Bach: Quia respexit, Omnes generationes from the Magnificat
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra has turned its back on the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics after Games organizers requested the orchestra prerecord the music.
The symphony’s conductor, Bramwell Tovey, told the Globe and Mail that officials with the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee, known as VANOC, said the prerecorded music would be mimed by others during the opening gala Feb. 12.
“I felt it was dishonest. I thought it was fraudulent,” Tovey told the newspaper.
“It’s promoted with public money, and I didn’t want anything to do with this kind of dishonest practice.”
I do wonder if the bigger issue was that a different conductor would be doing the miming. Yeah. I’m that kind of skeptical.
The decision came after Tovey, who has led the VSO since 2000, was asked to conduct the recording session, but then was told another conductor would mime his performance at the ceremonies.
RTWT
But wait! There’s more:
The public applause was deafening when Maestro Bramwell Tovey refused to play along with VANOC’s tune this week — and now 2010 Games organizers have apologized for asking him to.
Tovey, the famed conductor of the Grammy-winning Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, slammed the 2010 group for asking his orchestra to pre-record a performance for the opening ceremonies of the Games — and then planning for another conductor to “mime” his part of the soundtrack during the internationally broadcast show.
Saturday, after Tovey and the orchestra received a two-day, standing-ovation-like response for turning VANOC down, 2010 officials issued a statement apologizing “for putting the orchestra in an untenable position regarding the opening ceremonies.”
The one odd thing that stands out to me is that I’m not seeing any orchestra members’ comments on this whole thing. Weird.
I guess I should start a new category, since I’m running across these somewhat frequently. I frequently don’t agree with the “best answer” … unless it’s mine … hah! Go figure.
Here’s another question and answer.
What is the hardest key signature to play in and why?
What is the hardest key signature to play in and why? I want to know because I want to challenge myself trying to create/improvise music in this key. If it depends on what instrument Tell me! :] I can play just about every instrument but my main ones and the ones I’d be playing on are piano and guitar. (I love rock/metal but I’m not a complete metal head junkie! I love/play classical, jazz, flamenco, ect.)
Additional Details
The guitar is tuned to E, normally that is.Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
It depends on the instrument, musical style, and practice level. For instance, C instrumentalists in classical orchestras get used to playing in several flats. A decent high-school oboist will be able to handle B-flat or E-flat as easily as C — but don’t ask him to handle A (three sharps) on no notice.
In general, the more flats or sharps, the harder it is, because you’re moving off “home position” more often. I played clarinet, and I found a# minor the worst: seven sharps and morose melody. Some people have more trouble with 6 or 5 sharps — with 7, they simply remember that *everything* is off.
A young musician has died and his friend is fighting for life after a suspected drug overdose in a Hong Kong hotel room while on tour with an Australian youth orchestra.
Oboe player Joseph Daniel Hall, 21, died. Trombonist Evan Andrew Williams, 21, was discovered unconscious inside their room at the Kimberley Hotel, in Tsim Sha Tsui, on Friday night.
I really don’t want to add anything to this. No one needs a lecture from me. But what sad news to read.
Here’s a video (in English) that recently appeared on Facebook:
Idiot
Really. That was the entire message.
Gee, do I deserve that sort of thing? And who the heck would have sent something like that? Certainly no friend of mine.
So here’s the sender, subject, and all … (with email addie altered so spam folk won’t find it):
From: pattyoboe at somewhere
Subject: Reeds
Date: December 18, 2009 7:18:08 PM PST
To: pattyoboe at somewhere
Yeah. Me. I sent the message. From the pit. After opening my case and realizing I left my Nutcracker reeds at home.
Now I did have other reeds with me, and I made it through okay. But my mouth is extra tired now; the reeds I had, despite the bit of work I did to “easify™” them, killed my poor old mouth.
Silly me. I forgot to do my “idiot check” before I left home. Argh!
Not so much for the advertisement of course, but don’tcha love the music?!
For some more bassoon Christmas music check out this link!
You know how it goes, right? If not … well … here:
Little boys want it as theirs:
But wait! Wind players want their moment in the sun … um … under the moon too:
And then there’s the tuba player:
And, finally, the erhu wants a piece of the action:
The piece itself might be called “cute” … but what I’m referring to is the bouncing head you occasionally see when the camera used is the one behind the audience. Check it out! ;-)
But let’s not castigate “The Nutcracker” just because it is the cash cow of American ballet. And let’s not make the mistake of assuming the tweeness of bad “Nutcracker” productions means that the ballet is itself twee.
Just listen to the ballet’s overture. In good productions the view of childhood that starts here, in the miniature orchestration and quick pulse of Tchaikovsky’s introduction, is enchantingly serious. Gradually the music will build in scale until you reach the colossal, slow, full-orchestral grandeur of the Sugarplum adagio in Act II: no ballet score has a greater span, and this shows how passionately Tchaikovsky was depicting the inner life of a child.
For those of you who don’t hear it constantly, here is the overture:
If you want more check out YouTube. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of it there.
Not much to blog these days. It’s just, as I’m sure you’ll all agree, a busy kind of time. My brain tends to go blank this time of year. Go figure.
I did manage to paint a bedroom. Well, all except the woodwork. As I told Dan, “I don’t do woodwork.” I’ve actually never done woodwork, and I don’t plan on starting. It’s something we’ll have to hire out for sometime, as our woodwork is in horrible condition. But for now this will do; walls and ceiling are freshly painted, and the room is vastly improved. I’m happy that I had time to do it.
How, you might wonder, could I find time to paint during Nutcracker season?
This is an odd year — we had Monday through Thursday off! I am still hoping to get a few letters written and cookies made. Perhaps I’ll manage tomorrow, before we begin the run of four Nutcrackers for the weekend. (Four more next week as well. I’m skipping the final two that fall after Christmas.)
Meanwhile, check out the Lupophone. Really!
