Archive - 2013

1
Getting to Know Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin
2
Ron Bauer’s Course on Orchestra Finances
3
Musicians and Home Office Tax Deductions
4
Gerald Elias: Violinist, Author & Blogger
5
Improving Parts (and Scores) for Orchestral Musicians
6
News from the North
7
In memoriam 2012
8
A normal strike
9
A Timpanist’s Memoirs
10
Depreciation of Musical Instruments

Getting to Know Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the new Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra who lives in Montreal, has been garnering lots of positive press, especially after his triumphant debut with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall on October 23 performing Verdi’s Requiem. He held the silence at the conclusion of the work for many, many seconds – so many that[…]

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Ron Bauer’s Course on Orchestra Finances

As I was thinking about which article (or series of articles) to spotlight in my Editor’s Choice, I thought of Ron Bauers and all that he did for orchestras in his role as a financial analyst and an avid musician/AFM member. And then I saw that Ray Ricker has also selected a financial article to[…]

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Musicians and Home Office Tax Deductions

This is the last in our series, “Things a Musician Should Know about Taxes.” As usual, William Hunt is our resident Polyphonic.org  tax expert. Not only is he a superb violinist, he also has an MBA in finance from the Simon School at the University of Rochester. I don’t know of anyone more knowledgeable than Bill[…]

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Gerald Elias: Violinist, Author & Blogger

Jerry Elias, former violinist with the Boston and Utah Symphonies and author of four murder mysteries with a blind violin pedagogue as the protagonist, has agreed to be an occasional blogger for Polyphonic. In addition to writing mysteries Jerry has much to say about classical music, performance practise, playing violin, and much more. His fourth[…]

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Improving Parts (and Scores) for Orchestral Musicians

After many wonderful years of horn playing with most (if not all) of the major orchestras in the UK, and touring all over the world with them, and others it was time to hang up my ‘hooter’ and think of something else to do. I have had an interest in computers and music typesetting for[…]

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News from the North

There have been been several developments in the Twin Labor Disputes in the State Least Likely To Experience Labor Disputes (Or At Least Not-Nice Ones). None of them offer much visible hope for quick resolution of either situation. On the Minnesota Orchestra front, Graydon Royce of the Minneapolis StarTribune, who has done as good a[…]

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In memoriam 2012

The more-or-less annual tribute from Polyphonic.org to our colleagues who left us in 2012 is finally online; my apologies to those who were waiting for it and no doubt lost patience many weeks ago. I knew a distressing number of those on this list. Some I knew just in passing (Mark Flint, Geoffrey Fushi, Bob[…]

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A normal strike

It’s a measure of just how bizarre is the state of labor relations in the orchestra field that only now, months into the most brutal negotiating season in memory, are we seeing the the first “normal” labor dispute – by which I mean a strike (and not a lock-out), not immediately settled (and thus more[…]

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A Timpanist’s Memoirs

Thomas Akins, Principal Timpanist with the Indianapolis Symphony from 1965 to 1991, has published his memoirs, Behind the Copper Fence: A Lifetime on Timpani. His book is filled with reminisces about his many years with the Indianapolis Symphony, his training as a timpanist, including seven summers (1960-66) in the League’s Institute for Orchestral Studies with[…]

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Depreciation of Musical Instruments

It’s tax time, so here’s our second Editor’s Choice in this series of tax related articles. William Hunt is our resident Polyphonic.org  tax expert. Not only is he a superb violinist, he also has an MBA in finance from the Simon School at the University of Rochester. I don’t know of anyone more knowledgeable than Bill[…]

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