9 Apr 2024

Upcoming Minnesota Orchestra season to celebrate Nordic composers, 50 years of Orchestra Hall

by admin | posted in: News | 0

The newly announced Minnesota Orchestra 2024-25 season includes a two-week festival spotlighting Nordic composers and culture, the return of the Composer Institute and a series of events commemorating 50 years at Orchestra Hall.

Ticket packages of three or more concerts are on sale now at minnesotaorchestra.org or by calling 612-371-5642. Single tickets will be available on July 29.

Highlights of the upcoming season include:

Now in his second season as music director, Thomas Sondergard will begin the season in September with two weeks of concerts that include three new-to-the-orchestra works by Andrea Tarrodi and Thomas Ades. The season wraps in June 2025 with a dance-inspired program with music from Carlos Simon, Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Sondergard, who is Danish, will bring the inaugural Nordic Soundscapes festival to Orchestra Hall in January. It includes two weeks of programming showcasing the contributions of historic and contemporary composers from Nordic nations.

The season will spotlight a diverse collection of contemporary composers, older works that have been historically obscured and pieces that have not been performed by the ensemble in decades.

Alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, Sondergard will relaunch the Composer Institute, a residency program for emerging composers that culminates in a public concert on April 25, 2025.

The Live at Orchestra Hall series includes concerts dedicated to the music of John Williams, John Denver, the Beatles and a fusion of Brahms and Radiohead. The orchestra will also provide live accompaniment to the films “Star Wars,” “Hocus Pocus,” “Elf,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” and “Back to the Future.”

Season guests include violinists James Ehnes and Isabelle Faust, pianists Ingrid Fliter and Alice Sara Ott and newcomers Yunchan Lim, Bruce Liu and Randall Goosby. Seven Minnesota Orchestra musicians will perform as soloists.

In concerts on Nov. 22 and Nov. 23, Sondergard will lead performances of Mozart’s Requiem with the orchestra, the Minnesota Chorale and a collection of vocalists, including three-time Grammy Award-winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton and two Minnesota natives: mezzo-soprano Alma Neuhaus and tenor Jack Swanson. On May 1 and May 3, the orchestra will offer its first complete performance of Puccini’s Turandot since 1985 with vocalists Christine Goerke, Adolfo Corrado and Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha.

The first concert at Orchestra Hall took place in October 1974 and the fall programming will have several events to celebrate, with specific activities to be announced at a later date. The season will also feature selections that were performed during the 1974-75 season, including Maurice Ravel’s Valse Nobles et Sentimentales and a version of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

For more information, see minnesotaorchestra.org.

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9 Apr 2024

UConn concludes a dominant run to its 2nd straight NCAA title, beating Zach Edey and Purdue 75-60

by admin | posted in: News | 0

By EDDIE PELLS (AP National Writer)

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — A basketball beatdown. A coaching clinic. A double-digit domination.

Take one guess who finished off a romp through college basketball again. You bet, it’s UConn — a team built to win now, and often, and by a lot every time it takes the court.

Coach Dan Hurley’s Huskies delivered the latest of their suffocating hoops performances Monday night, smothering Purdue for a 75-60 victory to become the first team since 2007 to capture back-to-back national championships.

Tristen Newton scored 20 points for the Huskies, who won their 12th straight March Madness game — not a single one of them decided by fewer than 13 points.

UConn was efficient on offense but won this with defense. The Huskies (37-3) limited the country’s second-best 3-point shooting team to a mere seven shots behind the arc and only a single make, while happily allowing 7-foot-4 AP Player of the Year Zach Edey to go for 37 points on 25 shot attempts.

UConn won its sixth overall title and joined the 2006-07 Florida Gators and the 1991-92 Duke Blue Devils as just the third team to repeat since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty of the 1960s and ’70s.

“I just think it’s the best two-year run in a very, very long time, just because of everything we lost from last year’s team,” said Hurley, whose top two scorers from last year now play in the NBA. “To lose that much and do it again, it’s got to be as impressive a two-year run since at least prior to Duke.”

The 2024 Huskies are the sixth team to win all six tournament games by double-digit margins. They won those games by a grand total of 140 points, blowing past the 1996 Kentucky team, which won its six by 129.

In a matchup of two top seeds, they wore down the Boilermakers (34-5), who made it this far a year after becoming just the second No. 1 in the history of March Madness to fall in the first round. But Purdue left the same way it came — still looking for the program’s first NCAA title.

So much for the free-for-all this new age of the transfer portal and name, image and likeness deals was supposed to become. UConn has figured out how to dominate and replenish its roster with players who understand their roles.

Cam Spencer, a transfer from Rutgers, Stephon Castle, a blue-chip freshman, and Alex Karaban, a sophomore from last year’s team, spent the night guarding the 3-point line and making life miserable for Purdue’s guards.

“They just made a decision — we can defend the perimeter, and we can take this away from you, you’re going to get the ball to your best player, he’ll be 1-on-1, and that’s that,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said.

This was only the second time this season Purdue didn’t put up 10 3-point attempts, and how ’bout this final score: Edey 37, the rest of the Boilermakers 23.

How serious was Hurley about defending the perimeter? When Braden Smith wiggled loose for a semi-open look to make Purdue’s first 3 of the game with 2:17 left in the first half, the coach bolted onto the floor and called timeout.

And that was that from behind the arc.

“Coaches made a point that we’d be really locked in if we controlled their 3-point attempts,” Spencer said. “Holding them to seven shows we were locked in on making sure their guards didn’t get involved in the game.”

With his Xs-and-Os masterpiece, Hurley joins former Florida coach Billy Donovan in the back-to-back club, and is in company with Bill Self and Rick Pitino as only the third active coach with two championships. News broke over the weekend that it appears there’s a job opening at Kentucky, and the UConn coach’s name has come up there.

“I don’t think that’s a concern,” Hurley said. “My wife, you should have her answer that.”

No way the Huskies would want to lose him.

Hurley earned every penny in this one. In the first half, he begged with, swore at and generally berated the refs about over-the-backs, elbows and hip checks that weren’t called.

Once, when that didn’t work after Edey set a hard (and probably legal) pick against Castle, Hurley started in on Edey himself as the center walked toward the Purdue bench for a timeout.

But the coach’s best work came in whatever hotel room he used to draw up the game plan.

“The whole game plan was no Smith, no Loyer, no Jones, no Gillis,” Hurley said, as he ticked off the last names of the Purdue guards. “We knew if we keep them below 18, 20 points as a group, and they had no chance to win, no matter how well Zach played.”

It’s no slight on Edey, who battled gamely, finishing with 10 rebounds to record his 30th double-double of the season. But this game proved the number crunchers and analytics experts right. UConn let Edey back in and back down all night on 7-2 Donovan Clingan, giving up difficult 2s in the post in exchange for any 3s.

“They only doubled late in the second half, but by that point we had dug ourselves too deep of a hole,” Fletcher Loyer said.

The defensive dominance put the finishing touch on a tournament in which UConn’s average margin of victory was 23.3 points. Sure, Hurley might have to replace two or three of these players, but the coach said he’ll worry about that in a week or two.

“Obviously, what can you say?” he said. “We won — by a lot — again.”

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9 Apr 2024

David French: Israel is making the same mistake America made in Iraq

by admin | posted in: Politics | 0

As the war in the Gaza Strip reaches its six-month mark, I’m getting a disturbing sense of déjà vu. Israel is facing many of the same challenges that the United States faced in Iraq, and it is making many of the same mistakes.

When I read my colleagues Aaron Boxerman and Iyad Abuheweila’s outstanding report last week about Israel’s recent fight to take Shifa hospital after raiding it last year, this sentence caught my attention: “But as the war ground on, Israeli forces closed in on the hospital again in mid-March in an attempt to root out what they said was a renewed insurgency by Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza.”

Think of those words: “renewed insurgency.” That means Israel was doing exactly what we did for much of the Iraq War — fighting again over ground we had presumably already seized. And the sad reality of those terrible battles reminded me of a seemingly counterintuitive truth: In the fight against terrorists, providing humanitarian aid isn’t just a moral imperative; it’s a military necessity.

The terrible civilian toll and looming famine in Gaza are a human tragedy that should grieve us all; they are also directly relevant to the outcome of the war. A modern army like Israel’s can absolutely defeat Hamas in a direct confrontation, regardless of whether it provides aid to civilians. But as we’ve learned in our own wars abroad, it cannot preserve its victory unless it meets Palestinians’ most basic needs.

So far most international attention has focused on Israel’s conduct at the tip of the spear. The question that dominates the discourse is whether Israel’s behavior as it battles Hamas complies with the laws of war and Israel’s own moral standards. That is a vital question — one worth answering in full when the fog of war clears — but the war may well be decided after the first phase of combat, when Israel faces a different set of legal and moral obligations, the obligations of an occupying power.

I want to be very precise and clear here. By “occupying power,” I do not mean that Israel should permanently conquer (much less settle) Gaza territory. I’m referring to the technical legal status of an invading army once it attains control of an invaded region. Think of the laws of war as operating in phases, with Phase 1 regulating the combat operations of the initial attack and Phase 2 regulating the way in which an attacking force governs the territory it controls — before the transition to permanent civilian control.

Decisive and effective military action can inflict immense losses on your enemies, but the initial strikes and even the initial invasion don’t just inflict losses; they create a vacuum. Hamas wasn’t just the dominant military force in Gaza; it was also the government. Removing Hamas from power can mean something very much like de-Baathification in Iraq. It destroys the civil service and removes the means of maintaining civil order.

Unless the same military that creates the vacuum fills that vacuum, either with its own effective administration or an allied administration, then the enemy maintains an opening. It has hope. That’s why words such as “renewed insurgency” or “infiltrated back to the north” are so ominous. They’re a sign that the vacuum has not been filled, and there is room for Hamas to revive.

But that vacuum has to be filled in a very specific way — with an eye toward the safety and security of the civilian population. It’s not simply a matter of control. It’s also a matter of justice and sustenance. The U.S. military’s Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare, for example, is very clear: If the United States is the occupying power, it must provide food and clean water. It must provide law and order. It cannot leave the civilian population to fend for itself.

In fact, that was the central failure of the first phase of the Iraq War. Our forces — much like the Israeli military — proved remarkably lethal and effective in urban combat. But we were ineffective in maintaining civil society or the rule of law. Iraqis’ hunger and thirst didn’t make the news as much as the plight of the people of Gaza does today. They did experience anarchy, though, and that anarchy almost cost America the war. We went for the quick win, and we ended up embroiled in one of our longest conflicts.

Even worse, that anarchy may well have represented our most consequential violation of the laws of war during the entire conflict. While mistaken strikes, tragic accidents and scandals such as the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib marred the U.S. military effort, our combat operations as a whole were precise, targeted and often exceeded the requirements of the law of armed conflict.

Our initial occupation, however, was a disaster, and that disaster didn’t just lay the groundwork for the years of war that followed; it also represented a failure to uphold our legal obligations to the people who were temporarily under our jurisdiction and control.

The U.S. military turned the tide during the surge by adopting a fundamentally different approach. Our mantra was “protect the population.” When we engaged in offensive operations, we didn’t strike and immediately move, we struck and stayed. We made sure that families were safe, that food supplies were secure and that markets could reopen. We put ourselves in the middle of cities and towns and rural communities until we were certain there was no power vacuum left to be filled. It was hard, dangerous and slow, but it worked.

To discuss the obligations of an occupying power, however, is to bring up an aspect of the war in Gaza that no one wants to embrace. On the American right, too many people labor under the delusion that the war can and should be deadly, decisive and fast. Speaking to Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Donald Trump complained that Israel is “losing the PR war.” And what was his solution? Israel has “got to finish what they started, and they’ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.”

The Republicans cheering this kind of talk are signaling that they’ve learned nothing. “Finish this fast,” and you don’t finish it at all. You leave behind bodies, you create mountains of rubble, and your enemy rejoices. All you’ve done with this “quick” victory is demonstrate to the local population both a lack of regard for their lives and a lack of will to truly defeat your foe. Hamas will crawl out of its tunnels and rule Gaza yet again.

To even begin to discuss the obligations of occupation is to raise an entirely different set of objections. Isn’t occupation the source of the conflict? Won’t direct Israeli control only serve to inflame the wounds that caused the conflict in the first place? But there is a difference between a power that complies with the law of war through temporary provision of humanitarian assistance and civil authority, and a power that defies the law of war through conquest and settlement.

That’s why the Biden administration’s approach thus far is far superior to Trump’s. The latter approach, which emphasizes a fast fight and quick conclusion, is actually deeply harmful. It’s a formula for immense human suffering and eventual military defeat. Although I have some qualms with the details of the Biden administration’s approach, its directional thrust — providing military aid while exerting relentless pressure for increased humanitarian efforts — is superior. It’s much closer to matching the military, legal and moral needs of the moment.

In fact, Biden’s approach is getting results. After he reportedly threatened to condition future military aid on concrete Israeli steps to aid Palestinian civilians, Israel reopened a vital border crossing. That’s the path forward. Aid civilians as much as possible while also giving Israel the weapons it needs to prevail against Hamas and deter a full-scale shooting war with Hezbollah and Iran.

Six months into the war, we cannot forget its immediate cause. Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians means that Israel possesses both the legal right and moral obligation to its own people to end Hamas’ rule and destroy its effectiveness as a fighting force. Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages and reportedly rejected a proposal as far back as February for a second cease-fire and release of hostages.

The moral urgency of destroying Hamas remains, but it is a profound mistake to think that defeating it in battle is at odds with the legal and moral obligation of a large-scale humanitarian effort to feed and protect the civilians of Gaza. In fact, the two goals are inextricably linked. Fail at either one, and Israel may ultimately face its most consequential defeat.

David French writes a column for the New York Times.

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9 Apr 2024

Shohei Ohtani puts on a show to lead Dodgers past Twins

by admin | posted in: News | 0

The mystique of Shohei Ohtani has a way of striking fear into the heart of his opponents. He has a larger than life presence that feels almost superhuman in comparison his peers. It feels like something special is imminent every time he steps to the plate.

That’s why more than 15,000 people showed up to Target Field on Monday night despite overcast skies and the temperature sitting below 50 degrees at first pitch.

Naturally, Ohtani lived up to the hype, putting on a show for everybody in attendance by going 3 for 5 with a solo home run to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 4-2 win over the Twins. It was the type of performance the Japanese superstar has been known to deliver throughout his career.

Maybe the most impressive thing was the fact that the impact of Ohtani spanned beyond the batter’s box. He even managed to make an impact from the on deck circle as he chased starter Bailey Ober simply by existing.

Never mind that Ober was was in complete control only having thrown thrown 68 pitches while stifling a lethal lineup on the other end. He battled through a shaky start that featured him serving up up a fastball to Ohtani that left the bat with a exit velocity of 110 mph, followed by a fastball to Freddie Freeman that might’ve been a moonshot in the middle of the summer.

After working his way out of the jam relatively unscathed, however, Ober slowly started to settle in, and his excellence on the mound actually had the Twins in position for the win. It still wasn’t enough to convince Baldelli to let Ober face Ohtani for a third time.

In a move that wound up defining the game, Baldelli made the conscious decision to lift Ober in favor of reliever Steven Okert. Fittingly, Ohtani blooped a double to left field on the first pitch he saw from Okert. He came around to score the tying run a couple of batters later.

That was the beginning of the end of the Twins as the bullpen struggled to contain the Dodgers with reliever Jay Jackson gave up a solo home run to center fielder Jake Outman before Ohtani put the finishing touches on the win with a solo home run of his own.

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