Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

So who killed the record industry as we knew it? "The record companies have created this situation themselves," says Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group, which operates Virgin Megastores. While there are factors outside of the labels' control -- from the rise of the Internet to the popularity of video games and DVDs -- many in the industry see the last seven years as a series of botched opportunities. And among the biggest, they say, was the labels' failure to address online piracy at the beginning by making peace with the first file-sharing service, Napster. "They left billions and billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster -- that was the moment that the labels killed themselves," says Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of management company the Firm. "The record business had an unbelievable opportunity there. They were all using the same service. It was as if everybody was listening to the same radio station. Then Napster shut down, and all those 30 or 40 million people went to other [file-sharing services]."

It all could have been different: Seven years ago, the music industry's top executives gathered for secret talks with Napster CEO Hank Barry. At a July 15th, 2000, meeting, the execs -- including the CEO of Universal's parent company, Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Sony Corp. head Nobuyuki Idei; and Bertelsmann chief Thomas Middelhof -- sat in a hotel in Sun Valley, Idaho, with Barry and told him that they wanted to strike licensing deals with Napster. "Mr. Idei started the meeting," recalls Barry, now a director in the law firm Howard Rice. "He was talking about how Napster was something the customers wanted." . . .

But ultimately, despite a public offer of $1 billion from Napster, the companies never reached a settlement. "The record companies needed to jump off a cliff, and they couldn't bring themselves to jump," says Hilary Rosen, who was then CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. . . .

Even worse, the record companies waited almost two years after Napster's July 2nd, 2001, shutdown before licensing a user-friendly legal alternative to unauthorized file-sharing services: Apple's iTunes Music Store, which launched in the spring of 2003. . . .

Rosen and others see that 2001-03 period as disastrous for the business. "That's when we lost the users," Rosen says. "Peer-to-peer took hold. That's when we went from music having real value in people's minds to music having no economic value, just emotional value."

The particular notes used in music sound right to our ears because of the way our vocal apparatus makes the sounds used in all human languages, said Dale Purves, the George Barth Geller Professor for Research in Neurobiology.

It's not something one can hear directly, but when the sounds of speech are looked at with a spectrum analyzer, the relationships between the various frequencies that a speaker uses to make vowel sounds correspond neatly with the relationships between notes of the 12-tone chromatic scale of music, Purves said.

The work appeared online May 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Purves and co-authors Deborah Ross and Jonathan Choi tested their idea by recording native English and Mandarin Chinese speakers uttering vowel sounds in both single words and a series of short monologues. They then compared the vocal frequency ratios to the numerical ratios that define notes in music.

At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City's New School. Eight years beyond 4:33, he was (as our smoking MC informs us) the most controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged in to the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off.

While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, cancelling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece.

The composer's inspiration for "Concertino for Cell Phones and Orchestra" came from every day sounds.

"He was sitting in the airport one day and hearing this cacophony of cell phones going on around him and being a musical person he thought how interesting it would be to incorporate something from modern technology into the symphony orchestra," said Kanani May, Missouri Symphony Orchestra.

Everyone can use cell phones to make phone calls or take video images, but the Missouri Symphony Orchestra is focusing on the tones. A soloist uses a pre-programmed phone as his musical instrument, but music wasn't just coming from the stage. Green and red lights told audience members when to play their ring tone during the piece.

"It was fun because you were really involved in the piece," said Karen Yates, Jefferson City resident.

Friday’s performance of [Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra] was a landmark of sorts for the Kansas City Symphony, too, as it capped the most artistically rewarding season in the ensemble’s history and showed the players and music director Michael Stern at their sterling best.

It is a virtuoso showpiece with deep, unsettling undercurrents, a reflection of the dark time in which it was written. Stern plumbed both ends of the spectrum, with meticulous melancholy in quiet moments and briskness that did not eschew visceral thrill in the Allegro vivace. The big brass finale was uncommonly lush and well-balanced.

The famous “Game of Pairs” scherzo showed off the rich variety of character of the Kansas City winds: from the quirky bassoons to the demure oboes, the smug clarinets to the flighty flutes, the stately trumpets to the august brass choir. . . .

It was difficult not to reflect, while leaving this season finale, that the Kansas City Symphony, the Lyric Opera and the Kansas City Ballet have all just completed the most successful seasons in each group’s history, artistically speaking. In the midst of talk about the classical sky falling nationwide, I can think of no other American city today in which the major performing groups are all on the ascendancy at the same time.

Missouri Citizens for the Arts (MCA) will host its Annual Meeting and Arts Advocacy Award Reception on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 in St. Louis, Missouri. This event will kick off MCA's 28th year of successful advocacy on behalf of the arts in Missouri by honoring Sharon Beshore of Joplin and the Missouri Alliance for Arts Education with the 2007 Arts Advocacy Award. MCA will also present the Frederick H. Laas Memorial Award, paying tribute to our much missed, long-time board member Fred Laas. Kimberly Gavin Anderson of Bonne Terre will be this year's Fred Laas Memorial Award recipient. The honorees have consistently risen to the urgent call to support the arts and education, giving a voice to creative expression and motivating others to follow in their footsteps.

Annually, MCA presents its Arts Advocacy Award to individuals, arts organizations, and businesses that promote public funding for Missouri's arts industry on a sustained basis and with measurable results. This year we recognize Sharon Beshore for her leadership and invaluable support in helping secure an additional $4.5 million for the arts in Missouri this legislative session, bringing total arts funding for the 2008 fiscal year to $8.3 million. Beshore has served Missourians for many years with her tireless and successful advocacy work, helping gain public funding for the arts through relationship building with legislators. She worked closely with MCA leaders and Missouri citizens this year to effectively educate the legislature in regard to Missouri arts needs. Beshore is a well-known philanthropist and enthusiastic community volunteer whose widespread support for the arts can be felt statewide. For the last eight years, she has been an active board member of George A. Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin, serving as president in 2004-06 and vice-president, 2000-2004. She also served as a board member of the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition, Joplin, from 1992 to 1996. In 2004, she joined the Board of Missouri Citizens for the Arts and in October 2005 was appointed by Governor Matt Blunt to the Missouri Arts Council. Generously donating both time and financial contributions, Beshore has served Missouri's arts industry by focusing on improving public funding for the arts.

The second recipient of the 2007 Arts Advocacy Award is the Missouri Alliance for Arts Education. The Alliance is a statewide member organization comprised of arts educator organizations. It is an impressive collaboration of four educator organizations that span all disciplines of the arts including the Missouri Art Education Association, the Missouri Dance Educators Organization, Missouri Thespians and the Speech and Theatre Association of Missouri as well as other organizations including the Missouri Arts Council, the Missouri Association of Community Arts Agencies, Missouri Citizens for the Arts, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Missouri Fine Arts Academy. The Alliance's mission is to develop and implement a statewide comprehensive arts education plan with a goal of making the arts a basic part of education for all Missourians. One way they are focusing on their mission is by organizing an annual Missouri Fine Arts Education Day at the state Capitol to educate elected officials about the importance of implementing the Fine Arts MAP testing. Just three years old, the event is a huge success, drawing students, educators and parents from all areas of the state to Jefferson City to showcase the importance of access to arts education in schools. The impact of this day, with organized exhibitions of student art, multiple performances of music, dance and theater and hundreds of participants visiting with their state legislators is truly remarkable in raising the visibility of the importance of arts education in Missouri's schools.

The Frederick H. Laas Memorial Award celebrates individuals who carry on the great tradition of providing artistic opportunities and education to all people, the goal so embodied in Fred Laas' commitment to the arts in Missouri. Award recipient Kimberly Gavin Anderson of Bonne Terre has made a tremendous impact on inclusive arts education and accessibility throughout her career. As the Director and co-owner of Ballet Arts Center in Farmington for over 26 years, Gavin Anderson oversees all aspects of the dancers' training, working as a teacher, herself, and working closely with teachers in each of the disciplines of dance that they teach. Over 200 students are involved in community performances, competition teams and participate in annual recitals. Her teaching accomplishments include the founding and directing of the local Nutcracker Ballet Company, teaching dance at Mineral Area College for the Upward Bound Program as well as choreographer of countless musicals for the Mineral Area College theater department. As founder of Young Peoples Performing Arts Theater and later Artistic Director, Gavin Anderson enables dancers of all ages from all over Southeast Missouri to participate in a large-scale semi- professional production. Gavin Anderson has been a recipient of a Resolution from the Missouri House of Representatives acknowledging her outstanding work in the arts community and this year MCA is proud to salute her with this special award in memory of the late Fred Laas.

In addition to honoring the recipients of the Arts Advocacy and Fred Laas Awards, members of Missouri Citizens for the Arts hold their Annual Meeting to elect directors and approve the arts advocacy agenda to educate elected officials in the upcoming legislative session. The general public is invited to attend this meeting, which begins at 4:00 pm in the Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri- St. Louis campus. The awards presentation and reception begin at 6:00 pm at the Lee Theatre at the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

For registration information, call Missouri Citizens for the Arts at (314) 383-6644.

Founded in 1980, Missouri Citizens for the Arts is a statewide organization that promotes the whole of Missouri's arts industry to public and private sectors. This non-partisan, grassroots organization's work supports the arts by addressing public issues on both the state and federal levels. By uniting members on issues of mutual concern and representing these concerns to elected officials and public agencies whose actions affect the industry, MCA seeks to secure a stable and growing base of public financial support for the arts and to ensure access to the arts for all Missourians

Slava Levin, an Overland Park Internet technology manager, reached the finals Sunday of the Van Cliburn Foundation’s amateur piano competition in Fort Worth.

The 51-year-old Russian-born pianist was one of six selected from a field of 121 entries.

The International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs showcases talented pianists from around the world who make their living in areas other than music. . . .

Levin, who trained at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, is co-director of Rolling Thunder Systems, an independent software company.

His wife, Lena, also a pianist, was on hand to turn pages for her husband during the early rounds of the competition. On Sunday, Levin performed two works by Schumann for the finals. . . .

Overland Park resident Stanislav Ioudenitch, who won the gold medal at the 2001 professional competition, was a juror in this week’s competition.