by Kenneth Woods | Dec 5, 2006 | A view from the podium
From the Surrey Advertiser, December 1, 2006 Surrey Mozart Players/Kenneth Woods The small but acoustically favourable Menuhin Hall in Stoke d’Abernon resounded to the music of Mozart and Haydn, as the Surrey Mozart Players under the direction of Kenneth...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 4, 2006 | A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts
In the last installment of this series, I tried to look at some of the questions that leading musicians of the past may have been asking when they were performing in ways that we might now find foreign. We can’t go back to that old, Furtwanglerian, manner of...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 4, 2006 | A view from the podium
From The Herald, Glasgow, 4 December 2006 “…The concert (was) given on Saturday by the Kelvin Ensemble, in celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of Glasgow University’s student orchestra… this young, keen, ambitious ensemble. American conductor Kenneth...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 3, 2006 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Nuts and bolts
What then of someone like Furtwangler, who’s Beethoven tempi tend to be quite uninhibited by the metronome? Many leading modern Beethoven interpreters and commentators, including John Elliot Gardiner, Gunther Schuller and Benjamin Zander have all held up Furtwangler’s...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 1, 2006 | A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts
Intermezzo from the score questioning series- Some (late night) thoughts to ponder in Dvorak 8, 1st mvt…. What is the first note of the piece (in the melody)? Middle “D” What is the last note of the cello melody that spans the first 16 bars (yes, the cellos...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 1, 2006 | A view from the podium
A few days ago a friend tipped me off that kennethwoods.net had become the no. 1 ranked “conductor website” result on google, and we’re still there about a week on. Try it, but please click through to us and not New Jersy Semi Conductor who are...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 1, 2006 | A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts
The only black-and-white, nuts and bolts questions in musical performance are “what” questions- we can say with specificity what note is being played, what the dynamic is, what instrument is playing it, even what motive it is part of, but the execution of these...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 30, 2006 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Nuts and bolts
“Conductors question scores for a living. Actual conducting is something you just have to do to share the answers you’ve found to the questions you’ve asked.” Practical questions about music are important (and fun!) to answer. When a real music lover tells me he or...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 29, 2006 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Nuts and bolts
One of my first “official” conducting teachers told us all that “conductors study scores for a living. Actual conducting is just something you get to do for fun as a reward for the studying.” It’s a point of view I took to heart and have often repeated to both...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 28, 2006 | A view from the podium
So this is where I went to work over the weekend- Pretty sweet gig, eh???? These photos are of the interior quadrangle of the University of Glasgow, home of the Kelvin Ensemble. (Of course, speculation is wide-spread in Pendleton that I am only posting pictures...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 24, 2006 | A view from the podium, News and Reviews
UPCOMING CONCERT Kelvin Ensemble, Glasgow 15th Anniversary Concert – Saturday 2nd December 2006, 7.30pm – Bute Hall, University of Glasgow Conductor: Kenneth Woods Soloist: Veronika Toth (viola) Tommy Fowler – 15th Anniversary Commission “Repezzatura...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 23, 2006 | A view from the podium, Explore the Score
Dvorak 8 was the first score I ever went out and bought and subsequently tried to analyze. We had played the work in my youth orchestra under the guidance of James Smith, a truly great musician and orchestral trainer. I’d always been interested in conducting,...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 21, 2006 | A view from the podium
This Saturday, the Surrey Mozart Players and I had the privilege of being one of the first orchestras to perform in the nearly brand-new Menuhin Hall, a beautiful 300-seat concert hall that just opened its doors in January. It’s always nice to test drive a car you...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 20, 2006 | A view from the podium
From “Essential Reading,” November 19, 2006 The Concert with Kenneth Woods And Bobby Chen Piano The American conductor Kenneth Woods offers a mature and thoughtful reading of another giant in music, namely Mozart. Working without baton, Kenneth Woods...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 19, 2006 | A view from the podium
At a late hour, post concert, a few last minute thoughts on Haydn (again!). With 104 symphonies to choose from, it would be easy to think that there is such a thing as a “Haydn Symphony.” That is, it musicians and audiences seem to think that there is a general...
Recent Comments