Category - Performances

1
The ‘Firebird’ Strad
2
Well… I Won’t Be Welcome There
3
Telling It Like It Is – An interview with Julie Landsman
4
Wu Man and Her Pipa
5
League Conference 2013: Learning from New Ensembles
6
League Conference: A Conversation with Greg Sandow
7
Annual Return to Boston Symphony Violin Section
8
Improving Parts (and Scores) for Orchestral Musicians
9
Kim Kashkashian, Violist Extraordinaire
10
Fingerings

The ‘Firebird’ Strad

What if someone told you that you could have Luciano Pavarotti’s voice for a week?  I don’t mean singing Some Enchanted Evening in the shower. I mean really sound like Pavarotti. I had the equivalent experience last week. Maybe even better, if that’s possible. I got to perform on the 1718 ‘Firebird’ Stradivarius, one of the greatest[…]

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Well… I Won’t Be Welcome There

It has been said that though the "educational" kids’ concert is merely a symptom of the general malaise in programming and concert presentation in the main orchestral season. It seems to be down to asking what audience and audience development do we want?

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Telling It Like It Is – An interview with Julie Landsman

Julie Landsman, French hornist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for 25 years until her retirement in 2010, is the subject of a wonderful interview in Allegro, the  magazine of AFM local 802.  She explains how she developed her career plan: My first horn teacher was Mr. Howard Howard – yes that is his actual name![…]

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Wu Man and Her Pipa

The Hartford Symphony had opening night concerts this past Friday and Saturday, featuring our beautiful Austin organ with a Bach Toccata (we were joined by the Connecticut Youth Orchestra) and the Saint Saens Organ Symphony. But in between we played the Lou Harrison concerto for pipa and string orchestra, featuring Wu Man. It was a[…]

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League Conference 2013: Learning from New Ensembles

Moderated by Norman Ryan, Vice President of Composers and Repertoire at Schott Music Corporation, the panel for this session included Amy Garapic, Co-Executive Director of Contemporaneous; Beth Perdue Outland, Vice President of Community Engagement  and Strategic Innovation, Indianapolis Symphony; Jen Richards, Managing Director, eighth blackbird; and Julia Rubio, Executive Director of the Black Pearl Chamber[…]

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League Conference: A Conversation with Greg Sandow

In her introduction, Judith Kurnick, Vice President for Strategic Communications at the League, described Greg Sandow as a cultural critic, someone who could bring thinking across disciplines and share ideas that you would never have thought of before. He’s been a member of the graduate faculty at Juilliard for 17 years, and was involved in[…]

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Annual Return to Boston Symphony Violin Section

Well, Cecily and I have begun our annual cross-country pilgrimage from Salt Lake City to Tanglewood.  This year, though, we’ve taken an unlikely circuitous route, stopping first in Portland and Seattle to visit our kids.  As we’re so far north already we’ve decided to make our trek through Canada, stopping at a Canadian Rockies hot[…]

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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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Kim Kashkashian, Violist Extraordinaire

As I’m sure most of you know, violist Kim Kashkashian won the Grammy for “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” for her album Kurtag and Ligeti of works by Hungarian composers Gyorgy Kurtag and Gyorgy Ligeti. When the announcement was made, a huge buzz went through the viola world — both because a violist had won the solo[…]

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Fingerings

Perhaps my most intense pet peeve about playing in an orchestra has to do with fingerings. When one has to share a part with someone else, one expects a bit of respect. But, unfortunately, that often doesn’t happen — I have known stand partners to write fingerings over almost every note in the part. To[…]

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