Coming Up: Mahler, Duruflé, Beethoven

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Michael

I have three exciting concerts coming up with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in the next few weeks, all of which we have been rehearsing simultaneously.

This weekend is Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 Resurrection on Saturday evening, May 7 and Sunday afternoon, May 8. The Symphony is taking Mahler 2, 6, and 9 on tour to Europe soon, which is why we’re performing the Resurrection for a second consecutive season. Alas, the chorus is not going on the tour, so you won’t be hearing me in Vienna or Paris. We had an open rehearsal with the orchestra on Wednesday, and there was a larger audience there than at a lot of concerts I’ve performed over the years. The soloists are mezzo-soprano Jill Grove and soprano Karina Gauvin; Michael Tilson Thomas conducts. Tickets are still available online and at the box office.

On Sunday, May 22 at 4:00 pm is our annual Spring Chorus concert that features the chorus without the orchestra. Highlighting the program is Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem with organist Robert Huw Morgan. The first half of the program focuses on choral arrangements. Barber’s Agnus Dei, a choral transcription of his Adagio for Strings, was done by the composer. The rest were arranged by others, including a beautiful 16-part a cappella version of Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. Ragnar Bohlin will conduct; he also arranged the Schubert and Schumann songs that we’ll perform with our wonderful pianist, Matthew Edwards. Tickets are available online and at the Davies Symphony Hall box office.

The San Francisco Symphony season concludes with Michael Tilson Thomas’s first performances here of Beethoven’s astonishing Missa solemnis. Usually we have our first rehearsal with the Maestro a week or two ahead of the concerts. For this concert, though, we had our first rehearsal with MTT on Tuesday – seven weeks ahead of the concert! It was a real treat to get his shaping of the piece this early in the rehearsal process. The soloists are soprano Christine Brewer, mezzo-soprano Katrina Karnéus, tenor Gregory Kunde, and bass Ain Anger. We’re performing from the recent critical edition edited by Norbert Gertsch, who I’ve met at several German conferences on digital music editions. It’s a beautiful job of engraving! Performances are June 23 to 26 at Davies Symphony Hall; tickets are available online and at the box office.

If you’re coming to any of these concerts, let me know if you’d like to meet afterwards.

Posted in Chorus, Music | Comments Off on Coming Up: Mahler, Duruflé, Beethoven

MusicXML 3.0 Beta 3

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Michael

Earlier this week, Recordare released a new Beta 3 version of the MusicXML 3.0 format. You can download everything from the zip file at:

http://www.musicxml.org/dtds/3.0/musicxml-30-beta-3.zip

Beta 3 includes several new features and improvements based on our implementation experiences to date, including a more flexible way to map MusicXML’s instrument sound IDs to an application’s or library’s sound IDs. There are also improvements in ornamentation, notehead shapes, and indicating a principal voice.

The stylesheet for converting from MusicXML 3.0 to 2.0 files summarizes the new language features in code form:

http://www.musicxml.org/dtds/3.0/to20.xsl

The MusicXML mailing list (www.recordare.com/musicxml/mailing-list) is the main place for discussing MusicXML 3.0. But please comment here or email feedback privately if you prefer.

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Digital Sheet Music Panel at SF MusicTech Summit #8

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Michael

SF MusicTech Summit 5.09.2011 music.people.techOn Monday, May 9 there will be a special event at the 8th SF MusicTech Summit in San Francisco. I will be participating in SF MusicTech’s first-ever panel discussion on digital sheet music and music notation. The conference producers, Brian and Shoshana Zisk, have assembled an extraordinary group. My co-panelists are:

Everybody on this panel has deep experience with digital sheet music, both from a technical/business perspective and as a performer. Our moderator will be conference co-producer Shoshana Zisk, another active performer. If you look at the Summit attendee list, you can spot several other leading names in digital sheet music and music notation.

I have gone to many of these summits and have found them very valuable. Ticket prices keep going up the closer you get to the show. As I write this they are still a very reasonable US $240 with our speaker guest discount. The Summit is held at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco’s Japantown from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm, followed by a cocktail party.

Please introduce yourself sometime during the event, whether after the panel or at the cocktail party afterwards. We should have a great discussion of what digital sheet music is, why we care, and where we think things may be going.

If you’re coming to the Summit and you enjoy the music of Gustav Mahler, consider coming a day or two early and hear me sing with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”. Performances are Saturday evening at 8:00 pm and Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm at Davies Symphony Hall. Michael Tilson Thomas conducts; the soloists are mezzo-soprano Jill Grove and soprano Karina Gauvin.

Mahler and SF MusicTech – what could make be a better combination?

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MusicXML 3.0 Beta 2

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Michael

Last week Recordare released a new Beta 2 version of the MusicXML 3.0 format. You can download everything from the zip file at:

http://www.musicxml.org/dtds/3.0/musicxml-30-beta-2.zip

The focus in this release compared to the previous beta has been to:

  • Improve virtual instrument and playback support
  • Add features to catch up with changes in music notation software and standard music notation practice
  • Address requests for new and clarified features collected since MusicXML 2.0 was released.

Then today, Recordare released a new version of the MusicXML 3.0 sound taxonomy. There are now 861 standard sound names available, 40% more than were in Beta 1. These include older Western instruments, newer Western instruments, and many more world instruments – particularly from China, Thailand, and the Philippines. The new sounds.xml file is available separately at:

http://www.musicxml.org/dtds/3.0/sounds.xml

Please let us know how we can improve MusicXML 3.0 to better meet your needs. Most discussion takes place on the MusicXML mailing list (www.recordare.com/musicxml/mailing-list), but please comment here or email feedback privately if you prefer.

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MusicXML 3.0 Beta 1

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Michael

MusicXML 3.0 has now entered its beta test! The major new features in Beta 1 include:

  • A standard taxonomy of over 600 instrument sounds to help improve playback quality when moving files between applications and virtual instrument libraries.
  • Better support for Chinese numbered notation, Turkish music, microtonal music, and educational music.
  • Catching up with changes in music notation software and practice, including percussion pictograms, handbell notation, arrow notations, and principal voice markings.
  • Features based on suggestions from MusicXML 2.0 users, including system dividers, alignment for dynamics and other directions, more flexible enclosures, clarified chord symbol appearance, and per-staff transpositions.

All of this has been done maintaining full compatibility with earlier versions of MusicXML. Any valid MusicXML 1.0, 1.1, or 2.0 file is still a valid MusicXML 3.0 file.

You can download everything from a single zip file, or just look at the beta sound taxonomy. Please let us know how we can improve MusicXML 3.0 to better meet your needs. Most discussion takes place on the MusicXML mailing list, but feel free to send feedback privately if you prefer.

I will be attending Musikmesse in Frankfurt from April 6 to 8. Please contact us if you would like to arrange to meet during the show, whether to discuss MusicXML 3.0 or other projects.

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Chorus Stage Time: Turandot vs. Der Freischütz

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Michael

Opening night of Turandot went great! The sold-out house enjoyed it a lot. Our General Director received emails this morning from people who admitted they thought he “lost his mind” when he put Turandot on the West Bay Opera schedule, but were blown away by the performance.

In my previous post I mentioned that I hadn’t done the numbers about chorus stage time for Turandot vs. other operas. Since we’re dark tonight, I had some time today to quantify this. I compared Turandot to my previous onstage opera performance, Der Freischütz. You can see reviews of our production in the 2010 issue no. 20 of Weberiana, the journal of the Internationale Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesellschaft e. V.

The chorus part for Der Freischütz is typical of many operas – a couple of big scenes, often at the beginning and the end, with most of the time focused on scenes involving only the principals. I compared the chorus time on stage based on the staging in our West Bay Opera productions. For timings I used the recordings of the operas that I have: Zubin Mehta conducting Turandot with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti; and Carlos Kleiber conducting Der Freischütz with Peter Schreier and Gundula Janowitz. Both operas have significant off-stage chorus parts that aren’t included here.

The numbers are indeed close to what I had guessed. In Der Freischütz the chorus was on stage for 38 minutes out of a 2 hour, 6 minute performance, or 30% of the opera. In Turnadot the chorus is on stage for 1 hour, 15 minutes of of a 1 hour, 58 minute performance, or 64% of the opera.

So Turnadot is indeed twice as big as a standard chorus opera part. No wonder we’re so tired but happy afterwards: “Nessun dorma” indeed!

Posted in Chorus, Music, Opera | 1 Comment

Coming Up: Turandot

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Michael

Postcard image for Turandot at West Bay OperaIt’s less than 24 hours until Turandot opens at West Bay Opera. My wife JoAnn and I are both singing in the chorus for this production, and it has been an incredible experience.

Turandot is Puccini’s last and grandest opera. It is usually the province of the largest and biggest-budget opera companies. To get the chance to perform it as part of a volunteer chorus may well be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The same is true for the chance to see and hear it in an intimate 425-seat house.

I haven’t actually run the numbers on this, but it usually seems like an opera chorus is on stage for maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of an opera. Sometimes, as in the case of the Mozart / Da Ponte operas – or Puccini’s own Madama Butterfly – the percentage of stage time is much less.

In Turandot, the chorus is onstage for about 2/3 or 3/4 of the opera. Often when we’re not onstage, we have some offstage singing to do. Sometimes we get some long lines of singing in praise of the Emperor or in anticipation of an execution, but very often the singing is conversational, in Greek chorus style.

The result is that while the chorus part is extraordinarily rewarding to perform, it is also difficult to learn and memorize due largely to the sheer size of the part. We have a lot of experienced opera choristers in this ensemble and many of us have had the same struggles. As usual, though, we got it done and the dress rehearsals have gone very well. I can’t wait for opening night tomorrow!

How does one put such a grand opera into such a small space, including a small stage and pit? West Bay Opera’s General Director, José Luis Moscovich, had a good plan for this audacious production. Cast outstanding leads, starting with Alexandra LoBianco in the title role, David Gustafson as Calaf, and Liisa Dávila as Liù. Get David Cox, an amazing double threat as an opera singer and opera director, to direct; Maestro Moscovich conducts.

Then enlarge the chorus by 25% from the usual 24-voice maximum. Extend the set out over the orchestra pit to make way for all the people, their lavish costumes, and the beautiful set. Use lots of levels onstage so you can actually see all the people who are on it: about 50 for large scenes including principals, chorus, children’s chorus, and supers. Enlarge the orchestra, placing them all over the backstage areas of the theater, and use even more audio and video equipment than usual to keep orchestra and conductor together. The technical team has really risen to the challenge; this largest and most complex of West Bay Opera orchestras has the best onstage sound ever.

The music, of course, is astonishingly gorgeous. This is the opera that boasts perhaps the most popular tenor aria of all time, “Nessun dorma,” in Act III. The musical invention throughout the opera is incredible. Puccini died before composing the final scene, but the standard completion by Alfano gets us to the glorious conclusion as efficiently as possible.

Online ticket sales have sold out for all four performances, but you can contact the West Bay Opera box office or show up at the door to see if there might be some last-minute tickets available. If you come to the show please come backstage afterwards to say hello. Enjoy this rare chance to experience Turandot up close and personal!

Posted in Chorus, Music, Opera | 2 Comments

Starting MusicXML 3.0

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Michael

At Recordare, we are planning to start working on MusicXML 3.0 soon. We have been collecting ideas for a new version of the format since MusicXML 2.0 was released three years ago. Some of the possible new features under consideration are:

  • Improving playback support, including an instrument taxonomy for better sharing between people and applications who use different, ever-larger virtual instrument libraries.
  • Extending repertoire coverage, possibly to Chinese jianpu numbered notation, Turkish maqam music, and more. We are looking for small feature additions that broaden MusicXML’s scope, without losing the focus on common Western music notation.
  • Catching up with newer features of common Western music notation, perhaps using Elaine Gould’s upcoming book Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music Notation for guidance.
  • Catching up with more widespread notation software features, such as percussion pictograms and better microtonal support.
  • Filling feature gaps, including MusicXML extensions that were added to the Open Score Format PVG Profile.
  • Fixing typos, ambiguous descriptions, and other problems found by MusicXML 2.0 developers.
  • Creating a specification document that combines information currently in different places like the tutorial, the DTD, and the example files.

We expect to be discussing MusicXML 3.0 a lot in the new year on the MusicXML discussion list. If you want to participate in these discussions, please join us! Signup is available online at:

http://www.recordare.com/musicxml/mailing-list

Geri Actor and I will be attending the NAMM show in Anaheim on January 13 – 16, and I will be attending Musikmesse in Frankfurt on April 6 – 9. We will be happy to meet with people at these shows to discuss new MusicXML 3.0 features. Please let us know if you would like to meet at either of these upcoming events by using Recordare’s contact form:

http://www.recordare.com/company/contact

We would like to have all the major new 3.0 features discussed on the MusicXML list in January and February. If you want to meet at Musikmesse, please don’t wait until then to propose your MusicXML 3.0 idea. At that point, it may be too late to consider ideas we are hearing for the first time. Please send us an email or discuss it on the MusicXML list ahead of time.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy holiday season and new year!

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