The page turns, and I offer herewith my annual New Year’s musical wish list.
I wish, in 2016:
That the Hartford Symphony Orchestrawould settle its contract dispute with the musicians, and promptly.
The management has threatened to shut down the organization if an agreement is not reached, perhaps within a matter of weeks.
I offered some thoughts of my own on the situation in my blog of December 18.
Today’s update is that both sides are at least talking, which is itself a positive development. My feeling is that the best thing that we non-combatants can do right now is back off and give the two sides room to work it out. There will be plenty of time for pontificating and spinning after a deal gets done, if in fact it does.
A lot of people have spoken to me of their concern about the orchestra, and of how it would be unthinkable for it to disappear. I agree, of course. If it survives, I hope all those folks will be prepared to express their relief and gratitude by reaching for their checkbooks.
In a closely related wish, that our local media – the Courant, the local TV and radio stations, the smaller papers, all the online news and information sources – make 2016 the year in which they rethink their coverage of the arts in this region.
I’ve been simultaneously heartened and saddened by all the coverage of the HSO’s contract troubles. Heartened because the attention given to those troubles tells me that there is a great deal of genuine interest in keeping the arts groups around here healthy and thriving. Saddened because the attention given the crisis exceeds by a multiple of a hundred the notice those outlets give the arts on a regular, ongoing basis.
The HSO in particular (one of the nominal “big four” of our city, the others being the Atheneum, the Bushnell, and Hartford Stage) seems to be almost invisible unless it’s in trouble. A couple of weeks ago, the actor Mark Wahlberg was in the state and dropped in for lunch at some deli in Southington. I saw this “story” in a bunch of places, duly repeated and expanded on social media. If Wahlberg ordering a ham sandwich can be news, could we also see an occasional feature story on New England’s’ second-largest orchestra?
Rest and repose for the many musical figures who left us in 2015.
To name but a few:
Gunther Schuller– The smartest, and surely the most versatile musical figure of our time. Composer, author, horn player, conductor, jazz/classical synthesizer, historian, administrator – what am I leaving out? – he was the DaVinci of contemporary music.
Lesley Gore – Mainly, I was always tickled by the thought that the arranger/producer of “It’s My Party” was none other than Quincy Jones.
Kurt Masur – I saw him conduct live several times, but I especially recall a night at Tanglewood in 2004 when he gamely led a performance of Wynton Marsalis’s epic jazz/symphonic/big band piece “All Rise.” A piece like this was not exactly in the middle of the then-77-year-old’s wheelhouse, but he made it, as they say, swing pretty good.
Natalie Cole– Maybe now the critics who opined that, among other dumb complaints, a singer of the rock/R&B generation could not convincingly render standards, will come to see that she was, in fact, not too young at all.
That, for so many reasons, the gifted saxophonist (andHarttSchool alum) Jimmy Greenewin a Grammy for his album “Beautiful Life.”
That "Anastasia," the new musical that will debut at Hartford Stage in May, be a smash, and go on to Broadway and earn the company untold millions.
The show has music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, the team that gave us “Ragtime” and “Suessical” among many others.
That Infinity Hall and Bistro in Hartford – one of the truly great venues for music in our region, and one of the essential keys to Hartford’s revitalization – continue to prosper and flourish in 2016.
That AdamGuettel – Richard Rodgers’ grandson, who has created “The Light in the Piazza,” among other astonishing music theater pieces – break out of his self-imposed silence and compose something.
That music bring uplift, succor, inspiration, shock, awe, and delight to you and yours in 2016.
Steve Metcalf was The Hartford Courant's Fulltime classical music critic and reporter for over 20 years, beginning in 1982. He is currently the curator of the Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series at The Hartt School. He can be reached at spmetcalf55@gmail.com.
