“During a concert of the Virginia Symphony at the 400th anniversary celebration of the founding of Jamestown, President Bush briefly took over conducting the orchestra, which explains why the orchestra is now $4 trillion in debt”…
At least that’s what Saturday Night Live reported during the 5/19/2007 Weekend Update segment (a reoccurring sketch which parodies current events via a traditional evening news program format). The bit appears at 1:03 seconds into the video (click to watch).
Did the comedy writers at Saturday Night Live know that, as a whole, the orchestra business is weathering one of the roughest bouts of deficits in decades? Probably not; instead, they were likely taking a shot at one of their regular targets and found the President’s brief appearance with the Virginia Symphony a good vehicle for the joke.
Nevertheless, the bit is funnier than anyone on the cast or writing staff probably assumes and I nearly fell off my couch laughing. As such, if you find yourself unable to laugh at the bit (or at least smile), then that’s a good sign that you need to poke your head up out of the day-to-day grind of the business and take a breather.
Postscript: Here’s a fascinating Saturday Night Live/orchestra business connection – NBC’s Studio 8H, where Saturday Night Live/ has been broadcast since 1974, was first built for the NBC Symphony Orchestra…
Most professional orchestra collective bargaining agreements expire during the summer months and since the economic downturn, it is increasingly common to see groups continue…
One day after a report that bargaining was stalled, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (FWSO) announced it reached a tentative agreement. The Federal Mediation…
Technically, studio 8-H was built in 1930 along with the rest of the RCA building. The studio was then refitted to accomodate the Toscanini Orchestra, which made its broadcast debut on December 25, 1937. Interestingly,the entire NBC Symphony venture and Toscanini’s participation hinged on two rather blatant lies. Toscanini was assured by Samuel Chotzinoff, NBC’S emissary, that no NBC staff musicians would lose their jobs when the NBC Symphony was formed. As top musicians from other orchestras joined the NBC, many of the staff orchestra did, in fact, lose their jobs. Secondly, the NBC Symphony musicians were not employed exclusively as Toscanini Orchestra members. They had to play other programs. This was not discovered by Toscanini until several years later when a Toscanini rehearsal at Carnegie Hall ran late and players began literally crawling out on their hands and knees in front of the nearsighted maestro to get back to the studio to play a radio program. This realization caused the Maestro to be absent from the NBC podium for the entire 1941-1942 NBC season.
Chotzinoff was apparently willing to say anything to secure Toscanini’s services for NBC. Needless to say, the old man never trusted him again. I thought that might be interesting to your readers…
Just a little bit of trivia about our conductor in chief or as a friend put it to me the “Messtro”. In the year I became MD in San Angelo Texas and on July 3 1998 to be exact, the then governor of Texas conducted the San Angelo Symphony in Stars and Stripes. The office there proudly displays a signed photo of the event. On a slightly related note, I remember fondly watching on TV Dudley Moore get a conducting lesson on Don Juan from Solti with Moore exclaiming, “I have never done this before”. Some years earlier though he filmed both Foul Play and Unfaithfully Yours playing a conductor in both and he looked pretty good in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto!
The first skit on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live was The Dead String Quartet (as announced by Don Pardo). Four players in black tie, with Chevy Chase on cello, asleep on their chairs. Chase begins to sag, then fall from the stage. He then bounded up and with great enthusiasm, spoke the words, “Live! From New York! Its…”
First sketch ever was the Belushi / O’Donoghue language tutor skit. You know, the “feed your fingertips to the wolverines” sketch. Dead Quartet was later in the season.
Apparently his advisors had told him that the Viola section would welcome him as a liberator.
But don’t worry, his plan for solving the orchestra’s deficit is to cut fundraising.
Technically, studio 8-H was built in 1930 along with the rest of the RCA building. The studio was then refitted to accomodate the Toscanini Orchestra, which made its broadcast debut on December 25, 1937. Interestingly,the entire NBC Symphony venture and Toscanini’s participation hinged on two rather blatant lies. Toscanini was assured by Samuel Chotzinoff, NBC’S emissary, that no NBC staff musicians would lose their jobs when the NBC Symphony was formed. As top musicians from other orchestras joined the NBC, many of the staff orchestra did, in fact, lose their jobs. Secondly, the NBC Symphony musicians were not employed exclusively as Toscanini Orchestra members. They had to play other programs. This was not discovered by Toscanini until several years later when a Toscanini rehearsal at Carnegie Hall ran late and players began literally crawling out on their hands and knees in front of the nearsighted maestro to get back to the studio to play a radio program. This realization caused the Maestro to be absent from the NBC podium for the entire 1941-1942 NBC season.
Chotzinoff was apparently willing to say anything to secure Toscanini’s services for NBC. Needless to say, the old man never trusted him again. I thought that might be interesting to your readers…
Just a little bit of trivia about our conductor in chief or as a friend put it to me the “Messtro”. In the year I became MD in San Angelo Texas and on July 3 1998 to be exact, the then governor of Texas conducted the San Angelo Symphony in Stars and Stripes. The office there proudly displays a signed photo of the event. On a slightly related note, I remember fondly watching on TV Dudley Moore get a conducting lesson on Don Juan from Solti with Moore exclaiming, “I have never done this before”. Some years earlier though he filmed both Foul Play and Unfaithfully Yours playing a conductor in both and he looked pretty good in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto!
The first skit on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live was The Dead String Quartet (as announced by Don Pardo). Four players in black tie, with Chevy Chase on cello, asleep on their chairs. Chase begins to sag, then fall from the stage. He then bounded up and with great enthusiasm, spoke the words, “Live! From New York! Its…”
First sketch ever was the Belushi / O’Donoghue language tutor skit. You know, the “feed your fingertips to the wolverines” sketch. Dead Quartet was later in the season.
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75a.phtml
Let’s not forget the Conductors’ Club skits, which, cruelly funny as they were, probably set back the cause of classical music in America a few years.