Ah, Opera!

17. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: News, Opera

Sometimes directors can sure get crazy!

“The concept is that instead of a curtain going up, the curtain came down, I mean literally down,” St.Clair said. “Seats were being removed, all the props were being thrown into a huge dumpster on the stage, because (the concept) was talking about the fact that theater doesn’t exist anymore as we know it to exists.

“And for instance, in the third act Florestan sings his opening aria completely in the dark, in the middle of trash bags, unseen, and from a dumpster. He’s in the dumpster, the doors have been opened, trash bags are falling out, and the trash is really what is the remnants of the theater – you know, puppets and costumes and bags of trash. I mean this is just one example.”

A short video of the production on YouTube bears St.Clair out. It looks ridiculous; a mess as well.

“There was a gitter, like a prison cell put over the top of the orchestra,” he said. Beethoven’s overture was dispensed with, the director’s idea.

St.Clair was powerless to stop what he felt was a desecration of Beethoven’s opera. There’s good Regietheater and bad Regietheater, he admitted, but this was beyond the pale.

“It just got to the point where I felt shameful — I felt that I didn’t stand up in a way — or I felt powerless to stand up for Beethoven.” That the company supported such a production was just too much for him.

“I really felt that our differences at this point were those which would disallow me from, in any good conscience, working productively in the house. … This really pointed to some artistic boundaries that I could no longer cross. And felt I needed to sleep at night, and I needed to follow my heart. So I decided to take my leave from the house.”

RTWT

But wait! The article included what could be great news for Orange County, which lost Opera Pacific a short time ago:

Berlin’s loss may be Orange County’s gain. St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony have been talking to opera supporters about ways of bringing back the art form to Orange County. He’ll now have more time to devote to the idea.

That would be great for them, yes?!

Thanks, patti with an i!

17. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: Read Online

At the Community Music Center’s Salute to the Joy of Making Music gala at Yoshi’s, emcee Josh Kornbluth introduced the fundraising auction by threatening that if people didn’t bid lots of money, he would find them in their houses and play his oboe for them. Or maybe at them.

Read here.

John Williams

17. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: Composers

(The composer, not the guitar player.)

“You have a good day, you have a bad day, next week you look at what you wrote last week and it’s rubbish and you throw it out,’’ says Williams, who is the picture of refinement in a dark jacket, black knit shirt, and gray trousers, with a neatly trimmed beard and rim of white hair. “I write all the time, not so much for pleasure but mostly from habit, which is what anybody who writes anything needs to do. It’s pretty good, or it isn’t, and I try to do better next time.’’

Impeccably gracious and unerringly modest, Williams seems more like a genial professor than an industry powerhouse. It’s not false modesty, according to his daughter Jenny, a psychotherapist who practices in Beverly Hills, Calif. Rather, it’s that “my dad wouldn’t be caught dead saying anything good about himself. He believes that no one should. It’s impolite.’’

RTWT

New Concert Hall for Stanford

17. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: News

At a time when arts organizations and universities are struggling to pay their bills, Stanford University is tuning up to break ground on the campus’ first true concert hall with world-class acoustics financed by $112 million in private gifts.

The 844-seat Bing Concert Hall — a new home for Stanford Lively Arts’ live musical performances — will accommodate everything from soloists to full orchestras.

It will become the cornerstone of an ambitious 21st-century “arts district” at a school that is sometimes nicknamed “Stanford Tech,” more famed for science and software than Sibelius. And it’s a reminder of Stanford’s prestige and financial reach — tapping into a network of well-heeled benefactors in an economy that has paralyzed arts and education funding across the country.

“It says very loudly that the arts are important at Stanford and we want to do them well,” said Kären Nagy, the university’s assistant vice president for the arts.

RTWT

I must confess that when I hear about Stanford University I rarely think about their music program. Guess I’ll have to check ‘em out when this new hall is built!

TQOD

17. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: TQOD

Every oboe player I know is agnostic

(This tweeter doesn’t know me.)

Read Online

17. May 2010 · 4 comments · Categories: Read Online

I have an orchestra concert tomorrow and a tragedy has just struck. All my oboe reeds split in half. Don’t ask. Anyway, I need to get atleast one new one by tomorrow morning, but seriously, what kind of shop sells oboe reeds??

Does anyone know a shop that would probably sell oboe reeds that might be in my area? A kind of common shop?

Thanks a billion

(Too late to answer; I read it on Saturday night, so the reeds were needed Sunday morning. My home studio students know they must always have at least three reeds in their case. University students should have even more of course.)

Definition

17. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: Other People's Words

English horn:

It’s like an oboe you can stand to hear.

-Ted Seitz, violist in Symphony Silicon Valley

Concerts, Over & Out, But …

17. May 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Ramble, Symphony

So we finished up with the symphony set yesterday. As I reported to my husband when he called after the final concert, “I didn’t embarrass myself.”

Yep. That’s about all I can say. I leave it to others to say if I played well or not. I have this tremendous fear of getting too confident or even more arrogant. I feel as if I might lose any edge I have if I say positive things. Is this superstition? I wonder. (I hope not!)

BUT …

Now I can confess: I really don’t like that Tchaikovsky suite!

There. I said it. I wouldn’t write that here prior to finishing up the concerts. When I’m in the middle of a run I simply can’t write that way. And when I am on stage I have to really “believe” in a work. I have to feel as if I can make great music, and in order for me to feel good about it all I really do make myself like a work. Maybe that sounds silly, but there you go.

But now? Now I can say I wouldn’t mind never playing it again. Really.

The first movement solo simply perplexes me. I can’t figure out what it’s doing! I think I made it work okay, but it’s a pretty odd little ditty. The waltz movement is a bit strange, especially at one spot where we have this odd passage of octave notes that just sounds like an “upside down” donkey bray to me. The scherzo is crazy making. And the theme and variations … well … I’ve never cared much for theme and variation movements.

But (this seems to be a “but” blog entry) … the solo in variation seven is pretty nicely written and works very well for English horn. It’s also entirely stress-free. So that was nice.

Getting mentioned in the review was nice too. I’ll take that. :-)

Gee, anyone else notice the two spellings of Tchaikovsky’s name in the review? Headline reads “Tchaikovski”! But of course one could argue either spelling, and some suggest that it should Chaikovsky instead, I think. No biggie!

But …

The program, which repeats Saturday and Sunday as the final one in the orchestra’s eighth season, also included performances of two lesser-known 19th-century works, Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei” and Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to “The Fair Melusine.”

Oops! I think the writer might be wrong about that.

Sunday Evening Music

16. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: Sunday Evening Music

Arvo Pärt: Cantate Domino

Sunday Morning Music

16. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: Sunday Morning Music

(So sorry! The first “Sunday Morning Music” I posted didn’t END … I can’t do that to you! Here’s a very quick replacement.)

Palestrina: Missa Brevis

Midsummer Mozart Youth Camerata

15. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: News

There’s a nice article — it came out last week and I forgot to post it — about George Cleve and the Midsummer Mozart Youth Camerata. I played with the Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra back before the wheel was invented. I sat next to, and learned from, a wonderful oboist, Debbie Henry. I miss those days. (Although I don’t miss the driving. It was difficult to drive without wheels.)

I realized I wanted to stick with music when I started playing, and became a member of Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. (These days they use adults when they use winds, I believe, but for a few years they had high school wind players.) Youth groups really are vital. I’m so glad George and his wife, flutist Maria Tamburrino, are doing this!

I see no videos of the adult orchestra or the youth camerata up at YouTube, but I do see this one with Christina Major (who was with Opera San José from 1997 to 2000 and 2003 to 2004) singing and the orchestra playing (you can hear ‘em, you just can’t see ‘em. (The principal oboist is now the wonderful Laura Griffiths.)

TQOD

15. May 2010 · 3 comments · Categories: TQOD

This clarinet or oboe or bassoon or whatever this instrument in this movie is annoying.

Opera @ The Blue Lagoon

15. May 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Opera, Videos

… in Iceland. (Can’t take a deep bow unless you wanna take a dive, eh?)

Guess this is the latest trend in opera; surprise the publich with the music. If the people won’t come to the opera ….

They Didn’t Offer ME One!

14. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: Ramble

A top California based iPad developer has just announced plans to donate 1000 copies of their award winning iPad application. They plan to donate to conservatories, music schools and educators across the U.S. copies of their hit app “The Orchestra”.

The developer xhumans said they will give away the 1000 copies of the app with free updates to the organizations free of charge and restrictions. The company will also be providing free 24/7 support for the award winning app, making this one of the largest charitable app donation ever undertaken.

Xhumans has teamed up with music teachers, non-profit classical music groups, and several instrument makers for this initiative. The donation has been enthusiastically backed by the Note for Note training group, the Department of Musical Education, and the Classical Music World Center.

I read it here.

Of course I don’t own an iPad, so there’s that issue in any case! But I did go to xhumans to see what “The Orchestra” was about. That took me to iTunes and I could then see what they have there. I’d love to check it out. For the English horn sample they give us Dvorak’s New World Symphony. No surprise there, eh? For oboe? Well. What would YOU pick as a good example? They chose Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasy for Oboe. Okay then. Not exactly the first thing that pops into MY head. In fact — dare I admit this? — I don’t even know the work! I had to look the darn thing up!

And yeah, I do look at the iPad and think it would be an awful lotta fun to own. I don’t exactly need it, though. I go back & forth between that and an iPhone. Oh … and nothing at all. Since if I’m talking need truth be told I already have more than I need. Or even deserve. (As if I deserve anything, eh?)

What’s in a name?

14. May 2010 · Comments Off · Categories: English horn

Last night I was wandering the lobby during the first half of the concert, looking to pick up a program. An usher asked me what instrument I played, and I said, “Oboe and English horn, although tonight it’s just English horn.” She responded with, “Oh I LOVE French horn!”

Yeah, We get that a lot. I didn’t correct her. Not my job.

In looking at the program notes I see the writer of those refers to my instrument as cor anglais. (The “melancholy cor anglais”, in fact.) I wonder if he’s from the UK, or if he just prefers cor anglais. For the record, my parts do say “English horn” on them, but you can call it whatever you like. As long as you’re nice about it, that is. And never never never say, “It’s neither English nor a horn.” We are quite bored by that. :-)

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