Classical Music: Page 4

My Editor’s Choice post this time around is a blog/article that was just published a few days ago. It centers around Baumol’s curse. If you aren’t familiar with that term you will be after you read this article by Duncan Webb. And if you’re really into it you can find it discussed in eight different […]

Polly Kahn recently stepped down from her position as Vice President and Leadership Development  at the League of American Orchestras after 14 years of devoted service. (She hasn’t left the orchestra field, however; I’m certain we will all benefit from her vision and wisdom in the future.) Polly was immersed in training individuals to make […]

If one wishes to contribute to the conversation about how to expand the audience base for American orchestras, then one must talk about what those orchestras are presenting — and right now that’s a taboo subject. The fact is that the discussion about WHAT exactly orchestras are presenting has never taken place. The arbitrary distinction […]

We recognize that the use of beta-blockers by musicians is a serious and controversial topic.  Nonetheless, we feel it is better to discuss it than to pretend that it doesn’t exist.  We neither condone or condemn the use of beta-blockers, but wish to have an objective discussion about its use.  Feel free to join the […]

I’d like to call your attention to a new weekly blog post by a renowned name in classical music writing. Steve Metcalf, former music critic of the Hartford Courant and curator of the Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series at The Hartt School, has started writing a weekly blog on classical music for Hartford’s local NPR station, […]

How many times have we musicians heard those phrases? Do they mean that we should try to be like Janice Martin, the violinist who plays while hanging upside down?  My most recent experience is not quite that dramatic….. “What time is the lunch break?”  I asked the stage manager, knowing that he was the one […]

Today’s post is the fourth post in our August Guest Blog Series!  Elizabeth Erenberg is a flutist and co-founder of the website www.Musicovation.com, a site dedicated to sharing and generating positive music news.  In the fluidity that is a music career, I define myself differently almost every day. Today, I am a blogger. Last week, […]

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, […]

The recent death of Lorin Maazel caused me to remember an article I wrote for Harmony in 2001 about the role of the Music Director, in part because his selection as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic was discussed in the article. Maazel was, with Bernstein, one of the very first Americans to be […]