Adaptistration

"Walking a mile in another man’s shoes" is the theme for oboist, journalist, and author Blair Tindall’s Take a Friend to Orchestra contribution.  Helping patrons over any anxiety or self consciousness issues are critical elements in building tomorrow’s audience today.

Blair’s first book, Mozart in the Jungle, comes out in late June. Composer William Bolcom says "Blair Tindall’s book combines a personal memoir of her years as a gigging oboist in New York’s Upper West Side musicians’ ghetto with a trenchant analysis of what’s wrong with classical music today." 

With a review like that, how can you not be interested in what Blair has to say about bringing your friends to an orchestra concert? (Yes, I realize Blair is the second contributor who is also a professional oboist. Maybe it’s just a double reed thing; perhaps all of that back pressure helps stimulate neural activity.)

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Although she claims to be a technical writer, self described opera geek Lisa Hirsch’s writing reads like anything but dry, technical, stereo instructions.  Instead, her blog, The Iron Tongue of Midnight (I like it when people use some of the more obscure quotes from Shakespeare) is a veritable clearinghouse of fantastic ideas and discussions on a variety of culture concerns.

Lisa’s TAFTO contribution is also one of the most unique and well thought out pieces yet.  I’ll add some of my own thoughts to her superb point of view; but first, enjoy her contribution.

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Conductor and pianist William (Bill) Eddins has been a really popular guy this past year. Most notably, he was appointed as the music director for the Edmonton Symphony and as such has been the focus of dozens of newspaper articles worldwide and oh yes, he’s also the principal guest conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (not to mention the co-author of teh blog, Sticks and Drones)…

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