From Blog to Blog, Musically Speaking

(I pretty much wrote this article myself, with a few tweaks from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's Manager of Publications...he told me he had to excise all the "personality of my conversational style", and so removed some lighthearted remarks I had included. Oh, well, still great to be asked and to have the recognition for the organization that sucks the life out of me on a daily basis. JUST KIDDING!)

Here's a link to the actual DSO blog post, though I've copied all but the photos below.

DSO Guild: Fun Insights for Music Lovers

Meet Nicole LeBlanc, president of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Guild. With these questions-and-answers, LeBlanc introduces the DSO Guild and talks about its membership, social events and support for Performance Preludes, the DSO’s entertaining and informative pre-concert programs. She explains how the Guild lets music lovers meet and hear from DSO conductors and guest artists, and talks about her appreciation for the DSO and its programs.

Who can join the DSO Guild?

DSO Guild members love classical music and love to meet the instrumentalists, composers and conductors who bring that music to life at the Meyerson Symphony Center each week. We are individuals from all backgrounds, men and women of all ages, working and retired, music aficionados all. We are dedicated to deepening our knowledge and appreciation of music. We get to know each other at our member events, making smart new friends and new musical discoveries at the same time.

How is the DSO Guild related to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra?

Since 1968, the DSO Guild has fulfilled its mission of supporting, promoting and funding the adult music education efforts of the DSO. We further that mission by conducting ten Guild meetings during the season, holding an annual fundraising gala dinner and by fully underwriting the DSO’s free pre-concert Performance Preludes series.

What the heck is a Performance Prelude?

Performance Preludes are informative, educational and entertaining lectures, held one hour prior to each DSO classical series concert. Performance Preludes are FREE to all ticketholders. The lectures, which take place in Horchow Hall on the lower level of the Meyerson, last approximately 45 minutes. The presentations are given by some of the most accomplished music scholars in the area and usually include audio-visual components. You’ll laugh, you’ll learn, and you’ll get out in plenty of time to find your seat. Click here for the schedule

What’s special to you personally about the DSO and the DSO Guild?

My world is filled with music of all kinds (from Bartok to Broadway and Baaba Maal to Bollywood) but clearly I do have a special love for classical music. One of the first things on our agenda when my husband Bill and I moved to Dallas in 1992 was to investigate how we could attend Dallas Symphony concerts. Unfortunately for us, the entire season was sold out by subscription! We were placed on a waiting list and we haven’t let our subscription lapse since 1993.

I am an intensely curious person by nature, always seeking more knowledge about the things that interest me—so from the first DSO Guild event I attended in 2005, I was completely hooked. I was so comfortable getting to know the members, almost as though I had discovered a secret society of my own geeky kind--other music and arts lovers who felt just as I did about the fellowship and enrichment opportunities offered by the Guild. There is no other group like it! I genuinely look forward to every one of our meetings and hope to remain involved for many years to come.

What are Guild member events like?

The Guild usually holds ten events throughout the DSO season. Luncheon meetings are held at elegant clubs like the Petroleum Club, Lakewood Country Club and The Tower Club. Evening events take place in some of the most beautiful homes in Dallas and feature wine and hors d’oeuvres. The guest artists at our events are the noted and noteworthy instrumentalists, composers and conductors who are sharing their musical gifts with the DSO at the time.

Past guest artists have included conductors Jaap van Zweden, Andrew Litton and Marin Alsop; composers Jennifer Higdon (winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music) and Steven Stucky (August 4, 1964, to be performed by the DSO at Carnegie Hall in May); and stellar soloists such as pianist Steven Hough, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Although our events are both elegant and educational, lighthearted fun and camaraderie permeate every gathering, thanks to our common love of music. Each meeting seems more enjoyable than the last – they are anything but boring!

What’s going on at the Guild this season?

Thus far in fall 2010, we have been treated to a presentation and duets by DSO principal oboist Erin Hannigan and associate principal bassoonist Scott Walzel; a Q & A with talented and charming violinist Nicola Benedetti; and an intimate evening with cellist Lynn Harrell, who brought his instrument and played it in the unique and spectacular surroundings of a 1910 church-turned-residence where our event was held.

On Wednesday (Nov. 3), Guild members will spend the evening at the high-rise tower The House in Victory Park, site of the Dallas City Living Tour sponsored by our sister support group the Dallas Symphony Orchestra League. We’ll have wine and hors d’oeuvres and hear a presentation by dynamic conductor Alondra de la Parra, who will be leading the DSO in a program of Latin Masterworks Nov. 4-7 at the Meyerson.

In January, we’ll enjoy a luncheon with composer Poul Ruders, who is writing Symphony No. 4, An Organ Symphony, a world premiere organ concerto for the DSO and its principal organist Mary Preston, who will also join us. That will be followed in early February by an evening meeting featuring composer Stewart Copeland, drummer of famed rock trio The Police. Copeland, too, is working on a world premiere, Gamelan D’Drum, for the DSO and D’Drum, a percussion ensemble featuring several members of the DSO’s percussion section. Also in the works is an early-March luncheon meeting with conductor Gunther Herbig who will conduct Mozart and Dvorak with the DSO March 3-6. We’ll also have three more exciting events that are still under wraps.

Is that all that’s going on the DSO Guild?

Why, no. We have just confirmed that local favorite and international piano sensation Olga Kern will perform at our annual Spring Gala on April 3. Kern will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of her winning the Gold Medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Since that time, she has gone on to great acclaim as both recitalist and concert pianist, but has always maintained a special relationship with the Metroplex because it was in Fort Worth that her glamorous, globetrotting career was launched. Our gala is an intimate affair - a cocktail reception and sumptuous dinner in elegant surroundings, followed by a private recital by Kern! Proceeds from the gala help underwrite the Performance Preludes lectures.

Can I join the DSO Guild?

Yes! All are welcome! Memberships are available at a five-event level for $235 and ten-event level for $395. Non-members are also welcome to attend our regular events for $55 before stated RSVP deadlines, $75 after. Non-members and guests are also invited to the Dallas Symphony Guild Spring Gala with Olga Kern, with pricing to be determined. Sponsorships are also available. For more information on the DSO Guild, its events or its gala, please visit our website at www.dsoguild.com, email us at information@dsoguild.com or call 214-821-2428. We look forward to meeting you and sharing our mutual love of music and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra!

13th Van Cliburn as Travel Experience

The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is a three week geek-fest for the music lover, and I mean that in the most loving and devoted way possible. If you have enough vacation time, or even able to make it down to Fort Worth for even one or two rounds, you should mark your calendar now for late May/early June 2013. This is my fifth Cliburn; once you've gone, you're hooked. It's like meth or heroin (or porn?) to a classical music junkie. And yes, Van Cliburn is actually in attendance (left, signing autographs for fans).

After a round-the-world search and live screening jury auditions, thirty of the best young pianists from countries near and far descend on Fort Worth for an intensive three weeks of piano music-making. If a pianist makes it to the finals, s/he will have performed three recitals, each close to an hour; a quintet in collaboration with the Takaçs String Quartet; a chamber concerto; and a large orchestra concerto. And throw in a lot of practice and rehearsals to boot. It's enough to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the concert-career-ready players from the need-to-percolate pretenders.

Because the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience overlapped with the first days of the Cliburn, we missed some of the preliminary-round recitals. We did catch the final few competitors, but our experience and judgment this time was based mainly on the semifinal round. At this point we've just begun the final round, with the second session tonight. Opinions in the press room coalesced around four players (Bozhanov, Son, Wu and H. Zhang), and those four advanced to the finals. But the remaining two finalist spots were a crapshoot. We ourselves predicted the judges would take those four, but our last two picks did not make it; we liked Dank & and chose Deljavan (right) as our "jury wild card"...and I do mean wild. The other two chosen by the jury were Vacatello & Tsujii, the first sightless pianist to advance this far.

But guess what? I'm neither musician nor music critic, just a woman who has been an avid classical music lover and regular concertgoer (both at home and on my travels) for 30+ years. So I won't try to rate the performances. I simply want to create a picture of what it's like to BE at the Cliburn, and leave you with no doubt that it's worth a special trip to Fort Worth for as long as you can be present, be that three days or three weeks.

The music speaks for itself. All in all there are about two dozen three-and-a-half hour sessions of music over two and a half weeks. The caliber of performers gets better with every competition, and the Fort Worth Symphony has significantly matured under its usual guidance of its music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya (though the competition conductor is the distinguished James Conlon).

The music brings out all the geeky marvellousness of the Cliburn and it atomizes into a general atmosphere of camaraderie and shared interest among everyone in attendance, from competitors to volunteers to staff to press to every audience member. It's impossible to put into words, but it's palpable and pervasive. The idea that you all have something so meaningful and deeply enjoyable in common simply bonds everyone, friend and stranger alike, for the duration of the event.

That bond extends to previous gold medalists Stanislav Ioudenitch (pictured with me, left) and José Feghali, 2005 silver medalist Joyce Yang, and former competitors like Frederic Chiu, our favorite from the 1993 Cliburn (he was robbed of a finalist spot). It's nothing short of delightful to see these talented folks again, chat and catch up on their careers. Frederic, the press darling of 1993, always makes sure to visit the press room ;-) We talked again at a party (photo, below right: Frederic with Yoori Marti of Steinway, at the Cliburn's Zoo party) and he told us that, having completed his ten-year recording cycle of Prokofiev's complete piano works (highly recommended, and in my humble opinion, he is the foremost Prokofiev interpreter of his generation), he has undertaken a new challenge. This time he aims to record Lizst's transcriptions of Ludwig van Beethoven's nine symphonies. The first one in the series (Beethoven's Fifth) has been released and is available at his website. My dream is that when he gets around to scaling the the mountaintop that is the Ninth and one that probably requires four hands for a live performance, that he come to Fort Worth and play it together with some other Cliburn laureate (so what if Chiu didn't "win", laureate-schmaureate) on the Cliburn's excellent concert series.

But wait, there's more! Besides all the terrific music and the great vibe, the Cliburn makes sure there is plenty to entertain you when there's no competitive playing. This year there is a symposium series on music and its connection to diplomacy in the 21st century as well as a huge series of films by award-winning documentarian Peter Rosen, covering everything from composers to facilities to the competition to even architecture. Not enough to fill the time of those very few days away from the competition sessions? How about two more sessions of unofficial recitals? On the two "off" days before the finals commenced, there were at least six recitals by competitors who did not advance but who agreed to play some of their remaining recital repertoire for a couple hundred fans, while the finalists rehearsed with Conlon and the Fort Worth Symphony. (Below, finalists with Van. L to R: Yeol Eum Son, Haochen Zhang, Mariangela Vacatello, Nobuyuki Tsujii, Van Cliburn, Di Wu, and Evgeni Bozhanov.)

If you need a break from the competition on those days off, Fort Worth is home to some small museums with impressive collections, each a jewel in its own right: the Kimbell, the Amon Carter, the Modern, the Sid Richardson...it's more than enough to satisfy your craving for visual art along with your more-than-adequate performing arts fix at the Cliburn. In Dallas you can visit the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Crow Collection, Fair Park...and endless shopping, if you see fashion as the perfect souvenir. There's excellent community theater all over the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well. As an aside, the Texas Rangers play in nearby Arlington, and the Colonial golf tournament also overlaps with part of the Cliburn, so if one of you is a golfer or baseball fan, there are also those diversions for the more sportif among you.

There are plenty of convenient and delicious restaurants in downtown Fort Worth to satisfy your baser needs as well (bars, too). The Cliburn is so utterly all-encompassing, though, that you may sit down to dinner and discover that your waiter was a vocal performance major and that the restaurant's cool new piece of art has donated parts from Steinway and was unveiled for the competition (The Vault, quite good food and excellent service), or that the kitchen staff is listening intently to every note live on the radio, as we found at Riscky's BBQ a few years back.

Love the idea of following the entire competition note-for-note on the radio? This year, it's a whole new world (-wide web) and almost everything, including rehearsals, is being streamed live on the internet. Most of it is also being archived (at least everything the Cliburn could get the rights to) and is available at the same site, so if you're not here in Bass Hall, you can catch up anytime. You'll feel like you are right there in the moment, with a backstage pass. Above left, Haochen Zhang and right, Yeol Eum Son, after their final concerto performances. Both played Prokofiev's #2, as did silver medalist Joyce Yang in 2005.

You can read all about the competition at the Cliburn's website.

View blog posts here, here, here, here and here. Pictured at right are two of the Cliburn's "official" bloggers, Ken Iisaka of California and Mike Winter of Idaho.

Look through print and radio news archives here, here and here.

Have fun with the virtual experience, and please contact me to plan your 2013 Cliburn extravaganza! My sixth competition could be your first. If you can't wait that long, ask me about the International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs that will take place in May 2011.