I was all set to write a blog on my little sojourn into Shangri-La and then some exciting news popped up on the radar. It seems that, indeed, the lunatics are running the asylum.
A Little Help Here – part 3 – the inherit audience!
I’m now up in Lake Placid beginning my Summer stint having flown from Boston to Saranac Lake with the Stanley Cup behind my left ear! (pictures are below). I thought part 2 was it, but for those who crave the young audience, I think we need to stop dreaming of the challenge of the unknown, and stop the crazy marketing schemes that don’t work. We need to make it a matter of inheritance….
Mirror Mirror
A funny thing happened on the way through SocialMediaLand. I ran smack dab into the difference between what professional musicians perceive and what “normal” people perceive. If this doesn’t prove a disconnect then I don’t know what does.
The New Age of Anxiety…
Milton Babbitt was right. He was just right for all the wrong reasons.
A Little Help Here!…Part 2
We’ve all heard of no pain…no gain! We all espouse and/or have been told that we need to exercise fiscal responsibility, but what about fiscal accountability? Why is it that in a good year orchestras tout their fiscal responsibility, when in fact sometimes it’s only a good year because some of next year’s advance ticket money is spent to make it a good year…isn’t that fiscally irresponsible, cheating or maybe even fraudulent?…..
Harlem In Italy – with apologies to Signor Berlioz
I’m back. What, you didn’t miss me? For the past five days I was in the lovely city of Torino, Italy, home of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. But really I was in New York City, north of the Upper West Side, deep in the heart of Harlem.
The Paper It’s Printed On
I’m a conductor. That one phrase will cause many people who read this blog to reach for an antacid. Despite that it does have some relevance to what is going on in Philly.
A little help here!!!!!!
The full force of the reality of Orchestra bankruptcy arrived in a simple letter informing me that I was being let go as Principal Pops Conductor of the Syracuse Symphony. Then I realized nearly 100 people received this letter and the organization I had worked with for nearly a decade was about to cease to exist. The cost of a city losing an orchestra is immeasurable and losing the brilliant musicians who were excellent every day and are now out of work, is simply unacceptable. I have a simple request…..