Copious Notes

Scott and guest soloist Evelyn Glennie head for the pre-concert chat in the President's Room in the Singletary Center for the Arts.

Photographer Matt Goins shot a lot more pictures of Scott Terrell preparing for his first masterclassics concert as the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director than we could get in Saturday’s paper. But here at le blog, where we have unlimited space (the webmaster may beg to differ), Matt is letting us share a few more photos from last week’s exhilirating season opener.

A phew more Phil photos also pheels like a phun way to celebrate Copious Notes’ 1,500th post. (I just toasted the occasion with a Carmilla at Coffea. Woo-hoo.)

Terrell leads the pre-show chat.

Terrell and Glennie take some questions.

Terrell straightens his tie.

Terrell goes over the score in his dressing room before taking the stage.

On the podium, in command of the orchestra.

More coverage:

• Loren Tice’s concert review.
• Coverage of opening night.
• Evelyn Glennie travels light.
• Terrell ready to go.

Quest Community Church's new state-of-the-art 2,400-seat auditorium was built with private funds. Could Lexington arts supporters do something similar?

What do you think of Lexington’s inventory of theaters and other venues for live performances?

Currently, leaving aside our behemoth of Rupp Arena, our major arts and entertainment venues are the Singletary Center for the Arts, which seats about 1,500, and the Lexington Opera House, which accomodates just under 1,000. Then, in the seats-a-few-hundred category, you have the black box theater in the Downtown Arts Center, the Lyric Theatre, which is currently being rennovated, and the Kentucky Theatre. There are also venues such as Studio Players’ Carriage House Theatre and the Lexington Children’s Theatre that are almost exclusively used by the groups that occupy them, and University spaces such as the University of Kentucky’s Guignol Theatre and Transylvania University’s Haggin Auditorium that are primarily used by the institutions.

Am I leaving any Big Kahunas out?

So, is that a good inventory. What do we lack?

Some lament we never got the major performing arts center that was supposed to happen where the courthouses now stand at Main and Limestone. Others say Lexington isn’t ready for a venue of that caliber. Others look at smaller spaces such as the Woodford Theatre’s venue in Falling Springs Arts and Recreation Center and wonder why Lexington couldn’t have something like that for groups that may see the Opera House as too big for their needs.

Still others say creativity trumps venues, and point to places such as Charleston, S.C., that have built vibrant performing arts scenes without an ideal inventory of venues. Here, we have examples such as Balagula Theatre at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar and the chamber music festivals that bookend the summer taking place in  an old tobacco barn at Shaker Village and Fasig-Tipton’s horse sales pavilion showing a creative use of non-traditional spaces in town.

Here’s another fly I’ll throw in the ointment: I just attended a concert last week in a new, state of the art 2,400-seat Lexington venue that would have been the envy of many area arts groups: Quest Community Church’s new sanctuary. If there is a desire for a new theater or theaters in town, do you need to have public funds to build it, or can the arts community come together to make something happen like, oh, Quest or a little baseball park near Broadway and New Circle that was built with private funds.

That’s sort of a distillation of conversations and thoughts I’ve had over the last several years about Lexington’s theater space.

So, what do you think? Hit the comment button and let’s talk.

Lauren Tenney (left, front), Meredith Dunlevy (back, left), Megan Jacobs (right, front) and Ashley Wilcock (back, right) dance while cellist Peter Kucirko plays a sonata by J.S. Bach in a rehearsal of a new piece which will be performed as part of the company's season-opening concert, Sept. 18. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

The Lexington Philharmonic and Lexington Ballet are teaming up to sell tickets to their season premieres for one price.

Scott Terrell. Photo by David Stephenson | LexGo.com.

Both the Ballet’s Sept. 17 and 18 Fabric of Dance performance and the Phil’s Sept. 25 MasterClassics concert are big debuts: the ballet unveiling its new professional performing company and the Phil’s new music director Scott Terrell opening his inaugural season with guest Evelyn Glennie, the most famous percussion soloist in the world.

The organizations are selling a combined ticket for $60. Individual tickets are $20-$35 for the ballet and $40-$100 for the Philharmonic. Call (859) 233-4226.

Alltech announced the lineup for its 16-day Fortnight Festival Sept. 25-Oct. 10. Like last year, the event will kick off with a country concert at Applebee’s Park and feature performances around the state, many of which are associated with series by other venues and organizations.

Unlike last year, the event is confined to just over two weeks. Sept. 25 is significant as it will mark exactly one year until the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

The lineup is:

• 

  Ricky Skaggs performs in Ashland Oct. 8 and Owensboro Oct. 10.

  Sept. 25 - Jason Aldean and Miranda Lambert, Applebee’s Park, Lexington

• Sept. 26 - Bettye LaVette, Singletary Center for the Arts, Lexington
• Sept. 26-27 - Beguiled Again by Actors Guild of Lexington, Downtown Arts Center, Lexington
• Sept. 28 - Fairplay Collective, Downtown Arts Center, Lexington
• Sept. 29 - Singer/Songwriter Night, Downtown Arts Center, Lexington
• Sept. 30 - Marc Smith Poetry Slam, Downtown Arts Center, Lexington
• Oct. 1 - Makem & Spain Brothers, Lexington Opera House, Lexington
• Oct. 2 - Mary Chapin Carpenter, Equus Run Vineyard, Midway
• Oct. 3 - 38 Special & Kansas, Murray State University Regional Special Events Center, Murray
• Oct. 6 - The Decemberists, Singletary Center for the Arts, Lexington
• Oct. 6-7 - Battle of the Bluegrass, Tin Roof, Lexington
• Oct. 8 - Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Paramount Arts Center, Ashland
• Oct. 9 - John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful, Grand Theatre, Frankfort
• Oct. 10 - String Band Day, Appalshop, Whitesburg
• Oct. 10 - Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, RiverPark Center, Owensboro
• Oct. 10 - Ronan Tynan with the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, Singletary Center for the Arts, Lexington

Visit the Alltech website for tickets to each event.

Clinton Hodge of the University of Cincinnati Drumline worked a demonstartion during the Day of Percussion held at the UK Singletary Center for the Arts. Photos by Mark Cornelison | LexGo.

Click the play buttons to hear music from the Day of Percussion at the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center for the Arts.

• The University of Cincinnati Drumline. The loud clicking at the beginning is a metronome:

• A rehearsal of the All-Collegiate Percussion Ensemble, featuring student musicians from across Kentucky playing a wide array of percussion instruments:

We’ve all seen or been that person who taps a pencil on a desk or drums the steering wheel in traffic.

“Rhythm and playing a drum is sort of a universal release for people . . . therapy,” University of Kentucky music professor James Campbell said. “It’s in every facet of music: folk music, pop music, orchestral music.”

UK teaching assistant Ben Stiers demonstrated different types of tambourines during the Day of Percussion.

For the seventh consecutive year, percussionists of all stripes, from hobbyists to professionals, gathered at UK’s Singletary Center for the Arts for the 24th annual Kentucky Day of Percussion. The event, presented by the Percussive Arts Society, is designed to show a diversity of styles and techniques of percussion to everyone from professionals that want to sharpen their skills to the pencil tapper.

“We heard that it was really exciting and a whole bunch of fun, that you just get to go around and mess around with instruments,” said Eric Minion, 13, an eighth grader at Christ the King School who was at the event with his friend Ryan Profitt, 14.

Explaining their love for percussion, Minion said “it’s so fast paced, you’re not trying to get the right note but rather get the right rhythm.”

As much fun as it could be, participants also got to see that percussion involves hard work, like at a marching percussion session with Nick Angelis and the University of Cincinnati Drumline. Read the rest of this entry »

Byron Johnson of Jackson, Miss., won second place in the UK Opera's Alltech Vocal Scholarship Competition on March 8, 2009, at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Photos by Tim Collins.

Last Sunday was a good day to be a Johnson from Jackson in the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre’s Alltech Vocal Scholarship Competition.

Dione Johnson of Jackson, Tenn., was the first-place winner in the graduate division of the scholarship competition.

Taking home the graduate grand prize of $10,000 plus full tuition and a graduate assistantship was Dione N. Johnson of Jackson, Tenn. She was also the recipient of the Kentucky Opera Prize guaranteeing her a main stage role in a future production by the Louisville company.

The second graduate prize of $7,500 plus full tuition and a graduate assistantship went to Byron Johnson of Jackson, Miss.

In the undergraduate division, first prize of $5,000 and full tuition went to Elizabeth Maurey, a soprano from Brazil, Ind. Second prize of $2,500 and full tuition went to Keymon Murrah of Louisville.

This was the fourth annual edition of the competition, designed to attract students to UK’s voice program. Students must come to UK to receive the prizes. The impact of the event can be seen throughout the UK Opera Theatre’s current production of Lucia di Lammermoor as numerous leading singers are Alltech winners including David Bellamy Baker, Bruce Bean and Megan McCauley, who sings Lucia in one of the casts of the production, which closes Saturday night.

Here are the rest of the prize winners, as provided by the UK Opera Theatre:

Bio-Cat, Inc. Encouragement Award: Undergraduate - Keymon Murrah, $500; Graduate - Christine Jobson, $500.

McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie & Kirkland, PLLC Audience Favorite: William Clay Thompson, $1000.

Anonymous Best Communicator Award: Jondra Harmon, $1,000.

Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC Musicianship Award: Samuel McDonald, $1,500.

Powell ~ Walton ~ Milward a division of J. Smith Lanier & Co. Outstanding Transfer Student:
Matthew Gamble, $1500 plus a tuition waiver.

Mr. William L. Rouse III “The Barbara Rouse Kentucky Prize,” for a student born or educated in Kentucky: Ellen Graham, $5000.

Study at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria in 2009 or 2010:
Graduates - Dione Johnson, Byron Johnson and Samuel McDonald, $2200 each toward tuition.
Undergraduates - Elizabeth Maurey and Keymon Murrah, $1750 each toward tuition.

March 14, the Blue Note Records’ 70th Anniversary tour will perform at the Singletary Center for the Arts.

Lewis Nash.

During the day, Blue Note drummer Lewis Nash will be one of the leading lecturers at the Percussive Arts Society’s annual Day of Percussion. Nash, who has played drums for Branford Marsalis and Diana Krall, among many others, will give a drum set master class during the event that will also feature vibraphonist Dick Sisto; the University of South Carolina’s Scott Herring, who will lead a marimba workshop and direct the Kentucky All-Collegiate Ensemble; and the University of Cincinnati’s Nick Angelis who will lead a drumline clinic.

The Day of Percussion takes place from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. March 14 at the Singletary Center for the Arts and is open to the public. Registration is $10 or $5 for Percussive Arts Society members. See the PAS website for details.

He could have spent Valentine’s night with anyone.

Good looking. Talented. Sought after. Gil Shaham could have taken himself and his 1699 Countess Polignac Stradivarius to any town in the world and gotten a gig playing for happy-loving couples on the 14th of February. But he didn’t go for any of the obvious hotties.

Instead, he picked an unlikely Valentine’s date: a university orchestra in a small Southern or Midwestern (depending on how you like to define Lexington) city. Granted, the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra is not the Chicago Symphony or the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. But it is on a pretty good run having played Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, recorded several CDs and performed with cello legend Lynn Harrell and folk legend Arlo Guthrie in the past couple of years.

Whether it was that track record, good fortune, or a combination of the two, the UK Symphony won a date with violin superstar Gil Shaham Valentine’s night, and from the moment he stepped on stage, it was obvious he was happy to be here.

Shaham wore a big grin as he tore into the first few phrases of Igor Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D. Not only did UK get the hot date, he was a lot more fun than you might have ever expected. He would finish passages and then look at conductor John Nardolillo — who he stood much closer to than many violin soloists get to the conductor — and bob his head to the beat.

The violinist’s Strad sang, his fingers and bow shaping phrases with that 17th Century wood easier than most of us articulate statements with our mouths. Shaham’s eyebrows slanted forward and his lips slightly puckered right before he did cool things like slashing staccato fiddling in the concerto’s fourth movement.

For its part, the UK Symphony was more than well prepared for this night out, expertly supporting Shaham’s joyful performance and chiming in with numerous sterling solos. The highlight of the evening had to be late in the concerto, when Shaham leaned down and traded phrases with concertmaster Ella Chang, like a couple discovering they have things in common over coffee: “Really! Me too!” “Really. Me too!”

Then, after a coordinated encore of Fritz Kreisler’s Schön Rosmarin, Shaham effectively said, “enough about me, let’s talk about you,” taking a seat in the back of the violin section to participate in a performance of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Op. 36.

In that performance, the UK Symphony demonstrated to anyone who has not been tuned in to its explosive growth over the last few years that it does not have to have an international superstar center stage to sound drop-dead gorgeous. Enigma was imbued with the same emotion and sensitivity the Stravinsky received with radiant solo shots from all over the stage.

Yes, the UK Symphony was an unlikely Valentine’s date for Gil Shaham. But when they met, they did what most couples hope to accomplish: they made beautiful music together.

Alastair Willis talks to the Lexington Philharmonic audience about Beethoven and the weather before Friday night's concert. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Alastair Willis looked at the group assembled in the Presidents Room of the Singletary Center for the Arts, and for a moment, he looked like he might have no idea what to say to the people.

Then, pre-concert chat moderator Joe Tackett asked him to tell the audience about himself.

“I always got the report cards that said, ‘He could be good, if he practiced,’” Willis, the ninth candidate to succeed George Zack as music director of the Lexington Philharmonic, said to knowing laughter.

And he was off, delivering one of the most relaxed, entertaining, and simultaneously insightful pre-show gab session of the conductor search. He told the crowd about his days in the Bristol University Music Society (you do the acronym), his big sister Sarah who plays French Horn in the Berlin Philharmonic, and even parried with Tacket over the infamous bass concerto question longer than any other candidate — he could program all six bass concertos Tackett deems worthwhile in one season . . . could.

But the Seattle man — via Cincinnati, via Houston, via England, via Russia, etc. — wasn’t all droll humor, as he thoughtfully considered questions like the roll of the orchestra in a community: “There’s not one set answer for what the role of an orchestra in a community is, because the community determines that.”

Onstage in the Singletary Center concert hall, Willis opened the concert telling the audience Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, which was on the program, contained, “all the weather conditions you have recently had here.” Introducing Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round, he noted that Golijov has been called the “Beethoven of this generation,” and reminded the crowd that Beethoven was once a contemporary composer.

Discussing his current career as a full-time guest conductor, he told the pre-show audience that the No. 1 goal of a guest conductor is, “to get invited back, because you’ve got to put food in your refrigerator, right?”

Come to think of it, being invited back was sort of his goal here, too.

Your thoughts?: Click here to tell the Philharmonic what you thought of Willis.

Review news: Due to deadline constraints, Loren Tice’s review of last night’s show could not be ready for Saturday’s paper. But it is already up on LexGo.

More music: If you liked last night’s concert, or feel like you missed something and want to make up for it, there are two real good opportunities this weekend:

• Gil Shaham and the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra perform at 7:30 tonight.
• To get more of the Latin flavor of the first half of last night’s show, you may want to catch the La Catrina String Quartet at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Singletary Center recital hall.

Lori Hetzel conducted the Lexington Singers Children's Choir and Jefferson Johnson conducted the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, Chorale and Lexington Singers in the performance of "Our Lincoln" at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Feb. 2, 2009. Photo by Jonathan Palmer.

The performance of Our Lincoln on Monday night at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., was filmed, but the Kentucky Humanities Council needs a little more money to get it ready for DVD or TV.

Lexington filmmaker Michael Breeding was on hand to capture the concert featuring the Lexington Singers and Children’s Choir, the University of Kentucky Chorale and Symphony Orchestra, and individual performers including Nick Clooney, actor Robert Brock, tenor Gregory Turay and soprano Angela Brown.

Humanities Council Executive Director Virginia Carter said $30,000 is needed to green-light production of that footage into a DVD. She said she had paid the necessary fee to the Kennedy Center to produce as many as 5,000 DVD copies. As for television broadcast, Carter says, an additional $20,000 would have to be paid to the Kennedy Center for rights to broadcast Our Lincoln.

The original performance of Our Lincoln at the Singletary Center for the Arts in February 2008 was not filmed because money was not available to pay a film crew. Carter says she hopes that now that there is a film, the money can be secured to at least produce a DVD. She says that last year’s performance sold out with many still wanting tickets, and some people who wanted to go to Washington for the performance Monday weren’t able to because of the winter storms the previous week.

“The performers deserve a record of their appearance at the Kennedy Center,” Smith said. “And there are many others who really deserve the opportunity to enjoy the show.”