“A perfectly normal orchestra? That was not what he wanted. Ever. In fact, the young Iván Fischer found the notion radically impossible, was already fed up with his international career almost before it had begun. Aloof, austere and proud was how he came across to the established orchestras – worse even, they thought him listless and officious. And so he formed an orchestra of his own. Nearly 35 years later, the Budapest Festival Orchestra counts among the best in the world – a small miracle.”
Category: music
Conductors Do More Than Wave Their Hands (But What, Exactly?)
The person who stands before a symphony orchestra is charged with something both impossible and improbable. The impossible part is herding a hundred musicians to agree on something, and the improbable part is that one does it by waving one’s hands in the air.
The Big Corporations Using Orchestras As Staff Development Tools
“‘There’s no activity in the world where you have to react so quickly to each other and work together so well as in an orchestra,’ says Johanna Weitkamp, conductor of the symphony orchestra at the enterprise software company SAP. … Other [German] companies with employee orchestras include engineering firm Siemens, maker of trains and medical scanners; carmakers Daimler, BMW and Ford; auto components and electronics maker Robert Bosch GmbH; airline Lufthansa, and chemical firm BASF.”
Dallas Opera CEO Unexpectedly Resigns For New Job In Calgary
Keith Cerny is ending what’s widely seen as a successful seven years in Dallas – stabilized finances and balanced budgets, notable premieres, the signing of a new music director and principal guest conductor, a new and well-regarded training program for young female conductors – to take the reins at Calgary Opera, a company that’s roughly half the size of the one he’s leaving.
Twin Cities Music School Shuts Down Without Warning
Just as the semester was ending, administrators at McNally Smith College of Music, a small, for-profit school in St. Paul, alerted faculty and students in a pair of email messages that the school did not have enough cash to make payroll and is closing on Dec. 20.
The Met’s Complicity In Ignoring James Levine’s Abuse Points To Big Problems In The Classical Music World
“Now, Levine will become a convenient scapegoat, and institutions will race to condemn him with prurient finger-wagging, piling on almost gleefully in their eagerness to aver that they will never, ever, not ever work with him again. Meanwhile, orchestras and opera houses and conservatories and choruses all across the country continue to harbor and protect leaders who egregiously abuse their power, who harass musicians who can’t speak up, who assault and rape in the self-satisfied knowledge that they can get away with it.”
An 8,000-Person Orchestra Just Performed In Seoul
That’s right, 8,000 mostly amateur church musicians tried to break (and perhaps succeeded in breaking) the world record. “The giant orchestra … played a medley of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches, the South Korean national anthem and two hymns for seven minutes in total.”
The Christmas Carol Composer
Does John Rutter care that people know him mostly through his carols? “‘I used to think that was a problem,’ Mr. Rutter said, surveying from his kitchen window the absurdly perfect village he calls ‘idyllic, if a bit Miss Marple.’ He worried that people wouldn’t take his other music seriously. ‘But I’m not unhappy to be associated with Christmas: better than famine, flood or war,’ he said.”
The Cleveland Orchestra’s Principal Trombonist Files A Lawsuit Against ‘Detractors’ Online
The lawsuit is against two other people for posts alleging that the trombonist, Massimo La Rosa,”had engaged in a pattern of professional misconduct, criminal wrongdoing and morally repugnant behavior.”
Orchestra Mashes Up Beethoven And Kanye West
Time magazine spoke to Johan and Yuga Cohler, creators of Yeethoven and Yeethoven II, “about their process of piecing together the perfect orchestral mash-up, how a ‘risky project’ like this one can help popularize classical music and why Kanye makes a great case study as an artist with unexpectedly broad appeal.”