Some random orchestrally-themed news that I recommend to you: First, the Detroit Free Press published a wonderfully comprehensive article on the activities of Leonard Slatkin as he prepares to officially take the reins of the Detroit Symphony this Fall. Next, the Orange County Register reports on the first appearance in Los Angeles of Gustavo Dudamel
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Caught this article on Yahoo about the recent (and very small) expansion in the recording activities of some US orchestras. Here’s the first couple paragraphs: NEW YORK (Billboard) – Not long ago, American orchestras considered the notion of creating new recordings an almost impossible dream. Among the hurdles: longstanding union regulations that made the process
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The chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians is Bruce Ridge. He’s been a tireless representative of the vast majority of professional orchestra musicians in the US, and his analysis is thoughtful and worth considering. I present it here for your consideration. In recent days, there has been a great deal of
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I’m convinced that there is no harder test of one’s orchestral mettle than playing a Beethoven symphony – especially the Symphony No. 2. What a pain (literally – there are next to no rests for the violas, and we’re busy all the time, scrubbing away or doing something that requires just the wrong combination of
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Composer Daniel Ott Friend and composer Daniel Ott, whose new work for string quartet, solo violin, and piano (á la Chausson) entitled Blue Water is being given its world premiere at the venerable Bargemusic concerts in New York City this weekend, deserves a shout-out from this blog. Way to go, Dan!
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I just perused a recent article about the Florida Orchestra and some highly-publicized comments from subscribers about the contemporary programming that is being done by music director Stefan Sanderling. I understand that some patrons don’t care for hearing anything written after 1870 or so. Fine. But why do they complain so about hearing something new
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Just a sample of a typcial week in the life of a symphonic musician: Monday: 9:30 – 12:00 – OSO rehearsal for CL 11 @ ASCH 1:30 – 3:00 – Arnica Quartet rehearsal Tuesday: practice, run errands, clean, excercise Wednesday: 11:00 – 11:45 – Arnica Quartet sound check 12:00 – 12:45 – Arnica Quartet concert
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P1050021 | Originally uploaded by dawnvla click photo to enlarge New York Philharmonic violist Dawn Hannay kept a blog of her tour of North Korea. You can find it here, along with photos here. UPDATE: link to Dawn’s blog fixed. P1050021 | Originally uploaded by dawnvla click photo to enlarge Thanks to MH for the
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The Saint Louis Symphony has joined a growing number of U.S. orchestras that are releasing content for download over the internet. The first release is a live recording of John Adams’ Harmonielehre, a massive 50 minute work which thrust the composer out of the world of minimalism and into his current eclectic mix of new
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Yesterday my quartet (the Arnica Quartet) played an early Mozart quartet (the G major, K. 157) and the great second string quartet of Leos Janacek, subtitled Intimate Letters. The concert was on a series presented by the OHSU Foundation, and took place in the acoustically and visually lovely OHSU Auditorium up on Marquam Hill. The
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We here at the OSO seem to the welcoming committee for conductors who are making their first forays into the North American market this year. Earlier this month we welcomed Pietari Inkinen of Finland, who was in his second week of being in America (after a week in Cincinnati). This week we welcomed a visitor
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Sorry for the sluggish (if at all) loading of the site today. My ISP hosting service has been having problems with the server cluster on which resides which holds my server. Hopefully it will get better as the evening goes on. Thanks for your patience.
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G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times British composer phenom Thomas Adés (age 37) is presenting a concert of his music at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group on Friday, March 29th. The New York Times’ Vivien Schweitzer writes this article about his background and ethos in today’s edition of the paper.
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Bass blogger and Major Midwest Orchestra member Michael Hovnanian writes about a Good Friday gig gone wrong – horribly wrong. Now, no one was physically hurt during this gig, but I’m sure the mental scars will last quite some time.
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Robert Levine has been burning the midnight oil analyzing the recent Flanagan report [available here] and musing about the best method of determining the future of a given orchestra. Highly recommended reading. – Baumol was wrong – First take on Flanagan, Part I
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