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Enjoying the trip

I’m heading into the back country this morning.  Twice every year we take the youth orchestra here on a weekend retreat. Instead of heading for a private school built around an ancient mansion (as we have in Kent), the OES Prep Orch heads into the nearby mountains,...

PDX PDQ

We’ve thought from time to time about moving to Portland, Oregon. It’s a famously nice place, and it would be very convenient for my work with the Rose City Chamber Orchestra, who are based here, and the OES which is not exactly next door, but Portland is the nearest...

Concert energy

What makes sense about conducting is that you are really in the best position to evaluate what the musicians are doing as they play.  What doesn’t make sense about conducting is that you are in the worst possible position to evaluate what you are doing as the...

Shostakovich at 100

I was almost content to let the 100th birthday of Shostakovich pass without comment. Just think, though…. Already, just a few years after his death, we’re beginning to see his body of work recognized as the single most important contribution to Russian culture and...

My thought for the day

A sign of truly great music is not just the extent to which it pleases the listener and satisfies our expectations and predilections, but the extent to which it irritates, confounds, frustrates and repels the listener, but keeps them listening anyway.   ...

Blame Canada!

From A.C Douglas at Sounds and Fury, a great discussion of the CBC’s coverage of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. My post of the day:  “One might argue that Canada’s state-funded way of doing such things is inimical to our market-driven, private-capital...