Category - Uncategorized

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League Plenary Session, June 6, 2012
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League Conference: June 6 Musicians' Session
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League of American Orchestras' Conference
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Who bears the risk?
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That was quick
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Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
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Women in the Symphony Orchestra
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Settlement in Louisville – at least for now
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Why a Flanagan?
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Introducing Jake Runestad

League Plenary Session, June 6, 2012

The first plenary session opened with a performance by the Oklahoma youth Orchestra, conducted by Dr. John E. Clinton, playing excerpts from Carmen by Georges Bizet and Sarsen by Hilary Tann. Jesse Rosen, League President and CEO, welcomed the delegates to the opening plenary session at Myerson Symphony Center. He commented that “youth symphonies are[…]

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League Conference: June 6 Musicians' Session

Comments from the Wednesday Afternoon Musicians Session at the League of American Orchestras’ Conference, June 6, 2012 The Dallas hall (Myerson Symphony Center) was built in 1989 – “all the money Ross Perot didn’t spend on his presidential campaign was spent on the hall.” Most people in the session were symphonic musicians; one composer said[…]

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League of American Orchestras' Conference

The League of American Orchestras held their annual conference in Dallas last week. The conference presented three plenary sessions, several Toolbox and Perspective meetings with multiple sessions from which to choose, and constituent meetings (e.g., Marketing Directors, General Managers, Board, Volunteers, Musicians, etc.). The League also offered Orchestra Leadership Academy Seminars (for extra tuition) on[…]

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Who bears the risk?

Deep in the weeds of yesterday’s NY Times story on the Philadelphia Orchestra’s reorganization plan was this little tidbit: The reorganization plan would call for unfunded pension liabilities to be transferred to the federally backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which has assumed responsibility for two of the orchestra’s defined-benefit pension plans. The corporation puts the[…]

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That was quick

Chalk it up to the speed of light – or the speed of bits over the Internet. On Monday: Opera News, 76 years old and one of the leading classical music magazines in the country, said on Monday that it would stop reviewing the Metropolitan Opera, a policy prompted by the Met’s dissatisfaction over negative[…]

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Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Alex Ross may have said it best: A monumental, vastly influential figure is gone. I can’t help feeling shock at the news — a world without Fischer-Dieskau seems foreign and unnerving. He links to several other appreciations, as well as a fascinating – and sad – interview Fischer-Dieskau gave in 2005. Fischer-Dieskau was an artist[…]

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Women in the Symphony Orchestra

Recently Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, interviewed his colleague Evangeline Benedetti, who retired from the orchestra’s cello section in 2011 after 44 years. I found the interview extremely interesting, as Ms. Benedetti was only the second woman to receive tenure in the NY Philharmonic, and had to wait to receive notification[…]

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Settlement in Louisville – at least for now

Finally some good news from Louisville: After 20 months of contentious negotiations, the Louisville Orchestra’s musicians and its management have reached a one-year labor agreement that will allow for a 30-week season beginning this fall, and both sides are optimistic that a long-term deal will be reached by next spring. The deal, announced Wednesday onstage[…]

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Why a Flanagan?

While there’s been some public discussion about the Flanagan book, as I mentioned here, there’s been almost none about its genesis, with one exception that I’ll discuss below. This is unfortunate; how and why an analysis originates can be very informative about the substance of the analysis. So I will try to rectify that and[…]

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Introducing Jake Runestad

A few weeks ago I got a call from concert pianist Jeffrey Biegel, who wanted to tell me about a new consortium commissioning project he’s working on. At the end of a rehearsal with the Minnesota Orchestra, a young composer approached him about a piece he’d like to write for piano, chorus and orchestra. Jeffrey[…]

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