FROM THE PRESIDENT | PAGE 2Putting the Public in Public Radio

ON THE AIR | PAGE 4Weekend Programming Highlights

JanUarY BirthdaYs

feBrUarY 2017

m e m B e r s g U i d e

John AdamsElly AmelingAlban BergLuigi BoccheriniFrank BridgeRiccardo ChaillyArcangelo CorelliJohn CoriglianoChristoph EschenbachRenée Fleming

Mirella FreniGeorge Frederic HandelJascha HeifetzDame Myra HessLotte LehmannFelix MendelssohnUrsula OppensLeontyne PriceGioacchino RossiniChristopher Rouse

A NEW ERA FOR THECALIFORNIA AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM

DEPUTY DIRECTOR NAIMA KEITH LOOKS TOWARD SPRING AND BEYOND | PAGE

LA native Naima Keith says working at the Studio Museum in Harlem helped her come into her own as a curator. She was lauded for her exhibits there; one of them, a survey of the early works of L.A.-based abstractionist Charles Gaines, received a nomination for “Best Monographic Museum Show in New York” by the International Assn. of Art Critics. But when she and her husband decided to have a baby, she realized their third-story walk-up wasn’t exactly infant-friendly. So she and her family moved back west to begin a new chapter at a museum that was doing the same.

Before she originally left for Harlem, Keith honed her skills at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, her fi rst full-time job in the fi eld. While there, she worked with curator Kellie Jones on Now Dig This!: Art in Black Los Angeles.

Now, she’s coming up on her one-year anniversary as Deputy Director of Exhibits and Programs at the California African American Museum. CAAM offi cially came to be in 1977, but the museum didn’t offi cially open its doors in Exposition Park until the Olympic Games of 1984. Charmaine Jeff erson was the longtime director of the museum. After she left in 2014, the museum named George Davis to the post. Davis says Keith was always the top candidate for deputy director.

We sat down with Naima Keith in her offi ce at CAAM to talk about her history and the museum’s future.

When did you fi rst become interested in art and in museums?It was through osmosis. My mom is a radiologist by day and an art collector by night, so I grew up in a house fi lled with art, where having a relationship with artists wasn’t just about buying art, it was about supporting emerging artists, maintaining a relationship with artists, and thinking about ways you could be a supportive collector. In college, I took one art history course and the lightbulb went off and I’ve been on the same curatorial path since then.

What did it mean to you to come back to Los Angeles and to this museum? Our move back to LA just happened to coincide with the museum board thinking about CAAM in the 21st century and what kind of museum it wants to become, so it felt like a serendipitous situation. I’ve always been committed to Los Angeles and to LA artists. My mom would drag me to shows here when I was growing up, and she was also on the board for a couple of years, so I remember hearing about the dynamics of a state institution. CAAM is really a gem right here in Los Angeles. When I was hired, it was huge for me. I hope I can build upon the legacy that has already been laid before me.

2 Brenda Barnes

from the president

Public Radio Means Public Support

cover photo: the airy lobby of the california african american museum. photo by andreas branch

cover photo: caam deputy director naima keith. photo by matt sayles

Our winter membership drive begins in a few days, and before it does, I’d like to address the common misconception that KUSC receives all or most of its funding from the federal government and other sources. Since you are a member of the station you know that is not the case. Listener support comprises 70% of the KUSC budget. However, federal funding is still important to KUSC, and it is absolutely critical to the health of the public broadcasting system as a whole.

Unlike the system that exists in Britain, Canada, Germany and other countries, which was designed to fully fund national broadcasting, federal funding for public broadcasting in the United States is seed funding only. The government off ers only a small grant to organizations interested in starting public stations to help them launch and leverage private support.

The system has worked well. Federal funding for public broadcasting equates to approximately $1.35 per American per year. In Los Angeles that approximately $1 per capita supports two public television stations and multiple public radio stations. Public stations in turn are able to leverage each $1 of federal funding to raise over $6 from other sources--a successful public-private partnership by anyone’s standards.

Although federal funding accounts for only 7% of the KUSC budget, the percentage is much higher for public stations that serve rural areas. In many cases those stations are the only radio or television station of any kind serving those communities. Since stations in rural areas have less private support to draw upon, federal funding is critical to their survival.

When we go on air this month to ask for funding for KUSC we will be working to help other listeners understand that we appreciate federal funding and all it has done for KUSC over the decades; however, it does not come close to covering the fi nancial needs of the station. For that we will always turn to you and our other generous listeners, who care so deeply about the future of classical radio stations like ours. Thank you so much for nurturing KUSC with your consistent support.

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A NEW PHASE FOR THE CALIFORNIA AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUMDeputy Director Naima Keith Returns to LA and a Top Position at CAAM – by Kelsey McConnell

The museum’s mission is to research, collect, preserve and interpret the history, art and culture of African Americans in California. Is there a specific part of that mission that most interests you?Being an LA native and someone who’s traveled extensively through California, I was excited by the challenge of the mission. We mount both art and history exhibitions. Our collection consists of 4,000 objects, and we have everything from paintings and sculptures, to Ebony magazines and political buttons. I want to take the museum in a more contemporary direction, supporting new and maybe overlooked artists, and then with the history exhibitions, I want to do focused shows. So instead of looking at a 50-year time period, what if we dialed into a single year, or a particular person or historical moment, or looked at the complexity around little- known moments in history? Martin Luther King Jr. is obviously amazing, but what if we focus on other civil rights leaders, like Ella Baker? Or what if we focus on just the Zoot Suit Riots, instead of looking at LA riots over a hundred years of history? That’s one way I think we can surprise our audience.

I have to admit when I think “state museum” I think of timelines and dusty dioramas.People can come in assuming they’re going to see California history in the grand sense, and hopefully I can try to surprise them, maybe intrigue them, and make them say “I didn’t even realize those things were connected.” I think it’s our job to provide insight and explore lesser-known aspects of a particular topic. I hope to shake off the idea that history can only be understood in a linear timeline.

Art-making in Los Angeles seems to be getting more attention that it’s ever gotten before, and I recently heard the phrase “sometimes California is America, before America is America”. Do you think Los Angeles could be a kind of role model, with this museum playing a part in that?I hope so. California, and Los Angeles in particular, has long been known for TV and movie production, and it’s exciting when there’s interest in other aspects of our creativity. But what I love about California is its diversity. In people, yes, but also if you drive a couple hours out of Los Angeles you’re in a completely different climate. You can be at the beach, or in the snow, or in the desert. In one state you have so many different climates and people and history and vibes and feelings. That makes working at a state institution that much more intriguing and challenging. I would like to believe that California is on the cutting edge and we can be seen as a role model. Because of the amount of space we have, an artist can have a whole warehouse and that does lead to a certain kind of experimentation. California is so vast, you can do anything and everything and it’s accepted.

Coming up this spring at the museum: a history exhibition about the 25th anniversary of the 1992 LA uprising; a new body of work exploring Black women and issues of agency and invisibility from emerging artist Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle; a selection of works on paper from CAAM’s permanent collection; and work by New York-based artist Derrick Adams about commercialization and TV culture (his first LA museum show). caamuseum.org

Kelsey McConnell is KUSC’s Assistant Program Director, and Executive Producer of Arts Alive, Saturdays at 8AM on KUSC.

When JoAnn Falletta became the 10th Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, it was widely assumed that the troubled orchestra’s best days were behind it. Like the city itself, the Buffalo Philharmonic was suffering from chronic financial woes. Kleinhans Music Hall—the striking art nouveau building designed by the famous Finnish father-and-son team of Eliel and Eero Saarinen—was disfigured by graffiti, and people were getting mightily tired of the virtually annual “Save the Philharmonic” campaigns. Within a few short seasons, Falletta rebuilt the orchestra’s confidence, raised its international profile with a superb series of Naxos recordings—together with live performances on the in-house Beau Fleuve label—and in general began making sounds like one of the prime musical partnerships in America.

Less well-known is the conductor’s work with the Virginia Symphony, which has so far yielded a superb recording of the music of American composer Adolphus Hailstork (Naxos 8.559722) and a pair of Stravinsky albums with the Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players, of which this one is the second.

All recordings of the suite extracted from L’Histoire du soldat—in the opinion of the composer’s friend Lukas Foss, Stravinsky’s most wholly original work—are inevitably compared to the composer’s benchmark version with the Columbia Chamber Ensemble. This new disc compares more than favorably, with excellent solo work from all concerned—violinist Tianwa Yang especially—and a sustained lyricism (which is certainly present in the score) not always obvious in the composer’s reading. Not that this group misses much of the work’s wit or biting sarcasm, but the sharp edges are balanced by a tenderness that makes the finished product very appealing.

The version of the Octet also has at its heart an appealing soft-edged glow, overlaid with abundant brassy brilliance and especially affecting playing from the flute and clarinet. It’s a performance that also makes you forget what a treacherously difficult work the Octet actually is, especially in those ferociously descending, rapidly alternating bassoon figures which the composer in his early Paris recording—the first he would ever make as a conductor—reduced to incomprehensible mush.

Best of all, though, is the performance of Les noces, the early, percussive one-act ballet (“Choreographed Scenes with Music and Voices”) without which Orff’s Carmina Burana is inconceivable. In marked contrast to the recordings which have followed the composer’s aggressively percussive lead, Falletta’s emphasizes this score’s lyricism—admittedly, not the first word one thinks of when discussing Les noces. Obviously, it would never be mistaken for La bohème, but this is a singularly lovely performance that also gives the work’s driving rhythms their due.

This clearly joins the most satisfying recent Stravinsky recordings and at Naxos’s listener-friendly asking price it would be silly to pass it up.

STRAVINSKY:A Soldier’s Tale Suite/Octet for Winds/Les Noces; Tianwa Yang, violin; JoAnn Falletta, cond; Les Noces Percussion Ensemble; Virginia Symphony Chorus; Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players; NAXOS 8.573538

by jim svejda

Conductor JoAnn Falletta Works Her Magic with Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale record shelf

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jim svejda hosts the evening program on weeknights from 7 pm to midnight and the record shelf sundays at 10 pm.

A NEW PHASE FOR THE CALIFORNIA AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM

cover photo: admission is always free to this exposition park museum. photo by julia luke

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classical kusc hostsdennis Bartel6 am–9 am weekdays7 am–8 am saturdays

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Classical KUSC Members Guide is published monthly by the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity Communications3434 S. Grand Ave., CAL 140 Los Angeles, CA 90089-2818

President Brenda BarnesVP|Program Director Bill LuethDirector of Corp Aff airs and Underwriting Abe Shefa

CLASSICAL KUSC MEMBERS GUIDEExecutive Editor Gail EichenthalManaging Editor Kelsey McConnellFeatures Editor Sheila TepperStaff Photographer Diane AlancraigGraphic Designer Tamara Gould

Telephone 213-225-7400 E-mail kusc@kusc.org Web www.kusc.orgMusic Inquiries|Comment 213-225-7412Membership Inquiries 213-225-7404memberservices@kusc.orgVolunteer Inquiries 213-225-7411Major Gifts 213-225-7534

WeeKend highlights february 2017 on the air

KUSC SOCAL SUNDAY NIGHT: PACIFIC SYMPHONYHOST: RICH CAPPARELA

Sunday, February 5 | 7 pm Carl St.Clair, conductorOlga Kern, pianoDVORÁK: Carnival OvertureRACHMANINOFF: Rhapsody on a Theme of PaganiniCONRAD TAO: I got a wiggle I just can’t shake (World Premiere)RESPIGHI: Pines of Rome

Sunday, February 12 | 7 pm Carl St.Clair, conductorArnaud Sussmann, violinBenjamin Smolen, fl uteJessica Pearlman Fields, oboeJoseph Morris, clarinetRose Corrigan, bassoonPRANGCHAROEN: Absence of Time: Concerto for Four Principal Winds (World Premiere)MOZART: Violin Concerto No. 3TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4

Sunday, February 19 | 7 pm Rune Bergmann, conductorJoaquín Achúcarro, pianoGRIEG: Morning Mood & In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer GyntGRIEG: Piano ConcertoRAUTAVAARA: Cantus Arcticus: Concerto for Birds and OrchestraSTRAVINSKY: Firebird Ballet Suite

Sunday, February 26 | 7 pm Carl St.Clair, conductorJeremy Denk, pianoBRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 1R. STRAUSS: Suite from Der RosenkavalierSTRAUSS, Jr.: On the Beautiful Blue Danube

THE RECORD SHELF WITH JIM SVEJDA

Sunday, February 5 | 10 pmThe Forgotten Violinist. Recordings by the only American violinist ever to win First Prize in the Queen Elizabeth Competition, Berl Senofsky.

Sunday, February 12 | 10 pmA Buyer’s Guide to the Shostakovich Symphonies. Jim Svejda guides you through some of the best readily available recordings.

Sunday, February 19 | 10 pm A conversation with the brilliant Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard.

Sunday, February 26 | 10 pm Kleiber on the Air. The Golden Age conductor Erich Kleiber (father of Carlos) in live performances with Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony.

METROPOLITAN OPERA BROADCASTS

Saturday, February 4 | 10 AMVerdi: Rigoletto Morandi, conductor; Peretyatko, Volkova, Costello, Lučić, Mastroni

Saturday, February 11 | 10 AMBizet: CarmenFisch, conductor; Agresta, Margaine, Álvarez, Ketelsen

Saturday, February 18 | 10 AMBellini: I PuritaniBenini, conductor; Damrau, Camarena, Markov, Pisaroni

Saturday, February 25 | 10 AMDvorák: RusalkaElder, conductor; Opolais, Dalayman, Barton, Jovanovich, Owens