Beware the harpies

At the end of this month my 06-7 season begins with a course at the Kent County Youth Orchestra. This is my second visit with KCYO, and the first was an absolutely wonderful experience from beginning to end. The students played well, and with real passion and the...

Fight the power

Just as a follow-up to yesterday’s piece on state funding of the arts….  There are lots of conversations going on in the blogosphere, in newspapers and around the water-cooler about the so-called crisis in classical music.  One central idea I have been trying to...

On Brahms and life

Here is a very moving post from someone named reidmt (see annonymous blogging). I actually know who he is, as will many of my readers, but nevermind, I thought is was a good post.  Interestingly, I could have easily been in Pendleton this week for our youth camp at...

Rostropovich on DSCH

I’ve been trying to steer friends towards these interviews with Rostropovich for a long time, so I thought I would take Pliable’s idea and post the links here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/shostakovich/ram/rostropovich1.ram...

Anatomy of a flop

There are two reasons I don’t do reviews on this blog, much as I might be tempted. The first, and most compelling, reason is that I am aware of what a big, beautiful glass house I live in, and secondly, I don’t particularly want to piss people off in my field....

Odds and ends

I want to call reader’s attention to a lovely comment from Harriet Gedge, daughter of conductor David Gedge. I’m so happy to hear that David is coming along in his march to recovery, but it sounds like a truly arduous process. Other news today- over at oboeinsight, we...

The Idea, and Style

While in London this week I had the opportunity to see “Underground Surrealism” at the Hayward Gallery, a fascinating look into one very exciting moment in art history as witnessed through the prism of one magazine, Georges Bataille’s “Documents.”  The magazine only...