![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/New-Hall-2-WEB.jpg\")
Photo credit: Paul Crosby<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n \u201cThis is like being given a Stradivarius,\u201d SPCO President Bruce Coppock said. \u201cAnd of course the orchestra will learn to play it the way one explores an instrument. The orchestra\u2019s musicians couldn\u2019t be happier about the hall\u2019s intimate sound.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can play as soft as you want and you can hear it at the top of the second tier,\u201d musician Kyu-Young Kim said. \u201cI have been all throughout the hall and it\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Music critics have called the new space \u201can acoustic wonderland\u201d, \u201cresonant and rich\u201d, and \u201cinviting and acoustically ideal\u201d for the Chamber Orchestra. The $42 million Concert Hall also provides a more intimate setting for the audience, as no seat is more than 90 feet away from the stage. A total of $83 million was raised for this project\u2014$42 million for the hall, $32 million to an endowment fund, and $9 million to a maintenance\/transition fund. Of that, $20 million was raised from a state bonding bill, and $3 million from the City of Saint Paul.<\/p>\n Lincoln Center has announced that Hollywood mogul David Geffen has pledged $100 million for the naming rights to Avery Fisher Hall, making the estimated $500 million renovation in 2019 more of a reality. Avery Fisher Hall will officially be named David Geffen Hall at the New York Philharmonic\u2019s opening gala on September 24, 2015. Geffen\u2019s gift gives him the naming rights in perpetuity, as did Avery Fisher\u2019s $10.5 million gift in 1973. Fisher\u2019s children have negotiated a $15 million payment in exchange for releasing their family\u2019s naming rights. Geffen grew up in Brooklyn, NY and has expressed an interest in spending more time in the city, as well as being more involved in New York\u2019s cultural life.<\/p>\n The Philharmonic also announced that it has received a $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), its first such grant in 30 years. The funds will aid in the creation of the New York Philharmonic Leon Levy Digital Archives, with a planned completion in 2018. The materials to be digitized\u2014dating back to 1842\u2014include correspondence, operation files, financial ledgers, minutes from business and artistic meetings, marked scores, printed programs, and press clippings. The materials will be made available to scholars and the general public, and offer unprecedented access to nearly 130 years of cultural, political, and social history.<\/p>\n The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra recently announced that it has extended the contract of its relatively new music director, Louis Langr\u00e9e, for an additional three years, through the 2019-2020 season. Under his leadership, which began in September 2013, the orchestra has undertaken a wealth of new initiatives, including its partnership with MusicNOW (Cincinnati\u2019s new music festival), the popular community engagement program One City, One Symphony, and the LumenoCity concert and image mapping event.<\/p>\n \u201cLouis has captivated Cincinnati through electrifying concerts and bold initiatives while at the same time reinforcing a welcoming and vibrant culture around the Orchestra,\u201d said CSO President Trey Devey. \u201cBeing determined for greatness is one of the CSO\u2019s core values and Louis embodies this with his remarkable leadership and unparalleled artistry. Extending his current contract three additional years advances our vision to engage audiences and community in extraordinary ways in the seasons ahead.\u201d In order to expand awareness of the orchestra in the community, Maestro Langr\u00e9e and his family have moved from France to Cincinnati, where his two children are attending local high schools. He and his wife, Aimee, have become popular figures at events throughout the area.<\/p>\n The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra also re-engaged its Conductor, John Morris Russell, although he will soon be dividing his time between Cincinnati and Buffalo (see below). Russell, in his third season as the Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, shared the podium with Langr\u00e9e during the inaugural LumenoCity concert, and previously served as the CSO\u2019s Associate Conductor.<\/p>\n John Morris Russell will become the Principal Pops Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra beginning in 2016-17 (after a season as Principal Pops Conductor Designate). \u201cJohn Morris Russell has the charisma and energy to be a first-rate face of the BPO Pops series,\u201d said Louis Ciminelli, BPO board chair. \u201cWe are confident that he will bring the best of pops programming to Buffalo and add extra vitality to an already outstanding series. He will create a dynamic leadership team with JoAnn Falletta.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell will join the recently hired Associate Conductor, Stefan Sanders, who played in the orchestra\u2019s trombone section from 1999 to 2006, and subsequently served for a year as an apprentice conductor at the BPO.<\/p>\n The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announced that it will receive a grant of $400,000 from the Wallace Foundation, part of the foundation\u2019s Building Audiences for Sustainability initiative. The BSO, one of 26 performing arts organizations to receive a grant from the foundation under this initiative, will use the grant to fund its classical\/rock series Pulse. \u201cThis will support the first year of what, hopefully, will be a multi-year program,\u201d BSO president and CEO Paul Meecham said in an interview (quoted in the Baltimore Sun). \u201cThe series is geared to 25- to 39-year-olds. Baltimore has a large proportion of millennials, and this is the demographic we need to be engaging with.\u201d<\/p>\n Other ICSOM orchestras to receive grants under the initiative include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and Lyric Opera of Chicago.<\/p>\n Members of the North Carolina Symphony gathered at a popular restaurant\/bar in downtown Raleigh on April 29 to play chamber music in an effort to raise money for the Nepal earthquake relief efforts. The devastating earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, and as of this writing more than 7,500 people have lost their lives as a result of the tragedy. The event in Raleigh was organized by NCSO violinist Maria Evola Meyer, and donations to assist the recovery efforts in Nepal will be made through globalgiving.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n On April 3rd the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced that it has entered into a new partnership with Deutsche Grammophon (DG) that will consist of a series of live recordings under the direction of Music Director Andris Nelsons. The project, entitled \u201cShostakovich under Stalin\u2019s shadow\u201d, will focus on works composed during the period of Shostakovich\u2019s difficult relationship with Stalin and the Soviet regime\u2014a period that started with his fall from favor in the mid-1930s, continued through the composition and highly acclaimed premiere of his Fifth Symphony (the BSO gave the first Boston performances in January of 1939 under the orchestra\u2019s Assistant conductor Richard Burgin), and concluded with the premiere of the composer\u2019s Tenth Symphony, purportedly written as a response to Stalin\u2019s death in 1953. In addition to Symphonies 5 through 10, the project will also include performances and recordings of the incidental music from King Lear<\/span> and Hamlet<\/span>, as well as the \u201cPassacaglia\u201d from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk<\/span>, the opera that first brought official disgrace to Shostakovich. The recording of these works will take place at Symphony Hall during performances scheduled in the BSO\u2019s 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17 seasons. The first of the five albums in the series\u2014to be released by DG in three installments between summer 2015 and summer 2017\u2014will feature the \u201cPassacaglia\u201d and the Tenth Symphony, which were captured during recent performances, on April 2, 3, and 4. Everyone at the BSO is thrilled that this recording project has materialized, especially in an environment that has seen such a precipitous decline in recording company-sponsored projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Looks to the Future and the Past<\/h3>\n
Cincinnati Conductors Continue<\/h3>\n
Buffalo\u2019s New Conductors<\/h3>\n
Reaching New Audiences in Baltimore<\/h3>\n
North Carolina Musicians Respond<\/h3>\n
Boston Announces New Recording Project<\/h3>\n