A Promising Premiere
A high-capacity crowd at Symphony Hall rose to their feet last night to congratulate Composer-in-Residence Mark Grey, librettist Laura Tohe, and photographer Deborah O'Grady on the successful premiere of Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio. This culmination of a season-long composer residency is an experience of which the impact will be felt for years to come.
And best part is, it all happens again tomorrow. Seating for Saturday, February 9th's performance is now extremely hard to come by, but it never hurts to call The Phoenix Symphony Box Office and see what might open up. In the meantime, check out another feature article about Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio, this time from Phoenix New Times.
6 Comments:
Phoenix The Cultural Waste Land. A World Premiere took place last night so where is the local media coverage. Recently the St. Louis Symphony premiered a piece by John Adams based on his opera Doctor Atomic, the review was to be found on several internet websites. I found no reivew after doing a Google Search. Nothing by the print, internet or Television news media covering this event. Or was it an event worthy of their coverage? Probably was. Was the Hall croweded because ASU students, faculty and staff could by tickets for 10 dollars? Question to be answered I guess. I can't wait to read a review.
Why wait for a review? Write you own, that's what this blog is all about. We want to hear the perspectives of many people, not just one.
Thanks for coming!
Well said!!!
I am in the Phoenix Symphony Chorus, and it has been a great honor to be part of this project. Of course, the difficulty of the music has had me tearing my hair out, but the beauty and meaning of it overtook the difficulty on Thursday night. I think we all felt ourselves to be part of the community that was trying to help heal Seeker. As Maestro Christie put it before the performance, "it takes a village, and not just the 120 chorus members, but also the 90 orchestra members, and me, and the 2000 people in the audience...we are all together in supporting this wounded warrior." I felt that very much on Thursday night, and as Maestro Christie lowered his hands, I wept on stage. I am really looking forward to tonight's performance.
Dear Cultural Waste Land, applause for the city of Phoenix! The very evening we premiered the Navajo Oratorio the St. Louis Symphony premiered the Doctor Atomic Symphony. Their hall was just over half full and ours was 85% full (2000 seats sold with a capacity of 2350). Saturday's performance is sold out here. I am thrilled that we were able to connect so abundantly with our community to merit this type of interest for a brand new work by a composer who is taking some of his earliest steps into the symphonic compositional world.
I think the symphony is in a situation where we have to continue to prove ourselves time and again. Do we deserve coverage? Absolutely. Are the media outlets robust enough to cover everything that is going on in the country's 5th largest city? Clearly not. We are a growing city and with demand comes opportunity. Perhaps new outlets will emerge because the artistic community expands to the point that they are viable. In the meantime I think it bears mentioning that the symphony set an all-time subscription record this season (units, not just dollars) and that more people are coming to concerts whether or not the media outlets cover us. Word of mouth is the most potent advocate we have and I think it is working.
Thanks, by the way to the AZ Republic and the New Times for the significant feature articles early in the week covering the concert!
I couldn't tell by your comment if you were happy students and ASU staff came in significant numbers? I sure am.
i am not a writer or have a great ear , but I thought the piece and the night marvelous.
I hope the symphony will try more new pieces.
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