A needed change of perspective

Most of our staff will be attending the Association of California Symphony Orchestras 42nd Annual Conference this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Much like the League of American Orchestras earlier this summer, ACSO is sounding notes of a minor key: "Orchestras and choruses are struggling. Slashed funding, declining attendance, and increased costs are just a few of the problems we have to wrestle with as a community. Join your colleagues... to learn new techniques and acquire new tools that are necessary to remain competitive and viable in this ever-changing world."

We recently read two articles that suggest that we need to shift our perspective a bit to realize just how vital classical music is to our world today.

More Nic News

Last week, Juilliard's Historical Performance program announced that Nic will conduct Juilliard415 on Saturday, November 20 at 8 PM in Alice Tully Hall. The program includes a rare Handel cantata, Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno, and Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Flutes in C Major. Having only just debuted in December of last year, Juilliard415, the music school's new period-instrument group, will perform a series of seven concerts next season that features not only Nic, but also Jordi Savall and William Christie. Watch them perform with Artistic Director Monica Huggett below.

McGegan has long relationship with Juilliard, including a teaching residency and has regular appearances conducting the Juilliard Orchestra. He returns to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra that same week on Monday, November 22 at 8 PM in Alice Tully Hall.

Closing out 20 years: Nic and the Göttingen International Handel Festival

Today, our Music Director Nic (left) conducted the final performance of the Göttingen International Handel Festival – the dark opera Tamerlano (HWV 18). Nic has led the Festival as its Music Director for the last 20 years. In 1991, he was passed the baton (figuratively of course, Nic doesn't use a baton as you may remember) by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Next year, Nic will pass the honors of leading the Festival to (fittingly) yet another British conductor – Laurence Cummings. This year was the Festival's 90th year – to learn more about the festival, watch this video.

In related news, SFCV gave the Festival's new recording of Mendelssohn's arrangement of Handel's Dettinger Te Deum (left) a rave review today! This disc features Nic conducting many of Philharmonia Baroque's musicians in the FestspielOrchester Göttingen, as well as frequent collaborators Dominique Labelle and William Berger and recent guests Thomas Cooley (.pdf) and Colin Ainsworth (.pdf).

Dudamel on education

It's been a week since he swept through town, but we have Dudamel fever too! We were truly inspired when we watched him talk about helping to bring Venezuela's El Sistema music education program to the United States in this 60 Minutes segment. Thank you Janos Gereben at SFCV for keeping us in the know.

Musicianship, sensitivity, dramatic flair... grace, elegance, personal warmth

Joining us in March of 2011, Flicka has begun touring the country to say farewell to her adoring audiences before retirement. In case you missed it, here is the article about her Carnegie Hall farewell.

Congratulations SFRV!

Have you picked up your issue SF Weekly's "Your San Francisco?" We just wanted to take a minute to congratulate our early music colleagues San Francisco Renaissance Voices for winning "Best Classical Music – 2010." A few of our Chorale singers sing with SFRV, including Jeff Fields, Raymond Martinez, Kathy McKee (who is also the Assistant Music Director of SFRV - pictured) and Helene Zindarsian.

Glorious sounds of centuries past

On June 10-12, come say hello to us at our table at "BFX TEN" – the 10th bi-annual early music festival, conference and exhibition in Berkeley.

Presented by San Francisco Early Music Society and Early Music America, there will be beautiful performances both as a part of the festival and on "The Fringe" in conjunction with the main stage events. Don't miss members of the orchestra perform in their smaller chamber groups – Magnificat, Music’s Re-creation, Voices of Music, New Esterhazy Quartet, Harmonia Felice, Ensemble Vermillian, Les Violettes, Galax Quartet, Barefoot Chamber Concerts and many more. Click here for the full schedule of events.

Congrats Jordi and Viktoria!

This just in: Viktoria Mullova, who plays with us in February, and Jordi Savall, who plays with us in March, both won awards for recent recordings on Tuesday at the MIDEM Classical Awards in Cannes, France.

Jordi Savall's Jerusalem Best Album of the Year?

Steve Hochman, rock critic for Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Spin and then some, declared Jordi Savall's Jerusalem the best album of the year (and maybe the decade) in his global music column "Around the World" on AOL's music blog Spinner.com. Jordi will be conducting and playing viola da gamba with the orchestra in March.

PBO a "Silver Lining?"

According to San Francisco Chronicle's Jesse Hamlin in a special feature with San Francisco Classical Voice, PBO is a "Silver Lining" amidst Bay Area orchestras who are "Weathering the Financial Meltdown." Of course, we couldn't do it without our loyal audiences and generous donors – so thank you for helping us continue to make the music we all love!

There are many ways to support PBO:

Volunteer

Come to our concerts

Donate

Join our facebook group

Write a Yelp! review

But most important, tell your friends about us!

"Sex, drugs and baroque and roll"

Greg Mitchell wrote a piece today for The Huffington Post inspired by his experience listening to what he has dubbed "Ludwigstock" – the New York Philharmonic performing Beethoven's Symphony No.7 last night for free in Central Park to a rapt crowd of 100,000 people.

He muses about the future of classical music audiences through anecdotes from his own life:

"In fact, if you had told me two years ago that I would spend the morning of my 60th birthday – and the evening of my 25th wedding anniversary – with Ludwig van Beethoven, I would have laughed, or perhaps played a chord of "Wild Thing" on my guitar. After all, until that time, I did not know the difference between a cadenza and a concerto, an oboe and a bassoon. So how did this former rock 'n roll writer/editor become obsessed with Beethoven?"

Read the article here.

What about you? When and why did you develop a love of classical music?