You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘WTTW’ tag.
“You sing first with your ears, then your heart, mind, and voice.”
“Enjoy the phrase. Don’t just be obedient.”
“The bar line is like children. It should be seen and not heard.”
“Voices are not made for music. Music is made for voices. Serve the music!”
“If you want to give the baby a name, it’s called a fugue.” (Regarding the Sanctus in Verdi’s Requiem)
On February 2, 1979, Margaret Hillis was interviewed for the John Callaway Interviews program on WTTW:
“Tenors, you wander around in the wilderness, and we don’t have 40 days.”
“Don’t sing in chest voice. Angels don’t have chests.” (Addressing the alto section during a rehearsal for Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust)
“Sopranos, you sound like you’re wearing neckties and they’re too tight.”
“Basses, don’t swim. This is not a pool.”
“Tenors, you’re lying very close to the ladies’ parts, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
Following Hillis’s death in February 1998, WTTW’s Artbeat Chicago dedicated an entire episode to her memory:
“Don’t just sing notes. Notes are not music.”
“‘Piano’ doesn’t mean passive.”
“You’ll see eighth notes in that measure. When you have a chance, look up.”
“Sorry to say, but, sopranos, those triplets are really constipated.”
“The music is not on the page. Only the notes.”
Recorded in December 1978 for WTTW, The Do-It-Yourself Messiah program was first telecast in March 1979:
A very special thanks to our friends at WTTW Chicago—Allison Schein Holmes, director of media archives and Michael McKee, media archives librarian—for the use of these videos from their collections.
This article also appears here.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family joins the Solti family in mourning the loss of Lady Valerie Solti. She died yesterday, March 31, 2021, at home in London. She was eighty-three.
Born in Leeds, England on August 19, 1937, Valerie Pitts studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She was an actress before going to work for television in the 1960s, first at Granada, and later at the BBC, presenting and producing many programs. As a freelance broadcaster and writer, she later contributed to BBC Radio 3, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM, Classic FM Magazine, LBC in the United Kingdom, and WFMT and WTTW in the United States.
In 1964, she was an arts journalist for the BBC magazine program Town and Around when she met Georg Solti, then music director at London’s Royal Opera, Covent Garden. They married on November 11, 1967.
In 1969, Georg Solti became the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s eighth music director. His twenty-two-year tenure was marked by the Orchestra’s first tour to Europe in 1971, dozens of award-winning recordings, and numerous trips to Carnegie Hall. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in March 1972. Following the centennial season, Solti became music director laureate in 1991, continuing his association with the Orchestra during several weeks each year in concerts and recordings until his death on September 5, 1997.
Lady Solti also was a frequent presence onstage, performing as narrator for children’s concerts, as well as hosting the centennial gala concert on October 6, 1990, along with the Orchestra Hall centennial concert on December 14, 2004.
Together with her daughters, Valerie Solti created The Solti Foundation to assist young professional musicians at the start of their careers, and she was founder and chairperson of the Georg Solti Accademia and patron of the World Orchestra for Peace. She was an honorary trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and honorary chair of the Solti Foundation US.
Lady Solti is survived by her daughters Gabrielle (Frederic Dupas) and Claudia (Gary Ross) and grandchildren George, Amelie, Luna, and Mo. Details for services are pending.
Performers for the CSO’s centennial gala on October 6, 1990, included (back row: Kenneth Jean, András Schiff, Lorin Maazel, Gary Lakes Sylvia McNair, Samuel Ramey, (middle row) Daniel Barenboim, Lady Solti, Leonard Slatkin, Yo-Yo Ma, (front row) Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Georg Solti, Suzanne Mentzer, and Murray Perahia. (Jim Steere photo) John Edwards, general manager, greets the Soltis at O’Hare airport in November 1969 (Terry’s photo) The Soltis celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary onstage at Orchestra Hall on November 12, 1992 (Jim Steere photo) Lady Solti is greeted by Tom Hall, retired CSO violinist and president of the CSO Alumni Association, on October 16, 2009 (Dan Rest photo) Lady Solti hosts the CSO’s centennial gala concert on October 6, 1990 (Jim Steere photo) Lady Solti, CSOA President Deborah Rutter, Maggie Daley, and Bob O’Neill rededicate Dame Elizabeth Frink’s bust of Solti in Grant Park on October 5, 2006 Louis Sudler, president of The Orchestral Association, greets the Soltis upon their arrival in Chicago in November 1969 (Terry’s photo) Sir Georg Solti and Lady Solti on tour with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg in September 1978 (Robert M. Lightfoot III photo) The Soltis in Orchestra Hall’s ballroom on March 18, 1969 (Terry’s photo)