I almost forgot, until an email from the White House press office reminded me: tonight is classical music night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I wrote about it here, and you can watch streaming live here at 7 p.m. (Unfortunately, I will miss it.)  

Desiree Rogers, the Social Secretary, blogged about the music series today, and First Lady Michelle Obama presided over a classical music workshop this afternoon. Here’s an excerpt from her remarks:

…nothing mixes old and new quite like classical music.  Many of the beautiful concertos and sonatas you’re playing today were written hundreds of years ago, long before CDs and computers and MP3 players were ever invented.  The only reason we know what they sound like is because the great composers of history scratched those notes into parchment with quill pens.

But today you can play these same notes on an electric violin.  You can write your own variations of these songs online and e-mail them around the world.  And you can mix and blend your instruments in ways that Beethoven and Mozart never could have imagined.

That’s what makes classical music timeless, because even though it’s been around for centuries, musicians like all of you are always reinterpreting and replaying it in ways that we’ve never heard before — and that makes it so exciting.

I’m not sure she’s sending the right message about the value of classical music here, but…

The President has made personal remarks about his musical enthusiams at the jazz and country music events; it’ll be interesting to hear what he says tonight.

 

Once again New York City Center* has pulled off what so many arts organizations only dream about: attracting new audiences and getting them to return. How? Its annual Fall for Dance Festival — 10 performances, 20 companies — now in its sixth year.

Every year, along with the festival — which offers a sampling of dance by four separate companies on each program — NYCC surveys attendees. The results are now in for the 2009 event — staged between Sept. 22 and Oct. 3 and, as usual, sold out. The ticket price is subsidized by donations, especially from TimeWarner (which has an arts and education component to its philanthropy), and kept at $10.

The survey shows that nearly a quarter of attendees had never attended a performance at City Center, and that just over half had never before attended a Fall for Dance performance.

And of the other half, who had previously seen a program at Fall for Dance, 68.5 percent said they attended subsequent performances by dance companies in Fall for Dance. I’d call that success.

It’s clear, too, from previous surveys that people are coming back.

Take a look at one line in the survey: those who had never before attended Fall for Dance. In 2005, the second year of the festival, that portion was a much higher 73 percent — and in each subsequent year it has dropped, to 72 percent, then 60 percent, then 55 percent and now 51.4 percent.

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About those Canadian artists, who will be featured in The Automatiste Revolution: Montreal, 1941-1960 at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery next spring, which I just mentioned here: I don’t know their work, and maybe you don’t either, so in the interest of learning — and in procrastinating from my real writing — I’ve obtained some images:

Here is Marcel Barbeau’s Rosier-feuilles (Rose-Bush Leaves), 1946:

Pierre Gauvreau’s Colloque exhubérant (Exhuberant Conversation),1944:

Paul-Émile Borduas’ Composition,1942:

And Paul-Émile Borduas’ Bercement silencieux (Silent Rocking), 1956:

They are all now on view at the Varley Art Gallery near Toronto.

Photos: Courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Is the tide starting to turn at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery? Thanks to the prospect of a slight increase in 2010 funding from Erie County, which must still be approved by the legislature, there’s hope.

Starting today, the Gallery has added hours (that’s a photo of works by Fletcher Benton, now on view, at left). It will now be open six days a week, Tuesday through Sunday, instead of four, Thursday through Sunday. Total hours per week increase just slightly, to 35 from 33 — because the Gallery now opens at noon, instead of 10 a.m. It still closes at 5 p.m. every day except Friday, when it stays open until 10 p.m. (As I’ve written before, museums need more evening hours.) Read the press release here.

Other cost-containment and initiatives to increase revenues continue, though — some worse than others.

Rightly, the Albright-Knox is continuing its tradition of being at the forefront: it recently announced that it will bring to the U.S. for the first time an exhibition showing artists from Canada’s avant garde in “an international context” (which means shown with American works of the period): Automatiste Revolution, Montreal, 1941-1960 will open in Buffalo in March. It’s now on view at the Varley Art Gallery in Unionville, Ontario — which is “20 minutes” outside of Toronto. Details here and here. And see Automatiste works here.

The Albright-Knox recently elected a new board chairman, Leslie H. Zemsky, which the Buffalo News welcomed as a good sign, too, citing her “energy, enthusiasm, dynamism and a perspective that will encourage and develop the next chapter in the Albright-Knox story.”

Some people will never forgive the Gallery for selling its antiquities — about which I am not happy either. But right now, I’d just like to see this art outpost get healthy again.  

Photo: Courtesy Albright-Knox Art Gallery 

I must be getting known for writing about prizes, both positively and negatively (to cite just two posts). I just learned of another new contest — in music, this time.

And it’s your chance to influence the course of classical music. DilettanteMusic.com — which is a U.K.-based online “global hub for classical music” — is allowing the public to choose its first digital composer-in-residence.

I haven’t explored the Dilettante Music website — or its business model — as much as I’d like; but the public input deadline is close, so I’m writing now.

Part of the site’s mission seems to be to provide a forum for listening to unsigned musicians, and to provide a way to buy music online. The contest was announced in June, when the website said it would choose a lucky composer:

The winner will receive the Digital Composer-In-Residence Award worth £1000, and a year-long ‘digital residency’ on the Dilettante website, including a ‘composer’s corner’ blog on the homepage and a podcast series. They will lead online masterclasses and take part in forum discussions with Dilettante members. The residency will conclude with a live event, which will include a newly commissioned work.   

The finalists, from the U.S., Canada and Taiwan, were announced on Oct. 20, and now you can listen to their music online and vote — up until Nov. 4, which is just two days away. 

[Read more…] about Prizes Everywhere! Your Chance To Influence Classical Music