History
Yesterday I guest-conducted the Jewish Community Singers of Metro Chicago, a terrific volunteer civic group of about 70 singers called (in Hebrew) Kol Zimrah. I was brought in to lead KZ for a half-dozen weekly rehearsals and then the final concert, performed at the lovely Weinberg center at the corner of Lake Cook Road and I-294. The house was packed, with people overflowing to the patio outside, which fortunately had been supplied with speakers from the audio system that was carrying us on microphones.
The program lasted about an hour. Would you believe that there was a connection between one of the songs and my own grandmother? Oy! As it turned out, the program contained a "niggun" in Yiddish. A "niggun" [plural "niggunim"] is a wordless tune, which in this case sounded like "tschiribim-bam-bam," and so on. This particular niggun was arranged by Alice Parker, who was Robert Shaw's longtime collaborator, and a brilliant arranger in her own right.
However, more interesting to me was the composer of the original tune, Lazar Weiner. I learned from a friend that Lazar Weiner, who wore many hats in the NYC Jewish-music scene a hundred or so years ago, was the music director of the Freyheyt Gezang Vereyn (Freedom-Song Union), basically the choral-music arm of the Communist Party in New York City in the 1920s. Here is a picture of Weiner conducting.
And who sang with Lazar Weiner in the Freyheyt Gezang Vereyn? None other than my father's mother, Lillian Cohen, born Leah Krikun in Minsk, what is now Belarus. Now THAT is a small world!
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It's programming time. This is the phase of a program's life when I cast a wide net. The aim is to get MORE repertoire at hand than I will actually need for "Days of Awe and Rejoicing," and then I start to plan and winnow and see what will make the most compelling through-line of music. It's a totally different process from rehearsing or performing.
I am jealous sometimes of those conductors who just have to say, "Okay, let's do Brahms 3 and Beethoven 8 and Rach 2 with a great pianist." I suppose I brought it on myself because of the sorts of programming that Chicago a cappella does. Our concerts tend to include about 20 short pieces -- an hour and a half, including intermission.
So finding cool Jewish classical music includes:
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Listener Memories, Recordings and Rare Interviews Pre-empt Regular Music Schedule
98.7WFMT, Chicago's Classical Experience, is paying tribute to Russian musician and human rights activist
Mstislav Rostropovich who died this morning in Moscow. Today, Friday April 27, and tomorrow morning, Saturday April 28, the station is airing recordings from its archives of Rostropovich cello performances and conducting various orchestras around the world. In addition, the station is airing voicemails and reading emails from listeners recounting memories of the world-renowned musician, who visited Chicago many times during his lifetime. Rare interviews have also been posted on wfmt.com.
The special tribute pre-empts previously scheduled musical programming. "Today represents a major loss for the classical music world" said WFMT Program Director
Peter Whorf, "and it's only appropriate that we use our archives to pay tribute." On his blog, Whorf posted a rare audio clip of composer
Dmitri Shostakovich speaking of his friend Rostropovich as well as a recent interview producer
Jon Tolansky conducted with him in 2002. One Internet listener remarked via email that "the great significance of Mstislav Rostropovich to the music world and the world in general is tremendous. As you played his recording of what he played at the [collapse of the] Berlin Wall, I was deeply touched. Your efforts all morning to honor this great person is just one more reason what we love your station. "Thanks so much for all you do daily to enrich our lives." More information about 98.7WFMT and 98.7WFMT Streaming is available at www.wfmt.com .
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 04/11/2007 - 10:38am.
Okay, you have to allow me to brag a little bit today!
The Chicago Sun-Times published a list last week of the 50 Greatest Chicago Moments, chronicling the people, places and cultural happenings that have made our city great. No less than 10 of these moments come from the classical music world. And one of those is the founding of the Chicago Sinfonietta. As the article states, “From its beginnings, the local classical music scene has been the preserve of visionaries.”
Oh, and did I mention that a few of our partner organizations from chicagoclassicalmusic.org are also listed?
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 03/28/2007 - 10:44am.
A couple of people recently sent me a link to an article that was published on the American Spectator's website (I had never heard of this publication before) that dealt with the topic of diversity in orchestras. The article quite intentionally takes what would have to be characterized as a "politically incorrect" view of the subject, and was probably written to elicit as much response as possible.
In the ever reverberant world of the internet, this article entitled "Racial Discord" was written as a response to another article published in Newsday decrying the dearth of minority players in orchestras. The original article had a number of quotes from Sphinx founder, Aaron Dworkin, about blind auditions and their impact on the composition of orchestras. The question seems to be, can we have the greatest orchestras (as traditionally defined) while promoting the diversity of the members?
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As a bass singer, I do a few strange things. I have to think like a bass player or cellist. I sing notes that move around more harmonically than melodically, sort of like the leftmost fingers of a pianist.
I have learned a few tricks of the trade over the decades.
First and foremost: sing squarely in the middle of the pitch. Most bass notes work well with this rule, partly because most bass notes (at least in the stuff I sing) are the "roots" of their chords. Everyone lines up on top of your note. It's quite fun.
Renaissance music has great overtones because the intervals tend to be pure. Listen to our Forestier CD (especially the Credo of the Missa Baises Moy) for some of this. You can click on our website at http://www.chicagoacappella.org/about_us/sample-sound.htm and listen for a minute or so. It's the first piece listed on that web page.
Of course, as soon as there is a rule there is an exception.
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Submitted by Jim Hirsch on Wed, 01/24/2007 - 10:57am.
Yes, its Oscar season again. America's obsession with celebrity, 
fashion, money, "Branjelina", "TomKat", and related nonsense is about to go into hyper-drive, so why should I be immune?
Classical music has long played an important role in the movies, but according to the recently released book, Hitchcock's Music, written by Jack Sullivan, never more so than in Alfred Hitchcock's films. He worked with some of the best film composers of his era, and more fully integrated the score into the plot and character development of his movies than previous directors had done. Who can forget the music from 
Psycho?
Does classical music still play a central role in the movies? I think so.
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Who says classical music doesn't overlap with pop culture?
I think I've met my match this time.
I was writing program notes today for our upcoming "Songs for Lovers and Those Who Wish They Were." As usual, I have tried hard to combine exquisite classical repertoire (for example, in this case, Debussy, Arcadelt, and the living composers Stacy Garrop, Anna Demsbka, and Ulf Långbacka) with lighter but no less classy repertoire (Nat King Cole, George Gershwin, and so on). I have enjoyed programming swing music as part of our yearly forays into either love songs or whole concerts of swing-era music. I think this is partly because of the Gershwin connection, since he was so adept at moving between those two worlds, and partly because classic big-band swing seems to have endured in much the same way that great classical music has.
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This week it was a pleasure to celebrate the creation of Solti Gardens with the re-location of Sir Georg Solti's famous bust to its new home in Grant Park. With this move, we bring a small but tangible part of Solti a little closer to Orchestra Hall and to the Orchestra he loved. The bust faces south, looking toward the Spirit of Music, which is a memorial to another of the CSO's visionary leaders - the Orchestra's founding music director, Theodore Thomas.
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Two years ago, Deborah Card, then the brand new President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, spoke at a meeting of the Illinois Council of Orchestras about how an orchestra is initially formed stays a part of the culture of the organization throughout its existence.
She gave an example how the Seattle Symphony (the orchestra she managed before coming to Chicago) was founded by some prominent women in the community who pulled together a band of musicians, lent them their husband’s suits and held concerts. She also discussed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who was formed by a group of business men who decided that a great city needed to have a great orchestra.
I found her talk to be fascinating and have since thought about the formation of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. The ESO was formed 57 years ago by three people; Doug Steensland, Marian Laffey and Jean Hove. All three were public school music teachers who effectively tied the ESO with the community leaders on the school district’s Board.
Doug wanted to be a conductor, Marian wanted to be a Concert Master and Jean was willing to do whatever was necessary, so she played Principal Viola. The three of them then recruited an ensemble of teachers, high school students, doctors and lawyers who wanted to make music. This combination integrated the musicians with the funders of the symphony from the start. It also ingrained a sense of ownership amongst our musicians for the success of the organization.
These are two traits that I think are, and will always be, profound aspects of who and what we are. Now we – the Board, Musicians and Management – need to decide what we will do with them.
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