Even casual followers of employment law know that the issues around religious liberty and the employment relationship in the US are becoming more contentious; the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision and the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue licenses for same-sex marriage, are only the most prominent recent examples.[…]
Read MoreThe Minnesota Orchestra held its Annual Meeting on December 3rd and not only announced a surplus of $15,000 but accepted an amazing gift from the musicians. The players, who formed the non-profit Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra while there were locked out for 16 months, have dissolved this organization and donated the monies raised from self-produced[…]
Read MoreEvery couple of years or so, someone in the mainstream media decides that Orchestral Auditions Are Interesting and does a story on them. This better-than-most iteration, written by Janelle Gelfand, appeared online at cincinnati.com, the website of the Cincinnati Enquirer: “If a candidate has made it to the final round of our audition process, they[…]
Read MoreWhile depression is not the taboo subject that it was when I was young, it still takes a fair amount of courage for anyone to open up about their own struggles with the disorder, much less someone who occupies as public a role as does ICSOM chair Bruce Ridge. His article resonated for me in[…]
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John Williams is one of the most important and influential composers writing new music for orchestras today. In fact, the most exciting and anticipated new music for orchestra this year is John Williams’ new score to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Yet, despite his incontestably successful forty-year career writing new music for orchestra and his[…]
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By nature, a composer’s work exists outside the bounds of human time. Works are remembered for centuries and, eventually, millennia, but the feedback loop varies greatly; it often takes years or generations for a composer’s work to receive deserved recognition. For performers, the feedback loop is immediate—sometimes rewarding, sometimes disappointing, always providing an opportunity for[…]
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The Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research at the Eastman School of Music recently held its second annual call for grant proposals for projects relating to the concept of innovative ensembles. This year, fifty-eight proposals from individuals and groups were submitted for consideration. Below is a list of projects that have been awarded funds[…]
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Over the last few decades, many American schools of music have embraced the repertoire and missions of new music ensembles. Boundaries are broken, venues explored, students challenged, and new sounds ring out. What a change from the 1980s, when musicologist Susan McClary argued that “both popular and postmodern musics are marked as the enemy, and[…]
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The summer issue of Symphony magazine had an article by Michael Stugrin about the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation’s Education and Community Envestment grants, awarded to 22 orchestras in 2014-15. The grants rage from $13,000 to $27,500, and are granted to orchestras of all budget sizes. Mr. Sturgin’s article focuses on four recipients: The Central[…]
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Exquisite. This story -- and all it implies -- is profoundly redemptive and affirming. Serendipitous, indeed, that the five of…
My wife and I were recently in Amsterdam revisiting the major art museums and enjoying that wonderful freedom which makes this city so extraordinary. The weather had been really hot, and on this particular day, the heat had joined forces with a great tumult of humidity.
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