by Kenneth Woods | Aug 17, 2007 | A view from the podium
There is one less giant among us today with the passing of the great jazz drummer Max Roach. He was a virtuoso in the best sense of the word, but also a poet- no drummer ever had a sweeter touch or a more effortless sense of swing. Jazz fans like to talk about how...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 15, 2007 | A view from the podium, Music and Media
The best art show I went to last year was the exhibit “Underground Surrealism” at the Hayward Gallery on London’s South Bank. Check out the view I had last year here. Assembled and currated with care and insight it was a show that was more than merely a collection of...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 8, 2007 | A view from the podium, Performing Life
It was intermission of a garden concert for a local charity- we’d just finished the Dohnanyi Serenade for String Trio and were milling about the lawn while the punters downed their pinot noir and brie. He was easy to pick out even in a crowd. On a very casual...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 7, 2007 | A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts, Performing Life
At the end of the Rose City Workshop, I was presented with a list of the quotes of the week, most of which were mine, although a few were from Chris (marked as CZ in this list). David, being the wisest and most mature of us managed to stay off this list, which is...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 6, 2007 | A view from the podium, Music and Media, Nuts and bolts
From the “I know I live in a glass house” file… A recently released recording of Mahler’s Second Symphony apparently comes with some rather provacative liner notes from the conductor, which have been widely quoted in the reviews. The quotes alone were enough to...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 2, 2007 | A view from the podium
Study is the reward, not the price— “I can’t claim that I could always look at a score and hear everything that was there. However, now that I’ve rehearsed and performed these pieces many times, this is my reward- that I can sit with the score and hear...
by Kenneth Woods | Aug 1, 2007 | A view from the podium
I’ve had some thoughtful comments on my Question of the Week post. My answer is this- I think it’s both cool and good that graduates from the RCICW don’t all look like graduates of the RCICW. Interestingly, some of the more experienced and advanced students did also...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 31, 2007 | A view from the podium
I’m in Seattle Airport on my way home from the 2007 Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop. It was quite a week- exhausting, exciting, entertaining and really inspiring for all of us on the faculty. I just hope the students got even half as much out of it as we...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 28, 2007 | A view from the podium
Another day at the Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop, and sensory overload is the theme at this point. Four days in everyone’s heard so much music and participated in so many discussions that it would be easy to feel as though we should cancel tomorrow and...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 26, 2007 | A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts
Day two at the RCICW, and a magical day at that. If day one was a day of intriguing disappointments, where conductors tip-toed up to doing something great only to not quite make it, day two was a day of wonderful surprises. We began the day with a unison conducting...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 25, 2007 | A view from the podium
Day one of the RCICW is complete. This year Betsy, one of the cellists in the orchestra, kindly and generously organized a welcome party where players, teachers and conducting students could get a chance to meet and socialize. It’s always a challenge to make a...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 24, 2007 | A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts
Tomorrow morning begins the Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop. This is our third year, and I’ve been so busy dealing with the day-to-day administration of the program and putting out various fires that the actual workshop seems to have snuck up on me a bit....
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 23, 2007 | A view from the podium
10:30 PM. Gotterdammerung begins. We’re at the stage where we begin to look backward to the day’s highlights, such as…. Siegfried captures a guy in a bear suit Siegfried slays a wall with tentacles (Fafner) Alberich turns into a six-inch long stuffed toy frog...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 23, 2007 | A view from the podium
And now onto Siegfried. Many consider the toughest nut to crack in the cycle, and it comes at the toughest point in the day, right after we’ve all gone out for Chinese food…. For episode three we’ve turned to the Met and James Levine. After the leather and lasers from...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 22, 2007 | A view from the podium
As we got to the end of Act II of Walkure, it occurred to me that the moments of unintentional hilarity were getting much harder to find. The despair of Wotan at the loss of his free will, the burden of Brunnhilde to ensure the death of the Walsung, Sieglinde’s shame...
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