Now you can attend last year’s festival on DVD
If you missed last year’s Newport Music Festival, not to worry. Acorn Media has just released a set of 10 DVDs featuring many of the best concerts from the 2007 season, along with commentary from festival director Mark Malkovich.
Highlights include the Newport debut of then 20-year-old pianist Adam Golka, a program of piano selections for eight hands, an appearance by the dazzling organist Hector Olivera, and an evening with pianist John Bayless, who spins out improvisations based on suggestions from audience members.
Acorn, based in Silver Spring, Md., put up the money for the project and is handling distribution, but the series was produced and directed by Larry Kraman, whose Newport-based Newport Classic is out with a couple of new releases.
Kraman said he turned to Acorn to distribute the DVDs of the festival because it is “almost impossible for a small company to get into stores in a significant way. I’m the distributor of last resort,” he said.
In addition to the Newport Festival series, Newport Classic has just come out with a DVD of Carlisle Floyd’s Willie Stark, the 1980 opera based on the Robert Penn Warren novel All the King’s Men. Kraman is also the director on that project, his first time in that position.
The disc features baritone Dennis Jesse and students from the Louisiana State University opera department, which Kraman called a “sophisticated program, not amateur night in Dixie.”
When LSU sought out Kraman to record Willie Stark, he suggested the DVD format, thinking it would be easier to market than another opera CD. The school agreed, but never asked who was going to direct the taping.
Kraman had just finished producing a DVD of PDQ Bach and decided he would try his hand at directing.
“I figured you take the glassy side of the camera and point it at the person who’s singing,” said Kraman. “I was ignorant enough to think I could do it.”
Actually, Kraman got some coaching from fellow Newporter Roger Englander, a pioneer in directing concerts and cultural programs for television. He oversaw the filming of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts in the 1960s.
“It was like video 101,” said Kraman. “Roger said make sure you see the whole stage before going anywhere, because people will get confused and have a hard time getting their bearings. We talked about it for three days, and he was available by phone while I was taping.”
Willie Stark aired last month on Louisiana public television, which is trying to get other stations interested in showing the opera.
“It’s a melodic opera in high-definition, and filmed in a modern way so it looks more like Law & Order than some stuffy thing,” said Kraman.
Kraman was so pleased with Willie Stark that he approached Newport Festival director Malkovich about shooting last year’s festival. Kraman plans to be back in Newport this month, but instead of shooting just concerts, he also plans to single out a musician or two and follow them around to make videos that are more akin to a documentary.
He also working on a documentary of George Li, a 12-year-old pianist from Lexington, Mass., whom Kraman discovered on YouTube. Visitors to the Web site can watch a pint-sized Li performing on the Martha Stewart television show and on From the Top, which is broadcast from Carnegie Hall.
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