A Star on the Rise
If having your socks knocked off is on your to-do list for March, then betake yourself to the Bomhard Theater on Saturday, March 12 at 8 p.m. for a concert by the gifted young clarinetist Daniel Goldman. The concert is part of a creative and interesting inaugural season of the Gheens Great Expectations Concert Series that features important young artists and provides exactly the sort of controlled-environment exposure that is essential to fostering talent. We first encountered young Mr. Goldman about four years ago as the featured soloist with the Louisville Orchestra’s “Night of 1,000 Stars” Gala for the Cathedral Heritage Foundation. He returned the following year having won all hearts with his wonderful command of the clarinet and his dazzling virtuosity allied to a rare musicianship. At the time he was a pupil at the Youth Performing Arts School; later he studied for a year at the Interlochen Arts Academy. He is currently studying at The Juilliard School — higher than which you cannot go in musical academic terms. He has been featured on the National Public Radio show From the Top. You can take or leave people who have mere talent; those, including young Mr. Goldman, with star quality live in the memory.
Humana Highlights
For theater buffs and critics the world over, the name Louisville means the Humana Festival of New American Plays, which will be in full creative flight during March for the 29th consecutive year. Six full-length plays and a number of 10-minute plays and anthologies comprise the nation’s most intensive and celebrated showcase of new writing talent. Usually by this time the buzz on the street has identified the must-sees of any festival, and two plays catch my attention for different reasons. Jane Welch is a gifted Louisville-based actress who has appeared in numerous productions nationwide, but oddly not with Actors, at least not in the last 30 years. Fresh from a reprise with Virginia State Theatre of what has become a signature role in Driving Miss Daisy, she will take part in Carlyle Brown’s Pure Confidence. This has the intriguing premise of exploring the lives of early black jockeys, and in particular of Simon Cato, a slave whose aspirations for freedom underline the oddly capitalist notions behind the “peculiar institution.” While Pure Confidence is interesting historical stuff,
Kia Corthron’s Moot the Messenger attracts attention for its strident topicality. It tells the story of a journalist working in Iraq and endeavoring
to tell the truth. She discovers that news reports and the truth are radically different concepts in current American news media. “Truth is the first casualty of war,” indeed. The festival opened on Feb. 27 and continues through April 9.
Next Generation Choreographer
The Louisville Ballet has a new principal choreographer in Adam Hougland, whom artistic director Bruce Simpson credits with “the ability to transfer the condition of the human spirit to the stage in a voice that, although that of the younger generation, makes his work accessible to all.” Hougland, whose earlier works Beyond and Cold Virtues were part of the Ballet’s past two seasons, will choreograph one ballet a year for three years. An opportunity to sample his wares is offered with the premiere of Devolve, part of a triple bill called “Boogie Woogie Ballet,” which also includes Paul Taylor’s Company B. To show that the company has not abandoned itself to reckless frivolity, the program includes a piece entitled Variations Serieuses, choreographed by Choo-San Goh to the heart-stoppingly beautiful Mendelssohn composition of the same name. Performances are Friday, March 4 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Mar. 5 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Kentucky Center.
Leppard Takes the Stage
Raymond Leppard is the urbane and talented conductor and artistic advisor who has put together the programs for the Louisville Orchestra’s 2005-2006 season. I know some players who are deeply impressed with the results. Maestro Leppard has the wit to schedule attractive stuff and the wisdom to keep the worst excesses of modern music at bay. The fact is — and critics can rail to the contrary — concert audiences loathe and avoid most music written in the last 100 years. My saintly mother, a deeply musical soul, went to her rest 20 years ago abominating most of the music written in her lifetime, with a few exceptions like Der Rosenkavalier and Turandot, 19th-century hangovers both.
A sample of Leppard’s program planning, and skill as a conductor, will be on view March 4 at 8 p.m. in the Brown Theatre when he starts with
La Clemenza di Tito, a Mozart overture rarely enough heard. He follows this with Benjamin Britten’s “Sea Interludes” from his 1945 opera Peter Grimes, a modern piece (though only in opera circles would something 60 years old be considered modern) with melodic, atmospheric and deeply impressive orchestral writing. He will conclude with Beethoven’s 8th Symphony, standard concert fare.
Final Thoughts
Those who believe that the orchestra will increase its audience by dumbing down the product are nuts. All that does is annoy the existing subscribers and attract new subscribers none. Leppard has the courage to be a musical reactionary, and my bet is it will pay off with the return of many who deserted after the canning of the immensely musical if (so some say) insufficiently charismatic Uriel Segal. One widely circulated but possibly apocryphal story alleges Segal’s greatest sin was to att/files/storyimages/the Derby and to have spent what is puzzlingly called “the greatest two minutes in sports” perusing an orchestral score. Apparently, that sort of thing is considered reprehensible, though I suppose it depends on which score he was perusing.
