Tone-Deafness Strikes ASO Management!

There is a complete disconnect between ASO management and musicians ...

Music Is Ongoing T-Shirts debut at Carnegie Hall 2012

http://slippedisc.com/2014/09/atlanta-pours-cold-water-on-maestros-appeal/

... And Management Responds

 (with Coverage from Our Hometown Newspaper No Less)

http://artsculture.blog.ajc.com/2014/09/03/aso-maestros-spano-runnicles-speak-up-about-contract-negotiations-managment-quickly-responds/

Maestros Spano and Runnicles Go Public

Going to the mat for an institution you believe in is a good day's work.

Published by Norman Lebrecht at Slipped Disc.

http://slippedisc.com/2014/09/leaked-email-maestros-attack-atlantas-unhealthy-situation/

AJC: ASO Musicians Gear Up

Howard Pousner visits and re-visits the 'Rancorous Contract Negotiations.'

http://www.myajc.com/news/entertainment/music/aso-management-players-labor-over-sustainable-deal/nhBQ9/#a8efe257.3611649.735475

2014 ASO Contract Negotiations: ArtsATL Weighs In

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

http://www.artsatl.com/2014/08/aso-symphony-musicians-face-contract-deadline/

ASO's performance of Verdi's 'Aida' is riveting ...

Soprano Latonia Moore singing the role of Aida in Thursday’s ASO 

performance of “Aida.”      -Photo, Jeff Roffman

By James L. Paulk - For the AJC

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s season is ending on a very high note with a concert version of Verdi’s “Aida.” This was simply the finest opera performance in Atlanta this season.

Prior to Thursday’s concert, it was not obvious why the orchestra would want to perform “Aida.” It’s a work that cries out for a gigantic production on a large stage, with massive sets and an army of supernumeraries. And it was presented here only four years ago by the Atlanta Opera. Their staging was underwhelming due to financial constraints, but their musical performance was a triumph. So why, in a city whose resident opera company is down to three operas a year, must we get the same opera so soon?

If this performance did not fully answer that question, it did give Atlanta a sense of what it’s like to experience real world-class opera. Latonia Moore has become the Aida of choice today, and her performance here was electrifying. The voice is simply immense yet capable of the finest pianissimo, grounded in solid technique. Her high notes are lustrous, with an old-fashioned weeping sound. Even in a concert performance, she is riveting to watch.

Our Radames, Stuart Neill, lacks the traditional ringing Italian tenor sound, but his is an original voice. He has a darker, almost baritonal timbre in the middle register and the high notes are solid. More important here, he has the massive power to sing opposite Moore.

Mezzo Michelle deYoung portrayed Amneris, the Pharaoh’s daughter. Her dark-hued voice filled the room with exquisite sound. Baritone Gordon Hawkins was a noble Amonasro. Turkish bass Burak Bilgili generally held his own as Ramfis. Evan Boyer, as the Pharaoh, has a rich sound hampered by a lack of focus, though this improved over the course of the night. Soprano Kearstin Piper Brown sang the High Priestess role nicely from behind the orchestra.

Armed with these gigantic voices, ASO music director Robert Spano unleashed a big, thrilling torrent of sound. And here is where the ASO’s advantages came into play: The orchestra is larger than all but the biggest opera orchestras; its chorus is gigantic, with a sound unmatched by any opera chorus in America; and an orchestra on stage, rather than in a pit, has a bigger and more distinct presence. It all came together, though, because of Spano’s command of the score. Every minute came alive, punctuated by real thunder from outside right at the very moment the priests had prayed for divine intervention.

Atlanta is opera-deprived, and one reason is that the ASO in its well-deserved glory has come to take up all the oxygen, leaving the Atlanta Opera, our scrappy little opera outpost, to struggle. The opera company’s budget of about $5 million is dwarfed by the ASO’s budget of $40 million. In Atlanta’s peer cities, these amounts are roughly equal. The result is that we don’t get to hear much opera. Performances like this one serve the purpose of letting Atlanta hear why it’s worth investing in this admittedly costly art form.

Tale of Two Cities: ATL and NY ... Two Performances of One Monumental Work

Photo - Brianne Turgeon

When long-time members of the ASOC prepare Benjamin Britten's War Requiem for current performance, the talk inevitably turns to a third city, Berlin 2003.  The spirit of those Berlin performances still inhabits our collective consciousness, and the experience remains an important milestone in the history of the ASOC:  an amateur chorus takes its vaunted reputation for choral excellence on the road, to one of the most culturally demanding cities on earth. The 'magic' at the Berlin Philharmonie included the warm (if somewhat surprised) welcome from the Berlin Philharmonic musicians ... a week of long rehearsals, punctuated by visits to the Gendarmenmarkt ... remarkable meals at the Philharmonie backstage canteen ... capped by three nights of enraptured audiences delaying their applause while Mr. Runnicles held them, long seconds after the last murmured 'Amen' had disappeared into the ether.

Our invitation to Carnegie Hall, to be the centerpiece of the NYC Britten festival, was, in part, a nod to those historic Berlin performances.  But, although the Berlin Philharmonie experience belongs in the Palace of Choral Experiences, the ASOC's reputation doesn't rest on a memory; it is built on solid choral discipline and musicianship, a commitment we renew each season.  The chorus is much like the man poised beside Heraclitus' river:  'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.'  We approach every work, new and familiar, with the same rigor, but with each subsequent performance, there is new intelligence, new subtext, new goals, all of which ignite a wholly different and exciting interpretation.   Our understanding of this commitment keeps us moving forward as an entity,  The fact is, we can still sing Britten's War Requiem as well as it can be sung by anybody ... but performing it with our own orchestra, and with Mr. Spano, was the opportunity to 'step into a new river', to deliver unique, memorable performances in both Atlanta and New York.

I see two forces illustrated here:  the orchestra and its chorus have a responsibility to protect the cultural legacy founded here in Atlanta (invoking another spirit, that of Mr. Shaw).  We also strive to surpass ourselves, which is, in the eyes of the world, a validation of how seriously we undertake that responsibility.

http://www.artsatl.com/2014/04/review-aso-chorus-give-beautiful-nuanced-reading-brittens-classic-war-requiem/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/03/arts/music/war-requiem-by-britten-with-an-angelic-touch.html?_r=0


The ASO Carnegie Hall performance, under the direction of Mr. Spano, can be listened to here: