vnvw. bocelli.dc

arts & entertainment

My Concert With Andrea

Jewish maestro conducts DSO in Bocelli appearance.

Suzanne Chessler
I Contributing Writer

ugene Kohn might very well be
considered an exception to a rule.
A high school dropout, he has been
able to succeed beyond his contemporaries
holding multiple degrees.
Kohn, who built an international career
as conductor, now is touring with famed
tenor Andrea Bocelli. When the tour visits
Detroit's Joe Louis Arena on Dec. 14, Kohn
will lead the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
"Although we have classical opera selec-
tions in the first half of the program, Bocelli
has chosen what he thinks would be good
not only for people who like the opera but
also for people who just appreciate beautiful
music:' Kohn says in a phone conversation
from his home in New York.
"The second half of the program is more
of a mixture that can be appreciated by any-
body. There will be some selections from
Bocelli's recent album (Passione), romantic
Italian numbers, at least one Elvis Presley
song and Christmas material.
"I think he might be considering a per-
formance of 'Granada and Presley's 'Love
Me Tender.' There are some secret encores,
which are his most beloved pieces"
Enhancing the program, which features
surtitles during the operatic pieces, will
be soprano Maria Aleida, Tony Award-
winner Heather Headley, violinist Caroline
Campbell, European guitar duo CARisMA
and the Adrian College Choir.

E

Jews

"I'm proud to be the guest conductor
for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra," says
Kohn, 65, who served as conductor for
Michigan performances of the Metropolitan
Opera.
"I worked with the Detroit Symphony
years ago. This symphony has been in the
top handful of greatest orchestras in the
United States and has maintained that level
in spite of difficult times"
Kohn, invited to work with Bocelli in
2007 after being heard in decades of per-
formances with Placido Domingo, has been
studying music privately since he was 5
years old and living in Manhattan.
The now freelance conductor memorized
easily and knew a lot of scores by the time
he was 13. He gave up formal schooling at
16 while working as an opera accompanist.
Kohn became the conducting protege
of the Metropolitan Opera's Fausto Cleva
and also studied with Jewish conductor
Erich Leinsdorf at the Met before touring as
conducting assistant to Thomas Schippers,
working with symphonic, choral and oper-
atic repertoire.
After leading regional symphonies and
opera companies, he returned to the Met
and went on to opera houses in Vienna,
Rome, Paris, Buenos Aires and many other
cities. For eight years, he was music director
of the Puerto Rico Symphony.
"I kind of learned on the street" he says.
"I lived in foreign countries and learned
languages. I speak six of them, and they
opened a lot of doors to different cultures"

Aai
Il l Nate Bloom

• m
---

imi

Special to the Jewish News

TV Notes

A On Thursday, Dec. 4, at 8 p.m.,

Go

NBC will present a live version of
■ I the musical classic Peter Pan. It
gli stars Allison Williams as Peter,
with Christopher Walken as Capt.
Hook. The musical was penned by
five Jewish theater legends, all
now deceased — Mark Charlap and
Jule Styne (music)
and Betty Comden,

0

Adolph Greene and
Carolyn Leigh (lyr-

ics).
Also premiering
the evening of Dec.
4, on Showtime, and
directed by Pauly
Shore
Shore, 46, is the
documentary Pauly
Shore Stands Alone. The film tracks
the comedian as he embarks on a

54

December 4 • 2014

stand-up tour across the Midwest
while grappling with aging, fading
fame and his relationship with his
mother, Comedy Store founder Mitzi

Shore, 84.
How Murray Saved Christmas is an

animated special with music that will
be shown at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, on
NBC. The special is from a bestsell-
ing 2004 book of the same name by
Mike Reiss, 54, a principal writer on

The Simpsons.

The plot: When
Santa's knocked out
cold by a Jack-in-
the-Box's walloping
punch, Jewish deli
owner Murray Kleiner
(voiced by Jerry
Stiller, 87) reluc-
tantly agrees to take
Stiller
his place. The suit
doesn't fit, Murray
smells a bit like pickles and there's
no way he can remember the names

Kohn's most recent record-
ings have been with Placido
Domingo, and he also can be seen in the
Zeffirelli film Callas Forever, starring Jeremy
Irons and Fanny Ardant. The conductor
recreated his real role from years earlier as
Callas' accompanist.
Kohn, the father of three adult children
who have chosen professions outside of
music, recently brought his Jewish heritage
into the wedding of his youngest son.
The event was hosted at the maestro's
country home, not far from his New York
apartment in the Ansonia, a famous oper-
atic building where Toscanini, Mahler and
Caruso lived.
Kohn's religious background has been
expressed musically on a United States tour
conducting Ernest Bloch's Sacred Service.
"Overall, our Detroit concert is about
Andrea Bocelli, who will be singing 16
numbers:" Kohn says. "He's a generous per-
former and loves feeling the warmth of the
audience.
"We started out together with some
coaching work at the piano. He's always
working to keep his voice fresh and even
improve as all great artists do.
"We kind of hit it off, and what keeps us
together is that I'm always honest with him.
If I think there's a tone that he could adjust,
I tell him. I think he likes that because he's a
very hard worker.
As a musician, he's also an accomplished
trumpet player, flute player and pianist. He
can play Rachmaninoff on the piano with a

of all those reindeer. But with the
help of a pushy elf (Sean Hayes)
and an eager-to-believe young boy,
Murray finds out that even though
he's not big enough to fill Santa's
suit, he's got more than enough
heart to get the job done.

At The Movies

Opening on Friday, Dec. 5, is The
Homesman, a rare western that

focuses on the often-difficult lives of
women living on or near the frontier
(Iowa and Nebraska in this case).
Directed and co-written by
Tommy Lee Jones, the film stars
Hilary Swank as Mary Cuddy, a for-
mer teacher from New York who
has done pretty well financially
in Nebraska. But she is racked by
depression, and no man is interest-
ed in her because she is viewed as
ugly or very plain.
Then, three local women suffer
various traumas that cause them to

left hand like a machine gun, taking on new
battles and winning them:'
Among those battles is bringing the right
acoustics to concerts presented in venues
that are not specific to music. Bocelli, who
is blind, travels with his sound engineer
from Italy as well as equipment.
"The sound is at such a high level that
even in large halls, like ours in Detroit, we
have had an excellent batting average Kohn
says. "The sound is not tinny or metallic.
It is natural and concert-like so that audi-
ences can really appreciate the beauty of the
music.
"I love making music when I'm accom-
panying a sensitive artist who listens to the
colors of the orchestra and can adjust to
them and when the orchestra listens to the
colors as well as the feelings that the singer
is expressing and supports that by adjusting
their own sounds:' says Kohn.
"The concerts with Bocelli are fun for me,
and I feel very lucky that he chooses me to
be his conductor. I think he's a great artist
who could also be pursuing an important
operatic career in addition to his concerts if
he wanted to dedicate the time to that" ❑

Eugene Kohn will conduct the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra accom-
panying Andrea Bocelli at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Dec.14, at the Joe Louis
Arena in Detroit. $55-$355. (313)
471-6611; olympiaentertainment.com .

have mental breakdowns, and Cuddy
volunteers to take them, by horse
wagon, to Iowa, where a local minis-
ter and his wife (John Lithgow and
Meryl Streep) have agreed to take
them in and help
them. (One of the
women is played by
Streep's daughter,
Grace Gummer.)
During the difficult
trip, Cuddy and the
women meet a low-
down drifter, George
Steinfeld
Briggs (Jones). No
more spoilers, except to mention that
Hailee Steinfeld, 17, appears near
the end of the film as a possible love
interest for the much-older Briggs.
Also appearing in a smallish role is

Tim Blake Nelson, 50.

Contact Nate Bloom at

middleoftheroadl@aol.com .

❑