This weekend, the Oregon Symphony is performing the early (op. 15) First Piano Concerto of Johannes Brahms with the great pianist Jon Kimura Parker. It’s long been one of my favorite pieces, a stormy, hyper-emotional, post-adolescent expression of the 25 year old Brahms. I only own one recording of this particular concerto, and to my
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I’m hoping that on Wednesday this weekend I’ll have a full review up for a wonderful, gorgeous CD of new music for viola. The disc is published by ECM New Series, and is entitled Neharót, and it features that miraculous violist Kim Kashkashian playing music of Betty Olivero, Tigran Mansurian, and Eitan Steinberg. What I’ve
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This afternoon we had an Oregon Symphony ‘family meeting’. All the members of the orchestra and staff, along with our board president met to get a report on how the symphony is doing, and what the plan of attack was to be for the coming years. It was a good meeting. There were some sobering
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Local new music ensemble Third Angle now has an app available (via InstantEncore.com) on the iTunes App Store. It works on either the iPhone or iPod Touch. You can get it here (link opens in iTunes).
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I received the sad news that our beloved former stage manager, Bob McClung, passed away Saturday. He died from complications due to cancer. I hope to post an obituary and biography early this week.
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What an assemblage of talent we’ve got onstage with us this week for the opening night gala of the Oregon Symphony! Chris Thile is a wonderful mandolin virtuoso, and he gives his own Concerto for Mandolin a great performance, but for my money, the trio of banjo player Bela Fleck, bassist Edgar Meyer, and tabla
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This Sunday, September 27th, at 2:30 p.m., the Chagall Quartet will be playing as part of the Salem concert series Camerata Musica at the Salem Library auditorium. The group’s members are Adam Lamotte and Gregory Ewer, violins; myself on viola; and Justin Kagan, cellist. It will be a delightful classical period concert – here’s the
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In a change of pace from recent posts, here’s a recent photo of some latte art that I’ve done. Doing a different kind of rosette these days, and getting a bit better at it… Oh, and I recently completed my first half-century (50 mile) ride last weekend. Not much time to ride this week, but
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David Stabler has a wish list for what he hopes will transpire with the Oregon Symphony in the next few years. I must say, I couldn’t agree more with his selections! (My only alteration would be a different Mahler symphony: either 3 or 6 are on my wish list for repertoire). Here are my own
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There was an orchestral audition that took place this weekend at the local opera company. It was an audition for nine violin positions. There were twelve applicants. Of these twelve, two were advanced out of the preliminary round to the finals. It isn’t clear if anyone was offered a position at the time this was
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An interesting article from David Patrick Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer concerning composer Jennifer Higdon and her take on the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. ‘Gutsy writing . . . inventive use of color . . . unusual instruments . . . still pretty unique.” Those musical descriptions from Philadelphia composer Jennifer
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As promised – enjoy! Philadelphia’s search for a new executive director hits the one-year mark. Washington Post critic doesn’t care for Alan Gilbert’s debut in NYC. Canada gets its broadcast orchestra back. Christoph Eschenbach is a workaholic. Charlotte Symphony gets two $1 million donations in one day. Honolulu Symphony gets local grown CEO. Charlotte Symphony
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Alondra de la Parra – Photo: Courtney Perry The Daily Beast has an article about the current crop of young conductors who are either making it big or, in their opinion, are about to (the headline screams: Young Rock Stars of the Conducting World”). Some of these conductors have been here in Oregon, and with
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There’s been a dearth of activity here at Daily Obs, and that is accounted for by a few things. First of all, we’re in the middle of a 10-day period where there’s not symphony services due to the vagaries of scheduling. In addition, I’m working on designing the brochure for Fear No Music’s upcoming season,
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You’ve got to give Bill Donohue credit – he got a lot of people’s attention with his article on the Oregon Symphony and its music director Carlos Kalmar in the September issue. It’s gotten to the point where other media outlets are starting to examine some of the issues that Bill elaborated on in his
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