Listen as if it were the last time your ears could hear. Savor it.
-Greg Anderson & Elizabeth Joy Roe
This is from a “music listening manifesto” I found here.
As I was playing Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet yesterday it hit me, “I don’t know if I’ll do this ballet again in my lifetime.” This season has been one of thoughts like those. Now we did just do R&J in 2004, so it is possible that I will do it again in another 6 years, but who knows for sure? At the final Marriage of Figaro performance a dear friend sitting next to me sadly said, “I don’t know if I’ll do this again. It makes me sad.”
So I’d like to suggest to performers that we play as if we may never play something again. I want to remember to relish each wonderful work. I want to attempt to always play my best. I don’t want to take anything for granted. I get sad — and yes, I get frustrated too — when it appears that musicians are playing as if it doesn’t matter. I get angry at myself when I catch myself doing that.
Romeo and Juliet was rather enjoyable for me this run. I had reeds that really cooperated. (I used one — orange thread — for the first two acts and another — dark blue thread — for the final act. The low C that has, in past runs, given me such grief and fear worked every single time!! And yes, it really is just that italicized sort of exciting! The balcony scene with a little English horn solo I love makes me happy to be an English horn player. The end of the entire ballet has what feels like a pretty darn important English horn solo (I’ll have to pull out my recording to see if I agree when I’m listening rather than playing) and I really enjoyed doing that as well, waiting just that extra snippet of time to land on the final C (G on EH of course). Man, Prokofiev knew how to write some fine, fine stuff. :-)
And speaking of Prokofiev, after this week of no playing work I move on to Prokofiev’s fifth symphony. I know I’ve played it before, as I see my writing on the English horn part, but I do need to start working on it again; I can’t even remember doing it!
Today San Francisco Symphony makes their announcement about the 2010-2011 season. And I’ll be there for that! Yep. They sent me an invitation. So I’ll be there. Come back here later and I’ll fill you in!
I’ve neglected to mention that Michael Tilson Thomas was awarded the National Medal of Arts. You can see pictures here, and there’s even a video if you want to watch that.
Do you think a double reed player has ever been given one of these. I’m quite doubtful. But then we have to carry knives so we’d never be allowed in the White House. I’m sure that’s the only reason there’s not an oboe player in the House! ;-)
… my love affair with Prokofiev, that is. We have our orchestra only rehearsal (or at least I believe that to be the case) today, and meet with dancers starting tomorrow.
So for now here’s the orchestra only (NO, not us, of course). My guess is our tempi will be just wee bit slower, but time will tell.
I’ll see if I can’t find some decent ballet clips to put up. The ones I’ve seen so far either have bad sound or bad picture. Or both.
On Tuesday night at Strathmore, the BSO held the first part of a two-night event called “Rusty Musicians With the BSO,” created by Music Director Marin Alsop as a way for the BSO to celebrate Strathmore’s fifth anniversary season. Anybody older than 25 who played an orchestral instrument and could read music could have a chance to perform serious orchestral repertory with the BSO players. It’s a rare chance: Among American orchestras, only the Pittsburgh Symphony has tried anything similar.
I kind of like this idea. Of course it could also a challenge. But still … it might get more people into the hall … both on stage and in the audience! And I do think it’s great for those of us who are on stage to actually connect with those who aren’t. This gets us a wee bit closer, yes? And in our comfort zone. (I’m horrible about those parties after; I am not good at mingling, and I’m too tired to be terribly good at conversation in any case.) I read it here.
At first glance it might seem like the Wichita Symphony Orchestra is trying to break with tradition.
Its last concert featured an electric violin, sound loops and improvisation. A concert in March will be synchronized to images of Norman Rockwell illustrations projected above the stage.
And concerts next weekend will feature live murder mystery theater unfolding while the orchestra plays.
A typical classical music concert it’s not. And, according to the symphony, that’s a good thing.
“It’s a way to break down the passive environment that orchestras have traditionally presented,” said Mitchell Berman, the symphony’s executive director.
Um … why did the writer write, “At first glance it might seem like the Wichita Symphony Orchestra is trying to break with tradition.”? I would suggest that at every glance it appears that way. But of course what do I know?
In any case, what do readers think about this sort of thing? Read the article and let me know! I’d love to get opinions on these concerts Wichita is doing.
Both sides met through the night during a mediated bargaining session.
Both sides still have to ratify the terms of the new deal.
We’re told the musicians are voting later this afternoon.
The musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra put down their instruments Monday and went on strike because of a pay impasse with management, which jeopardized upcoming performances.
One of the first high-profile labor tussles of 2010 is brewing at the Cleveland Orchestra, and it points to troubled times for the nation’s elite classical musical ensembles amid the Great Recession.
Orchestra members struck on Monday, the first such work stoppage here in 30 years.
I haven’t been blogging about orchestras in trouble or contract issues with management recently. I guess I just want to avoid the negative, aside from yakking about my bad reeds. But I can’t ignore this, nor can I ignore the problems in Seattle. I will leave you with those links and let you decide what you think.
… will be joining Symphony Silicon Valley for two sets this year. First it’s Porgy & Bess (scroll down), which we are doing for two weeks, so if you can’t fit it in with that link’s dates, try this, and later a Mozart/Mahler set (scroll down). Turns out that’s not all he’s up to. He’s a candidate for Peoria Symphony Orchestra as well. But wait! That’s not all!
Leslie Dunner, the next candidate for music director of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, has plunged hundreds of feet over southern Africa’s Zambezi River. He’s jumped out of planes. He’s scuba dived with sharks.
And that’s what he does for relaxation.
“At one point I was seeing my doctor about all of this, and he said, ‘You know, what you do professionally is so rigorous and so regimented and so detailed and so exact that you reach points where you’ve got to break away, and so you go overboard,’ ” said Dunner, who leads the Peoria Symphony Orchestra in a concert of Rachmaninoff and Mozart on Saturday.
“After the shark cage diving, I was volunteering in a project in South Africa. I was placed working in an old age home. That was something I had never, ever imagined myself doing – taking care of people. There were 78 residents between the ages of 67 and 95. I worked with them for three weeks.”
Such ventures aren’t merely ways of blowing off steam. Back in the early 1990s, Dunner was touring with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and realized that he was visiting a lot of countries considered “exotic” for an American but not learning anything about the people, the land, the culture or the environment. He decided that every year he would try to make a trip that would help him learn about the planet, another culture or himself.
… I blogged about Mathieu Dufour, and his hopping over to the LA Phil, taking leave from Chicago Symphony Orchestra? I wrote about it here, here, and here?
Well, guess things in LA didn’t thrill him:
Mr. Dufour has decided to stay at his Midwestern job, The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Tuesday, quoting him as saying that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has “no tradition there — no tradition of sound and no tradition of working together as a dedicated ensemble.” He added, “Maybe they will have that someday in the future.” Los Angeles has fine musicians, he said. “But we have achieved a very strong common purpose and set of aims in Chicago that they do not have or do not yet have there.”
I just read a blog where the writer, an “keyboardist/associate conductor of the national tour (plus Tokyo)” of a show, wrote all about the English horn player messing up at a show. It was rather harsh. I was pretty amazed that someone would do that, and I hope, since I commented there, he’ll realize that anyone could read what he wrote, including that English horn player. Maybe he’ll remove the entry. Maybe he doesn’t care enough to bother. I dunno. But it seems entirely unkind to do such a thing. And no, I’m not going to put a link here. Although a part of me really wants to. (Who knows, maybe the English horn player even visits this blog … you never know!)
I know I am not completely blameless on this blog. I try very hard not to put anyone down (other than myself), but I do recall a conductor calling me on something I wrote once, and I took a blog entry down due to that. I really want this blog to be blameless, if you know what I mean.
In other news… we had our first rehearsals of 2010 for Symphony Silicon Valley. My mouth is tired! The works all have a good amount of notes for me, and I can tell I need to get some reed work done. I’m hopeful that that can happen before my four students tomorrow (followed by another symphony rehearsal). We’ll see. One of the works on the program is a world premiere, Gordon Lee’s “Young Impressions of the Old City”, and includes three Chinese instruments: pipa, erhu and sheng. I’m fascinated by these instruments, and I am enjoying learning a new work. Scheherazade is on this program, as I blogged earlier. I take back what I wrote, as I’m really enjoying the piece. Go figure! I think I enjoy what conductor Paul Polivnick does with it. And then there’s the Rossini overture to La Gazza Ladra. Whoa … what an incredibly fast tempo!
Today I am back to my regular private studio schedule. Tomorrow I begin UCSC. Wednesday I have two Symphony Silicon Valley rehearsals for the weekend’s concerts (which sadly means I miss all of my Wednesday students this week). And so on ….
After some days of no oboing (after Nutcracker we took a short but fun vacation), and then starting up again, I do have my work cut out for me, and today and tomorrow will definitely be spent practicing and working on reeds, along with all the teaching.
Gioacchino Rossini: Overture to La gazza ladra
Gordon Lee: Young Impressions of the Old City (world premiere)
Nikolais Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
The Rossini shouldn’t be a big deal for second oboe. The Gordon Lee has a lot of notes, and it’s got some moments that I’ll have to work out. I also go from the second oboe book to the English horn, so I have to make sure I have that clearly marked. (It doesn’t need an extra player, but the parts are separate.) Finally, there’s the (not so favorite piece for me) Scheherazade. Sigh. LOTS of notes. Lots of intonation stuff to deal with. And it’s a double, so I’ll be moving to English horn for one movement.
I have posted the following Karen Birch Blundell video before, but here it is again, so you can see that I’m not the only one who 1) isn’t a fan of the work and 2) thinks the doubling bit is a bit of a challenge.
I do hope so! No one wants a lockout or strike these days. Do they?
Contract negotiations between the management and musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra have begun to harden, setting the stage for a possible strike or lockout as early as next week.
On the eve of 2010, the orchestra’s administration announced that the musicians had terminated the month-to-month extension under which they’ve been playing since September, and that as of midnight, no plan would be in place to pay the artists for work scheduled to begin Tuesday.
The extension was to a three-year contract signed in September 2006. Without a new contract or extension, the players, members of the Cleveland Federation of Musicians, are free to strike.
“[W]e will be operating without a contract, and I am hopeful…that a work stoppage can be avoided,” read a statement by executive director Gary Hanson. “We welcome the impetus to get back to the table.”
The musicians, in response, released their own statement — their first on the matter — noting a willingness to bargain but also expressing reservations about the administration’s demands, which they said stand to diminish the orchestra’s stature and jeopardize the ability to attract and retain the best players.
