oboeinsight

Location: London
Contract: Permanent
Closing Date: Mon, 30/04/2012
Salary: Hourly paid

The Royal College of Music is one of Britain’s leading conservatoires. It provides specialised musical education and professional training at the highest international level for performers and composers.
The College is now seeking to engage a distinguished oboe professor to join its international team. You should be a widely recognised and highly respected practitioner, either as a performer or teacher. You will be teaching, to an exceptionally high level of technical and musical proficiency, students at undergraduate, postgraduate and, in some cases, doctoral level.
How to Apply
For further details of this position and our Equal Opportunities Monitoring form see the RCM website at www.rcm.ac.uk.
To apply please send a covering letter and full CV along with our Equal Opportunities Monitoring form to Liz Ingram, HR Officer at Royal College of Music, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BS or liz.ingram@rcm.ac.uk.
Closing date for receipt of applications is 12 noon on 30 April 2012.
Interviews will be held on the 14 May 2012.
The Royal College of Music is an equal opportunities employer

I found it here.

Sacramento Symphony died some years back, but Sacramento Philharmonic was then formed.

Now?

With corporate donations running well below expectations, the Sacramento Philharmonic orchestra says it will close if it can’t raise $150,000 in the next month.

The 15-year-old symphony said it needs to raise twice that much – $300,000 – before it can consider presenting a 2012-13 season of concerts starting in the fall.

“We have had a very difficult season, and this follows other difficult seasons,” said Jane Hill, interim executive director. “This year the orchestra experienced a drastic decline in nonrestricted corporate income.”

At 4:30 p.m. today, the orchestra will make a public appeal for contributions at the Sutter Club in downtown Sacramento. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, and other supporters will be on hand.

Read here.

This is the future, and it is here. Support your local groups, friends. Keep the arts alive. We need your support!

… but, better yet, never leave an oboe in a car unattended.

On April 5, a Stratford Avenue man pulled into his driveway and went into his home, leaving his $8,000 Marigaux oboe in his car, a Fairlawn police report said.

The man was in his home for 15 minutes, and when he came out, the oboe was gone.

The Akron Symphony Orchestra player told police he left the doors unlocked.

There was no damage to the man’s car and there are no suspects.

Sad.

Read online:

Employee listening to classical music, bitten by police dog

RTWT

You have now been warned.

Dear Young Musician,
I understand how difficult it is when you’re coming out of school and trying to find a job. I know what it means to stand in the grocery store and wonder if you can afford that extra packet of Ramen noodles. I realize it’s scary to not know when the next gig will come along, how the rent is going to get paid this month, or if you can scrape together the money to take auditions. I get all this because I’ve been there. Right after college I dove headfirst into the freelance scene and it was really tough. So tough that I may have been tempted by an audition like Louisville’s. It seems like a pretty decent deal, good pay, steady work, but trust me…it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I urge you, DO NOT TAKE THE AUDITION.

Please read the whole thing.

The latest experiment in New York theater is taking place in a tiny, L-shaped third-floor room with water-stained ceilings and dirty gray carpeting that served for decades as a dumping ground for old props. At 8:05 p.m. on a recent Saturday, seven musicians, squeezed nearly knee to knee there in the Lucille Lortel Theater, struck the opening chords to the musical “Carrie,” as the actors stepped onstage two floors below.

RTWT

A response

I’ve had friends who have been in other, distant locations for musicals. Seems ridiculous to me, and rather sad. But what do I know? I’m just an oboe player.

But maybe the mice know better …? ;-)

Mice getting mismatched heart transplants and that were exposed to classical music had much slower rejection rates than did mice exposed to other music and sounds. Sophie Bushwick reports.

RTWT

… I guess it’s all about the instrumentation. So the Beatles are pop, but if you play their music in an orchestra it’s then classical. Um … right?

Today, local Singaporean, Ian Low, has just released the world’s first classical music album that was recorded and produced entirely using only an iPad and a software app, Apple’s own GarageBand. It is entitled The Eternal Broth.
The album is a rearrangement of an earlier instrumental work by Mr. Low, Father, which was also done on the iPad. Father is also a musical story about a pair of brothers and their struggles to find their mark in their careers and lives, all revolving around their father’s simple but humble soup food tall.
While the earlier album featured modern and contemporary pop arrangements and instrumentation, The Eternal Broth uses only classical and acoustic instrumentation found on the GarageBand app to evoke a different dimension to the original pop tracks on Father. It is the world’s first classical music album to be produced in this manner.

RTWT

Check out Concert Calamities: When Bad Things Happen To Good Musicians. Then share your stories. You know you’ve got ‘em!

I think I’ve already blogged about the ones I’ve witnessed. If anything new comes to mind I’ll be sure and let you know, though.

Dear girl who plays Lady Gaga on her flute,
I play Ke$ha on my oboe.
Sincerely, I think we’ll get along just fine.

It gets so quiet during the second movement of the Brahms Symphony No. 2, you could almost hear a pin drop.

Or a sneeze. Or a fist hitting a face.

Such was the case Thursday night at Orchestra Hall in a ruckus the Chicago Symphony Orchestra officially described as “an incident” between “two patrons.” But shocked concert-goers and police called it a fist fight in one of the boxes — where the elite typically sit and expect a more refined experience.

Just as the second movement was drawing to a gentle close — with Music Director Riccardo Muti at the podium — a man in his 30s, according to police, started punching a 67-year-old man inside one of the boxes.

“We heard a rather loud thump,” said Steve Robinson, general manager of Chicago’s classical and folk music station 98.7 WFMT, who was at the performance but didn’t see the fight. “It wasn’t so loud that everyone jumped up and ran for the exits.”

Some in the audience thought a patron had suffered some kind of medical emergency. But police said it was a fight stemming from an argument over seats in the box.

“According to the victim, the offender became irate and struck him several times,” police said.

The victim was left with a cut on his forehead, while the other man left before police arrived, authorities said.

The concert never stopped, but Muti shot a glance over his left shoulder toward the box where the punches were thrown. One concert-goer described the look as “dagger eyes.”

RTWT

can they spin an oboe reed?! (You KNEW I had to go there, right?)

A Japanese researcher has used thousands of strands of spider silk to spin a set of violin strings.

The strings are said to have a “soft and profound timbre” relative to traditional gut or steel strings.

That may arise from the way the strings are twisted, resulting in a “packing structure” that leaves practically no space between any of the strands.

RTWT

Ms. Gordon is a member of that hardy group of amateur musicians who pick up instruments later in life, defiers of the “can’t teach old dogs new tricks” truism. While many come back to music after studying as a child, primed to play but now free of the parentally imposed obligation, others confront it cold. Without young brains and their abundantly firing neurons and with bodies burdened by years of wear and tear, technique comes more slowly. The physical repetition of practice does not find the same fertile ground.

But for those who stick it out, the rewards can be enormous. Adult musicians can find whole new social networks, a sense of meaning in midlife and a creative outlet they did not have before. The sense of accomplishment can be powerful.

“It’s been a wonderful trip,’ she said. “I hope that I will continue to play long into the sunset, as often as I can.” She added, “I only wish I had started 30 years ago.”

RTWT

I’ve taught a few adult students, but they’ve been few and far between and I don’t have any at the moment. I’ve never had an adult stick around longer than a few years. I’ve heard that I’m “very strict” via a colleague (one student told her that, so I’m not exactly fretting over it and, besides, I probably am a bit strict!). Mostly they end up getting too busy or too frustrated. I enjoy teaching them, but I have to admit I think I am better when middle school kids. I’m not sure why … maybe it’s because I’ve never grown up? Hmm.

A MUSICIAN whose rare £4,500 oboe was stolen after burglars crawled through a dog flap at her home has been reunited with her beloved instrument.

Rachel Kilby’s prized oboe was stolen from her home in Roath, Cardiff, on Pancake Day, along with two laptops and a Wii games console.

Detectives believed a child may have climbed through the small kitchen dog flap – measuring about 40cm by 40cm – before letting others into the property from the inside.

But police have managed to recover the rosewood oboe after carrying out enquiries over the weekend.

The instrument was found at a shop in the City Road area, where unsuspecting staff bought it for £100 – just 2% of its actual value.

Ms Kilby, head of the music service in Rhondda Cynon Taf and Caerphilly councils, said she was delighted her oboe had been found.

The 41-year-old said: “I was absolutely elated. I guess I had been fairly hopeful because it’s quite a distinctive instrument that it would turn up, but you never know.”

I’m very happy for the oboist, but mostly what I have to say is PANCAKE DAY?! I want a pancake day here in the USA!

RTWT