More of the Same for 2009?

Well, not entirely. First, a couple New Year’s resolutions.

This year, I will try and be more responsive to emailed questions. I get a fair number of those and although I have read them all, chuckled or gnashed my teeth where appropriate, I acknowledge being pretty lousy about answering them. I will try and respond to comments posted on the blog as well. However, if you have a question you really want answered by me – for what that is worth – better to email it. I may even paste it into the blog and use it for a post – god knows I’m running short on material. Let me know if you don’t want that to happen. Speaking of the deity, please don’t send me quotes from the Bible, or any other religious tome for that matter, I have no idea what to do with those. I will also try and post more regularly. A few readers commented on the boring posts listing rehearsal times, etc. – and those were for the most part people who didn’t even have to attend the boring rehearsals in question – so I don’t think I will be returning to that format. However, I will try and keep fans of the world’s 5th greatest orchestra abreast of what is going on here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the nth wave

Gunnelpumpers CD release show Tuesday July 20, 8 PM Martyrs' (3855 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL tel. 773 404 9494) The Gunnelpumpers will perform this week to celebrate the release of our first CD, the nth wave . The CD is available on iTunes and CD Baby . A few videos of us in performance are also available on YouTube. I believe we have Facebook and Myspace pages as well, although I'm not really in touch with the social networking thing.
Read more

Blog of the tour, part 05

Image
Viva il puma! The other day, it struck me as odd that after a trip to Russia (of all places) I'm not supposed to mention what I did upon my return to the good old USA. What a universe we live in... Anyhow, it is probably high time to finish writing about the tour,now that is has been over for more than a week. The St Petersburg passport officers could learn a thing or two from their counterpart in Rome who didn't stop talking on his phone long enough to open my passport before welcoming me to the country with an impatient flick of the wrist. As the name suggests, the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome is an opera house. The hall, a typical opera house design, semicircular with box seats stacked to the ceiling, had dry, if not unpleasant acoustics. Perhaps the miles of crushed velvet and brocade had something to do with it. Quite a change from the the two wonderful, if relatively unadorned shoe-box halls in Russia. The president of Italy (Giorgio Napolitano!) himself attended ...
Read more

Week 31

why is this week different from all other weeks? BERIO Ritirata Notturna di Madrid SALONEN Piano Concerto INTERMISSION BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7 Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Yefim Bronfman, piano Monday off Tuesday 10-12:30 1:3-4 rehearsals Wednesday 10-12:30 rehearsal 6:30 concert Thursday 8 concert Friday 1:30 concert Saturday off Sunday off All in all, an enjoyable week in the house of notes. Of course the answer to the question posed above, and no small part of the allure of the week has to be because we get Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings off. Salonen is not a very excitable conductor. If you ask me, that’s a big asset when it comes to the Beethoven 7th, which all to easily crosses the line into bacchanalia in the wrong hands. I’m a big fan of period instrument performances anyhow. That aside, I sometimes get the feeling as a modern orchestra, bulked up on Bruckner, Strauss, and Mahler, it is all too easy to go overboard on these late classical/early romantic symphon...
Read more