September 9, 2007

It’s this week in classical music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world, I’m Randy Kinkel.

Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti has died at his home in Italy at age 71.  the Tenor passed away Wednesday night after a long battle with Pancreatic cancer.  Mourners filled the streets of Modena after news of his death was made public.  Pavarotti was hailed by many as the greatest tenor of his generation and in his prime was known for the clarity of his voice and his ability to hit the high notes.  The tenor broke into the opera world in 1961 when he won a competition.  His American Debut came in 1965, in Donizetti’s “Daughter of the Regiment.”  In a statement, a Royal Opera House spokesman said it best: “Pavarotti was one of the finest singers of our time… he had a unique ability to touch people with the emotional and brilliant qualities of his voice… He was a man with the common touch and the most extraordinary gift. He will be missed by millions.”

The Boston Symphony has been on tour in Europe the past two weeks, playing in Switzerland, Germany, Paris and London.  It’s the first international tour made by James Levine and the BSO, and the Orchestra is being well-received by audiences there. In Switzerland, Levine played an encore at the piano; it was a surprise world premiere of a work called “Matribute”, written for the conductor in May and dedicated to his 92-year-old mother.  In Berlin, Levine chose a program of 20^th-century works; Ives, Ravel and Bartok, and a recent work by Eliot Carter, “Three Illusions”.

Another young conductor has been named music director of an American Orchestra.  38-year old Giancarlo Guerrero, currently director of the Eugene, Oregon Symphony, will be the orchestra’s eighth music director beginning next season.  A 12-member search committee took two years to name a successor to Kenneth Schermerhorn, who was music director in Nashville for 22 years until his death in 2005.  Guerrero, who was born in Nicaragua and raised in Costa Rica, said, “as music director, my job is to make sure Schermerhorn Symphony Center doesn’t feel like it’s for a certain type of person.  It is for everybody.” In what seems like a trend, Many orchestras are starting to hire emerging, young, energetic conductors—the Los Angeles Philharmonic replaces Esa Pekka Salonen with 26-year-old Gustavo Dudamel next season, The New York Philharmonic recently hired 40-year-old Alan Gilbert, and of course there’s our own 33 year old Michael Christie here in Phoenix.

For more information on these and other items and events, go to the KBAQ website at KBAQ-dot-org.… be listening every week at this time for another update, and join me at noon every weekday for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries, … I’m Randy Kinkel, for KBAQ’s  “This week in Classical Music”…  on 89-five KBAQ, K-B-A-Q Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University