Concert Reminder

09. April 2011 · Comments Off on Concert Reminder · Categories: Concert Announcements

I had put this up a while back:

Francaix Quartet with Russ de Luna
Chamber Music Sundaes Series
April 10 at 3PM at St. John’s Church
Berkeley, California
Tickets are $20-25 415-753-2792

Here’s the whole program:

Concertino for Flute, Viola, & Double Bass 1925, Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942)
Cathy Payne, flute/piccolo; Nanci Severance, viola; Scott Pingel, Bass

Trio for clarinet, cello, & piano, opus 114, A minor (1891), Johannes Brahms, 1833-1897
Lawrence London, clarinet; David Goldblatt, cello; Gwendolyn Mok, piano

Duo for violin and cello, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756-1791
Duo No. 1, Bohuslav Martinu, 1890-1959
Leor Maltinski, violin; Angela Lee, cello

Quartet for English Horn and Strings, Jean Francaix, 1912-1997
Russ deLuna, English horn; Kelly Leaon-Pearce, violin; Gina Feinauer, viola; Margaret Tait, cello

Congratulations!

09. April 2011 · Comments Off on Congratulations! · Categories: Congratulations!

Tenor Juan Diego Florez has really delivered: a host of high Cs to a worldwide audience of millions _ and minutes earlier, his own baby boy in New York City.

RTWT

… can you imagine helping delivering your son and then going to sing an opera?

Well, okay, I can’t imagine going to sing an opera no matter what!

Earlier this month:

Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his wife, Eloísa Maturén, are the proud parents of a baby boy, Martín Dudamel Maturén. Eloísa Maturén gave birth Friday at 9:39 p.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The baby weighed in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces.

Mr. Dudamel, on the other hand (and understandably) opted to miss conducting a concert.

RTWT

I’ve Remained Rather Quiet On This

09. April 2011 · Comments Off on I’ve Remained Rather Quiet On This · Categories: Grumble

… not because it doesn’t make me angry, but because I’m just so darn lazy and neglected to get to it. But Norman Lebrecht has been reporting on the sad situation in Brazil for quite some time; all orchestra members were required to re-audition. Those that didn’t, it was reported, were fired.

Today Mr. Lebrecht has an update:

A Saturday concert in which a youth orchestra replaced the Brazil Symphony Orchestra, half of whose players were fired, was abandoned wothout a note being played when the conductor Roberto Minczuk was greeted with audience boos and applause.

A member of the youth orchestra then read a statement saying they refused to play in place of the dismissed musicians. The microphones were cut off, silencing his speech.

If you go to Mr. Lebrecht’s website you will find a huge number of entries about this debacle.

I know some will say that we should have to re-audition. Sorry, folks, but that’s not how this works. There are most certainly ways to dismiss a player who should be let go — at least here in the US. What bothers me most, I think is that five musicians from other countries were willing to go and audition these musicians. At this point 44 were dismissed. Pathetic. Sigh. And I’ll just leave it at that.

Plants And Music

09. April 2011 · Comments Off on Plants And Music · Categories: Read Online

“Music does affect the plants’ growth,” Laken told the Times-News as she waited for her project to be judged Thursday evening. “If you want to have healthy plants in your house you can play music to them, and they’ll grow faster. But classical music makes them grow faster than rock.”

I guess I need to play classical music outside for our plants … some are looking rather poorly.

RTWT

FBQD

09. April 2011 · Comments Off on FBQD · Categories: FBQD

At Piano and Oboe lessons with the kids, piano is not so bad…Oboe… ouch! my head hurts!

Little Einsteins

09. April 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Read Online

From Little Einsteins (who knew you could read transcripts of the show? Not I!):

00:02:24 Do you see little mouse?
00:02:28 there he is, on the xylophone.
00:02:35 Look, little mouse has a chunk of cheese for our rocket soup.
00:02:40 June: But he’s having a hard time carrying it.
00:02:43 Annie: That big cheese is too heavy for little mouse.
00:02:51 Quincy: Uh-oh.
00:02:51 The cheese fell inside that oboe.
00:02:56 [Oboe plays] June: Little mouse is going to jump inside the oboe to get the cheese.
00:03:02 Quincy: Be careful, little mouse.
00:03:07 June: Oh, no.
00:03:08 Little mouse and the cheese are stuck inside the oboe.
00:03:14 Don’t worry, little mouse.
00:03:16 I’ll get you out of the oboe.
00:03:18 I promise.
00:03:22 But how, quincy?
00:03:23 I can play the oboe to get little mouse unstuck.
00:03:28 If I play the oboe loud enough, it will push out little mouse andthe cheese.
00:03:35 June: Good plan, quincy.
00:03:36 Leo: Try it.
00:03:40 [Playing oboe] it’s working.
00:03:45 Little mouse is starting to come out of the oboe.
00:03:49 But I’m going to need your help to get him all the way out.
00:03:53 Hold up your oboe like me and wiggle your fingers to press the keys.
00:03:59 Now blow into the double reed.
00:04:01 [Playing] he’s almost out of the oboe.
00:04:08 Play really loudly.
00:04:11 Fortissimo!
00:04:18 We did it.
00:04:19 We got little mouse and the cheese out of the oboe.
00:04:26 Thanks, little mouse.
00:04:28 You were very brave.

Okay. That’s one stupid, non-Einsteinesque, little mouse.

And don’t you just hate it when cheese falls into your oboe?

TQOD

09. April 2011 · Comments Off on TQOD · Categories: TQOD

Dinner with the kind of people who all start singing the lick from Gabriel’s Oboe at the same time when The Mission comes up.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

09. April 2011 · Comments Off on Saturday Morning Cartoon · Categories: Saturday Morning Cartoon

Silly Symphony: Music Land (1935)