Cutting to the chase, the bottom line with the 4000 + words of “thesaurial” prowess from Philip Kennicott, is that we should stop doing what isn’t working now, and go back to what wasn’t working before…Huh?
Outreach
I Don’t Know Nuthin’ ‘Bout Listenin’ To Mozart, Ms. Scarlett!
I’m on vacation, which means I’ve been ignoring those faint twinges of guilt about not posting for a while. After all, if Drew would spend the proceeds from these blogs on the bloggers instead of the beautiful new website ….. oh wait, he’s taking a page from the Minnesota Orchestra. Never mind.
Here we go chasing our tails from Detroit to Duluth…..
There is always a hyperventilating that takes place when the so called “model” is challenged and why is it that Orchestras live in the extreme? When there are problems everything an orchestra does has to change, and when there are not, let’s spend spend spend, and ignore any impending problems. I cannot over emphasize enough that spending whenever we do it is never the answer, we would be all well served re-reading the Knight Foundation Magic of Music report (linked below). What is the answer?….
Hope for the Next Decade: A Call to Arts!
Community Outreach was the catchall category of the last decade in the Orchestra world, and has become so non defined that we take for granted that it’s happening at every orchestra. It most certainly isn’t just because the words are used. It is time to define it for real, give it real teeth and to make those who use the word accountable. Why? It is something that Bono said, yes the U2 guy!…..
Two Takes – Entrepreneurship and Michelle Obama’s Speech
My class brings current blog posts and/or articles to debate, 3 on Tuesday and 3 on Thursday. In the clips below first Mackenna and I discuss the perception of what an entrepreneur is from an article by David Cutler, author of the soon to be released Savvy Musician. Then 3 of them on Tuesday brought in an article about Michelle Obama’s speech given in Pittsburgh about the arts. We kind of disagreed on what the impact will be, or if there will be any at all….
Having our Cross-over to Bear: Concert Snapshot – Chris O’Riley
A funny thing happened on the way to the Dakota: a new magazine came across my path. It’s called “Listen – Life With Classical Music.” Actually I don’t know if it’s new but it’s definitely new to me. What caught my eye was an article on Erich Korngold and his travails for having the …… audacity? …… idiocy? ……… intelligence? ……… to write music for Hollywood, and the negative effect this had on his career. Boy does that sound familiar……
Dancing Maestros on the Jumbotron……
In a “review” by Lawrence Johnson, he ranted about the use of the Jumbotrons at the Ravinia festival. OK I can see that there might be some who want the “traditional” experience, but the setting is far from traditional in the concert going sense, accessibility is something that needs to be taken into consideration and he actually has a solution to his problem and doesn’t even realize it…….
Cliburn Soundoff! – Conlon speaks/Zhang dresses/Chopin Compare/Bray/Yang
The heat is definitely on with an incredible night of music making, this thing is too close to call! Part 1 of my interview of James Conlon, an excerpt from Haochen Zhang and Mozart 20, a comparison of the same two spots in Chopin 1 from Bozhanov and Tsujii (this you will only get here), Buddy Bray who is inside with the Jury and Joyce Yang 2005 silver medalist here to check out the new crop…listen!