Lawrence Dillon writes:
But I’m always amazed at the number of people who live perfectly comfortable lifestyles, yet insist on asking for comps at every opportunity. With all of the things we pay for without thinking, why do so many people consider music an essential part of their lives, but one that they should get for [...]
… and maybe not even dying?
Allan Kozinn tells us what he thinks about the death of classical music. Thoughts?
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I’m at “my” coffee shop in Santa Cruz. I haven’t been here for at least three weeks (horrors!) and it’s nice to be back.
But they are playing some sad music. So now I am sad. And I’m wondering, “Was I sad before the music began? Did the sad music only make me aware of [...]
As you get older, the assumption is you get wiser. I try to earn it by not staying still, not resting on laurels. A lot of people in other professions are retired at my age. I care about music more than ever.
-Lorin Maazel
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Boring Stuff
Some of you use a speakeasy address to contact me, and this continues to work. But others use a planetmitchell address and for some unknown reason that is now down. If you’ve sent me anything recently it’s probably bounced back by now, so you already know things aren’t working. Because I get notification of [...]
Sorry, TD … and others … I’m just a very boring person.
You Are 10% Evil
You are good. So good, that you make evil people squirm.
Just remember, you may need to turn to the dark side to get what you want!
How Evil Are You?
Yes, Cats is over. I don’t suffer as much withdrawal from a non-professional production—really none at all in this instance, although I’ll miss playing something—but I suspect Jameson is going through a little bit of what I do.
Still, he now knows what they are planning for next year so he can start obsessing over [...]
“Oh. You were playing? I just thought it was a very good high school player. Good job!”
Comment by an audience member who came to Cats today. And to think I get nervous even for a high school production when I have big solos (and I do). Silly me. And someone again said we sound “just [...]
So this is what drummers would do if they broke into an apartment?
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Read in a newspaper article about a couple of high school cross country runners:
She’s an accomplished oboe and saxophone player in the band. She was this year’s prom queen and is ranked sixth in her class.
Okay, okay, I suppose it could happen. But really … an oboe playing prom queen? Nearly as scary as Carrie. [...]
of a pattyramble™ length.
iTunes, emusic, and Classical Music
Will they ever get it right? I wonder. I remain a member of emusic because I find it so wonderful to quickly download a work that I need to study, or a student needs to hear. And I’ve been introduced to oboists and composers I’d never heard of. [...]
There are more changes in the double reed world. Two of note:
Jonathan Dlouhy, principal oboist of the Atlanta Symphony leaves at the end of this season.
Julie Anne Giacobassi will be retiring from her English horn position with the San Francisco Symphony.
Last year was the Year of Oboe Auditions™ but it looks like the year has [...]
In the end, it was a Bach motet that shooed me away—choristers weren’t damnably bad, but the organist’s only hope for salvation was a bullet through the brain. Told him so too—tact and restraint all well and good in small talk, but one mustn’t beat around any bush where music is concerned.
-David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, [...]
It’s nice to read David Bratman’s cover story on San Jose, over at SFCV. He’s right, we are often neglected. I’ve noticed that SFCV doesn’t pay a whole lot of attention to us little folks, and I can’t remember the last time the San Francisco Chronicle wrote anything about us. I’ve also found that sometimes [...]
One can spot a fellow musician in any context, even amongst policemen. The craziest-eyed, unruliest-haired one, either hungry-skinny or jovial-portly. This French-speaking, cor anglais-playing, local operatic society belonging inspector had heard of Vyvyan Ayrs and kindly drew me a map to Neerbeke.
-David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, p 48
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… but I’m too old. Sigh. And maybe not good enough anyway. Young hotshot musicians … they can be pretty darn amazing! But anyway, Lorin Maazel has this very cool place and he is putting on Britten’s Turn of the Screw this summer with young musicians. Read about it here.
Doesn’t it sound great? I [...]
Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries.
-Richard Wagner (born May 22, 1813)
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… I’ve heard from a number of readers. Some write to ask a question. Some fill me in on their orchestra or their private website so that I’ll add them to one of the pages that list double reed players. Some are writing about one of the universities where I teach.
And most never respond when [...]
Well … this is really an IQOD (Interview Quote of the Day). Hmm. Maybe I should start doing more IQODs?!
His international career took off in 1997 when Claudio Abbado cast him in the title part in a new production of Berg’s Wozzeck at the Salzburg Easter Festival, repeating it at the Summer Festival as well. [...]
When you love something it’s not a job anymore.
-Spike Lee (Commencement Speech, 2006)
Maybe I”ll write about this sometime soon. What think ye? Will I agree with Mr. Lee?
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Ah … a day off! After the week of symphony, and a week of high school Cats I can use a break! And it was a waffle morning too (thanks Dan!). Now I have church in a short time, and then it’s a Giants v A’s game. Go Giants! I don’t plan on doing much [...]
Nearly everyone I’ve talked to about the musical Cats doesn’t really care for the show. I’m not referring to this specific show my son is in and I’m playing, but the show in general. And while I’m glad to get to play it, and Jameson is very good in it, I agree (as does Jameson) [...]
I play an instrument that has four strings, and I’m still trying to get it right. What I’ve tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through [...]
All our children are here! Kelsey & Brandon flew in (from Irvine and Seattle) and will get to see and hear Jameson perform tomorrow night. What fun! Unfortunately Jameson is so busy he’ll hardly see them, and I have three more performances (along with Jameson, of course) this weekend, so I’ll be gone a lot [...]
Is it possible that the conductor likes pretty young women and would prefer to be surrounded by them in the orchestra? After all, his present wife is the orchestra’s principal cellist. This would be perfectly understandable, and a sign of a healthy, youthful heterosexual male. It is confession time: during my decades in orchestras there [...]
