My orchestra had auditions for assistant conductor today. We saw six candidates for about 30 minutes each. It was an interesting experience, although not very enjoyable. A few I liked; a few I didn’t. But what struck me most was what always strikes me when dealing with young conductors; their failure to follow my two[…]
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Recently I attended a presentation by Mitchell Korn, who conducted an in-depth analysis of my orchestra’s educational programs. He had many critically interesting ideas to convey to us musicians, and kept coming back to “professional development.” I think, for most of my colleagues, this conjurs up a vision of a truly boring session with some consultant[…]
Read MoreTwo things I’d like to see conductors do: Not let the orchestra slow up when it shouldn’t Not let the orchestra speed up when it shouldn’t Is that too hard? Apparently it is. That is all.
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Hotel Elefant’s “speakOUT” spring 2015 concert by was hosted by the downtown New York venue SubCulture on International Women’s Day, representing female artists who utilize music to reflect on issues both personal and political. The generous funding from the Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research helped present cutting-edge works by women, with works specifically[…]
Read MoreBack at the height of the War on the Northern Front, I speculated about how the involvement of key leaders at the two largest banks in the Twin Cities might be making things worse: …there is no third party willing to wade in and lean on the Minnesota Orchestra board to abandon an approach which[…]
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With the closing of the “Spring for Music” festival in NYC this past year, the Kennedy Center has announced that it will create a similar festival of American Orchestras. The new festival will take place during late March and early April 2016, and will feature the Boulder Philharmonic, the North Carolina Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony[…]
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This sounds like exactly the sort of thing orchestras of all levels should be doing to deepen the connection between…
Michael Stugrin, writing in the spring 2015 issue of Symphony magazine (page 42), presents an interesting overview of a new trend among orchestras − performing with amateurs. Most orchestras have been doing “side by side” performances with their local youth orchestra for decades (I played such a concert with the Boston Symphony at Symphony Hall way back[…]
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Within this Darwinian analysis of higher education, what is the state of play in the performing arts and where exactly is their place in our contemporary world?
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While there is plenty of negative press about the struggle of orchestras in the 21st century, here is a New York Times article about recent successes at the Cincinnati Symphony that is quite encouraging.
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Congress passed a law three years ago to address the problems musicians have encountered flying with their instruments, but the regulations, which will cause the airlines to implement the law, were only published in January, 2015. And then the airlines had 60 days to get things in order to implement the new regulations. Thanks to the efforts[…]
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