Author - Ann Drinan

1
Michael Kaiser’s New Book: Curtains?
2
What Should We Wear Onstage?
3
Building Arts Audiences
4
An Interview with Elaine Douvas, Principal Oboist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
5
Afa Sadykhly Dworkin to Become President of Sphinx Organization
6
An El Sistema Controversy
7
Aaron Flagg on Breaking the Fourth Wall
8
El Sistema Symposium, January 8 – 12, 2015, Hosted at Curtis
9
Los Angeles Philharmonic’s National Take a Stand Festival
10
Orchestras on Tour

Michael Kaiser’s New Book: Curtains?

Michael Kaiser’s latest book, Curtains? The Future of the Arts in America, raises some difficult questions that arts organizations must face if they are to survive in this changing economy and culture. Mr. Kaiser, former President of the Kennedy Center and currently Chairman of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland, analyzes[…]

Read More

What Should We Wear Onstage?

As it most likely true in all orchestras, mine has a decided rift amongst the women members in terms of what is appropriate to wear at a Masterworks concert. Being of a certain age, I always wear a floor-length skirt and a fancy top, usually velvet. It irks me to see 20-something women dressed as[…]

Read More

Building Arts Audiences

In the fall of 2014, the Wallace Foundation published a report by market research expert Bob Harlow: The Road to Results: Effective Practices for Building Arts Audiences. The study profiles ten arts organizations that received funding from the Wallace Foundation to develop audience-building initiatives. Among the ten are the Boston Lyric Opera, Minnesota Opera, Pacific[…]

Read More

An Interview with Elaine Douvas, Principal Oboist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Last May, as the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra musicians were facing a difficult negotiation, Local 802 published a lovely and insightful interview with Elaine Douvas in Allegro, their monthly newspaper. Bob Pawlo, Local 802 recording rep, asked her many questions that delved into the complex life of a principal player in perhaps the world’s most demanding[…]

Read More

Afa Sadykhly Dworkin to Become President of Sphinx Organization

The Sphinx Organization recently sent out a notice that Afa S. Dworkin will succeed her husband, Aaron Dworkin, as President and Artistic Director of the Spinx Organization on July 20. Aaron Dworkin has been named the new dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. According to Board Chair Dr. William[…]

Read More

An El Sistema Controversy

Last November, Dr. Geoffrey Baker, a music lecturer at the University of London’s Royal Holloway College, published a book that is quite critical of the founder of the El Sistema movement in Venezuela, Dr. José Abreu, and the El Sistema program itself. Various reviews of Baker’s book, El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth (Oxford University Press,[…]

Read More

Aaron Flagg on Breaking the Fourth Wall

In the Fall issue of Symphony magazine, Aaron Flagg describes a concert by the Seattle Symphony during the League’s annual Conference. The concert featured a performance of “Baby Got Back” by rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot; Aaron compares it to the chaos that erupted at the first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. “The Seattle Symphony’s performance[…]

Read More

El Sistema Symposium, January 8 – 12, 2015, Hosted at Curtis

El Sistema USA and Play On, Philly! hosted a national El Sistema symposium at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia this past week. A pre-symposium gathering, on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, January 8 & 9, gave attendees a tour of the Play On, Philly! nucleo site and a detailed description of their programs and[…]

Read More

Los Angeles Philharmonic’s National Take a Stand Festival

On Thursday, January 8, 2015, the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced the creation of the National Take a Stand Festival, an initiative to create a unified national platform for El Sistema-inspired programs throughout the US. The initiative will bring world-renowned conductors, guest artists and teachers to students in El Sistema programs around the country. The National[…]

Read More

Orchestras on Tour

Polyphonic has published several “travelogues” by touring orchestra members. Two writers that are particularly eloquent are Charles Rex, violinist with the New York Philharmonic, and Yvonne Caruthers, recently-retired ‘cellist with the National Symphony. Charles wrote about the NY Philharmonic’s tours to Vietnam and North Korea. While he was in North Korea in 2007, he sent[…]

Read More