Note: This was written a number of hours ago. I just forgot to post it.
I’m watching the end of Solti: A Celebration. I just happened across it while there’s a break in the Sharks’ game. No, I’m not really an ice hockey fan but, well, they ARE in the playoffs and they are from here [...]
… and for me that means church in the morning, unless I’m entirely fried. So I’ll be off in a short time. But while I was checking out music news I ran across an article in the UKs Guardian about karaoke style music for churches.
I promise you that if that happens at the church I [...]
(Yes, I really should be asleep by now! When I get home from opera, though, I’m sort of wired.)
From what this article says, some arts organizations in San Jose may be losing some money they were counting on due to the sale of the Mercury News. Let’s hope the new owners are as generous as [...]
Some teachers should be put in prison for the way they either take advantage of women in their classes or destroy fragile egos. Be careful who you ask to help you when you’re in the arts.
-Mandy Patinkin
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Four. Just this morning.
And at this precise moment it’s 9:00 AM (although by the time I post this it won’t be). Not bad, eh? Since Jameson has Algebra (poor boy) beginning at 8:00 Saturday mornings, I have time between driving him there and teaching my first student (9:15). I’ve decided that’s a good time to [...]
All my friends are intelligent, but our musical tastes do not necessarily intersect. So what? They don’t think I?m a snob because I get more out of classical music than any other variety, and I don’t think they’re uncultured idiots because they prefer something else. We have achieved peaceful coexistence without pretending that we’re alike [...]
It’s been far too long since I’ve updated the current symphony auditions page. I do apologize … sometimes I just can’t keep up with everything! Do check the page out; there are some upcoming auditions there now. I also cleaned up the past audition repertoire lists page. Just for fun. :-)
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Last night I couldn’t see how I could possibly wake up this morning and go exercise. This morning I woke up before the alarm went off. Funny how that happens. So I did exercise. And I know I’m better off for it. (Never any thinner though. Ah well!)
Now it’s time to look at those reeds [...]
I am home. And I am very, very tired.
Some nights are just more difficult than others. It wasn’t that the music was any more difficult. The performance, in fact, may very well have been the best we’ve had over all. Some tempi were a bit brighter too, which I enjoyed. A fellow musician, from [...]
We are the ones who scored 1600 on our SATs or mastered the oboe underwater.
Surely the people at Harvard know that you can’t play an oboe underwater. Tsk, tsk, tsk. ;-)
Read here. Just couldn’t help loving that line!
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This article, about the new principal French hornist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, includes this paragraph:
Several smaller orchestras have more women in the brass section, even in principal chairs, than Philadelphia. But why has equality in the brass section lagged behind other parts of the orchestra?
Some will suggest that it’s due to gender discrimination, and that [...]
The example of Stravinsky and Messiaen (to name only two) shows that modern church music doesn’t have to be a pale copy of the past. And there are plenty of church musicians around who are bothered by the divorce between the Church and the wider world of music.
Sometimes I think I would enjoy living in [...]
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.
-Plato
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You can read another review here.
The writer used the same Rossini quote about Mozart in his review of Marriage of Figaro last year. As he writes this time, “It was Rossini who paid the highest of compliments to the Austrian who “beat us at our own game.”” Nice. I do wonder where it comes [...]
The first thing I do when I desperately need reeds is to go through what I already have and see if anything is worth spending time with. The only way for me to really figure that out is to actually practice; tooting a few notes gives me “false positives” and I hate those! (I don’t [...]
I can get cheap Viagra, Xanax, Levitra, Prilosec, Valium and who knows what else. I can find “horny people in your area”. I can get a Rolex replica. I can get “overestimated contract funds” deposited into my account from Engineer Abdul Ahmed. I can get an amazing home loan (they say my application has already [...]
I wish “Reed Day” meant that it was pouring reeds and I had to stay home because of that. But, woe is me (woe is I .. you choose), that is not what it means. So today I’ll go exercise (I’m really not sure how long I’ll last—being up past midnight really takes its toll [...]
I’m just home from opera. It’s 11:30. Some of you might see that time and think, “Wow. That’s pretty late to be coming home from work.” (I know that a lot of you won’t, of course, if you are late night sorts.) But I’m probably the second one home from the orchestra; one other player [...]
My reeds are very unhappy. This weather isn’t helping. I have opera tonight. Sigh.
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First of all, Brian Sacawa corrected his error of saying his earlier post, that I then commented on, was by a visual artist. It was not. It was by someone else. Since then there have been more comments at Drew’s site, and I realize that 1) I’ve been challenged 2) I offended several people 3) [...]
Sometimes I just wanna be a kid again. I watched this slide show, with music, of Curtis and I vaguely remember being young and playing in the orchestra and I remember the great joy (and tremendous nerves) of that time. Granted, I wasn’t at a music conservatory and my orchestral experience while in college was [...]
He definitely liked it.
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There are three things in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni.
-Gustave Flaubert
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May 2, 2006. Remember the date. Music From The Inside Out will be broadcast on a good number of PBS stations. Ours? Yep. At 11:00 PM. According to the information I see, it will be rebroadcast a number of times as well, but only on the KQED Encore station. Not a station we get. So [...]
The Merc already has the review of Don Giovanni at their site. It’s generally positive.
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