… another one bites the dust.”
Yes indeed.
I wrote earlier about my students canceling. Alas, another has canceled this week’s lesson. That’s six canceled students this week. Last weekend I thought I had fifteen students this week. I have two more students schedule this week. We’ll see if I actually get to teach them!
This week was a “get back to teaching” week; no conflicts with orchestra, no other issues. And four students cancel. Wouldn’t you know? This career of mine isn’t exactly predictable. Many private music instructors charge by the month and if a student cancels they either end up paying for nothing or, if they cancel in a timely way, they schedule a make up lesson. I haven’t done this because I really don’t want to “owe” my students a lesson should it by that I am the one who has to cancel. (I never have to cancel at the last minute unless it’s due to illness, so my students get my cancellations in a timely manner.) I get the majority of theirs that way, but this week was a bit off for that. And while my policies say I do charge if I don’t receive 24 hours’ notice unless the absence is due to illness or emergency, I rarely do so. I just hate doing that to people. But I do wonder sometimes … perhaps I should charge by the month so at least I know how my budget will be for the month. Hmmm. I wonder.
Then again, I just hate owing lessons to students, and my schedule doesn’t easily allow for make up lessons.
Meanwhile… with the extra time I had (MUST make use of free time, after all!), I decided to attempt to remove the wallpaper from our living room.
Bad idea.
My hands clearly aren’t happy with the job, nor is my back. (Using a spray bottle can really do a number on one’s hands after a while. So after doing a bit of work on the stuff, I called for help. Today I get an estimate. I usually do things myself; I hate paying out money for a job I should be doing. But this time I think I’ll opt for a professional’s help and blame it on Oboe Hands.
Painting by Kelsey Layos (yes, these are my hands)
oboe players do NOT smoke pot. Maybe english horn players. They’re a little off.
(For the record, I play both and have never smoked pot. But I do confess to being “a little off”.)
The Great Artists Series. The Art of the Baroque Oboe, Gonzalo Ruiz.
Gonzalo Ruiz, baroque oboe
William Skeen, baroque cello
David Tayler, archlute
Hanneke van Proosdij, harpsichordVenue: St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
Date: January 16, 2010 8:00 PM
City: San Francisco
Price Range: $25/20 subscription $70/$50
Tickets: 510-236-9808Additional Dates:
January 17, 2010 7:30 PM
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church
I found it here.
Violinist Hilary Hahn – a popular favorite in St. Louis for her appearances here with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and in recital, and (oh, yes) a two-time Grammy winner and Gramophone Magazine’s 2008 Artist of the Year – will be the musical guest on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” on Thursday, January 14th.
Hahn, 30, released her latest recording, “Bach: Violin and Voice,” featuring soprano Christine Schäfer and baritone Matthias Goerne, along with conductor Alexander Liebreich and the Munich Chamber Orchestra, on Deutsche Grammophon yesterday.
She writes, “I’ve spent many post-concert hours watching Conan O’Brien on late-night television. I’m thrilled to perform on his show this week. I can’t wait!”
Hahn will be one of the first classical music performers to appear on O’Brien’s watch. It’s to air at 10:35 Central Time.
Yep. I want it. :-)
Looking for a twenty something oboist…any idea on where to go about to find such a person?
Read here.
… will be joining Symphony Silicon Valley for two sets this year. First it’s Porgy & Bess (scroll down), which we are doing for two weeks, so if you can’t fit it in with that link’s dates, try this, and later a Mozart/Mahler set (scroll down). Turns out that’s not all he’s up to. He’s a candidate for Peoria Symphony Orchestra as well. But wait! That’s not all!
Leslie Dunner, the next candidate for music director of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, has plunged hundreds of feet over southern Africa’s Zambezi River. He’s jumped out of planes. He’s scuba dived with sharks.
And that’s what he does for relaxation.
“At one point I was seeing my doctor about all of this, and he said, ‘You know, what you do professionally is so rigorous and so regimented and so detailed and so exact that you reach points where you’ve got to break away, and so you go overboard,’ ” said Dunner, who leads the Peoria Symphony Orchestra in a concert of Rachmaninoff and Mozart on Saturday.
“After the shark cage diving, I was volunteering in a project in South Africa. I was placed working in an old age home. That was something I had never, ever imagined myself doing – taking care of people. There were 78 residents between the ages of 67 and 95. I worked with them for three weeks.”
Such ventures aren’t merely ways of blowing off steam. Back in the early 1990s, Dunner was touring with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and realized that he was visiting a lot of countries considered “exotic” for an American but not learning anything about the people, the land, the culture or the environment. He decided that every year he would try to make a trip that would help him learn about the planet, another culture or himself.
Now I’m thinking of all sorts of imaginative and thrill-seeker ways he could land on the podium when he’s here. Hmmm.
People can set up pages at Amazon.com and comment on books/CDs/whatever. But you knew that already, yes? Well, I’ll bet you haven’t seen all these comments! So I’m gonna post some below … just because … please note these are all about various double reed recordings:
Not a single polka.
Double reed angst straight from a dentist.
Have you ever known an even remotely sane bassoonist?
Get in your lowrider. Crank the bass. Boom! This is fun.
and my fave …
It’s so french you’ll feel insulted.
… he shoulda written this for English horn, don’t you think?
It’s funny — or maybe not? — but I somehow hear a bit of theremin-esque stuff going on with the (original) soprano version:
Hmm. But a theremin would need to be in tune … and the only one I could find on YouTube was. Well. Not quite “there”, if you know what I mean. So never mind.
But wait! Someone has arranged it for d’amore at least …
Now … arrange it for celli and EH and I’ll beg to do with with SJCO! :-)
Dan, this one’s for you!
Okayyyyy mom, I’ll practice my oboe before leaving…too bad my reeds have, for the most part, kicked the bucket.
Oboist [name removed] seemed to be battling a faulty instrument but still found a strong identity in his important sections.
Hmmm. How very nice of a reviewer to allow for a faulty instrument.
The performance began with the announcement besieging the audience “To preserve the decorum of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, please turn off your damn phones!”
Ah, those Minnesotans!
I read it here.
OMG I used to play oboe. The dead duck of the woodwinds! *hides shame*
People are always looking for inexpensive oboes. Inexpensive oboes are … well … CHEAP. Meaning cheaply made. And they sound cheap. And you won’t be able to sell them for anything but cheapER. Don’t do it.
I just ran across this very sad little post (I’ll not link so as to save any embarrassment to the poster):
hi, my name is Kristen and i’m looking for an oboe for no more than $100.00. i can’t spen any more than that, i don’t care if the oboe needs repair..i just wan’t to know if anyone can help….
If you find an oboe for $100 or less just make a lamp out of it. Really.
Decent oboes are expensive. But decent oboes are cheaper, from what I’ve heard, than most flutes, bassoons and any fine string instrument. (Brass instruments — contrary to what I wrote before — are usually less expensive. That’s what I get for trying to write before I’m fully awake!) So look on the bright side. We aren’t the most expensive thing out there. And still we’re the best. ;-)
Not an oboe player? Shop Sheet Music Plus and see what you find!
Or just shop Amazon.com
