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Posts tagged as:
viola
We in the little ‘viola nook’ behind stage left at our hall have a running joke about one of our frequent trombone subs, Henry Henniger, who looks a lot like our bass trombonist, Charles Reneau, known as ‘Charley’. It took some of us a long time to get Henry’s name right, so we just called [...]
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via non divisi
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When it comes to most things in life, there isn’t much of an advantage of being older except for one thing: experience. When you live longer, you have more experiences, both good and bad. When I was in high school, and even college, there were many things that I know now that I wish I’d [...]
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Well, it’s been quiet here at the blog for some time, so I thought it might be a good thing to tell you what I’ve been up to. I went down to Los Angeles this past Sunday to take the audition for the 3rd chair viola position (Assistant principal) of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on [...]
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I’ve been living with the new Kim Kashkashian recording entitled Neharót for some time now, and find its title track Neharót Neharót (by the Israeli composer Betty Olivero, b.1954) to be one of the most affecting new pieces of music that I’ve encountered in the past decade. I liken its first impact on me to [...]
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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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In 1998, composer Joan Tower was commissioned by violist Paul Neubauer (a perennial Chamber Music NW favorite) to write a work for solo viola. The result was Wild Purple, a fantastic tour de force that shows off the virtuosity of today’s violist. The title came from Tower’s association of the sound of the viola with [...]
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Just saw this message on Edmonton Symphony music director William Eddins’ facebook page:
ATTN ALL VIOLISTS – The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra is holding International auditions for our Section Viola opening on Monday, 28 September, 2009. Guaranteed clean audition, wonderful orchestra, one of the best halls in North America. Come one, come all!!!! For more information please [...]
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Just had my first hack-through of the La Campanella with my wonderful pianist (Sandra Bleiweiss). What a shock the first run-through often can be! Carefully thought-out interpretive decisions seem unbelievably stupid and inane. Tempos seem either naive or hideously self-conscious. Mainly, after the run-through of the Paganini, my thought was “why?!” As in, why did [...]
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Normally, the life of a professional symphonic musician is fairly low-key and predictable. You know what you’re going to be playing and when it’s going to be played a year ahead of time. You get your parts several weeks in advance and you judge when you’re going to start practicing them and how much time [...]
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I happy to announce that I’ve begun to utilize a great online resource for classical music fans, artists, and presenters: InstantEncore.com. You’ll notice that there’s now an online “radio station” in the right sidebar. It features some of my performances in recital over the last few years, and I hope to add to what’s available [...]
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This weekend brought the first of an onslaught of holiday-themed programming for the month of December. We’ve been enjoying the vocal stylings of the Von Trapp Family Singers (the actual great-grandchildren of the stars of the musical and movie) and the cool arrangements of our principal pops conductor Jeff Tyzik (the Little Bolero Drummer Boy [...]
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I wish that I were blogging anonymously sometimes. I could unburden myself of whatever was vexing me from a day’s worth of rehearsals, private practicing, or teaching, and say whatever I wanted.
That would be great.
But…
It also would not be terribly ethical. It’s easy to say whatever you want when you remain a faceless, shadowy figure. [...]
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