I can concentrate on the music now instead of making everyone happy. People think the tenure process is about whether you can play up to the orchestra’s standards, but it’s more about how you get along in your section.
-Michael Wayne (second clarinetist of Boston Symphony Orchestra)
I read it here.
Next Tuesday (**Ack! See update below!) I have a recital rehearsal (or an “almost rehearsal” since we’ll be checking out works but might not actually begin to truly rehearse what we choose) and a couple of Symphony Silicon Valley rehearsals and concerts. So work is now beginning for real (Merola was a great interlude, but two weeks of work surrounded by no gigs means it didn’t really feel like going back to work).
The Symphony concerts are outdoors at SJSU, and free to the public. I’ll be playing in the first two. Sadly the Cleo Laine show doesn’t use oboes, nor does the Beatles concert (boo hoo … both would have been quite fun to do), and the final concert (the band one) is on the same day I’m performing with San Jose Chamber Orchestra. In the past I would have gone ahead and done the three service day, but I’ve decided I don’t always have to do that. Yes, the income would have been nice. But no, the stress and racing from one gig to the next would not have been so much fun.
The following week we begin Opera San José rehearsals for Manon.
By then, too, all of my sixteen (possibly seventeen) private students will be back to their “normal” schedule of lessons.
I love getting back to this full schedule. Something about it makes me feel more alive. (And it gets me off the couch!)
Still no UCSC, though; I don’t go there until September 22, on the “Meet the Students” day or whatever we call it. Got that, oboists? This is the day you come in to play for me and see about taking lessons! As if UCSC oboists read this blog … hah!
**I was alerted to the fact that the rehearsal is, in fact, MONDAY. Good thing I wrote “See you Tuesday!” to a colleague. I’m not sure when I would have noticed it was Monday, even though it is clearly on my calendar for the correct day.
I’ve often said I’m not a huge fan of the woodwind quintet sound. There’s something about the many timbres (unlike the brass quintet or string quintet where the blend is so wonderful and unified) that doesn’t appeal to me, and much of the older music written for WWQ doesn’t seem all that great. But there are times, I admit, when I get a kick out of it, and if I’m playing it I do have fun. We begin our recital prep this coming week … and yes, we’ll be doing WWQ music.
I don’t know that we’ll be doing the Farkas, but here’s a fun little video by the Borealis Wind Quintet:
It’s possible we’ll do the Ewazen WWQ. Here is the first movement, played by the Soaring Spoon Quintet:
The entire group will be deciding what to play, of course, but I sure wouldn’t mind doing this as well (Russian National Orchestra Wind Quintet playing the second movement of Three Moods by Andrey Rubtsov):
