Happy Halloween

It's a strangely wet and humidly spooky day here in Toronto. 

Canadian Rehearsal

The Toronto Symphony, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and our fearless leader, Peter Oundjian.

The Roy Thomson Hall Mothership hovering above the stage. 

Good Morning Canada

Not Constantinople

Musical Education

Some food for thought from a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece:

 "...'There’s nothing like music to teach you that eventually if you work hard enough, it does get better. You see the results.”'

That’s an observation worth remembering at a time when music as a serious pursuit — and music education — is in decline in this country.  

Consider the qualities these high achievers say music has sharpened: collaboration, creativity, discipline and the capacity to reconcile conflicting ideas. All are qualities notably absent from public life..."

Read the whole piece here: http://nyti.ms/1bmgIhl.

Singing With Haiti

Sing with Haiti from Sing with Haiti on Vimeo.

I'm very excited to be taking part in a benefit concert next week at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral for a new charity, Sing With Haiti.

Sing With Haiti's mission is to raise funds and resources to support the ongoing work and rebuilding of Holy Trinity Music School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  The school, which was destroyed in the devastating 2010 earthquake, and provides roughly 1500 children each year with a formal music education.  To learn more - please watch the short video above.  The undaunted will and spirit of these young musicians and their dedicated teachers is inspiring, and it is a beautiful touchstone to remind us all about the importance of music in our lives.

If you're in the Bay Area next Wednesday evening, please join us for a beautiful night of music-making on Nob Hill.  It's quite the line-up of artists, including Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Jake Heggie, among other beloved colleagues.  You can get tickets and find out more information here.  If you aren't around, please consider making a contribution to Sing With Haiti via their website - remember, every bit helps and no amount is too small to make a huge difference to these young people. 

2013 Collaborative Works Festival

This week has been amazing.

I meant to post about it towards the beginning of the week, before the festivities began, but blogging got lost in the shuffle as we got swamped in last minute details and preparations.  I'll post more next week, once the dust settles, but in the meantime, below is my Artistic Director's note for this year's program.  

For those of you in Chicago who were able to come and join us this week - THANK YOU for an incredible week and sharing in the beauty of this neglected and rich repertoire!

It is with great joy that I welcome you to Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago’s second annual Collaborative Works Festival. The Collaborative Works Festival represents the pinnacle of CAIC’s programs, furthering its mission to make Chicago a world home for art song and vocal chamber music. Last year CAIC proudly inaugurated this festival to rave reviews, and we are very happy to be back now for year number two.

We are excited to have expanded the Festival from two to three concerts, in addition to including our traditional master class. This additional concert inaugurates a new and important annual event in Chicago: the Collaborative Works Festival Solo Recital. In America, we find fewer and fewer venues with a commitment to the recital repertoire. Chicago, with its rich tradition of opera and choral music, is the ideal place to turn this trend around. Now, each year CAIC will ensure that Chicagoans are able to enjoy at least one major vocal recital, and we are pleased that trailblazing countertenor David Daniels will inaugurate this Festival tradition. Beyond redefining his voice category for the modern public, David is one of the greatest recitalists of our time. This will be his first recital appearance in Chicago in almost 15 years. We want to ensure that Chicago audiences have the opportunity to hear singing artists of this stature in recital on a regular basis.

This year’s Festival celebrates the centenary of the birth of composer Benjamin Britten. While Britten’s masterful compositions were vital to the development of classical music in the 20th century, his contributions range beyond his compositional output and discography. Part of what Britten saw was that, to push the boundaries of the art form, new venues and avenues would have to be explored, and it was in this spirit that he formed both the English Opera Group and the Aldeburgh Festival. CAIC was formed much in this same tradition – it was born out of our commitment to art song and vocal chamber music; the Collaborative Works Festival is one of the new platforms we have created to help this repertoire continue to flourish and grow. It seems fitting that we dedicate this second Collaborative Works Festival to Britten’s life and work.

I am quite proud of this year’s lineup of guest artists and am extraordinarily grateful to each of them for sharing their world-class artistry with Chicago. I would also like to express my gratitude to our presenting partners for the opening concert: The Poetry Foundation and The University of Chicago Presents. They have been invaluable, providing expertise, guidance, and resources. Most importantly, I would like to thank you, our audience of supporters, for showing your interest, dedication, and love for this incredibly rich art form.

I look forward to meeting you all at the upcoming concerts and having the opportunity to chat with you in depth about this beautiful music and these wonderful performers. In the meantime, enjoy the Festival!

Nicholas Phan

Artistic Director

Schubert Break

Photo by Alessio Bax.

Amazing start to the week.

Moonrise

Moonrise from the sky this evening.

Rules of Flying

As a frequent flyer of the often un-friendly skies, I appreciated this little gem from Buzzfeed today...



Happy friday everyone!

Cancellation

I'm sorry to report that next weekend's Ravinia performances of Britten's church parable, The Burning Fiery Furnace, will not take place.  Via James Conlon's website:

James Conlon has cancelled two August engagements to undergo surgery to remove an inflamed portion of his colon as a result of diverticulitis. The surgery will take place in New York, and Mr. Conlon’s prognosis is for a full recovery following three to four weeks recuperation after surgery. 

Affected concerts include his August 17 Ravinia Festival performances of Britten’s The Burning Fiery Furnace with singers from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Trinity Episcopal Church, and an August 23 engagement presented by the La Jolla Music Society, as part of LA Opera’s Britten100/LA Festival, featuring the SummerFest Chamber Orchestra performing Britten’s Simple Symphony and Prelude and Fugue. 

Mr. Conlon is expected to have resumed normal activities by the time of his next scheduled appearance, conducting Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Metropolitan Opera, opening on October 11.

I hope you all will join me in wishing Maestro Conlon all the best for a very speedy and easy recovery. Get well soon!

Kickstarting the Collaborative Works Festival

So, in case you didn't know this already, in addition to running around singing all the time, I'm the Artistic Director and a founder of new-ish organization in Chicago that promotes classical art song and vocal chamber music, Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago.  The pinnacle of it's programs is the annual Collaborative Works Festival.

Preparations for the 2013 Collaborative Works Festival are underway and progressing fairly smoothly!  Our line-up of artists is complete: we have an extraordinary roster of guest artists this year, including countertenor David Daniels, soprano Kiera Duffy, Grammy Award winning mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, pianist Martin Katz, members of the Grammy-Award winning ensemble eighth blackbird, and more!  You can check out complete information on the festival at our website here.  We also are very excited to be partnering with both The Poetry Foundation and The University of Chicago for our opening night concert. 

CAIC just launched a small Kickstarter campaign to help raise a little extra money to cover some of the production costs of this year's festival. In case you aren't familiar with Kickstarter, it's a great crowd funding platform that allows individuals and organizations raise a lot of money through lots of smaller pledges from individuals.  The catch to Kickstarter is that, if we don't raise our minimum goal by the deadline - CAIC won't receive any of the donations pledged. As of today, there are 13 days left! This year, we are aiming the kickstarter campaign to help us cover the cost of venue rentals, and we have set a minimum fundraising goal of $4,000.  $25 is the most common pledge on kickstarter -  right now we are only 130 individual $25 pledges away from reaching our goal!  

If you have already donated or just simply can't donate, it would also be MOST helpful if you could help us spread the word about the campaign. The link to the campaign is: 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1301876439/2013-collaborative-works-festival-the-heart-of-the

I hope that you will be able to make it down to Chicago for our festival this September to witness the fruits of your pledges.  It's going to be an amazing long weekend of concerts, and I would love to be able to share this momentous occasion with you.

I can't thank you all enough personally for your continued support of CAIC, and thank you so much for helping spread the word!

Tuesday in the Park with Ben

soundcheck with The Knights in Central Park

In case you're free tonight, my concert with The Knights is going to be broadcast live tonight by WQXR from New York's Central Park starting at 7:30pm East Coast time. You should be able to tune in and listen in here.

There's a little preview of the concert in the New York Times here: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/arts/music/britten-serenade-in-the-park.html

Also - if you want to hear me talk about Britten and tonight's program a bit, you can hear some of my interview with WQXR host, Naomi Lewin below!

My View Today

In the midst of an slightly insane week, I am enjoying a day in paradise. I love the Rockies.

Missa Solemnis Words

I sing my first Beethoven Missa Solemnis tonight here in Oregon.  It's a piece about which I have felt extraordinarily mixed and unsure for most of my life.  My first voice teacher revered the piece, as do many musicians I respect greatly.  I've become more convinced after these past few days of rehearsal with Helmuth, who is always an expert at unlocking musical mysteries for me.

A few words that have come to mind for me when thinking about this piece:

- complex
- unexpected
- focus
- challenging
- complex
- demanding
- expansive
- grand
- majestic
- dense
- rich
- lobster bisque

Here's Leonard Bernstein conducting the Kyrie - one of the best parts of the piece.  It's quite an opener.

GuitarFest

Jordan Hall in Boston is pretty.

And yes, that is an army of guitars onstage. A gaggle of guitars?

Very much looking forward to tomorrow.

Disdain Me Still

"...love surfeits with reward, his nurse is scorn."

Could one imagine a more tragic and deeply sad sentiment? How could love surfeit? How could one ever loved to the point of excess, to the point desiring it no more?

Oh, Dowland...that's a rough one.

For The Weekend

Here's today's sweet video that I stumbled across on my morning surf of the innerwebs:

Understand Music from finally. on Vimeo.

Happy Friday.

This I Believe

Loved this 'This I Believe' segment about singing that I stumbled across this morning:

Happy Birthday Richard

Thanks to my myriad of friends with good taste on Facebook, I was reminded that today is the birthday of one of my favorite composers, Richard Strauss.

Happy birthday, Maestro.

Thanks for bringing us music like this: