{"id":13190,"date":"2014-01-27T10:05:49","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T18:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=13190"},"modified":"2014-01-27T10:05:49","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T18:05:49","slug":"musicians-life-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/01\/27\/musicians-life-update\/","title":{"rendered":"musician’s life update"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel like it’s the calm before the storm, or maybe it’s the eye of the hurricane, the way my life has been going the past few months. Big personal upheavals, major life changes, and now, the heart of the classical music season in Portland. I was about to say, when it rains, it pours, but here in Portland we’ve been having one of our driest winters on record so far. Skiers are despairing, runners and cyclists are rejoicing, and farmers are worrying about the lack of significant snow pack in the Cascade Range. But, as far as the classical music scene in Portland goes, it is pretty much back in full swing after the holiday hiatus.<\/p>\n

I was able to catch the second half of the final concert of the Chamber Music Northwest Winter Festival (the inaugural season), dashing up the park blocks from the Schnitz to Lincoln Hall in time to hear the Piazzolla through the door, and then the Copland from my actual seat in the hall. It was fantastic to see so many OSO players represented in the performance – Concertmaster Sarah Kwak, Principal cellist Nancy Ives, Principal flutist Jess Sindell, Assistant principal bassoonist Evan Kuhlmann, and Principal clarinetist Yoshi Nakao. They were joined by festival regular Ida Kavafian on violin, along with the members of the Amphion Quartet, pianist Yekwon Sunyoo, and violinist Rebecca Anderson, a Portland native who’s doing great things out in the world at the start of what will undoubtedly be a stellar career. I just adore the original 13 instrument version of Appalachian Spring<\/em>, and they delivered a sparkling performance.<\/p>\n

The real fun started after the concert, when I tagged along with some of the performers the the bar at Higgins Restaurant for a post-concert nosh. It was great to catch up with Becky, share impressions with Nancy, and meet the young artists for the first time. We were sent a bottle of champagne for the table from a pair of patrons who just loved the concert, and the kitchen sent a charcuterie platter that was to die for. Ah, to live the life of a chamber music star of the firmament! As things were winding down, who should show up but Edgar Myer and Chris Thile (whose wife Claire Coffee is an actress with a regular role on the NBC series Grimm<\/em>) who were in town working on a new project together. It was great to hob nob with yet more amazing musicians. And I didn’t have to play a note!<\/p>\n

But, I digress, what I’d really meant to write about was how my musical docket is about to explode over the next couple of weeks. I’m playing a special concert of the music of Ernest Bloch with Third Angle New Music in February, and in just a week or so I’m playing Third Angle’s Riffs concerts at Jimmy Mak’s, which will feature John Zorn’s Cobra<\/em>, and David Schiff’s sprawling, epic composition Road Maps<\/em> for improvising soloist and chamber ensemble. It should be an amazing concert, and I’m looking forward to it very much. Amidst all of this, the Arnica Quartet is preparing for a concert in Astoria<\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 16th, which will feature Benjamin Britten’s Second Quartet, Purcell’s Chacony<\/em>, arr. Britten, and Schubert’s great G major quartet. And, the Oregon Symphony welcomes esteemed guest conductor Mark Wigglesworth to the podium for the first time on Feb. 9-10, featuring a fantastic program: Lutoslawski’s Fourth Symphony, Schumann’s Cello Concerto (with Johannes Moser), and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.<\/p>\n

So, lots going on, but it’s all fun and amazing for me to be able to do, but now is the time I have to put my practicing hat on, lest I be caught with my pants down…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel like it’s the calm before the storm, or maybe it’s the eye of the hurricane, the way my life has been going the past few months. Big personal upheavals, major life changes, and now, the heart of the classical music season in Portland. I was about to say, when it rains, it pours, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[136,503,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chamber-music","category-string-quartet","category-the-orchestra-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3qK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3310,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/02\/busy-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":0},"title":"busy times","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As we edge our way into November, and I reflect on what's going on in the classical music scene here in Portland, I'm finding it remarkable what all has happened already, and what's about to happen. At the Oregon Symphony, we've just completed our third Classical series concerts. The Vancouver\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4709,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/31\/summer-music-in-portland\/","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":1},"title":"summer music in portland","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that the symphony's season is over, there's no reason to despair!\u00a0 No, in fact, there are many reasons to be happy, for there are myriad opportunities to hear live classical music nearly all summer long here in Portland and surrounding areas. Starting in just a couple of weeks is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "summer festivals"","block_context":{"text":"summer festivals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/summer-festivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/astoriamusicfestival-400x55.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3191,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/03\/see-locally-hear-globally\/","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":2},"title":"see locally, hear globally","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There have been a couple of recent classical music groups that have appeared recently in Portland that have garnered some well-earned recognition or have dropped new albums that are receiving acclaim in the world-wide press. The first of these is the Eb\u00e8ne Quartet, a young French ensemble that gave a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"fleckhussainmeyer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/fleckhussainmeyer-400x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":719,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/29\/interesting-idea-for-pdx\/","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":3},"title":"interesting idea for pdx?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Seattle Chamber Players presented their fourth Icebreaker Festival of contemporary classical music this past weekend in Seattle. Present was current classical music writer\/rockstar Alex Ross, who curated a concert of works by seven young New York composers who'd caught his ear (including five premieres).\u00c2\u00a0 Also the SCP presented, in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":931,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/17\/wordless-music-in-pdx\/","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":4},"title":"wordless music in pdx","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Wordless Music, a group that promotes cross-pollination amongst popular and classical music genres (to put it rather grotesquely) is presenting two concerts in Portland this week, on Thursday (tonight) the 17th and Friday the 18th of April, with the Friday concert featuring the Portland contemporary music ensemble Third Angle. Here\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12467,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/11\/portland-chamber-orchestra-honors-leyden\/","url_meta":{"origin":13190,"position":5},"title":"portland chamber orchestra presents film concert and honors leyden","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"February 22, 2013 at 7:30pm Village Church, Beaverton 330 Southwest Murray Boulevard Beaverton, OR February 23, 2013 at 7:30pm Scottish Rite Center 709 Southwest 15th Avenue Portland, OR Presented on the weekend of the 2013 Academy Awards, The Music of Film highlights film scores from past Oscar-nominated movies! From well-known\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"MOF_Postard2013_FINAL-1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/MOF_Postard2013_FINAL-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/MOF_Postard2013_FINAL-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/MOF_Postard2013_FINAL-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}