I try to avoid having more than a month elapse between blog posts, but I’ve failed in this effort this time, my last post having been Sept. 23rd. There has been a lot going on, musically, in my life. Here’s a brief recap of my orchestral activities since that last post.<\/p>\n
September started relatively quietly, but with a variety of concerts. A Rodrigo y Gabriella<\/em>\u00a0started us off, followed by a full screening of Star Wars: A New Hope<\/em> with full orchestra – that was fun! We then did a slightly underwhelming (both in terms of the charts and the audience draw) Music of U2<\/em> show.<\/p>\n The season was formally launched with the Opening Night Gala with Ren\u00e9e Fleming<\/em>. That was notable for starting off with perennial pain in the ass\u00a0Don Juan<\/em> and then having an absolutely gorgeous orchestral song cycle by Kevin Puts (Letters from Georgia<\/em>), which refers not to the state or country, but to Georgia O’Keefe and her vivid and intense correspondence. Ren\u00e9e was, of course, her usual spectacular, radiant self.<\/p>\n Jun Markl, one of our favorite guest conductors, returned for his fourth visit, bringing pianist Inon Barnatan along with him. Copland wrote a Piano Concerto<\/em> – who knew? Not me! And it’s good! Also, Brahms’ Fourth Symphony – <\/em>also pretty good! The notable work on the program: Katie Balch’s OSO commission\u00a0Chamber Music<\/em>, which showed a strong voice and command of the orchestra. I’m looking forward to hearing and performing more of her music!<\/p>\n Our second classical subscription set brought a new guest conductor,\u00a0Micha Nesterowicz of Poland. He brought two delightful works from his homeland – the Little Suite<\/em> of Lutos?awski, and Orawa<\/em> of Kilar, for string orchestra. Also on the menu, the Sibelius\u00a0Violin Concerto<\/em>, with soloist Karen Gomyo, and Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony<\/em>. It should be noted that our ace piccolo player Zacharia Galatis was on top form for all of his many solos this week!<\/p>\n A pops show featuring music of the swing era with Jeff Tyzik followed, and now we’re in the midst of our third classical set of the season, with Carlos Kalmar back on the podium – more on that in the next round up!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I try to avoid having more than a month elapse between blog posts, but I’ve failed in this effort this time, my last post having been Sept. 23rd. There has been a lot going on, musically, in my life. Here’s a brief recap of my orchestral activities since that last post. September started relatively quietly, […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3Ts","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2113,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/11\/more-orchestral-cuts\/","url_meta":{"origin":14970,"position":0},"title":"more orchestral cuts","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a lot of belt-tightening going on with orchestras around the US. Pittsburgh Symphony Lays Off Nine Administrators - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Grand Rapids Symphony administration, senior staffs take pay cut to balance budget - Grand Rapids Press Notes of Distress and Discord from the Esteemed Philadelphia Orchestra - New York\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "fundraising"","block_context":{"text":"fundraising","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/fundraising\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/12\/04\/orchestral-citizenship\/","url_meta":{"origin":14970,"position":1},"title":"orchestral citizenship","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd gotten a couple really good responses to the semi-rant that I posted a couple days ago, and one of them came back to having orchestra members coming out to the foyer after concerts (it's a practice that we instituted a few years back, but the number of players going\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":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7882,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/09\/25\/orchestral-labor-situation-escalates\/","url_meta":{"origin":14970,"position":2},"title":"orchestral labor situation escalates","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Talks Stall Atlanta Agrees to Cuts: With One Condition Chicago Symphony Reaches Settlement Rumor has it that management in Minnesota has elected to lock out the musicians. I have not seen any confirmation of that, so I'll leave it in the \"things heard\" category until I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":75,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/10\/orchestral-inheritance\/","url_meta":{"origin":14970,"position":3},"title":"orchestral inheritance","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I read the most recent issue of Senza Sordino (the journal of ICSOM or the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians) at work yesterday, just before our second of two Garrison Keillor concerts (great fun, and absolutely worth the money if he's coming to an orchestra near you soon\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":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":324,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/05\/14\/orchestral-hierarchy\/","url_meta":{"origin":14970,"position":4},"title":"orchestral hierarchy","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've was struck today, as we were rehearsing Richard Strauss' mighty tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), at the different breeds of players that there are in the modern symphony orchestra. I was listening to our guest concertmaster for the week, Elisa Barston, as she played the extended, fiendishly\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":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1197,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/01\/orchestral-blogs\/","url_meta":{"origin":14970,"position":5},"title":"orchestral blogs","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I write one of the few blogs independently-penned by an orchestra member, and I'm not sure why it's such a lonely job description.\u00c2\u00a0 However, a rapidly expanding area of classical music blogs are blogs that are written as part of a symphony orchestra's public relations and\/or artistic arms.\u00c2\u00a0 Here's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bloggers"","block_context":{"text":"bloggers","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/bloggers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/ssoblog-400x105.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14970","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=14970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}