As the old saw goes, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. [for info on the origination of this quote, click here] This is partly true, though I think writing about music, at its best, is often very revealing, and that dancing about architecture could be pretty illuminating, too. Perhaps one day PDX architecture
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You can see his picks on his blog The Rest Is Noise by clicking here.
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Michael Kaiser, President of the Kennedy Center in D.C., is a regular contributor to the online left-leaning news site The Huffington Post. Turns out his most recent column concerned a certain Portland-based orchestra that has run some recent surpluses – click here for his take on the recent successes of the Oregon Symphony.
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I love Brahms. There are no two ways about it – I unapologetically adore listening to and performing the music of Brahms. I love practicing Brahms – because to be able to bring off a good performance of Brahms, one must be aware of the fact that Brahms is as much about what he doesn’t
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There’s a new arts blog in town, and it is definitely one that you’ll want to add to your news reader. Oregon Arts Watch features journalistic heavyweights Barry Johnson (editor), Brett Campbell (music), Lisa Radon (visual arts), and Brian Libby (arts). Take a look around their offerings here.
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From Alex’s blog today: Spring for Music, which Tony Tommasini discussed in last Sunday’s New York Times, begins on Friday. Tickets are at most $25; WQXR will broadcast all the concerts live. I’m particularly looking forward to the Oregon Symphony’s war-torn program of Ives’s Unanswered Question, John Adams’s The Wound-Dresser (with the great Sanford Sylvan),
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My new toy, a little mini HD handheld digital video recorder, arrived in the mail today. This means that I can finally do some video posts on the blog! This is where your help comes in. Send me (either via the ‘contact me’ tab above, or in the comments section below) your suggestions of
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Oregon Symphony principal second violin Chien Tan has launched a beautiful new blog recently, and it features an interview with an upcoming OSO soloist, violinist James Ehnes. I strongly encourage you to add Chien’s blog – Play-Violin.com – to your reading list!
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Just read a great paragraph on why having all ages and levels of experience in an orchestra is so important, and why being ignorant of this is simply to be stupid: Like fibers of a rope, not a single one of which runs the entire length, the overlapping career spans of musicians carry on the
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Yes, it’s finally happened – I’ve joined the illustrious list of musicians interviewed by the Classical Beaver! Read the 10 Questions post here.
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Chris Perry, who retired from the Oregon Symphony percussion section at the end of last season, sounds like she’s having an amazing time in Rio de Janeiro. Here’s an excerpt from her first blog post in mid-September 2010: I am just getting settled in my new apartment in Rio – it’s on Rua da Passagem, just
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Violinist Hilary Hahn writes about her Portland debut with the Oregon Symphony on her blog. She’s a class act. The violinist she refers to in the post is OSO violinist Inés Voglar.
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The Mouth of the Beast writes The Value of Regional Orchestras: Teachout’s argument makes me sad. I appreciate the local orchestras I’ve patronized throughout my life for both tangible and less tangible reasons. I find listening to music–just listening–very hard. A live orchestra provides a visual accompaniment to the music. It’s for this reason that
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Sam Bergman has a great post (he describes it as a rant) about the numerous self-styled experts and their prescriptions for what they think ails the modern symphony experience. Here’s his opening description of the various points of view: Basically, to hear the self-styled experts tell it, orchestras are utterly doomed to eventual extinction (or
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Now, before you jump to the conclusion that this post is about some classical music blog that will be zapped by your safe-surf software, be assured, The Classical Beaver is quite simply a highly-entertaining and informative blog written by a very enthusiastic Oregon Symphony audience member. It’s well worth adding to your blogging routine –
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