Does This Violin Make Me Look Fat?

Can a passion for the perfect instrument become incapacitating? Holly Mulcahy examines the issue in her latest article at The Partial Observer, which serves as an excellent companion to the article Jason Heath just published over at Arts Addict about what string players go through to find the "perfect bow." On a related note, I’m pleased to announce that Holly’s column will become a permanent addition to the Inside The Arts …

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Travel Pay: Front And Center

Hot on the heels of a post about the impact of increased gas prices, the 5/1/2008 edition of The Isthmus-Madison published an article by Tom Laskin which reports on the current collective bargaining agreement negotiations between the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO) and their musicians. One of the primary issues examined in the article is how the organization will address changes to travel pay… The Isthmus-Madison article reports that musician spokesperson Todd …

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Inside The Arts Podcasts Have Arrived

After months of talking about it, the new series of Inside The Arts podcasts have arrived. The inaugural episode, entitled Battle Of The Brahms, is available at www.insidethearts.com/podcasts. Guest panelists Frank Babbitt, Collins Trier, and John Rosenkrans (all members of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra) do a brilliant job at demonstrating how to un-stuff the stuffiness of a classical music review program. You’ll feel like you’re part of the "in …

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Too Much Of A Good Thing

Although this notice could be filed under "better late than never" I wanted to take a moment to point out an article which appeared at The Partial Observer at the beginning of April by Holly Mulcahy which examines the realities of numerous job openings in one orchestra. Holly does an excellent job of walking a reader through reasons why copious numbers of openings in the same ensemble should serve as a …

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Because Shut Up, That’s Why!

Ita_podcasts
Back in the beginning of April, 2008 Jason Heath (Arts Addict and Double Bass Blog author) and I recorded the first three episodes of Inside The Arts’ new series of podcasts and next Monday, the first episode from that session goes live. This inaugural series is a music review podcast where a panel of guests listens to recordings and then offers comments. Did I mention there’s a catch? In order to make things more interesting, panelists typically aren’t told what or who they are listening to until after they’ve heard the selections and offered comments…

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