Noting that Leonard Slatkin was due to conduct Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time (a WWII masterpiece) at this Oakland concert, https://www.oaklandsymphony.org/event/season-finale-leonard-slatkin/, I was hoping for a webcast (if Rhode Island can do one, http://www.colinscolumn.com/leonard-slatkin-conducts-beethoven-9-in-rhode-island-live-webcast/, so can Oakland, I felt) but that was never the plan. Then I found out that the Tippett had been dropped anyway due to Covid among the choir.
As advertised, still being played are Cindy McTee’s Circuits and Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony No.2 (‘Mysterious Mountain’, from 1955) – Hovhaness, 1911-2000, is pictured – his Mountain piece linked to below in Fritz Reiner’s recording.
Also linked to are four (of five) Spirituals from the Tippett (a genius inclusion by the composer), given at the Last Night of the Proms in 2001, an amended programme to reflect the ‘9/11’ atrocities from a few days earlier, as recalled my maestro Slatkin here, http://www.colinscolumn.com/agony-and-remembrance-twenty-years-on-leonard-slatkin-remembers-9-11/.
With the Oakland Symphony tomorrow, in place of Child, Leonard is now introducing and conducting Elgar’s Enigma Variations, something like this, http://www.colinscolumn.com/bbc-proms-1995-leonard-slatkin-introduces-philharmonia-orchestra-and-video-of-paul-hindemith-conducting/. No doubt, it will still be a fitting Season Finale at the Paramount Theatre: in adversity a solution has been found.