The Unfettered Critic – by Paula Block Erdmann & Terry Erdmann
The 2013 Britt Classical Festival approaches, this year sporting a special format that we find enthralling: a competition that will play out before our ears on the Pavilion stage!
Following an intense national search, three candidates have been chosen to vie for Music Director/Conductor of the annual Classical Festival: Mei-Ann Chen, Teddy Abrams and David Danzmayr. Each will conduct for a week, getting to know the orchestra members and the community. And then…(insert drum roll here)…one—and only one—will be chosen to pick up the baton as the Maestro in 2014.
This truly is a big deal. Only three Music Directors have served over the past half-century. The fondly remembered Peter Bay stayed for twenty years. Since starting as a classical venue in 1963, the Britt’s musical menu has greatly expanded, yet for many the three weeks of classic fare remains the heart and soul of the Britt Experience. Care must be taken.
Each of the candidates is brimming with talent, experience, and the vitality of youth. Each will attempt to impress both the Britt powers-that-be (who will determine their fate) and the audience (which will register approval with its applause). Now here’s the really good news: the best way to make a super impression on both groups is to assemble a rock’em-sock’em slate of musical masterpieces—and to conduct the heck out of ‘em. The scheduled pieces are guaranteed to thrill you to the tips of your summer-sandaled toes. Several choices stand among our personal favorites.
Mei-Ann Chen
Teddy Abrams
David Danzmayr
First up, August 2-3, we’ll meet Mei-Ann Chen, currently Music Director of the Memphis Symphony and the Chicago Sinfonietta. Her offerings will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 (you’ll recognize the beautiful second movement at once—it’s been used to underline poignant sequences in films, from 1934’s The Black Cat to 2010’s The King’s Speech, not to mention l974’s Zardoz, a film beloved by one of us), and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, which spotlights perhaps the most romantic piano piece ever written. Jon Kimura Parker will do the honors on the keyboard.
The second weekend, August 9-10, introduces us to 25-year-old Teddy Abrams, Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Resident Conductor of the MAV Symphony Orchestra in Budapest, Hungary. Among Abrams offerings will be Concerto for Orchestra (by Hungarian expatriate Bela Bartok) and Gershwin’s magnificent Concerto in F, with its profound blend of elements drawn from the currents of jazz, blues and ragtime. Pianist Yuja Wang will be the guest pianist.
Austrian David Danzmayr, Music Director of the Illinois Philharmonic, is third up, on August 16-17. Danzmayr’s repertoire will include pieces by Bernstein, Bizet, Mendelssohn, and the Violin Concerto by Tchaikovsky. That last piece, we admit, fascinates us. The first time we heard it (on the car radio) was a proverbial “driveway moment.” We’d reached our destination—but the piece wasn’t over, and we darn well weren’t getting out of the car until it was! Energetic, playful, soulful, and wicked fast, the concerto received less than wild adoration when introduced in 1878. A music critic of the day lambasted it as “music that stinks in the ear,” declaring that the spotlighted instrument wasn’t played so much as “pulled about, torn, beaten black and blue.” The violinist initially selected to debut the Concerto pronounced it unplayable. But what so frightened old world virtuosos is today considered an exciting challenge to young prodigies who set their sights on getting through the piece with their bows unbloodied. We eagerly await violinist Jennifer Koh’s Saturday night performance.
And we eagerly await the Britt’s final decision for conductor. But what sweet anticipation it is!
Paula and Terry identify as writers, with an ever-increasing number of published works to support the supposition. They live a primarily pastoral life in the enchanted town of Jacksonville.