We did our last performance of Rigoletto this afternoon. I have to say, I just love that opera. Great music. So well put together. And very fun to play. I’ll miss it.

Now I’m sitting at home, wasting time on the Academy Awards. I must say that the nominated songs are really pretty darn awful. That was all they could come up with. Yikes. And John Travolta is downright scary.

Hold on … here we go …

Best song?

(Please let it be “Falling Slowly” which is the only one I can stand … or “Raise it Up” which is bearable.)

… here we go …

Falling Slowly

Thanks, guys. I like the tune. It’s pretty. (Dan says it sounds like another song. It’s definitely not terribly original. But it makes me smile.)

Besides, the guy who is talking sounds kind of sweet. I like sweet. And it’s a movie (Once) I want to see ….

Stupid orchestra, though … give them at least a moment to talk. Geesh.

TOO DARN COOL!!!

Jon Stewart just brought out the woman (a musician!) who was cut off by the orchestra (how ironic, eh?) and she got to finish what she was saying. Man. That was the best thing ever. Woo hoo! Kudos to Mr. Stewart.

OUCH!

I’m not going to go into detail and point out the instrument, but someone sounds awfully bad during the segment showing all the folks who have died this past year. Yikes. Bad stuff.

24. February 2008 · Comments Off on Ah, Reviewers … · Categories: Ramble, You Gotta Be Kidding

I’ve heard of reviewers going to half a concert and reviewing the whole thing. Oh yeah, there was also that reviewer who didn’t attend the concert and wrote up a review. Only trouble was the program had been changed. Big Oops. And loss of a job.

Now a magazine has reviewed an album it never listened to. Amazing, if it’s true. Especially since they mag seems to think it was okay to make an “educated guess”.

But then again … it was Maxim. (No link here; why bother?) I’m guessing they had other things on their minds. Or other places. It’s not exactly a magazine worth wasting much time over. Right?

(Thankfully I don’t believe any reviewers around here skip out early on concerts these days — the one who did is not longer working for the paper — and I pretty much trust them to give what they think is an accurate review. I have never known one to fake an entire review.)

24. February 2008 · Comments Off on Awww · Categories: Links

Congratulations, Brian!

More stuff to make me teary. Go figure.

Must be all this rain ….

I hadn’t been to Brandon’s altair nouveau site for eons, so I don’t know if this is all new or if his picture (done by him of course) has been like this for a while or not. I sometimes check out his myspace page, but there’s not much that changes there. (I check, sometimes, just to be see if he’s around, because we are not phone people and he’s not an email person either.)

Anyway, it was fun to see and hear. Not an oboe in sight, though. 😉

Let’s dance! Oh. Wait. I don’t know how.

24. February 2008 · Comments Off on MQOD · Categories: Quotes

Experience has taught me that powerful hands capable of performing whatever is most rapid and light are not always those which show to best advantage in tender and expressive pieces, and I declare in all good faith that I am more pleased with what moves me than with what astonishes me.

François Couperin, L’Art de Toucher le Clavecin, Paris, 1716

(Thanks, James Roe!)