Midday’s Paula Schroeder talks with Neville Marriner, music director of the Minnesota Orchestra; and Luella Goldberg, cultural liaison for British Festival of Minnesota, about the upcoming festival and music. Marriner and Goldberg also answer listener questions.
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Reported a forty seven point two percent increase in its net income over a year ago. Net income for the year totaled 680 million dollars Revenue more than doubled for the year and Rose eighty eight point three percent for the final quarter. The Seattle holding company said it's railroad operating income increased by 34% now one minute before 12 noon and with us in our studios are Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg will be talking with them and they'll be taking your questions in about a minute. But first a checking the business news stock prices are higher continuing last week's General upward Trend the DOW Industrials, which had lag behind the rest of the market for the past four sessions are ahead more than 10 points. This morning trading is moderate to active and big board gainers are ahead of losers about two to one the trial of a former Wall Street Journal reporter and to others is to begin in New York City today. Our foster Winans his roommate and a stockbroker faced.Charges that include conspiracy and securities fraud prosecutors. Say the trio schemed by stock based on information Winans learned as a writer of the journals popular heard on the street column. Today's broadcast of midday is made possible by the Pillsbury company on behalf of Totino's pizza. You're listening to midday on Minnesota Public Radio a member supported service. This is the news and information service of Minnesota Public Radio. Ksjn Minneapolis st. Paul. Now into our Studios with Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg the name Neville marriner may be familiar to you as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra. Louella Goldberg, maybe not quite so famous that she is cultural liaison for the British Festival Festival of Minnesota that set for this coming fall. There's going to be lots of activities connected with that and that is what we are going to be talking about today. Welcome to both of you. Thank you for being here nice to be here. Maybe we can talk a little bit. First of all about what the British Festival is. I know that this is coming up in the fall of 1985 and yet we in The Newsroom have been getting packets of material hearing about it a year before this must be a big event. Well, I hoping to develop it into something larger than its original conception. I think that by about four or five years ago a similar Festival was held in Pittsburgh and it was discovered that it didn't just Day in Pittsburgh Orchestra hauled it generated a lot of interest in the community. And when the British Council offered to promote a similar Festival here, this is part of the British government and because I'm English and the music director of this Orchestra, they picked on Minnesota. It seemed very reasonable not only to use Orchestra Hall and all the musical activities here, but the theatrical ones and and the art galleries you have everything here to make a great International Festival. So this is not going to be just the Minnesota Orchestra playing Pieces by British composer. Finally no means. No it doesn't it has a big spread Louella, you know, most of the people taking part I think yes. Well, there are many many cultural organizations. I think now the the participant list is up to about 65 names but the the largest cultural institutions the Minneapolis Toot of Arts the Guthrie Theater the Children's Theater Company the Saint Paul chamber orchestra, the Minnesota Opera along with the Minnesota Orchestra will all be participating in very significant ways. The Guthrie Theater has four plays the Minneapolis Institute of Art five exhibition so that it will be a very significant participation on the part of all of these institutions along with many others. I think that listeners to public radio might be excited to learn that the King's College singers are going to be here the King's College Choir. That's an extremely popular the Festival of nine lessons and carols is extremely popular over our Airwaves during the holiday seasons, right? Yes. I know that your Christmas is usually marked by their performance and the also of course, there's another offshoot from King's College the king's singers the when the little boys in King's College Choir stop being little boys and Two big boys. They become the male voices of that crime and about seven of them have continued into a professional live long after they've left the college and now of course would become as the king's singers one of the most entertaining groups around the world and they're coming here to Now isn't your son involved with the King he was he was when he was a little boy. Yes. We like criminals. We are in England send our children away to school when they're seven years old, but he seems to have survived into a very reasonably happy man. It seems like a difficult life. I guess I'd like you were saying and we in America might consider it a cruel thing to do and a harsh life all the training but it sounds like he's very happy probably quite a range of the beginning. Of course when saying goodbye to a little boy at school is tough but it's surprising how independent-minded they've come and also how very affectionate they are later on in life. They how much they like coming. Home, we'd like to tell our listeners that they are invited to call in questions to Neville marriner and Llewellyn Goldberg. We are talking about the British Festival of Minnesota today. I'm sure that our listeners might have questions about other things as well, but we'll try and keep it on the subject of England and well Wales and Scotland. The number in the Twin Cities is 2276 thousand if you're calling from outside, the Twin Cities metropolitan area, but from within the state of Minnesota, you can call toll-free at 1-866-553-2368 in the packet of information that I got is that there are going to be two weeks of performances devoted to British music by the Minnesota Orchestra itself. Normally you have a wider range. I would think of people from our composers from Austria and composers from Germany as well as composers from England. Is it going to be a varied? Well, you obviously you And have a just a concentrated dose of English music. What we've tried to do is to make a pretty Catholic representation of English composers and don't forget that English composers or a little bit thin on the ground. Nothing much happened between percel way back in the 17th century and Elgar which isn't the 19th century. There's a big gap so we don't have so many composers to draw on and most of them are going to come from the 20th century, but then we felt also to try and Defuse The repertoire little bit we would have Orthodox repertoire from the rest of the world, but perhaps performed by English artists. So the English accent stayed on pretty thoroughly over the whole festival. The reason for me really being enthusiastic about this is that I've come under a certain amount of criticism for not playing more. English music during my tenure here and I've felt very strongly that my job really was to expose as many American composers as possible when you're working in a community like this and there are so many good but perhaps not Overexposed American composers that I've tended to keep English music out of the the reputable Orchestra Hall as much as possible. Now, we have this opportunity fostered by the British government to really do something for English music here. So we're putting it all together in one concentrated season here. A lot of it will hang over into the rest of the season after the two weeks are over but they the garlic feeling of this is going to be concentrated in the first two weeks and the finale performance featuring Well that the last performance performance that we're doing is with itzik Perlman who is by no means an English artist, but he's being an English concerto. He's being real God concerto and I mean if you can involve people of this quality in a festival like this, it becomes a genuine prototype for an International Festival the way we've been thinking of it as we've been comparing ourselves with Edinburgh the festival there which is an international event or Salzburg where you have the finest artists you can attract playing some the usually is something Matic idea that goes through the festival in this case. It is English music, but of course the theater the Guthrie Theater of picked it up so remarkably. Well, they're doing plays by Shaw Shakespeare Tom stoppard. All these things are you know adding to the the general texture of the britishness of the festival here. Do you see it as becoming an event rather like Summerfest in in the summertime? Well in certain ways, I suppose the orchestra's participation could be likened to that in some ways, but certainly with the participation of the additional cultural institutions and so many other organizations. I think it will have an even broader impact than Summerfest because of the plays that will be taking place in the art exhibits and so on so that probably a broader impact. Okay, we have some callers waiting on the line with questions right now. We'll go to the first one. Go ahead with your question, please for Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg well contrary to your opening remarks. I've been acquainted with the Goldbergs much longer than with Maestro and she doesn't recognize your voice Louella and people like Auntie mo horror willing to can put so much time into these projects and then her very astute husband is a colleague of mine and I'll leave it at that. But when you brought up King's College this men and boys choir it seems to me that a lot of this music is written for that particular sound and since I was a boy soprano and turned into a baritone and then I've heard the boy Altos are more likely to become tenants in their adult life and that is always sort of both me and my specific question from Maestro Mariner is the transition from chamber orchestra, like st. Martin-in-the-fields, which I was very surprised to find overlooking Trafalgar Square and then to the large Symphony. I think that that must be a significant landmark in the career of any orchestral conductor and I Give comments on that. Well, you're absolutely right that it is a large step to take from one repertoire to another except that my earliest life was spent as a symphonic musician. I played in symphony orchestras for about the first 10 or 15 years of my life. And so the repertoire itself was a very familiar. It's just the difference in technique between dealing with a small Orchestra and a large Orchestra. I was fascinated the other evening at the Ordway theater to see Zubin Mehta doing a reverse act. In fact, he was been brought up with symphony orchestras all his life suddenly dealing with a very small group The Simple chamber orchestra, and there is certainly a difference in technique, which you are required to learn. For Zubin Mehta. For instance. He had to reduce very much his the his physical attitude to the players and also the sort of sound that you are looking for has to be much more refined in a way because there are only 6 verse violins whereas you're used to dealing with 16 and there's a lot more cover in the section for the players when there are more of them so that your rehearsal techniques are slightly different you have to be perhaps more detailed in your attitude. I can only say that now that I've had about 15 or 20 years with symphony orchestras. I find it comparatively easy to shuffle back as and forwards between the two groups and I'm not at all. Sorry that I've included the entire symphonic and chamber orchestral literature under my belt now because I feel if I just concentrated on one of them I would have missed an awful lot. Does your heart line? One or the other only on days of concerts. I think you you tend to get enormously involved obviously with the things that you're preparing at the moment and the moment you begin any concert really you're fully involved with it. You feel like you're really being tested in this upcoming tour that the orchestra is taking the one to Australia, right? Yes. Oh you mean they don't want my doing right? Yes, always that's the first week in February. Yes. It is. Always I think when the orchestra goes on tour and it's playing to its its peers it's playing in Cleveland is playing in Washington. It's playing in New York. These are places where the orchestra wants to do. Well it wants to be measured by the other players the other musicians and the other critics, of course in these cities in a way. It's it can be Honestly good for the morale. It can also be a fairly shattering experience. You know, if you get a rather dim reception in any of these places, the pressure goes on the players to walk onto the stage the next night because I don't know if you can imagine. Well, you probably know what it feels like to have received a bad review and still have to get up again the next night and face the public so that all these things are character shaping experiences. I think certainly I think the no one ever takes a tour for granted. I must add as a member of the audience occasionally when our Orchestra has played in Carnegie Hall in New York and Kennedy senator in Washington that there's a wonderful sense of Pride about Minnesota being represented in these places. So beautifully and so well and that it says a lot about what the people of Minnesota stand for the quality of life that we have here and and Institutions here. I think reflect very well on life in Minnesota. They will do things is a very loyal I must say, you've always find minnesotans turning up. In fact a couple of times in the last month minnesotans of turn up once in Berlin once in Paris for me and they've suddenly come backstage and there you'll find old Hometown. You know, there's Minnesota is there to greet you off stage. It's very pleasing. It's that yeah the homey feeling in the midwest right? Well, it's very comfortable that I would never play it down. I think I like this sort of reassuring atmosphere. We have several more callers waiting on the line. We will go with another question to Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg. I'd like first of all to give the phone number once again, for those of you who may have missed it the first time around in the Twin Cities. It is 2276 thousand outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area, but within the state of Minnesota toll-free 1-800 6/5 to Nine 700 on to our next caller your question, please. Hello. Hello, you're on the air. Hello. I wish to express my appreciation and gratitude to marinate for the possibility to express in his talent with us. But I am about in the process of writing a Sonata and I writing it in D flat and 3/4 time and my first movement is an identity. The second is Adagio and the third one is in Seville, toe in the fourth. One is L2 Gretel. I would like to know does this sound like a reasonable manner of writing on also, I would like to know if I would sit a bit send a bit of this as a sample to the chamber orchestra in St. Paul if they would be able to pass their opinion on it. Thank you. I think any musical organization is is pleased to receive work like this so they can have an appreciation of It it's you didn't say what you were writing the Sonata for I'm assuming that it's for keyboard that it for piano. Therefore the key you've chosen d flat is no more of a problem than any other key for a piano for stringed instruments the flat Keys particularly the remote flat Keys like d-flat tend to be a little dull. They don't get the best resonance out of the instruments when they're in those those rather remote fat keys, but the construction of the Sonata the for movement seems ideal. I would have hoped that the first and Dante is not to leisurely as you followed it with an Adagio because to grip the imagination of The Listener the work has to have a certain amount of Vitality even if the Vitality is slow moving and to work on them. Make them listen for perhaps 15-20 minutes to slow music at the beginning those first two movements might be a little bit taxing. You may consider perhaps starting the Sonata with perhaps something a little Lively if you're going to have a slow movement second, but do please send it to the chamber orchestra or to Orchestra Hall and we can tell you much more about it when we've seen it is a very common for orchestras to receive unsolicited compositions. Yes. It is that there are many people that suddenly reveal Talent or an interest in writing music and I don't think any of it should be dismissed out of hand. It should be a very much considered some of them are writing for the first time. Some of them are very expert and had a great deal of experience. We at Orchestra Hall have two composers in Residence and they look at all these works as As they arrived they really examine them for musical content, of course technical ability and general literacy and then they will pass them on to me as recommendations or suggestions for future use what happens to a piece then does it would you just play it or does it have to be published like a book has to be published? It's very hard to get music published nowadays, even established composers sometimes find that they are one or two works that the publisher just doesn't want he will say it's a fine work, but I just don't think there's a public for a Sonata for saxophone and harp. I mean, it may be an odd combination that the man has written for and this work will never ever be published. It will be available in manuscript form. In other words the way the composer originally wrote it but it will never be printed. It's very To break into published music even harder than book publishing. I would think I think it is much more limited audience. Yes it is and it's a much more expensive process. Of course the provision we have another caller waiting on the line with the question for Neville marriner and or Luella Goldberg. Go ahead with your question, please Neville marriner, I've always been intrigued by these three choir Festival, I believe it's Gloucester England. I'm not positive but I've been thinking in relation to that. It'd be wonderful wonderful with all our musical institutions here in the Twin Cities if maybe as a suggestion the st. Mark's Cathedral choir, maybe the Hennepin the United Methodist and Plymouth Congregational. They're all in close proximity could assemble sometimes together to either individually or jointly give a choral Festival like based on the three Coral three choir Festival England, but now I'm thinking the mechanics of the situation that would Would that entail in your mind? I'm thinking of in relation to space number of people and so forth. Well they way that requires Festival Works in England. It's between the three cities Gloucester Worcester and he referred and each of them have rather fine Cathedrals and they had music Traditions going back for 500 years, but it wasn't until the 19th century that they decided almost competitively that they would every third. Yeah, each of them would host the other two and so the three choirs assemble one year in Worcester one year in Gloucester and another year and he referred and not only do they sing with the three choirs together, but they sing individually with their own music director. And of course, there is a vast public for church music not only in that part of England, but people Mall ever England it's right. It's rather a beautiful part of the the country. They have good hotels and it's become now perhaps our oldest Festival in England. I think here the first thing would be to find three churches with a strong music tradition fairly equally talented but with very large churches so that these become public occasions as well as private occasions. You have to have room for an audience because as you know performers don't really enjoy working in a vacuum too much and they like the audible Applause that comes at the end of it. I think it's a very good idea because you have excellent church music in the Twin Cities and I would like to see this happen. If there's anything I can do to stimulate it. I would certainly try to be your link man, but I hope that The church is that we're talking about again to take part in the British festival. And so perhaps this will be the beginning of some cooperation for the future. And and of course there are several churches that have already indicated. They're going to participate in the British Festival in a variety of ways. I think we already mentioned that the Plymouth music series is bringing the King's College Choir from Cambridge and the Cathedral Church of st. Mark music series is bringing sir. David Wilcox who is a past director of The King's College Choir of Cambridge and now the current director of the Royal College of Music in London, and he will be working with that group. So maybe they'll get something going in those churches themselves as well. I hope so. Yes, it would be nice. If this were an infectious idea that the idea of having music festivals takes off a little bit more because this is absolutely an ideal Community for these things to happen. Okay, see what happens another caller waiting on the line with the question. Go ahead, please. Thank you Maestro. It's wonderful to talk to you. I'm very excited about something possibly you know about but if you don't I'll run a pour my spirits in to your ear. We have a countertenor in st. Paul that is just extraordinary and I think he ought to be mounted some place in one of your efforts so that he can be heard. His name is Chris Jenkins. He's well, he's he can outshine Marilyn Horne. He's really ought to be heard. That's all I didn't want to ask you a question. I just wanted you to be sure and know about Kris Jenkins he is just amazing. Well, thank you for that to I've written his name down here in front of me. And there is as you know, a lot of literature particularly English music that offers the best opportunities for countertenors Alfred Della who was perhaps the greatest countertenor we ever had Was a very close friend of mine and taught me. I must admit a great deal about the interpretation of music of the the 17th and 18th centuries, and I'd be very interested to meet. Mr. Jenkins. There's mr. Jenkins know that you're calling in his name is a our colleague Juan. Maybe we should make sure he knows about this first. Okay, we have another caller waiting on the line with the question for Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg. Go ahead, please. Yes. I'm calling from Hutchinson. And the question is what element keeps audiences coming back to concerts in other words. What do they like? Well, I wish I could answer you with great confidence because this is one of the anxieties that are marketing department, of course the thrashes through every week of the year, but in principle I think it is the corporate enjoyment of the same emotions that brings them into concert Halls. I've often wondered if there was just one person sitting in the concert hall alone when a symphony orchestra was playing if they would enjoy it as much as if they're surrounded by 2199 other people and the impression I get it is that it is a social activity that is certainly stimulated by the presence of other people as far as the music that we play for them is concerned there comes a point when even the most conservative audiences begin to wilt if you give them the same bread and butter pieces the same Bach Beethoven Tchaikovsky Brahms forever and even though there is an inbuilt resistance to anything new. Do you suddenly realize that a little pinprick of contemporary musical activity does generate enthusiasm and interest and so we have a program now which covers the entire Spectrum. We hope of orchestral literature introduces interesting personalities artists performers that we know the audience will be interested in but also we give them some idea of what composers are doing nowadays and and where music is going in which direction it was very interesting that for instance 20 years ago. I think we the performers felt that composers were moving into a dead end there was nothing further they could do to destroy our idea of conventional music, but now they themselves seem to have backed away a little bit and have gone much Middle of the road and they are writing much more melodically that they're using harmonic scheme, which is conventional but they're using it with new ideas and they're not using the instruments that we've all known in bizarre fashion anymore. They're using them properly so that the performers themselves are also much more interested in performing contemporary music now, I think it's just a mixture of this Louella you sit through thousands of concerts. You must know what interests you. Well, I think it is the variety of music that one hears that had that has great appeal and and there is something about the experience of a live performance. I think that as wonderful as it is to have the opportunity to hear concerts on broadcaster recordings. And so on that that there is something an exceptional quality about the the live experience of concert listening and and I think that is part of it to think it's interesting what you were saying about what composers are writing see Damos parallel the political life in this country 20 years ago. We were going through a lot of Revolution and new ideas and new thought and now we're kind of getting a little bit more conservative again, and maybe it has effect on on everything. I think it is. It's it's swings and roundabouts. I think that they will certainly come a time when composers will feel that they become too conservative and they'll start being adventurous again and they're always going to be of course extraordinary Minds that develop new ways of tapping your emotions. It is 29 minutes past 12:00 noon. We are talking today on midday with Neville marriner who was music director of the Minnesota Orchestra and Luella Goldberg who has cultural liaison for the British Festival of Minnesota, which begins next fall in the Twin Cities area. If you have a question for our guest, the number to call in the Twin Cities is 2276 thousand and outside the metro area, but within the state of Minnesota the number is Five two nine seven hundred the last call it we do have a couple more people waiting on the line, but I wanted to ask you to the last caller asked about audiences. What keeps them coming back that brought back to my mind your little speech that you gave one evening to audiences about the way they should behave that got quite a quite a bit of attention is the coughing under control and Orchestra Hall these days. Are you going to have to remind the audience again? Well, they also think is of course the doubt of the two and a half thousand people. There are only three or four people actually failed to observe the normal propriety of how to deal with a cough. Everyone's got a cough. Even the players on stage have to go off but that there seems to be something of almost as if they want to be part of the performance with he's just one or two people who cough with such heroic volume, of course that that it's it's louder than what's going on onstage it sometimes I'm very sympathetic to the Because sometimes it is a certain nervousness about it. You know, when the hole is very quiet many people can't deal with silence. They can't deal with a very quiet particularly. If it's in the middle of a symphony for instance and already emotionally you're involved in it to deal with silence is very hard. It's just that I do wish they would muffle their faces a little bit or put them in their hat or something when they are they take off because that the problem with both our faults now, I notice this in order a to that audience participation is just as loud as the performers. In fact, I thought that some of the noises made by the audience in the Ordway were louder than those made in Orchestra Hall and it's one of the problems you get with acoustically responsive Halls that they're they're going to make everybody sound loud. That was one of the comments I read in a review of the Ordway itself. Was that you Hear the rustling of programs and of people removing their coats and really picks up and is Amplified in a hole like that. It's difficult and I don't think we even offer cough sweets to them. I think they are you might be sued if they choke on them or something. So you're not allowed to do that. But you just have to persuade people that it is a very loud noise and really rather disturbing for the other people around them as well as the musicians. We have another caller waiting on the line. We have lots of callers waiting on the line. They needed the phone number and we will go to the next one right now. Go ahead with your question, please yes could do is a total music that was not too recent past are in the very recent past rather. My personal preference is broke period but I was I don't particularly care for a tonal music and I was wondering if it was still as pervasiveness. I've been recently I think it is. I agree with you what you say about Baroque music. There's there was a time when the young people very much equated Vivaldi for instance with rock music because there's a certain reassuring inevitability about Baroque music, you know, what's going to happen in the next measure, you know, what harmonies are going to be use the rhythms are very repetitive. And and in the whole thing is very comfortable. I think that the whole idea of atonal music was to disturb all this this very comfortable lifestyle that we were getting used to and I agree with you that you can pour too much vinegar on your salads really there comes a time when atonality just for itself is not enough it's fine if it is followed by some resolution if there Something remarkably beautiful that comes after it because it's the same as pain and no pain, you know pain is to really remind you how nice it is to not have any pain at all. And and I think it's the same with atonal music that they can sharpen your reactions to what you're hearing. But then you have to resolve them rather pleasurably and this I think the composers of nowadays discovered that perhaps you can't go on inflicting pain forever. Eventually, you do have to have some resolution in peace and quiet and I hope that this is what is happening. You mentioned just briefly. There are a rock music in the curd to me to ask you whether you would ever be willing the or the Minnesota Orchestra itself would be willing to serve as a backup Orchestra to a rock group such as the London Philharmonic did with the who when their Tommy Opera think We have prints right here in the Twin Cities. Well, it has been done a couple of problems one is you tend to lose your plausibility particularly. If you are a soloist or a composer, it's not so bad for an orchestra or a conductor. But you lose your plausibility as a serious thinking musician. If you slip too far down the path of commercial Enterprise. It's it's nice to be flip and with it and contemporary and one of the boys but your job generally speaking as a category musician is to make quite sure that your reputation is not in any way weakened by your association with perhaps slightly more frivolous activities the London orchestras tend to do this more often because commercially they need the money here where Orchestras are funded by the community and private patronage then they tend not to have to do this as a matter of desperation the London Philharmonic for instance could very easily sink Without a Trace unless it permanently looked for economic and rewarding jobs, like backing up pop an orchestra pop group. I mean so you don't see it in the cards very soon for the Minnesota Orchestra no other and they do it occasionally. I think it weekend is but they doubt I doubt if they would put it into their subscription series. Okay, we have another caller waiting on the line with a question for Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg. Go ahead, please good morning. Imagine my delight when I came from Ohio to the Twin Cities for years ago and discovered you Nevel mr. Mehra involved with the orchestra. Obviously. My accent is not Americans. I have the Good Fortune of being brought up as And I good Cathedral choir as a boy. Soprano. And of course, this is just absolutely up. My attic what my question really is is that I've been involved with the British folk festivals throughout England Andhra Folk Festival Christchurch Folk Festival and so on and my question really is this is how much part of this Brewers Festival is is the folk scene going to play. I think if we'd known that someone like you was out there we would have perhaps tapped you and ask the same question because we are genuinely looking for The Fringe activities for the festival that will give it flavor, which is not going to be too stuffy and well exclusive and we'd like to involve as many aspects of the Arts as we possibly can and if you have some good folk groups. That we can include in this then we would be delighted to hear about them. Perhaps you could leave your is the caller still on the line. You could leave your name and number with them Linnea Schultz who answers our telephones for us if Lenay is willing to do that. And we also have a British Festival office with the Dave Mona and Associates and a phone number that people can call their there is a steering committee and a screening committee to help coordinate the activities of all the various groups that want to participate. Okay. So there are a couple of different Avenues to take their another caller waiting on the line with the question. Go ahead please I've been interested in what you said about the festival. It's the first I've heard about it. You said that it was to be this fall and I wondered if you could give us a more precise date. Yes. I could there as far as Orchestra Halls concerned. There is a Gala opening concert on September the 14th, and this is a sort of a royal occasion where We hope we'll be able to encourage a crowned head to come and make it feel more of a Gala. But then they'll for the next two weeks after September the 14th. It will be a fairly concentrated series of events but places like the Guthrie Theater the children's theater. The Minnesota Opera can't squeeze their their activities that they would like to do into that period and obviously exhibitions and any sort of Galleria will want to stay open for longer than two weeks. So I would say the Festival begin to feel like a festival from about the second week in September. It will be established as a festival on September the 14th. It will be shut down as a concentrated dose of Festival Mania by about September the 28th. Something like that, but lots of things with English favor will go on until Christmas and maybe even into the new year. I might add that for instance the opening of the British works from the permanent collection at the Walker Art Center will take place on August 17th in August 24th. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts will open their first of five exhibits in connection with the British festival at the beginning of September. The Guthrie Theater will open their Midsummer Night's Dream and close the Great Expectations that will have been going on during the summer so that there are a variety of plays and Exhibits that are opening and closing over the couple months span really but the September 14th Gala Minnesota orchestra concert is really the the official opening of the festival and then that day is full of a number of activities that King Arthur in the magic sword. I think opens at the Children's Theater the night before so that's the Bob will be full of many many activities during that time span are either of you working on the efforts to get a crown head to come and if so, how is it going? How does one go about doing that? Well, there are official Roots. Obviously you expect your Embassy to do the hardest work. But if you have any contacts at all with the palace in England the through the private secretary is there you can get certain information. For instance. I know that neither the queen nor Prince Philip nor Charles or Diana will come abroad for anything that is not directly involved with politics. Their their services are so much in demand that for instance if it was a presidential inauguration in the fall, and they could come for a political occasion. Then they would include the festival as part of their activities. So it will be baps at someone like the Kent's who are familiar figures because of Wimbledon and have a pretty Catholic attitude to culture sporting events. They're good at everything. Okay, we'll wait and see. Yeah that might be but there are people from the British Embassy the cultural attaché from the British Embassy in Washington is working hard for us as well as the consul General in Chicago so that we're very hopeful that some royalty may add to the festival. Okay another caller waiting on the line with the question for Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg. Go ahead, please thank you. I appreciate the orchestra very much as a whole and I also appreciate some of the outstanding individuals in it. I've heard it rumored that the orchestra might be losing one of the outstanding solo performers the principal basis Eugene Levinson, and I'm wondering if it's true that he may be The for New York or if he still under contract for this year what his status is he still under contract with us? And of course. Yes, as you know, one of the great bass players not only in this country but in the world and we are quite used to the fact now that Minnesota discovers where the world's Talent is and the other orchestras come and poach occasionally as you know, we lost one of our horn players to the New York Philharmonic few years ago and we lost our trumpet player to Boston Symphony Orchestra a few years ago. We've always managed to replace them with younger and equally Stellar figures and I think if Eugene Levinson, who is the the bass player you're talking about is taken from us by the New York Philharmonic. I for one would wish him well because it's a career step. That is important to him, but I can promise you that any successor we have here will be equally Stella and I think this is the way that we have to live musicians are peripatetic in a way. They like to move around the world. How stable is the Minnesota Orchestra though? Are there very many openings coming up for those new younger performance very often. It's pretty stable. We do have an intention to increase the size of the orchestra by four or five members, but it's a very slow process, of course because financially we have to be sensible about how quickly we add new players some players take retirement. I think the orchestra is very generous in this. It doesn't really strictly insist that players should retire, you know the day when they're too old legally to be allowed but the players I see As we have a turnover of one or two players a year out of about a hundred that's pretty stable. Yes. I think it is another caller waiting on the line with the question. Go ahead and please yes. I first wanted to say that I just appreciate the orchestra and Neville marriner and the excellent music and I have a few questions for mr. Mariner on a some of the things you've just talked about specifically about new works and that the I just really appreciate the Contemporary compositions such as by Paul oath that have been performed their just excellent and you talked briefly about the Jazz rock pop idiom and I was wondering if mr. Mariner is aware of certain artists such as Billy Taylor who write compositions for orchestra, which are not so far down the the Beaten Track of just Jazz and rock but combine classical Eric and also if the orchestra would ever consider performing such pieces as these that are classically structured and also another question is for this English this British Festival if there will be any brand new compositions by Englishmen in such areas like these and one comes in mind such as a Keith Emerson who was a rock musician who wrote a very classical piano concerto. Okay. I think that will stop there since we have several callers waiting on the line just handle those two questions. I would say that I don't know. I regret to say either the the composer's you speak of the one inhibiting factor for us of mixing the idioms of jazz and and or rock and and classical music is that the the instrumental techniques involved are often quite different for instance. The brass players do technically To be prepared quite differently to play rock music and jazz music and classical music very hard to combine the two so whatever we did I think it would mean we'd have to import perhaps some specialist musicians to play some of the the ratio and more avant-garde pop music that you're talking about. Certainly we don't turn our faces against including these compositions particularly if they are well written technically speaking, of course many of the pop musicians are extremely Adept and we're always happy to play a well-written New pieces and we'll consider any of them that are sent in. If you have any ideas for us, please send them to Orchestra Hall because we need all the help we can get to make this coming up Festival as interesting for the entire. Community as possible in response to your question about New pieces for the British Festival the Minnesota Opera and the Saint Paul chamber orchestra will be doing the American premiere of the of Oliver nuisance Scottish composer conductors Where the Wild Things Are and that should be a very exciting occasion of a new performance in this country yet. Another Premier by the Minnesota Opera another caller waiting on the line. Go ahead please. Hello. I'd like to ask Maestro Mariner a question has the Minnesota Orchestra made any plans to offer Johann Pachelbel Canon in D 4 strings and continue continual in a program in the near future or have they made a recent recording of it? No, we haven't ever one of the problems about pieces like that is that Pachelbel Canon was originally score just for single instruments, you know, just one of each it. I think there are one two, three, four five. I think seven instruments in Orchestra Hall that would mean sort of blowing it up into mammoth-sized to actually fill the space that we have there because 7 instrument sound a little bit small and once you've re-orchestrated a piece like the Pachelbel Canon you tend to lose some of the real flavor of the piece the real texture. It's no longer an intimate piece. It's a rather good solid piece of music that comes out and hits you I prefer to keep pieces like the Pachelbel Canon in their proper surrounding which is really for chamber orchestra or rather more intimate occasions on Orchestra Hall. I agree with you though. It's a wonderful piece and I have actually recorded it. With a chamber orchestra in Europe. Maybe it's a candidate for the small theater in the Ordway. Yes. Absolutely ideal. It's the sort of thing that's important work still would do much better than we would do. I think okay another caller with a question. Go ahead. Hello, you're on the air. All right on me speak to mr. Mariner, please. He's listening. Mr. Mariner. I was interested in one of your statements that you made earlier stating that the symphony had found kind of a balance by which modern Works were done or premiered within the standard or traditional repertoire and my curiosity or my question is if this balance which is commendable is done with 20th century works or premiering contemporary works. Why has the symphony leg in premiering 19th century Works, which have gone forgotten worked such by Felix Teresa or on tone Rubenstein Henry had leader George Templeton strong people of the turn of the century could not the symphony strike up a balance within its traditional program to Premiere The Works of one or two of these individuals during a symphonic season. Yes, it could it's a very good idea that I was One time when I first came here obsessed with the idea of including neglected Pieces by living composers. And so we played an awful lot of little-known Copeland sessions the Ives and Ruggles pieces, which I felt when neglected here, but you're quite right. There is a great deal of music from the turn of the century. The one of the problems about that is that when you do your sums and discover how much rehearsal time you're going to need for these pieces how much mileage you are you going to get out of them? It becomes practical Affair rather than artistic Affair and a lot of these pieces we turn down as a very desirable Oddities, which we really couldn't afford to put into the subscription series because they would not generate enough interest to a normal audience at some with Specific knowledge like that. You're not too thick on the ground and I'm not sure that your enthusiasm would perhaps justify are having a whole festival of neglected 19th century American composers, but I will bear this in mind and when we're planning programs in the future, I will try to include a few of these people. Maybe you can sneak them in as a surprise at the end or something that really promote is indeed another caller waiting on the line with the question. You're next. Yes, good afternoon. I'm calling from Moorhead or we manufactured that little whether we sent you a couple. I have a statement here with reference to a previous statement made by someone suggesting using Church choirs as you well know we have to the greatest choirs in the United States here in Minnesota Concordia choir And the say no of choir down the southern part of the state. I would propose at these two choirs be put together and together with the orchestra do something such as berlioz Requiem or today. Mm. I do like berlioz. I would ask if the orchestra is going to Australia's I've heard and finally I would say for goodness sakes don't lose John Miller on bassoon. He is the greatest. Yeah, I agree with you about that last two. He is the jollies for me. Perhaps one of the best bassoon players in the world now and it's our Good Fortune to have him. Yes. The orchestra is going to Australia we go that I think it's in March the weather, isn't it may inmates May the middle of May. I think there are seven concerts at the orchestra will do in Australia in Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane and Canberra and it should be very exciting. The orchestra has not toward off this continent for Many years so we'll be a wonderful exciting experience. I think for all and Australia's eager for the Minnesota Orchestra and Maestro Mariner to arrive and I think about the the choirs. I agree with you. I know of course this no love choir Concordia choir, I have not had the pleasure of working with but if it is of similar quality as you say to st. Olaf then I'm delighted to invite it to Orchestra Hall and do as bigger workers. We can get onto the stage. Of course, the more singers we have on the stage. The fewer Orchestra were allowed to have so we have to get our balance. Right but your idea of berlioz is absolutely first start going back to the tour of the Australian tour. Is it important for orchestras and conductors in particular to travel around to get a lot of exposure in different parts of the country. It seems like some orchestras always traveling to another part of the country or another part of the world. It's again a part of the modern economic package really we feel I particularly feel that the Orchestra should make more gramophone records. The gramophone recording companies are not interested in orchestras that just stay in one place. They like the orchestra to travel around the world so that they can advertise the gramophone records. They've made it's one of those never-ending economic cycles that you must be part of and traveling is an important part of it. It's also I feel as I said before it's good for the orchestra to get out there and show its muscles to other organizations and to find out what's going on in other parts of the world. Okay, another caller waiting on the line with the question. Go ahead please this coughing is a really rotation to me particularly since having been in London for the audience doesn't even breathe loudly apparently and I'm wondering is there any possibility as careful as I am after a while Matt Hall? I feel irritated. I'm wondering is the whole humidified which every interior space in this long heating season the climate requires. What the hell? Help in fact the whole is humidified, but you're not the first person to raise this question that they may be something in the atmosphere of an air-conditioned Hall that does irritate some people's throats. I think those who feel that they are vulnerable to this sort of attack should carry out their own supply of pills or sweets or whatever. They need cough. It's and to deal with it, but they as I say, I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I just get mad sometimes when the coffee is louder than the music. I believe that we have another caller. We have four minutes left in the program and we can probably take a couple more minutes and then get another question in go ahead please. I have a question for mr. Miner. I'm a big fan of the music of Frederick delius. And I wonder if any plans have been made to include his music on this festival. And also I wish to Can why is music hasn't really caught on in the United States? Well, we certainly do have plans for music it we're going to play the walk to the paradise Garden on September the 25th at the subscription concert and others strange. I don't understand why Delia's hasn't caught on here. He spent a great deal of his life in Florida. Of course. He you almost have as much claimed him as we do an in the English will grab anybody as their own composer because they have a few of them, but he really spent a lot of his time in America. He developed a lot of his style particularly of writing for voices from the voices that he heard when he was in Florida and I just suspect that perhaps film music of the rather more sentimental time kind overtook him. I think that at a time when he was developing these very euphonious sounds that film music crept in and it became very Hard to decide which was delius and which was a film score for a long time many people copied his harmonic structures and the way that he wrote for orchestras. Maybe he was just was swallowed up in that but certainly even in England. There's very little Delia's played and even then only the miniature pieces rather than the big pieces. I think that we are going to wrap it up at this point just so that we don't get into trouble here with the caller probably our last caller always ends up asking a very complicated question and then we have to rush through so at two minutes before one o'clock like to mention once again why Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg were here in particular today talking about the British Festival of Minnesota, which is Louella do to begin on September 14th of 1985 and will take place for that two month period right around that date and I expect that we'll be seeing more information coming out about this Minnesota Orchestra begins to During the first week in February, right? Yes. Yes. We are imminent. Now. We're just about to this is the national tour though, and we usually start in Canada and and work our way as far south as Washington eventually and then on to Australia in May, yes, and meanwhile Orchestra Hall will will warm up and humidify itself maybe and get ready. Thank you both so much for being with us today Neville marriner and Luella Goldberg like to pass on a little bit of weather information. We thought that we were all through with the cold weather and we probably are however, the national weather service has issued a Travelers advisory for Northwestern Minnesota for this afternoon. The National Weather Service says poor visibility and blowing and drifting snow will make travel hazardous in the Northwestern section of our region. The worst conditions will be located in the Red River Valley area motorists in the valley should carry with them Warren winter storm. Little gear a noon snowplow operator in Far Northwestern Minnesota reported. They could see only two telephone poles in front of them. So you can kind of get a good idea of what the visibility is like visibility at times at zero in the open country because of the winds in that part of our region today's midday was made possible by the Pillsbury company on behalf of Totino's pizza. Our technical direction today was by Dave sleep and with assistance from Linnea Schultz, I'm Paula Schroeder. This is the news and information service of Minnesota Public Radio. Ksjn Minneapolis. St. Paul. It is coming up now on one o'clock. We will be listening to some jazz this afternoon and following AP Network news followed later this afternoon by business times Minnesota journal and all the latest news AP Network news on Wendell goler President Reagan took the oath of office for a second term a second time today. He'd done it privately yesterday today the president repeated the oath for the public and he called