by Charles Noble on March 16, 2010 · 1 comment
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 – [...]
by Charles Noble on January 3, 2010
Happy New Year everyone! Now that the millennium is almost in its teen years, it’s time to start looking to the future, and the future of music is nowhere more evident than in the ranks of our nation’s youth orchestras. Right here in Portland we have the nation’s oldest youth orchestra, the Portland Youth Philharmonic. [...]
by Charles Noble on December 27, 2009
Hi all! Hope you had a great holiday weekend (ok, Christmas weekend, Bill O’Reilly!). I’ve been asked to write a guest blog post for the Portland Youth Philharmonic’s website, and my query is for my fellow professional musicians. I’m cooking up a list of things that I know now that I wish I’d known when [...]
by Charles Noble on December 8, 2009
Fellow classical music blogger A.C. Douglas (Sounds & Fury is his blog) has taken delivery of his first (4lb!) order of Badbeard’s Symphony! Blend coffee ($2 from every pound you order goes directly to the Oregon Symphony) and the results are in: he likes it!
Read it all here.
by Charles Noble on December 5, 2009
Oregon Symphony Resident conductor Gregory Vajda conducts a recording of music by his mentor, the composer/conductor Péter Eötvös, entitled As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams. The recording is one of three nominated for the prestigious 2010 MIDEM Classical Award.
Conductor Leonard Slatkin has a compelling essay up on his website detailing his experience of having [...]
I just invested in a premium theme called Thesis for this blog, which I think results in a much cleaner, more usable and more readable site. It also allows for nearly infinite customization without needing to get really into the coding of the site. I hope you enjoy it!
by Charles Noble on September 10, 2009
If you live in or around Pierce County, Washington, you might want to add Pierce County Classical Music to your list of must-read blogs. The blogger, John Falskow, is hoping to provide a one stop, comprehensive list of all classical music activities taking place in Pierce County. I’m sure he’d appreciate some heads-up on upcoming [...]
by Charles Noble on June 23, 2009
Conductor Bill Eddins has a great post on the issues facing orchestras in the face of massive shrinkage of their endowment principal and subsequent attempts to adapt to what many are referring to has “the new normal”. Here are two paragraphs that I found particularly interesting:
by Charles Noble on June 17, 2009
Via Chantal, Universal Edition has a great website up pertaining to all things Mahler. Check it out!
by Charles Noble on June 2, 2009
Not necessarily on-topic for this blog, but I thought I’d pass it on anyway. There is a great new new/opinion blog up that you should check out, called The Stimulist. Written by Carlos Watson, who is a news host on MSNBC, it’s billed as a “snark-free news and information site”. I like it a lot [...]
Here’s a post that will be of interest both to the casual observer and also the musician who is on the audition circuit. It concerns the “no result” audition – when an audition is held but no one is hired. It’s a very bad situation to be in as an auditioner (especially when you’ve gotten [...]
by Charles Noble on March 25, 2009
The seemingly tireless Zach Carstensen of The Gathering Note posted videos and commentary from our concert last weekend in Seattle. Swing by and take a look, and be sure to look around the rest of the site – Zach has put together a team of some of the best arts writers in the Northwest to [...]
by Charles Noble on January 27, 2009
Jun Iwasaki
Photo: Absolute Images
Be sure to check out James Bash’s excellent blog for an interview with OSO concertmaster Jun Iwasaki.
Did you know that Jun first started on the cello? I didn’t!
by Charles Noble on December 18, 2008 · 1 comment
UPDATE: Sam Bergman weighs in with his take on the situation, along with some helpful facts to clear up some misconceptions about the hiring of conductors. He also notes that the NY Phil did not attempt (it seems) to muzzle one of its musicians breaking silence on his blog – which, for me as a [...]