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Yet Another Show: TAVES Starts Friday in Toronto
"I'm pretty excited about the preponderance of manufacturers, because they tend to have more elaborate set-ups and bring a lot more product with them," Kajko told Stereophile.
Exhibitors will get a sonic boost from the King Edward's larger than average hotel rooms. Because of the building's age and construction, sound dampening between rooms is superior to that in new facilities, and ceilings are an impressive 10'8" high. Kajko has also done his best to spread exhibitors out in the 100% sold-out show.
Among TAVES' highlights will be the display, in the King Edward's historic Sovereign Ballroom, of a 2012 Porsche Carrera S sports car outfitted with an extremely expensive Burmester audio system. Burmester also has a special display awaiting Saturday attendees. Another exhibit from MK Sound, Marantz, and L•G promises a state-of-the-art Home Theater system. No show premieres have been announced—these seem to be saved for the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, which opens a mere two weeks later, on October 12, a mere 1506.9 miles away in Denver.
A distinct draw for the average consumer is the diversity of exhibitors and product categories. "We're trying to distinguish TAVES from other shows by introducing product categories other than audio and video," says Kajko. "We're making it into more of a consumer audio show. We consider ourselves very lucky, given that this is only the second edition of the show, that we have several new categories, including automobiles, security and lighting systems, and even new commercial products such as L•G's mirror and glass TVs. And we're super-excited that Porsche is our major sponsor, because that has enabled us to connect the categories of entertainment and automobiles."
For entertainment, on early Saturday eve, multi-lingual and multimedia electronic pop, urban, and rock diva Cindy Gomez flies in from Germany to, in Kajko's words, "do something definitely out of the ordinary." For Neanderthals such as myself who don't know Cindy Gomez from Rand Paul, Ms. Gomez made history of sorts when she became the first artist to debut in a mobile game on no less than 40 million mobile handsets worldwide.
Kajko has invested in advertising on three major radio stations, and is enticing people with contests that include radio giveaways of 10 different Paradigm products and TV giveaways of Totem Acoustic loudspeakers. "We are not promoting the show only to those already interested in A/V," he says. "We want to reach out to the main consumer market so they can discover the various high-end products and brands, and realize there's so much more to audio and video than what you can find in a big box store." Such as Cindy Gomez.
While Kajko declined to predict attendance in advance of the show, he expects to attract far more than the impressive 3000 attendees who showed up the first year. Given that he has invited several well-known TV personalities to participate—North American technology expert Marc Saltzman will present a daily seminar designed to introduce people to the realm of digital music file playback, and one of Canada's top interior designers, Yanic Simard, will host daily seminars on entertainment rooms and interior design that culminate in the giveaway of a half-hour entertainment room design consultation—he will surely reach beyond the circle of the already-initiated.
Nor will Saltzman and Simard be the only seminar presenters. This year's offerings have jumped from four to ten, and cover both audio and TV. Mark Waldrep of AIX Records and iTrax.com will discuss "The Future of Music Entertainment," and others will educate people in the realm of TV purchase and calibration. Thanks to Nordost and support from Moon, KEF and Stillpoints, TAVES is even bringing in the UK's Roy Gregory, European Editor for The Audio Beat.com and founding editor of Hi-Fi+ magazine, who will lead folks through the intricacies of set-up and system optimization.
"It's a very young show," says Kajko, "and we still have plenty of work to do. I believe we have the potential to turn TAVES into a major North American show in the next few years."
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Visiting Glimmerglass Opera
My discovery of the fact that Glimmerglass has greatly expanded the range of its offerings came about through sheer serendipity. Last summer, we were on the way to Pittsfield, MA, following the route prescribed by iPhone's GPS software. The GPS guided us off the New York Thruway sooner than I had anticipated, but I figured it must know a shortcut, so I kept driving. But wait a minute: we were going south, and Pittsfield is to the north. Better check the GPS settings. Oh, no! It was set to Pittsfield, New York, not Massachusetts! Having reset the GPS, the route took us through gently rolling hills, and then we saw a sign with an arrow that said "Glimmerglass," and decided to take a side trip to explore. As we came around a curve in the road and saw what I later learned was the Alice Busch Opera Theater, on top of a hill and with a small lake in the foreground, I got the strong feeling that we were in a special place. The opera being performed that afternoon was Carmen (decidedly not modern and far from obscure) and the season's lineup included Annie Get Your Gun, one of my favorite musicals (which I have done twice in community theater). We got tickets for it, extending our vacation by a couple of days, and this ended up being one of the highlights of our entire vacation. Annie Get Your Gun starred Deborah Voigt, best known for performances of operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss, and Rod Gilfry, who has done everything from Don Giovanni to Sweeney Todd (and whose CD My Heart Is So Full of You, Narratus 07, I subsequently picked as one of my 2012 "Records to Die For"). We also attended a concert by Deborah Voigt entitled Voigt Lessons, in which she not only sang beautifully, but talked openly about her problems with her weight, alcohol, relationships, and depression. It was one of the most moving performances I have ever witnessed.
This summer's Glimmerglass performance schedule—which, as I write this on August 18, still has a week to go—includes The Music Man, one of the classics of American musical theater, as well as productions of Aida, the Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson Lost in the Stars, and Lully's Armide. There are also numerous concerts—including a concert by Deborah Voigt (not Voigt Lessons), and by Artist In Residence, baritone Eric Owens. There's a show talk (free) before each performance. Glimmerglass has a Young Artists Program, which includes singers (who are in the ensembles and are featured in informal concerts), coaches, and assistant directors. We saw The Music Man, in which internationally renowned baritone—and Cooperstown native—Dwayne Croft showed that Harold Hill's numbers can be actually sung without losing their meaning or dramatic impact, and the concert by Deborah Voigt, in which she again showed the special rapport she's able to achieve with an audience.
But Glimmerglass is more than just performances of opera and musicals. Under Artistic & General Director Francesca Zambello (see photo below), who took over this position in 2011, there has been an expansion of Glimmerglass's mandate to include classic American musicals and concerts, which led to a "re-branding" of the enterprise from Glimmerglass Opera Festival to Glimmerglass Festival. Zambello has made a deliberate effort to make connections with local institutions and the artistic community, like museums and galleries. Zambello takes a decidedly hands-on approach to her leadership role, talking to audience members, making sure that people are happy about their Glimmerglass experience. And all of this effort is working: ticket sales are up 20% since her appointment. Zambello's creativity and ambitions for the Festival seem to have no bounds: there's even a limited-edition opera-inspired beer available, a collaboration between Cooperstown's Brewery Ommegang and the Glimmerglass Festival. (I found out about this too late to request a "review sample.")
Glimmerglass Artistic & General Director Francesca Zambello
One of the distinctive features of the performances of musicals at Glimmerglass is that they use no amplification for the orchestra or the singers. This is never done in current Broadway productions, and even where plays are performed without amplification, such as the Shaw and Stratford festivals, they use amplification for musicals. There is, of course, a special pleasure to be had in hearing voices and instruments as nature intended, but I wondered whether today's audiences are too used to the louder-than-life presentation of voices that is now standard in performances of musicals. I asked Francesca Zambello whether they get complaints from people about not being able to hear well enough, and she said they've had no complaints about this. And, I have to admit that, apart from a few muffled lines in the opening "Rock Island," I had no trouble hearing any of the dialogue or song lyrics in The Music Man. One factor that may be responsible for Glimmerglass being able to do away with amplification in their musicals is that their singers are almost all operatically trained, with the technique that allows them to project their voices without benefit of amplification, something that most of today's Broadway performers have difficulty with.
Planning for the 2013 Glimmerglass season is now in place. There are new productions of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, Verdi's King for a Day (Un giorno di regno), Lerner & Loewe's Camelot, and a double bill of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion. Baritone Nathan Gunn, who will appear as Lancelot in Camelot, and pianist Julie Gunn, will serve as Artists In Residence. Camelot is another great favorite of mine (yes, I've done that, too, once as Lancelot); I can't wait to see the Glimmerglass production.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
