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October 15, 2021
In a tradition dating back to 1961 with Leonard Bernstein, Musical America has announced its Awards of the Year: Distinguished pianist and educator Mitsuko Uchida is Artist of the Year. Missy Mazzoli is Composer of the Year; Teddy Abrams is Conductor of the Year; and Davóne Tines is Vocalist of the Year. The awards will be streamed via Facebook Live on December 5 at 4 p.m.

Nathalie Stutzmann will succeed Robert Spano at the Atlanta Symphony, effective in 2022-23. Also principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, she will be the only woman besides JoAnn Falletta to be music director of a large American orchestra.

When he first started discussions with director Yuval Sharon about using the Detroit Opera House parking garage to stage Twilight:Gods, Michigan Opera Theater (MOT) President and CEO Wayne S. Brown had no thoughts of Sharon becoming MOT’s artistic director on a permanent basis.
 
But with the huge success of the pandemic-induced Twilight, since reprised by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and with Sharon’s keen interest in site-specific work, a partnership was born, one that has since yielded additional "Out and About" stagings in Detroit, including Blue, in the Aretha Franklin Amphitheater, and Bliss in the previously abandoned, gothic designed Michigan Theater. Next up, and this time finally back in the Detroit Opera House: La bohème, backwards.
LONDON--In his program biography, the American bass-baritone describes himself as “a Black, gay performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures and aesthetics.” As an artist, he puts himself out there with similar honesty.

Sheng, the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Composition and a 2001 MacArthur “genius” award recipient, showed a classic 1965 film with Sir Laurence Olivier in black face. He had not reckoned with the current climate on many college campuses.

The orchestra has confirmed that Adam Cox, who oversaw all things financial, left on Oct. 11 after two years in the job. Together with Managing Director Isaac Thompson, he was one of President and CEO Deborah Borda’s two deputies.

In what may be the first time a U.S. orchestra named a special fund for a music critic, much less performed a memorial concert in their honor, the SLSO has established the Sarah Bryan Miller Fund to support performances of solo and choral work by the orchestra.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK


—Ernst Fischer
Latest Roster Changes 

Musical America is helping presenters keep up with its advertisers! Managers whose rosters appear in the 2021 edition of the Musical America Directory should write to listings@musicalamerica.com with the names of artists and attractions that have been either added or removed, and please be sure to indicate "added" or "removed."

New This Week
Chin-Loy, Terrence, tenor, added, IMG Artists (General Management)
100+ YEARS AGO IN MUSICAL AMERICA
11 June 1921

Pianist Contemplates Return to Concert Platform Next Season After Four Years in Europe—Serves as Military Attaché at Berne and Flies Over “No Man's Land”—Airplanes Make Fatalists, He Declares—Describes Strange Case of Musical Mania in Sanitarium—The Man Who Was Berlioz, Debussy, Gluck and Saint-Saëns—Amazed at Wealth of Music in America—Commends Work of Federated Clubs 


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