As musicians we often believe that we do one thing, and only one thing, really well. The reality is that musical training provides a wide range of transferable skills that are unmatched by any other discipline. Critical thinking, listening, problem solving, cognitive and physical sharpness, poise, discipline, teamwork and leadership are all present in any[…]
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El Sistema USA and Play On, Philly! hosted a national El Sistema symposium at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia this past week. A pre-symposium gathering, on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, January 8 & 9, gave attendees a tour of the Play On, Philly! nucleo site and a detailed description of their programs and[…]
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On Thursday, January 8, 2015, the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced the creation of the National Take a Stand Festival, an initiative to create a unified national platform for El Sistema-inspired programs throughout the US. The initiative will bring world-renowned conductors, guest artists and teachers to students in El Sistema programs around the country. The National[…]
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We have probably all come across that word BITCOIN and not given it much thought. Or perhaps we have. It’s pretty interesting as a modern financial phenomenon. My take on it is that it was created as a reaction against government and centralized monetary structures as a result of the financial collapse in 2008. It[…]
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The folks at soundnotion.tv hosted a discussion with Drew McManus and myself on the subject of substitute pay and how it was handled in last year’s Minnesota Orchestra settlement. The discussion was moderated (very well, I thought) by David MacDonald and Sam Merciers. It can be watched on YouTube here. I felt the discussion covered[…]
Read MoreThere was an unusual amount of feedback on my post last week about the pay disparity between full-time musicians and subs in Minnesota and how that might have come about. Some of the feedback confirmed my suspicions that the root of the problem was a “new model” mindset on the part of some board members.[…]
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This is how she sees the gallery’s mission: It’s all about taking away the fear and unapproachability of art and artists.
Read MoreOne of the issues at play during the Year of Three Lockouts continues to reverberate around the symphonoblogosphere – the question of pay for substitute and extra musicians, and in particular the reduction in that pay that was part of the Minnesota settlement. Drew McManus called attention to it in a year-in-review post, where he[…]
Read MoreYes, three cheers to this! The prediction quote is also often attributed to physicist Neils Bohr, but appears to have…
The Danish cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen famously said that “it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Saying what mattered in 2014 is essentially making a prediction about what people in the future will think about our present. But it’s worth trying nonetheless; 2014 was a pretty dramatic year in our business, and merits[…]
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The Future Symphony Institute (FSI) began as an idea eleven years ago, born of my own protracted efforts to demonstrate what seemed to me some rather obvious opportunities for growing our audiences at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) at a time when we still had no red ink, were flying high with Yuri Temirkanov, and[…]
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