January 2009 Archives

You knew that David Robertson was ready as he literally skipped onto the stage for Friday morning's Coffee Concert.

When there is a musician break during rehearsal, orchestra members scatter and gather about taking care of various needs: physical, social, psychological, professional (as in, practice some more).

David Robertson began rehearsals on this chilly morning with warm birthday greetings to Mozart and SLSO violinist Angie Smart, adding "no wonder she plays Mozart so well."

We are under a winter storm warning in the Lou, which means people will be swarming the supermarkets and loading up with bread, butter, milk and eggs--the staples of the Midwest.

I've written about the magazine MUSO before, the wonderfully entertaining magazine in the U.K. that writes about classical music as if it were a wonderfully entertaining art form. Published in Manchester, the city that gave us Factory Records and Joy Division and the Happy Mondays (see the film 24 Hour Party People), MUSO is geared to the younger generation of music enthusiasts--and, I will add, to the young at heart--and is eminently fun. Give the website a go: www.musolife.com.

I don't know if it was just me, but everyone felt a little edgy around the hall today. Maybe it was the Shostakovich.

Across the frozen wasteland of the Powell Hall parking lot, a chilling wind battering all in its path, I saw Richard Holmes, Principal Timpani of the SLSO, approaching the stage door, huddled deep in his winter coat.

The musicians invited staff down to their lounge for a little in-between-young-peoples-concerts appreciation. I wish I'd grabbed the camera because the spread of baked goods was truly phenomenal. Not just your standard Bundt cake samplers, but different breads and cookies and pastries, heart-shaped cookies and persimmon cookies (violinist Becky Boyer Hall explained she gathered and ground the persimmons at home). Sweet stuff and grainy stuff, healthy and decidedly decadent. All I can say is thanks, it's nice to be appreciated.

The Lou is experiencing the kind of cold that is rare for this almost-Southern city. I grew up in the North Country, so I know winter, but I've tried to forget it. The other morning when I left the house and felt air like a solid, menacing force--I remembered. Then again, I saw cellist and Minnesotan Son of Norway Bjorn Ranheim in the parking lot and asked him how he liked the weather. "Loving it" he replied with a broad, happy smile.

Word of Randy Adams' death began making its way through Powell Wednesday afternoon. The initial responses to the passing of the former President and Executive Director of the SLSO were combinations of shock, deep sadness, and relief. Randy had struggled long and mightily with pancreatic cancer. There is a reason why we say at the end of such struggles "rest in peace."

The other evening I had an interesting conversation with my optometrist about conductors. In the dialogue that occurred before he started peering into my eyes, he asked, "What is the name of the conductor?" "David Robertson." "Right, right," he nodded.

A blog I check out every day is Amanda Ameer's Life's a Pitch, in which she applies her significant promotional insights onto the classical-music biz. Amanda questions why marketing trends that find success in various realms of getting and spending aren't tried in the land of orchestras. For example, the T-shirt: see Che Guevara, Barack Obama, and Leonard Slatkin fit to a T. Click.

I'm sure many of you heard on the morning drive to work the NPR report on mosquitoes. According to an article to be published in Nature, mosquitoes attract sexual partners by the sound of their wings. That little whirring you hear inside your ear in summertime could be one mosquito communicating to another: "hubba hubba."

The SLSO's live recording of John Adams' Harmonielehre, with David Robertson conducting, made the 2008 iTunes top-10 list for contemporary classical. Recorded right here in Powell Hall, March 16-18, 2007. If you haven't downloaded it as yet, get it: click

A sure sign that the musicians' much-deserved holiday vacation is almost over is the appearance of players checking out parts from the library. I spotted Larry Strieby (horn), Scott Andrews (clarinet), and Chris Woehr (viola) examining their immediate musical futures. The first rehearsals for the opera concerts with Kelly Kaduce, at Powell and Touhill, begin Thursday.

While I was away the SLSO enjoyed big houses for the Holiday Celebration concerts, Oz with Orchestra, and the New Year's Eve concert. There is no reason to perceive, however, any correlation between my absence and boffo box office at Powell. None whatsoever.