Archived under: News & Announcements, Random | Off topic
Random Monday: Cleveland Strike, Vlatkovic on BBC and Who’s Who
- Cleveland on strike
After 30 years without any work stoppages, the musicians in Cleveland are on strike. Considering our current economic climate in America, a strike of orchestra musicians (even one as high caliber as Cleveland) is a fairly bold move.
- BBC Listening
There are still two days to hear Radovan Vlatkovic and the Nash Ensemble.
- More Graas
I found John Graas listed as a side musician in this old recording of Patti Page. (Legendary trumpet squealer Maynard Ferguson is also listed.)
- Who is that?!
There was some talk in New York over a solo bow for a substitute clarinetist in the NY Phil. Meanwhile in Florida, a critic finally figures out who the guest principal horn was in Till Eulenspiegel.
- Black and Blue
from the Oh Get a Grip blog (viewer discretion advised on this link), a story:From dance I went to band.
My favorite cousin played the French horn in her school band, and I just had to play too. I had a good ear for music, so I signed up for my school’s marching band and spent the next few years struggling to play as well as everyone else. You see, I had the ear for music, but not the mouth. French horn demands a hell of a lot on the muscles of the lips and face. Some days, an hour of class would leave me with a throbbing mouth and cracked lips. Not a pleasant way to go through the rest of the school day. Plus I always got so damned nervous during auditions and exams that I bombed every single time.
I was the worst French horn player in the school, and I knew it. By the end of my junior year, I figured I’d suffered enough, so I didn’t bother to sign up for marching band the next year. When my instructor found out, he laid into me like nobody’s business. “You’re a quitter!” he screamed at me. “A lousy quitter who can’t commit and can’t finish what she started! And you’ll never amount to anything, ever!”
You better believe I never looked back when I walked away from that conversation.
- A nice review for a contemporary quintet
A horn quintet on CD by Richard Wernick gets a good review at Sequenza 21 (see the 2nd paragraph). The performers are Myron Bloom and the Juillard Quartet. Sounds interesting…
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Horn in E-flat Means What?
