What about baseball? Can classical and baseball go together too?
Well, just read this. :-)
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony are betting that their respective hometown teams will win the World Series.
The two sides have agreed that the winning city’s orchestra will receive a shipment of iconic culinary delights from the loser.
What they haven’t decided is what specific kind of food or foods it will be.
Both the DSO and the SFS are asking people to offer their suggestions via the orchestras’ Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.
Detroit Symphony music director Leonard Slatkin says that “in the spirit of friendly competition, the DSO is challenging our colleagues in the San Francisco Symphony for bragging rights and spoils in the orchestral World Series.”
Classical music is also about the keeping of an intense set of records and statistics. It is about a reverence for the giants of the past, and a constant measurement of what is happening now against what has come before. We hear a Beethoven symphony at the New York Philharmonic and it is in instant contact with all the other live performances of it we have ever heard, with all the things we have ever thought about it, with the legendary recordings of Toscanini, von Karajan and Kleiber. My German grandmother compared every musical experience she had — unfavorably, in fact — to what she remembered hearing Hans Knappertsbusch conduct back in the old country when she was young.
The past is always present.
It turns out that classical music fans do a lot of the same remembering and measuring as baseball fans. Both baseball and classical music have a great sense of history, a tremendous respect for the past, and a slew of nerdy people like me who want to know all the details. Both are made of people who argue passionately with each other about who was the greatest. We handicap our favorite composers and performers, we buy 20 recordings of the same piece just to be able to argue about interpretations. We want to know as much about where we have been as we can.
-David Lang
A new first for me–had to hold curtain 7 minutes until the Giants finally won because the whole audience was watching the score on their cell phones. LOL But what a night–Giants in the World Series and Frank Sinatra Junior on my stage! :-)
-Randy Bobst-Mckay
I know, I know, it’s not oboe related. But hey, I found out that the Giants won the penant while sitting in the pit, so that counts for something, right?
I had to leave home when we were still tied, 2-2. Shortly before downbeat Uribe hit a home run, putting us ahead 3-2. But then the phone had to go off; we can’t have them even on silent because they cause problems with the sound (and while some scoff at that I once left my phone on silent and I did hear the speaker by the conductor — set up for him to hear the silly electronic voices we use in Nutcracker — make those funny sounds that they make when a phone is nearby). So the phone went off. And I had to concentrate on my job and making music and not be thinking about the game the entire time. (This is why, even if we were allowed to have our phones on, I’d have to turn mine off; I find it a distraction and I don’t need that!) But the minute we finished the first act it was right back on and … woo hoo! … we won!
The Giants won the penant! The Giants won the penant! The Giants won the penant!
One ballet tomorrow. Then I must concentrate very seriously on … well … the World Series!
Go Giants!!
Bet he couldn’t make an oboe reed!
(I wonder if the guy who plays with Symphony Silicon Valley next week will do this?)
Oh … and while I’m at it with the important stuff …
GO GIANTS!!!!
So … we finished the first set of symphony. I was on English horn for the Mahler. Very few notes. Very exposed. And I did okay. Maybe I even did fine. Heck, maybe I even did well. Who knows? I sure never do!
Nathan Gunn was great. I could listen to that voice of him forever, I think. Such an incredible, beautiful, warm sound. Loved, loved, loved it! As did the audience.
Here’s a little Gunn & Bell for you:
I also played assistant principal oboe on both the Schumann first symphony and Beethoven’s seventh. Playing assistant (“AP”) is a nice change; no stress, really! What AP does is allow the principal oboist to have a bit of a break. We do this when the parts have so many notes with very few rests. It’s not done very frequently, but this set did really call for it and I was happy to get to do it; when I have so little to play, as I did with the Mahler, playing AP helps me feel more involved in the concert. So I’m grateful. (Thanks, PH!)
While we were performing today the Giants were playing what I hoped would be their last game before they moved on to the playoffs. Owning an iPhone meant I could check the score right before we started the concert, during intermission, and immediately following the concert. I will not, however, have the iPhone on during a performance. It was tempting, believe me, but I will not enter the world of the performer who is online while working. I’m a good girl, I am! (Name that show.)
Good news, though. The Giants are in the playoffs.
It’s quite true what they say about the Giants, though. TORTURE!
Dan has posted a series of pictures from Così that are mighty nice. Check ‘em out. He’ll have more later, I think.
I hope the event becomes an annual sort of thing. I hope I’m invited back, too. It was such fun.
Of course not everyone thinks it’s a good idea. A friend and colleague (who also says my blog is self-indulgent) thought it was an awful thing … the tweeting, the casualness … ah well. Can’t win ‘em all, eh? I guess I won’t be seeing him at the AT&T ballpark* then, for the Opera in the Ballpark event. I’ll sure be there. I’m already dreaming of those garlic fries.
*I have yet to get to a game this year! Might this be the only day I manage to get to the park this year? Will I not see “my” Giants? That would be weird.
I watch a lot of baseball. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve “wasted” watching “my” Giants. A lot of musicians seem to enjoy baseball. I’m not sure why.
But don’t you think we should be able to call “Time out” like those batters. I mean … there’s Posey, up at bat. He’s in the box. The pitcher is about to pitch. And he’s calling “Time out!” and the ump lets him and then he can step out of the box for a moment to collect himself.
I just think, before some solos, I’d like a little time out before I play.
Just a thought ….
… and writings.
Frustrated fans pleading for something — anything — to be done to stop the Pirates’ losing ways are likely to find little to cheer about in the baseball team’s latest move.
They fired a pierogi.
I found it, thanks to Susan Laney Spector’s blog entry over at Perfect Pitch.
One of the reasons I don’t blog anonymously is that having my name out there causes me to be a little more careful about what I write. I’m still not always careful enough, much to my embarrassment. But I do try to be cautious.
Facebook is a bit more protected … but not really. People there assume that what they write will only be seen by their “friends” (a term used quite generously, as so many on our lists aren’t really friends, but merely acquaintances). But we all know that friends can make mistakes. Friends can share. Friends can also use printers and print out a page from your Facebook page. And, sad but true, friends can become “unfriends”. (We “unfriend” people … we never “enemy” them. Hmm.) So even with Facebook I suggest that if it’s not something you are willing to see published on a universal billboard you’d be best to keep your fingers still and not type. Truly.
When one of us blows it on stage, we’ve been known to say, “At least I’m not a brain surgeon!”
Perhaps we should now add, “At least I’m not a baseball ump!”
Really. I realize the guy made a horrible call. I realize he blew it. Big time. But I’ve heard the most hateful stuff … some of it said by musicians. Hmmm. I’m not gonna cast a stone in that ump’s direction. Not until I’m perfect anyway. And of course once I’m perfect I wouldn’t do it either, because perfect people don’t do that sort of thing.
Meanwhile … I’m just thankful I’m not an ump. Especially that guy.
The article continues:
The only tones emanating from Nationals Park in the top of the first inning Sunday afternoon were the faded drones of an audience that had heard this composition too many times this season — game begins, visiting team assumes a lead, game ends in dreadful fashion. Arizona leadoff batter Trent Oeltjen looped a home run into the Washington bullpen in right field on the day’s third pitch, and the familiar chord sequence began.
But lately the Nationals have taken observers by surprise, operating in a rhythm foreign to those who have followed professional baseball in the District for the past four months. And they did so again Sunday, quickly erasing an early deficit and pounding the Diamondbacks late for a 9-2 win, the team’s eighth in a row.
… but you knew it was about baseball all along, didn’t you?
Susan Spector blogs about hecklers. Check out her blog entry, and of course peruse others … she’s an oboist in the Met Opera, as you can see by looking at their roster. And she’s also a Mets fan. Baseball and oboe. Good stuff.
Tomorrow is gonna be a tough day, I think. It’s not that I won’t like what I’m doing, but it’s that I’ll be very, very tired.
I begin at UCSC. At 10:00 AM. According to the schedule I finish at 5:00 PM. I’m working with the orchestra as they go through all of Marriage of Figaro. I think I have a lunch break of 45 minutes in there, but I’m not sure there’s another break. I suppose I should check the schedule.
Then of course I have Carmen at night, beginning at 8:00 and ending at 11:00.
Oh yes, I’m going to be tired. So as soon as the Giants get this game over with (it’s 5-1 right now, in favor of the good guys, with only one inning left) I think I’d better hit the hay. (Lincecum has been amazing … 12 strikeouts!) I’m guessing you won’t see a lot of posts tomorrow; there isn’t any wireless access in the UCSC concert hall, which is where I’ll be sitting.
I do have some things I want to blog about … just no time or energy at the moment to get into it. Later, folks!
