Posted on November 30, 2009 at 3:04 pm by Robert Levine
in General |

Pascal Rogé does good and does smart at the same time. Thanks on behalf of all of us.

The Toronto Symphony posted a surplus for last season.

Musicians in the Sarasota Orchestra have a lot of community support in their current labor dispute.

The recession is hurting artists. (Did you think otherwise? Me neither.)

This is a good idea.

The former concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony thinks we make too much, shouldn’t have tenure, and should be fired when we get too old. (Hat tip to Charles Noble.)

Lynn Harrell thinks that young string players don’t need expensive old Italian fiddles to succeed. He’s right.

Maybe not the headline one would want for a performance of this particular piece.

Washington National Opera is cutting back.

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Posted on November 30, 2009 at 7:00 am by Karen Schnackenberg
in General |

This weekend DFW area musicians began protesting the Texas Ballet Theater’s Nutcracker performances which will run in both Dallas and Fort Worth – without an orchestra.  For those of you who have been following this fiasco, you know that we have been protesting the TBT’s performances sans live music for more than a year now.  And so, you may ask, why is this different than any other ballet company using tape?  There are many bizarre facts in the back story, some of which I’ll reiterate, but the new wrinkle is that Friday was the opening of this particular production in the brand new Winspear Opera House, the cornerstone of Dallas’ spectacular $354 million AT&T Performing Arts Center. (more…)

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Posted on November 28, 2009 at 11:30 am by Ramon Ricker
in General |

Israeli conductor Itay Talgam uses leadership on the podium as a metaphor for leadership in business. Some good stuff here, worth watching, especially the last clip of Bernstein.

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Posted on November 26, 2009 at 1:52 pm by Robert Levine
in NHMF |

In addition to the comments in response to the posts on the New Hamspshire Music Festival cluster***k, I’ve received a number of private emails. I’ve requested, and received, permission to quote extensively from an email sent to me by a local observer with many connections to the Festival.

Anyone likely to read this knows that humanity is an essential aspect of the arts. When performances work, both players and audience feel the connections between artists performing together. What sets live performances apart, beyond the acoustical differences, and the real-time potential for unexpected nuance, is the awareness that real human beings who enjoy what they do are recreating great examples of human achievement. Audiences know this. They also like knowing the performers a bit as people. In a sense, it is the collective soul of the performers that makes the process attractive. (more…)

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Posted on November 26, 2009 at 5:00 am by Ramon Ricker
in The Future |

For the past four days I’ve been in San Diego, CA where the Eastman School’s Institute for Music Leadership, of which I am Director, presented a pre-meeting workshop at the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) annual meeting. The title of the workshop was, “The Entrepreneurial Music School in a Challenging Economy.”

Since it’s always challenging times for music schools and orchestras, and one of the things entrepreneurial leaders must try to do is to envision the future, we decided to engage as our principal speaker and facilitator, Bob Johanson. Bob is a Distinguished Fellow and former President of The Institute for the Future. IFTF is a think tank that forecasts what the world will look like in the future—usually ten years out. It consults to companies, the military and also to not-for-profits. (more…)

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Posted on November 25, 2009 at 7:00 am by Karen Schnackenberg
in General |

Well, except for the parts I’m going to tell you!  No names of course.  LOL.

Seriously, performers have to be able to trust orchestra librarians to handle backstage situations with professionalism, courtesy, discretion, and, above all else, help when they need something.  It wouldn’t be right to betray that trust, so I won’t — the last thing artists need is some star-struck librarian to “kiss and tell.”

But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun and entertain you a little about the kinds of things that happen backstage.  Rituals, wardrobe malfunctions, logistical snafus, nerves, you name it.  Because it can be quite the trip.  And just when you think you’ve seen it all something happens that is a complete surprise. (more…)

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Posted on November 24, 2009 at 6:00 am by Robert Levine
in General |

If one single factor underlies the turmoil at the New Hampshire Music Festival in the minds of the musicians and the external support group SOON, it appears to be the fear that Festival management intends to replace the orchestra with another group; a NYC-based orchestra called The Knights. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the fears have a solid basis, and that The Knights are attractive to Festival management in large part because they represent a ready-to-go “new model” for orchestras. (more…)

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Posted on November 23, 2009 at 1:10 pm by Karen Schnackenberg
in General |

It’s just the way things are.  The orchestra librarian is the last one out of the building.

Although the percussionists and stage hands might try to dispute this claim, they don’t stand a chance.  Oh yes, they obviously have their fair share of packing up after performances (it is how I got to know my husband, after all), but, in the end, by the time the librarian goes home, there’s usually no one else left. (more…)

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Posted on November 22, 2009 at 6:30 pm by Robert Levine
in General |

Orchestras, like Google, can make money out of Internet searches – just not as much.

Conductors can blog too.

Conductors can also do bad and illegal things.

So can some managers.

Michael Hovnanian did not enjoy his very large Midwestern orchestra’s week with Christoph von Dohnányi.

It’s possible to write a concerto for just about anything and orchestra.

My BBB Charles Noble thinks about space on stage.

The Berlin Philharmonic loves Sir Simon Rattle – at least according to Sir Simon Rattle.

And, on an unrelated note, today is the 47th anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

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Posted on November 22, 2009 at 12:17 am by Robert Levine
in General |

While doing some research on the New Hampshire Music Festival situation, I came across a blog post by Henry Fogel that I found both interesting on its merits and quite relevant to what’s been going on at the NHMF.

Back in May on his blog on the ArtsJournal site, Henry wrote about becoming Festival Director for the NHMF:

David Graham, the imaginative and courageous president of the festival, shares some of my feelings on this topic, and having read about them in this blog he began a relationship with me that has resulted in this exciting position. As we talked over the past year, David and I realized that we shared a deep passion for the musical experience as something transcendent, something so thrilling that one didn’t walk out of a concert and immediately go to a post-concert party with a dance band playing, because the experience you had just had wouldn’t let you do that… (more…)

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