In the singing biz, they talk about money notes—the notes a singer hits that make your spine tingle, the ones that often get a singer hired in the first place. Are the first “money notes” you think of high notes? They’re pretty hard to ignore—this season at the Met, Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez have been wowing audiences with their high-note pyrotechnics. For me, the first money notes I think of are probably from “Sempre libera” (soprano high E-flat) and “Nessun dorma” (tenor high B).
But let’s talk for a moment about rich, juicy, resonant low notes—these are the money notes for basses and contraltos (and the occasional mezzo or baritone). read more
When’s the last time you went to a concert where the average age in the audience was twelve?
Last week, I—along with 800 elementary and intermediate public school students—went to LaGuardia High School of Music, Art, and the Performing Arts for a daytime performance of Purcell’s short opera Dido and Aeneas. This was a commission by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, which was joined by professional soloists, as well as the senior chorus from the high school, and it was a collaboration with Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects. Dancers occupied center stage, soloists and orchestra were stage right, and the chorus stood stage left. Each character in the opera had a dancer double who acted out the story, as projections were shown that added the contemporary twist—“Words Are Everything!”—of an ill-fated tabloid couple. It was well done, and it deserved the nice review it received in the New York Times last Saturday.
At 10:30 a.m. on a Wednesday, this auditorium was bursting with energy from kids thrilled to be sprung from their classrooms. So it was nonstop noise noise noise while the orchestra tuned up and kids jockeyed for position to sit next to their friends, as teachers cherry-picked suspected troublemakers from the center seats and placed them near adults at the ends of rows. read more
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