Christmas season, and the Dallas Bach Society supplies the area performances closest to what Handel knew. With a compact ensemble of singers of instrumentalists, with baroque-period instruments, music actually meant for a theater--not a church--arrests, dances and delights. Joining artistic director James Richman and DBS regulars are soloists Lianne Coble (soprano), Scot Cameron (countertenor), Derek Chester (tenor) and David Grogan (bass). In addition to two concert performances, there's a singalong Messiah: bring along a score or buy one at the door.

Singalong $20; concert performances $20 and $40; discounts on all for students and seniors. 214-320-8700. www.dallasbach.org.

Singalong: Messiah Dec. 18 at 2:30 p.m. at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, 7611 Park Lane, Dallas.

Concert performances: Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. at St. Mark's Church, 2024 S. Collins, Arlington, and Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. at Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora, Dallas.

Scott Cantrell

The vocalists and instrumentalists of the Orchestra of New Spain promise quite an international sampling of 17th- and 18th-century Christmas music Sunday evening. Vilancicos, folksy hybrids of carols and cantatas, will be represented by composers from Spain and Mexico. Add a couple of liturgical pieces from Bolivia and the familiar "Winter," from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Corelli's Christmas Concerto, and one of the area's handsomest churches should resound to happy fare.

-Scott Cantrell

Dec. 11 at 6 p.m. at Christ the King Catholic Church, 8017 Preston Road, Dallas. Free. 214-750-1492, www.orchestraofnewspain.org.

The Dallas Chamber Music series has begun to venture beyond its venerable history of presenting string quartets, piano trios and such to offer the occasional vocal ensemble. Hailed in the Irish Independent for "exceptional musicianship and unusual vocal virtuosity, unwavering intonation," the Calmus Ensemble, a vocal quintet from Leipzig, Germany, comes to Caruth Auditorium on Dec. 5 with sacred and secular music by Bach, Schumann, Brahms, Britten and Poulenc. Sounds promising.

Dec. 5 at 8 p.m. at Caruth Auditorium, Owen Arts Center, Southern Methodist University, 6101 Bishop Blvd., Dallas. $40; discounts for students. 972-392-3267. www.dallaschambermusic.org.

-Scott Cantrell / Classical Music Critic

As part of a new plan to stabilize its finances, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will cut back the number of both classical and pops concerts in the 2012-2013 season.
The classical series will be reduced from 21 to 16 weeks, and will be sold as two eight-concert subscriptions instead of the current array of three seven-concert packages. The current mix of Thursday through Saturday and sometimes Sunday performances will continue.
The pops series will be reduced from 12 to nine weeks. Two six-concert subscriptions will be offered, with an overlap of three concerts.
Despite outstanding performances under music director Jaap van Zweden, attendance at both series declined in the last two season.
Although the concert cutback won't reduce the cost of DSO musicians, who are contracted on an annual basis, it will save money on production, guest conductors and soloists and marketing. Based on comparable cutbacks by the orchestras of Minneapolis, Detroit and Cincinnati, interim DSO CEO David Hyslop expects a $2.5 million saving in the 2012-2013 season.
The Dallas Opera, like the DSO facing multimillion-dollar deficits, cancelled one of five productions originally scheduled for 2011-2012, Leos Janácek's Kátya Kabanová.
The DSO is looking into applying unused orchestra services to special one-off concerts and performances in outlying venues. "We need to make sure we don't put services on that don't at least pay for themselves," Hyslop said.
A special $20 million "Great Orchestra Campaign" wiped out an $8 million cumulative deficit from 2009-2010 and an additional $6.5 million loss from 2010-2011. But remaining funds from the campaign cannot be used for general operating expenses. Anticipating a $6.5 operating loss for 2011-2012, Hyslop says the orchestra needs an additional $5 million by the end of December.
Hyslop added that the DSO lags well behind comparable orchestras in percentage of contributed income--"18th out of the 23 top markets."
Blaine Nelson, chair of the DSO's board of governors, has been restructuring the board, with an emphasis on fundraising.
"We're not going to be bashful about communicating our situation," Nelson said. "We're operating as well as we can operate, and we've got excellent leadership. But earned revenue has been on a decline for a number of years, and contributed revenue has been flat. We need the community to step up."

The DSO has announced a new business plan. Here's the release about it ...

Dallas, TX (Nov. 9, 2011) - The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) today announced a new business model and action plan designed to sustain a secure, vibrant and exciting future for the Dallas Symphony.
The new model provides an approach that can sustain the new level of artistic excellence has achieved under Maestro Jaap van Zweden, by adjusting DSO operations to the realities of the 21st century. The plan will reduce operating expenses in a way that protects artistic quality, boosts revenues and increases the Orchestra's outreach into the community.
Maestro van Zweden was recently recognized as America's best conductor by Musical America, which cited the increased performance artistry achieved by DSO under his direction.
"The DSO Executive Board enthusiastically approved a new plan, which we are already putting in place," said Blaine L. Nelson, Chairman. "This action plan will create a sustainable future that extends the superb quality DSO has achieved, increases community support and lays a stronger foundation for fundraising efforts."

Dallas Symphony Orchestra music director Jaap van Zweden has been named conductor of the year in Musical America's annual awards. The 2012 edition of the annual directory, an 800-page directory of information and contacts in the international music business, includes a van Zweden profile by a certain Dallas Morning News critic. Awards will be presented in a special ceremony at Lincoln Center on Dec. 5.
Other honorees include cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han as musicians of the year, Meredith Monk as composer of the year, violinist Gil Shaham as instrumentalist of the year and tenor Jonas Kaufmann as vocalist of the year.
Now in his fourth season with the DSO, van Zweden was virtually unknown in the U.S. when he took the job here. But he is universally credited with transforming the DSO, and he is now guest-conducting top orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Dallas Opera has added $20 million to its endowment, thanks to $10 million in new donations to match a $10 million challenge from an anonymous donor. The two-year campaign had an Oct. 31 deadline.

The new funds, to be received in the next few months, will be added to approximately $2 million in existing endowment funds. General director and CEO Keith Cerny estimates the total endowment will yield about $1 million in annual income and provide a cushion in case of emergencies.

"Obviously, our board chair and I are extraordinarily happy that we have made this match, and had this support from the community," Cerny said. "We're feeling very positive about the company's future."

Major donors to the campaign included the Hamon Charitable Foundation, Linda and Mitch Hart, Joy and Ronald Mankoff, Mrs. Eugene McDermott, Phyllis and Tom McCasland and Margot and Ross Perot/The Perot Foundation.

The opera company's Cultural Renaissance Endowment Fund was launched in late 2009 to help stabilize long-term finances. The 2009 move into the Winspear Opera House realized a long-held dream of a purpose-built home in the Dallas Arts District, but added approximately $4 million in annual costs. With both ticket sales and donations impacted by the ongoing economic slowdown, the company ended the 2010-2011 season with a $4 million deficit.

The company has made some major cost-cutting moves, including cancelling one of five operas originally scheduled for 2011-2012, Leos Janácek's Kátya Kabanová, and planning its long awaited Tristan und Isolde as a semi-staged production with projections instead of sets.

Cerny expects to present only three fully staged productions in the Winspear again in 2012-2013, but he is considering alternate venues for smaller-scale operas. In March, the company will present its first production in the Wyly Theatre across Flora Street, British composer Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse.

In a period when performing-arts organizations across the country are facing major financial challenges, Cerny still expects a $1.9 million deficit for 2011-2012. But he has a plan to bring the budget back in balance by 2014-2015.

The Fort Worth Symphony has a new leader as of today. Adkins' appointment was made shortly after the announcement of longtime President Ann Koonsman's retirement back in January.

Here's the release:

AMY ADKINS BECOMES PRESIDENT

OF FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

FORT WORTH, Aug. 1 -- The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association is pleased to announce that as of today, the start of the 2011-2012 fiscal year, Amy Adkins succeeds Ann Koonsman as president and CEO of the organization.

Adkins has devoted the past 16 years of her career to arts administration and fundraising. Since 2002, she has served as Vice President of Development of the FWSO, during which time she has achieved aggressive fundraising goals approaching a total of $50 million in contributions.

Facing financial challenges like most arts organizations, the Dallas Symphony Association cut four staff positions on Wednesday, and converted another from full- to half-time. The cuts included an executive assistant, an IT suppost specialist, a direct mail/telefund manager and a store sales associate.
A special "Great Orchestra" capital campaign wiped out multimillion-dollar deficits from the last two seasons, but interim president/CEO David Hyslop fears there will be more red ink in the 2011-2011 season. Meanwhile, the associating is negotiating a new contract with musicians. The current contract expires next month.

The opening-night audience, cast, musicians and staff at Fort Worth Opera's "Hydrogen Jukebox" were twice sent to the basement of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center Tuesday night because of tornado warnings in the area. The first time was not long after the Philip Glass/Allen Ginsberg opera started, the second time at the end of the intermission. The audience was quite chipper about the whole thing, and each time just lasted about 10 minutes.

The concrete-bunker basement of the arts center would be a good place to be during a tornado, but fortunately none struck in the Museum District. During the performance driving rain could be heard on the building's roof, but by the end of the performance, around 10:30, the storms had moved off well to the east.

The Dallas Symphony Association has named veteran orchestra administrator David Hyslop as interim president, starting Wednesday. He succeeds Bill Lively, who lasted only a month on the job half-time before resigning April 29 for health reasons.
A well-known figure in the orchestra world, Hyslop served as CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra (1991-2003), St. Louis Symphony (1978-1991) and Oregon Symphony (1972-1978). Since retiring from the Minnesota job he has worked as a consultant to arts groups around the country, specializing in strategic planning, fundraising and executive coaching. He has also served as interim president of the Tulsa and West Virginia symphony orchestras.
"All organizations have challenges these days," Hyslop said, "but you also have resources. It's a great metropolitan area, from what I've seen you've got a board that's committed, and also musical excellence.
"What I can do with my experience is give them some stability. I've been a team builder where I've been. I know what works and what doesn't work."
Hyslop will remain as interim with the DSO until a permanent president is appointed. Cece Smith, who chaired the interim search committee, will head an expanded committee to seek a permanent leader.

Graeme Jenkins, music director of the Dallas Opera since 1994, will not renew his contract when it expires at the end of the 2012-2013 season. He cites an expanding schedule conducting in European opera houses, notably Vienna State Opera, as the reason for stepping down here.
Jenkins has proved a remarkably versatile conductor, compelling in repertory ranging from baroque to the world premiere of Tobias Picker's "Therese Raquin, and he has gotten some superb performances from the very part-time Dallas Opera Orchestra.
During his remaining time working with Dallas, he will conduct "Katya Kabanova," "Tristan und Isolde," "The Magic Flute" and other operas still being planned.
His base remains a home in Dorset, England.

With shoulder problems acting up again, Dallas Symphony music director Jaap van Zweden has cancelled his guest conducting gig this weekend with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has been having off-and-on rotator cuff issues for the last couple of years, and at his doctor's advice has cancelled some other performances, including in Dallas.

"He's just being prudent," said Chris Shull, the DSO's manager of publications. Shull said van Zweden was expected to return to Dallas next week to conduct rehearsals and a May 6 Dallas preview of the Steven Stucky oratorio "August 4, 1964," which the orchestra and Dallas Symphony Chorus will perform at Carnegie Hall May 11.

Replacing van Zweden in the LA program of Beethoven and Prokofiev will be the young German David Afkham, assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Scott Cantrell has this about Dallas Symphony Orchestra management:

Seven months after taking over as president and CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Paul Stewart announced his resignation Tuesday, effective immediately. But he had already been preempted in the DSO's top administrative job with the January announcement that Bill Lively would take over halftime this month and fulltime in June.

Before succeeding Doug Adams as president, Stewart, a former health care executive and longtime DSO supporter, had served briefly as the orchestra's chief operating officer. When Lively's appointment was announced, it was announced that Stewart would return to the COO position.

Lively is wrapping up his stint as president and CEO of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, but he has been looking into the DSO's operations almost since the January announcement.

Scott Cantrell has this:

Daniel Catán, a Mexican-born composer whose operas have been performed to acclaim by major companies, died Friday in Austin. He was 62. The Los Angeles Times reports that he died in his sleep, apparently of natural causes.

Although living in Los Angeles in recent years, Catán was composer-in-residence this semester at the University of Texas. He was working on an operatic adaptation of the Frank Capra film Meet John Doe, commissioned by the university.

Folks at the Dallas Opera weren't happy at my pointing out -- accurately -- that their highest ticket price for "Romeo and Juliet" is actually higher than for the Metropolitan Opera's run in March: $450 to $420. True, most DO prices are cheaper than comparable seats at the Met. But there's a good deal of overlap, and in 6 of 16 price categories, DO's top price is higher than the Met's.

For the second week in a row, slippery roads have prompted the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to cancel its Thursday-evening classical concert.

Performances of the Wagner, Liszt, Strauss and Shostakovich program are still set for 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Meyerson Symphony Center. Music director Jaap van Zweden will conduct, with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

Ticket holders for Thursday may switch to best available seats at any of the other performances. The box office -- 214-692-0203 -- is scheduled to open at 9 a.m. Thursday.

As another option, Thursday ticket holders may get credit for a future program, but those wishing to do so are asked to call the box office NEXT week to make that exchange.

The cancellation was necessitated by weather-related cancellation of two Wednesday rehearsals for the program.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has canceled its Friday classical concert, as well as the Thursday performance, due to the weather.
The Saturday performance, including the world premiere of Stewart Copeland's Gamelan D'Drum and the Mendelssohn Scottish Symphony is still scheduled for 8 p.m. at the Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora.
Ticket holders for the Thursday and Friday performances are invited to attend Saturday. The box office is scheduled to open at 9 a.m. Saturday to handle exchanges. Or patrons may bring their Thursday or Friday tickets to the concert Saturday for an exchange, but they should arrive early.
Patrons may also exchange this week's tickets for another concert, but the DSO asks that they call the box office next week when it's more fully staffed.
The box office number is 214-692-0203.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has cancelled Thursday's classical concert due to the weather. For now, Friday and Saturday performances at the Meyerson Symphony Center are still on, but that could change.

The program includes the world premiere of Stewart Copeland's "Gamelan D'Drum," for "world percussion" and orchestra, with the Dallas percussion ensemble D'Drum, and Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony. The Saturday performance will also include an "Intrada" for brass and percussion by Dutch composer Willem van Otterloo.

Ticketholders for the Thursday performance can show up either Friday or Saturday to get the best available seats. Or they can call the ticket office--preferably next week, when it's more fully staffed--to get credit for another DSO concert.

For information, call 214-692-0203 or go to www.dallassymphony.com

Due to the weather, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Guild has cancelled its Tuesday-evening program featuring composer Stewart Copeland. Copeland's percussion-and-orchestra piece "Gamelan D'Drum" is scheduled for its world premiere in DSO concerts Thursday through Saturday at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Nicole LeBlanc, president of the guild, says she's deeply disappointed because "not only did I miss out on the chance to get up close and personal with a rock star and talented 'serious' composer, but I will also miss out on the opportunity to promote our annual fundaising gala."

The DSO concerts are still on the schedule, but the orchestra already has had to cancel two rehearsals. Extra rehearsal time has been scheduled Wednesday and Thursday, but with temperatures forecast to remain below freezing until Friday, roads are likely to remain icy.

We'll keep you posted.

Two very different organs, and aptly different programs, on Sunday afternoon and Monday suggested a compare-and-contrast review. So that's what I'm going to do with Dong-ill Shin's Sunday-afternoon recital at Broadway Baptist in Fort Worth and Balint Karosi's Monday night at the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration.

Voices of Change, Dallas' modern-music ensemble, offered a provocative mix of Stravinsky, Elliott Carter, Kevin Puts, Fant de Kanter and Poul Ruders at Caruth Auditorium. Look for a review online by Monday morning.

In what must rank as one of opera's most heroic performances, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves continued to sing Saturday night even after experiencing an early-pregnancy miscarriage.
Singing the role of Jane Seymour in the Dallas Opera's "Anna Bolena," the 46-year-old Graves remained on the Winspear Opera House stage for her character's great duet with Anne Boleyn, portrayed by soprano Hasmik Papian. Profoundly shaken, Graves then left the stage for what Dallas Opera artistic director Jonathan Pell announced as "a medical emergency." The performance continued, but minus Jane Seymour's confrontation with Henry VIII.
After taking a break at her home outside Washington, D.C., Graves expects to return to sing the opera's final two performances at the Winspear, at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
For information, call 214-443-1000 or go to www.dallasopera.org.

Pianist Jeffrey Kahane, who was to perform Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Thursday through Sunday, has cancelled due to illness. Instead, the orchestra will perform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as a companion to the "Eroica."

Only two years after arriving as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's president and CEO, Doug Adams is resigning, effective in 30 days.
He blamed the decision on personal reasons, especially an inability to sell a home in Denver, where he previously was president and CEO of the Colorado Symphony.
"It's about lifestyle," Adams said. "For two years I've been in a commuter marriage, with my wife having to do the commute, because I've been too busy. I've been trapped in a real estate deal I can't get out of, and I don't see that changing.
"I love the orchestra, and it's not even about the challenges here. It's just that at this stage of my life I didn't expect to be living in an apartment."
Adams' is the second high-profile resignation on the Dallas arts scene in the last month. Mark Nerenhausen stepped down as CEO of the AT&T Performing Arts Center with no notice.
The recession has taken a toll on ticket sales, donations and endowment income for arts organizations nationwide. The DSO is widely rumored to have a sizeable seven-figure deficit from last season, although figures haven't yet been released.
Asked if he had felt any pressure from the DSO board of directors, Adams said, "I have a lot of mixed emotions about this, and frankly I don't want to talk about it.
"I have a long list of personal reasons. The executive board has been very nice in allowing me to make this as smooth as possible."
Adams is leaving with no other job in hand.
"I can afford to do nothing for a while," he said. "I haven't decided what I want to do. Right now, I want to play golf where it's cool."
Before the Denver job, Adams worked a couple of years as general manager of the DSO, a number-two position subsequently eliminated. Before that, he was a television executive, spending nine years as president and general manager of KXAS-TV in Dallas.
Adams' departure leaves the DSO in search of a chief executive when the pool of available and really capable candidates seems especially shallow. Musically, the DSO has been improving dramatically under music director Jaap van Zweden, who arrived at the same time as Adams. But in a difficult economy the administration is also facing negotiations with musicians, whose contract expires next summer.

Scott Cantrell is writing about the Richardson Symphony's conflict with the local musicians' union in today's Dallas Morning News. Here at MusicBlips, and elsewhere on the Internet, you can hear a recording of the RSO music director going off during a rehearsal.

Look for reviews starting Sunday of the four productions at Opera Theatre of St. Louis: the world premiere of "The Golden Ticket" by librettist Donald Sturrock and composer Peter Ash (based on Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"), plus "The Marriage of Figaro," "Eugene Onegin" and "A Little Night Music."

Emanuel Borok, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster since 1985, will retire in August. He announced his plans to DSO musicians after the orchestra's Friday night concert.

"I was thinking about this before Jaap [van Zweden] arrived," Borok said Friday night. "I decided to give him a couple of years, because he needed my presence there. But mainly my teaching career took off, and I have more students than I can actually admit because of my symphony schedule. This is what I would end up doing anyway, so why not start building up a class now rather than at a later point?"

In addition to his responsibilities as leader of the DSO's first-violin section, Borok teaches at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts and the University of North Texas.

"Retiring is the wrong word," added Borok, who would admit only to being "in my mid 60s."

"I'm just making a change in my life. If you do this for 40 years, 39 of them as concertmaster, you get to the point that you want to do something else that you enjoy. I get more invitations to play concertos and recitals and chamber music than my schedule allows. That is another phase of my artistic life that I've had to put on the back burner."

Borok has been a frequent soloist with the DSO, and in years past he was also a member of the Walden Piano Quartet and Voices of Change.

A search for a successor will probably take all next season, and maybe even longer. But, as one of the country's healthier orchestras, both artistically and financially, the DSO should attract plenty of top-tier talent.

Before coming to the DSO, the Latvian-born Borok was associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony for 11 years.

The late Ted Pillsbury was remembered at a memorial service Thursday afternoon at Highland Park Presbyterian Church.

Pillsbury, who died of an apparent heart attack last week age age 66, was director of the Kimbell Art Museum from 1980 to 1998. Thanks to smart acquisitions and programming, he was widely credited with turning the small Fort Worth museum into one of international repute. After leaving the Kimbell, he worked with art dealers Gerald Peters and Heritage Auction Galleries, and for two years he headed the Meadows Museum at SMU.

Tributes at the service were offered by Pillsbury's two children, Christine Pillsbury Raniolo and Dr. Edmund Pillsbury III, his cousin Charlie Pillsbury and writer Robert M. Edsel.

With anecdotes alternately funny and touching, Pillsbury was remembered as both brilliant and absent-minded, charming and fiercely competitive, determined and erratic, as obsessive about sports, cars and motorcycles as about art. He never mastered computers, but was infamous for interminable e-mails sent on his Blackberry. He was a dapper dresser whose color combinations, as Raniolo remarked, didn't always work.

There was a veritable who's who of the area art world at the service, including museum directors Bonnie Pittman (Dallas Museum of Art) and Jeremy Strick (Nasher Sculpture Center), former DMA director and now UTD professor Rick Brettell, arts patron Margaret McDermott, legendary pianist Van Cliburn and former Dallas Morning New art critic Janet Kutner.

Dallas Symphony music director Jaap van Zweden will make his THIRD substitute appearance with the Chicago Symphony April 22-27. He'll replace scheduled guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who has withdrawn "for personal reasons." With violinist Christian Tetzlaff, he'll lead the Brahms Violin Concerto. The Rachmaninoff Second Symphony, which van Zweden conducted here in February, will replace the originally scheduled Nielsen symphony. (I don't know which one.) Both van Zweden's previous sub gigs with the CSO got rave reviews in the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times.

The very fine Meadows Symphony Orchestra has been featured in annual gala concerts benefitting SMU's Meadows School of the Arts scholarship funds. But for Saturday night's installment, the orchestra was in the Winspear Opera House pit, accompanying the Meadows Dance Ensemble.

That was a first for the dancers, who left very strong impressions. It was also, as Meadows dean Jose Antonio Bowen, the first full evening of dance in the Winspear to be accompanied by a full, live orchestra. (Texas Ballet Theater, in precarious financial condition, is using recordings these days.) Bowen also said the event had raised a record-setting $375,000.

Sadly, Meadows Symphony music director Paul Phillips wasn't there to conduct. Having fallen at home earlier in the week, he had suffered two broken vertebrae and will need to have his head immobilized for a while. Second-year grad student Gregory Grabowski filled in ably, although the push-me-pull-me parts of Ravel's "La valse" weren't always quite together. And, maybe because he and the musicians were unfamiliar with the acoustic, fortissimos sounded overblown. (Dallas Opera Orchestra musicians have complained they can't hear themselves or one another in the Winspear pit.)

I won't pretend to write a dance review, but, seeing the Meadows dancers for the first time, I was impressed. They did quite a creditable job with Balanchine's "Serenade." And "An American in Paris," choreographed by faculty member Danny Buraczeski, struck me as a smart melange/updating of Agnes de Mille and a little bit of Alvin Ailey. Pascal Rioult's "Wien," on the other hand, seemed an arbitrarily brutalist interpretation of Ravel's original balletic concept for "La valse." But it was sharply done.

Paul Phillips, music director of Southern Methodist University's superb Meadows Symphony Orchestra, fell at his home Tuesday and fractured vertebrae in his neck. I'm told he'll have to wear one of those screw-on "cages" to stabilize his head and neck until the fractures mend, and he won't be conducting for a while.

He was supposed to conduct Saturday's Meadows School gala at the Winspear Opera House, but his graduate student, Gregory Grabowski, will fill in. No word yet on how SMU will fill his job in the meantime.

Paul, who recently made a distinguished debut as guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony, is a real jewel on the local music scene, and a gentleman of the old school. Let's all wish him a speedy recovery.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has cancelled its Thursday-night classical concert because of the snow.
"We just couldn't get all of our musicians here," said Stacie Adams, the DSO's director of public relations. "This is the first time anyone here can remember canceling a concert because of weather."
Ticket holders for the all-Rachmaninoff concert should call the box office at 214-692-0203 to exchange tickets for another performance or another program. The Rachmaninoff program is to be repeated at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora.
Scott Cantrell

Look for reviews early next week of Houston Grand Opera's productions of Benjamin Britten's "Turn of the Screw" and Puccini's "Tosca."

The Britten is on a surprisingly long list of important 20th-century operas never produced by the Dallas Opera, although it was given a riveting production several years ago by Fort Worth Opera. DO has never done Britten's "Midsummer Night's Dream," either, not to mention "Death in Venice." It hasn't done "Peter Grimes" in 30 years, and "Billy Budd" since 1997. The HGO presentation is part of a multi-season survey of the composer's operas.

UNT alumna Patricia Racette makes her role debut as Floria Tosca in the Puccini.

Could be. AMP Productions is winner of the CableU's Non-Fiction Emerging Producer Contest for "Lone Star Opera," a behind-the-scenes exploration of Fort Worth Opera's annual festival.

That gives the producers representation by CABLEready, which bills itself as "the television industry's premier international independent program representation firm." And an inside track toward actual production and broadcast on a cable channel.

AMP has already begun filming preparations for this year's Fort Worth Opera Festival, to be held May 22 through June 6 at Bass Performance Hall.

The Dallas Opera's world premiere of the Gene Scheer-Jake Heggie opera "Moby-Dick" will be previewed in three panel discussions on March 27 and 28.

Titled "From Page to Stage: The Operatic Journey of Moby-Dick," the symposium will include both librettist Scheer and composer Heggie as well as authorities on Herman Melville, whose seafaring novel is the basis of the new opera.

Here's the lineup:

March 27, 2 p.m.: "Melville, the Man." Moderated by pianist and popular pre-concert speaker Shields-Collins Bray, with Melville scholar T. Walter Herbert (professor emeritus at Southwestern University, Georgetown) and Duncan E. Osborne, Melville's great-grandson. At SMU's Caruth Auditorium.

March 27, 3:15 p.m.: "Melville, the Inspiration." Moderated by Bray, with Heggie and Scheer, and readings from the novel by Michael Connolly, head of acting in the Meadows School's Theater Division. Caruth Auditorium.

March 28, 4 p.m. (limited to subscribers and donors to the Dallas Opera, Texas Book Festival and Meadows School Division of Music): "Melville, In the Heart of the Sea." Moderated by KERA reporter/producer Jerome Weeks, with Scheer and 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist Nathaniel Philbrick. At Hamon Hall, inside the Winspear Opera House.

The opera will have its first performance April 30 at the Winspear Opera House, with subsequent performances on May 2, 5, 8, 13 and 16.

All events are free, but space is limited and reservations are required for the member/donors session on March 28. For reservations for that event, call the Dallas Opera reservations hotline at 214-443-1044 or RSVP at amici@dallasopera.org.

For information on other events, contact Dallas Opera patron services coordinator Shelby Covington at 214-443-1013 or shelby.covington@dallasopera.org.

Whenever my byline doesn't appear for a few days, or someone else reviews a classical concert in the DMN, I'm told the conspiracy theorists are all abuzz: Has he been fired? Has he been forbidden to review this concert?

Well, let me set troubled minds to rest. I'm not reviewing the DSO this week because I have some leftover vacation days I need to take. And, considering all I've written about Andrew Litton, I figured it would be good to have a different voice represented. So I've asked Wayne Lee Gay, former longtime classical critic of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, to review this time. And, well, I'm not a big fan of the Franz Schmidt 4th Symphony, which is on the program this week. (I like some of Schmidt's other symphonies better.)

Dallas Symphony music director Jaap van Zweden managed to overcome a sore shoulder, a snow storm and a contract stalemate to make his Cleveland Orchestra debut last Thursday.

Writing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Zachary Lewis hailed "a concert marked by clarity of vision and a high degree of collaborative cohesion." He described van Zweden as "a demonstrative stage personality whose musical choices were sometimes debatable but whose dramatic sense and power to unite were beyond dispute."

The Cleveland Orchestra and its musicians have been deadlocked over a new contract, with threats of cancelled concerts later this month.

Van Zweden's sore shoulder, which prompted him to cancel his appearances at two DSO New Year's concerts, is "a conducting injury," according to DSO spokesperson Stacie Adams. On his doctor's orders, he's again resting this week.

Over the holidays, I got to hear a run-through with piano of the new Margaret Brouwer Viola Concerto the DSO is premiering this week, with principal violist Ellen Rose as soloist. Listening while following an orchestral score, I found the piece exciting, dramatic and beautiful. Can't wait to hear it in full orchestral guise. Look for a story on the piece in the Thursday GuideDaily section.

Brouwer had a previous life as an orchestral violinist. She played in the FW Symphony and sometimes subbed in the DSO between 1980 and 1984, at which point she went to Indiana University to get a doctorate in composition.

This week's concerts also mark the classical-series debut of conductor Paul Phillips, whose work with SMU's Meadows Symphony I've greatly admired. So I'd put this week's program on a "must hear" list.

Sidelined by a sore shoulder, DSO music director Jaap van Zweden won't be conducting the orchestra's New Year's concerts. He'll be replaced by British conductor James Judd, a former music director of the Florida Philharmonic and New Zealand Symphony.

Van Zweden has been having shoulder pain for some time, according to DSO PR director Stacie Adams, but had been working through it. But his doctor told him he needed several weeks' rest.

It remains to be seen whether he'll be able to make his Cleveland Orchestra debut Jan. 4-10.

The DSO's New Year's concerts are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Dec. 31 and 1 p.m. Jan. 1.

The musicians protesting Texas Ballet Theater's use of recorded music for "Nutcracker" have a great--if unwitting--ally in whoever put together the actual playback system at the Winspear Opera House. The sound Thursday night ranged from passable to awful.

And there was a really embarrassing couple of minutes when the "Arabian" dancers came onstage, but the speakers seemed to be emitting a mix of "Arabian" and "Chinese." The dancers gamely kept dancing until whoever was running the playback got the right music on. Talk about small-town...

About the sound, now. In the Overture, there was no bass. After that, there was too much: orchestral double basses were pumped up to levels like those "boom cars" that rattle our windows at stoplights. Violins sounded like choruses of dentists' drills, oboes like saxophones. Horns actually sounded OK. And pretty much everything was too loud and echoey. My home stereo system sounds a LOT better than this, and so does yours.

The sound seemed to come from big speakers hidden at the sides of the proscenium. But either there were other speakers elsewhere in the hall, or the hall was doing its acoustical thing really well in spreading the sound around.

But the sound was not nice. Bring back the orchestra.

TBT is trying to bring itself back from financial disaster, and one wishes the company nothing but well. But for this holiday "hit," the Winspear looked maybe 1/3 full Thursday. That's probably a slow night, but still...

Robert Essert, the acoustical consultant responsible for the outstanding sound of Dallas' new Winspear Opera House, has been tapped as consultant on a reworking of Minneapolis' Orchestra Hall.

The biggest part of the project is an expansion and "humanizing" of the lobby. The orchestra hall itself, designed in collaboration with acoustician Cyril Harris, has been generally considered one of the more successful of the middle 20th century. But, as in many halls (including Dallas' Meyerson Symphony Center), musicians have trouble hearing one another onstage. Essert will be working to improve that situation without compromising sound heard by the audience.

Maybe someday he can do the same at the Meyerson....

After getting rave reviews for two sets of concerts with the Chicago Symphony last season, Dallas Symphony music director Jaap van Zweden got cooler notices for his Philadelphia Orchestra debut last week.

Philadelphia Inquirer critic Peter Dobrin called van Zweden "assured," with "a fluid and legible baton, which, in some places, he used to great effect in the fine shaping of phrases. He clearly knows how to make the ensemble go like clockwork."

But Dobrin also cited brisk tempos in the Bruckner 9th Symphony as evidence of a "maestro who seems to be anticipating the listening public's stinted attention span by applying faster tempos to most every score."

"If you didn't know what you were missing by hearing other performances of this work, van Zweden's quick tempos might have come across as vigorous or energetic. But if you were listening for the enigmas, the contradictions, and the profound questioning that other conductors dig for in the score, all you might have come up with was a certain glibness."

Writing on the Philadelphia arts blog Broad Street Review, Robert Zaller opined that van Zweden's "sometimes brisk tempos [in the first movement] didn't let the music quite breathe. The trio of the Scherzo was particularly snappish, although the reading here was more plaudible."

Also on Broad Street Review, Tom Purdom offered a positive review, but hardly a rave: "Van Zweden is another conductor who arrives in the city without much fanfare and leads the orchestra without drawing attention to himself. When he lowers his arms after the final note, you don't feel like you've heard a great performance. You feel you've heard a great, moving piece of music.

"But that doesn't just happen. Somebody must keep all those instruments working together. Somebody must make hundreds of decisions regarding artistic matters like instrumental balance and the exact pace of the tempos. In this case, somebody did."

A certain Dallas critic also worries about van Zweden's tendency to press tempos...

Movie music will be featured in a new series of Dallas Symphony Orchestra pops concerts for the next two seasons.

Starting in 2010-11, the concerts will feature music from some of the most popular films of recent years. Each of the six programs, presented with film clips on a big screen, will be devoted to a single composer.

Each composer also will be commissioned by the DSO to create a new concert work for the occasion. In most cases, the composers will also conduct their own music.

The composers, are:

James Newton Howard (Pretty Woman, King Kong, The Fugitive)

George Fenton (Gandhi, Dangerous Liaisons, The Madness of King George)

Theodore Shapiro (Marley and Me, The Devil Wears Prada, You Me & Dupree)

Michael Giacchino (Mission Impossible III, Star Trek, Ratatouille)

Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek 1, 2 and 3; The Chronicles of Narnia series; Wolverine)

Sir Anthony Hopkins, establishing himself as a composer as well as actor (Slipstream, August, The Mask of Time).

The series was announced at a Thursday morning news conference at the Meyerson Symphony Center. Hosted by Steve Cook, the DSO's chief marketing and entertainment officer, the presentation included an elaborately produced video and appearances by Fenton, Shapiro and Gregson-Williams, as well as music director Jaap van Zweden.

"I think it is a fantastic initiative," van Zweden said. "It's very important for us that we are inspired by people who are in my opinion fantastic composers."

All three composers said they would probably stick to their familiar idioms for their new concert pieces. But Shapiro added, "I might take this as an opportunity to write the music I don't get to write as a film composer."

The DSO announced last month that Richard Kaufman will end a 14-year run as principal pops conductor when his contract expires in May 2010. With an emeritus title after that, Kaufman is expected to continue occasional appearances with the orchestra.

The review of last night's DSO concert, including his performance of the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, should be posted shortly. It was filed last night, but night editors were swamped with coverage from the Ft. Hood shootings.

In addition to playing concerts around the world--including, this weekend, with the Dallas Symphony--pianist Stephen Hough blogs for the London Telegraph newspaper. And a new posting reports the disspiriting experience of walking around downtown Dallas--nothing to buy! Well, he did find a couple of curious shops...

Check out his report:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/stephenhough/100004548/wigs-in-the-window/

The advantage of the Winspear Opera House's horseshoe shape is that it brings so many seats relatively close to the stage. But people who've gotten seats toward the front of the side balconies are complaining about partial views of the stage. The problem is worst on the top two levels; in the worst seats you can only see about 1/4 of the stage. The sound, for both voices and orchestra, is great up there, but you won't have much sense of what's happening dramatically.

"Those seats are very flawed," says Susan Chizeck, who was in the next-to-top side balcony for Sunday's "Otello." "And I heard from several other people who wen't happy. Everybody on our row got up and left at the first intermission."

The Dallas Opera has had "fewer than 40 complaints" about sightlines and supertitle visibility in those seats, says PR rep Suzanne Calvin. Adds marketing director Jennifer Schuder: "To my knowledge right now, we've been able to accomodate everybody who has requested a change."

Those are definitely cheap seats: five-opera subscriptions for as little as $75. But, unlike some other opera companies, the Dallas Opera so far has no warning on its ticket-purchase web site that these are partial-view seats. (And the seats are bolted to the floor, so you can't scoot 'em closer to the rail.)

"We're looking at that," Schuder says. "I think we need to get through 'Otello' and look at all the data. We may not offer those as subscription seats, just for single-ticket sales. They're already value-priced."

Have you had a bad experience with sightlines at the Winspear?

A couple of readers have inquired about the spelling "Otello" for the Dallas Opera's opening production in the new Winspear Opera House.

The Verdi opera is set to an Italian adaptation (much abbreviated, necessarily) of Shakespeare's tragedy. And since the letter "h" isn't pronounced in Italian, the Italian spelling of the Moor's name is "Otello" -- no "h." Buy a score of the opera, and it will say, "OTELLO."

Lots of operas to Italian librettos Italianize names we know in other guises. "Julius Caesar" becomes "Giulio Cesare" in the Handel opera of that name. "Hamlet" becomes "Amleto" in an obscure operatic version by Mercadante.

Just before the Dallas Symphony concert began Saturday evening, I noticed a woman in front of me cradling a baby sucking a bottle. Inevitably, at a quiet moment in the Saint-Saens Second Piano Concerto the baby started to cry. So daddy, who of course was sitting right in the middle of the row had to get up to take the baby out. All the rest of the people on the left half of the row had to stand up to let him out.

What were these people thinking, bringing a VERY young baby to a classical concert? I'm all for starting kids early on classical music, but shouldn't there be a policy about this? Ushers could be advised politely to ask parents not to bring babies into the concert hall, and offer ticket refunds.

Jaap van Zweden has been working such wonders with the DSO that it was a surprise to find him and the orchestra a bit sub-par in Thursday's opening performance. Too much of the concert felt rushed and not as polished as we've become accustomed to. (A commenter on the review suggest that Jaap switch to decaf at lunch...)

Well, I went back to the Saturday performance, which was quite a different experience. The "Young Juliet" movement of the Prokofiev was still quite a bit too fast (and too loud), and Jean-Yves Thibaudet and van Zweden pressed the second and third movements of the Saint-Saens right to the edge. (At a slightly slower pace, the second movement "dances" in a way it couldn't at this tempo.) But the whole concert came into focus, and under control, in ways it hadn't on Thursday. Apart from that frantic "Young Juliet," the orchestra played dazzlingly, and elegantly. And, boy, was the sound in the Meyerson glorious.

FIFTEEN DOLLARS to park in the Arts District!! That's the latest ripoff by the proprietors of the parking lots between the Meyerson Symphony Center and the Nasher Sculpture Center, and I hear in the area parking garages as well.

If Dallas really WANTED to discourage people from attending events in the newly enlarged Arts District, it could hardly do a better job. For the opening productions in the brand-new Winspear Opera House and Wyly Theatre, TXDOT piled on by closing Woodall Rodgers Expressway, making the area VERY hard to reach for many outlying folks. Dumb, really dumb.

Fort Worth got it right at Bass Performance Hall and Sundance Square. The big parking garage there is FREE after 6 p.m. If Dallas REALLY wanted people to come to its Arts District, it would do likewise.

The winspear's nifty Star Wars chandelier got applause, too, at Friday's night's "Otello," as its inverted cone of slender glowing tubes retracted into the ceiling just before the performance, leaving behind just a pattern of stars. It's great fun.

Former First Lady Laura Bush was there for Friday's opening "Otello," as was Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and lots of other notables. It was great to see Anthony Whitworth-Jones, the former Dallas Opera general director who helped get the Winspear project moving, with his delightful wife Camilla. Also Anthony's predecessor Plato Karayanis and his wife Dorothy; Plato certainly laid the groundwork for the Winspear. Santa Fe Opera general director Charles MacKay was there, too.

The ever-smiling Spencer de Grey, who led the Foster + Partners design team on the Winspear, was positively glowing, as was acoustician Bob Essert.

Major national and international publications were well represented at Friday's opening performance of the Dallas Opera's "Otello." New York Times chief music critic Anthony Tommasini was there, as were Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal, George Loomis of the Financial Times and William Littler from the Toronto Star.

Back when the Meyerson Symphony Center opened, 20 years ago, there must have been several dozen critics from around the world. But those were far happier--at least far more prosperous--times in journalism. These days, VERY few publications have much left in travel budgets. So we actually did pretty well to get the writers we did.

That, along with a shortage of bartenders, was THE consistent complaint at Friday's opening "Otello." There were the usual lines outside the ladies' rooms. But at least on the west side of the main floor, the guys were complaining that the men's room had only ONE stall along with, I think, six urinals.

I went to Tuesday night's dress rehearsal of "Otello," and really liked what I was seeing and hearing.

In last week's rehearsal and mixed-bag opening performance, the voices projected powerfully from the stage, but I wanted more presence and weight from the orchestra. They've now raised the adjustable orchestra pit one foot, and added some sound baffles behind the double basses in the back. The difference Tuesday was amazing. The orchestra was so much more a presence and active participant.

Having a full audience will change the sound, but all signs so far is that we've got an acoustically superb opera house.

Review of opening "Otello" performance should be online around midnight Friday.

In today's review of the opening opera/ballet program at the Winspear Opera House, I didn't have room to note another problem.

The projected supertitles were dim and fuzzy. The type on a cheap 1985 dot-matrix printer would look better than that. I presume it will be fixed.

I finally got to see the Winspear Opera House's much ballyhooed chandelier and stage curtain Thursday night.

Designed by the building's architects, Foster + Partners, the chandelier is a set of more than 300 slender lighted tubes suspended in an inverted cone pattern. But as performance time approaches--in a witty response to the retreating chandeliers at New York's Metropolitan Opera House--the tubes retract into the ceiling, leaving just stars of light. It's airy and downright magical.

ATTPAC commissioned artist Guillermo Kuitca to decorate the stage curtain. In red and gold squiggles, it's another of his abstractions from seating designs of opera houses and concert halls, and it's striking. But, as with the Winspear's interior walls, it would be more attractive if the base color were anything but brown. Yuk.

The architects were certainly right to want a dark color in the room, so as to concentrate attentions on the stage. But anything but brown would have been less dreary.

For all the nice words about making the AT&T Performing Arts Center open and accessible, the City of Dallas worked pretty hard Thursday night to make it as impenetrable as Fort Knox.

I'd planned to have dinner at One Arts Plaza down the street, then walk the one block to the Winspear Opera House. But, no, the city had that block blocked off; you couldn't get there from here, or vice versa. A security guy said it was because the street improvements weren't finished, but the street looked far better than most downtown. So what should have been a one-block walk turned into a senseless three-block walk.

Dumb! And annoying as heck.

I really like architect Spencer de Grey's insistence that both people coming off the street and those coming up from the underground parking garage enter the Winspear Opera House TOGETHER. And, at least in clement weather, the porte cochere out front seems to work nicely enough.

But ALL that audience--all 2,200 people for a full house--gets threaded through only TWO doors. That doesn't make much sense, and it made for longish lines at the Thursday night opening gala. And it could be downright dangerous in the event (heaven forbid) of a fire.

Classical Music and Opera Critic Scott Cantrell, former Dallas Morning News Architecture Critic David Dillon and Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic Christopher Hawthorne will discuss their impressions of the $354 million Center and what it means for downtown Dallas. Before the chat, take a look at their insights so far, then come back and join the conversation.

Winspear Opera House: Sleek venue welcomes patrons with sonic, visual intimacy (by Scott Cantrell)

Wyly Theatre: Top to bottom, a vertical display of industrial rawness (by David Dillon)

Strangers in Dallas' arts scene (by Christopher Hawthorne)

The Living Opera, a five-year-old community opera company which performed at Richardson's Eisemann Center, is ceasing operations.

"It's been a difficult two years," board chair Michael Collier Bradley said in a press release. "The downturn in the economy hit arts organizations
all across the U.S., and many that were bigger and older than us have had to
close their doors. Thanks to the
generosity of one supporter we were able to mount our 2008 season, but earlier
this year we made the decision to defer our 2009 season to 2010."

But the company couldn't raise enough money for another season, which would have included the world premiere of 'The Legend of the Yellow Rose of Texas,' composed for The Living Opera by Gregory Sullivan Isaacs. The company previously presented Isaacs' one-man opera "Henry Faust."

Terry Price, director of music at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church, has been named interim director of the Dallas Symphony Chorus. The DSO had to scramble to find an interim leader for the group after the Sept. 5 death of David R. Davidson.

Terry is a graduate of Tarleton State College and holds a master's degree in sacred music from SMU's Perkins School of Theology. He has sung in the symphony chorus and in the Orpheus Chamber Singers.

The chorus operates under the aegis of the DSO, which will conduct a search for a permanent chorus director.

James Levine, music director of both the Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony Orchestra, has cancelled his fall engagements to undergo surgery this week for a herniated disc. He was to have led the BSO in Carnegie Hall's season-opening concert Thursday and the Met's "Tosca." He is expected to be back in time to lead the Met's "Rosenkavalier," opening Dec. 3.

Levine, 66, had surgery three years ago for a torn rotator cuff, resulting from an onstage fall, and last year had a kidney with a malignant cyst removed.

Amid all the to-do about the opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center's Winspear Opera House and Wyly Theatre, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra isn't make a big deal of September's 20th anniversary of the Meyerson Symphony Center. But then there was a bit of a splash for the hall's 15th, when both architect I.M. Pei and the late acoustician Russell Johnson were on hand.

This is a good time, though, to remind folks of Laurie Shulman's nine-year-old book on the Meyerson. "The Meyerson Symphony Center: Building a Dream" (University of North Texas Press) could have been the typical bit of glossy coffee-table puffery. But, no: it's a riveting narrative of how this great hall arose from the ashes of a bankrupt DSO (in the early 1970s).

With larger-than-life characters including Ross Perot and Mort Meyerson, this is a real page-turner of political dramas, of battles lost and won. It's as compelling a chapter of Dallas history as you'll find in any book. I couldn't put it down when I first read it, and I had the same experience when I picked it up again recently.

It's too bad, too, that the DSO hasn't done more to honor Meyerson, who really was the champion of champions in bringing the building to fruition.

SMU paid tribute Sept. 22 to the late Robert T. Anderson, the organ professor who for more than three decades made SMU one of the country's leading training centers for concert, academic and church organists. And it was great to see so many of his proteges from far and wide, including Wolfgang Rubsam from Germany, Carole Terry from Seattle and Ross Wood from Boston.

At Perkins Chapel, where Bob played many a service, current SMU organ prof Larry Palmer and RTA proteges George Baker and Chris Anderson (now associate professer of sacred music at Parkins School of Theology) played the organ. And remembrances were spoken by organist Barbara Marquart Burton, SMU voice prof Barbara Hill Moore and retired sacred-music director Carlton R. Young. Barbara's memories were especially warming--and appropriately funny.

Bob was a small man, but an outsize personality: smart as could be, with wide-ranging interests, wickedly funny and a fabulous cook and party host. His most famous expression, rising into a falsetto then dipping into a sonorous baritone, was, "Oooh, how VUL-gah." He could be ferocious if he felt a student or friend hadn't lived up to his expectations, but he could also go far out of his way to help a student in any kind of need.

It was Bob who arranged the scholarship that enabled me to go to SMU, and he was as much a mentor to me as to any of his graduate majors. I was one of those legions of students from modest backgrounds that he introducted to finer things in life ranging from French cuisine to modern furniture to King's College Choir.

I wasn't even an organ major, but I sat in on Bob's classes and I don't think I missed an organ recital or organ-department "do." In an age when organists were becoming increasingly specialized, I marveled that Bob could play Sowerby on a 1930s E.M. Skinner with as much love and pizazz as he played Scheidt on a 17th-century Schnitger, that his repertory ranged from ancient tablatures to avant-garde scores with the ink barely dry.

It was sad to see the phenomenally energetic man we knew in the 1960s and 70s gradually incapacitated by Parkinson's disease. He moved to Honolulu in 2001 so his brother, Ron, could oversee the increasing care he needed. He died there in May.

But I treasure a thick file of letters I received from him over the years -- he was a formidable correspondent -- and each year around Chrismas I will miss the annual jam-packed Christmas letter recounting his adventures of the year.

Thanks to KERA blogger (and former DMN colleague) Jerome Weeks for pointing out something I skimmed over in the NY Times obit of recording pioneer Wilma Cozart Fine. Although born in Mississippi, she grew up in Fort Worth and attended what was then North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas).

Her first job out of college was as a secretary to Antal Dorati, during his 1945-49 stint as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; she followed him to the Minneapolis Symphony. From there she went on to an important career as a record producer for Mercury and other labels, collaborating with the recording engineer who became her husband in 1957, C. Robert Fine. The "Living Presence" recordings they produced in the 1950s and 1960s became talismans in audiophile circles; I fondly remember collecting their original LP incarnations back in the 1970s. Done with minimal-microphone techniques, they remain some of the most stunningly natural-sounding recordings ever produced. Mrs. Fine came out of retirement in 1989 to supervise painstaking CD remasterings of many of those recordings.

She died Sept. 21 at her home in Harrison, N.Y.

Stirring--that's the adjective that kept coming to mind during the Thursday morning memorial service for David R. Davidson. Director of the Dallas Symphony Chorus and director of music and arts at Highland Park United Methodist Church (and, before that, of Highland Park Presbyterian), David died Saturday after a 2-1/2-year battle with cancer.

A respected and beloved figure in choral- and church-music circles, David planned his own memorial . And it was a doozy, with Jaap van Zweden conducting a good chunk of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Chorus. Combined, the chorus and HPUMC Chancel Choir must have numbered about 400 singers, and the well-trained sounds they made all but raised the roof in C.H.H. Parry's "I was glad." There were stirring solos, too, from alto Rebecca Campbell, tenor Karl Dent and baritone Donnie Ray Albert, and organist Bradley Welch played the church's soon-to-be-dedicated new Dobson organ.

Between prelude music and the service itself--with readings, prayers, touching memories and homily--it was a two-hour-and-twenty-minute extravaganza. But, assembled in only a few days, everything was done almost as well as it would have been under David's own direction. He would have been proud.

There were emotional moments, to be sure, and hearing that great roar of hymn singing from congregation as well as choirs certainly put lumps in this throat. But there were also quite a few hearty laughs during reminiscences. All told, it was a rousing tribute to a musician and a real prince of a human being that all of us lucky enough to have known and witnessed his handiwork will miss.

In David's memory, the DSO is replacing the Barber "Medea's Dance of Vengeance" in next week's concerts with the Barber "Adagio for Strings," which van Zweden conducted at the memorial service.

Claus Peter Flor, former principal guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, was a big fan of Dallas Symphony Chorus director David R. Davidson, who died last week at age 60. After learning of David's death, Peter sent these touching thoughts:

A conductor who wished to be working with David Davidson had to fulfill three unspoken conditions:
- absolute knowledge of choir music and anything that was necessary to achieve a faithful interpretation;
- knowledge of the beauty of the human voice, and how difficult it is to constantly renew that beauty;
- utmost confidence in his, David's, work in preparing the choir from the first rehearsal up to the actual concerts.

If David felt he could entrust/lend "his choir" to a conductor, this "guest conductor" invariably met with success.

David never offered, and certainly never imposed, his assistance to a conductor right away - he always waited for that conductor to show his willingness to appreciate David's great experience and profound humanity.

For those who were able to win his friendship it was a wonderful gift.

I was lucky to be among those to earn his friendship. It is a gift I will carry with me for the rest of my days.

... and so Johannes Brahms' "German Requiem" once again impresses upon us its great and eternal significance:

Great grief has befallen us in these days - and for many of us it is a very personal and private grief - but even with tears in our eyes we should, with great happiness, whisper to each other: It was a privilege to have known and accompanied him on his earthly journey, with his singing and his music making.

Rise all, and bow with deepest gratitude.

Scott Cantrell's critique of the design of the convention center hotel drew quite a lot of mostly favorable response.

There's been quite a bit of reaction to the Sunday critique of designs for a new Dallas Convention Center hotel -- most agreeing that the design isn't up to snuff.

For a comparison, check out this just-released design for a new convention center hotel for Nashville:
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2009/06/15/daily17.html

It has the same number of rooms as the Dallas project, 1,000, and more meeting space -- and it's budgeted at $300 million, $46 million less than Dallas. The slightly fan-shaped tower, designed by veteran hotel architects John Portman and Associates, looks snazzy, far more so than what we're being offered.

Thanks to the commenter who pointed to this!

Sad news this week: the death of music critic, program annotator and lecturer Michael Steinberg, at age 80.

In my years of covering Tanglewood (1980-1987), as critic of the Albany (NY) Times Union, I quickly learned to spot Michael's program notes at Boston Symphony concerts. By then, he had moved on to the San Francisco Symphony, as artistic advisor and publications director. But the BSO was still using some of the notes he had written when working for that orchestra, and they were instantly recognizable in contrast to contributions from his successors.

(The BSO had offered him the job in part to spirit him away from his post as music critic of The Boston Globe. His reviews could be tough, and at one point the musicians of the orchestra voted to ban him from their concerts; but nothing came of that.)

Michael went on to write notes for the New York Philharmonic and Minnesota Orchestra as well. His notes were immensely learned, but they wore their sophistication lightly. There was nothing "teachy" about them, and yet when you finished reading them you realized how much you had learned. In more recent years, his notes on some of the most popular repertory were gathered into three books, one each on symphonies, concertos and choral music. There's no finer writing on music anywhere,
and I go back to them again and again.

I met Michael maybe 15 years ago, when he agreed to serve on a panel I was coordinating. His contributions were wise and witty, and afterward I got a postcard from him. It just said, "So nice to put a face with a respected name." Coming from him, that was a lovely compliment.

Robert Dodson, director of the division of music at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts since May 2008, will leave the job at the end of August.
He will become director of the School of Music at Boston University's College of Fine Arts. The new job will take him back to the city where he served from 2004 to 2007 as provost of the New England Conservatory of Music.
This is a huge blow to the music division, where in a short time Dodson had soothed longstanding antagonisms. He was enormously popular with the music faculty, who credited him with openness, cool professionalism and personal warmth.
"The biggest thing he did was increase the department's presence in the community," said José Antonio Bowen, dean of the Meadows School. "He was very visible, and brought national stature.
"He spent a lot of time with people, building morale and consensus, listening to people and figuring how to strengthen various units. Violin has really been shored up, and the orchestra is practically back to full strength now.
"And our numbers overall have come back up. There had been a little bit of a decline in the entering class."
Samuel Holland, the division's associate director as well as a professor of piano pedagogy, will serve as interim director, with an initial two-year contract.
"We need six months to think about what we want to do," Bowen said. "Sam has been in the associate role for some time, and I think he's ready for a senior role. He's been on a lot of lists for senior positions around the country."

Bravo to real estate reporter Steve Brown for his column today on the dreary design for the Dallas Convention Center Hotel. I've been meaning to write much the same thing. This is one of the highest-visibility sites Downtown, and it will be a big building that everyone who comes to the Convention Center will see. But the initial design looks cheap and tacky.

Dallas missed another great chance to welcome visitors with good architecture in the international terminal at D/FW. What we got there is generic, colorless, utterly uninteresting. We've GOT to do better this time with the hotel.

Back to the drawing board!

Orli Shaham, who was to have played the second of two piano recitals this weekend at Collin College's John Anthony Theatre, has cancelled. But in her place, the Texas Conservatory for Young Artists has secured American pianist Spencer Myer for the 7:30 p.m. spot Saturday.

Myer gave quite sophisticated performances in the first round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and quite a few of us were surprised that he didn't advance. He was certainly one of the initial contestants I was most interested in hearing again. (Too bad I can't hear him Saturday; I'll be at the Dallas Symphony.)

Myer's program:
Handel - Suite No. 2 in F Major, HWV 427
Copland - Piano Variations (1930)
Schubert - Four Impromptus, Op. 90
Albeniz - Iberia, Book I
Gounod/Liszt - Valse de l'opera Faust

The theater is sort of on the back side of the College, which is at 2800 E. Spring Creek Parkway in Plano. You can spot it by the stage house projecting above the rest of the complex.

Tickets are $18; discounts for students. 972-985-0392, www.tcya.org

That Myer didn't advance past the preliminary round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition left quite a few of us scratching our

I can't think of a prominent classical pianist who has been blind. But there have certainly been quite a few major jazz pianists, including Art Tatum, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, George Shearing.

And there have been many prominent blind organists, many of them also composers, especially in France. Examples include Antonio de Cabezon (1510-1566), John Stanley (1712-1786) and, in the 20th century, Louis Vierne, Andre Marchal, Gaston Litaize, Jean Langlais, Jean-Pierre Leguay, Helmut Walcha, Alfred Hollins and David Liddle.

The blind Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, who took one of the two gold medals at the Cliburn, certainly impressed me with his mastery of major scores. But I kept wanting more color, more rise and fall of phrases; all of the other finalists struck me as more expressive players (although some of the expressivity was more learned than felt).

It has nothing to do with blindness, although I wonder if Tsujii hasn't been cheating himself of scores' interpretive directions by learning by ear--and thus dependent on the vicissitudes of the recording, or the pianist playing the piece for him. Braille music editions, which he does not use, do include those directions.

Some of the most unforgettable piano performances I've ever heard came from a blind pianist, Deborah Saylor, who competed in the Cliburn's 2000 and 2002 amateur contests. She didn't essay the most difficult repertory, but her playing had the kind of spontaneity and fantasy--the amazing color and lavish rubato--associate with recordings of early 20th-century pianists. When another critic complained that her performance of the Chopin "Military" Polonaise was too slow, I went home and pulled out a recording of Paderewski, who took it at almost the same tempo, and with similar freedoms. For an "amateur," Saylor (who I believe learns music by Braille) produced the rich expressivity and coloristic range I kept wanting to hear from Tsujii, who by contrast often struck me as bland. Others, obviously--including the Cliburn jury--felt differently.

The word at the Cliburn was that Nobuyuki Tsujii, the blind gold medalist, finds music much easier to learn by ear than by Braille editions of scores. Here's a contrary view:

"I read your review with great interest since I work with the blind
> community as a sighted certified (Library of Congress certification)
> music braillist. The music braille code is similar to the print code
> which sighted people use and is certainly not cumbrous, nor is it any
> slower than reading print. You do a disservice to the blind musicians
> to say such. I am sorry that Tsujii hasn't had the teachers to
> encourage him to learn and read braille music since then he would have
> been able to make his own interpretation of the music and might have
> presented a better performance. You might find a music braillist to
> further discuss this code and find out more about it. It really is a
> beautiful thing and in lots of ways much superior to print music.
>
> For one thing one doesn't have to worry about ledger lines. In
> braille music an A is an A is an A, just depends on which octave it's
> in that is easily deduced with just one or two dots. Also there are
> many different ways in this Code to show repeated measures or even
> parts of measures. Many of us love the Music Braille Code!
>
> Bettie Downing

The music world has been all abuzz over Benjamin Ivry's Wall Street Journal piece on the Cliburn: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124458728669699751.html.

I found it obnoxious, and inaccurate.

Having covered every note of the 16-day contest, I note that Mr. Ivry nowhere says that he actually attended the competition. If he did, the Cliburn press staff was unaware of it. If his conclusions are based on the webcasts, he should say so. Because of logistical problems, I had to review one of Di Wu's solo recitals via the webcast, and was so aware of its shortcomings for judging tone quality and more that I felt obliged to say so in print.

Mr. Ivry doesn't even get his facts straight. He says John Giordano "leads" the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, even though he was succeeded nine years ago by Miguel Harth-Bedoya. He identifies the Takács Quartet as "from Hungary" although only two of its original Hungarian musicians remain, and the group has been in residence at the University of Colorado since 1983.

What Mr. Ivry describes as the "mediocre" and "dispiriting" FWSO was playing under conditions that would rattle the Berlin Philharmonic: accompanying relatively inexperienced players with wildly different conceptions in long days and nights of multiple rehearsals and performances. I was impressed that the orchestra did as well as it did. The arrangement even required special dispensation from the American Federation of Musicians, which normally would never agree to such working conditions. Having heard the FWSO steadily for the last 10 years, I can vouch for its high standards under normal circumstances.

I share some of Mr. Ivry's reservations with gold medalist Nobuyuki Tsujii. But plenty of us, not just on the jury, would not agree with his obsession with Di Wu as "the most musically mature and sensitive" competitor. My own vote would go to Haochen Zhang, who did get the other gold medal.

Quite a surprise!

Two gold medals: Nobuyuki Tsujii and Haochen Zhang.
Silver medal: Yeol Eum Son
No crystal award.

This is the first time a blind competitor (Tsujii) has advanced beyond the Cliburn's preliminary round. And it's the first time any competitor from the Far East has won the top prize -- in this case, all three top prizes.

We're waiting for announcement of winners, due any time now. In the meantime, here are reviews of the last three performances Sunday afternoon:

Nobuyuki Tsujii (20, Japan) At the risk of exciting political-correctness furies, I keep wondering whether Tsujii would be drawing such roaring ovations, or would have advanced this far in the contest, if the contest were held behind a scrim and judged on purely musical issues. It's amazing that at 20-year-old blind from birth has acquired so sure-fire a technique and so basically secure a musicality. But finer nuances of tone and shape sometimes elude him, and sometimes at crucial points. His Beethoven Appassionata began with real authority, but the second-movement variations ambled along on auto-pilot, and there was no sense of cumulative energy in the finale. Nor was there much real poetry in the Chopin Berceuse. Notes and octaves flew by in the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, but without much genuine pizzazz. There's huge potential here, but Sunday's recital sounded like the playing of a very good student.

Haochen Zhang (19, China) gave an amazing performance of the Prokofiev Second Concerto. Introduced with striking graciousness, the first theme was elegantly expanded at its first reappearance, then finally reprised with unassuming artlessness. This is the kind of sophisticated musicality that has made Zhang so arresting a performer. He had the spiky brilliance where called for, and the cadenzas were high drama. Zhang ripped into the finale at a pace the Chicago Symphony Orchestra would be hard pressed to match. Conlon subtly pulled in the reins, but he let Zhang whip up a whiz- bang ending.

Di Wu (24, China) That Wu is a superbly equipped pianist, and one with flair, has never been in question. But her Rachmaninoff Third Concerto tended to be a set of staged events that never quite linked into a compelling narrative. In all three movements, tempo contrasts were just that bit overdone, mainly because slow passages were a little too self-indulgent. If you're going to take the first "more motion" passage of the first movement that briskly (about the speed of Rachmaninoff's own recording), you need to open with more motion so there isn't such a jarring jump.

Wayne Lee Gay, who was for 18 years the classical music critic of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is joining Dr. Carol Leone as a guest blogger on the Cliburn Competition. Wayne and I were friendly duelling critics at the last two Cliburns, so it will be good to have his viewpoints represented again.

Wayne is now finishing up a doctorate in creative writing at the University of North Texas.

Cliburn contestants this time have their choice of three Steinway Model D's: a Hamburg and an American both owned by the Cliburn Foundation, and another American brought in from New York. The Hamburg seems to be the most popular of the three.

It seems to be thought chic to favor the German Steinways for their brighter, clearer tone and, some pianists say, more responsive action. American Steinways tend to have richer (some would say muddier) sounds, with far more resonant bass, and mellower treble. But the Cliburn's Hamburg quickly turns steely if pressed, and there's been quite a bit of steely playing.

None of the three U.S. competitors in the Cliburn's first round--or Naomi Kudo, who lists herself as "United States/Japan"--advanced to the semifinals. For what it's worth, the breakdown of semifinalists' nationalities is: two each from China, Italy and South Korea; one each from Australia, Bulgaria, Germany, Israel, Japan and Russia.

Tuesday night marked the halfway point in the four-day semifinal round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Each of the 12 semifinalists is playing an hour-long solo recital and, at a separate time, a piano quintet with the Takács Quartet. The recitals and chamber-music performances alternate during afternoon and evening sessions at Bass Performance Hall.

Here's a review of Friday's performances:

Haochen Zhang (18, China) may be the most amazing musical talent I've even witnessed. Though the youngest of this year's competitors, he plays with the depth of a legendary veteran. His Chopin Op. 28 Preludes were sheer magic, unhurried, subtly inflected, the fortissimos on Chopin, rather than Bartók, levels. (Well, they got louder at the end, but okay...) Again and again, he got a warmth of tone, even bass resonance, that has eluded other players on the Hamburg Steinway. It was easy to forgive some overpedaling and some right-hand parts that didn't project quite enough. The spell continued in Mason Bates' White Lies for Lomax. Zhang even found elegance, grandeur and tenderness as well as dazzling virtuosity in the Liszt Spanish Rhapsody.

Nobuyuki Tsujii (20, China). This blind pianist's performance of the Schumann Piano Quintet was only his second ever of a chamber work. If it's amazing that he learns solo repertory by ear, it's even more amazing to contemplate picking the piano part out of recordings. He had done his work well, and, perhaps knowing they couldn't count on visual clues, the Takács Quartet took special care with coordination. (A black mark, though, for an ugly and out-of-tune viola entrance in the second movement.) Tsujii turned some lovely phrases, but crescendos and decrescendos weren't always there when needed, and the third movement was too frantic.

Kyu Yeon Kim (23, South Korea) is clearly a serious, thoughtful musician, but there's such a thing as trying too hard. Arty gestures in the Beethoven Op. 101 Sonata--little hesitations, little lingerings--sounded more self-conscious than organic. The finale sounded bangy and scrambled. In the Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, anything forte and above yielded a hard, steely clang on the Hamburg Steinway. There were more fussy gimmicks even in the "Schmuyle" section. Kim made a fetching case, though, for Daron Hagen's Suite for piano.

The 12 semifinalists were announced around 11:15 Tuesday night:

Evgeni Bozhanov, Ran Dank, Alessandro Deljavan, Kyu Yeon Kim, Eduard Kunz, Andrea Lam, Michail Lifits, Yeol Eum Son, Nobuyuki Tsujii, Mariangela Vacatello, Di Wu and Haochen Zhang.

Amy J. Yang (25, U.S./China). To listen to Yang's Bach French Overture was to marvel that a pianist trained at three of American's top music schools (Curtis, Juilliard, Yale) could evince so little awareness of the last 50 years' research into baroque performance practices. The overture proper began with Lisztian ponderousness, then turned into a shapeless blur, and the succeeding dances were hardly evident as such. Expressive gestures in Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze were right in principle, but everything was overdone, sometimes grotesquely. It was as if a naturally beautiful young woman had slapped on garish lipstick and too much rouge and eyeliner.

Yoonjung Han (24, South Korea). What a difference an hour makes. This young Korean struck me as one of the most winning players we've heard. Even a daringly fast tempo in the finale of a Haydn sonata (in E-flat major) worked because everything was so beautifully shaped. The slow movement sounded made up on the spot, a high compliment. There were some overdone fortissimos in the Chopin F minor Fantasy, but both here and in Granados' El amor y la muerte she could stretch and contract phrases quite boldly, without ever sacrificing urgency and overall continuity. Rarely does one hear expression at once so generous and so organic.

Kyu Yeon Kim (23, South Korea) began with some promise, with a boldly characterized Haydn sonata (in C major). But Schumann's Kreisleriana eluded her. As with so many Schumann works, this one makes much of contrasts, but what emerged here was a random collection of unrelated parts. Kim played lovingly in the dreamy movements, but the impetuous ones were too much so, rushed beyond shapeliness and sometimes in a too-clattery fortissimo. Bartók's three Op. 18 Etudes demonstrated impressive technical prowess--never in doubt--but not much more.

Part of the reason the young pianists tend to rush fast music, I'll bet, is that they do most of their practicing in relatively confined studios or apartments, where the sound ends as soon as they release the keys. But you have to allow more time and space when playing in a large and acoustically "live" hall like the Bass. A fast tempo that makes sense at home will sound breathless and blurry in a big auditorium.

That said, there seems to be more rushing than usual this year.

The disparity between practice and performance environments also tends to show up in players using too much pedal -- again apt in a close, dry environment, but not in a big, resonant one. But I've noticed less overpedalling this time.

The one consistent criticism of performances at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has been excessive speed in fast music. Impatience and showing off are provinces of youth, and a certain amount is to be expected from eager, ambitious pianists ages 19 to 30. But if fast is good, faster isn't necessarily better.

All too often, the competitors this year have taken fast movements at tempos that just make no sense, that allow for no shaping of the music. A machine could play these pieces this fast, even faster. But the reason we have humans playing the piano is to provide subtleties that a machine, at least on its own, can't.

Slow down!

Well, THAT got your attention, didn't it? But this issue at hand is shouts of approval at concerts. If you want to appear worldly-wise and impress others, it's "BRAVO" for males, but "BRAVA" for females. Some man at the Cliburn Competition seems determined to shout "Bravo" as soon as possible after every performance, whether by a male or a female pianist. Or has "Bravo" become metrosexual?

The 222-page Cliburn Competition program book is a piece of work, with extensive details on the contestants, jury, auxiliary activities and history of the competition. But, maddeningly, it doesn't tell us nearly enough about the music. No movements are listed, and even the individual pieces in, say, Debussy's Images or Albéniz' Iberia aren't identified separately. Ushers ought to be handing out daily program sheets with that information.

Why is it that so many pianists in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition seem to feel they have to play Liszt? There are Liszt pieces worth playing--the B minor Sonata, some of the late pieces--but I get sick to death of all the empty showpieces. Lots of quadruple-forte runs and chords and octaves seem to excite audiences, but what do they have to do with music? Do the competition judges really enjoy hearing all these musical freak shows?

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra's 2010 European tour is the latest casualty of the ongoing international recession. Originally scheduled for next February and March, the tour is being postponed until 2012.

The Philadelphia and Boston Symphony orchestras have also cancelled European tours in 2009 and 2010 because of the economy.

The DSO's ticket sales are said to be strong, but the recession has taken a toll on corporate and individual donations as well as endowment investments. A major part of the European tour was to have been underwritten by two special touring endowment funds.

This was to be the orchestra's first European tour since 2003, and its first under music director Jaap van Zweden. The nine-city ininerary included concerts in van Zweden's native Amsterdam as well as Berlin and Vienna.

The orchestra still plans to appear at New York's Carnegie Hall in May 2011, when it will perform the Steven Stucky oratorio "August 4, 1964."

Pianist Alessio Bax, an SMU alum now on the adjunct faculty of SMU's Meadows School of the Arts, is one of five winners of the 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grants. The winners--also including pianist Inon Barnatan, clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein and violinists Augustin Hadelich and Arnaud Sussman--were announced today at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at New York's Lincoln Center.

The $25,000 grants, which have been awarded since 1976, are designed to help young artists early in their careers. Previous recipients have included Jonathan Biss, Hilary Hahn, Anne-Marie McDermott and the Miro Quartet.

Bax, 31, attracted international attention as winner of the Leeds and Hamamatsu competitions. He studied in his native Bari, Italy, in France with Francois-Joel Thiollier and at the Chigiana Academy in Siena, Italy, under Joaquin Achucarro. He moved to Dallas in 1994 to continue his studies with Achucarro at SMU, receiving a master's degree and artist certificate. Now living in New York with his wife, pianist Lucille Chung, he continues to teach part-time at SMU.

If you've tried to order tickets for the Fort Worth Opera festival and had problems, try again. The opera offices have had phone and internet snafus off and on since Friday, but all is now working.

The festival opens Saturday with "Carmen," with "Cinderella" opening Sunday afternoon. "Dead Man Walking" launches May 2.

Call 817-731-0726 or go to www.fwopera.org.

Ivan Moravec is probably my favorite living pianist. I discovered his now legendary Connoisseur Society recordings while an SMU student a "few" years ago. And during the decade I spend as music critic of The Kansas City Star he played in the city's Friends of Chamber Music series almost every other year. I'll never forget performances so beautiful, so eloquent, that they left me literally in tears.

Last Friday, he returned to Kansas City's Folly Theater. Figuring the Czech pianist, now 78, won't be touring many more years, I decided to use a Southwest Airlines coupon for a KC weekend.

In a program of Janacek, Debussy and Chopin, the playing was stll amazing. The Folly's Steinway, which I used to like a lot, has gotten hard-toned, and that got in the way. But Moravec's marvelously subtle, imaginative performances still worked magic. The Chopin G minor Ballade alone was worth the trip.

It was lovely, too, to get to say "hello" to Ivan and his wife, Zuzana. They're the warmest, sweetest people imaginable, and both speak English very well. Having performed and recorded with the DSO, Ivan immediately asked, "How is the Dallas Symphony doing?" He was glad to hear about the great work Jaap van Zweden (whom he didn't know) is doing here.

Once again, I found myself wishing Dallas had a classical presenting series as extensive and sophisticated as Kansas City's Friends of Chamber Music. Cynthia Siebert, who started the series and still runs it, is one of the sharpest impresarios anywhere; I keep wishing she'd start a Dallas spinoff. And would that we had such a great chamber-music hall as the Folly, a turn-of-the-20th-century vaudeville house that's been beautifully restored and modernized.

Saturday will be "Speight Jenkins Day" in Seattle, thanks to a mayoral proclamation honoring Dallas-born Speight Jenkins for 25 years as general director of Seattle Opera.

Jenkins is widely credited with raising Seattle Opera to national prominence, notably with a series of Wagner "Ring" Cycles. Before moving into opera administration, we was a music critic.

Miguel Harth-Bedoya, music director of the Fort Worth Symphony, will lead the Atlanta Symphony in three programs of Latin-American music between May 27 and June 6. The concerts are part of a "Musica Ardiente" Festival to be held at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta.

Complete with meet-and-greet with music director Jaap van Zweden, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra is holding an open house from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday (April 25) at the Meyerson Symphony Center. The free occasion will include performances by DSO musicians Mary Preston (organ) and Bruce Patti (violin), a string quartet from Booker T. Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts and the winner of that morning's Lynn Harrell Concerto Competition.

Guests can meet van Zweden and orchestra musicians and get guided behind-the-scenes tours of the Meyerson. There will be a special $3 rate in the Arts District Parking Garage.

The Meyerson is at 2301 Flora St., at Pearl.

Recent works by four American composers have been picked by contestants in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, coming up May 22 through June 7 in Fort Worth. The works are:

"White Lies for Lomax," by Mason Bates,
"Turning," by Derek Bermel,
Suite for Piano, by Daron Hagen, and
Improvisation & Fugue, by John Musto.

Twenty-eight composers submitted works for what is, in effect, an add-on competition to the piano contest. A jury of composers and other musicians narrowed the field, and then each of the Cliburn Competition pianists was required to pick one of the pieces to perform in the competition's semifinal round.

The Dallas Symphony is one of seven North American orchestra invited to a new Carnegie Hall festival scheduled for May 2011. Called "Spring for Music," the festival is intended to encourage imaginative programming.

This will be the DSO's first New York appearance under its new music director, Jaap van Zweden.

The DSO, with soloists and the Dallas Symphony Chorus, will reprise the Steven Stucky oratorio "August 4, 1964," which it premiered last September in Dallas. Commemorating the centenary of Texas-native President Lyndon B. Johnson, with a libretto by Gene Scheer, the DSO-commissioned work explores pivotal events on the 1964 date.

Also participating in the nine-day New York festival will be the orchestras of Albany, N.Y.; Atlanta; Montreal, Canada; Oregon; and Toledo, Ohio; and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
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I'm not talking about patrons murmuring during performances. I' m talking about presenters and performers talking before concerts. And it's become a veritable plague around here.

Talk, talk, talk -- hey, folks, we come to listen to music, not hear you relish the sound of your own voices over loudspeakers. One of the worst recent examples was Monday's Dallas Chamber Music concert. Pre-concert announcements, introductions, recognitions and what have you, by three different people, took fully 10 minutes.

I wish Fort Worth Symphony music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya didn't feel he had to talk before every single FWSO concert. And he's not really all that good at it -- as opposed to, say, former Dallas Symphony music director Andrew Litton, who DID have a natural way of talking to audiences. And Litton didn't do it very often.

Pre-performance comments are effective in inverse proportion to their frequency. Like every third concert, max.