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ISO: Some Great Steps and Opportunities to Build Momentum
Good news: the ISO website donation page now has information on the matching-grant challenge (for the current ISO contract to remain in effect, $5 million from new donors must be raised by February 3,...
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“Whirled Drumming”
Here’s a great way to start your day. I’d love to know the back story behind how this kid developed his washing-machine virtuosity. Also interesting to see that it’s gone from about 1000 views to...
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In What Ways is Opera [and Classical Music] Thriving and in What Ways is It...
Fascinating interview from Failure Magazine (!) on the state of opera, with Carolyn Abbate, co-author of the recent A History of Opera. Much food for thought (comments/questions from the article author...
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One way to get the audience age to “plummet”
Want younger audiences? One more great quote from the Carolyn Abbate interview on opera (links in my previous post): What would be brilliant is if an opera company or directors and producers tried to...
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Classical Music, Churches, Clubs, and Galleries: Is “Serving Art and God” Next?
For years I’ve thought that the parallels between the challenges facing mainstream, traditionally-presented classical music concerts and those facing mainline Protestant churches were striking....
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Orchestra Audiences: Aging and Dying Out, or Just Shrinking?
OK, last post of my morning blogathon. My friend, colleague, and former student Jon Silpaymanant has a number of posts questioning the interpretation of data widely used to document the aging of...
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What’s a “well-prepared lesson”?
How do you, whether student or teacher, define a “well-prepared lesson”? I mean, in this case, that the student is so well-prepared that after the lesson, the teacher says to a colleague or...
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To Blog, to Tweet, or to Facebook?
When I first started blogging, which I think was in 2005, it was new and exciting and a great way to connect with people. My inspiration was a series of sabbatical trips to New York, and I wrote about...
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Getting Over “Gymtimidation”: How I Did It
It’s quite remarkable, and in some ways unfortunate: I can sit on an airplane and post things on the Internet. I subscribe to a monthly service, Boingo (the focus groups that led to that name must have...
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Unmagical
Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes when it doesn’t, it does. What am I talking about, you ask? It’s the magic of getting a discount hotel room, then slipping the desk clerk...
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What Difference Does Marriage Make?
What difference does “marriage” make to same-sex couples? Here’s the difference it makes for me. I was probably 21 or so. My parents were horrified at my attraction to men, and my defiant embrace of a...
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Lie Down and Listen in the Dark
I’m just back from the “Lie Down and Listen In the Dark” event at DePauw University, where I am the cello professor. Katya Kramer-Lapin (fantastic pianist) and I played the “Louange à l’Éternité de...
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Janos Starker Radio Tribute (Streaming) 7:00 PM ET Tonight
I just confirmed with WIFU FM that their show Artworks will be devoted to Janos Starker (who passed away Sunday morning) this evening. Nothing’s up on the website about it as I write, but should be...
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The Festival, Part I
I’m in the midst of the ninth summer of organizing concerts in Greencastle, Indiana, the small town where I live. For the last few summers, we’ve been calling it the Greencastle Summer Music Festival....
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Glorious Mistakes
One of my Facebook friends is the double bassist and critic Chantal Incandela, who blogs at Mahler Owes Me Ten Bucks and writes for Nuvo in Indianapolis. It’s an interesting professional double life...
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“A degree in music is the best preparation for anything.”
Everyone in the music world has now sent each other Joanne Lipman’s NN Times article, Is Music the Key to Success? (We seem to agree that yes, it is.) Lipman writes about the many people who are...
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NY Winter Term Trip: We Were Directed by Julie Taymor Today
Back in NY, this time with 13 DePauw students and my DePauw faculty colleague Christopher Lynch for our New York City Arts and Culture Winter Term trip. Winter Term takes most of January, and is a time...
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New York Philharmonic, 1/9/2014
More on our DePauw WT (Winter Term) trip (I’m working backwards from today, Friday.) My colleague Chris Lynch and I want the students to see a broad array of the arts in NY. Last night, we went to the...
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January 10: A Roomful of Teeth and Some Organized Chaos
This trip is going by so fast! When I last checked in with you, I’d taken us only as far as last week’s New York Philharmonic concert, and Friday afternoon’s Midsummer Night’s Dream videotaping (see...
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Rigorously Playful: Today’s Adventure in Improvisation
This semester at the DePauw School of Music (where I’m on the steering committee for our developing 21st Century Musician Initiative), I’m having a blast teaching, well make that facilitating, a...
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