ENTERTAINMENT
GOING PLACES 1----
WEEK OF AUG. 12-18
SPECIAL EVENTS
TOLEDO ZOO
2700 Broadway, Toledo, pandas
Le Le and Nan Nan, through
Wednesday, admission.
419-726-3272.
RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL
Hollygrove, Holly, 10 a.m. to 7
p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and
Labor Day through Sept. 25, 150
entertainers on four stages,
admission.
ADAT SHALOM
29901 Middlebelt, Farmington
Hills, "Family Picnic and
Concert on the Grass" with
Gemini, Sunday, admission.
851-5100.
ALL TOGETHER NOW '88
Washten.aw Farm Council
Grounds, near Arm Arbor,
Beatles celebration, with
Badfinger, guest speakers, videos
and memoribilia, Saturday,
admission. 729-1310.
Former Detroiter
Neal Stulberg is
conducting his
orchestra to new
musical heights
COMEDY
THE PALACE
3777 Lapeer, Auburn Hills, Bill
Cosby, Saturday, admission.
377-8200.
BERKLEY COMEDY CASTLE
2593 Woodward, Berkley, Roger
Behr, today and Saturday; Bill
Eng-vall, Tuesday through Sept.
3, admission. 542-9900.
Neal Stulberg's musical roots stemmed from his home.
VICTORIA BELYEU DIAZ
Special to The Jewish News
onductor Neal Stulberg
and the New Mexico
Symphony Orchestra are
making beautiful music
together.
As a result, the 34-year-old native
Detroiter was recently presented
America's most prestigious conduc-
ting prize, the Seaver/National En-
dowment for. the Arts Award.
Presented bi-annually to
American conductors who are judged
to have superior professional abilities
and the potential for major careers,
nominees for the award are evaluated
over a two-year period by a national
panel which includes such noted con-
ductors as Michael Steinberg, John
Nelson and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Stulberg, who came to Albuquer-
que in 1985 to conduct the 83-member
NMSO, got his first taste of conduc-
ting when he was an undergraduate
at Harvard and a member of the Bach
Society Orchestra there (alongside
him in the student orchestra at the
time was now-famed cellist, Yo Yo
Ma).
"I was one of those players who
was always intensely interested in
everything a conductor was doing,"
said Stulberg in a recent telephone in-
terview from his home in Albuquer-
que. "I was always intensely critical,
too, and thought I could conduct."
Having gotten his feet wet at Har-
vard, he went on to study conducting
at the University of Michigan, the
Juilliard School in New York, and
Rome's Santa Cecilia Academy,
culminating his study by winning the
Baltimore Symphony Young Conduc-
tors competition in 1980.
Before stepping in as music direc-
tor of the NMSO, he spent four years
as assistant conductor of the Los
Angeles Philharmonic, and conductor
of the Los Angeles Young Musicians
Foundation Debut Orchestra. He had
also spent some time conducting the
MIT Symphony Orchestra in Cam-
bridge, Mass., and as assistant con-
ductor of New York's American Sym-
phony Orchestra.
When he arrived in New mexico
to direct the NMSO, his aims were
clear. Acknowledging that the or-
chestra had come a long way from the
early '70s, when it was a community
volunteer group called the Albuquer-
que Symphony, Stulberg emphasized
that, in the future he saw the NMSO
as an organization "of national
status."
"We want to serve as a center of
music-making here, much as the San-
ta Fe Opera does,"he said. "The
NMSO is in a position to become an
ambassador of New Mexico to the
(rest of the) United States."
Faced with an orchestra that had
been without a permanent leader for
two years and was made up mostly of
low-paid, mostly part-time NMSO
musicians, Stulberg set to work.
As happens often during periods
of growth, there were some growing
pains. Not the least of these involved
several decisions the new conductor
made to let some long-time orchestra
members go.
"It's the music director's job to im-
prove the artistic level of an ochestra,"
he said, recalling some of the
brouhaha that surrounded his con-
troversial first weeks with NMSO.
"The NMSO went through a transi-
tion period and, as in all transition
periods, some musicians — who may
have contributed quite a lot over the
years — were simply no longer able to
meet the artistic standards of the or-
chestra. Of course, someone has to
THEATER
SHAW FESTIVAL
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario,
You Never Can Tell, and
Dangerous Corner, through Oct.
15, Hit the Deck, through Oct.
16; Peter Pan, through Oct. 16;
Geneva, through Sept. 24; The
Voysey Inheritance, through Sept.
25; The Dark Lady of the
Sonnets, through Sunday; Once
in a Lifetime, through Oct. 16;
He Who Gets Slapped, today,
admission. 416-468-2172.
GREENFIELD VILLAGE
Dearborn, The Man Who Came
to Dinner, Fridays and Saturdays
through Sept. 10, admission.
271-1620.
DETROIT INSTITUTE OF
ARTS
5200 Woodward, Detroit, open
auditions for actors, actresses, a
stage manager and percussionist,
by appointment, Thursday and
Sept. 2. 832-2731.
RUSSIAN-AMERICAN
STUDIO THEATER
Groves High School Little
Theater, 13 Mile and Evergreen,
Birmingham, A Blok Engraving,
Friday through Sunday, Sept.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
67