In case you are missing Carmen:
(Beaker has trouble with the triplet sometimes, poor guy.)
Cane has been soaking and is ready to be shaped and/or wound.
But first … shouldn’t I dust, vacuum, clean the bathrooms, straighten the family room desk area, clean my oboe desk, clean the kitchen, wash the hardwood floors, put on shoes and socks, brush my teeth, brush my hair, check for snail mail, check and respond to email, put clean sheets on the guest room bed, dust again (accumulates so quickly, you know?), vacuum, solve world hunger …
Yeah. So much to do. Poor soaked cane.
Okay, okay, I’ll go do what I’m supposed to do. Sigh.
First I need to sharpen my knives, though.
Recent headlines:
School orchestra nears crescendo
Haitink residency hits crescendo with Shostakovich
Digital music sales reach crescendo
Yeah, these bug me. But I can be easily bugged. You?
I just read that eight musicians are retiring from the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. That’s a lot of musicians for one year, but it can happen. (I can’t imagine when I’ll ever be able to retire … and I’m not ready yet!) There appear to be two oboe positions that may be opening up. I’ll post the audition info if they do announce this.
Headed to a revenge of the nerds party. Have to say it didn’t take much effort for my theatre/band geek look. Just need an oboe or Meisner.
Symphony Silicon Valley is launching a new musical theater series celebrating the classic American musical canon. In the wake of the closing of the American Musical Theatre of San Jose last year, the symphony is stepping into the breach with its “Broadway in Concert” series.
The inaugural lineup, set to launch in October, will showcase three beloved titles: Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate,” Meredith Willson’s “Music Man” and George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.”
“We want to put the musicals of another era up there on the California stage,” says Andrew Bales, executive director of Symphony Silicon Valley, “the music from the golden age of musicals.”
The opulently restored 1,100-seat California Theatre, a 1927 Jazz Age jewel, seems an ideal home for brand-name Americana. Subscriptions and single tickets for the series, a surefire way to make classical music more accessible, go on sale today.
“People think of classical music as staid, just one step above church, something that they ought to do but they don’t expect to enjoy,” Bales says. “We want to be entertaining, and nothing is more purely entertaining than musicals.”
I highly suspect Andrew doesn’t attend church. 😉
Aside from Porgy & Bess, these won’t involve me; Music Man and Kiss Me Kate are doubling books, and in any case only have one oboe/EH. First call would (and should) go to our principal oboist. But I’m still glad that we are adding these in. Maybe I’ll at least go and hear them.
My dream would be to have a summer series, done by Opera San José, of Sondheim and, maybe, Guettel or other, of a similar ilk, musical theatre composers. But I know that isn’t gonna happen. (Still, I can dream, right?)
Between this SSV news and the ballet adding more work, a lot of musicians are going to be able to take more work on next year, which is good. (There’s been no mention, yet, of the symphony musicians agreeing to a pay cut where ballet is concerned. I hope that that eventually gets acknowledged.)
