Of course, it’s in China.
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Monthly Archives: January 2010
flutist makes impression in pittsburgh
If you came to tonight’s Oregon Symphony concert (and given the modest numbers in attendance, you most likely did not), you might have noticed that our principal flutist, David Buck, was not on stage. (He was capably covered for by assistant principal flutist Alicia DiDonato Paulsen in many solo turns in the Rossini.) It turns out that David was playing a series of concerts with the Pittsburgh Symphony as a guest principal this weekend. It’s a tremendous honor, Pittsburgh is one of the big, major orchestras, and like the OSO is also led by an Austrian conductor, Manfred Honeck.
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The woodwinds throughout provided nuances that blended well, especially the solos of guest principal flutist David Buch [sic], of the Oregon Symphony.
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From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
The surprise was the impressive guest principal flute David Buck. He’s principal flute of the Oregon Symphony.
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violetta
You may recall a year or so ago I posted an entry about the new Park Block that was being planned at SW Park and Taylor in downtown Portland. Included in the plan was a small, glass-enclosed restaurant space that had a lessee in place – and they planned to call the restaurant “Viola”. Being a violist, that caught my eye, and even joked that violists might get a discount at happy hour or something like that. Well, just days before the owner (owner of the now-defunct Roux, Dwayne Beliakoff) were to take over the space, there was an explosion and fire, and the plans had to be put on hold. Today, happily, I discovered that there was a contingency plan: a mobile food truck that serves a scaled-down version of the eventual full menu to be available at the bricks-and-mortar location. I had a great burger and fries, made fresh to order from only the finest local purveyors. You might check it out next time you’re downtown, they’ll mostly be open at the lunch hour to start, eventually staying open later as different events take place around the park block.
viola fanfare (but hardly common)
Violist Sam Bergman, of the Minnesota Orchestra (and fellow BBB – Bratsche Blogging Brother) made this arrangement of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man for a Minnesota Orchestra function. I kind of like it – it might be something we should do here in Oregon…
bands, labels, youtube, etc
I just caught this on a feed that I regularly watch. It’s an open letter from the lead singer of the band OK Go to the band’s fans explaining why they cannot embed the band’s YouTube videos on their blogs or websites. It shows how slow the industry (major record labels) is to respond to the changing nature of the online marketplace. Everyone is looking to recoup their costs, and it’s hard to do when your content is floating around in the wilds of the internet. It’s an interesting situation, because if you replace the band with Orchestral Association and the label with Musicians Union, you get an idea of why it’s so hard for recordings (either as physical product or as a streamed or downloaded file) to be made in the US these days. I’m not assigning blame, just pointing out that the rules that worked so well for decades are starting to hurt us more than help us. I wonder how long it will take for the necessary changes to take place. Continue reading