by Kenneth Woods | Feb 23, 2009 | A view from the podium
I started my Monday morning with an appearance on Coffee Hour hear on the local radio station. You never know if you’ll be sharing the show with 10 other guest and get about 30 seconds to plug your event, or if you’re filling the entire time. Today it was the latter....
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 22, 2009 | A view from the podium
“The Scherzo is a damnable movement. It will have a long history of suffering! Conductors will take it too fast for fifty years, and audiences—Oh heavens—what sort of faces will they pull at this chaos…..” (Gustav Mahler, speaking of his 5th Symphony before the 1904...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 22, 2009 | A view from the podium
The day, as a professional event, almost didn’t happen. Between rehearsal Thursday evening and lunch Friday afternoon, I went from “down” with the bug to “down, out and defeated” by the same bug. It’s amazing how debilitating something can be...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 19, 2009 | A view from the podium, Mahler
Well, in just a few hours, I’ll be in Pendleton for our first rehearsal for this concert cycle. Like many rural orchestras, we have a couple of rehearsals with just our local core musicians, then bring in the rest of the orchestra for the weekend of the concert. In a...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 17, 2009 | A view from the podium, Haydn
I’m in the midst of packing for a busy trip to Oregon, but I really wanted to share a couple of thoughts about our concert this past weekend with Lancashire Chamber Orchestra. It was great to see the hall so packed! The orchestra has been improving consistently since...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 17, 2009 | A view from the podium
There was a great piece in the Feb 15 New York Times on the recent drama surrounding a proposed $50 million increase to the National Endowment for the Arts in the stimulus package. In the end, the Coburn Amendment, which I discussed here and here a few days ago,...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 13, 2009 | A view from the podium, Mahler, Mahler- Performer's Perspective
As a follow-up to my post on the volume level of the last note of the first movement of Mahler 5, I wanted to come back to the obvious parallel with the last note of the 2nd movement. The note in question is a single eighth-note a-natural on the timpani, marked...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 11, 2009 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Mahler, Nuts and bolts
“How many scores of Mahler 5 do you own?” came the beleaugered inquirey from one who knows the ins and outs of our library budget here at Vftp International Headquarters. The reluctant answer is “over four.” I’ve got the Dover (useless for performance, but interesting...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 10, 2009 | A view from the podium
I’m back home at last after a busy concert weekend with the Wilmslow Symphony. In spite of the foul weather, we had a nearly full house and the audience seemed to enjoy the lively, if intense, evening of music The program was a mixture of British and American music-...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 9, 2009 | A view from the podium
More thoughts on the arts’ place in economic stimulus from Robin Bronk at the Huggington Post here. In these times of economic crisis, it seems only rational that we should look back at our history to review what works if we want to create jobs and secure a...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 6, 2009 | A view from the podium
The one good thing our former president seemed to do during his presidency was de-politicize arts funding in the US. To my complete and total surprise, the NEA budget was safe from cuts during his tenure and gradually expanded, and we were spared the pathetic...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 5, 2009 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Mahler, Nuts and bolts
Feb, 2009: I’m deeply immersed in the score of Mahler 5 these days, as our performance of it with the Best Damn Redneck Orchestra on Earth is fast approaching, and I’m hoping to write as much as I can about what I’m discovering and what is challenging, perplexing and...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 2, 2009 | A view from the podium
I feel like a kid today, because here in Cardiff we are having a SNOW DAY! Of course, there is absolutely no snow to be seen in Cardiff L, but elsewhere in Britain, the nation has been pounded by a wintery onslaught of as much as THREE INCHES of the substance they...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 2, 2009 | A view from the podium
For my colleagues in the Wilmslow Symphony who’ve epxressed complete bafflement at the meaning of the word “Buckaroo…” (Some of the guesses were VERY funny and amazingly wrong). Here is the definition from Wiktionary- Buckaroo: Etymology Derived from Spanish...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 31, 2009 | A view from the podium
Wow- I’ve won my very own Premios Dardo award, thanks to Jen at Adventures of an Idaho Violist. I’ve been trying to get Jen in with the Oregon East Symphony for a while now, as I’d love to work with her, and I think it would be a hoot having a blogger in the orchestra...
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