by Kenneth Woods | Sep 19, 2008 | A view from the podium, Performing Life
7:30 AM: Sunday morning and I’m up too freakin’ early- I’ve got a short window to meet my dear old friend, the marvelous horn player Nancy B, for breakfast. I’ve got to walk to Central Park South in time for a 9 AM meetup, then David Y can pick me up at 10:30 to head...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 17, 2008 | A view from the podium
From my sister, the conductor Cynthia Woods, explaining to a board member why it might be better in this instance to start a concert with an overture by Brahms or Wagner than one by Mozart…. Mozart is the string bikini of composers- if you can pull it off,...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 16, 2008 | A view from the podium, Explore the Score
I thought David Yang’s script to accompany our performance of Janacek’s String Quartet no. 2, “Intimate Letters,” would make a great blog post and a wonderful primer on a rarely heard masterpiece, so with his permission I’ve edited and reformatted it to fit these...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 16, 2008 | A view from the podium, Performing Life
Saturday again offers only a short window of rehearsal, shortened by New York traffic to less than two hours. We try to work quickly though the problem spots we’d been unable to touch the day before in Philly, but we’re racing the clock- Yonah has another engagement...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 15, 2008 | A view from the podium
I’m spending my week in Philadelphia and New York to prepare and perform a very special piece of music I’ve been wanting to learn for many years, Janacek’s 2nd String Quartet. My colleagues in this endeavor are violinists David Ehrlich and Yonah Zur, and violist David...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 11, 2008 | A view from the podium
In spite of the significant technical challenges for all the players in Philip Sawyers Gale of Life Overture, rehearsals moved along at a quick pace. The main reason for our smooth progress was the immense care Philip had obviously taken in making his writing as...
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