History

Paris has a new, state-of-the-art concert hall, something the French have been waiting for since they dispatched Louis XVI in 1793, thus making possible government- funded arts venues for the people.

We have probably all come across that word BITCOIN and not given it much thought. Or perhaps we have. It’s pretty interesting as a modern financial phenomenon. My take on it is that it was created as a reaction against government and centralized monetary structures as a result of the financial collapse in 2008. It […]

Milwaukee has long been known as the most German city in the United States, and with cause. German immigrants and their descendants were the dominant ethnic group for much of Milwaukee’s history. The last full-time office staff of Local 8, who retired several decades ago, was a gentleman by the name of Al Goetz who […]

No matter how far removed we might be in time and technological distance from, say, Homer or Thucydides, Shakespeare, Holbein, or Beethoven, they speak to us of a human condition we recognize.

In 1989, during his tenure as music director of the Louisville Orchestra, Lawrence Leighton Smith wrote an essay stating his personal view concerning the link between the number of players and quality of sound in orchestras. Smith’s “Serenade for Sixty Strings,” published in the March/April 1989 issue of Symphony, the magazine of the American Symphony […]

Go for it. What would you say has been the most important invention over the past five hundred years or so?  The automobile? Nuclear power?  The microchip?  Sliced bread? My vote…(drum roll)…the elevator!  You scoff, but think about it.  Before the elevator, cities could only expand as far as their geographical limits, hoist themselves four […]

It’s not surprising that a recent article by Philip Kennicott in the New Republic by the title of “America’s Orchestras are in Crisis” got some favorable play in the musician community. The writer, who is Art and Architecture critic for the Washington Post, focused very heavily on what he believed was the League of American […]

Jeffrey Johnson is Professor of Music and Director of the Music Program at the University of Bridgeport, and the author of several books. He also serves as the classical music critic for the Hartford Courant and the Stamford Advocate. He recently sent Polyphonic this thoughtful post. – Ann Drinan, Senior Editor Instances of extended 5/4 […]

ICSOM (the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians, which represents over 4,000 musicians from 51 major symphony orchestras throughout the United States) recently released a documentary titled “ICSOM: The First Fifty Years.” Filmed during the 50th anniversary conference in Chicago, the 38-minute film contains numerous interviews on the founding of ICSOM, telling the fascinating […]

My Editor’s Choice for this go-round is from 1997—sixteen years ago. Here’s a little background just to put it in context. Our website, Polyphonic.org is part of the Orchestra Musician Forum, that was created in 2004 when Paul R. Judy made a gift of the financial and intellectual assets of the Symphony Orchestra Institute to […]