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Shane Endsley – XRIJF 2012Category: Education
Symphony Magazine, Spring 2013 Issue
The spring issue of Symphony magazine is now available online. As usual, the magazine contains a variety of interesting articles. Chester Lane, Senior Editor at Symphony magazine, presents a fascinating article about the health and wellness programs springing up in orchestras. Many of these programs have been funded by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
Read More →Happy Birthday Polyphonic!
Polyphonic.org was founded in April of 2006, making this month our 7th birthday! We thought that a fun way to celebrate would be to interview our editors and give you a peek into the lives of the folks that curate the content here at Polyphonic.org. Enjoy! Dr. Ramon Ricker – Editor-in-Chief How long have you
Read More →Friday April 19, 2013
This terrible week will stay in our memories. It is with us now. Unresolved. A scream like the mighty dissonance of that Mahlerian scream in his 10th Symphony. But we will conquer its summit and plumb its depths.
Read More →Protect Your Hearing
Mary Plaine, Principal Librarian with the Baltimore Symphony, recently posted a New York Times article by Jane Brody on Orchestra-L, ICSOM’s list-serve, about what causes hearing lost. (Thank you, Mary!) The article cites a new book by Katherine Bouton, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You.” According
Read More →Gerald Elias: Violinist, Author & Blogger
Jerry Elias, former violinist with the Boston and Utah Symphonies and author of four murder mysteries with a blind violin pedagogue as the protagonist, has agreed to be an occasional blogger for Polyphonic. In addition to writing mysteries Jerry has much to say about classical music, performance practise, playing violin, and much more. His fourth
Read More →Teaching, Learning, Experience (III)
Concert programmers, teaching artists , armies of program annotators, and museums with their rental headsets believe that audiences today lack experience and confidence in approaching an art work.
Read More →3:30 a.m.
My top priority — of course — is to protect the young people who study here, our faculty and staff, and all the many thousands of concert visitors we have every year. But this mandate necessitates negotiating a way through a challenging Scylla and Charybdis of choices.
Read More →Orchestra Management Fellowship Program
Polly Kahn, Vice President for Learning and Leadership Development at the League of American Orchestras, asked Polyphonic to post information about the upcoming February 1st deadline for applications for their prestigious Orchestra Management Fellowship program. The Orchestra Management Fellowship program is the League’s premier leadership training program, and is designed to launch executive careers in
Read More →So, who’s your funder? And other crazy questions…
Question: What have you learned in the past few years about about obtaining sustainable funding? In this monthly blog, I’ll start with a question, and take on issues of leadership and relevance in advancing the cause of music and social change. I’d like to start with an example I’m very familiar with – the model
Read More →Boston Symphony Orchestra Partners with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra
I received an email on Friday from the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra (formerly known as GBYSO) announcing a partnership with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Saturday, September 22, was opening night at the BSO, and their Chairman, Ted Kelly, formally announced the partnership during the gala season opening night dinner. And BYSO cellists joined BSO cellists,
Read More →Dress for Success
The Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop has really been trying to change things up in the orchestra world. A couple of years ago I wrote about plans for an orchestra fantasy camp, (my words) for adults, and how the amateur musicians would be working with the pros of the orchestra. Apparently it has been a
Read More →You Want Younger Audiences? Time to Start Listening!
Shoshana Fanizza is the founder of Audience Development Specialists (ADS for short). It’s a company that provides services to help organizations and individuals learn how to apply audience development to their art. Find ADS here. As is the usual case now-a-days, she has a blog, and last June I stumbled across what I thought was [...]
Read More →“You’ve Cott Mail”
One of the listservs to which I belong is Thomas Cott’s, “You’ve Cott Mail.” As Cott says, “It’s a free service for professionals in the arts,” and he sends it most weekdays. I’m interested in it because it doesn’t just cover music, and we musicians can learn from our brethren in other areas of the [...]
Read More →2011 Best Reads from the Savvy Musician
Here are 10 of the most influential books I read in 2011. This year, my reading list focused around the topics of institutional change, education, leadership, business models, and marketing. Notice that not one of the titles on this year’s list is wr…
Read More →A New Year – A New Vlog
If you had a chance to follow our team of On Campus video bloggers (vloggers for short) this past year, you know how interesting their stories have been. 12 young musicians throughout the country recorded a short video entry every two weeks for an entire year, chronicling their life and career as a young musician.
Read More →Back to School Challenge
Here we are again, at the beginning of a new school year full of promise. Within a matter of weeks or days, urgent deadlines will start to emerge with ever increasing frequency. So before that inevitable, relentless chaos takes over life, I challenge y…
Read More →Guest Blogger: Marie Montilla NEC Abreu Fellow '11
[On June 2, NEC celebrated the graduation of our second class of Abreu Fellows, the training program we undertook as the result of Maestro José Antonio Abreu’s TED “Wish to Change the World.” The Fellows now go out into the … Continue reading →
Powerhouse Website Suggestions
As part of a May 21, 2011 Facebook event hosted by the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, I invited music teachers to submit their websites for observation and critique. Thanks to all who participated.
No matter what kind of art you make, I …
The Savvy Music Teacher Scavenger Hunt
Attention music teachers!!!
On Saturday, May 21 2011, I am hosting a Facebook event sponsored by the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP), focusing on issues relevant to private music teachers. Please feel free to join in on the conversati…
Special Forces Commando Unit
[This is the first in a series of posts in which I will talk about the current, troubled, state of professional musicmaking and offer some glimpses of possible solutions for the future.] The other night I attended one of the … Continue reading →
Questions? Answers.
Back in January, I posted a blog about Musical America’s exciting new partnership with Edna Landau – “Ask Edna.” Since starting her new blog, Edna has addressed some excellent career-related questions by young musicians, and she has provided some insightful guidance and ideas to consider. Recently, I figured I would throw a question into the
Read More →Arts Entrepreneurship — Third Dimension
After digesting the many superb responses, both published here and private, to last week’s blog entry, I spent a lot of time pondering what is really bothering me about the arts entrepreneurship “movement.” I realized that I have been hoping for …
Read More →Dear Edna, I have a question…
Who should I ask? Often times we have questions about our career path, life, relationships, etc. Sometimes we seek out those close to us whom we respect to give us advice, other times we just keep our questions to ourselves, and sometimes we seek out someone we don’t actually know to ask for their expertise.
Read More →The Secret to Engaging Future Orchestra Audiences?
Well let’s start with what isn’t a secret: Many orchestras are trying to reach out to future audiences (young people) and convince them that an orchestra concert should be on their shortlist of exciting weekend activities. An increasing number of orchestras (and other concert music organizations) are creating programs and concerts specifically catered to younger
Read More →Jobs Don't Grow On Trees
In a recent article in the New York Times, Daniel J. Wakin points to the seemingly large number of orchestral positions that are currently open at some of the nation’s top orchestras. Of course we could debate all day about whether or not 12 openings in the NY Phil is remarkable, if they will be
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