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WNYC’s Overnight Music Host Nadia Sirota joins Terrance McKnight to celebrate the 100th birthday of composer Elliott Carter during Evening Music on December 11th.

As further testament to her commitment to New Music, Overnight Music host and violist Nadia Sirota has permanently marked herself with a Modernism—and Elliott Carter—related tattoo. Nadia explains: “Back in Vienna in the very early 20th century, when Schoenberg was just about to Emancipate The Dissonance, it became a little complicated to discern which line of music was the melody, just by looking at the score alone. He and his 2nd Viennese School buddies developed a way to notate it; the “H” symbol stood for Hauptstimme (primary voice) and the “N” symbol stood for Nebenstimme (secondary voice). As you can see, I’m left-handed.”

Here’s a picture of the symbols in action on a piece of music:

And here they are in action on Nadia herself:

Guest Blog by WNYC’s Aaron Cohen

Le Marche is one of Italy’s best-kept secrets. I had the great pleasure of spending a week there in early August with author & journalist Fred Plotkin. Fred’s three great areas of expertise are Italy, food, and opera, and many people know him through his books, articles and media appearances in these fields. Among his books are “Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera” and “Italy for the Gourmet Traveler.” As you can imagine, I could not ask for a better travel companion. Through Fred I learned that this region (the Italian equivalent of a US state) called Le Marche, with Tuscany to the west and a long Adriatic coastline to the east, has more historic opera houses (76) than any other region of Italy. We set out to explore some of them.

Our visit began in the charming hill town of Macerata. I knew of Italy’s reputation as a global food capital, but nothing could prepare me for the food in Macerata. I had heavenly gnocchi at Osteria dei Pigliapochi, the most voluptuous watermelon I’ve ever eaten at da Silvano, and a local lasagne called Vincisgrassi at Trattoria da Ezio that I will remember for the rest of my life. Aside from the food, the most famous summer attraction in Macerata is the Sferisterio Opera Festival. We saw two classic operas here, Tosca and Carmen. The performances take place in the open-air Arena Sferisterio, which was originally built as a place for sporting events nearly 200 years ago but became home to the festival in 1921. The three things the struck me were the half-moon shape of the arena, the enormous width of the stage (almost 200 feet), and the beauty of the 56 columns that make up the back wall:

From Macerata we traveled to Pesaro, a beach town on the Adriatic and birthplace of the composer Gioacchino Rossini, a figure who dominates the entire place. There is Rossini street, Rossini theater, the Rossini Museum in the house where he was born, and every summer you can attend the Rossini Festival. Fred said that what Bayreuth is to Wagner, Pesaro is to Rossini, plus it has much better food and nice beaches. The Festival presents performances in two main venues: the Teatro Rossini and the Adriatic Arena (a sports complex). Surprisingly, the sound was quite good in the Adriatic Arena. Seeing Rossini here would be the equivalent of seeing a Monteverdi opera at Madison Square Garden.

The Festival takes great delight in presenting many of Rossini’s lesser-known works. Most people are surprised to learn that Rossini wrote about 40 operas. We heard three, none of which I knew: Ermione, L’Equivoco Stravagante, and Maometto II. Ermione (Hermione), written in 1819, is a tragedy in two acts based on the Greek story of the daughter of Helen (before she became Helen of Troy) and Menelaus. L’Equivoco Stravagante (The Outlandish Misunderstanding), written when Rossini was just 18, is a comedy in the same style that would later make him famous with The Barber of Seville. Maometto II (Mahomet the Second), written in 1820, is another tragedy set in Greece, this time about the conquering of Negroponte by the Sultan Mahomet and his Turkish army in the fifteenth century.

The standout performer at the Rossini Festival was mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona. She sang the role of “Calbo” in Maometto II and brought the house down with her aria “Non temer d’un basso affetto.” Here she is with a bust of Rossini in the Festival offices:

Fred asked Daniela why Rossini loved mezzos so much and why he used them to play “en travesti” roles in several of his operas:

And here is Daniela Barcellona joined by Marina Rebeka and Francesco Meli singing the Trio from Act 2 of Maometto II live at the Rossini Festival in August 2008:
 
After Le Marche, I was off to the Veneto, Liguria, and Tuscany. The details of those places will have to wait for my next entry, but I leave you with three of my favorite memories from Le Marche:

In addition to serving as WNYC’s Associate Director of Programming Operations, Aaron Cohen is an award-winning radio producer and an accomplished oboist. His most recent solo CD, “Oboisms,” features works for oboe and piano by 20th Century North American composers.