Category - Musicians Today

1
Nominate a Member of Your Orchestra for The Ford Musician Awards for Excellence in Community Service!
2
The View from England re: Playing in an Orchestra
3
New Research on Orchestra Fellowships Seeks Former Fellows
4
Jimmy Greene’s “Beautiful Life” CD
5
Spinning Plates, Entrepreneurship, and the Social Relationships of Ensemble Residencies
6
Hartford Symphony Update
7
George Cleve
8
Here Comes Fall! A Week in the Life of Two ROPA Orchestra Musicians
9
Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society Turns 200
10
Pro-Am Orchestra Events: Trending Across the Country

Nominate a Member of Your Orchestra for The Ford Musician Awards for Excellence in Community Service!

Feb 22 2016
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Arts Advocacy, Community Engagement, Musicians Today, Orchestra Life

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Check out this exciting new opportunity announced recently by the League of American Orchestras: The League of American Orchestras has launched The Ford Musician Awards for Excellence in Community Service, a new program supporting orchestra musicians and the essential work they do in their communities. The program is made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund.[…]

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The View from England re: Playing in an Orchestra

Feb 22 2016
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clee All posts from clee
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Editor's Choice, Governance, Live Music, Musicians Today

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Recently Nathan Kahn, SSD negotiator, posted an article on ICSOM’s Orchestra-l list-serve that was published in The Guardian in February 2006 about why so many musicians are quitting their orchestra jobs for… According to Anna Price, the author, The money’s terrible, the stress is awful and the music is plain boring. No wonder so many[…]

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New Research on Orchestra Fellowships Seeks Former Fellows

Feb 22 2016
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Careers, Musicians Today, Orchestra Life

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Orchestras around the nation have responded in a variety of ways to the challenges of becoming more diverse and accessible institutions. Some have developed fellowship programs designed to support African American and Latino musicians moving from their formal music education into the ranks of professional players. The League of American Orchestras, which has a long[…]

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Jimmy Greene’s “Beautiful Life” CD

Feb 22 2016
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clee All posts from clee
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Musicians Today, Orchestra Life

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During a recent conference call among the Polyphonic team, the question arose about whether orchestra musicians ever make musical political statements. Certainly many orchestras performed for “Musicians Against Nuclear Arms” (MANA) back in the 1970s and 1980s. I personally put together a concert with the Hartford Symphony and other area musicians in 1985, featuring Benita[…]

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Spinning Plates, Entrepreneurship, and the Social Relationships of Ensemble Residencies

Oct 07 2015
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John Pippen
John Pippen

John Pippen teaches courses in ethnomusicology, jazz, and music and culture at the College of Wooster. His primary research has been an extended ethnographic study of the new music ensemble eighth blackbird (lower case intentional). Blending approaches from labor studies and aesthetic theory, Pippen writes about struggle in the classical music scene in the United States. His dissertation combined ethnographic research with historical studies of virtuosity in a detailed examination of eighth blackbird (lowercase intentional). You can read a summary of his dissertation at New Music Box.

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Alternative Ensembles, Classical Music, Entrepreneurship, Income Streams, Money, Musicans as Brands, Musicians Today, Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research

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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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Hartford Symphony Update

HSO Rally
Sep 21 2015
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Ann Drinan
Ann Drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

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Local, Musicians Today, Negotiation

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I’m pleased to report that I plan to attend our first rehearsal next Saturday morning, September 26th, and expect to receive a paycheck in early October. The Hartford Symphony musicians had a rally on the steps of the state capitol in Hartford at noon on September 9th. AFM representatives from New England and New York locals[…]

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George Cleve

Aug 28 2015
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Robert Levine
Robert Levine

Robert Levine has been the Principal Violist of the Milwaukee Symphony since September 1987. Before coming to Milwaukee Mr. Levine had been a member of the Orford String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Toronto, with whom he toured extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and South America. Prior to joining the Orford Quartet, Mr. Levine had served as Principal Violist of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for six years. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, and the Oklahoma City Symphony, as well as serving as guest principal with the orchestras of Indianapolis and Hong Kong.

He has performed as soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the London Symphony of Canada, the Midsummer Mozart Festival (San Francisco), and numerous community orchestras in Northern California and Minnesota. He has also been featured on American Public Radio's nationally broadcast show "St. Paul Sunday Morning" on several occasions.

Mr. Levine has been an active chamber musician, having performed at the Festival Rolandseck in Germany, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the Palm Beach Festival, the "Strings in the Mountains" Festival in Colorado, and numerous concerts in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee. He has also been active in the field of new music, having commissioned and premiered works for viola and orchestra from Minnesota composers Janika Vandervelde and Libby Larsen.

Mr. Levine was chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians from 1996 to 2002 and currently serves as President of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, Local 8 of the American Federation of Musicians, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the League of American Orchestras. He has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for publications of ICSOM, the AFM, the Symphony Orchestra Institute, and the League of American Orchestras.

Mr. Levine attended Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Switzerland. His primary teachers were Aaron Sten and Pamela Goldsmith. He also studied with Paul Doctor, Walter Trampler, Bruno Giuranna, and David Abel.

He lives with his wife Emily and his son Sam in Glendale.

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2
Latest Comment

Cameron Kopf

Robert, this is a wonderful description of George Cleve's conducting. I had the honor & privilege of playing the Midsummer…

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Conducting, Musicians Today, Orchestra Life

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Facebook brought me the news this morning that George Cleve died yesterday. I knew he’d had health issues for a long time, but this hit me like a brick anyway. I first worked for George in 1974 upon my return from studying at a rather strange school in Switzerland known as the Institute for Advanced[…]

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Here Comes Fall! A Week in the Life of Two ROPA Orchestra Musicians

Aug 26 2015
Browse archives for August 26, 2015
Ann Drinan
Ann Drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

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Careers, Gigs, Musicians Today, Orchestra Life

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Polyphonic thought it would be interesting to take a look at the lives of “typical” members of regional orchestras, where the orchestra doesn’t pay a living wage. Obviously there is no such thing as a “typical” regional orchestra musician – we all do different things to make ends meet and earn enough to pay the[…]

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Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society Turns 200

Jul 13 2015
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Ann Drinan
Ann Drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

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Classical Music, Editor's Choice, Musicians Today, Performance Practice

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Claiming to be the oldest continuously performing orchestra in America, the Handel and Haydn Society celebrates 200 years this year. The Society gave the American premiere performances of Verdi’s Requiem in 1878 and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1879. The Society was created at the conclusion of the War of 1812, giving a performance of[…]

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Pro-Am Orchestra Events: Trending Across the Country

May 20 2015
Browse archives for May 20, 2015
Ann Drinan
Ann Drinan

Ann Drinan, Senior Editor, has been a member of the Hartford Symphony viola section for over 30 years. She is a former Chair of the Orchestra Committee, former member of the HSO Board, and has served on many HSO committees. She is also the Executive Director of CONCORA (CT Choral Artists), a professional chorus based in Hartford and New Britain, founded by Artistic Director Richard Coffey. Ann was a member of the Advisory Board of the Symphony Orchestra Institute (SOI), and was the HSO ROPA delegate for 14 years, serving as both Vice President and President of ROPA. In addition to playing the viola and running CONCORA, Ann is a professional writer and editor, and has worked as a consultant and technical writer for software companies in a wide variety of industries for over 3 decades. (She worked for the Yale Computer Science Department in the late 70s, and thus has been on the Internet, then called the DARPAnet, since 1977!) She is married to Algis Kaupas, a sound recordist, and lives a block from Long Island Sound in Branford CT. Together they create websites for musicians: shortbeachwebdesign.com.

Ann holds a BA in Music from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.

Read Ann Drinan's blog here. web.esm.rochester.edu/poly/author/ann-drinan

All posts from Ann Drinan
1
Latest Comment

bratschegirl

This sounds like exactly the sort of thing orchestras of all levels should be doing to deepen the connection between…

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Community Engagement, Concerts, Musicians Today, Performances

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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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