I neglected to mention the link to your right. Look? See it? Yes. That one! Polyphonic.org has gone public. Check ’em out! Articles. Interviews. Discussions. News. Blogs. More. Well worth the look-see. Even worth a good amount of time!
—–
A team of Iranian music researchers recently discovered that a mud oboe is being played and produced in a village in Kerman Province, the Persian service of the Cultural Heritage News (CHN) agency reported on Monday.
Read more here.
Anywhere you go in either the 1979 Performing Arts Center building or Grant Hall (a renovated grade school from the 1920s), you hear trumpets tootling, English horns emoting, choirs harmonizing. Offices butt up against practice rooms where rehearsals blare nonstop. It’s a wonder anybody can think straight.
This is from an article about the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which is struggling with lack of space.
The thing is, I suspect that the writer meant French horns. It’s highly unlikely that there would be such a large number of English hornists at the school. Oboists, perhaps, but even that is doubtful.
Maybe the writer just used English horns because of the near alliterating? What would one say about French horns, anyway? Oh wait! I know, I know (I say as I hold my hand up high and try to get the teacher’s attention, which is actually something I never would have done while in school): “French horns fumbling.”
🙂
And then there’s this:
“If I could have a 9-to-5 job in something that I kind of like and play in an orchestra on the side, I would be happy,” said graduate bassoonist Michael Harris of Lee?s Summit as he headed off to wind symphony rehearsal.
Wise choice, that. Unless you can’t live if you don’t do music full time, you may as well face reality and get a job that pays a living wage. That bassoonist obviously is saying he can live without full time bassooning.
Along the way, Upshaw sang in school and church choirs. She also learned to play piano and oboe, but in the end it was the singing that captured her full attention.
I’ve always loved Dawn Upshaw. This oboe connection must explain why, eh? Okay, I’m kidding (sort of). She’s one of the few opera singers that, to me anyway, can get away with singing popular music as well as opera and lieder. (Her No Word From Tom was what first sold me, but from there I’ve heard her sing Sondheim and, well, you name it! She’s always wonderful.) You can read the entire article here.
And she’s an attentive mother, too. She has won so many points …. 😉
—–
Yet again, a review mentions a pal and great English horn player, Jason Sudduth. Good for you, Jason!
—–
