Archive - 2010

1
Something sure is broken in Honolulu
2
The potential of online media
3
Step away from the cell phone…
4
On Indispensability
5
Kenneth McKellar
6
NY Times thinks running an orchestra is a real job
7
Hiring outside the box
8
The dystonia horror show
9
Another explanation for gender imbalance
10
Oh Those Dress Codes

Something sure is broken in Honolulu

I don’t know that this has ever happened in an orchestra bankruptcy before: U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Faris yesterday denied the Honolulu Symphony Society’s request to extend the period in which it alone could submit a plan for its reorganization. The decision allows the symphony’s musicians and other parties to submit competing plans for the[…]

Read More

The potential of online media

For anyone who still believed that there was significant money to be made in selling recordings online, this chart will come as an unpleasant reality check. A dissenting point of view can be found here. Fortunately, more and more people in our business are realizing that the real value of electronic media to our institutions[…]

Read More

Step away from the cell phone…

A discussion has erupted on another online forum regarding the use of cell phones at auditions. My orchestra has had some very limited discussion about a related issue; the use of electronic devices by committee members, albeit in the context of doing anything at auditions other than listening. But that discussion (which manifested itself in[…]

Read More

On Indispensability

“The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men,” Charles de Gaulle once famously remarked. A rather public discussion of whether music directors can be indispensable is happening over the physical health of James Levine and its impact on the institutional health of the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony. At some point the[…]

Read More

Kenneth McKellar

Most orchestra musicians, in addition to loving the repertoire they play (or most of it, at least), like other music as well – although just what they like varies greatly from person to person. My secret vice is Scottish folk music. So I was saddened to hear that the great Scottish tenor Kenneth McKellar died[…]

Read More

NY Times thinks running an orchestra is a real job

I don’t know if the New York Times has done this kind of profile on an orchestra musician yet; we may need to be content to see one on an orchestra manager. At least they picked a good one to profile: In early 1990, I got a call from the New York Philharmonic, which was[…]

Read More

Hiring outside the box

The Atlanta Symphony board has decided to hire someone without all that old-fashioned orchestra management baggage: The heavy odds were for an insider — a career symphonic administrator who’d already led one of the nation’s top orchestras and was looking for a lateral move. Instead, the board of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is naming Stanley[…]

Read More

The dystonia horror show

Musicians don’t talk much about focal dystonia; perhaps it’s a superstitious avoidance akin to trying to ward off the Evil Eye. For dystonia really is a horror show; arguably the leading career-killing disorder of all.

Read More

Another explanation for gender imbalance

It’s often forgotten that the core concept behind the World Wide Web (as opposed to the Internet, with which the Web is often confused) is the hyperlink. A hyperlink is that underlined word or phrase or image on a Web page on which one clicks to go there and find out more. The power of[…]

Read More

Oh Those Dress Codes

I read with interest the thread that went through Orchestra-l recently about many symphony musicians who feel that orchestras just dress too formally to relate to their public. Well, I have the absolute opposite opinion — many of us dress way too informally. Yes, white-tie and tails are an anachronism from another century and perhaps[…]

Read More