Joe Patti, my blogging cohort at Butts In The Seats, posted an open to the Inside The Arts bloggers that I think is best suited for just about anyone that has a connection to orchestras. Joe asks “Orchestras have some of the best trained and skilled musicians around. Why do they primarily confine themselves to a certain genre and periods of music? Why aren’t they playing all the best music out there? I know most groups have a pops series, but that still barely scratches the surface of the available material and it is separate from their main product. And really, why are the pops separate?”…
Gambling On The Lowest Common Denominator?
According to an opinon post on 6/19/2009 by Perry Tannenbaum at Charlotte’s Creative Loafing Arts and Entertainment blog, that seems to be exactly what is being suggested with regard to the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) decision to appoint Christopher Warren-Green as their new music director…
Jargon Ahoy!
One of the more interesting byproducts of the League convention last week was the level of frustration among some managers over whether or not recent rounds of reductions in expenditures were temporary or fixed. According to most attendees I spoke with, there was a strong aversion to words like “restoration” and “temporary;” in fact, serious efforts were underway to begin crafting new jargon to avoid those terms…
Don’t Wait, Buy Your Copy Now!
According to the Grant Park Music Festival’s (GPMF) website, describes itself as “The nation’s only free, municipally funded, summer-long, classical music series, the Grant Park Music Festival has been a key part of the lakefront’s vibrant history.” That means it is a government sponsored, autonomous orchestra; yes, an organization thought to only exist mostly in Europe has been around right under our US noses for the past 75 years. To celebrate their 75th anniversary, the GPMF commissioned a publication that I was lucky enough to get my hands on a few days before it is officially released…