Classical Music is not as popular today as it used to be. It has been around for hundreds of years and it is the oldest type of music out there.
If you’re going to play the oboe, you have to have elementary bravery or you’re
in big trouble. Some of them are nutty, wild and unreasonable. I call myself a quintessential Cleveland Orchestra player — orthodox, but zippy, and nonwacko. I hate wacko.”
-John Mack
Singing is one of the first things that parents do with babies when they are born, and parents are constantly singing to toddlers: wordless ditties, choruses and refrains, made-up rhyming songs, anything to comfort them or engage with them. Parents sing, sing, sing in the early years of children’s lives—and then it stops.
What happens?
… read on to find the answer.
I hope my kids remember me being wacky and singing even after they were in school; I did used to make up very silly songs. (It’s also how we taught them our phone number!) But I know, too, that I pretty much stopped singing to them when they got into school. (And I’m guessing they don’t even know that I sang them a song as I rocked them when they were babies. A song that included their own name that I just made up at some point when Brandon, our first, was born.)
Singing brings joy. Singing brings people together. Singing makes us smile. We should do more of it, don’t you think?
“I do feel blind auditions are desirable, because, at the end of the day, if I succeed or fail, I have no doubt it’s because how I played,” Scruggs says. “Orchestras need to have a little bit of faith that a fair audition process will uphold artistic standards.”
The oboist points to the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York as an example.
“To my knowledge,” he says, “that’s the only one that holds truly blind auditions, where the winners are accepted before the applicants are ever seen. They have a black principal clarinetist, a black principal trumpet, and a black second trombone. And it’s one of the best orchestras in the world.”
Not true any longer, actually: recently San Francisco Opera kept their entire audition behind the screen. I think this is a new practice for them. With us “little folk”: Symphony Silicon Valley does everything behind the screen, as did San Jose Symphony (RIP) before our demise. I used to fight this idea (for reasons other than race, believe me!) but I’ve decided it really is for the best. The tenure review process can deal with issues we might run into once a player wins an audition.
My advice to young people with artistic talent and passion who are worried about making a living is this: get the best training you can. Commit yourself to using your artistic abilities to making a difference in the world. You may or may not make your living (or all of it, anyway) from a traditional job in that field. How many full-time cello jobs are there? (Even fewer if you play, say, the oboe, as a friend with one of the few full0time oboe symphony jobs pointed out to me the other night.)
-Eric Edberg
Please do read the whole thing. It’s good.
Which is more evil, the oboe or the bassoon?
Two or three years ago, when the Seattle Symphony Orchestra began discussing with the legendary conductor Kurt Masur a guest role during SSO’s 2009-10 season, Masur insisted on a condition that had nothing to do with the program of Mozart and Bruckner he will lead at Benaroya Hall tonight through Saturday.
Masur, the 82-year-old music director emeritus of the New York Philharmonic and music director for life of the Orchestre National de France in Paris, also wanted to do something with and for a local group of young musicians or developing conductors. Perhaps a master class, he suggested, or some other tutelage of the sort that helps keep him busy amid his whirlwind schedule of worldwide appearances.
“From the beginning as a conductor, I felt younger generations must be oriented to the classical tradition,” says Masur by phone following a morning rehearsal with SSO. “In America, you are far away from that tradition. This is knowledge conductors and musicians must have to lead and play.”
Anyone want to help this person? I looked at page 72 and it’s just one of those grueling etudes … I’m too lazy to look through my etude books at the moment.
72nd piece in Vade Mecum of the Oboist?
Does anybody know what the name of the piece on the 72nd page of the Vade Mecum of the Oboist (9th edition) is? Or at least the composer?
thanks.
I read it here.
… is also a composer. I read about it here.
Have we had any US presidents who were composers as well? Hmm.
I’m assuming this must be one of his works, but I don’t know how common the name “Ivo Josipovic” is … maybe I’m wrong? Let me know if I am, please!
Imant Raminsh: Ave Verum Corpus
Do you think Classical music is broadly accessible today? And if not what would you do to encourage more people to listen, watch, and get involved in it and understand it better?
I think it’s not classical music, but its image which drives people away, particularly young people. What people need to understand is that music should be taken as music, judged for whether it is good or bad, not whether it’s classical or pop or rock or jazz! I think people have just been bitten by stereo-types, and that is ALWAYS a mistake.
People often ask me what tracks I would suggest for people to listen to who have doubts about classical music, or who have not discovered it yet. I would suggest;
- Anything by Sibelius (but particularly the 5th, 6th and 7th Symphonies). His music is full of some of the most awesome melodies I’ve ever come across.
- Wagner – small doses are great for a new-comer to music. They are highly melodic, and contain such incredible energy!
- Thomas Tallis’s ‘Spem In Alium’, and ‘If Ye Love me’.
- Vaughn Williams’s “The Lark ascending”, “Norfolk Rhapsody” and the 3rd and 5th symphonies. That is as English as you get in music.
- Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”, “Rodeo”, “The Tender Land” and more than anything his 3rd symphony.
- John Adams – my favourite living composer, and one of the greatest composers ever. I would Advise his ‘Harmonium’, ‘Harmonielehre’, ‘Grand Pianola Music’, ‘Nixon in China’, ‘The Chairman Dances’, ‘Hallelujah Junction’, ‘Short Ride in a Fast Machine’, and EVERYTHING else he’s written! I would also advise his amazing auto-biography “Hallelujah Junction” – a huge insight into American music and his compositional process, as well as full of romantic, beautiful and Rustic Americana scenes.
Read more via Music.co.uk : www.music.co.uk/xmas-09/christmas-interview-alexander-prior.html#ixzz0c9pNeAdL
Seattle Symphony is pleased to welcome 17-year-old conductor Alexander Prior to an unprecedented Chairman’s Fellow position, Assistant to the Guest Conductors.
And if you think maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing, check out the video! (To add insult to injury, check out the young soloists too):
Here’s another video of the young conductor:
Oh, and yeah, he is a composer too. Prior’s website.
BUT … can he make an oboe reed? Huh? Huh?
Now I’m tired. I need a nap before tonight’s concert. I’m guessing a seventeen year old doesn’t need a nap. I do. I am not seventeen.
I was a nice, quiet girl tonight. Just so you know. And I know you wanted to know.
Tomorrow is a concert night. Be there or be square. Or not. There’s always Sunday. :-)
Yet again, more on what I blogged about yesterday:
Dear musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
I would like to express my deepest apologies for having left the season so abruptly. I am sorry that I was not able to say goodbye in person to all of you. Due to personal circumstances, I felt it very necessary to return to Chicago in January. As some of you may have heard, I need to have shoulder surgery this February, and felt it best to have the surgery in Chicago, and remain there during my recovery.
I would like to address a recent article published by a newspaper critic in Chicago, in which I was grossly misquoted. I sincerely hope that none of you have read it, but if any of you have seen it, I beg you not to pay any attention to it. The Chicago reporters seem to like slanting every article to favor Chicago’s orchestra, even if it makes everyone else look bad. I never said or thought any negative things about the LA Phil, in fact I feel quite the opposite.
RTWT, along with an article about the situation.
Yet again, reasons to be extremely careful with what we say and do. The music world is small, and one never wants to burn bridges. Or at least rarely.
Of course if we are misquoted or misunderstood, there’s not a whole lot we can do.
So this is the first week back to work after a week off. Sometimes I do think taking a week off isn’t a good idea; it’s just too difficult to get back to work! Perhaps I’d be better off with no time off. Ever. I wonder!
The first week back to symphony is going okay, but it’s exhausting. And we were a bit on the noisy side last night (as usual), and our conductor for the week had finally had it. I’m guessing that, for some, the strong reprimand is like water off a duck’s back. Not so with me. I take it as if it is completely directed at me. So I’m a bit of a wreck about that. I take reprimands quite seriously.
AND … bad dreams! The last two nights haven’t been great for dreams. We need a new mattress, and I think poor sleep means poor dreams. Or something. Maybe it’s just that it’s the first full week of 2010? Dunno!
UCSC has started. Another difficult first week! The plans we had for an oboe trio fell apart the day before we were to have our first meeting. Since that fell through I attempted to get the woodwind quintet on board. Couldn’t make it work; one player wasn’t willing to wake up that early … and I can’t say I was disappointed! Starting class at 8:50 in the morning over in Santa Cruz didn’t sound all that appealing to me. So I guess it’s oboe duos for an hour, which also qualifies. An oboe trio (usually two oboes and English horn) would have been a bit more fun, but oh well!
In other news … I landed at a blog of a singer that mentioned three of the four operas for next year. I have a feeling, though, that we aren’t supposed to publicize them yet. So I’m going to have to keep my mouth shut — or fingers still — on this one for a while longer. I’m guessing OSJ wants to make a special announcement and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.
Ramble ramble … haven’t done a ramble in a while. Guess it was time!
