Season winding down

Sorry for the lack of posts as of late - as with most musicians, especially choral musicians, May marks the beginning of the end of the season. Teaching fished up at the start of June, I conducted the last concert of the season with my chamber choir on Saturday- it went very well - and then in about a month, the last concert with the Symphonic choir. So my summer posts will likely deal more with our Sonoma wine trek, and hopefully reports of a decrease in my golf handicap, then they will with choral music.

Someone did forward this video to me today, and I felt I had to share it.

I think that this concert with the Berlin Philharmonic and the classic rock group "Scorpions" just might have been the highlight of the year for the orchestra. Just watching them play puts a smile on my face!

The Perfect Swing and the Pefect Gesture?

I always thought that a great choral conducting doctoral dissertation would be "The Correlation Between Good Conducting Technique, and the Perfect Golf Swing". Ok, it probably wouldn't be up for the Julius Herford Prize, but nevertheless, it is one that I would probably put on my required reading list for my conducting courses.

About ten years ago, nearly eleven now, when I first moved to Edmonton to begin graduate studies in choral conducting, I was what you'd call a "weekend hacker" in the golf world. I thought I played OK, averaged about 108 strokes a round, parred a few holes, even birdied one or two. I then found out that both my supervisor and a new friend, also a choral conductor, were avid golfers. I was very happy about this - until I played with them for the first time. Not realizing that one was a mid-teen handicap, and the other nearly a scratch (zero) handicap. I felt completely useless, and at time utterly embarrassed to be playing with them.

Over the next few years, I found that they were very patient people, and also good teachers of the game, and I steadily improved over time. I also started to find some comparisons between the golf swing, and conducting gesture. Things like foot positioning, weight transfer, using gravity to your advantage and tempo. I even discovered an "ictus" in golf (ball striking). Since that time I've had a few lessons, joined a club, and have been as low as a 14 handicap. I've had a hole in one, and have seen the low 80s on my card a number of times. I have also beat my supervisor in a game or two (I don't recommend you do this prior to your defense date), and now I play upwards to sixty round a year. Up here, our golf season starts early May, and ends late November. Today was day one!

Every once in a while, when I am coaching a conducting student I catch myself saying something like "it's just like timing a perfect golf swing" and then I look to see a blank face and realize "oh ya, that dissertation hasn't been written yet ... someday, you'll understand ..."

Charles Ives Meets President Bush

Thanks to Tom Allen, and his great CBC morning show (which tragically will be going off the air this coming fall to make way for the new CBC2 programing changes - but that's another blog post) for finding this good one:

Quote from Tom Allen's "Junk Drawer":

Here's the musical event Charles Ives waited for his entire life. On April 16, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited the White House. Two musical groups were there to welcome him - the Herald Trumpets from the US Army Band, and the President's Own Marine Band. The President, not surprisingly, was there, too. Protocol says that any time the President of the United States turns up in an official role, the band has to play "Hail to the Chief." As you hear from the clip, protocol apparently doesn't say they have to play it in just one key. The story is that one group came to rehearsal and the other didn't, so they ended up, at the big moment, playing the same piece in different keys. I've received, predictably, contradictory reports of which group, the Army or the Marines, fired in the wrong direction, but the result was a direct hit for music fans who like their military bands on the experimental side. It's fantastic!

Here's the link to the video and sound

It is a real player video and might require you to upload something to hear it.

How loud is too loud?

At a few key moments in our RES concert a week ago, a back desk first violinist wore her construction-grade ear protectors in order to block out the five or six percussionists behind her. I could not figure out how one could actually play with those things on, but this player is often seen wearing them in large orchestra concerts.

However, an article from the New York times came across my email this morning, outlines the European "noise-at-work" limits, which directly impacted the premiere of a new orchestral work. The article can be found here.

Week one comes to a close

So far, it's been a great week here in Ottawa. The first full week of adjudicating is coming to a close tomorrow, and so far it's been pretty light. I've adjudicated all the choral classes this week, everything from junior choirs, through church choirs, through high school choirs and even small ensembles. Without going into too much detail, I've heard some GREAT choirs, particularly from the two art schools (one French and one English).

Tomorrow I'm adjudicating the pipe organ classes. I'm looking forward to it, but maybe slightly apprehensive. Organ was my first major, and I still play quite a bit, but I haven't been solely involved in organ playing for almost ten years now. To top it off, BOTH of my teachers from when I was living in Ottawa will be there tomorrow, and I'll likely be adjudicating their students. That's some pressure!

After that though, I get the rest of the day off, where I'll be going to this concert, and I'm really looking forward to it. Then the weekend off, and then six straight days of A LOT of junior piano classes to adjudicate!