Lost in the hullabaloo that followed Roberto Alagna’s huffy departure from the La Scala stage last week has been the role of the stand-in who finished Alagna’s aborted performance that night. Antonello Palombi, the 45-year-old Italian tenor who dashed onto the stage in his street clothes just in time to save the show, was happy for the exposure, but not necessarily for the circumstances under which it arrived.
Tag: 12.16.06
L.A. Schools Get A Big Boost From LA Phil Musicians
Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic banded together with Fidelity Investments this week to donate $80,000 worth of band and orchestra instruments to four L.A.-area public schools. “The professional musicians came up with the idea when they first began volunteering at local public schools several years ago.”
Career Killer: Focal Dystonia On The Rise
While it may not be as well-known as crippling conditions like Parkinson’s, focal dystonia is wrecking the careers of a growing number of professional musicians. The terrifying disease, which causes musicians to forget the muscle movements necessary to play their instruments, “ended the careers of pianist Gary Graffman, Tokyo String Quartet violinist Peter Oundjian and Chicago Symphony Orchestra oboist Alex Klein.” There are treatments, but no guaranteed fixes, and the condition frequently worsens when victims, ashamed of their deteriorating skills and unaware of the cause, fail to report the problem to a doctor.
Canuck Conductor Conundrum
Canada has given the world countless great artists and musicians, but somehow, it hasn’t yet produced many world-class conductors. William Littler says that it’s a bigger problem than it might appear to be: “However well intentioned, conductors from abroad who direct our orchestras tend to be short-term visitors with less of a commitment to Canadian music… Investing in our own conductors is tantamount to investing in our own music.”
Study Ranks San Fran #1 For Arts
The Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank, has released a study ranking 60 U.S.cities by the cultural vitality they display. San Francisco came out on top, followed by New York, and then a collection of other arts hubs such as Boston, L.A., Nashville, Seattle, and Minneapolis.
Plenty Of Culture, But Not Much Public Support
Austin, Texas, came in 2nd in the Urban Institute’s ranking of American cities hosting arts festivals. But the same study also found that Austin ranks 51st in public support for the arts. Why the disparity? “The answer may lie in one of Austin’s biggest drawing cards: its youth. Philanthropy is not just a function of wealth but age — the older, the better.”
Working Just To Find Work
Freelance classical musicians in huge metropolises like New York or L.A. can expect to earn a decent living without much fear of the work drying up. But for freelancers in many mid-sized cities, like St. Louis, staying employed is a major concern, and earning enough to live on can require a lot of creativity, and quite a bit of luck.
SPAC In Black
Despite a significant drop in attendance for performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York City Ballet, upstate New York’s Saratoga Performing Arts Center will finish 2006 with a $200,000 operating surplus. SPAC, which underwent a major board upheaval two years ago in the wake of a fiscal mismanagement scandal, has run in the black for the past two seasons, and this year retired its accumulated debt by spending down its endowment.