I haven’t blogged about the DSO … or if I have it’s been a while back … but they are dealing with some major problems. Yesterday I read this: Management has presented two proposals to cover the next three years. Proposal A called for a cut in base salary of about 28 percent for the [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Symphony category.
My Apologies!
I just realized I had no Sunday @ Noon or Sunday Evening Music yesterday. I’m going to blame it on jet lag combine with a huge does of OldBoeBrain. I hope you will too. :-) I have a lot of catching up to do. Normally I have posts ready to go days in advance, but [...]
Orchestras in Trouble
Detroit (read here): Salary cuts upwards of 28 percent, drastic cuts in their health insurance, elimination of contributions to their retirement benefits, and a sharp reduction in the size of the orchestra – those are key provisions of management’s demands from the musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as contract negotiations continue. The musicians believe [...]
BSO Academy
“I’m so happy my husband doesn’t know who I am,” Carolyn Williams said. No, she’s not a misbehaving housewife on some tacky TV show. Williams was attributing her fresh rush of cheer to her participation in the inaugural BSO Academy, which will wrap up an intensive week of activities for adult amateur musicians with a [...]
Syracruse Symphony Cutbacks & Unemployment
The orchestra’s 60 core members would be affected. D’Agostino said SSO management anticipates the musicians would be eligible for unemployment benefits, but the state Department of Labor would make the final determination. I don’t really understand. If they aren’t working — if the orchestra has let them go for the week — why is there [...]
Terry Teachout Asks The Question
… do you want to answer? The Pasadena Symphony is the latest regional orchestra to get itself into financial hot water. It won’t be the last. So many second- and third-tier American orchestras are currently struggling to survive that I’ve been asking myself, not for the first time, whether such institutions may possibly have outlived [...]
Concerts, Over & Out, But …
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 [...]
Good Night … and Goodnight!
The concert went fine tonight … at least I think so. I never feel qualified to say how I did. But I’ve been told my solos in the Tchaikovsky Suite were fine, so I guess I’ll trust my husband and colleagues. (Who knows what a reviewer might think!) It was great to get home before [...]
Bye Bye Rondine
This was an opera I was really sorry to say goodbye to. It was not terribly stressful, it was beautiful, and it was new. It’s (almost!) always great fun to do something I’ve never done before. I’ll miss La Rondine. I’ll also miss my pitpals™. I really love working with the Opera San José orchestra. [...]
More Tchaik #3
The EH solo is toward the end (7:10): This is a real EH solo … one I can wrap my brain around. The one in the earlier blog entry is one I find less comfortable and harder to figure out. It does help, though, when I’m playing with full orchestra. Practicing it alone at home [...]
Three To Go
I now have only three more performances of La Rondine to do. Then I move back to symphony, playing English horn in Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suite No. 3. We were discussing the work in the opera pit today. I know I’ve played it before, but I’m thinking perhaps it wasn’t with symphony, but with the ballet. [...]
I’m gonna have to ask my friends …
… but the reviewer I’m quoting must be one busy person, attending every symphony in the country! “A symphony orchestra should be stimulating but never stodgy, which perfectly describes the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the most fun-loving symphony in the country.” RTWT I have friends in the group, and next time I see one (or [...]
SSV
The Symphony Silicon Valley season has been announced in the Merc so I can finally put the info here. Straight from the article (which came out on April 3): Here are details: Sept. 30, Oct. 2-3: Cleve leads the season opener, featuring Schumann’s Symphony No. 1; Mahler’s “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of the Wayfarer)” [...]
I Dunno …
For the Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”), Mr. Fischer radically broke with conventional orchestral seating. The principal flutist, oboist and clarinetist were placed front and center, with other winds mingled throughout the ensemble: a second flutist back near the basses, a second oboist between the violas and second violins, a piccolo player with the trombones on [...]
Prokofiev
In case you haven’t heard the fifth symphony, below is the work (please note that I haven’t had time to watch and listen yet, so I can’t say anything about this performance). Better than YouTube, of course, is for you to go to the concert. Prokofiev 5 is a mighty great work!