Death of an institution

To quote Jim Morrison – “This is the end.” Sticks&Drones is shutting down, its authors moving on to greener pastures (I’m writing a book and Ron’s running for congress), and the readership gets to focus on the new Star Wars movies without any distraction.  I had meant for this post to be something of a retrospective on the gritty life and times of S&D, but true to form the business has dialed up one more travesty that cannot be ignored. So, one more rant before S&D goes out in a blaze of glory. Let’s talk about legacy, history, and pigheadedness.

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Spilling Good INK – Final Installment

Here is the last of three guest posts on INK from our birthday boy, Viswa Subbaraman. Enjoy the read, then wish him a happy 29th birthday! Here’s my final INK Talks blog. http://inktalks.com/ I could probably keep writing about INK, but Bill Eddins wants his blog back. One of the performances I neglected to mention was Dharavi Rocks. Dharavi is one of the largest slums in the world. Dharavi Rocks is a music and dance program for kids in the Dharavi slum. As you will see when the video is posted, those … Continue Reading

Spilling Good INK – Guest Post

Sticks&Drones’ guest poster Viswa Subbaraman returns in Part The Second of his epic Indian adventure: I left off in my last post about the INKTalks 2014 <inktalks.com> with session 2. I’m going to try to cover some of the big highlights in this post, and in the next one, I’ll focus on my fellow Ink Fellows, which is probably one of the more inspiring parts of the INK Talks for me.Because I had to be in make-up for my INK talk, I missed part of Session 3 of the conference, but I did … Continue Reading

ürtext – The Singular Lens

What are the tools that can be used to make a great performance? Imagination, technique, consistency… depending on your definition of ‘great’ it can be many different ones. Why Ürtext, then? An article by Stuart Isacoff in the WSJ today wants to make the case against the ürtext editions many of us use and love. What is strange about his argument is that it starts with a rather spot-on critique of the state of piano performance today. I quite agree with him that recordings have made much pianism rather, well, bland. Micro-editing has been a detriment … Continue Reading

For Sale: Bridge in Brooklyn, Cheap!

Scholarship. Research. Facts. Since we live in the era of “Fox News” we all know that these things are in short supply. Goodness, haven’t you heard about the massive Ebola outbreak in the United States? No? Then how about Anna Magdalena Bach? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, based on nothing more than than a forensic analysis of handwriting a “professor” in North Australia has concluded that not only did Anna Magdalena compose the Cello Suites heretofore attributed to one Sebastian Bach, but also that the aforementioned Sebastian was a wife beater and all-around scumbag. Despite … Continue Reading

Hell’s Coldest Day

This may come as a shock to many people but…. the classical music world is very strange. Case in point – this weekend, which found me the one place I was pretty sure I would never be again, and though it was a balmy 64 degrees in Minnesota it was certainly the coldest day in the history of hell.

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The Swimsuit Edition!!!

Every blue moon or so someone (or something) that purports to be part of the classical music business comes up with a sure fire way of grabbing headlines. Yes, in order to save classical music we must thrust classical music into the mainstream! We must make a splash! We must dive right in!!! (are you getting my drift yet?… so to speak?)

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