“.. a violin, can sound 50 diff ways: pizzicato, bowed, ponticello, harmonics & tremolos..an oboe:1 way: like an oboe.” John Corigliano
Carmen was really pretty; the orchestra did a great job with the music but didn’t overwhelm the singers’ voices. The singers were well-cast and looked their parts – that is, no 300+ lb. singer pretending to be a starving gypsy or something like that! The sets were rather plain, just a couple of tall columns or rough rock formations, and the costumes weren’t too exciting, but they matched the story.
(Yes, this is about OSJ’s Carmen.)
You can read it here. It’s pretty favorable.
A bank manager has been arrested on suspicion of embezzling more than $650,000 from Kiri Te Kanawa, the international opera singer whose Grammy Award-wining career spans more than four decades and includes a performance at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.
Police arrested Sokvoeun “Cindy” Sou, 27, Tuesday at Bank of Alameda on Island Drive, where she worked as a manager and where Te Kanawa has an Individual Retirement Account.
A Dame of the British Empire, Te Kanawa lives in England. Her Bay Area connections, which include friends and past performances at the San Francisco Opera, apparently led her to open the account here.
Don’t people think about getting caught? And of course there’s that stealing thing. Did it not occur to this 27 year old that this was incredibly wrong? It’s all rather puzzling.
But then I’m naive, I know. I even get made fun of because of that.
Oh well.
I read it here.
Yesterday, I took Becky to her first classical music concert. She exceeded my highest expectation. Although I planned to leave after the first half during the intermission, as I did not think she would even last that long, her first words once the intermission started were: “Mommy, I don’t want to go home yet. I want to hear the piano.” So we stayed.
I just bought my son an oboe. Who knew those little horn thingies cost almost as much as my first new car?
(This is a new site to me.)
Side note: The review states there are three acts, and it may have seemed that way to some folks. There are actually four acts to Carmen, but OSJ does Acts Three and Four with no intermission, and places the third act’s entr’acte in between the two acts while the chorus changes costumes and the scene changes. (This is why we skip “my” entr’acte that usually falls before Act Four. We also cut the entr’acte to Act Two, which is my fave.) Confusing? Only because of how I try to explain it! Here, this’ll be clearer:
Act One
-intermission
(nix entr’acte to Act Two)
Act Two
-intermission
Act Three
entr’acte to Act Three
(nix entr’acte to Act Four)
Act Four
Curtain
Now you’ve got it, right? More than you cared to. ;-)
Most people play the suona horn (Chinese oboe) using their mouth but Lin Feilai is getting attention in Leizhou city, Guangdong province, because he uses his nose.
No one in the area has reportedly ever played the Chinese brass trumpet-like wind instrument using a nose.
Um … no one ever has played it that way, and probably no one every should.
I read it here. True? I wonder!
Here’s a suona played the usual way:
“We went out for lunch at 11:30 ad then when I came back from lunch they weren’t letting us back in,” said bass violinist Dale Gosa with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Gosa was being allowed back in for a 2:30 p.m. rehearsal.
Call me stupid, but I hadn’t heard that before. So do you think they were referring to a double bass? I’m gonna guess so.
I read it here.
Heh. Ah, competitions.
Also around the web- a must read blog post from Jessica Duchen on the subject of her article in today’s Independent on corruption in music competitions. She was stymied in her efforts to bring some sunlight to bear on the dirtiest and darkest corner of the music business by the paper’s legal team. However corrupt you think the competition world is, multiply by a thousand. A friend of mine got his big break when his group won one of the major chamber music prizes. A week after the deadline he had a call from the office telling him they “had” to apply- he said the group was too busy to prepare the required repertoire. “But you’re going to win,” said the director of the competition. And they did.
The above is from Kenneth Woods.
In other news… my dream this morning was about the AFofM merging with the Teamsters. (Hmm. Not sure why that comes to mind when we are talking about corruption. Odd, eh?) I have to set my alarm so I stop having these bizarre dreams. And never in my life have I had a union dream before. I wish it had stayed that way. (Not that I hate the union, but it’s not exactly dream material.)
Weather.com is telling me I’d better keep my cake indoors; it’s supposed to get up to 93 today. It also says to “run air conditioning”. Sigh. We don’t have AC, and I actually don’t believe it’s a responsible thing in any case, considering the environment woes and all. (But I do run it in my car at times. I’m wimpy that way.) It’s not easy for students when the temp is so high. I have a fan blowing at them, but even then it’s not fun to play. (And the fan dries out reeds, as does this weather.) I think we start to cool off tomorrow, so that’s good.
I still want more rain. Rain is my friend.
never played the drums. would love to have a go but my poor parents have perpetual headaches thanks to the oboe and cor already
Check it out. It’s darn good. (When you get to the page, click on the cartoon to enlarge it.)
Then see the rest at Drew’s TAFTO page.
So these aren’t exactly raving reviews. But the audience was on their feet at both performances, and I think we are selling well. I suppose that’s what matters most these days, but I also know that readers will believe reviewers more than an audience response. Oh well.
One of these things is not like the others
One of these things, doesn’t belong
Can you guess which thing is not like the others
By they time I finish this song?
So do you see it? Surely it’s easy, yes? ;-)
