“It is a strange fate to be a master of an art at once so essential and hidden from view. The public often hears of Stradivarius instruments; bows, by comparison, are rarely discussed. If you are not a string player or married to one, chances are you cannot name a single bow maker, living or legendary.”
Category: music
Germany’s Cult Of Trombone (They’re Everywhere)
“While membership in Germany’s Protestant (Lutheran) church is rapidly declining – last year a record 200,000 members left the church – its trombone choirs are thriving. Today, Germany has 110,000 amateur brass players belonging to 6,000 trombone choirs.”
U.S. Appeals Court Rules That Musicians In Freelance Orchestras Are Employees, Not Contractors
The 3-0 opinion from the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upholds a finding by the National Labor Relations Board against the management of the Lancaster (PA) Symphony Orchestra, which maintained that its musicians were independent contractors and thus had no right to unionize.
Tenor Makes Met Opera Debut – As Otello, No Less – With Five Minutes’ Notice
“Francesco Anile … was in the green room during the last act of Saturday’s performance of Verdi’s Otello, which was being broadcast on radio throughout the world, when he was told by a stage director that Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko was sick and unable to sing the title role in the fourth act.”
Leonard Slatkin To Retire From His Other Orchestra, In France
“The Orchestre National de Lyon, France, announced on Tuesday that its current music director, Slatkin, 71, will leave that position at the end of the 2016-17 season.”
David Finckel And Wu Han To Stay With Chamber Music Society Of Lincoln Center Through 2021-22
“The extension ensures that Mr. Finckel, a cellist, and Ms. Wu, a pianist, who are married and who took over the artistic leadership of the society in 2004, will remain in their posts through the society’s 50th anniversary season, which will begin in the fall of 2019.”
The Most Underappreciated Job In Orchestral Music Is Being Outsourced To iPads
“The only time anyone takes notice of what you are doing is when something goes terribly wrong. The more perfect one is at turning pages or being an air traffic controller, the less we even notice they are there.”
A German Orchestra Goes Up Against Turkey In Row Over A Term For Genocide
“Turkey’s delegation to the European Union demanded the European Commission withdraw 200,000 euros ($224,500) in funding for the concert. The commission ultimately maintained its financial support, but asked the orchestra to not mention genocide and has removed any mention of the event from its website.”
Can A Canadian Lawyer Save The Reputation Of Salieri?
“The rest of us who saw 1984’s Amadeus were prepared to accept at face value playwright Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman’s portrait of Salieri as a mediocrity who despised Mozart’s God-given talent, and who thus wreaked revenge on the innocent genius. Not Kyer.”
When Algorithms Choose Your Music For You, Something Is Being Lost
“I do feel that if the great push of the smartest minds in this business is moving towards efficiency in curating for you, in delivering you what it knows you will like from the great abundance, well, something’s being lost, isn’t it? Isn’t the thing that’s being lost you and your efforts to figure out what you like and you respond to?”