Tag Archives: orchestra

the view from here

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As promised (but a bit late) here are the photos that show how different my positions on stage are during this weekend’s concerts.  Here is where I normally am (and where I spend the first half of the concert)

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[click photo to enlarge]

You can see our stand on the left side of the frame, the concertmaster’s stand right in the center, and the conductor’s stand (made of fancy wood) on the right side of the frame.

Now here’s where I sit for the Dutilleux Symphony No. 2:

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[click photo to enlarge]

Can’t really see the concertmaster from here, since there are several soloists between me and that stand during the performance.  I can see the wind and brass sections, however.  It’s not too helpful to me, though.

Finally, here’s how the viola section is chopped in half by the solo timpani, which is left in place to make a shorter stage change between the Dutilleux and the Berlioz that closes the program:

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See those lonely four chairs in the very back – that’s the unfortunate back half of the viola section, or as we call them for this piece, the Second Violas.  Makes life tricky as there are a lot of intricate and fast runs that need to be together with the rest of the strings, not to mention the rest of the violas.

So there you have it, a short illustrated guide to the viola section in flux during this concert run.

reentry

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The reentry into life after an audition is often a difficult period of transition.  One has been so focused upon a goal – often for several months on end – and then in the time it takes the personnel manager to say “thank you” it’s all over.  You gather up your stuff and head out of the hall into the real world again, and your brain struggles to catch up to the circumstances.  There is a brief period of just treating yourself to some drinks and a nice meal as a consolation prize, maybe meeting up with friends to distract yourself from what just transpired.  But on the flight home, and those first several days after returning, are when the critical voices start to make themselves heard.  Did I practice properly?  Did I practice enough? Did I play for the right people?  Should I have taken a lesson with someone, or should I have not taken that lesson?  Was I cocky? Did I peak early?  Should I have taken beta blockers, or shouldn’t I have? Am I good enough to win anything? Am I too old? These are among the myriad thoughts that can rob one of sleep even when at one’s most exhausted state. Continue reading →

the hidden costs

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There have been a lot of stories in the news lately about the new concessionary contracts at orchestras across the US.  They’ve been arrived at as orchestras have been desperately trying to weather the virtually unprecedented recession in the wake of the meltdown of the credit markets.  There’s a hidden set of costs that you almost never hear about – cuts to the numbers, pay, and benefits of the staff members of these same orchestras.  The staff members don’t have a union to represent their interests, for better or worse, and their jobs and pay are in a more precarious state than those of the musicians, for the most part.  In many cases, their benefits package loosely matches what the musicians get, but there isn’t any hard and fast rule about this – usually it’s done as a courtesy to the staff.  In some situations, the musicians get a better insurance package, free parking, and other perks that the staff can only dream of.  They’re all working very hard on our behalf, and we’re all in this together, I wish that my musician colleagues would remember that the “other side” are human beings with families, too.

kalmar and grant park do mahler 9

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The OSO’s music director Carlos Kalmar has demonstrated an affinity for the music of Gustav Mahler throughout his tenure with the orchestra, usually opening or closing a season with a major work of the Austrian composer.  This year, at his other gig, Kalmar began the home stretch of the season of the Grant Park Music Festival with Mahler’s sprawling Ninth Symphony.  It went over very well with at least one Chicago critic (Andrew Patner):

From the first muted and rocking sounds of the opening Andante comodo (comfortably flowing) movement through the heartrending slipping away into the softest sounds of the closing Adagio, 80 minutes later, Kalmar demonstrated an understanding of this piece, and especially its structure, its pacing, and its inner pulse, that one normally associates with conductors with decades more experience than the 51-year-old Uruguayan-Austrian maestro. And the orchestra — in a work that demands lengthy passages of great cohesion and then turns to expose individual sections and players for minutes at a time — it is no left-handed compliment to say that it has not a weak link in it today. Throughout, the audience sat in rapt attention recognizing that we were observing, and even participating, in a psychological, emotional, and even philosophical journey as well as a musical and artistic one. Only more remarkable when one considers that this was the first time this piece was played by or at Grant Park.

Patner also talks about how this great performance came about, and much, if not all, of what he has to say is equally applicable to the Oregon Symphony:

You need of course an excellent orchestra and also an inspired one. You need a conductor with insight and authority who also holds the orchestra’s respect. For all of these factors we can thank Kalmar who has built and shaped this already fine ensemble into one that rivals many a major full-season symphony orchestra and who, without ego, tantrums, or stunts has won not only the respect but the love of his players. To have an audience — and an ever-growing one at that — made up entirely of people who wish to be there — no one attending out of social obligation — is a part of setting the mood and the aural tension. Add to this a sense of civic pride and accomplishment … and you have not only a recipe for something quite near miraculous but also something that exists nowhere else in the world.

man sues over lack of live orchestra

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Photo: inok|istockphoto.com

Photo illustration: inok|istockphoto.com

In Manchester, UK, a man (who it turns out is a former principal clarinetist of the BBC Symphony Orchestra) sued a production of The Wizard of Oz over its use of a recorded track instead of a live orchestra.  He sued under the UK’s Trade Descriptions Act, which essentially functions as a truth in advertising statute – so the suit asserted that if it says “musical” in the description, there should be a live orchestra, not a taped one. Sound like a long shot?  It was, but the man won his suit.

Read the entire story here.