This one is by Joshua Kosman of the SF Chronicle, and he attended Sunday’s performance.
When I was a kid and we listened to the classical station we frequently heard the name Maurice André. He was the only name I knew in the trumpet world, in fact. I didn’t know, though, that he had children who also played instruments. Now I do (having read up a bit after finding the following video). This is his daughter Beatrice on oboe.
I always talk to my students about how I’ve read that music is so good for the brain. Now I read this:
A professional cellist who lost nearly all of his memory after a virus destroyed parts of his brain has astonished doctors with his remarkable recall of music.
The 71-year-old, known only as PM, had played with a major German orchestra before contracting the infection that devastated his brain’s memory centres in 2005.
The illness left the musician with such profound amnesia he could remember almost nothing of his past and was unable to plan for the future. The only people he recognised were his brother and a care worker.
“He can hardly remember a thing. He has no memory of any personal or professional events,” Carsten Finke, a neurologist at Charité university hospital in Berlin, told the Guardian. “He is living in the moment, more or less. He has lost his whole life.”
Doctors made their discovery when they tested PM’s ability to recall musical information and found he could identify the scales, rhythms and intervals of pieces they played him. The man went on to score normally on a standard test for musical memory.
But it was later tests that surprised doctors most, when the cellist showed he could learn new pieces of music, even though he failed to remember simple information, such as the layout of his flat, who his doctors were and what medicines he should take.
When you’re a musician, happiness is singing through your instrument!
I put this up over a year ago. It’s time, I think, for an EncoreBlogPost™!
I believe Opera Tattler (Charlise Tiee) was the first to get something up on the double bill. I spoke with her and Not For Fun Only‘s (link is to the double bill) Axel Feldheim during the first intermission. I love seeing blogging friends when I’m at work. Of course it also makes me rather nervous!
The Mercury News review (Richard Scheinin) is up and you can read it here. There’s no mention of the orchestra. Sometimes this is due to an editor’s cut. Sometimes reviewers don’t mention us because they have nothing good to say. Sometimes we simply aren’t mentioned. I’m okay with it, assuming what is on the stage takes precedence, but some of my colleagues get extremely frustrated.
You might wonder: do I have opinions on our performance? You bet! Will I share with you? You bet not! 🙂
… as you may not have heard it before …?
Many thanks to Pam for this first one!
… and then Krusty tries to sing it …
… a sympathetic shark …
But hey, a soda will cure all woes …
The orchestral version of Quiet City is fairly well known, but there’s more to this story. Another version has recently come to light.
Quiet City was music that Aaron Copland wrote for playwright Irwin Shaw. Shaw’s play of the same name was a flop that never made it out of previews — and Copland’s original score for trumpet, saxophone, clarinets and piano was never published. But composer and saxophonist Christopher Brellochs recently unearthed the manuscript and recorded the world premiere of Quiet City in its original form.
I read it here … and I’m all for it. Truth be told, I’ve never really liked the work all that much for English horn. Call my stupid if you like, but there you go!
Yep … no more. I’m done searching for these things that show musicians playing oboe or English horn in a style I don’t normally do. So Mondays are turning into something new. I just haven’t quite figured out what yet. If you’d like to make a suggestion feel free. Or maybe I’ll just always have something from the “For Your Listening Enjoyment” here for Monday. Dunno quite yet.
I’m betting no one will miss the “Outside” series anyway. If I’m wrong I do apologize!
And if you want to see what the heck I’ve posted in the past, just click on this and then click on the titles of the blogposts.
The oboe is quite possibly the most beautiful sounding instrument ever. Across The Stars – London Symphony Orchestra
& in case you want to hear what the TWitter quote is about:
