I read it here (and other places).
In a surprise loss of a cherished New York summer tradition, the New York Philharmonic won’t hold its free concerts in city parks, city officials said.
Without citing a reason, the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation said the concerts would not be held, but wouldn’t elaborate on why or whether the decision is permanent.
A CSU veterinarian and psychologist are studying whether playing classical music will calm cats and their owners while visiting the vet.
The researchers say cats are taken to veterinarians’ offices less often than dogs, possibly because the visits are stressful for both cat and owner.
“If this study finds that classical music lowers the stress levels for cats and their caretakers during veterinary visits, veterinarians can start using calming music in their waiting room immediately and improve the emotional health of those in their clinic – human and four-legged,” Dr. Narda Robinson, a veterinarian at Colorado State University, said in a statement announcing the study.
“Pet owners note that their cats dislike going to the vet more so than dogs, which means they may take them less often. This may then lead to less regular medical attention for cats.”
I read it here, but as most everyone knows, cats don’t want to listen … they wan to PLAY!
Here’s Nora at the piano …
And here’s the composition written for her piece:
A symphony orchestra crashes and burns so who would you choose as a replacement for an upcoming concert?
The orchestra was going to play some Sibelius, some Sousa, and some Glinka. Instead, the Riders will play some Gene Autrey, some Roy Rogers, and some Sons Of The Pioneers, with lots of yodeling.
The earthquake that hit northeastern Japan last month sent ceilings crashing as far away as Muza Symphony Hall in Kawasaki, more than 300 km from its epicenter.
According to the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (TSO), 80 percent of the hall is now considered unusable. As a result, more than 20 performances set to be held at the hall have been canceled so far.
I read it here.
I just read this, and I’m racing off to opera, so I have no time to check up on more about it:
The Philadelphia Orchestra might be days away from declaring bankruptcy.
The Detroit musicians are going back to work:
DSO Musicians Decide to Return to Work Immediately – April 4, 2011
DSO ANNOUNCES FREE PATRON CONCERTS THIS SAT. & SUN.
–Call 313.576.5111 to reserve your free tickets–
This afternoon orchestra members assembled and agreed to return to work at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra so that rehearsals could resume this Thursday in preparation for free weekend patron concerts conducted by Music Director Leonard Slatkin on Sat., April 9 at 8 p.m. and Sun., April 10 at 3 p.m. The repertoire performed will include classical favorites including Dvo?ák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”The DSO announced earlier today that late last night a tentative agreement was reached between the negotiating committees after 27 hours of bargaining over the weekend. The DSO is not releasing details on this tentative agreement at this time.
The DSO will make other announcements later this week about the 2011 Spring Season at Orchestra Hall and in the neighborhoods it serves.
“As we return to our home, I’m confident that the artistic product will continue at the highest possible level. There is much to be done but the DSO will emerge a healthier and stronger institution,” said Slatkin.
Here is a bit more info about the free concerts this weekend:
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra will be holding two free concerts this weekend as a thank you to their fans as the musicians kick off the 2011 Spring Season.
The concerts, which will be conducted by Music Director Leonard Slatkin, will be held Saturday, April 9 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 10 at 3:00 p.m.
Tickets are open to everyone. However, they are general admission and can only be obtained by calling the DSO box office. The box office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and can be reached starting Tuesday at (313) 576-5111.
Further announcements about the Spring Season will be made later this week.
Board members of the Muncie Symphony Orchestra decided to cancel the final performance of the school year because of recent budget issues.
The concert was scheduled for April 30 in John R. Emens Auditorium, which would have cost the orchestra $35,000 to perform.
The not as horrible news is they plan on returning:
“No one wanted to do it. It’s the right decision, as far as financially. We feel horribly that we are in this position,” he said. “On a positive note, we need to let the world know that we will have a season next year.”
Elissa McDonald, executive director of the symphony, said that although the decision was a difficult one, it ensures that the symphony will have more seasons.
These are sure tough times. I hate reading this kind of news.
After posting a $5.6 million deficit for the 2008-2009 season, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announced Wednesday that a balanced budget was achieved for the 2009-2010 season. That fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31, 2010, yielded an operating surplus of $4,116. This is the third balanced budget in the past four years.
“We’re moving in a cautiously forward direction,” said BSO president and CEO Paul Meecham. “It feels very different from last year.”Although there were sufficient cash reserves to cover the ’08-’09 deficit, the challenges of balancing the ’09-’10 budget during the lingering recession proved considerable. Cost-reduction measures were taken across the board.
The budget was reduced to
$24.3 million from $28.3 million the previous year.
BSO musicians volunteered $1 million in reduced pay and benefits and spearheaded a productive fundraising campaign called Music Matters. Music director Marin Alsop contributed $50,000 to that campaign and also donated back $100,000 in conducting fees. Administration staffers also absorbed cuts.On the other side of the ledger during FY2010, the orchestra received more than 10,000 contributions, the highest number in BSO history, up from 7,000 four years earlier.
Read that and more here.
It sounds as if, had a student not made the news of a threat on the UCSC campus public, we might not have been told at all. I wonder.
Graffiti threatening violence, found in a campus bathroom, has prompted an investigation by the UC Santa Cruz administration and police. The graffiti was discovered in early December, before students left for winter break.
Administrators issued an email advisory to the campus community Jan. 11 alerting students and faculty of the discovery of the graffiti, and asking them to be alert for suspicious behavior. Recipients were warned that the message threatened violence on Jan. 18. Exact details were not included.
UCSC director of public information Jim Burns said the administration has no plans to release further details.
Sam*, a UCSC student who lives on campus, was informed about the graffiti by a UCSC staff member on Jan. 6. Though he was asked not to share the details of the threat, Sam has since told “quite a few people,” he said.
Burns confirmed that “members of the campus’ senior leadership team were among the people informed,” before the e-mail advisory was sent out.
In an interview conducted prior to the release of the official alert, Sam said that though he understands the university’s position, he was concerned for students’ safety. He decided to alert his peers of the threat as they had not yet been informed by the university.
So what would you do? Tuesday is my day to teach on campus.
Update
In reading more about the threat I have a strong suspicion it is area and person specific. This does make it feel much less threatening. I do wish the administration would have been more specific about what the message said, but perhaps they’ve been told not to.
In a coup certain to add luster to the company’s national and international reputation, Lyric Opera of Chicago appointed the celebrated American soprano Renee Fleming to the newly created position of creative consultant. Her five-year term is to begin immediately. The announcement came Thursday at a press conference in the Civic Opera House.
For the record, they did not contact me first to see if I was willing to take the position.
Yeah. I’m shocked too.
Seriously, though … I sure wish there was a position out there for yours truly that would be something to fall back on when the old oboe chops say, “No more!” Because we musicians do worry about the “What next?” thing. Especially considering our pension plans. And as we all now know, we oldsters should step aside so the young’uns can have our jobs. ;-)
There are two articles on musicians and this wacky career. One is a bit more depressing. The other is about changing careers — or adding a career while keeping music — and that one seems more upbeat to me. Maybe it’s because it begins with an oboist. Hmmm.
It was a good living. But the New York freelance musician — a bright thread in the fabric of the city — is dying out. In an age of sampling, digitization and outsourcing, New York’s soundtrack and advertising-jingle recording industry has essentially collapsed. Broadway jobs are in decline. Dance companies rely increasingly on recorded music. And many freelance orchestras, among the last steady deals, are cutting back on their seasons, sometimes to nothingness.
In the sunny front room of her Little Italy apartment, at a work table filled with unusual tools, Diane Lacelle uses a gouger, a micrometer and a guillotine to make a reed for her oboe. Lacelle is 45, and has been playing oboe professionally for 25 years. The reed is key to the instrument’s sound and for an oboist, the painstaking preparation of reeds is part of the job description.
“If you scrape at the wrong place and remove too much, you ruin the reed,” she said as she shaved off a fraction of a millimetre. “Students want to know the secret of making reeds. There’s no secret, just practice and lots of reeds in the garbage. Oboists are like beavers, we spend half the time scraping away. You have to be patient, meticulous, precise.”
When a dentist friend suggested that Lacelle could apply these qualities to a career in his field, she was intrigued.
RTWT
I sometimes think about what I’d do if this career of mine fell apart (or if it was taken away from me). I love research. But I’m not exactly a brain. I sort of enjoy busywork (yeah, that’s what a person with little brain enjoys sometimes). Is there some way I can combine those two and find a new career? I wonder.
Someone want to hire a neurotic oboist? C’mon, you know you do!
You know how I sometimes respond to someone’s amazing talent with “But can she make an oboe reed?”
Meet Felisa Wolfe-Simon, the lead scientist behind the whiz-bang discovery about potential new life forms. Though only in her early 30s by “standard graduation-year math,” she is already “insanely accomplished by anyone’s standards,” writes Irin Carmon. She’s also a model in varied interests, with a double degree in biology/chemistry and oboe performance from Oberlin, plus a Ph.D in oceanography from Rutgers.
I guess the answer with this particular woman is, “Yes. Yes she can.”
I prefer not to think of her as some sort of genius or anything, though. I’m just gonna call her “arsenic lady”.
I read it here.
A bombshell for local woodwind aficionados and for regular listeners of the Atlanta Symphony: Patrick McFarland, 71, the orchestra’s principal English horn player, resigned yesterday after 47 years of service. It was a sudden announcement that surprised his colleagues.
Asked about his decision, McFarland replied, “There were several reasons, not the least was burnout. I don’t want to be hanging around when I’m not playing my best, and I wanted to go out ahead of it, before I lost it.”
Technically, he is now on medical disability, but he says he has no plans to return to the Symphony Hall stage. “It’s just plain time to hang it up,” he said.
I read it here.
I have Mr. McFarland on recording … he really is a fine player. And wow … 47 years of service!
I just received this (and a whole lot more; that was one long email!):
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND WGBH BOSTON TO PARTNER WITH THE NEW AUDIOVISUAL LABEL, ICA CLASSICS, TO DISTRIBUTE 32 HISTORIC BSO DVDS FIRST SERIES OF THREE DVDS TO BE RELEASED ON FEBRUARY 22, 2011, FEATURING THE BSO UNDER THE DIRECTION OF CHARLES MUNCH IN MUSIC OF DEBUSSY, RAVEL, WAGNER, FAURÉ, FRANCK, AND BEETHOVEN
BSO PERFORMANCES ORIGINALLY RECORDED AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY’S SANDERS THEATRE BETWEEN 1958 AND 1961 FOR BROADCAST ON WGBH TV AND DISTRIBUTED THROUGH THE EDUCATIONAL RADIO AND TELEVISION CENTERThe Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston public broadcaster WGBH have partnered with International Classical Artists and their new audio and audiovisual label, ICA Classics, to release 32 BSO historic DVDs over the next four seasons.
The first set of these new BSO archival DVD releases will feature Boston Symphony Orchestra performances that took place at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre between February 4, 1958 and October 31, 1961, under the direction of Charles Munch (BSO Music Director 1949-1962). These DVDs—featuring music of Debussy, Ravel, Wagner, Fauré, Franck, and Beethoven—represent some of the earliest televised concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (the BSO was first featured on television in 1949 in an NBC radio and television special). Originally broadcast on WGBH television and distributed through the Educational Radio and Television Center (precursor to WNET) to educational television stations nationwide, these BSO/Charles Munch performances are being made available on DVD for the first time commercially through this new partnership between the BSO, WGBH, and ICA Classics.
The first three DVDs will be available starting February 22, 2011 through Naxos of America and can be purchased from Amazon.com and retail stores across the United States, as well as the BSO’s website, www.bso.org. The Boston Symphony will also offer buyers the chance to pre-order the DVDs starting December 1, through www.bso.org or by calling 888-266-1200; these pre-orders will be fulfilled soon after February 22. The DVDs will also be available to purchase in the UK through the ICA Classics website, www.icaclassics.com, beginning January 31, 2011, as well as in retail stores throughout Europe.
A short clip of La Mer, from 1958, can be seen & heard here.
This got me to wondering just who were the oboists of the BSO in the past. Well, guess what? Someone has a page listing Musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra 1881 – today. How cool is that?
Remember when I wrote about the conductor who walked out right before a concert? She’s now been fired. But of course she said she wasn’t coming back if one player wasn’t gone, so I suppose she really quit since he wasn’t removed.
Ugly stuff.
(I went to the orchestra site. It’s rather strange. I couldn’t even find an orchestra roster.)
Not an oboe player? Shop Sheet Music Plus and see what you find!
Or just shop Amazon.com
