Anne Midgetteの見る Classical musicの新潮流

Anne Midgette がWashington D.C.界隈のクラシック音楽の2011年秋の新潮流について書いていましたので，ご紹介します．それは，アメリカの経済的停滞を背景にしたクラシック音楽の衰退傾向に歯止めをかけようとする動きの一端を認識した彼女なりのReview です．

Classical music has been struggling, like many forms of media these days, with the double bogeyman of economic recession and the looming threat of irrelevance. These challenges have some organizations on the ropes．と書きだしていますが，後者の looming threat of irrelevance，These challenges have some organizations on the ropes． は日本の音楽関係者からはついぞ聞いたことのない厳しい認識です．

そこで彼女が関係者が立ち向かおうとする動きとして取り上げる新潮流は次の２つです．すなわち，ある作曲家や時代を掘り下げようとする試みと，われわれの時代の音楽を積極的に取り上げようとする動きです．
One trend is curatorial thinking. Gone are the days when it was enough to present a few great pieces by great composers: Now, more programs are offered around a theme, or as part of a larger, museum-like festival exploring a period or composer.
A pioneer of this kind of musical curation is Joseph Horowitz, co-founder of Washington’s Post-Classical Ensemble, who has been curating orchestra festivals for a couple of decades; his next venture here is “The Ives Project” (Nov. 3-5), which includes concerts, recordings, a master class and a symposium, with artists including the JACK Quartet and the pianist Jeremy Denk, already noted for his interpretation of Ives’s “Concord” sonata.

同じような催しとして，There’s the two-month “Mutual Inspirations Festival,” a celebration of Dvorak sponsored by the Czech Embassy in partnership with several Washington organizations, through Oct. 28. 
There’s a Franz Liszt Bicentenary Project at the Library of Congress, with panels and concerts from Oct. 19 through Nov. 5, including Louis Lortie playing the second and third parts of “Les Annees de Pelerinage” (Oct. 19) and a concert with soloists from the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the pianist Jeno Jando exploring “Liszt’s legacy” entirely through the music of another Hungarian composer, Bela Bartok (Oct. 25). (These festivals sometimes interpret their subjects rather loosely.) 
The Folger Consort is a group that specializes in themed seasons and concerts; “A New Song” (Sept. 30-Oct. 2) celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible with music by English composers inspired by this epochal 1611 translation. The Washington Bach Consort offers “A Vintage Year: 1685” (Sept. 25), celebrating three major composers who happened to be born then: Bach, Handel and Scarlatti.
It’s even possible to curate music yourself: In January, you can compare two performances of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites, one by Zuill Bailey on a modern instrument (Jan. 7 at the Music Center at Strathmore) and one by Paolo Pandolfo on viola da gamba (Jan. 28 at the Library of Congress).
これらの幅の広さと深さには目を見張るモノがあります．

次に注目すべきモノとして，The other heartening trend is the increasing presence of new music; a lot of today’s most interesting composers are showing up in Washington this season. Many of them are performers themselves. Gabriel Kahane is a singer-composer-songwriter whose latest song cycle, “The Memory Palace,” will be offered by the New York Festival of Song on Oct. 22 at George Washington University’s Marvin Center, presented by Vocal Arts DC．
Derek Bermel, a clarinet soloist and outstanding composer, will have a world premiere on an eclectic concert for Chinese and Western instruments, featuring works by Chen Yi, Zhou Long and others, at the Freer on Nov. 3; he’s also on the Verge Ensemble’s multi-piano program Sept. 18.

ほとんど原文のままの紹介に終わりましたが，クラシック音楽界の新しい動向として，われわれも注目すべきではないかと考えます．

  

Classical music’s struggles fuel new approaches

By Anne Midgette, Published: September 10

Classical music has been struggling, like many forms of media these days, with the double bogeyman of economic recession and the looming threat of irrelevance. These challenges have some organizations on the ropes. But they are also leading to some creative and constructive ideas that are on their way to becoming trends in the field and that are evident in the Washington area this season.

One trend is curatorial thinking. Gone are the days when it was enough to present a few great pieces by great composers: Now, more programs are offered around a theme, or as part of a larger, museum-like festival exploring a period or composer. A pioneer of this kind of musical curation is Joseph Horowitz, co-founder of Washington’s Post-Classical Ensemble, who has been curating orchestra festivals for a couple of decades; his next venture here is “The Ives Project” (Nov. 3-5), which includes concerts, recordings, a master class and a symposium, with artists including the JACK Quartet and the pianist Jeremy Denk, already noted for his interpretation of Ives’s “Concord” sonata.

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This isn’t the only fall “show” on the music scene. There’s the two-month “Mutual Inspirations Festival,” a celebration of Dvorak sponsored by the Czech Embassy in partnership with several Washington organizations, through Oct. 28. There’s a Franz Liszt Bicentenary Project at the Library of Congress, with panels and concerts from Oct. 19 through Nov. 5, including Louis Lortie playing the second and third parts of “Les Annees de Pelerinage” (Oct. 19) and a concert with soloists from the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the pianist Jeno Jando exploring “Liszt’s legacy” entirely through the music of another Hungarian composer, Bela Bartok (Oct. 25). (These festivals sometimes interpret their subjects rather loosely.)

Curatorial thinking also takes place on the level of individual concerts. The Folger Consort is a group that specializes in themed seasons and concerts; “A New Song” (Sept. 30-Oct. 2) celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible with music by English composers inspired by this epochal 1611 translation. The Washington Bach Consort offers “A Vintage Year: 1685” (Sept. 25), celebrating three major composers who happened to be born then: Bach, Handel and Scarlatti.

It’s even possible to curate music yourself: In January, you can compare two performances of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites, one by Zuill Bailey on a modern instrument (Jan. 7 at the Music Center at Strathmore) and one by Paolo Pandolfo on viola da gamba (Jan. 28 at the Library of Congress).

The other heartening trend is the increasing presence of new music; a lot of today’s most interesting composers are showing up in Washington this season. Many of them are performers themselves. Gabriel Kahane is a singer-composer-songwriter whose latest song cycle, “The Memory Palace,” will be offered by the New York Festival of Song on Oct. 22 at George Washington University’s Marvin Center, presented by Vocal Arts DC. Derek Bermel, a clarinet soloist and outstanding composer, will have a world premiere on an eclectic concert for Chinese and Western instruments, featuring works by Chen Yi, Zhou Long and others, at the Freer on Nov. 3; he’s also on the Verge Ensemble’s multi-piano program Sept. 18.