oboeinsight

Why can’t our symphony take a hint for a single season and require all music to be happy and something that can be appreciated, require all musicians to smile, and have an occasional encore when fans are in the mood?
Perhaps if the symphony goal was to have us leave every performance happy, they would have fewer financial problems.

Yep … someone really wrote that. But if you read the whole thing you’ll see where he is coming from.

This made me very, very sad. I am no longer happy. I don’t think he should write letters to the editor like that.

REPORTING FROM SEOUL -– There’s a musical mutiny playing out in this city’s hallowed concert hall, a discordant note not usually heard from the nation’s premier symphony orchestra.

Musicians in crucial chairs of the KBS Symphony Orchestra have either walked out or been dismissed, taking their instruments with them. Others are donning protest T-shirts and offering subpar work during practices and even some performances.

Such sourness stems not only from hard financial times and a trend toward declining salaries but the reappointment of an unpopular American-trained conductor. Many veteran musicians with the 55-year-old symphony orchestra are irate about controversial conductor Hahm Shinik, who many say can’t tell an oboe from a French horn.

“During rehearsals when the tune is off, the conductor doesn’t know,” one musician told the JoongAng Daily newspaper here. “Furthermore, he doesn’t recognize the distinction between different instruments.”

At rallies, the musicians have chanted: “We don’t want a circus. Make the unskilled conductor step down.”

RTWT

I haven’t a clue what is true and what isn’t — I don’t know anyone connected to this orchestra and I’ve never heard of the conductor before. But what a horrendous article. It makes me ever so thankful for the groups I’m in! We sometimes have disagreements, but I can’t imagine anything like what I read in that article.