Rounding the bases with the Phoenix Symphony
By Matthew Heil
Marketing & Public Relations Manager
Well gang, it's the beginning of baseball season, and to get into the spirit The Phoenix Symphony is presenting "Out to the Ballgame" by the Baseball Music Project. What, you say, does baseball have to do with symphonic music? Well, more than you might realize! In addition to some old-fashioned sing-a-longs of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," this concert includes music from some of the best-known baseball films: The Natural and Field of Dreams. Personally, the music from Kevin Costner's movie is one of my favorites of cinema!
Marketing & Public Relations Manager
Well gang, it's the beginning of baseball season, and to get into the spirit The Phoenix Symphony is presenting "Out to the Ballgame" by the Baseball Music Project. What, you say, does baseball have to do with symphonic music? Well, more than you might realize! In addition to some old-fashioned sing-a-longs of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," this concert includes music from some of the best-known baseball films: The Natural and Field of Dreams. Personally, the music from Kevin Costner's movie is one of my favorites of cinema!
And there's more: the "Out to the Ballgame" concert is narrated by Baseball Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield and includes a really, really rousing, (no-really...check this out!) video tribute to baseball......!
What's more, we've been busy cooking up promotional opportunties for the concert, and The Phoenix Symphony and Dave Winfield will be at tomorrow's Diamondbacks game, with some of our orchestra members performing the national anthem, and Dave Winfield making the first pitch of the game! Keep an eye out if you're attending!
See you this Thursday, at 7:30 p.m.!
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Say hey Symphonic Baseball fans! Join me, Sonny "The Bunter" Cat on Thursday night.
I'll be sitting in the Front Row (with "Mr.Baseball," Bob Uecker?) wearing my World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks replica jersey (not Sedona Red). You'll see me when I rise to the roll of the snare drum to belt out our National Anthem. (I hope Mr. Maury Laws arranged this in a more singable key.) Of course I'll jump back out from the bullpen to sing like an alley cat during the 7th inning stretch: One, two, three strikes and the kettledrummer's out!
Did you know John Philip Sousa wrote "The National Game?" Bet ya didn't know there's a honky tonk song called "Nolan Ryan's Fastball." Let's hope Dave Winfield can read musical cues better than Leslie Nielsen when he narrates "Casey at the Bat." This touring program produced by The Baseball Music Project is scored for a large orchestra (including a set of timpani). So you can count on a critical review afterwards.
Now, if only we could do this for basketball as well as baseball :).
Our home symphonic team hit for the cycle on Thursday night! The lead-off singer had a hit single with "Slide Kelly, Slide! The clean-up singer brought the run in with his doubling "The Umpire is a Most Unhappy Man."
The slugger Dave Winfield made it a triple with his confident, gallant, and dramatic narration of "Casey at the Bat." What a telented speaker! (He should be invited back to narrate "Lincoln Portrait," "Peter and the Wolf," "Carnival of Animals," or "Tubby the Tuba!"
The audience scored a grand slam with an encore sing-a-long of "Take Me Out to The Ballgame." The MVP of the game goes to Maury Laws, who arranged most of the program for full orchestra. This was no simple Pops writing. All the sections, including the harp and strings, were served generous plates. It was like watching an orchestral highlight film. Perhaps Mr. Laws has another music book for rent?
A special "Bravo!" goes to DIAN D'AVANCO, who was the Acting Concertmaster for the evening. She appeared comfortable leading the section with her slightly exaggerated bowing. There was a unified sound without the 1/2 second delay by the last stand players. Just enough eye contact with the guest conductor. I should hope that Ms. D'Avanco will be considered a top candidate to replace our outgoing Boro.
Symphonic Basketball? Well, we can play Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack to "Hoosiers." How about the whistled version of "Sweet Georgia Brown." Or that old Cheech and Chong song that goes: "Basketball Jones, I got a Basketball Jones..., oh baby, oo-oo-ooo." I found a country Basketball Song by Den Hollinden:
"Here in Indiana Mothers try to grow 'em tall-- Buy 'em Wheaties, hoops and elevator shoes; So, they can play basketball..." Then, there's Shaq's rap (lyrics censored!).
Mr. delahunt, feel free to commission Mr. Laws for an orchestral arrangement. I'm ready any time, bro. I'll proudly adorn my collector's item "#1 Sun TABUSE" jersey to the concert!
Of course, we could get the old loyal Phoenix Roadrunner fans out to the symphonic rink to sing-a-long: "Well I went down to my local arena. I asked to see the manager man. He came from his office and said, 'Son can I help you?' I looked at him and said, 'Yes you can. 'Cause I wanna drive the zamboni. I wanna drive the zamboni. (Yes I do.)"
The guest conductor inferred that there were no good golf songs. How about Billy Mac's "Augusta, sweet Augusta on my mind. Your Dogwoods your Azaleas nestled 'neath the Georgia pines. And when I see this earth for my last time I'll have Augusta, sweet Augusta on my mind."
Hey, let's fill Symphony Hall with the hundreds of thousands who visit the FBR Open every year. Sports and symphony. This could be the start of a meaningful relationship...
Speaking of Symphonic Sports: Is The Phoenix Symphony preparing to take advantage of the cashflow in the Valley for the Super Bowl next season? I can think of a lot of football related music to play. As a matter of fact, why don't we modify the New Year's Eve concert to be part of the Fiesta Bowl? The possibilities are endless!
I have an off-topic request about guest pianist Benedetto Lupo, who will perform Beethoven's 2nd piano concerto with guest conductor Christopher Seaman during the last weekend of April
Please post here and elsewhere bio info and perhaps the Maestro's thoughts about Benedetto and what he anticipates the guests will bring to Beethoven's second. Such information will help others to make a good decision -- hopefully resulting in a ticket purchase -- about whether to attend – and to listen more insightfully to concerto and Lupo's interpretation. This is one "not to be missed." I will be shocked if the performances are not devastatingly brilliant.
Don’t let lack of name recognition fool you. I have heard Benedetto Lupo twice and more than one industry insider has confirmed what my ears tell me: that he is the equal if not the superior of many better-known pianists. A year ago I heard him play Mozart's "Elvira Madigan" concerto with the St. Louis Symphony. He earned a wild standing ovation and a very positive review from the Post-Dispatch, describing the performance as having sleek, after-the-rain sort of jeweled clarity in vivid blue. In Tucson a few months ago, his Emperor concerto provoked some to say they had never heard it played so well.
The "Meet the Artist" lunch should also be a rare treat. Benedetto is incredibly down-to-earth. For example, when I stumbled onto him in a hotel lobby and asked him to sign some CDs, he rushed off to find the right kind of pen. I’m sure he will be a lot of fun.
This blog is an ideal way to spread the word, both from sales and teaching perspectives, about guests and pieces concert-goers may not know. Even in a large market such as Phoenix, guests who are not household names do not fill Symphony Hall. We have more musical events in the Valley than we can attend, so we need information to help choose. Others have asked for more guest information in the past. Maybe this is the time not only for biographical but an introduction to the guest’s qualities as an artist.
A large regional symphony with a young music director should take the lead to challenge relying on "household name" status as a marker of quality, especially when media coverage of the arts is so poor. I often hear whiffs that the "greats" of our time are unknown but to a few. We are lucky we lack money to burn on "names" that offer little more than the “chance” to write bigger fee checks. Being smarter about who we book means audiences hear a broader range of artists. But avoiding superficialities and making independent judgments is not enough. What many of us would love to know is how Maestro Christie makes those judgments.
These choices and explaining them are part of the symphony’s educative function, which recent innovations show it takes seriously. Guests attract us to concerts that necessarily teach us about either music or our own responses, and they are teaching vehicles themselves. What makes a particular artist so special that the symphony's precious financial and performance time resources are to be spent presenting that artist? A performance will usually show that, but only if the available audience knew to attend.
Alexander Kobrin, the wise young pianist who was a guest earlier this season, thinks professionals should covet being the primary audience educators. In a way, performance is an artist’s presentation of insights and request for a response. Most importantly, even very amateur listeners can form judgments without being told what to think the morning after by a critic or teacher if the artist makes a sincere application for their emotions. Before-the-fact direction, however, might guide listeners to form better judgments.
No one can provide that direction as well as an orchestra music director offering the program. No one will book an artist without some exposure to that artist's work. No one else knows what the music director hopes to achieve with the specific compositions and the guest's special interpretive contribution.
Bottom line: Maestro, no one other than you can give us these gems of insight!
At the margins, a few notes would likely help sell tickets or convince season ticketholders to use those they have. For example, Alexander Kobrin is one of the most a fascinating artists and intellects among the under-thirty pianist crowd, but audiences just aren’t turning out solely because someone is a Cliburn winner anymore, and they didn’t for him. But even a Renaissance man such as Stephen Hough left empty seats that might have been filled had those on the fence known he’s written a book of theology and is perhaps the finest pianist of his generation. Too many tickets were left available for the treat that was Carlos Miguel Prieto's guest conducting gig; could a regular feature from guest conductors about the programs increase enthusiasm?
Identifying Benedetto Lupo as worthy of our attention is why I appreciate both Maestro Christie and our friends down south. It's easy to run a symphony when all you have to do is write checks to the stars. It takes true insight to break through misleading detritus to find equivalent artists who have the long-term respect of their colleagues and earn the same with audiences based on what they do and not simply what we have been taught to believe. I hope the symphony will share what those making the choices see so the rest of us may learn to see, too.
Dear Anonymous, concerned about "household names."
You have no reason to worry about how or why BENEDETTO LUPO was chosen for this season. Perhaps you were not in town the last time he took Phoenix by storm? Mr. Lupo's 2004-2005 season highlight included performances of the Schumann Piano Concerto with Roberto Guerrero and the Phoenix Symphony. Presto and I were in the front row at the Orpheum Theatre for this unforgettable feat. As I proclaimed back then, this was the first time that sitting through the Schumann didn't mean taking a 30-minute cat nap. Mr. Lupo lovingly brought out every phrase as though Clara Schumann herself were at the keyboard.
The Arizona Republic reported: "The Schumann was a perfect marriage of Romantic composer and masterful interpreter. Lupo made no bones about the flashy nature of the first movement. The astounding cadenza was a fireball under Lupo's control. The interplay of soloist and orchestra in the last movement was handled with flair..."
His recordings include a recent and acclaimed version of Nino Rota's Concerto Soirée with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana on the Nuova Era label, and a new recording of the same work on Harmonia Mundi, which received the prestigious Diapason d'Or from the French magazine Diapason. With Peter Maag and the RSI Symphony Orchestra, he has recorded Schumann's complete works for piano and orchestra, including the first CD recording of the piano version of Konzerstück, op. 86, for the Arts label.
Benedetto Lupo teaches at the Nino Rota Conservatory in Italy, gives master classes around the world, and serves on the jury of both the Cleveland International Competition and the Gina Bachauer Competition in Salt Lake City, having taken the second and third prizes, respectively, in the past. He is featured on the Emmy-award winning documentary Here to Make Music: The Eighth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the seven-part series Encore! The Final Round of Performances of the Eighth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, both for PBS.
Sonny & Presto will be seated up close on the keyboard side for the concert on Saturday, 4/28/07. Won't you all join us?
I was very disappointed that no active player from the Diamondbacks made an appearance at the concert. Thursday, April 12, just happened to be an off day during the homestand.
It seemed that the PSO was showing support for the local MLB team with staff wearing the new logo shirts in Sedona Red. I know the show was basically a tribute to the Hall of Fame. Even so, a future Hall of Famer like Randy Johnson would have delighted the audience and the orchestra. Also, one would think that the Valley houses many retired Hall of Fame ballplayers.
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