oboeinsight

A crystal-embellished conductor’s baton made with beautiful SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS for The Miami Symphony Orchestra (MISO) fittingly illustrates classical music’s brilliance. For the first time in Swarovski’s 117-year history, the internationally known crystal designers have created a special Swarovski crystal-studded conductor’s baton, which will direct musical magic for the Miami Symphony Orchestra.

RTWT

Hmm. Maybe I need a crystal oboe reed. I wonder. But my guess is the darn thing wouldn’t vibrate. (then again, how many of my reeds are vibrating these days?!)

During the first break in Wednesday morning’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra rehearsal, Eugene Izotov took a long look around the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and felt the past colliding with the present.

Not only did the orchestra’s 38-year-old principal oboist grow up in Moscow and attend school just a few blocks from the Conservatory, but “my father played on this stage,” he said.

Now Izotov was preparing to perform Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in that very same hall where he learned the piece— the composer’s triumphant, complex response to Stalinism — from hearing his father, violist Alexander Izotov, play it with the Russia State Symphony Orchestra. Izotov also remembers sneaking into a rehearsal being conducted in 1989 by Riccardo Muti, now the CSO’s music director, then leading La Scala in Milan, Italy.

“I heard him right from those seats,” Izotov said, pointing toward the back of the elegant shoebox of an auditorium.

RTWT