• I just caught Robert Levine’s latest blog entry about the Milwaukee Symphony’s recent concerts with Hilary Hahn.  Robert is one of the smartest guys out there, I’m coming to appreciate, and reading this post had me scratching my head and wondering “why couldn’t I have said that?”.  I like the way he clearly expresses what’s on his mind, and gets to the crux of the matter with minimal equivocation.  Hahn was in Milwaukee playing the Tchaikovsky concerto, and Levine really hits the nail on the head about this piece (which is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, by the way):

But I found myself not really convinced by her version of the piece, which surprised me, as I hadn’t felt that way about the previous times she’d played with us. I spent all week trying to figure out why. The best I could come up with was that she was trying to find more in the piece than was actually there. She was making wonderful and interesting phrases all over the place. But it’s not that kind of piece. In a funny way, her great strengths as a musician – her intelligence and imagination – were not really relevant to the piece, and even got in the way. One doesn’t think of semplice and Tchaikowsky as ever being coupled – but I think that’s what it needs. Perhaps that’s why the last movement consistently worked the best, because all it needs – all there’s time for, really – is technique and a kind of inexorable rhythmic stability, which of course she has in spades.

• In other news, my joint recital with Heather Blackburn went pretty well - I’ll have more thoughts on it when I have a little more distance from it.  For now, my alarm clock is off until further notice, however!

• Last Friday evening I went to hear a chamber concert organized by cellist Justin Kagan, and it featured some top local players in works of Shostakovich (his Piano Quintet), Gerald Cohen (a trio for viola, cello and piano), and Schoenberg (his sextet Verklärte Nacht).  Every work was played with conviction and assurance, with kudos going out to everyone involved, as to single out one or several would be unfair to them all.  

I hope that concerts such as this become more of a regular event in Portland.  We have plenty of high-powered out-of-towners that come in and play chamber music on the various series in town, but little opportunity to hear our high-powered locals play the same.

Robert Levine, writing over at Abu Bratsche, has finally weighed in on the Columbus Symphony debacle.  It’s a pretty damning case he makes for the vast majority of the responsibility to be given to the board of the Columbus Symphony for the current state of affairs.  I’d consider it required reading - discuss.

Even with the problems that the OSO is currently facing in terms of recurring budget deficits, the board has not shied away from hiring a strong, competent, clear-eyed president.  We’ve at least had someone at the helm (except for one season after the abrupt departure of former president Tony Woodcock) throughout the time I’ve been here (12 seasons and counting), and that counts for a lot.  I cannot imagine why the CSO decided not to hire an executive director for THREE consecutive seasons.  Amazing, and not in a good way.

Robert Levine has been burning the midnight oil analyzing the recent Flanagan report [available here] and musing about the best method of determining the future of a given orchestra.  Highly recommended reading.

- Baumol was wrong

- First take on Flanagan, Part I

As I write this, there are two orchestras in the U.S. which are currently facing an existential crisis. The Columbus Symphony and the Shreveport Symphony are both facing cuts which will forever alter how they function, sound, raise money, and basically exist.

Over the past week, two fellow violists/bloggers have written posts about the situation, both about these two orchestras and a new study which suggests that US orchestras are based upon an untenable model. [Read more →]

Composer John Adams
Photo credit: Deborah O’Grady.

I read a few months ago that John Adams had written a sequel to his Chamber Symphony (1992) called Son of Chamber Symphony (2007). The monster movie allusions seem to be proving correct if you listen to all the chatter flying around the back hallways of the concert hall and the email pipes are burning hot, too, from what I hear. [Read more →]

Robert Levine*, at his blog Abu Bratsche (best blog name I’ve seen in a long, long time!), points out that the problems that are coming to a head in Columbus are not financial in origin. [Read more →]