orchestra21

1962 sketch for a turntable by legendary designer Dieter...

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:32:00 -0500

1962 sketch for a turntable by legendary designer Dieter Rams

"Thank you for letting us see in more than one way, musically and seeingly."

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:57:11 -0500

“Thank you for letting us see in more than one way, musically and seeingly.”

- A response from one of the thousands of students who attended the WCFSO Hearing Pictures Youth Concerts last month. Another wonderful comment from the same class: ‘You sounded extraordinary and you made everyone be inspired. I love orchestra and I was amazed listening to you.’

As I wrote over on our Tumblr we’re inspired and amazed by these and scores of other thank you notes from our 4th and 5th grade audiences.

Hello, Levi Alba! [Born today at 12:30pm, weighing in at 8lb...

Mon, 07 May 2012 15:58:00 -0500

Hello, Levi Alba!

[Born today at 12:30pm, weighing in at 8lb 3oz, Mom and baby are healthy and happy.]

"The formally dressed were talking about their favorite Brandi Carlile songs, the hipsters talking..."

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:00:00 -0500

“The formally dressed were talking about their favorite Brandi Carlile songs, the hipsters talking about the amazing symphony. Heck, some of them were even talking to each other.”

- Any concert at which this is happening is a concert I’m thrilled to be a part of.

Happy to share marquee space with these artists!

Fri, 04 May 2012 17:10:00 -0500

Happy to share marquee space with these artists!

"A performance of such a high level of artistry and accuracy would not have been possible with any of..."

Fri, 04 May 2012 10:27:00 -0500

“A performance of such a high level of artistry and accuracy would not have been possible with any of our previous orchestras.”

- Extremely proud to read this assessment of last month’s Rite of Spring from a longtime observer of the WCFSO, George Day. Audio proof coming soon …

[via wcfsymphony]

Portland! I’ll be doing this with your fine orchestra on...

Wed, 02 May 2012 08:40:12 -0500

Portland! I’ll be doing this with your fine orchestra on Friday night. And you don’t even have trust me that Brandi Carlile and crew with symphony is a tremendous experience – just have a listen.

[Photos from Brandi’s October 2010 appearance with the WCFSO by Noah Henscheid]

"Originally, feathers evolved to retain heat; later, they were repurposed for a means of flight. No..."

Tue, 01 May 2012 09:29:24 -0500

“Originally, feathers evolved to retain heat; later, they were repurposed for a means of flight. No one ever accuses the descendants of ancient birds of plagiarism for taking heat-retaining feathers and modifying them into wings for flight. In our current system, the original feathers would be copyrighted, and upstart birds would get sued for stealing the feathers for a different use … There’s no such thing as originality. Invention and innovation grow out of rich networks of people and ideas. All life on earth [and by extension, technology] is built upon appropriation and reuse of the preexisting.”

- Hallelujah, David Shields. If only more of my colleagues in the music biz – particularly those engaged in the futile and counterproductive enterprise of locking down media – would see the light.

[via Explore]

In 1958 Dick Cole snapped this shot of Buddy Holly right here in...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:01:43 -0500

In 1958 Dick Cole snapped this shot of Buddy Holly right here in Waterloo, Iowa. We’re thrilled to have Dick joining us at rehearsal tonight to photograph our preparations for tomorrow’s Buddy Holly tribute shows.

[via wcfsymphony]

"If your work is filled with the hope and longing for applause, it’s no longer your work – the..."

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:05:20 -0500

“If your work is filled with the hope and longing for applause, it’s no longer your work – the dependence on approval has corrupted it, turned it into a process where you are striving for ever more approval. Who decides if your work is good? When you are at your best, you do.”

- Seth Godin touches on a theme I’ve addressed here before, and one I wish orchestras would embrace with greater purpose. If we did we’d be creating much more important and relevant art than we are now.

[via cameronmoll]

I was just telling our local paper how much I dig Buddy...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:00:00 -0500

I was just telling our local paper how much I dig Buddy Holly’s music; definitely dig his steez as well!

[via nerdboyfriend]

Just for fun: An iPhone timelapse of 1200 elementary school...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 07:04:00 -0500

Just for fun: An iPhone timelapse of 1200 elementary school students arriving at last week’s WCFSO Youth Concerts, accompanied by a bit of the performance they came to hear.

[Shot with Frameographer]

Iconic Iowa

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:22:00 -0500

Iconic Iowa

Thank you Levon Helm for your deeply authentic and generous...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:00:00 -0500

Thank you Levon Helm for your deeply authentic and generous music and spirit.

WCFSO Instrument Petting Zoo Here at WCFSO we are busy...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:20:00 -0500

WCFSO Instrument Petting Zoo

Here at WCFSO we are busy wrapping up this season’s offerings for youth, hosting over 3500 elementary school students for a program focused on hearing and seeing and giving the last of our free Lollipops concerts for first-time concertgoers. I’ll have more coverage of our schools concerts in a few days; in the meantime have a listen to another of our very popular offerings for kids, the WCFSO Instrument Petting Zoo, which clearly lives up to its name in sound if not smell.

[Recorded last month at the Cedar Falls Community Center; my two-year-old is banging away on the percussion somewhere in there]

‘When I was a child, I used to jump with my friends for...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:02:00 -0500

‘When I was a child, I used to jump with my friends for joy and happiness … we have all forgotten the beauty of the games we had in childhood.’

Recapturing seemingly lost joy and happiness, a young Iraqi music maker goes airborne in Jamal Penjweny’s series Iraq is Flying. Penjweny, an Iraqi-Kurdish photographer based in Baghdad, shot this and other inspiring images between 2006 and 2010 while covering the conflict there.

[via timelightbox]

Post Stravinsky

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:38:00 -0500

Post Stravinsky:

All of my posts related to Igor Stravinsky, ahead of tonight’s WCFSO performance of Rite of Spring. Or, if you prefer the photo highlights:

"Most conductors are inclined to cope with the metric difficulties of these passages in such cavalier..."

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:01:00 -0500

“Most conductors are inclined to cope with the metric difficulties of these passages in such cavalier fashion as to distort alike my music and my intentions. This is what happens: fearing to make a mistake in a sequence of bars of varying values, some conductors do not hesitate to ease their task by treating them as of equal length. By such methods the strong and weak tempi are obviously displaced, and it is left to the musicians to perform the onerous task of readjusting the accents in the new bars as improvised by the conductors, a task so difficult that even if there is no catastrophe the listener expects one at any moment, and is immersed in an atmosphere of intolerable strain.”

- According to Stavinsky, conducting catastrophes were visited on Rite of Spring with some regularity during its first decades of existence. With the increasing prevalence of mixed meter music since that time such deficiencies of execution have generally become a thing of the past. And perhaps Stravinsky was being a bit tough on his fellow conductors – below are Leopold Stokowski’s metrical subdivisions of the Sacrificial Dance revealing the original rhythmic conception of the passage [most modern editions of Rite have the first 5/16 and 4/16 bars divided as they are here]:

[Stokowski score from the wonderful collection of musical material at the Penn Library]

Stravinsky on the premiere of Rite of Spring Click for mp3...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:09:30 -0500

Stravinsky on the premiere of Rite of Spring

Click for mp3 →

Recorded in 1967 during the composer’s visit to Théâtre des Champs Elysées, site of the infamous 1913 premiere.

[Download]

‘Although I had conceived the subject of the Sacre du...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:30:00 -0500

‘Although I had conceived the subject of the Sacre du Printemps without any plot, some plan had to be designed for the sacrificial action. For this it was necessary that I should see Roerich. He was staying at the moment at Talachkino, the estate of Princess Tenicheva, a great patron of Russian art. I joined him, and it was there that we settled the visual embodiment of the Sacre and the definite sequence of its different episodes.’

Igor Stravinsky explains the inception of Rite of Spring and reveals his first collaborator on the work, the painter Nicholas Roerich. Pictured are several of Roerich’s 1912 set design variants for the premiere production one year later. [He subsequently conceived scenery and costumes for two other productions of Rite, documentation of which is archived here.]