artists
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Daily Smile #2
I came across this last week and cringe-laughed for a good few minutes. I’ll let you watch before I comment: Oh, where do I begin. I mean, I’ve certainly heard my share of horn clams and mistakes of all kinds and “wtf-are-you-even-playing-the-same-piece?” moments on the podium, but one of the fundamental things a conductor should do is to NOT REACT LIKE THIS. In this instance I’m sure the horn player was mortified enough with his blipped entrance without having to face that look of death (he even stops conducting! During a concert!). You don’t need to magnify a moment like this with pouting or histrionics on the podium. It doesn’t…
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Stuff you should listen to #1
Confession: I don’t spend a lot of my spare time listening to classical music. It’s mostly because of the fatigue – I hear enough of it at work and want to let my ears be open to something else on my off time, and my tastes are eclectic. But occasionally I’ll encounter an orchestral work that strikes me as that “something else”, music that gives me a slightly different perspective, music that inhabits a slightly different world than the one I work in daily. A few weeks back I was with the Virginia Symphony performing a program that included a new piece for me, Tan Dun’s Pipa concerto My soloist…
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Positive payback
When I started my career as a conductor, I was fresh out of conservatory and newly married. I was teaching part time at Curtis and working for a small regional orchestra near Philly and doing the odd little gigs that came in. Paul and I made maybe $25K between the two of us, didn’t have health insurance and barely had two pennies to rub together. We were starving young musicians in all senses. I remember throughout those very lean early years that though money was tight, I didn’t want to completely curtail my social life, particularly the relaxing ritual of the post-concert drink. And on many occasions, after a cocktail…
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Let us be well
I awoke to heartbreaking news this morning of the death of one of my favorite singers; Scott Hutchison, the lead singer of the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit was found dead at Port Edgar, Scotland. Although the cause of death was not determined, from the response of his family and bandmates (and indeed anyone who listened to his music, and knew his struggles), it was clearly suicide. Mental health among performers and artists has been in the news lately, and Scott’s death feels like a devastating but timely reminder of both the toll it can take and its prevalence in modern society. Yet it still feels like a taboo topic…
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My favorite Ben
One of the coolest things about being a conductor who specializes in the Pops side of orchestral music is that I work with an incredible diversity of artists from all kinds of non-classical genres. And while it’s amazing working with all of them, I have a special place in my heart for Ben Folds. (Holy crap we looks so young…) We first worked together at the Mann Center in Philly in 2005 and it was a watershed moment for me – here was an artist whose music I loved and we were performing onstage in a way that seemed to be bringing together the best of piano-based alt-rock and the…