I get news and blog feeds, and one that was titled “San Jose The Fun Never Stops” then when on to advertise Symphony Silicon Valley playing Verdi’s Requiem.
Now I’m not saying classical music isn’t fun, mind you, but the juxtaposition of “fun” with “Requiem” just made me laugh.
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I have a lot of updating to do at this site. Today I worked on the audition pages. All of the current auditions were out of date, and I needed to transfer all the out of date repertoire lists to the Past Auditions page. Done!
That took a long time, and my hands are aching [...]
For the first time since probably May or June of 2006 I’m at Coffeetopia, here in Santa Cruz. I didn’t manage to get breakfast at home before leaving for school, so I decided I’d better pick up a bite to eat. But no coffee today; it’s Early Grey for me. I’m just in the mood.
The [...]
Ballet orchestras tend to be much worse than symphony orchestras or those that accompany opera. For years, the New York City Ballet Orchestra has been beyond embarrassing, producing not music but a barren hodgepodge of feints in the general direction of what the composer called for, all held together with a leaden hand by the [...]
“I≠m not moved to seek revenge,≈ he says, ≥but I≠m very glad that the truth is at last known.”
-Von Bahr
So Barrington-Coupe has confessed in a sort of wimpy way. Stealing for his wife? Giving her the attention she deserved? Hmmm. “I’m sorry, but but but …” sounds like a five year old. Sigh.
The story, though, [...]
All in all, the Academy Awards show was a bit of a bore.
No surprise, there.
The commercials were a bit more interesting, I think.
And now on to my week with no gigs. Free time! I’ll finish up taxes, I hope. I’ll clean the house, I hope. I’ll do the laundry, I hope. I’ll [...]
It seems like the commercials during the Academy Awards show are better than the ones during the Superbowl.
Maybe it’s just me, though …?
Looks like GM has changed the ending to the one they had during the Superbowl; no more suicide for the machine. I had heard that some suicide prevention groups had complained about [...]
Hoorah for Ennio Morricone.
I just love that man’s music. But of course he wrote a work that included the word “oboe” so why wouldn’t I?
(He’s been awarded a lifeteime achievement award, in case you didn’t know about that already.)
Funny note: when I was in junior high I had to take “modern dance”. Now I [...]
So Jill is live blogging about the awards. And I’m watching the show and reading her blog. Great fun! Nearly like we are in the same room.
Okay. Not really.
I’m also eating a wonderful meal (thanks, Dan!), drinking a beer, and reading various online things.
Seems to me that the advertisements this year on the show [...]
Okay … I’m gonna do a better job later … right now I’m just too tired, and I have opera at 3:00. But I thought I’d at least post this little ticket for now.
I’m SURE I can get more creative.
Or can I?
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I’ve just watched a few of the Schubert “Trout” Quintet documentaries over at You Tube and I have to tell you it’s loads of fun. (I began this bit of entertainment after reading about a video at Musical Assumptions.) Of course you are hearing simple “nobodies” … Itzhak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline Du Pré, Zubin [...]
“I think the classical-music community are coming out of curiosity, because they love Dowland, and they want to see what this pop singer does with it,” Sting said of his tours, which also bring “people who have probably never heard 16th-century songs before.
Quote included here.
Some, I think also go because they want to mock the [...]
Thanks to this post by Night after Night I watched this video. What a solution to small hands, eh?!
Following that bit of humor, I wound up watching the Clarion Woodwind Quintet. In case you’re interested.
So much time to waste when I have no Opera San Jose for the evening! :-)
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… for your sake, I hope not!
But read this:
Joel Schumacher’s new psychological thriller informs us that all sorts of monumental events are linked to the number 23, including the 9/11 attacks, Shakespeare’s birth and death and the sinking of the Titanic. With a little creative math, even your address could be involved. But there is [...]
KMZT-FM (105.1), the L.A. area’s only commercially sponsored classical music station, will begin broadcasting country music on Monday and shift its classical content to an AM station.
I read it here.
Well lookee thar! Ain’t gonna hafta lissen to that high falutin’ stuff no more.
Whew.
(Uh-oh. Am I in trouble now? Just kidding around … I realize [...]
I’ve been sent pictures now, after replying to the email I received about Treemonisha. Perhpas these will spur you on to listen …?
All pictures feature the Houston Grand Opera and are taken by photographer Jim Caldwell.
Houston Grand Opera
Photographer: Jim Caldwell
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Houston Grand Opera
Photographer: Jim Caldwell
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Houston Grand Opera
Photographer: Jim Caldwell
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Houston Grand Opera
Photographer: Jim Caldwell
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Greetings–
Hope all is well. I thought this might be of interest for you to cover in your blog, or just to tune in and hear for yourself. Here at WGBH we are really excited to be broadcasting Scott Joplin’s little-known and even less-heard opera Treemonisha in its entirety–over a three day period–on 89.7 FM in [...]
So an orchestra concert in Norway was cancelled due to the flu. Too many musicians didn’t show up to rehearsals.
I’m guessing the neurotic oboists were still there. Ya think?
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Paris Bastille Strike Cloaks `La Juive’ Premiere in Darkness
By Jorg von Uthmann
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — The revival of Halevy’s “La Juive” at the Paris Opera, after an absence of 73 years, started with a bewildering opening night.
The stage was shrouded in various degrees of darkness. At the end, director Pierre Audi and his team [...]
Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore, Placido Domingo and director David Cronenberg are forming an unlikely trio to create an unlikely opera — The Fly.
I don’t know. I just don’t know. Read about it here.
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