Healthcare reform and orchestras
March 23, 2010There doesn’t seem to have been anything in the press or blogosphere about the effect of healthcare reform (as of last night, and pending the signature of the President, the law of the land) on orchestras. One would think that the effect of HCR on 0.00002% of the national economy would be bigger news. No […]
Gender and orchestras – another datapoint
March 22, 2010A fascinating article in the latest edition of Allegro, the official publication of Local 802 (NYC), adds some more data to the subject of gender balance in orchestras: Each year for Women’s History Month we crunch the numbers to see how our male and female members are represented on various contracts. The data below is […]
Musician Plays Violin as Surgeons Operate on His Brain
March 19, 2010Here’s a wonderful, positive story about Roger Frisch, the Minnesota Orchestra Associate Concertmaster, who underwent brain surgery at the Mayo Clinic to correct tremors. His story was featured on national news with Diane Sawyer. Find it here. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/fiddling-brain-10142847
Reading the tea leaves in Detroit
March 18, 2010Breaking news on the Detroit Symphony today: Talks to renegotiate the Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians contract have ended without a deal, a surprise since a spokesperson for the musicians earlier said that they were “expecting and hoping” to be part of the solution to the DSO’s budget crisis. “The DSO management team and orchestra are […]
Oops
The New York Times raises the question of just who benefits from a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall: Christoph Eschenbach will conduct Sunday at the benefit featuring the Chinese pianist Lang Lang, top, and Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra. Even if the event’s nearly $200,000 worth of tickets sell out, less than $8,000 from the sales will […]
The Cult of Youth
March 16, 2010Mathew Gurewitsch had an interesting article the other day in the New York Times on The Cult of Youth: IN the world of the contemporary symphony orchestra, youth is not so much a stage of life as it is a battle cry. Youth orchestras! Young conductors! At times it begins to seem that nothing else […]
NHMF and the Union
March 15, 2010The March 2010 edition of the International Musician, the official publication of the AFM, contained news of the AFM’s most recent success in influencing a recalcitrant employer: Several managers and directors of New Hampshire Music Festival (NHMF) have left their posts, following overwhelming opposition to their plans to implement a “new artistic model” for the […]
Klemp, you talka too muich
March 12, 2010That was the punch line of what is likely an apocryphal story about an interaction between the great German conductor Otto Klemperer and an Italian principal oboe. Sadly, Klemp is not alone. It must be hard to be a conductor, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. But one of the hardest things – judging by […]
Does the Vienna Phil discriminate?
March 10, 2010The Vienna Philharmonic is touring the UK, and The Independent has re-visited the question of whether the orchestra discriminates on the basis of gender or national origin: Bernstein called it “that unbelievable orchestra, which plays like one hundred angel-fingers growing out of my hands”. Yet once Stravinsky immolates into silence, pause, for before you is […]
I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends
March 5, 2010The article that follows my comments is from The Minnesota Daily, the newspaper of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis/St. Paul. It’s the first in a series profiling drug use on the UMinn. campus, and they start with music students. Since the readers of Polyphonic.org are familiar with the orchestra world, it will be no surprise […]