And the Grammy goes to...

Congratulations to Sir Charles Mackerras and soloists in the cast of Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel for winning the 2008 Grammy award for Best Opera Recording. Humperdinck's opera is scheduled to be performed at this year's Aspen Music Festival by the Aspen Opera Theater Center. For more information about this performance, click here.

To hear selections from the Grammy Award winning recording, please click the image below.

Aspen Music Festival announces 2008 theme

A fairytale theme seems to be popular among music festivals this year—Spoleto has already announced its production of Rossini’s opera buffa, La Cenerentola (a comic retelling of the Cinderella story) and a Cinderella themed fund raiser gala. Most recently, Aspen Music Festival, another of Festival Preview’s favorite classical music festivals, has announced its “Once Upon a Time…” theme for 2008, which will feature musical performance pieces falling under the fairytale, folklore, mythology, and legend categories. Here we will see another performance of what Opera America has deemed the eleventh most frequently performed opera in North America, La Cenerentola. For those who may be unfamiliar with Rossini’s work, below is a video of tenor, Ramon Vargas, singing “Si, ritrovarla, io giuro,” from the opera set to be produced at the two festivals this season.

Ramon Vargas – La Cenerentola – Si, ritrovarla, io giuro

Video by Gabba02.

Other classical music items reflecting this year’s theme at the Aspen Music Festival include Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, Bartok's Romanian Dances, Kodaly's Marosszek Dances, Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, and Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks and Don Juan. Further programming information for AMF will be available in late April.

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If you enjoyed Vargas' rendition of "Si, ritrovarla, io giuro," and would like to learn more about Rossini and La Cenerentola, the Nevada Opera Web site offers online program notes from their 2006-2007 season with a section about the composer and his opera.

Spoleto: La Dolce Vita auction

For the past 28 years, Spoleto Festival USA has held a fundraiser auction known as La Dolce Vita to support the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra. This year's auction was hosted January 25th. Guests experienced a night of enchantment, as the theme was Cinderella's grand ball. Ida, a blogger from the Charleston Magazine, describes the atmosphere:

Asian-inspired accents made this dinner one of the more memorable amongst recent Fete Set outings. The bellowing of a Japanese drum signaled the end of the cocktail hour and the procession to dinner. Tables were draped in silk and adorned with jewel toned pots that held a stunning variety of orchids.

The $125 ticket afforded participants cocktails and a silent auction at the beginning of the night, followed by a three-course dinner and a live auction to close the evening. Auctioning a variety of donated items from travel getaways to private gourmet dinners to entrance into a few of the festival's concerts, the event was very successful, garnering $167,000.

To read a firsthand account of the night, read Ida's blog item, "La Dolce Vita, Roper Xavier dinner, and the Lowcountry Oyster Festival."

Savannah Music Festival

At the end of March (the 20th to be exact), the Savannah Music Festival in Georgia kicks off and runs until April 5th. Tune Up for the festival by listening to tracks from the headlining acts. Because of its eclectic nature, the Savannah Tune Up playlist features cuts from a range of artists--from Audra McDonald to the Blind Boys of Alabama to Jonathan Biss, Festival Preview's got them all. Classical artists on the playlist include: Beax Arts Trio, Jennifer Larmore, Yundi Li, and Jonathan Biss.

Tune Up for Spoleto Festival USA

Spoleto Festival USA begins May 23 and runs through June 8 in Charleston SC. Tune up for the festival with this annotated playlist featuring tracks by major performers scheduled to play this year.

Savannah's TV ad contest

My recent search on YouTube for the Savannah Music Festival yielded some interesting results this afternoon. Apparently they hold a contest every year for local college students to create a 30-second commercial for the festival. With cash prizes for the first and second place winners and the opportunity for the first place winner to have his or her commercial shown on television in regular rotation, the annual contest seems to attract many entrants.

Each video entry is judged on five criteria: persuasiveness, originality, memorability of content and delivery, entertainment value, and motivational elements. Click here for a link to past winners of the TV ad contest.

Below are some of the videos I found online. They didn't place, but they're still creative and fun to watch:

Video from carlmarxer.



Video from SeanWehrli.



Video from sofritoloops.



Video from GrixieKong.

Savannah Music Festival

A top festival for Festival Preview that features classical music is the Savannah Music Festival, held annually in Savannah GA. On this year's list of classical performers, audiences will see names such as Yundi Li, Jennifer Larmore, and the Beaux Arts Trio. Adding a special touch to the festival is the Sensations series, which features chamber music programs originally produced for a group of performers selected from around the world to be performed at the festival. These performances are unique in that the performers will perform the pieces together one time only. New musicians in this series include the Emerson String Quartet and pianist Wu Han.

To keep up with news relating to the Savannah Music Festival, subscribe to their podcast.

Spoleto tickets on sale

Tickets to the 2008 Spoleto Festival USA are now on sale. They vary in price (anywhere from $10 to $150) and can be purchased online by clinking the links to individual events found on this page of their Web site. For more details, visit www.spoletousa.org or call 843-579-3100.

Spoleto Festival USA goodies

Spoleto Festival USA is a pretty exciting festival produced by some pretty exciting people. The creative production staff behind the 2007 Spoleto Festival USA posted a YouTube video parodying the movie 300, showing a comedic look at just how much work goes into producing the festival. Check out the Spoleto shenanigans below:

Spoleto Production Party '07


Video from brunoingram.

If audio podcasts are your thing, a few links to shows covering previous years' Spoleto Festivals are offered below:

• MyETV.com has a Spoleto Festival USA podcast hosted by Marcus Overton. Past podcasts are available for the 2007 festival year on iTunes. Click here for more info on subscribing to the show.
• The people at SpoletoToday.com, part of the Post and Courier, have a podcast show where they interview people involved with the festival and review performances. The episodes, filled with entertaining banter, can be found here.
• From Patrick Sharbaugh comes "Spoleto Buzzcast," which is hosted by the Charleston City Paper. The link takes you to podcasts from last year's festival, but features an interview with John Kennedy, who will be directing and programming the Music in Time series at this year's festival. (The SpoletoBuzz blog can be found here.)
  

Book of Longing

Last summer in Toronto, Canada, Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen premiered their combined efforts of a musical adaptation of Cohen's collection of poetry, Book of Longing. A recording of Cohen's spoken word, thick with imagery and rasp, melded perfectly with Glass' beautifully composed song cycle while illustrations from Cohen's book were displayed. The instrumentation included a four-voice vocal ensemble and seven piece instrumental group. Performances of this collaboration were also held at Festival Preview favorites, Ravinia Festival and Spoleto Festival USA. The CD version of this work is now available for purchase on Amazon.com. Click here for more information.