by Kenneth Woods | Oct 20, 2010 | A view from the podium, Mahler, Mahler- Performer's Perspective
Gustav Mahler is a composer whose music again and again finds connectivity in contrast and contradiction. His music is full of starkly contrasting opposites, and yet he always seems to find connection and unity between light and dark, fast and slow, happy and sad, and...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 22, 2010 | A view from the podium
As a short follow-up to my long post on the Eroica Marcia funebre, I thought I might mention a little bit about Metamorphosen, Richard Strauss’s late masterpiece mourning the end of the great and continuous musical culture that ran from Bach through to him. On the...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 7, 2010 | A view from the podium
I have to confess that the annual orgy of complaints about the BBC Proms always strikes this American transplant as absurd and hard to comprehend. Say what you will, it is an extraordinary international feast of great music played by the world’s greatest orchestras,...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 6, 2010 | A view from the podium
I am in Philadelphia this week for some work with my string trio, Ensemble Epomeo. I have to say, Philadelphia has become one of my favorite cities- I love the neighborhood feel in the part of town where I’m staying, with some lovely shops and restaurants as well as...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 20, 2010 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts
Olin Downes, New York Times “Which composers have influenced you most?” Leos Janacek “None.” Last week, I had the good fortune and privilege to conduct a workshop of Janacek’s Taras Bulba. Since so much of Janacek’s life’s work is bound up in his operas, there...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 3, 2010 | A view from the podium
Many years ago, I first played a pops show in Columbus that was made up entirely of us playing extended excerpts of classic films scores from the golden age of film music while the originally films were shown on a giant screen behind the orchestra. It’s a great show,...
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