Category: Miscellaneous
The Magic of Serendipity
My wife and I were recently in Amsterdam revisiting the major art museums and enjoying that wonderful freedom which makes this city so extraordinary. The weather had been really hot, and on this particular day, the heat had joined forces with a great tumult of humidity.
Read More →Have Bass, Will Travel. Nervously.
Whatever airline horror story you have about lost or mishandled luggage, I’m pretty sure Robert Black can top it. Robert, as many of you around here know, is a brilliant, nationally recognized double bass player and teacher. He is perhaps best known for being a founding member of the avant-garde music ensemble, the Bang on a
Read More →A must-read piece on performance anxiety
The New Yorker continues to be the best magazine in the English-speaking work for coverage of arts issues (as opposed to arts news), as demonstrated by an article-length review of Sara Solovitch’s book Playing Scared: A History and Memoir of Stage Fright: Stagefright has been aptly described as “self-poisoning by adrenaline.” In response to stress,
Read More →Grand Rapids Symphony’s Music for Health Program
Nathan Kahn of the AFM’s Symphony Services Division has been telling me about the wonderful music wellness program designed by Grand Rapids violinist Diane McElfish Helle, and I plan to find out more and write an article about their work. Today I noticed that Paul Austin, former ROPA Vice President and Grand Rapids hornist, had
Read More →Lincoln Portrait and the Fourth of July
Copland’s Lincoln Portrait is not terribly popular with orchestra musicians, mostly (I suspect) as a result of over-exposure to bad performances. It invariably gets scheduled on pops programs and outdoor concerts, usually with the lowest-ranking staff conductor who’s in town at the time, and generally with narrators chosen more for who they are rather than
Read More →Some thoughts on Hartford
The Hartford Symphony has been in the news recently, and not in the way that orchestras want to be: Behind the two-year dispute between the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and the musicians union over a new labor agreement is the symphony’s effort to remake itself to appeal to changing audiences and tastes. The orchestra says it’s
Read More →Cavalcade of baby conductors
My orchestra had auditions for assistant conductor today. We saw six candidates for about 30 minutes each. It was an interesting experience, although not very enjoyable. A few I liked; a few I didn’t. But what struck me most was what always strikes me when dealing with young conductors; their failure to follow my two
Read More →The Vampire Squid and nonprofits - a real thing?
Back at the height of the War on the Northern Front, I speculated about how the involvement of key leaders at the two largest banks in the Twin Cities might be making things worse: …there is no third party willing to wade in and lean on the Minnesota Orchestra board to abandon an approach which
Read More →Flying with Instruments: A New Era?
Congress passed a law three years ago to address the problems musicians have encountered flying with their instruments, but the regulations, which will cause the airlines to implement the law, were only published in January, 2015. And then the airlines had 60 days to get things in order to implement the new regulations. Thanks to the efforts
Read More →Polyphonic.org Needs Your Help!
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Read More →On playing pieces for the last time
One of the oddities of an orchestral career is the lack of control that we have over what we play. A consequencesof that odd fact is that, towards the end of a career, it’s possible to state with some certainty that one will have played a work for the last time. I’ve been musing on
Read More →Some more words on sub pay and Minnesota
The folks at soundnotion.tv hosted a discussion with Drew McManus and myself on the subject of substitute pay and how it was handled in last year’s Minnesota Orchestra settlement. The discussion was moderated (very well, I thought) by David MacDonald and Sam Merciers. It can be watched on YouTube here. I felt the discussion covered
Read More →Final Rules for Musical Instrument Air Travel Released by USDOT
From the League of American Orchestras: December 31, 2019, Washington, D.C. — Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) issued final regulations to improve travel by air with musical instruments. The rules become effective within 60 days of being published and require major airlines to update their policies and practices. This action comes nearly three years after the
Read More →Orchestras on Tour
Polyphonic has published several “travelogues” by touring orchestra members. Two writers that are particularly eloquent are Charles Rex, violinist with the New York Philharmonic, and Yvonne Caruthers, recently-retired ‘cellist with the National Symphony. Charles wrote about the NY Philharmonic’s tours to Vietnam and North Korea. While he was in North Korea in 2007, he sent
Read More →November 22, 2019
It wasn’t until I checked the date on my Macbook while writing an email that I realized that today was the 51st anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I found that a little disturbing, as the realization of the anniversary came to me without my looking it up for years and years.
Read More →The Third Estate
If one wishes to contribute to the conversation about how to expand the audience base for American orchestras, then one must talk about what those orchestras are presenting — and right now that’s a taboo subject. The fact is that the discussion about WHAT exactly orchestras are presenting has never taken place. The arbitrary distinction
Read More →The Baton and the Jackboot - Then and Now
Berta Geissmar was a doctor of philosophy, a musician, and an author. The poignant image she creates of Germany before National Socialism is one where culture and, in particular music, was absolutely at the forefront of life.
Read More →Well-Traveled Baggage: A Seasoned Violinist Gets Sentimental about his BSO Experience
I don’t generally get maudlin over luggage. But after the final bows of Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Asia tour in May, I locked my wardrobe trunk and gave it an affectionate pat. This tour may well have been the brass-clad behemoth’s swansong. Built like fortresses, BSO’s 25 trunks could last forever. Lined up backstage like dominoes,
Read More →Call for Guest Blog Posts!
Happy Summer, friends! Are you interested in writing a guest blog post for Polyphonic.org? During the month of August, we are planning to publish a series of guest blog posts, and we want YOU to be included! Simply send us your blog post (2000 words or less) on any music-related topic by August 1, 2019,
Read More →Virtual Wagner done right
(Received in my Oggle email inbox; I can’t vouch for its veracity.) The Long (Conn.) Wagner Festival announces its campaign on PrickStarter to fund an exciting new production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and we need your help! This innovative production will be done with a virtual conductor (MaestroData - patent pending) and fully animated CGI
Read More →The Fallout from Obama’s Executive Order Concerning Ivory
At a seminar at Mondomusica New York on April 11, 2019, Heather Noonan of the League of American Orchestras joined with violin and bow makers, an international environmental expert, and government officials to discuss the recent tightened restrictions on bringing ivory into the US, resulting from an Obama Administration Executive Order issued on February 24,
Read More →The Ivory Ban - Important Instrument Travel Information
From the League of American Orchestras: “The recent Obama Administration effort to increase restrictions on travel and trade in African Elephant ivory has placed a new focus on long-existing, but largely unimplemented permitting rules for international travel with instruments that contain endangered species material.” The League has published a helpful webpage with very detailed information
Read More →Millennial America
Orchestras need to offer compelling reasons for millennials to make live symphonic music a part of their lives. After all, millennials are the largest generation in human history, and at nearly 90 million people they will very soon make up the vast majority of our orchestras’ stakeholders, constituents, audience, staff members and supporters – and
Read More →Minnesota Orchestra board steps up
Michael Henson will be leaving the Minnesota Orchestra: The Minnesota Orchestra announced Thursday night that its president, Michael Henson, whose decision to seek a substantial pay cut from its musicians led to a bruising 16-month lockout when they resisted, would be leaving his post at the end of August. The departure of Mr. Henson could
Read More →Us as a sitcom
Most readers of this blog will remember the furor over Mozart in the Jungle, oboist and journalist Blair Tindall’s memoir of her days as a New York freelancer. I quite enjoyed it, but some didn’t (especially those who believed that they were featured in the story in an uncomplimentary way) I went onto the Amazon
Read More →Machiavelli wasn’t a Finn
The former battlefield known as the Minnesota Orchestral Association continues its explorations of the very outer limits of the envelope: Musicians returned to playing concerts for the Minnesota Orchestra this weekend, but the turmoil that has followed the organization for more than 16 months resurfaced Saturday. After a homecoming concert Friday at Orchestra Hall, musicians
Read More →Lessons from the Great Strad Robbery
As anyone who’s picked up a newspaper in the last few days probably knows, the Stradivarius on loan to Frank Almond, my orchestra’s concertmaster, was recovered last week and the alleged thieves detained by police: Salah Salahadyn, 41, and Universal Knowledge Allah, 36, arrested this week, are each charged with robbery, as party to a
Read More →In Memoriam
It’s always humbling to write the annual In Memoriam feature for Polyphonic, but never more so than this year. The number of highly accomplished people associated with our field who were also remarkable human beings will be daunting for anyone who’s considered what their own obituary might look like. Many of those who left us
Read More →Are orchestras “hostile” to women conductors?
The attitude of professional orchestras to conductors of a certain gender is a perennial favorite of arts journalists, if not yet an actual Internet meme: Example of Internet Meme: not intended as a reflection of the author’s real feelings The latest example of such journalistic favoritism is an article on the BBC website a few
Read More →A Polyphonic Holiday Playlist!
Happy Holidays from all of us at Polyphonic.org! Below are a few holiday favorites from our editors: Dr. Ramon Ricker, Editor-in-Chief The Piano Guys perform a creative arrangement of Angels We Have Heard on High! Robert Levine, Senior Editor We all have a few guilty holiday pleasures. Mine is candy cane ice cream. I have
Read More →Kitschmastide (with examples)
Polyphonic has Been Absolutely Inundated (OK; a few requests on Facebook, but this is a business where self-promotion seems to require the kind of spin that would make tennis balls spiral off into the next county) with requests for examples of what I was referring to in my previous post. So here goes. One of
Read More →‘Tis the season
…for lousy Christmas carol arrangements. What is it about Christmas music that leads arrangers into the ugly back alleys of kitsch? Is it simply that it takes a genius to make a good arrangement of a good tune? Copland’s handling of the great Shaker hymn tune in his Appalachian Spring would suggest that. (Speaking of
Read More →11/22/63
Some historical events are burned into the memories of everyone who lived through them. For my generation, the first such event - and, for me, still the most shocking - was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago today. I was in 8th grade, about six weeks short of my 12th birthday,
Read More →Bringing Down the Sky: From Great to Good in Minnesota
I. The Tornado and the Plow Horse I recently plugged the words “Salieri” and “Festival” into Google, which limped back with a meager Salieri Opera Festival of 2010, presented by Fondazione Fioroni in Verona, Italy. Curious, I added “2013” to the search, and Google came back with only three results, none of which led to
Read More →Intimidation
What’s the most intimidating experience you have ever had? A one-on-one with an aggressively demanding boss? An IRS audit? Being pulled over by a traffic cop?
Read More →Wu Man and Her Pipa
The Hartford Symphony had opening night concerts this past Friday and Saturday, featuring our beautiful Austin organ with a Bach Toccata (we were joined by the Connecticut Youth Orchestra) and the Saint Saens Organ Symphony. But in between we played the Lou Harrison concerto for pipa and string orchestra, featuring Wu Man. It was a
Read More →Did You Mean to Do That? — A Traveler’s Reflections
I love sitting in studio classes, experiencing that unique relationship between a master teacher and a student. It always feels like a privilege to hear and see the trust that has been generated and to feel the intensity of the learning and teaching model.
Read More →On Star Wars and the Baby Boomers
It was recently announced that John Williams will compose the music for Star Wars: Episode VII. This is great news for fans of his music all over the world, and it could be great news for smart orchestras too. A new Star Wars movie is the sort of cultural event that has largely untapped possibilities
Read More →Red line in Minnesota gets redder
I promise that some day I will post on something other than the Minnesota Orchestra labor dispute. But, at the moment, it’s the most important thing happening in our field. The news yesterday from the Northern Front was not encouraging. The first item was that Minnesota Orchestra management has apparently set a kind of deadline
Read More →The Role of the Orchestra Committee vs. the Local
An interesting musician session at the League’s June conference featured a panel discussing “The Role of the Orchestra Committee and the Local Union.” The panelists were Robert Levine, Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony, Senior Editor at Polyphonic and former Chair of ICSOM; Tom Jöstlein, Associate Principal Horn of the St. Louis Symphony, and Chris
Read More →Final thoughts on the 2013 AFM Convention
I now know how Charlie Brown would have felt had, just once, Lucy let him actually kick the football. He would have felt a stunned disbelief that what he had long wanted to happen - and what should have been happening all along - finally did happen. I don’t know what he would have felt
Read More →When Vampire Squid meets orchestra
One of the best metaphors in recent years was coined by Matt Taibbi, who wrote one of the great articles on the financial crisis of 2008: The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face
Read More →No Time At All
Just like Rip Van Winkle, American orchestras have been asleep for twenty years. Season after season of the same repertoire, played again and again for generations until the idea of an orchestra participating in modern musical life seems outrageous. Last week, the League of American Orchestras focused their annual conference around the idea of “Imagining Orchestras in
Read More →2013 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming
The League of American Orchestras announced today the winners of this year’s ASCAP awards for adventurous programming. ASCAP and the League present the awards each year during the League’s conference to orchestras of all sizes for programs that challenge the audience, build the repertoire, and increase interest in music of our time. The winners for
Read More →Nashville - WTF?
The situation in Nashville is beginning to seem worrisome: Foreclosure proceedings have been initiated against the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and an auction of its landmark Schermerhorn Symphony Center has been scheduled for June 28. Formal notice of the foreclosure was issued by Bank of America, the lead lender on the $82.3 million still owed on
Read More →Flora, Fauna, and Fiddles: Which Ones Require International Permits?
An on-demand webinar is now available providing an introduction to the special permit process required for international travel with certain musical instruments containing protected species, such as ivory, rosewood, tortoise shell, and other material. On May 14th, the League of American Orchestras, in partnership with the American Federation of Musicians, The Recording Academy, and NAMM,
Read More →Île de Saint-Louis: An Homage for Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)
It was the First Symphony (1951) of Henri Dutilleux, a composer who was entirely new to me then. I came to know the work well and it started me along a road of discovery of one of the finest composers of the 20th Century.
Read More →New boss same as old boss
This really shouldn’t have been a surprise: After a season marred by a bitter contract dispute and a musician lockout, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra got some positive news Tuesday, May 7.The committee looking for a new president for the organization unanimously recommended the return of former SPCO president Bruce Coppock, who was president and
Read More →Where no orchestra has gone before
The Minnesota Orchestra has once again made history; this time with a public threat by its music director to leave unless things are settled very soon: Osmo Vänskä says he will resign as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra if the ensemble loses a prestigious engagement at New York’s Carnegie Hall because of the current
Read More →The AFM is still wrong about the League
It’s hardly a secret that the relationship between the League of American Orchestras and the AFM and its symphonic player conferences has become publicly contentious since the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008. The latest manifestation of that is an article in the March 2013 edition of the International Musician written by Joel LeFevre,
Read More →St. Paul settles
After an extremely confusing few days reading the press coverage of whether or not a deal brokered by St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman would be accepted by the musicians, it appears that it was: The agreement came even as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Board was meeting in executive session to discuss canceling the rest
Read More →News from the North
There have been been several developments in the Twin Labor Disputes in the State Least Likely To Experience Labor Disputes (Or At Least Not-Nice Ones). None of them offer much visible hope for quick resolution of either situation. On the Minnesota Orchestra front, Graydon Royce of the Minneapolis StarTribune, who has done as good a
Read More →A Timpanist’s Memoirs
Thomas Akins, Principal Timpanist with the Indianapolis Symphony from 1965 to 1991, has published his memoirs, Behind the Copper Fence: A Lifetime on Timpani. His book is filled with reminisces about his many years with the Indianapolis Symphony, his training as a timpanist, including seven summers (1960-66) in the League’s Institute for Orchestral Studies with
Read More →Fun with Financing in Nashville
Some rather alarming headlines have appeared in the past few days in the Nashville Press, the best of which was WDEF’s Nashville Symphony Mired in Debt: The Nashville Symphony is in danger of defaulting on $102 million in bonds that were used to build the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Symphony CEO and President Alan Valentine told
Read More →21st Century Musicians: New Pathways
We are all prone to plateau in our endeavors, because we don’t have such constant critical prodding and feedback. So our tennis, golf, snooker, running, weightlifting attain a certain level, but then get stuck.
Read More →Ghosts
Why do we love terrifying ourselves? I am sure we’ve all experienced those spine-tingling moments as a child telling the most frightening stories late at night when parents are asleep.
Read More →The Coolest Band in the World
The Berliners’ model should lead us all to imagine more flexible and responsible organizations that have music as their mission, and the community as their foundation.
Read More →Big Tent Thinking
History is filled with people who have tried to define art. They have all been wrong, and there is no reason to suspect we are any better at it than they were. Changes to what experts call “Art” happen all the time. There was a time when people questioned whether photography constituted fine art. Some
Read More →Are dinosaurs falling? Are deficits “structural”?
NPR had a story yesterday morning on Morning Edition that, rather than commit what used to be considered journalism, rounded up the usual suspects on the subject of whether orchestras in their current form are unsustainable (come to think of it, he said/he said different is what’s considered journalism these days): 2012 will go down
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 →Can an Alien Save the American Orchestra? -Thoughts on “The New Model”
American Orchestras, so we are told over and over again, are on life-support. Audiences are aging or dwindling; “operating expenses” (often a euphemism for “musician salaries and benefits”) are rising; fundraising has reached a ceiling; Apple and Amazon exist; people just aren’t as “educated” about classical music as they were; public music education programs are
Read More →The Empire strikes back
The shockwaves from the Minneapolis Star Tribune article on Monday are still reverberating, judging by today’s response from the Minnesota Orchestra board leadership. It’s quite revealing, both of the board’s real position and of some of the thinking behind it. It’s also full of half-truths and rather creative constructions placed on their actions and those
Read More →Cooking the books
This is a pretty amazing story: For four years, the Minnesota Orchestra board has walked a tightrope between managing public perceptions about its financial health and making its case to cut musicians’ salaries. As early as 2009, board officers were discussing how much money to draw from investments, and the advantage of reporting balanced budgets
Read More →Osmo joins the party
It’s been a bad week for the management of the Minnesota Orchestra, and this very public letter from their Music Director was was likely the cherry on the cake: Dear Members of the Minnesota Orchestra Board and the Musicians of the Orchestra: In the last few years, the Minnesota Orchestra has truly established itself as
Read More →Is a tree embarrassed if it doesn’t hear itself fall?
This is pretty amazing news: The locked out musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra today announced former music director Edo de Waart, and former concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis will join them for two concerts in mid-December. The news comes one day after management cancelled all concerts through December 23rd citing lack of progress in concert talks. Meanwhile
Read More →A Map To Reading And Finding Topics In Harmony: Eight Years of Research, Studies, and Articles
I have long had a soft spot in my heart for Harmony, which was the house journal of the Symphony Orchestra Institute. In part this was because the founders of SOI had the same curiosity about how orchestras really functioned as I did, and gave free rein to their curiosity in soliciting articles for Harmony.
Read More →Hartford Symphony & Chorale on Chinese Television
I visited SymphonyNOW this morning, the League’s news website, and was pleased to see a video featuring my music director, Carolyn Kuan. I’m a violist with the Hartford Symphony in Connecticut. For our opening concert set last week, we performed four concerts of Beethoven’s Ninth paired with the Yellow River Cantata, written by Xian Xinghai
Read More →Minnesota nasty
Minnesotans are known for being averse to conflict, generous to arts and educational groups of all kinds, and generally plain-spoken (unless, of course, such speaking would lead to conflict). So, on top of the ongoing Minnesota Orchestra lock-out, this comes as a shock, even if not a surprise: The Twin Cities’ distinctive status in the
Read More →Didn’t work
The Los Angeles Philharmonic has pulled the plug on its attempt to emulate the Metropolitan Opera’s successful series of live broadcasts to movie theaters: When the Los Angeles Philharmonic launched its series of live broadcasts to cinemas in 2011, the organization touted it as an innovative program intended to broaden the popular reach of the
Read More →Norman thinks it’s “The Rulebook”
In a post rife with reader comments, Norman Lebrecht thinks the top European conductors are shunning American orchestras because of the current wave of strikes, or because they don’t like rules, or… something: Stumbling into the new season, Minnesota has become the third orchestra to lock out its musicians, after Atlanta and Indianapolis. In San
Read More →Dumb s**t conductors say
Leonard Slatkin has been guilty of cluelessness in public again (a previous example can be found here). He’s actually quite reminiscent of a certain candidate for President currently out on the hustings; he goes along saying quite sensible stuff and then runs completely off the rails and reveals his true beliefs: …Relations between the musicians
Read More →10,000 lakes, one fish, and no settlements
And not a lot of truth from employers in the Land of the North Star either, it seems: Musicians for the Minnesota Orchestra say management is threatening to lock them out at midnight Sunday unless there is a contract agreement by then. Orchestra musicians say they will vote on a management contract proposal on Saturday.
Read More →On the fungibility of musicians
One of the uglier memes being spread by the proponents of the Great Attempted Orchestral Downsizing of 2012 is that cutting the pay of musicians won’t damage the quality of the orchestra because everyone is replaceable. A recent post by Chicago lawyer Kevin Moen summarizes it perfectly: Perhaps most disturbing, however, is the response from
Read More →Musicians as managers
My orchestra managed to startle a fair number of people the other day: In a surprising development, principal trumpeter Mark Niehaus has been named the new president and executive director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the MSO announced Wednesday. Niehaus succeeds MaryEllen Gleason, who has resigned after two seasons as the MSO’s executive to pursue
Read More →On governance
Recent news about the negotiations in Atlanta, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Indianapolis have caused a great deal of discussion amongst orchestra musicians. Some online discussion got me to thinking about the role of governance in all of this, and how at least three of these situations are directly related to governance issues and misconceptions.
Read More →Tears, Elf Kings, and Michael Jackson
Anderson & Roe is not your typical virtuoso piano duo. In addition to breathtaking arrangements, they’ve built their career by making spectacular videos.
Though they’ve been featured on The Savvy Musician Blog before, their latest v…
Ruggiero Ricci: A Tribute
By Tony Woodcock The great American violinist Ruggiero Ricci died this week at the age of 94. I had the great privilege of seeing Ricci perform many times and of working with him on countless occasions. The first time I saw him live I was a boy of 14 with very “sophisticated” tastes. His programme,
Read More →League Plenary Session, June 6, 2019
The first plenary session opened with a performance by the Oklahoma youth Orchestra, conducted by Dr. John E. Clinton, playing excerpts from Carmen by Georges Bizet and Sarsen by Hilary Tann. Jesse Rosen, League President and CEO, welcomed the delegates to the opening plenary session at Myerson Symphony Center. He commented that “youth symphonies are
Read More →League Conference: June 6 Musicians' Session
Comments from the Wednesday Afternoon Musicians Session at the League of American Orchestras’ Conference, June 6, 2019 The Dallas hall (Myerson Symphony Center) was built in 1989 - “all the money Ross Perot didn’t spend on his presidential campaign was spent on the hall.” Most people in the session were symphonic musicians; one composer said
Read More →League of American Orchestras' Conference
The League of American Orchestras held their annual conference in Dallas last week. The conference presented three plenary sessions, several Toolbox and Perspective meetings with multiple sessions from which to choose, and constituent meetings (e.g., Marketing Directors, General Managers, Board, Volunteers, Musicians, etc.). The League also offered Orchestra Leadership Academy Seminars (for extra tuition) on
Read More →Who bears the risk?
Deep in the weeds of yesterday’s NY Times story on the Philadelphia Orchestra’s reorganization plan was this little tidbit: The reorganization plan would call for unfunded pension liabilities to be transferred to the federally backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which has assumed responsibility for two of the orchestra’s defined-benefit pension plans. The corporation puts the
Read More →That was quick
Chalk it up to the speed of light - or the speed of bits over the Internet. On Monday: Opera News, 76 years old and one of the leading classical music magazines in the country, said on Monday that it would stop reviewing the Metropolitan Opera, a policy prompted by the Met’s dissatisfaction over negative
Read More →Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Alex Ross may have said it best: A monumental, vastly influential figure is gone. I can’t help feeling shock at the news — a world without Fischer-Dieskau seems foreign and unnerving. He links to several other appreciations, as well as a fascinating - and sad - interview Fischer-Dieskau gave in 2005. Fischer-Dieskau was an artist
Read More →Women in the Symphony Orchestra
Recently Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, interviewed his colleague Evangeline Benedetti, who retired from the orchestra’s cello section in 2011 after 44 years. I found the interview extremely interesting, as Ms. Benedetti was only the second woman to receive tenure in the NY Philharmonic, and had to wait to receive notification
Read More →Settlement in Louisville - at least for now
Finally some good news from Louisville: After 20 months of contentious negotiations, the Louisville Orchestra’s musicians and its management have reached a one-year labor agreement that will allow for a 30-week season beginning this fall, and both sides are optimistic that a long-term deal will be reached by next spring. The deal, announced Wednesday onstage
Read More →Why a Flanagan?
While there’s been some public discussion about the Flanagan book, as I mentioned here, there’s been almost none about its genesis, with one exception that I’ll discuss below. This is unfortunate; how and why an analysis originates can be very informative about the substance of the analysis. So I will try to rectify that and
Read More →Introducing Jake Runestad
A few weeks ago I got a call from concert pianist Jeffrey Biegel, who wanted to tell me about a new consortium commissioning project he’s working on. At the end of a rehearsal with the Minnesota Orchestra, a young composer approached him about a piece he’d like to write for piano, chorus and orchestra. Jeffrey
Read More →Miracles of Modern Science
Japanese scientists have succeeded in making violin strings out of spider silk: Shigeyoshi Osaki at Nara Medical University in Japan has studied the properties of spider silk for 35 years. In the past decade he has focused on trying to turn the silk into violin strings, even taking lessons on what was required of a
Read More →The Perilous Analysis of Symphony Orchestra Finances
The Flanagan Report has recently been resurrected by its author, Robert Flanagan of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, as a book, recently published and currently being promoted by the Yale University Press. The promotion has not yet paid off in reviews outside our field, but is beginning to cause reactions from industry groups. The
Read More →Games (if not fun) in Louisville
The most recent attempt by the board and management of the Louisville Orchestra to appear to be trying to settle what has turned into the orchestral equivalent of WW3 was to propose an interesting form of arbitration; one that would have required the Louisville Orchestra musicians to agree in advance to several provisions that they
Read More →Best line of the century
The situation in Louisville continues to make for colorful reporting. Today’s development was that the Music Director of the Kentucky Opera, Joe Mechavich, is bowing out of this week’s production of Merry Widow because the company hired replacement musicians instead of the musicians of the Louisville Orchestra: …“Given these circumstances, I am unable to continue
Read More →Why there are no solo viola careers
The major function of Twitter appears to be enabling people to write things that, after 24 hours or so of reflection, they probably would rather not have written. Case in point is an outpouring of frustration on the part of the violist Jennifer Stumm, who wrote on her Twitter feed last week: Bigwig last night:
Read More →What a good board looks like
It’s axiomatic in the non-profit sector that, more than any other single factor, it’s the quality of the board of directors that determines whether institutions succeed or not. Of course, it’s axiomatic that the way to make money in the market is to buy low and sell high. That doesn’t mean it’s helpful advice. But,
Read More →Of models old, new, and broken
There’s been lots of chatter in the arts blogosphere the past few days over “the model,” most prominently in the email publication You’ve Cott Mail for January 11, which cited a number of online commentaries on the subject, including a very good one from Drew McManus at Adaptistration. But the commentaries invariably miss crucial points
Read More →About that Strad vs modern violin study thingy…
My colleague Frank Almond did a very thorough take-down of the whole thing here: “These instruments were loaned with the stipulation that they remain in the condition in which we received them (precluding any tonal adjustments or even changing the strings), and that their identities remain confidential. All strings appeared to be in good condition.”
Read More →Diversity and the theater world
Tom Loughlin, who is chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at SUNY Fredonia and has considerable performing experience in professional theater, takes on the diversity issue in his world and comes to some conclusions that could fairly be called politically incorrect: According to The Broadway League 2010-11 Demographic Report, the Great White Way
Read More →Journalist in need of Fisking
It’s hard to read most of the arts reporting in this country and not wonder what else the media gets wrong. The latest example of this, an article on the Dallas Symphony’s current situation titled How Long Can The Dallas Symphony Afford To Play In The Red? popped up yesterday: That the symphony is in
Read More →A different view of orchestra economics
In Los Angeles at least, one observer believes it’s all about the parking: Anyone scanning Disney Hall’s debut calendar in the fall of 2003 would have noticed the size of that first season’s schedule, 128 shows in all. That’s a weighty number for a new hall—one might have assumed it was chosen by venue management
Read More →NLRB says we can be unionized - for now
In what may be the last NLRB decision in a long time, a few days ago the Board ruled that musicians in several per-service orchestras were employees and not independent contractors, and thus could force their employer to recognize their union as bargaining agent: The National Labor Relations Board has found that musicians playing for
Read More →O sweet mystery of life
…or one of them at least - is what conductors actually do. I thought it was all about the hair; Justin Davidson thinks it’s more than that: “Knowing the score”—the expression implies mastery, but it doesn’t suggest the sustained and solitary study that’s required to achieve it. There are a few miles of roadway that
Read More →Of choirs and orchestras
There was a story the other day on our local public radio story that got me thinking about one of the key differences between choirs and orchestras: their relationship to the beat: We revisit our conversation with classical choral composer Eric Whitacre, who has just been nominated for a Grammy for his latest CD “Light
Read More →For the musician with self-esteem issues
This study is about visual artists, but I think it should apply to us as well: According to some scientists, even human beings are just trying to make it in the animal kingdom, and everything we do can be traced back to basic survival. Man hunt, man fight, man eat, man… paint? In 2000,Geoffrey Miller
Read More →Darth Vader vs. the Jedi Cellos
Ok, ok, I admit it. I’m a complete Star Wars geek. But even if you don’t know Chewbacca from Midi-Chlorian, this epic video by The Piano Guys is not to be missed. You won’t be disappointed.
Here’s what they have to say about…
Re-Imagining the Orchestra
The fact that many American orchestras struggle to survive is no secret. In the past few years, top-tier ensembles in Philadelphia, Syracuse, Honolulu, Detroit, Louisville, Dallas, and New Mexico have cancelled concerts, issued pay cuts, declared bankr…
Read More →Who represents whom - and when?
Drew McManus rather raised the profile of the current controversy in Colorado with his post last Friday: Since the Denver Post published an opinion piece written by former Colorado Symphony Orchestra (CSO) board members Heather K. Miller and Bruce Clinton, the field has been abuzz with backchannel discussion over the tone of the letter (in
Read More →More on the Colorado flap
Reactions to the opinion piece written by former Colorado Symphony board members Heather Miller and Bruce Clinton have been quick and generally angry. They fall into three lines of thought; the first was best summarized by Drew McManus at Adaptistration, who wrote: …But the question that should cross your mind at some point while reading
Read More →Michael Kaiser was right
I don’t find myself in agreement with Michael Kaiser very often, but he sure hit the nail on the head when he wrote this a few days ago: It is difficult to see a way out of a chronic deficit, and board members — who are volunteers after all and rarely sign up for a
Read More →Deep Song
Amy Winehouse’s death just a few months ago was a great tragedy and has deprived us of a unique voice and creative spirit. Her career was brief, meteoric, self-destructive and full of moments of amazing achievement. The response that she was able to command from her fans was at once affirming and provocative and in
Read More →Deep Song by Tony Woodcock
Deep Song Amy Winehouse’s death just a few months ago was a great tragedy and has deprived us of a unique voice and creative spirit. Her career was brief, meteoric, self-destructive and full of moments of amazing achievement. The response … Continue reading →
Why the Louisville plan will fail
It’s taken this long for people in the orchestra business to really come to grips with what appears to be the reality of the Louisville situation, which is that the Louisville Orchestra is now run by people who are the board and management equivalents of Dr. Strangelove. This, I think, is because no one could
Read More →Through the worm hole
The management and board of the Louisville Orchestra have apparently transported themselves to an alternate universe - one without unions, labor law, or audiences: Citing a breakdown in negotiations with its musicians, the Louisville Orchestra said Monday that it would “begin the process of hiring permanent replacements for our musicians” as early as next week.
Read More →Justice for extras
Drew McManus analyzed the effect of the new collective bargaining agreement in Philly on the relative compensation of the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians in a post at Adaptistration. His conclusions were not positive: Philadelphia Orchestra’s recent agreement places it firmly below traditional peers, including the Cleveland Orchestra. For the first time in the history of the
Read More →Remembering Len Leibowitz
The memorial service for Len Leibowitz was held on Sunday afternoon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was moderated - if that’s the right word - by Steve Flamhaft, a lawyer who had grown up with Len in Brighton Beach and had gone to high school, Bucknell and law school with him as
Read More →Philly out of the AFM-EP Fund?
This is potentially a very big deal: The American Federation of Musicians and Employers Pension Fund (the “Fund”) said today that an agreement reached by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association is the culmination of a strategy to avoid its obligation to pay the Fund contributions of up to $35 million it owes for benefits earned by
Read More →How to kill a mediation
Something quite unusual happened in Louisville last week; a mediator called one of the parties to the mediation a liar in public. It was, of course, phrased more diplomatically than that: Mediator Henri Mangeot presented both sides with a contract proposal Thursday that was ultimately accepted by the orchestra’s board and management, but rejected by
Read More →Louisville: a local view
This was sent as a letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal but not published. Unfortunate, as it is a very thorough look at the situation from an experienced local observer: One really doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry in response to Chuck Maisch’s column about the Louisville Orchestra that appeared in the Courier-Journal on
Read More →How to Sell New Music
They say some new music is too wierd for audiences. They say it could never sell. They say people only like the tunes they already know and love, written by good faithful Europeans centuries ago.
Well, I say humbug. That all depends on presentation. In…
Some real innovation for a change
Kudos to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for doing something both important and innovative: The Los Angeles Philharmonic has seized the initiative in guiding a national teaching program based on El Sistema, the Venezuelan-based movement that weds music teaching and social work. The orchestra announced on Tuesday that it would open an office, host yearly conferences
Read More →The bottom-up theory of institutional accountability
Buried in an article in yesterday’s Courier-Journal article about the state of the Louisville negotiations (which are being mediated by Ralph Craviso, as discussed in this post) was this gem: In an essay that appeared on the Forum page in The Courier-Journal last month, orchestra board president Chuck Maisch laid responsibility for the orchestra’s woes
Read More →Leonard Leibowitz, DILC: 1938-2011
Len Leibowitz, whose tenure as ICSOM Counsel was so long and distinguished that his name tag and table tent at ICSOM Conferences, by popular consensus, read “Leonard Leibowitz, Distinguished ICSOM Legal Counsel,” died this morning in Boca Raton, Florida. He had suffered from a string of serious health issues in recent years, but - as
Read More →Nixon goes to Louisville
The appointment of Ralph Craviso to mediate the Louisville Orchestra labor dispute has caused some head-scratching in the orchestra industry, a public example of which was Drew McManus’ post of a few days ago: The only question in my mind upon hearing the news was “What, was Governor Scott Walker busy?” Word on the street,
Read More →MacArthur whiffs again
There’s an old saying in our business that contains a great deal of truth: The only thing you need to know about competitions is that Mozart never won one. I remembered it this morning when I read of the latest winners of the MacArthur Fellows (better known as recipients of “Genuis Grants”). It was an
Read More →The San Francisco Story
San Francisco Classical Voice, the online publication covering the Bay Area classical music scene, has a fascinating article on how the San Francisco Symphony became a powerhouse: With the opening of Davies Symphony Hall 30 years ago, the San Francisco Symphony marked the beginning of a well-planned and brilliantly executed ascendancy into the elite rank
Read More →Louisville managemen set to make two more bad decisions
According to WFPL, the management of the Louisville Orchestra has two more chances to screw things up this week: After months of talks with no agreement, Mayor Greg Fischer joined contract negotiations with the management and musicians. Last week, he announced that an anonymous donor had come forward to pay for a nationally-recognized consultant to
Read More →Put things in your ears you should
… at least according to the BBC: The BBC has published a report warning the musicians in its five orchestras that they are at risk from damaging their hearing. The 48-page report, written by the BBC’s safety manager, includes a number of recommendations for players who want to protect themselves against noise while rehearsing or performing.
Read More →American Orchestras: Endangered Species?
This panel discussion was hosted by New York City’s classical radio station WQXR on April 18, 2019, following the announcement that the Philadelphia Orchestra was declaring bankruptcy.
Panelists include:
Anne Parsons, Presi…
Read More →What a difference a week makes
Last week, the Kentucky Opera seemed very interested in having an orchestra in the pit for its upcoming production of Carmen: The opera’s general director, David Roth, said opera administration is talking with the local branch of the musicians union, American Federation of Musicians Local 11-637, so that it can contract its members to perform
Read More →An unusual source for replacement workers
It’s not surprising, in the wake of the Louisville Orchestra management’s cancellation of most orchestral activities scheduled for September and October, that the Kentucky Opera, which uses the Louisville Orchestra, would be looking for musicians to replace LO musicians. Their choice of partner, on the other hand, is straight from the Twilight Zone: The opera’s
Read More →Louisville CEO surprised that AFM will support picket line
…or so yesterday’s article in the Louisville Courier-Journal would suggest: The Louisville Orchestra has cancelled its September and October concerts because of the ongoing contract dispute with musicians, particularly their New York-based union’s threat to fine those who show up for work. “While we believe that local musicians wish to perform, the musicians’ bargaining unit
Read More →Louisville management arms Tsar Bomba
The largest man-made explosion in history occurred on October 31, 2019, when a Soviet bomber dropped a thermonuclear device yielding 50 or so megatons on the Mitysushika Bay testing range in the Soviet Artic. The device, known as Tsar Bomba, was actually capable of twice that power. The fireball and blast wave could be seen
Read More →Reason not the need
The Armory in NYC (on Park and 66th) was new to me. It’s an imposing if ugly building with unimaginative use of brickwork and little sense of outward style… it’s an Armory. Inside it’s huge and cavernous with dark wood paneling and creaky floors. Inside the Armory Then there is the Drill Hall which is
Read More →League Conference: George Cohen on Negotiating
George H. Cohen, formerly AFM counsel, is now the Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), which was founded in 1947. He gave this presentation to a large roomful of managers, with about 10 musicians present. It was a pleasure to hear his biting wit take on a serious issue. George came out
Read More →2011 League Conference: Peter Pastreich on Orchestra Management
Peter Pastreich, former Executive Director of the San Francisco and St. Louis Symphonies and currently Executive Director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Peter is a well-known management consultant in the orchestra field. Peter is often asked to consult by musicians, and likes to help musicians to think about these issues. I published an article based on
Read More →Guest Bloggers: Quartetutopia by Nicholas Kitchen
[Nick Kitchen is the founding first violinist of the Borromeo Quartet, ensemble in residence at NEC. In addition to receiving the Artist Diploma from NEC, the quartet has gone on to win the 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Lincoln Center’s … Continue reading →
League Conference: New American Music Innovation Panel
Panel members: Patrick Castillo, Director of Artistic Planning, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Delta David Gier, Music Director, South Dakota Symphony; Paul Gunther, Principal Librarian, Minnesota Orchestra; and Aaron Kernis, composer. Aaron Kernis spoke first – he is the founder and leader of the Composers Institute in Minneapolis. A bit of history: he was part of
Read More →League Conference: Plenary Session Speeches, Part 2
Deborah Borda, President and CEO, Los Angeles Philharmonic, was the third speaker at the June 7th plenary session. She presented an interesting view of technology and innovation in her remarks titled “Toto, We’re Not in Leipzig Anymore.” First she explored the importance of innovation and being able to identify which innovations are important. In 1879,
Read More →Guest Bloggers: A conversation with Dr. Tom Wolf
“Many financial approaches have been tried over the past 50 years to improve the financial condition of orchestras. Yet, the industry as a whole appears to be in the worst shape it has ever been in…If orchestras are to assume … Continue reading →
League Conference: Plenary Session Speeches, Part 1
The opening Plenary Session on June 7 presented three speakers discussing “Creating an Environment for Innovation.” Larry A. Wendling, Ph.D., VP of the Corporate Research Laboratory at the 3M Center in Minneapolis opened the session with a historical video of the evolution of 3M from a failed mining company to a highly successful, large multi-national
Read More →Guest Bloggers: Colin Thurmond and Rich Chwastiak
AcousticaElectronica AcousticaElectronica. Quite a mouthful to say, but then again – quite an idea. The concept of the show was simple. Blend the virtuosity found in the classical concert hall with the energy of the late-night dance club. The show … Continue reading →
Jesse Rosen's "Red Alert" Speech at Conference
The Plenary Session on Wednesday morning, June 8, was titled Red Alert and began with a most interesting address by Jesse Rosen, President and CEO of the League. Below are highlights from Jesse’s speech; his speech will be published separately as an article. You can watch a video of the entire plenary session by clicking
Read More →When Bruce Willis meets Richard Wagner
Heard on a small Indiana public radio station: Next, we’ll hear the overture to “Die, Meistersinger!” by Richard Wagner.
Read More →When the Audition Has No Winner
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can choose a player for our orchestra from these candidates.” Has anyone you know heard words similar to those recently? I wouldn’t be surprised if you said “yes” because it’s been happening across the country with increasing frequency for several years now. A couple weeks
Read More →Finalmente!
This blog has spent a great deal of time and space and generated considerable commentary and debate on the subject of the future of Orchestras in this country. The current situation is well-documented – orchestras going out of business completely … Continue reading →
2011 League Conference
I attended the 2011 League of American Orchestras Conference in Minneapolis last week (June 7 - 9) and have much to tell about what I experienced. I’ll be turning my notes into blog posts over the next few weeks, letting you experience a bit of what Conference is all about. One of the most frustrating
Read More →A tribute to Fred Zenone
It is only one measure of the unique position that Fred Zenone held in our field that both the League of American Orchestras and ICSOM are honoring his memory at their respective conferences this summer. I was asked to make the presentation of the Gold Baton, the League’s highest recognition, to Pat Zenone, Fred’s widow,
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 →
Upcoming
In my last posting on the American orchestra crisis, I promised to create a virtual symposium on the complex issues. I proposed inviting musicians, orchestra managers, union representatives, consultants, funders, students to weigh in with their thoughts. I have issued … Continue reading →
Orchestras Part V
I had originally contemplated writing just the four previous posts on orchestra models. But given the currency of this topic both here and abroad, I felt it obligatory to summarize and reiterate some of my points. I also wanted to … Continue reading →
Discoveries
Ever since I arrived in the U.S. in the 1990’s, I have been a subscriber to The New Yorker, which, at its best, is one of the most fascinating reads of the week. The magazine has been the vehicle for … Continue reading →
What a crisis looks like
Anne Midgette at the Washington Post points us to a country where the orchestra industry is shedding jobs at a pace über alles: According to the book Musical Life in Germany, an informational publication put out by the German Music Information Center (MIZ) that just landed on my desk, there were 168 publicly financed
Read More →A cautionary fable
One fine day, a sailboat (not the M/V Minnow, although their experience was relevant) set sail from port with its trusty crew for a nice sustainable sail across the ocean. The weather was beautiful. As the crew gained confidence in their ship and the conditions, they raised more sail until their trusty S/V AmericanOrchestra was
Read More →A crisis of analysis
Tony Woodcock gave us a classic example of the “dinosaurs falling from the sky” genre of industry analysis on this blog last week. Before I try to dismantle his analysis, I should say that I don’t think he’s entirely wrong. Certainly the field has faced an unprecedented challenge since the beginning of recession in 2008.
Read More →Flash Mob of Bach's B Minor Mass at Union Station, New Haven CT
This YouTube video features several of my colleagues from the New Haven and Hartford Symphonies as they participate in a “flash mob” at the train station in New Haven on Friday afternoon, April 29th at 6:10. The purpose was to advertise the upcoming performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor in late April by the
Read More →American Orchestras: Yes, it's a crisis
“I am convinced that if the rate of change within an organization is less than the rate of change outside, the end is near.” – Jack Welch In the last twelve months the Honolulu, Syracuse, and New Mexico Symphonies have … Continue reading →
Getting displaced by an orchestra that doesn't exist
This business about cheap Russian touring orchestras is getting out of hand: The Web site photograph depicted an elegant array of orchestra musicians in a glowing hall. A video clip showed an earnest young conductor leading players in a Tchaikovsky symphony. Below the picture, an official biography described the “Tschaikowski” St. Petersburg State Orchestra as
Read More →Business Model Session on Monday, April 25
With thanks to Andrew Taylor for initiating and planning this session, please join Nina Simon, Andrew and me on Monday (details below) for a discussion of new, innovative and old business models in the arts and culture sector. I hope to see you …
Read More →How to Miss the Titanic
[This is the second 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 first time I heard the London Symphony … Continue reading →
Emily can't save the (Philadelphia) Orchestra
We did a kiddie concert with the Platypus Theatre today. The show, Emily saves the Orchestra, had a very timely feel to it, being a show about a monster by the name of Boardus Dismemberus Cacophonus who hates music and wants to put an end to the orchestra. I wasn’t the only person on stage
Read More →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 →
Arts Entrepreneurship — The Class
Last weekend I attended the annual conference of the Association of Arts Administration Educators. There I heard that the arts entrepreneurship “movement” is spreading rapidly in higher education. This has to be of concern, as the “it” is s…
Read More →The Great Disconnect Revisited
Years ago I wrote an article (I can’t even remember for what publication) called The Great Disconnect. It focused on the tragic separation and total lack of communication between the professional presenting world and the K-12 arts education world. …
Read More →Downsizing for stability?
The Syracuse Symphony board is giving up because it’s just too damned hard: Syracuse Symphony s board of trustees will file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, likely next week. Interim Executive Director Paul Brooks made the announcement Tuesday following a 2 hour SSO board meeting. Board chair Rocco Mangano, seated next to Brooks in a conference room
Read More →The National Anthem
This is a story I have been planning to tell for a long time. A tale of romance, passion, and great expectation and how this all crashed upon the rocks of government bureaucracy. But let’s start at the beginning. In … Continue reading →
It’s 42!
The extraordinary news from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, that the 82-year-old librarian, Joseph Havashvilli of the city’s 380-year-old conservatory of music, had concealed for the last sixty years, Mozart’s Symphony No. 42, has amazed the music world. Musicologists have … Continue reading →
A question to which I don't know the answer
Playing an instrument well is really, really hard. Playing together with other people is not much easier. But playing the dynamics on the page is quite easy. So why do so many people in orchestras do so well at the first two and so badly at the last one?
Read More →Bloopers
We all know the maxim “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Well I believe this to be inaccurate. The truism should be: “The road to Hell is paved with good ideas.” Because it is all those brilliant, … Continue reading →
Duende
I have always made it a policy not to miss an opportunity to hear great artists at the end of their careers. Interestingly, it was a young pianist years ago who crystallized for me the preciousness of artistry enriched by … Continue reading →
Arts Entrepreneurship — Two Curricular Tracks
So I’m in the final planning stages for my course in Arts Entrepreneurship (starts March 30), and I have come to the conclusion that I will teach and present materials and activities in 2 different tracks: those for the social entrepreneur, and those f…
Read More →The Musician's Union: A Contrarian Point of View-Sort of
Here’s a blog posted on March 15, 2019 by Columbus Symphony bassoonist, Betsy Sturdevant on her blog. In it she makes some interesting observations about unions in general, and the Musician’s Union in particular. Good food for thought. What do you think? Musician labor unions: the pros and the cons Labor unions formed in the
Read More →“Mr. Kreizsky, meet Mr. Woodsky”
Yakov Kreitzberg, the Russian-born, American-trained conductor was Music Director and Artistic Director of the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Principal Guest Conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and outgoing Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Netherlands Chamber … Continue reading →
Pushing Boundaries
“As far as boundaries are concerned, we are always looking for new ones.” * A little while back I attended a class by Hankus Netsky who heads up our Contemporary Improvisation Department. This is the department Gunther Schuller created in … Continue reading →
Trust the Power of the Young
Back in 2006 when I was being recruited by NEC I found myself being interviewed by countless people – faculty, Board members, staff, donors, community. You name it and I met them. At the time I was transitioning from a … Continue reading →
Arts Entrepreneurship — Lack of Imagination, Lack of Chutzpah?
I will soon be teaching a new course called Arts Entrepreneurship here at Drexel. I’ve been preparing for this on and off since last summer. In addition to reviewing literature and current thinking on the topic I have been looking at offeri…
Read More →A Way to Move Forward
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece about the DSO’s stalemate and many people have since asked me to share my ideas about a possible new model that might reverse current trends and create sustainability. But before I do … Continue reading →
The Intertoobs can barely keep up with this story!
According to Drew McManus at Adaptistration, DSO management is claiming that, contrary to the most recent Detroit News article, they have no plans to hire replacements or to invite striking musicians to cross the picket line and return to a “newly assembled group of players”: Today’s article in The Detroit News by Lawrence Johnson, “DSO:
Read More →Backs to the wall
It’s axiomatic in collective bargaining that negotiating committees have a moral obligation to lead, and that the key leadership act is recommending approval or rejection of a proposed settlement. It appears that the DSO negotiating committee took that lesson to heart: The negotiating committee of the striking Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians recommended Thursday that its
Read More →Progress in Detroit?
Apparently. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra and its striking musicians continued to make slow-but-steady progress in indirect talks this morning and afternoon, according to DSO executive vice president Paul Hogle. “If we were not making progress,” Hogle said “we wouldn’t continue even with indirect talks. And we are absolutely willing to meet face to face when
Read More →Not quite as much fun as the real thing, though
A critic’s take on tantric orchestra musicianship.
Read More →Still talking in Detroit
… which is good news. Where there is life talk, there is hope: The two sides in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike were in last-minute talks Friday evening trying to avert cancellation of the rest of the 2010-2011 season. The DSO board had earlier stipulated an agreement had to be in hand by 5 p.m.
Read More →When Die Walküre meets Den Schneesturm
…the blizzard wins. Here in Milwaukee we’re having the first day of rehearsals canceled for snow that I can remember. We had a run-out to Green Bay canceled due to snow a number of years ago, but given that traffic was moving at 25 mph on the freeway and Green Bay was 100 miles away,
Read More →Dinosaurs falling from the sky in theater-land?
The head of the NEA seems to think so: Count on Rocco Landesman to stir the pot. Speaking at a conference about new play development at Arena Stage in Washington on Thursday, Mr. Landesman, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, addressed the problem of struggling theaters. “You can either increase demand or
Read More →This isn't good….
This morning’s news from Detroit is discouraging: Prospects for productive talks in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike seem to be taking a turn for the worse. After an executive committee board meeting Wednesday, management released new figures casting doubt on whether the organization could meet the financial burdens of its current proposal. For their part,
Read More →Devastating Impact
I recently purchased an Internet radio, so am now about to access (without charge) my favorite public radio stations from throughout the US. One theme that I hear on all of them is that proposed public (government) funding cuts will have a devast…
Read More →Musicians Can Now Sell Directly on Facebook With This New App
If you have a band and are trying to get your name around, Moontoast might be something to consider. They’ve come up with an app that allows musicians to connect with their fans and sell directly on Facebook. Check out the article here:
http://ma…
What's the difference between practicing and child abuse?
It’s not very often that practice techniques make the Wall Street Journal. It’s even less often that they become the stuff of vitriolic debate, but that’s what’s happened in response to this: A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many
Read More →Arts in the suburbs
Anne Midgette had an interesting piece in Friday’s Washington Post on the boom in arts facilities in the DC area: If the 1970s saw an increase in performing arts organizations, the 1990s and 2000s have seen a notable increase in places built to house them. The boom is reflected nowhere better than in the Washington
Read More →Orchestras aren't about "peace"
I’ve been trying to figure out just what exactly bugs me so much about this: Music can change the state of the world, stop conflict and bloodshed, and bring peace to war-torn regions. If that sounds far-fetched then you haven’t met Russia’s famed maestro Valery Gergiev. “The power of music can be (a) very quiet
Read More →A good idea
This is interesting: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has announced the first recipient of the Mabel Dorn Reeder Honorary Chair: It’s associate concertmaster Heidi Harris. The chair, announced in July 2010, was established with a $2 million endowment from the Mabel Dorn Reeder Foundation. It is awarded, based on “excellence in artistry and leadership within
Read More →Happy New Year
2011 has got to be better than 2010, which really sucked. Some good news is already emerging, though. The Nashville Symphony is back in its home after months of repairing flood damage, while the musicians of the Louisville Orchestra won a significant victory in bankruptcy court when the judge refused to set aside their collective
Read More →Hello, World
It’s the first week of 2011 and this is the start of my new blog, Street-Wise Lesson of the Week. Many of the posts that you will read here in the coming weeks, months, and hopefully years, will come from my new book, Lessons From a Street-Wise Professor: What You Won’t Learn at Most Music […]
Read More →Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #10
What a revelation it has been to experience the vast arts world, after my most recent 14 professional years totally immersed in the field of music (not all classical at Eastman). During these years, because of the press of senior management and s…
Read More →Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #9
For years, and I mean years, I prided myself on my being able to stay on top of advances in technology. I saw it as an amazing tool to advance communications, increase efficiency, and provide creative possibilities for education in the arts. …
Read More →Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #8
I spoke to this task in 2 recent blog entries, to concern about the effects of government support. Let’s make it a priority to re-examine our positions vis a vis government involvement. We’ve really got to, as we’re on a slippery slope now….
Read More →Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #7
Who makes iconography decisions in your arts organization? If you are the leader, it better be you. I have recently advised a number of student research papers that examine alignment between mission, program and iconography, and I’m appalle…
Read More →Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #6
Let’s break down, get rid of the artificial barriers between not-for-profit arts and commercial arts. This artificial designation does us no good, as it causes internal sector strife, and confusion and misunderstanding among the public.
There’s p…
Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #5
Number 5 is short and sweet, like Five Golden Rings!
Let’s practice what we preach. Let’s approach our work with creativity, and with an appetite for risk. Although my interpretation of his work may be over-simplified, Robert Pe…
Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #4
This one will be no surprise to readers of this blog. Let’s really work on exploring and then considering organizational designs other than the 501c3. Yes, the 501c3 offers a number of seductive characteristics, but it is also expensive to …
Read More →Ten Work Items for 2011, Task #3
Let’s make a commitment to creating and nurturing cooperative ventures, not just within our inner circles, or our comfort zones, but those that stretch us artistically and those that make our entities more efficient.
Face it: we’re very, very conservat…
Recollections
Sunday morning I got up early to catch a 7:00 AM flight to Washington DC to attend the memorial event for Fred Zenone. As I had ample time between arrival and the beginning of the event, I decided to take the train, which got me to within a 25-minute walk of the church. After changing
Read More →Another great moment in press coverage
Did you know that there are acoustic termites? Me neither: The vacant Ford Auditorium, once home to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and a hot spot for pop music concerts, famous speeches and theatrical productions before it closed in 1990, is expected to be demolished as early as May… Built in 1955, the auditorium was revered
Read More →A Tale of Two Audiences
A Tale of Two Audiences Let’s talk about programming, shall we? Any music director of an American orchestra, when programming a season, is striving to create balance. What does the orchestra need to play in order to grow artistically? What does the audience want to hear? What do they need to hear in order to
Read More →Fred Zenone
Sir Isaac Newton, generally regarded as the most influential scientist in human history, once said “if I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Those of us who make a living playing in orchestras stand on the shoulders of giants as well. One of them, Fred Zenone, died on
Read More →Why conductors live longer
It’s not because they make more money, or have all that power, or gets lots of aerobic exercise from moving their arms so much. Apparently it’s because they get to stand up while working: In academic papers with titles such as, “Your Chair: Comfortable but Deadly,” physicians point to surprising new research showing higher rates
Read More →YouTube Symphony-Year Two Coming
Here’s an article that appeared in the Entertainment section of the Los Angeles Times last week. The author says she is cynical and that is apparent, but I’m even more cynical about the article itself. It’s definitely representative of “old school” thinking. See if you agree. Culture Monster All the Arts, All the Time The
Read More →A Musician's Friend-Mark Morris Gets It
Here’s an interview with Mark Morris, the well-known choreographer, that appeared recently in the Boston Globe. In the first part of the interview he hits the nail on the head in his answer to the question, “Why is live music so important to you in performance?” Ballet and dance company musicians out there, remember this
Read More →MacArthur gets one right
Some of the choices that the MacArthur Foundation has made in the past when awarding their “genius grants” to people in our field have struck me a little… odd. A few years ago, a MacArthur award went to Marin Alsop, and I remember feeling at the time that it might have had more to with
Read More →The Lakota Music Project
Yesterday the South Dakota Symphony played its Lakota Music Project at Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer, SD in the Black Hills. http://crazyhorsememorial.org/info/‘lakota-music-project’-highlights-native-americans’-day-at-crazy-horse/ It was Native American Day in South Dakota (Governor George Mickelson renamed Columbus Day in the 1990, part of his Common Ground initiative). The Lakota Music Project has been over five years in
Read More →Actions have consequences
… as Sarah Chang has just been sharply reminded. My personal definition of “grown-up” is someone who not only understands that actions have consequences but doesn’t complain about the fact. Very, very few people pass that test consistently. But one of the times it is most often forgotten in our industry is during labor disputes.
Read More →A bad excuse to get out of a tough dilemma
Sarah Chang has canceled her Detroit recital scheduled for Monday, according to the Detroit Free Press: Some of the e-mails Chang told DSO management she received through her Web site, www.sarahchang.com, crossed the line from expressing displeasure to physical threats and career intimidation. Chang’s Los Angeles-based manager Jenny Vogel declined comment. DSO president Anne Parsons
Read More →Sarah's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad dilemma
Orchestra strikes always cause collateral damage, from lost work for stage hands to lost income for restaurants. The strike in Detroit looks to hurt someone aside from the usual suspects, though. The DSO was supposed to have its opening concerts of the season this weekend with soloist Sarah Chang. Of course the concerts are off
Read More →America's other professional orchestras
When asked about the difference between American and European orchestras, most observers would first point to the fact that American orchestras receive comparatively little government funding. A segment on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday reminds us that there is actually quite a lot of government funding of large-ensemble performance in the US - and how
Read More →What happened in Vegas…
is now online! To be more precise, an analysis of what happened at the AFM Convention in June has been published in Union Democracy Review, the newsletter of the Association for Union Democracy, and can be read here. Also at that address are links to articles on some of the issues that dominated the Convention.
Read More →Baltimore and Alsop Might Be On To Something
In my February 1, 2019 blog I wrote about the Baltimore Symphony’s plans for a fantasy camp, (my words) for adults, and how the amateur musicians would be working with the pros of the orchestra. It is the brainchild of Marin Alsop and apparently it has legs. Two hundred fifty amateur musicians, now called “Rusty
Read More →Detroit implements
While not unexpected, this is not good news: Eleventh hour talks on Friday to head off a work stoppage at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra failed to settle a rancorous labor dispute between management and musicians…No further negotiating sessions are scheduled and DSO President Anne Parsons said Friday afternoon that management is now implementing the terms
Read More →What's Detroit about?
Anne Midgette writes (or, more fairly, implies) in the Washington Post that the Detroit negotiations center on …a proposal that involves not only a hefty salary cut, but a formal redefinition of the job of an orchestral musician, making outreach, teaching, and chamber concerts a part of the deal. As Stryker points out, most musicians
Read More →And now for something completely different…
The bad news arrived on such a regular basis this summer that it was a shock to see two bits of very good news arrive last week with a day or so. The first item was news of a startlingly successful fundraising campaign by the board of the New Jersey Symphony. The NJSO is an
Read More →Internal disconnects
Orchestras are different in lots of ways from most institutions in our society. But there are commonalities. One was brought home to me today when I read a blog post by a UC Berkeley prof on the tension between academics and university administrators: …university administrators and ordinary academics have totally different ideas of what counts
Read More →Another take on gender discrimination
Strings magazine has an article on gender discrimination in its most recent issue that’s worth a look. While the writer, Rory Williams, focuses on the ongoing saga of how many women have really been hired by the Vienna Philharmonic, there is also quite a bit on the situation in the US as well: The latest
Read More →Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln…
… how was your summer? While not as bad as Mrs. Lincoln’s, the summer was a downer for the orchestra industry. I’ve long suspected that orchestras were trailing indicators for the health of the economy as a whole, which is to say that orchestras get sicker and get well later in an economic downturn than
Read More →The Richardson Symphony and Buddy Rich-What's the Connection
Some of you may be following the plight of the Richardson (Texas) Symphony Orchestra and its musicians. They’re embroiled in a bitter dispute that has led to the RSO being placed on the International Unfair List of the American Federation of Musicians. What this means is that as long as the orchestra is on the
Read More →Brahms and Ravel on the Vuvuzela
Ralph Locke, a musicology professor at Eastman, sent Polyphonic a link to a pretty amusing video: I think you’ll enjoy this. The narration, gestures, etc., are all perfect — a kind of tongue-in-cheek critique of typical classical-music presentations.
Read More →League Conference: Diversity Panel
Friday morning again had multiple sessions, each presented twice. The Diversity panel, moderated by Beth Wilson, Director of Student Musician Development at the Atlanta Symphony, showcased the ASO’s Talent Development Program (TDP), a program for talented young African-American and Latino classical musicians in the greater Atlanta community. The panel included Edie Bostic, TDP Trustee and
Read More →League Conference: Atlanta Symphony's War Room
Friday afternoon was for Symposia – six simultaneous sessions, each repeated once. “The Atlanta Symphony War Room: A New Approach to Collaborative Decision Making” featured Robert Spano, music director, John Sparrow, vice president for orchestra initiative and general manager, and Charlie Wade, vice president of marketing. Again, my notes may not be verbatim but hopefully
Read More →How not to behave at work
This should serve as a warning to all of us, even though principal players are possibly more prone to this disorder simply due to the interaction of human nature and hierarchies. Please note that it’s definitely NSFW (not safe for work, although most of us don’t have the problem of having computers at work, of
Read More →League Conference: Digital Media Rights Session
Thursday morning started off with a session about digital media rights, moderated by John Sparrow, VP of Orchestra Initiatives in Atlanta. The panel: Jonathan Brill, Executive VP of Opus 3 Artists; Joe Kluger, Partner at WolfBrown and former President of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Robert Levine, Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony [and a Senior
Read More →League Conference: Russell Willis Taylor - How to put your organization out of business
Thursday afternoon’s general session began with a performance by the ASO brass quintet. Jesse Rosen then recounted an experience he had playing bass trombone in the NYU orchestra. He was preparing his part for Brahms’ Requiem and was pleased to see that he had a lot of notes, including a few melodies. At the first
Read More →League Conference: Musicians' Session
On Thursday we had a musicians’ session, with Bob Wagner moderating. Bob is the principal bassoon of the New Jersey Symphony, a board member of the League, and former ICSOM rep and Orchestra Committee chair of the NJSO. There were perhaps 15 of us: we talked about a lot of things: I asked about the
Read More →Live-blogging the AFM Convention
Orchestra musicians are fortunate that what happens to their union is important enough that they should care about it; most American workers are not so lucky in having a collective voice of any kind. So for those of you who do care about what’s happening in - and to - the AFM, I’m live-blogging the
Read More →League Opening Session Part 2
The keynote speaker at the conference opening session on Wednesday, June 16, was Ben Cameron, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Fund. He is the former executive director of Theatre Communications Group. Excerpts from his address follow (he’s a very fast talker so this is not verbatim): According to Bill Moyers,
Read More →League Conference Opening Day
The League of American Orchestra’s annual conference opened on Wednesday, June 16. Musicians, conductors, artist administrators, and music publishers were invited to an open rehearsal of the Atlanta Symphony at Woodruff Arts Center for the Atlanta School of Composers concert to be held on Friday, followed by a luncheon with comments by Music Director Robert
Read More →Michael Kaiser's 10 Commandments
Michael Kaiser, CEO of the Kennedy Center and author of The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations, has been travelling the country, speaking in all 50 states about how non-profit arts organizations can weather the current economic downturn. On June 10 he came to Connecticut; I attended his New Haven session
Read More →League Conference in Atlanta
The League of American Orchestras’ annual conference is next week in Atlanta, June 16 to 19. I’m attending and will be blogging every day about what’s going on. Reminder that any musician in a member orchestra (which I’d imagine includes all professional orchestras) can attend the League’s conference for free, registering as a musician. They
Read More →Musician Performance Rights-Pending Legislation to Benefit Musicians
Yesterday I received another email from AFM President Lee. Unlike the video the previous day, which had a “please join the union message,” this one was all business. It tells of the legislation before Congress right now that would benefit musician’s works that are played on terrestrial radio. Here’s part of the email. One of
Read More →Reinforcing The Image of the AFM- Old, Dated and Out of Touch
Today I received an email from Thomas F. Lee the President of the American Federation of Musicians. I suppose that it went to all AFM members for whom they have email addresses. It begins: Dear Member RICKER: I am pleased to announce that the Federation is developing a series of videos to educate musicians and
Read More →60 Minutes on El Sistema USA
On Sunday, May 16, 2019, CBS’ news magazine 60 Minutes featured a segment on Gustavo Dudamel and El Sistema USA, in particular YOLA (Youth Orchestra LA) and the Baltimore Symphony’s OrchKids program. Gustavo Dudamel is, of course, the new Music Director of the Los Angeles Philhamonic, and the segment shows him at his first rehearsal
Read More →El Sistema Conference: YOLA
The conference was hosted by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to showcase their YOLA project: Youth Orchestra LA. On Friday we were bused to the Expo Center, which most of us assumed was some sort of civic center. Instead, it turned out to be a huge Parks and Recreation campus in South Central LA (now referred
Read More →El Sistema Conference: Abreu Fellows
The highlight of the conference for most people was the presentation on Friday morning by the Abreu fellows, where nine of the ten fellows described their two months in Venezuela during February, March, and April, 2010. (Dan Berkowitz was hired by the LA Philharmonic to head up their YOLA program before the fellows’ trip to
Read More →El Sistema USA Conference Day 1
The conference opened this morning (May 6) with an extremely interesting panel discussion on Musicians as Educators: The Many Faces and Approaches of Teaching, moderated by Eric Booth, with panelists Robert Gupta, the youngest violinist ever accepted in the LA Philharmonic and an avid teacher, David Malek, an Abreu fellow, and Arlen Hlusko, cellist, student
Read More →El Sistema USA Conference in LA
Polyphonic will be publishing a lot of information about the El Sistema USA project, covering many of its myriad facets, in the next month. I arrived in Los Angeles last night for “Composing Change: YOLA and the El Sistema Movement” conference. Today’s session, hosted by the League of American Orchestras, will be moderated by Eric
Read More →Something sure is broken in Honolulu
I don’t know that this has ever happened in an orchestra bankruptcy before: U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Faris yesterday denied the Honolulu Symphony Society’s request to extend the period in which it alone could submit a plan for its reorganization. The decision allows the symphony’s musicians and other parties to submit competing plans for the
Read More →The potential of online media
For anyone who still believed that there was significant money to be made in selling recordings online, this chart will come as an unpleasant reality check. A dissenting point of view can be found here. Fortunately, more and more people in our business are realizing that the real value of electronic media to our institutions
Read More →Step away from the cell phone…
A discussion has erupted on another online forum regarding the use of cell phones at auditions. My orchestra has had some very limited discussion about a related issue; the use of electronic devices by committee members, albeit in the context of doing anything at auditions other than listening. But that discussion (which manifested itself in
Read More →On Indispensability
“The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men,” Charles de Gaulle once famously remarked. A rather public discussion of whether music directors can be indispensable is happening over the physical health of James Levine and its impact on the institutional health of the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony. At some point the
Read More →Kenneth McKellar
Most orchestra musicians, in addition to loving the repertoire they play (or most of it, at least), like other music as well - although just what they like varies greatly from person to person. My secret vice is Scottish folk music. So I was saddened to hear that the great Scottish tenor Kenneth McKellar died
Read More →NY Times thinks running an orchestra is a real job
I don’t know if the New York Times has done this kind of profile on an orchestra musician yet; we may need to be content to see one on an orchestra manager. At least they picked a good one to profile: In early 1990, I got a call from the New York Philharmonic, which was
Read More →Hiring outside the box
The Atlanta Symphony board has decided to hire someone without all that old-fashioned orchestra management baggage: The heavy odds were for an insider — a career symphonic administrator who’d already led one of the nation’s top orchestras and was looking for a lateral move. Instead, the board of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is naming Stanley
Read More →The dystonia horror show
Musicians don’t talk much about focal dystonia; perhaps it’s a superstitious avoidance akin to trying to ward off the Evil Eye. For dystonia really is a horror show; arguably the leading career-killing disorder of all.
Read More →Another explanation for gender imbalance
It’s often forgotten that the core concept behind the World Wide Web (as opposed to the Internet, with which the Web is often confused) is the hyperlink. A hyperlink is that underlined word or phrase or image on a Web page on which one clicks to go there and find out more. The power of
Read More →Oh Those Dress Codes
I read with interest the thread that went through Orchestra-l recently about many symphony musicians who feel that orchestras just dress too formally to relate to their public. Well, I have the absolute opposite opinion — many of us dress way too informally. Yes, white-tie and tails are an anachronism from another century and perhaps
Read More →What happened in Charleston?
The board of the Charleston (SC) Symphony has decided to call it quits for this season: A significant drop in fundraising dollars, exacerbated by the recession’s “strong headwind” has forced the Charleston Symphony Orchestra to suspend its operations, effective immediately, board president Ted Legasey said Sunday. It is the first time in the orchestra’s 75-year
Read More →More on Vienna
So the Vienna Philharmonic finally recognized that women really can play the violin (or whatever instrument) and appointed a woman as Concertmaster. In honor of this occasion, which shouldn’t really have to be an occasion (if the Vienna Philharmonic lived in the same decade, or even century, as the rest of us), I asked a
Read More →Pain in Baltimore
Coverage of the impact of concessions on musicians is not usually as explicit as in this article by Tim Smith for the Baltimore Sun: Musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra have agreed to take yet another salary hit in an effort to help the organization weather the continued effects of the recession. The players accepted
Read More →Healthcare reform and orchestras
There doesn’t seem to have been anything in the press or blogosphere about the effect of healthcare reform (as of last night, and pending the signature of the President, the law of the land) on orchestras. One would think that the effect of HCR on 0.00002% of the national economy would be bigger news. No
Read More →Gender and orchestras - another datapoint
A fascinating article in the latest edition of Allegro, the official publication of Local 802 (NYC), adds some more data to the subject of gender balance in orchestras: Each year for Women’s History Month we crunch the numbers to see how our male and female members are represented on various contracts. The data below is
Read More →Musician Plays Violin as Surgeons Operate on His Brain
Here’s a wonderful, positive story about Roger Frisch, the Minnesota Orchestra Associate Concertmaster, who underwent brain surgery at the Mayo Clinic to correct tremors. His story was featured on national news with Diane Sawyer. Find it here. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/fiddling-brain-10142847
Read More →Reading the tea leaves in Detroit
Breaking news on the Detroit Symphony today: Talks to renegotiate the Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians contract have ended without a deal, a surprise since a spokesperson for the musicians earlier said that they were “expecting and hoping” to be part of the solution to the DSO’s budget crisis. “The DSO management team and orchestra are
Read More →Oops
The New York Times raises the question of just who benefits from a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall: Christoph Eschenbach will conduct Sunday at the benefit featuring the Chinese pianist Lang Lang, top, and Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra. Even if the event’s nearly $200,000 worth of tickets sell out, less than $8,000 from the sales will
Read More →The Cult of Youth
Mathew Gurewitsch had an interesting article the other day in the New York Times on The Cult of Youth: IN the world of the contemporary symphony orchestra, youth is not so much a stage of life as it is a battle cry. Youth orchestras! Young conductors! At times it begins to seem that nothing else
Read More →NHMF and the Union
The March 2010 edition of the International Musician, the official publication of the AFM, contained news of the AFM’s most recent success in influencing a recalcitrant employer: Several managers and directors of New Hampshire Music Festival (NHMF) have left their posts, following overwhelming opposition to their plans to implement a “new artistic model” for the
Read More →Klemp, you talka too muich
That was the punch line of what is likely an apocryphal story about an interaction between the great German conductor Otto Klemperer and an Italian principal oboe. Sadly, Klemp is not alone. It must be hard to be a conductor, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. But one of the hardest things - judging by
Read More →Does the Vienna Phil discriminate?
The Vienna Philharmonic is touring the UK, and The Independent has re-visited the question of whether the orchestra discriminates on the basis of gender or national origin: Bernstein called it “that unbelievable orchestra, which plays like one hundred angel-fingers growing out of my hands”. Yet once Stravinsky immolates into silence, pause, for before you is
Read More →I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends
The article that follows my comments is from The Minnesota Daily, the newspaper of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis/St. Paul. It’s the first in a series profiling drug use on the UMinn. campus, and they start with music students. Since the readers of Polyphonic.org are familiar with the orchestra world, it will be no surprise
Read More →He has a dream
The General Director of the San Francisco Opera has a vision for the future of the company, and it’s…a multi-storied annex? David Gockley has a dream, and it’s to transform a parking lot behind the Veterans Building into a multi-storied annex for the San Francisco Opera. Of course, like any dream, there is a reality
Read More →It's an ecosystem, Maestro
Riccardo Muti, who last week taught us (and the Met Opera orchestra) about Verdi, this week is teaching us about the value of some American orchestras: The Riccardo Muti era at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra officially began Thursday at Symphony Center, as the CSO’s 10th music director announced plans for his first season. He did
Read More →Nice little pension plan you got there…
It’d be a a shame if something happened to it. Oh wait… something just did: The Pension Protection Act of 2006 requires the funding “zone status” for defined benefit multiemployer plans like the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund (the “Plan”) to be certified each year by the plan’s actuary. The actuary for
Read More →Resistance is apparently futile
This article on composer/programmer David Cope and the compositional software he’s created is absolutely amazing: It was here, half a dozen years ago, that Cope put Emmy to sleep. She was just a software program, a jumble of code he’d originally dubbed Experiments in Musical Intelligence (EMI, hence “Emmy”). Still — though Cope struggles not
Read More →New Article: Selling Bartok's Blackbeard's Castle
We’ve published another article — about an amazing marketing success with a program that should have been hard to sell. Now, of course, our own Robert Levine, with Ilana Setapen, was featured on the first half playing the Mozart Symphonie Concertante, so that must have done it right there! But seriously (no offense meant, Robert…),
Read More →The hottest seat
My BBB Charles Noble wrote a good post the other day on the perils of being an assistant principal string player: This morning, at the dress rehearsal for this weekend’s classical program, my principal had to leave midway through the rehearsal for personal reasons. It took place during the middle of the first movement of
Read More →TMI and the cult of personality
The other New York Times piece to which I referred in the last post was on Manfred Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and focused to a remarkable extent on his religious beliefs: Manfred Honeck, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, is a Roman Catholic who prays before every concert, sometimes in
Read More →Conductors and the cult of personality
Two conductor profiles in the New York Times in recent days highlight the dangers of thinking that conductors are special people. The first was on Riccardo Muti, and was an unadulterated puff piece: Realizing that the Met musicians might not have been familiar with the opera, he occasionally paused to clue them in on the
Read More →New Article: Spokane Symphony's Endowed Chair
Julie Ayer, author of More Than Meets the Ear, How Symphony Musicians Made Labor History, a history of the founding of ICSOM and symphonic unionism, has written a very moving tribute to her mother and sister, both violinists in the Spokane Symphony. They overlapped in the orchestra for 12 years, and both held the 4th
Read More →Better seen than heard
Norman Lebrecht thinks conductors should STFU: By some intuitive affinity or massive failure of imagination, both Gramophone and BBC Music magazine asked ’10 leading Mahler conductors’ to explain in their current issues what his symphonies mean to them. Three maestros - Zinman, Jansons, Tilson Thomas - took part in both features. The rest included most
Read More →Why we won't die of Baumol's Disease
I was at work one night a few weeks ago, waiting for the 3rd movement of the Shostakovich 1st cello concerto to end (no slap at our soloist, Johannes Moser, who played wonderfully, but it’s a long sit with no need to count), when, for some unaccountable reason, I began to think about Baumol’s cost
Read More →What Do You Consider Success?
I visited the website, Extra Criticum. As it states on the homepage, “performing arts pros trade opinions, ideas, questions and obsessions.” The bloggers published here cover a wide range disciplines in the Arts, so it’s not just a music site. And I was interested in a posting by Rolando Teco, since he writes about “success.”
Read More →Devil's Trill: A Murder Mystery for Classical Musicians
While wandering through the local Barnes & Noble recently, I noticed a violin on the cover of a book called Devil’s Trill in the Staff Picks section. On reading the inside back cover, I saw that the author, Gerald Elias, is indeed the violinist I knew at Yale who left New Haven to join the
Read More →Apologies
Did you know that getting flu shots doesn’t actually mean that one can’t get the flu? Me neither. We’re doing Petrouchka this week. It’s my least favorite of the big ballets that Stravinsky wrote almost 100 years ago, I suspect because it’s the most programmatic. But it works wonderfully well as a ballet, as this
Read More →Another Take on Not-For-Profits
Because I teach the course, “Entrepreneurship in Music” at the Eastman School, I am frequently asked for advice from students who are contemplating setting up a business entity for their chamber group. They often begin the discussion by saying that their plans are to set up a 501(c)3 (not-for-profit). They usually say something like, “That
Read More →The future of classical recording - Part 1
In my previous two posts on the state of the classical recording business here and here, I talked about Anne Midgette’s observation that even top-selling classical recordings aren’t notching up impressive sales numbers: The dirty secret of the Billboard classical charts is that album sales figures are so low, the charts are almost meaningless. Sales
Read More →About that Salome next season…
This might be related to why orchestras seem to have so much trouble in the Sun Belt: “It was like an invitation to a date,” says Sarasota artist Pablo Rodriguez of his painting, “Modern Venus,” which he installed in early January in the Sarasota Orchestra’s Harmony Gallery as part of his exhibit, I’ll Be Seeing
Read More →Something to Divert You from Today's Game
Here’s a Ciara Pressler blog from fracturedatlas.org. Makes sense to me. And so timely. . .
Read More →Hard duty
This past week has been one meeting after another devoted to various personnel issues (not, thankfully, any terminations, in case you were wondering). The cumulative effect on me has been that I feel as if I’d gone 5 rounds or so with the front line of the Green Bay Packers. Orchestras are villages. We orchestra
Read More →Technology and recording sales
One of the problems with looking at historical trends in recording sales is that such sales are driven to a significant degree by technological change. Over the 100 or so years since the first recording of an orchestra was made, there have been constant improvement in the technologies for both producing recordings and playing them
Read More →What he said
Alex Ross of the New Yorker wrote an absolutely brilliant summary of the recent studies by the League of American Orchestras and the National Endowment for the Arts on the state of classical music audiences. It’s in print in the magazine’s February 8th issue, which is unfortunately behind a paywall. But Ross blogs about it
Read More →Stick a fork in it?
Ann Midgette of the Washington Post writes about the current state of the classical CD business. It’s not good: The dirty secret of the Billboard classical charts is that album sales figures are so low, the charts are almost meaningless. Sales of 200 or 300 units are enough to land an album in the top
Read More →The Cleveland Orchestra strike: underlying issues
A shared vision On February 2, 2019, Gary Hanson (ED/TCO) paid a visit to the storied offices of the AFM at 1501 Broadway in the heart of NY’s theater district. TCO was in town, set to play Carnegie Hall that evening. Hanson was clearly asking the AFM for forgiveness rather than permission - the meeting
Read More →An Orchestra Fantasy Camp-What A Great Idea
Fantasy camps for adults have been popular for years—auto racing, cooking, all types of sports, you name it. For music there are camps for cabaret singers and jazz musicians, and now one for those who want to experience orchestral music-making. The article that follows below tells how the Baltimore Symphony and their Music Director, Marin
Read More →Seattle settles
Seattle Symphony management and musicians have reached a tentative agreement: The 23-month, three-season contract — which could be extended for an additional eight months — would immediately cut musicians’ pay by 5 percent until the end of this season, with the current pay scale resuming in 2011. Musicians also would pay a greater share of
Read More →How AFM members can help in Haiti
UnionPrivilege, which is a benefits program run by the AFL-CIO for members of its member unions, is matching contributions made by union members for earthquake relief. Details are here.
Read More →Reboot in New Hampshire
Apparently the New Hampshire Music Festival is doing a pretty thorough 180-degree turn: Less than two weeks after abandoning pursuit of a new artistic vision and restructured orchestra, which sparked bitter controversy last summer, the Board of the NH Music Festival shuffled directors and management when it met last week.
Read More →A tiny perfect strike
It was a tiny perfect strike. (Torontonians and expat Gary Hanson will get the reference. The rest of you can Google David Crombie.)
Read More →Learning From The NFL
There’s a music blog on ArtJournal.com called Creative Destruction, but no author is indicated. Instead this descriptor appears under the link, “Fresh ideas on building arts communities.” I was curious so I checked it out and found that the blogger is John Thomas Dodson. He’s a conductor. You can find out more about him here.
Read More →An unhappy customer
A left-leaning political blogger in Philadelphia, age 37, is not happy with his concert-going experience: I go to about half a dozen concerts per year, and the problems the orchestra faces are pretty obvious to me. Their marketing is horrible, their ushers and ticket sellers treat people like crap (not all, of course, but many),
Read More →Sandow on Ricker on diversity
Most readers of this blog will know of Greg Sandow, if only for the work that he’s done for Polyphonic. But he’s done a great deal of other stuff, including writing a blog for ArtsJournal.com. He recently did a post on something that Ray Ricker had written for this blog, and it’s worth reading in
Read More →Thought for the day
Musicians are the only people who use “and” as a noun: Do you want us to do a crescendo on the and of three?
Read More →Some thoughts about auditions
Auditions are a big subject; Polyphonic did a virtual discussion panel on the topic about three years ago and barely scratched the surface. We had two days of violin auditions at the beginning of the week, which gave me both a lot of time to think and some material to think about. So I thought
Read More →Bragging a Little-Thanks Robert
Over the past couple of months, many of you have followed the plight of the musicians of the New Hampshire Music Festival here on the Polyphonic blog. Senior Editor and Blog-Meister, Robert Levine did an outstanding job of bringing the musician’s case to the broader public, and was undoubtedly instrumental in the favorable outcome for
Read More →Reactions to Cleveland
The Cleveland strike, and the rapidly-ensuing settlement, were the subject of more coverage in the media since… the last round of Big Five orchestra strikes. And the coverage was pretty much the same; talk of how the strike was symptomatic of fundamental issues with the health of orchestras (it wasn’t), talk about how the musicians
Read More →Cleveland strike is over
It seemed to me that this might be a short strike; in the end, it came as close as a strike could be to not being a strike at all. The only work canceled was a concert in Bloomington IN, which will likely be re-scheduled. What is reported about the settlement makes it sound like
Read More →More on Cleveland
The Cleveland strike was still ongoing as of late Monday night, at least according to Google News. The New York Times had a long article on the subject by Daniel Wakin, which seemed generally balanced and well-informed. It did include this tidbit, though: Many of the nation’s top orchestras have reduced staff positions and administrative
Read More →Nepotism, Diversity and the Audition Process-This Could be an Opera Plot
I’m going to riff a bit on Robert Levine’s January 15th blog post, Sometimes it’s hard to have a screened audition, where Robert points out the absurdity in the New York Philharmonic’s decision not to identify clarinetist, Burt Hara, who was playing what most musicians would call a trial week. The NY Phil is looking
Read More →Cleveland on strike
At least for Monday: Oboist Jeffrey Rathbun says he and the other musicians are “sorely disappointed” management hasn’t acknowledged sacrifices they’ve made in their last two contracts or their offer to continue to work for the next contract year with no increase in salary or benefits. The musicians’ contract expired last summer. The musicians say
Read More →Such a versatile instrument
You’ve probably already seen this; it’s been doing the rounds at lightning speed. But, if not…
Read More →Mein Vaterland, Mein Gott!
I had a library nightmare over the holidays, and I don’t mean that figuratively. You know those performance anxiety nightmares players can have over a particular piece that’s difficult or a recurring worst-case scenario? Well, instead of dreaming my hand wouldn’t stay on the violin fingerboard or I couldn’t identify the proper chords on the
Read More →Sometimes it's hard to have a screened audition
The New York Times reported yesterday on an odd incident at the New York Philharmonic: During a run of concerts that included Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony at Avery Fisher Hall, ending on Tuesday evening, the Philharmonic declined to identify a substitute principal clarinetist even though the music director, Alan Gilbert, had singled him out for a
Read More →Tab dump 1/14/2010
An interesting career path. An even more interesting career path. A good argument for screened auditions. The NY Times likes opera in popcorn palaces too. The CBC Radio Orchestra is born again as an Internet broadcaster. The Cleveland residencies are crossing paths with the Cleveland negotiations.
Read More →The model's not broken
The symphonoblogosphere has been abuzz with stories about the labor troubles in Seattle and Cleveland, and these are indeed big stories. But there are other negotiations hanging fire as well. Unless I missed something, the Met management’s proposal to cut salaries by 10% has still not been resolved, while Detroit’s been having an extremely difficult
Read More →Popcorn and Der Rosenkavalier
I had been wanting to see one of the Met’s new HD-in-theaters productions, but not quite enough to trek half-way to Chicago to the nearest theater that carried them. Recently, though, one of our local movie theaters began carrying the live HD productions, and our new music director, Edo de Waart, was asked to do
Read More →More on Your Brand—Know Your Image
For a professional musician this is important. Your image lives within the minds of the market, and not within your wishful thinking. You can try to put forth the image that you want, but your audience (in the broadest sense of the word—co-workers, contractors, conductors, producers, etc.), actually creates that image. Image, Identity and Positioning—What’s
Read More →The ultimate downbeat
I glad I didn’t have to try to follow this guy; not only would I have messed up, but I would have felt a little… violated as well.
Read More →Tab dump 1/7/2019
This kind of bullsh*t ought to be beneath the dignity of all involved. Come on, folks; isn’t running an orchestra hard enough already? Interesting idea. The League goes virtual. I wish I wrote this well. A post worth reading in full. But what’s the hourly rate?
Read More →NHMF hits the Reset button
I’ve been forwarded the text of a letter from the board of the New Hampshire Music Festival which would suggest a course reversal on their part: The Board of Directors met on December 17th to review our artistic goals and the options available to us to achieve them starting with the 2010 season. After a
Read More →Seattle and the Union
Negotiations in Seattle seemed to have reached a rolling boil, judging by this article. Equally interesting is a recent post by Zachary Carstensen, a Seattle arts reporter, on the situation: However, just before the start of the 2009-2010 season, my own opinion of the orchestra’s health began to shift. The SSO had only just begun
Read More →On vacation
We are on a winter hiatus (Hiatusmas?) until January 4th or so. Stay warm and remember that whatever program it is you’re doing over and over and over again will eventually end - at least for 11 months or so.
Read More →Tab dump 12/21/09
By a not-so-odd coincidence (it is December, after all) some of the autograph of Messiah is now available online. Check out the end of the Hallelujah chorus and notice the absence of any tempo change in the last two bars. This is very sad. And why would Costa Rica own instruments in the first place
Read More →On doing yet another run of mediocre Messiahs
Handel’s Messiah is one of the monuments of Western culture. So why is virtually every performance done by American orchestras so mediocre? Our industry talks a wonderful line about “world-class” and “excellence.” (No doubt some orchestra mission statements throw in praise of applehood and Mother pie as well). But when it comes to Messiah, the
Read More →What is a Brand and is Yours a Good One?
What is the first thing you think of when the company Coca-Cola is mentioned—how about Apple or Mercedes? These are all strong brands that have distinct images associated with them. As a musician you also have a brand. You, Inc. means something to those who want to hire you. Let’s think about that in business
Read More →Thinking like the audience
I linked yesterday to a Huffington Post article by Michael Kaiser which was both interesting and frustrating: …money concerns truly have begun to overwhelm artistic decisions in too many arts organizations. The fear that the organization will not survive has driven many arts organizations to produce safer, more accessible, and, unfortunately, more boring art, especially
Read More →Tab dump 12/14/09
New Hampshire Music Festival musicians have filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against management with the National Labor Relations Board. The Cleveland posts A Deficit. Nobody thinks there was a magic ingredient in Strads anymore; nonetheless, people still insist on debunking the idea. ICSOM Chair Bruce Ridges talks about stuff with Polyphonic senior editor Ann
Read More →Another Antidote for the Music Major’s Bridge to Nowhere—Create You, Inc.
All musicians don’t have to be performers. Though they may start by singing or playing an instrument, some musicians transition to composing or studying music history or theory. An amateur does this for recreation and fun. A professional may do that too, but the difference is this: professionals are paid for what they do (and
Read More →Make Music a Part of Your Life and Never Make Life a Part of Your Music
I suppose that most of the readers of the Polyphonic blog are aware that Leonard Slatkin suffered a heart attack 5 or 6 weeks ago. I don’t usually pay much attention to reports like that, but since I’m just about the same age as Slatkin, I read his account of the incident with great interest.
Read More →Dear Diary
One of the unintended side-effects of helping to negotiate a new contract for one’s orchestra is the history that one learns along the way. This makes sense if one thinks about it; negotiations (especially regarding non-economic items) are often attempts by one or the other side to remedy problems that were often unforeseen when the
Read More →Antidote for the Music Major’s Bridge to Nowhere—Use Your Legos
Legos. You know what they are, little pieces of plastic that have an interlocking system that allows the user to combine them in an infinite number of ways. With Legos you can make things like buildings or vehicles. If you don’t like what you make, you can continually try to improve it by rearranging the
Read More →Tab dump 12/7/09
Norman Lebrecht writes a really good column. Why would someone do this? My orchestra gets an endowment gift for a really good purpose. My orchestra also got nominated for a Grammy. Alex Ross thinks Dudamel is the real thing. The next step is records that spin really fast and need to be changed every five
Read More →Tab dump 12/6/09
Would this be called a gaggle of oboists? Happy birthday. Would have been more impressive without the pay cuts. Some coverage didn’t even bother to mention the musicians’ concessions, although they did, of course, feel the staff’s pain. The Chicago Lyric Opera orchestra has a new contract after threatening to strike. New Mexico Symphony musicians
Read More →I've got mail
In a blogging career lasting about 5 years now, I’ve learned not to expect much feedback. It’s not because people don’t read blogs about orchestras or the AFM - the two topics I write about - because the traffic stats show otherwise. And it’s not that people don’t care, because otherwise why would they take
Read More →I Don't Know, I Still Prefer a Clarinet
University Turns iPhones Into Musical Instruments NEW YORK (Reuters) - Welcome to an orchestra of the 21st century. iPhones are being used as musical instruments in a new course at an American university. Students at the University of Michigan are learning to design, build and play instruments on their Apple Inc. smartphones, with a public
Read More →An important election you didn't know about
Most orchestra musicians don’t pay much attention to union politics. That’s OK: most politics in the AFM is not worth paying much attention to. But there was an election the other day that’s worth noting. The two largest locals in the AFM are Local 47 (Los Angeles) and Local 802 (New York). Both are dominated
Read More →College Music Performance Majors—A Bridge to Nowhere?
Music educators have been doing a fantastic job. The level of musicianship of college-age music majors continues to rise each year. Jazz players are entering as freshmen at skill levels equal to graduate students of years past, and “classical” musicians always seem to raise the bar with their technical prowess. Of course, one can always
Read More →The New (Model) Hampshire audition system
At the beginning of the 2009 New Hampshire Music Festival season, the Festival’s musicians were informed that they would be required to re-apply for their positions in the orchestra if they wanted to return for the 2010 season. It’s hard to overstate just how unusual this is in our business. “Unprecedented” would not be too
Read More →Tab dump 11/30/2009
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
Read More →Not Your Regular (Taped) Nutcracker
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.
Read More →Lead Like the Great Conductors
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.
Read More →A local view of the NHMFC
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
Read More →What Happens Backstage Stays Backstage
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
Read More →Musicians to the ice floes, please
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
Read More →Always the Last One Out
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
Read More →Tab dump 11/22/09
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
Read More →When the excellent becomes the enemy of everything
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
Read More →Not quite as nice as endowing them, but still…
A local insurance company has recently bought chairs for the musicians of the Winnepeg Symphony: Thanks to long-time corporate sponsor Wawanesa Insurance, the Winnipeg Symphony proudly introduced new orchestra chairs earlier this season. “These chairs were specially designed for each WSO musician, taking into account their respective height and ergo-dynamic requirements. We went the extra
Read More →This actually might work for Bach
I’m thinking last movement of the C major sonata, not the Chaconne, of course. (Hat tip to BBB Charles Noble):
Read More →A webcast worth watching
Tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 20), the NEA is sponsoring a meeting on Artists in the Workforce. It will be webcast live at 9 AM EST. The info page on the NEA website is here.
Read More →A Coup-de-Festival
A friend of mine alerted me last week to a recent series of events at the New Hampshire Music Festival. I’ve been trying to make sense of what I’ve read in news articles, on the Festival musicians’ website, and from a outside organization of dissident supporters called SOON (Save Our Orchestra Now). The only adequate
Read More →Tab dump 11/18/2009
I think the principal violist should sit to the conductor’s immediate left. Mozart’s life in 5 seconds, as seen by Hollywood. Lots of people still want to be opera stars. I’m glad one orchestra recognizes that technology might make the audition process better (and greener). Norman thinks that the Met is a wuss. He doesn’
Read More →And Omaha Beach was a skirmish
The Indianapolis Symphony just reported a substantial deficit: A year of declining contributions and ticket sales left the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with a $2.8 million deficit. Symphony officials say its current budget has been cut by $3 million, to $26 million, in part through a 12 percent pay cut accepted by musicians in a new
Read More →Concert or Show?
This past week the Broadway show “Chicago,” was in Rochester. It was the national touring production, and I contracted it and also played it. It’s a great show. Those Bob Fosse choreographed dance segments are spectacular. What a genius that man was. His choreography is unmistakable. Talk about having a style! The music is 1920’s
Read More →Tab Dump 11/17/2009
A common feature on blogs is a “tab dump.” It’s a play on the old programming term “core dump”; a printout of the contents of a computer’s memory intended to help figure out why a program blew up.
Read More →A Librarian's View From the Audience
As a non-playing orchestra librarian (well, mostly anyway), I don’t get to hear the orchestra on stage as much I did when playing more often and in the midst of the music. Yes, we always have the monitor on so we “hear” the rehearsals and concerts, but that’s clearly not the same as either participating
Read More →Nerds? You Betcha!
When I wrote the following on “From the Orchestra Library” I didn’t realize Robert had posted the video of a young accordion virtuoso playing the last movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto back in September. So, here’s a little view into orchestra librarians’ minds when they see such a thing:
Read More →Trombone for dummies
I’m a relative newbie to FaceBook, and continue to be amazed by what gets put up there by friends (both real ones and the FaceBook kind). I’ve seen wonderfully funny things, very suggestive self-portraits, blow-by-blow accounts of childbirth, and countless examples of Too Much Information. If blogging is the Internet’s Ego, then Facebook is its
Read More →Trombone for dummies
I’m a relative newbie to FaceBook, and continue to be amazed by what gets put up there by friends (both real ones and the FaceBook kind). I’ve seen wonderfully funny things, very suggestive self-portraits, blow-by-blow accounts of childbirth, and countless examples of Too Much Information. If blogging is the Internet’s Ego, then Facebook is its
Read More →Are orchestras like newspapers?
Anne Midgette, Washington Post music critic, has her own take on the Michael Kaiser article of a few days ago: Michael Kaiser, in the Huffington Post, has this week addressed the elephant in the living room: some orchestras are not going to make it. There are striking parallels between orchestras and newspapers in this recession.
Read More →Being the Best that We Can Be
Every year I look down in late August when we start our season, and by the time I am able to look up and catch a breather, it’s almost the end of October. And every year I say it’s not going to happen this year, that I will take more time to get out of
Read More →What Opera Needs is More Drums
No explanation needed. Forgive me, but I’m just the messenger. And he’s got more of these. . . .
Read More →A Wizard experiment in Oz
An orchestra in Australia is doing some interesting things in terms of trying to sell tickets: apparently they don’t: [Orchestra Victoria’s] evolution has made it unique in Australia. It was established as a theatre orchestra by the Elizabethan Trust in 1969 but while its Sydney counterpart, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, spends all its
Read More →Of business models and the breakage thereof
Every crisis creates its own buzz phrases. Hurricane Lehmann and the resulting economic meltdown has created a suitably scary one for our industry, and I’m hearing it more and more: “the model is broken.” The latest manifestation is an article by Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, on the Huffington Post
Read More →Changing US Demographics and Classical Music
Here’s a personal observation and some thoughts. When my wife and I visited the Netherlands a couple of years ago we were fortunate, at Judy’s persistence, to get tickets to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. We started a couple of months early trying to book tickets online, but they were “sold out.” Knowing that
Read More →From under a rock emerges A Strategy
The announcement on Friday of the previous weeks’ vote by the Honolulu Symphony board to file for bankruptcy included this charming piece of thinking: “Given its current and projected financial status, the Society cannot continue to sustain a 64-piece orchestra,” Mechling said. “We cannot continue with business as usual”… “In order to do this we
Read More →iWHAT?!
A recent post by David Pogue on his NYT blog highlighted some medically-oriented iPhone apps. Though not designed with musicians in mind, this free app might be very helpful to musicians of all kinds in monitoring the state of their hearing: uHear™ is a unique hearing loss screening test application available for download to the
Read More →Dept. of Homeland Obviousness update
If the person who wrote the headline for this article went to J-school, they should get a complete refund on their tuition: Honolulu Symphony Bankruptcy Disturbs Musicians Musicians Fear Uncertain Future HONOLULU — News of the Honolulu Symphony’s bankruptcy announcement is sending shock waves through the community.
Read More →Honolulu Symphony files for moral bankruptcy
The truly shocking part of this announcement is the fourth paragraph (italicized): The Honolulu Symphony Society Board of Directors announced on Friday that it has decided to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The announcement comes after more than a week of uncertainty. The chairman of the Honolulu Symphony’s board of directors told KITV, that as
Read More →Musicians Business Challenge—A Highly Competitive and Large Talent Pool
OK, so we all agree that it’s tough out there in the real world. Nobody argues with that, but we don’t let it get in our way. Successful people in music are drawn to the music itself. It may sound corny but music and performance can be very addictive. The music profession calls us, and
Read More →Yet more trouble for Honolulu
Things look bleak in Honolulu, even after a $1.8 million gift in September: The chairman of the Honolulu Symphony’s board of directors told KITV on Wednesday, that as of last Friday, the symphony did not have enough money to make its payroll. Peter Shaindlin said he hopes to make an announcement about the symphony’s future
Read More →2 Guys + 1 Guitar = Mozart
Someone sent me this several weeks ago, and I just stumbled upon it again while straightening up my very cluttered desktop. I used to do a variation of this with beginning clarinet students to demonstrate how good breath support made for good finger technique. They would blow into the clarinet and I would finger it.
Read More →Musician’s Business Challenge—Reduced Resources
We read about orchestra financial pressures all the time. Musicians demand a decent wage and when communities and boards have difficulty supporting them, an impasse results. Of the 51 ICSOM orchestras , there are ten with minimum scales over $100,000. Not surprisingly these orchestras are in large metropolitan cities like New York, Boston, Chicago and
Read More →Great Performances Without all the Fuss and Bother
Recently I wrote about several “apps” that allow users to virtually play an instrument. The Nov 1st issue of the NYTimes has a longer article about a similar idea: “Orchestra Hero”. Written by Michael Gordon, a composer, it’s an enthusiastic endorsement of the art form we all know and love, but which is unknown to
Read More →Another diaspora story
A couple of weeks ago I linked to a story about one of the many musicians who formed the great diaspora of Jews from Europe during and after the Nazi era. Here’s another one: The Lost Cellos of Lev Aronson. Its sounds like the title of one of those wistful, purposely sentimental novels that seem
Read More →Greg Sandow is Riffing
Many of you may follow the writings of Greg Sandow in his Arts Journal Blog. If you do you will know that for the past couple of years Greg has been writing a book, and presenting it piece by piece in his blog. This project went dormant for a period of time, but now he’s
Read More →How many basses does it take to make a video?
I’d bet it takes quite a few, if this is the video:
Read More →The Musicians Business Challenge—Changing Demand
Ask any musician ten years older than you how business is, and he will probably say, “It’s OK, but it was much better ten years ago.” If that same person asks the identical question to another musician ten years older than he is, he will probably get the same answer. “It’s OK, but it was
Read More →The Naxos nexus
This joint venture seems like a very good idea for both parties: …Naxos of America will begin physical and digital distribution of the renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s premiere record label CSO Resound.
Read More →This wouldn't work for Bruckner either
…but it’s pretty amazing nonetheless. In case you were thinking it was faked, this video will show you how it was done.
Read More →The boss is the best organizer
It’s good to be reminded now and then of what an orchestra looks like in the wild, and why virtually every professional orchestra in the known universe is unionized: Musicians, however, look to a conductor for musical guidance, and they say [Illinois Symphony Music Director Karen Lynne] Deal simply doesn’t do enough homework to provide
Read More →The Musician’s Business Challenge
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll put on a businessman’s hat and look at a young musician’s career from that perspective. What are the challenges facing this person as he or she steps into the profession? One might say a musician’s challenge is to utilize and evolve the skills obtained in school in order
Read More →Executive experience?
A candidate for the position of King County (Seattle) Executive is touting her executive experience rather than her decades as a local TV news anchor, and basing the claim on having been board chair of the Seattle Symphony: In her campaign for King County executive, Hutchison has highlighted her 2 Ω years as chairwoman of
Read More →Saving money by pissing off the patrons
Concerts get cancelled all the time, but usually not high-profile concerts conducted by the music director two weeks in advance of the concert: The Honolulu Symphony board has done something unprecedented that will shock some patrons while possibly giving encouragement to people who have written big checks for the orchestra. It has canceled a concert
Read More →Now that's what I call a union
Show business can indeed pay well: After you practice for years and get to Carnegie Hall, it’s almost better to move music stands than actually play the piano. Depending on wattage, a star pianist can receive $20,000 a night at the 118-year-old hall, meaning he or she would have to perform at least 27 times
Read More →Pianist goes to jail too
Performing in prisons has almost graduated to the status of trend: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra guest pianist Simone Dinnerstein plays an usual venue this morning at 11: The Maryland Correctional Institution for Women. The world-renowned pianist, who has played Carneige Hall and the Kennedy Center, also will answer questions from inmates/audience members after she performs works
Read More →GUEST BLOGGER Yvonne Caruthers-Slatkin's response
Leonard Slatkin responded via email (see yesterday’s blogpost) to my request for information about the article on his website. I have excerpted his comments: “The article was written the day after the Met[‘s recent production of] Tosca was trashed. How come opera directors can get away with mangling the instructions from a composer, but the
Read More →GUEST BLOGGER Yvonne Caruthers-Leonard Slatkin weighs in on booing at the Met
The new Music Director of the Detroit Symphony, Leonard Slatkin, has been having a bit of fun lately. Maybe other orchestras will take up these measures as well, to give audiences an unusual concert-going experience. Tomorrow I’ll post Maestro Slatkin’s comments about his ideas.
Read More →GUEST BLOGGER Yvonne Caruthers-Thoughts on Baby Einstein, etc
The question keeps getting asked: should you play music to your unborn child to increase their intelligence? How about tapes of a 2nd language? There’s a whole industry out there that preys upon new parents-if you aren’t doing something for your child, you’re not doing enough. I find it ironic that classical music is often
Read More →More non-rigorous thinking about the arts
This study proves far less than it claims to: In a report to be released on Monday the nonprofit Center for Arts Education found that New York City high schools with the highest graduation rates also offered students the most access to arts education. The report, which analyzed data collected by the city’s Education Department
Read More →GUEST BLOGGER Yvonne Caruthers-Will Apple Save Classical Music?
A few years ago conductor Leonard Slatkin stated that John Williams had saved the orchestra. Why? Because at a time when Broadway shows were moving more and more toward the use of synthesizers and recorded music, Williams was writing film scores for large orchestras. Slatkin maintained that producers (and audiences) having Williams’ sounds in their
Read More →Chicago Symphony goes to jail
…although not for insider note trading, which is not yet illegal. Addressing the annual meeting of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association on Wednesday, [Riccardo Muti] revealed several initiatives he has planned with the orchestra once he settles into his new post in September 2010. And one of them involves at-risk youth. The most innovative is
Read More →The diaspora personified
Nazism was such an evil phenomenon that attributing any positive effects at all to its influence feels morally reckless. But a story like this is a reminder of how much vitality was brought to the classical music scene in North America by Jewish musicians who left Europe to escape war and genocide: A conversation with
Read More →The diaspora personified
Nazism was such an evil phenomenon that attributing any positive effects at all to its influence feels morally reckless. But a story like this is a reminder of how much vitality was brought to the classical music scene in North America by Jewish musicians who left Europe to escape war and genocide: A conversation with
Read More →A guilty pleasure
I generally enjoy playing (and even listening to) Rachmaninoff - but I usually don’t respect myself the next morning for having done so. This week, though, might be different. We’re doing the Rachmaninoff third concerto (“Rock 3″, in tribal parlance) and the second symphony. I’m finding it makes a huge difference in how interesting Rachmaninoff
Read More →Dog bites man
My favorite headline of all time was “Something went wrong in jet crash, experts say.” The headline and article below, while not reaching quite that level of sublime obviousness, is still strikingly… obvious: Economy took toll on symphony’s artistically bright year The economy has been playing the role of Scrooge, causing the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s
Read More →Guest Blogger-Yvonne Caruthers starts on Monday
When we started the Polyphonic blog we said we’d have guest bloggers from time to time. Well, the time is now. For one week, beginning next Monday, October 19, Yvonne Caruthers will share some musical observations on our blog. Yvonne has been a cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC since 1978, and
Read More →How the CD business could have been saved
If only the folks at the record companies had the marketing chops of whoever put together this little campaign:
Read More →Thinking different about Pops
In the wake of the well-publicized downsizing of its guest artist roster for the 2009-10 season, the Minnesota Orchestra is going local to replace its principal pops conductor as well: The Minnesota Orchestra has named Sarah Hicks as principal conductor of pops and presentations, filling a vacancy left when Doc Severinsen retired two years ago.
Read More →Do orchestra managers make too much?
Due largely to the appointment of Allison Vulgamore as President and CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra, manager compensation is currently enjoying its 15 minutes of fame (although I doubt whether she is enjoying the spotlight on her current and future paystubs). The Philadelphia Inquirer has speculated on the subject, as has the New York Times,
Read More →Save Your Love—Don’t Give it Away
In the music world there will always be someone who is willing to do something more cheaply than you. Students are typically in this category. Look at the music scene around any music school. Students will be playing for their dinner, or coffee if it’s a coffee house or for the door. Musicians are eager
Read More →The Fall Classic
You thought I was talking about baseball? Tonight is the last concert in our fall tour, one of my favorite annual orchestra events. Every year at about this time we go up north and play a few concerts, mostly in places to which we’ve been going for years.
Read More →Change we can believe in
Surprisingly, the date on this was September 23 and not April 1: The Detroit Symphony has announced plans for a completely revamped season, starting with its concerts this week. The programs will not be changed, at least the ones advertised, but the manner in which the works are performed will be altered. To begin, the
Read More →This week's concessions
Indianapolis… Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra musicians will take a 12 percent reduction in salary this season, followed by incremental increases in the second and third years of a newly ratified three-year contract. …Terms include salary increases of 2.7 percent for the 2010-11 season and 7.8 percent for the 2011-12 season. Musicians have agreed to greater individual
Read More →Are conductors ovepaid?
Yes and no. Both writers make good points. I find myself more in agreement with the “no” side, however. In the end, it’s the same as with most leadership positions. Good conductors are worth every cent of what they’re paid. Bad conductors are worth nada. The more interesting question is about the value of all
Read More →Noises off week in Wisconsin
So we’re in Marinette - right across the river from Menomonee, Michigan, the Banana Belt of the Upper Penninsula (where Yoopers come from) - playing a concert at Blesch High School, where the signs say “Catch the Blesch Spirit!” (and no I’m not kidding). We’re well into the slow movement of the Mendelssohn “Italian” symphony
Read More →Play ball!
Anne Midgette riffs on the propriety of performing the National Anthem at concerts: Does it have a place? It can seem slightly odd. The concert hall is aglitter with expensive evening gowns and tails; the audience is seated; the lights go down; the conductor comes out; and suddenly the lights come up and everyone stands
Read More →Cello humor
I’m glad that a) this kid isn’t a violist, and b) that I’m not on his radar screen.
Read More →The boss is the best organizer
It’s good to be reminded now and then of what an orchestra looks like in the wild, and why virtually every professional orchestra in the known universe is unionized: Musicians, however, look to a conductor for musical guidance, and they say [Illinois Symphony Music Director Karen Lynne] Deal simply doesn’t do enough homework to provide
Read More →Don’t dilute your product in order to make money
Here is a little followup to my last post about starving artists. In talking to Maria further, she made another interesting observation. In her opinion, a mistake that many artists make in trying to figure out how to make money, is to underestimate their audience. She commented that some musicians seem to think that if
Read More →Management by waving (sticks) around
The Globe and Mail apparently believes that conductors have something to teach the corporate world: As a rookie conductor, Roger Nierenberg thought his job as leader was to tell people what to do. But in 14 years as director of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra in Florida, he learned that being overly controlling is destined to
Read More →Noises off
So there we were, in the middle of the introduction to the first movement of the Beethoven 7th on Saturday night, when we heard a loud noise from backstage that sounded as if someone had dropped a kitchen sink from a very great height. I’ve played thousands of concerts, but never heard anything quite like
Read More →Department of Conductorial Humor
Overheard at work this morning: Keyboardist: Edo, did you say something to the piano? Conductor: More like to the pianist. But the piano will follow you. And all these years I thought the Dutch were a humorless sort. Edo has proven to be quite the opposite. What’s more impressive is that he uses the humor
Read More →Orchestra (but not money) can go to Cuba
US policy towards Cuba has claimed another victim: The New York Philharmonic scratched its planned trip to Cuba at the end of October because the United States government was barring a group of patrons from going along, the orchestra said on Thursday. Without them and their donations, the Philharmonic said, it could not afford the
Read More →American Orchestras Summit at the University of Michigan
Several organizations, including the League of American Orchestras and the University of Michigan School of Music, have banded together to present, “American Orchestras Summit at the University of Michigan: Creating Partnerships in Research and Performance.” The conference purpose is to attempt to launch a permanent dialogue between the scholarly community and the symphonic community. As
Read More →Philly hires a new CEO
It’s official: Allison B. Vulgamore, president of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1993, will take over the Philadelphia ensemble at a time when it has been badly shaken by financial turmoil. She is expected to start work as president and CEO no later than Feb. 1. “I think that we have found a leader who
Read More →Fun with audition ads
I’ve been reading audition ads in the International Musician for a long time now, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that caused me to scratch my head quite as hard as the one placed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in the September 2009 issue of the IM for “Viola Substitute Pool.” I’ve seen ads
Read More →Maybe we're doing OK after all
A view from across the Atlantic: In my article on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last week, I said that in recent years more than a dozen US orchestras had ‘gone to the wall’. I am glad to say this was wrong. 13 orchestras did in fact file for bankruptcy protection between 1986 and 2008, but
Read More →Halls are hazardous workplaces
Among other problems, you could fall into dark holes and break things: A Florida Panhandle conductor is recovering after falling 14 feet into the empty space below a moveable orchestra pit on the opening night of an opera he had written. David Ott fell Friday after the debut of “The Widow’s Lantern,” an original work
Read More →Starving Artists
The two-time grammy winning jazz composer Maria Schneider is a friend, and in conversations we have had she expressed an interesting take on the stereotypical starving artist. She theorizes that part of the reason record companies are able to make huge profits while the artists often make so little, is because many musicians have the
Read More →A notable retirement
My Google search for orchestra news has turned up a large number of articles on the retirement of Boston Symphony principal harp Ann Hobson Pilot. It’s a newsworthy event; I believe she was the first African-American principal player in a major American orchestra, and one of the first African-Americans in any American orchestra at all.
Read More →Subscribe not?
The current economic model for our industry is built largely on the subscription model best described by the late, great Danny Newman in his book Subscribe Now! So this news was shocking even to your been there, done that blogger: Gustavo Dudamel, the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, may be the hottest
Read More →MPope3
This caught my eye: His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will release “Alma Mater– Music From The Vatican” featuring Marian hymns, prayers, chants, etc., including “Regina Coeli”, by California (USA) based record label Geffen Records owned by Universal Music Group (UMG), which is a subsidiary of Vivendi. Pope, accompanied by the choir of the Philharmonic Academy
Read More →Times a'changing in the Olde Countrie too
American orchestras are not the only ones feeling the need to adapt to the new millenium: Traditional concerts with overtures, concertos and symphonies will continue to exist in years to come, according to the managing director of the German Orchestra Association, Gerald Mertens, but not at the exclusion of everything else. “There will also be
Read More →Leadership by waving something other than a baton
There was one of those scary “model your leadership on the collaboration between conductor and orchestra” blog posts in the Baltimore Sun the other day: Musicians took furloughs and pay cuts that came to a 12.5 percent reduction in compensation. Administrative folks took pay cuts of up to 15 percent. But none of this would
Read More →Found Another One
Another musical expert does his magic and raises the level of instrumental technique to a higher level. Music education at its finest. View it and weep (or laugh). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4B38odAqpY&feature=related
Read More →Ship-jumping on the rise?
John von Rhein had a rather odd column in the Chicago Tribune today on principal players moving around: The recent news that Mathieu Dufour, principal flute of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1999, has also accepted that position with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, apparently on a trial basis, for the 2009-10 season, got me thinking
Read More →The arts to subsidize insurance industry profits?
Evidently the fact that nonprofits employ 10% or so of the US workforce has escaped the attention of those in Congress writing health care reform legislation: Nonprofit organizations say they are upset that Congress and the Obama administration have not addressed their rising health care costs in the various health care proposals being floated on
Read More →Let's Form a Union
This past spring I received an email signed by a dozen or so Eastman students. It was sent to Eastman School jazz students and faculty. This group had met out of frustration. It seems that within the student jazz community at Eastman, there has not been much discussion or communication between them about how to
Read More →Government subsidies, American-style
I know we don’t have much in the way of government subsidies for the arts in this country, but this is ridiculous: Officials with art and cultural groups in Philadelphia say they are angered by the state’s decision to expand state sales taxes to their businesses. Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance director Peggy Amsterdam said Pennsylvania
Read More →Debt is dangerous stuff
It appears that nonprofits have been emulating for-profit enterprises in some of the wrong ways: Far from being conservative stewards of their assets, many nonprofits engaged in what some experts call risky financial behavior. “They did auction-rate securities, interest-rate arbitrage, complex swaps — which backfired on them the same way it would backfire on any
Read More →Doing business with the Met
Buried in a long piece in the New York Times on the “new Met” were the following tidbits: Since Mr. Gelb took over, the Met budget has increased by about $60 million. The box office is up, but meanwhile personal and corporate donations, which the Met depends on to balance its budget, are down, thanks
Read More →Another orchestra for Lincoln Center
In ICSOM/AFM/Local 802 circles, the New York Philharmonic, Met Opera orchestra, NYC Opera orchestra, and NYC Ballet orchestra are known collectively as the “Lincoln Center orchestras” for obvious reasons. It appears that they’re about to have some company: Call it Cleveland on the Hudson: The Cleveland Orchestra is setting up a multiyear residency at the
Read More →In a world of hurt
A recent recent blog post by Philadelphia Inquirer critic Peter Dobrin contains the kind of analysis I wouldn’t want to read about any orchestra, much less one of our flagship bands: It’s a year today since Philadelphia Orchestra president James Undercofler announced his decision to not seek the renewal of his contract, and it’s been
Read More →From the Department of Great Headlines
I have a Google search for orchestra news that occasionally comes back with some… interesting results.
Read More →Talk is cheap, and so are plans
A Grand Unified Theory of Arts Funding may be unveiled sometime in the medium future in Columbus: A long-awaited and often-promised blueprint for the arts in central Ohio could finally be in the offing. Arts, business and political leaders say an overall cultural plan for the community — outlining new strategies for funding sources, entrepreneurship
Read More →The most interesting conductor in the world
Dos Equis, the Mexican beer company, recently ran an ad campaign around a character they dubbed “The Most Interesting Man In The World” (my favorite ad was this one). It was, among other things, a take-off on how the press love to anoint individuals, or institutions, as the “best” or “worst” or “sexiest” or pretty
Read More →On being overly picky at auditions
My brother-in-bratsche-blogging Charles Noble writes on his Daily Observations blog about an audition that happened in Portland, where he is assistant principal violist of the Oregon Symphony. He’s not happy about what happened to some of his freelance colleagues: There was an orchestral audition that took place this weekend at the local opera company. It
Read More →How to do a concert hall right
Evidently the answer is to build it in a major German city: Into a skyline dominated by the cranes loading and unloading the thousands of tons of goods that pass through its port each day, Hamburg is erecting an ambitious concert complex topped by an undulating clear glass roof.
Read More →Welcome
So this week Polyphonic.org kicks off a daily blog feature, and I begin my maiden voyage into organized cyber writing. I’ll be joined by two Polyphonic Senior Editors—Ann Drinan and Robert Levine, but from time to time we will also have guest bloggers. We’ll try to have something new up each day, and since Polyphonic
Read More →Blog Categories
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