Currently the chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, United Kingdom, Juanjo Mena has made several recordings with that orchestra, including a Falla album named Recording of the Month by BBC Music magazine His previous posts are artistic director and principal conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra (1999-2008) and principal guest conductor of both the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway and Teatro Carlo Felice, in Genoa, Italy.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Orchestra Pay, Orchestra Prestige, And Just Making A Living
Norman Lebrecht: “Isaac Stern told me that when he was growing up in 1920s San Francisco ‘a musician in the orchestra was a person‘ – even if he earned a pittance. He had social status. As that status declined it had to be replaced with other compensations or orchestral life would have ceased to exist. So wages rose.”
Kent Nagano Talks About His First Ten Years At The Montreal Symphony
“When I first got to the city, many people on the administration staff said, ‘…oh dear, we have a grey-haired syndrome here…,’ meaning that our audience is getting older and older. But, we decided over the course of the season, that we would never change one thing – we felt that the one thing that transcends generation is the natural human tendancy to appreciate exceptional quality. So rather than push the bar down, we pushed the bar very, very high, where we challenge the audiences with extremely adventurous programming.”
Thom Jones, 71, The Janitor Who Became A Literary Star In The 90s
Even during the years when he was working in factories, pushing a broom, getting fired from jobs, battling illness and going through rehab, Mr. Jones always thought of himself as a writer. “I’m a great believer in fate, and I believe that all those things in my life had to happen — being a drunk, a boxer, the epilepsy, the diabetes,” he told the Seattle Times. “You have to suffer a lot before you can be a writer of fiction.”
What The CIA’s “Secret” Abstract Art Collection Says About Spies, Politics And Art
The original 11 paintings still hang on the walls of the agency’s headquarters, “represent[ing] an elemental approach to art [and] a swashbuckling donor,” according to a brief blurb on the agency’s website. What these paintings represent about the CIA’s relationship to the art world, though, is more complicated. On these walls, the intersection between US art and politics is especially busy.
Seattle International Film Festival Gets A New Director
Seattle International Film Festival, the largest film festival in the country, has been searching for a new executive director for a year. Thursday morning they announced they’ve found one in Sarah Wilke, who has been the managing director at Seattle’s premier contemporary performing arts haus, On the Boards, for the last 12 years. She’ll take over for interim director Christine Martin in January.
The Ten Best Books On Creativity
Just as no two artists have the same working methods, so too might your next bolt of inspiration come from an unexpected place, be it a groundbreaking building, a compelling work of art, or a spare Oblique Strategies deck.
Do Orchestra Musicians Deserve To Be Paid More? Of Course. Should They Be? That’s A Different Question!
“In 1967, classical music still occupied a central position in our high culture. Now it doesn’t. Most Americans don’t care about classical music and don’t go to orchestral concerts. I think they should, but it doesn’t matter what I think. They’ll do what they want to do—and one thing they don’t want to do is go out of their way to hike the salary of a violinist in Philadelphia who already makes over $2,400 a week, especially when the median weekly household income in the U.S. is $1,073 (which is roughly what the average London orchestra player earns per week).” [click on “The Money Pit” after clicking this link]
Actors Say Video Game Industry Isn’t Treating Them Well
The video game industry is in the midst of a boom, with $23.5 billion in domestic revenue in 2015 — including spending on hardware and accessories — up 5% from the previous year. Popular games often gross more than Hollywood’s biggest movie releases, with “Call of Duty: Black Ops 3” raking in $550 million in three days to become the bestselling game of 2015. But one group feels left out in the cold — actors.
New App Lets Anyone Create Music. So How Will This Change Music?
“When we use screenplay-writing software we become used to moving scenes around physically, as if stacking neat plastic boxes. Similarly our music – once represented only as cryptic black scratches on white paper – is now circles and squares and starbursts. Whether this has any long-term effect on our cognition will be for the scientists to study; I wonder if our ability to conceive the invisible will change, or even shrink.”