Category - Miscellaneous

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And Omaha Beach was a skirmish
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Concert or Show?
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Tab Dump 11/17/2009
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A Librarian's View From the Audience
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Nerds? You Betcha!
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Trombone for dummies
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Trombone for dummies
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Are orchestras like newspapers?
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Being the Best that We Can Be
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What Opera Needs is More Drums

And Omaha Beach was a skirmish

The Indianapolis Symphony just reported a substantial deficit: A year of declining contributions and ticket sales left the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with a $2.8 million deficit. Symphony officials say its current budget has been cut by $3 million, to $26 million, in part through a 12 percent pay cut accepted by musicians in a new[…]

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Concert or Show?

This past week the Broadway show “Chicago,” was in Rochester. It was the national touring production, and I contracted it and also played it. It’s a great show. Those Bob Fosse choreographed dance segments are spectacular. What a genius that man was. His choreography is unmistakable. Talk about having a style! The music is 1920’s[…]

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Tab Dump 11/17/2009

A common feature on blogs is a “tab dump.” It’s a play on the old programming term “core dump”; a printout of the contents of a computer’s memory intended to help figure out why a program blew up.

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A Librarian's View From the Audience

As a non-playing orchestra librarian (well, mostly anyway), I don’t get to hear the orchestra on stage as much I did when playing more often and in the midst of the music.  Yes, we always have the monitor on so we “hear” the rehearsals and concerts, but that’s clearly not the same as either participating[…]

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Nerds? You Betcha!

When I wrote the following on “From the Orchestra Library” I didn’t realize Robert had posted the video of a young accordion virtuoso playing the last movement of  Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto back in September.  So, here’s a little view into orchestra librarians’ minds when they see such a thing:

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Trombone for dummies

I’m a relative newbie to FaceBook, and continue to be amazed by what gets put up there by friends (both real ones and the FaceBook kind). I’ve seen wonderfully funny things, very suggestive self-portraits, blow-by-blow accounts of childbirth, and countless examples of Too Much Information. If blogging is the Internet’s Ego, then Facebook is its[…]

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Trombone for dummies

I’m a relative newbie to FaceBook, and continue to be amazed by what gets put up there by friends (both real ones and the FaceBook kind). I’ve seen wonderfully funny things, very suggestive self-portraits, blow-by-blow accounts of childbirth, and countless examples of Too Much Information. If blogging is the Internet’s Ego, then Facebook is its[…]

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Are orchestras like newspapers?

Anne Midgette, Washington Post music critic, has her own take on the Michael Kaiser article of a few days ago: Michael Kaiser, in the Huffington Post, has this week addressed the elephant in the living room: some orchestras are not going to make it. There are striking parallels between orchestras and newspapers in this recession.[…]

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Being the Best that We Can Be

Every year I look down in late August when we start our season, and by the time I am able to look up and catch a breather, it’s almost the end of October.  And every year I say it’s not going to happen this year, that I will take more time to get out of[…]

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