“The less ego you have, the more influence you have as a conductor. And the result is that you can concentrate on the only things that really matter: the music and the people who are playing it. You are of no account whatever. But if you can help people to feel free to play as well as they can, that’s as good as it gets.”
Tag: 05.13.11
Yo Yo Ma Takes His Place In The Kids’ Section
“The maestro was so invested in what the trombones were doing on the Orchestra Hall stage that he didn’t notice an extra seat being placed in the cello section or Yo-Yo Ma then walking out with his own instrument to sit among the youth musicians being run through a special open rehearsal Monday night.”
Record Numbers Of People Tuning In To UK Radio
A record 47.3 million are tuning into at least one station each week.
Be It Proposed: Classical Music Is Irrelevant
The final nail in the coffin is the classical live performance, in which “you are basically told to sit there, dress quite poshly, and admire the music for what it is”.
Violinists Score At Classical Brits
Three virtuoso violinists were feted at this year’s Classic Brit Awards, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Los Angeles Ballet Grows Up With Giselle
The five-year-old company’s dancers are used to performing mostly short, modernist works. “When you finally realize your company is ready to do a full-length ballet such as Giselle, which is so dramatic and so tragic and classically beautiful,” said co-director Colleen Neary, “you realize how far you have come.”
In Praise Of Short Attention Spans (Brevity Is Good For Art)
Terry Teachout: “Part of the ‘problem,’ after all, turns out to be that Americans have gotten smarter, or at least quicker on the uptake. … I do think that our impatient age might just be getting the best out of a great many artists and thinkers who, left to their own devices, would never have learned how to cut to the chase.”
A New Model For America’s Regional Opera Companies
Kevin Patterson, who was until last week general director of Austin Lyric Opera: “Instead of doing three operas, four performances, what if we did one or two main-stage productions with a variable number of performances and supplement that with one or two or three chamber operas that broaden and provide multiple layers to the season?”
Remembering (Or Forgetting) The Phone Book
“Soon to be extinct: one of the more hyperbolic compliments engendered by last century’s technology – ‘I could listen to her read the phonebook …’ The what?“
The Good Burghers Of Milan Object To Financial District Sculpture
“Wall Street’s charging-bull statue is the very epitome of financial strength. Outside the stock exchange in Italy’s financial capital is an equally unambiguous symbol: a giant marble middle finger.”