Orchestra Life: Page 6

Normal Lebrecht recently linked to an article about a British documentary on addiction amongst orchestral musicians: Addiction is blighting the lives of many classical musicians as they grapple with performance anxiety and antisocial hours, a cellist has said. Rachael Lander features in a Channel 4 documentary that brings together classical musicians whose careers have been […]

The spring issue of Symphony magazine explores how orchestras are varying what they present to concert-goers. Messing with the Model by Senior Editor Chester Lane explores new ideas from several orchestras across the country. I was somewhat surprised and quite pleased to see my own Hartford Symphony Orchestra prominently displayed in this article! The Chicago […]

In the spring issue of Symphony magazine, Don Rosenberg, former music critic of the The Cleveland Plain Dealer and the newly-appointed editor of The Magazine of Early Music America wrote a very interesting overview of the “Spring for Music” (S4M) Festival, that presented its final week of concerts this past May at Carnegie Hall, contrasting […]

I don’t generally get maudlin over luggage. But after the final bows of Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Asia tour in May, I locked my wardrobe trunk and gave it an affectionate pat. This tour may well have been the brass-clad behemoth’s swansong. Built like fortresses, BSO’s 25 trunks could last forever. Lined up backstage like dominoes, […]

In this week’s edition of The New Yorker (paywalled, unfortunately) is a fascinating piece by Alex Ross on Iván Fischer, the Hungarian conductor and founder of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. While the piece focuses largely on his unhappiness with the current rightward lurch of Hungarian politics, Ross also reports on Fischer’s views on the orchestra […]

Back when he was Principal Flute of the Utah Symphony and President of AFM Local 104, Erich Graf wrote a fascinating and heart-felt article about how he learned to be both an excellent symphonic musician and an effective union leader. He talks about his own journey to self-discovery, begun by writing a Conscientious Objector letter, the […]

Rachel Martin of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday ” did an interesting piece about the Detroit Symphony’s comeback after the work stoppage. She talks about the beautiful acoustics at Detroit’s Orchestra Hall, and questions what happens when you take the symphony out of that perfect acoustic and put them in — well — an IKEA warehouse! […]

Most readers of this blog have already heard of the events of last Monday here in Milwaukee. If you haven’t, the New York Times has a good summary: It should have been one of those nights musicians live for. Frank Almond, the concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for nearly two decades, had just closed […]

The latest awards from the Ann & Gordon Getty Education and Community Investment Grants, administered by the League of American Orchestras, were recently announced. The grants range from $10,oo0 to $30,000 for community-based grants in the 2013-14 season, awarded to 23 orchestras. To see the League’s press release, click here. 65% of the grants were […]

I’ve been trying to figure out if this article, written as a speech to West Point cadets by William Deresiewicz, a noted American writer and former academic, might have some insights for us. This is a very long quote from the article: What can solitude have to do with leadership? Solitude means being alone, and […]