Category - Miscellaneous

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Department of Conductorial Humor
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Orchestra (but not money) can go to Cuba
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American Orchestras Summit at the University of Michigan
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Philly hires a new CEO
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A rather blunt headline
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Fun with audition ads
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Maybe we're doing OK after all
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Halls are hazardous workplaces
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Starving Artists
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A notable retirement

Department of Conductorial Humor

Overheard at work this morning: Keyboardist: Edo, did you say something to the piano? Conductor: More like to the pianist. But the piano will follow you. And all these years I thought the Dutch were a humorless sort. Edo has proven to be quite the opposite. What’s more impressive is that he uses the humor[…]

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Orchestra (but not money) can go to Cuba

US policy towards Cuba has claimed another victim: The New York Philharmonic scratched its planned trip to Cuba at the end of October because the United States government was barring a group of patrons from going along, the orchestra said on Thursday. Without them and their donations, the Philharmonic said, it could not afford the[…]

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American Orchestras Summit at the University of Michigan

Several organizations, including the League of American Orchestras and the University of Michigan School of Music, have banded together to present, “American Orchestras Summit at the University of Michigan: Creating Partnerships in Research and Performance.”  The conference purpose is to attempt to launch a permanent dialogue between the scholarly community and the symphonic community.   As[…]

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Philly hires a new CEO

It’s official: Allison B. Vulgamore, president of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1993, will take over the Philadelphia ensemble at a time when it has been badly shaken by financial turmoil. She is expected to start work as president and CEO no later than Feb. 1. “I think that we have found a leader who[…]

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A rather blunt headline

The press in Montana does not mince words.

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Fun with audition ads

I’ve been reading audition ads in the International Musician for a long time now, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that caused me to scratch my head quite as hard as the one placed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in the September 2009 issue of the IM for “Viola Substitute Pool.” I’ve seen ads[…]

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Maybe we're doing OK after all

A view from across the Atlantic: In my article on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last week, I said that in recent years more than a dozen US orchestras had ‘gone to the wall’. I am glad to say this was wrong. 13 orchestras did in fact file for bankruptcy protection between 1986 and 2008, but[…]

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Halls are hazardous workplaces

Among other problems, you could fall into dark holes and break things: A Florida Panhandle conductor is recovering after falling 14 feet into the empty space below a moveable orchestra pit on the opening night of an opera he had written. David Ott fell Friday after the debut of “The Widow’s Lantern,” an original work[…]

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Starving Artists

The two-time grammy winning jazz composer Maria Schneider is a friend, and in conversations we have had she expressed  an interesting take on the stereotypical starving artist.  She theorizes that part of the reason record companies are able to make huge profits while the artists often make so little, is because many musicians have the[…]

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A notable retirement

My Google search for orchestra news has turned up a large number of articles on the retirement of Boston Symphony principal harp Ann Hobson Pilot. It’s a newsworthy event; I believe she was the first African-American principal player in a major American orchestra, and one of the first African-Americans in any American orchestra at all.[…]

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