Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
You know it, you love, it, and it just isn’t the holiday season without it: The Messiah Organist On Crack. If this holiday classic is new to you, give it moment and hang in there until the end; I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s 0:43 of unfiltered Messiah goodness.
Admittedly, it was a mystery to me which teams were even in this year’s World Series until the wonderfully entertaining video from the respective brass sections at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) and Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) went live on 10/22/2014. The clever bit is the brainchild of SLSO Principal Trumpet Karin Bliznik and BSO Fourth/Utility Trumpet Michael Martin. I asked Martin about what went into making the video and …
Among the string of Norm Lebrecht’s 10/17/2013 posts is one titled Worst classical covers of 2013 and it delivers what it promises vis-a-vis a string of curious album covers, not to mention one that is borderline creepy. Thankfully, Lebrecht’s post jogged my memory about a similar article from classicfm.com back in July I intended to write about but promptly forgot after getting sidetracked by labor dispute news. Here’s a few more …
Adaptistration’s editorial cartoonist, Paul Dixon, is concerned about the Minnesota Orchestra Association’s (MOA) direction and decided it was high time to say something about it. And since today marks the threshold for when MOA music director Osmo Vanska announced he would resign at any moment if the lockout isn’t ended and the ensemble is back to rehearsals, Dixon’s contribution couldn’t be better timed.
Even though Adaptistration is coming up on its ten year anniversary, one of the more vexing tasks is writing concise headlines that are both catchy and descriptive; oh, to be as clever as the Daily Show writers. But one man who never seems to have trouble writing headlines in Norm Lebrecht and he published this one yesterday: Concertmaster blows, shows the trombone how it’s done. His post features Neo Classical author, …