Classical Music in North America ~ how should it be experienced?

This article  called, 10 Things That We Should Change In Classical Concerts, particularly hits home with me because at the very last concert I performed, I was reprimanded by another musician while on stage. What was I doing? Well, the concert was uncovered, outdoors and rainy so many string players brought their cases out on stage. I brought my Mary Poppins umbrella. A couple other members saw it and jokingly suggested I should start dancing and "singing in the rain". In response I took my folded umbrella and started pumping it up and down and doing the leg kick from my chair, which was on the very outside, so I was visible to absolutely everyone in attendance. The reprimand was that I should behave because I'm on stage now. I answered back, and firmly believe, that audiences should see happiness and joy on stage and not always a somber stare from its musicians. There was no discussion because soon the concert began and I respect the protocols to be quiet and attentive for the conductor and concertmaster. But to show an audience that classical music is fun; it's fun to play, it's fun to listen to; it's fun to watch; its fun to absorb, is something I try to do every time I have a chance to interact with my audience. 

What do you think? 

What parts of this article do you agree or disagree with?

Why?

This is the outdoor venue at the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock.

This is my usual self, fun, happy and full of life! The photographer took this picture as I was walking on stage.

Bruckner Symphony No.7 & a trip to Little Rock

It is funny. I went to type, or swype as it were, the word Arkansas into my phone and it didn't know the word. I wonder what people from Arkansas think...having to add their state's name into the phone dictionary.

I digress. I'm heading to Little Rock this week to play in the Arkansas Symphony! It seems like it's been forever and what a better way to return than with a concert including Bruckner Symphony No.7. I've wanted to play one for a long time so I'm finally getting to fulfill my dream. :)  Last year I checked a Mahler Symphony off my list for the first time and this year it is a Bruckner Symphony. Let's keep the awesome pieces coming!

So for any friends that are in the Little Rock area, send me a note since I'll be there for a week and will have time to visit. And for any of my friends in Chicago. I'm getting to and from Little Rock via the Windy City, so when I return I can spend a few extra days if I'm so inclined :)

Don't forget that you can keep up with me on a more daily basis (it's not quite daily, but more frequent than the blog) via Twitter. There is a feed in the right column of my blog, but you can also follow me here if you have a Twitter account.

It will be nice to escape the growing cold of the northern Indiana countryside, spend time performing and practicing instead of faucet repairing/replacing and gutter removal. And hopefully when I return, there will be an India visa waiting for me!!! Dare I hope? It's been such a long road, but I still hold onto the hope that until they reject my visa, the possibility still exists for my future tour through India and Asia performing awesome Bollywood tunes.

Dreaming*~*~*~*

...To Put On A Circus

"Perhaps we should mourn a little that good music, well played, is no longer enough to draw audiences". This is something I've been talking about for a while with people that I meet. It was Eric Harrison of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said yesterday in his review for the final pops concert of the Arkansas Symphony.

The concert was a great one, Cirque de la Symphonie, but it is sad to see that the fullest house outside of the ritualistic Christmas concert is the one where the music is showcased the least. What has happened to cause such a drop in live symphony concert attendance?

It's not the high prices. A symphony ticket will cost you $15-$30 while a pop rock concert will cost you nigh $100 or over.

It's not the time or day. Symphony concerts offer Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons.

It's not the lack of recognizable literature. You've all heard portions of this music in commercials, cartoons, restaurants, etc.

It's not the dress code. Symphonies now put on concerts like Beethoven and Blue Jeans so feel free to come as dressed down as you like.

It's not the lack of skill and preparation to behold on stage. These musicians on stage have trained their entire lives and rehearsed individually for weeks and together multiple times to put on just one show.

It's not that there are too few performances. Some symphonies perform every week, some every month, but they perform many months of the year so finding a concert is not difficult.

It is...Necessary to mourn. (click to read the article)

But it's also necessary to inspire our younger generations to appreciate classical music past and present. It's not all written by dead people. There are living composers whose works are premiered today! Take your children, your nieces and nephews, your neighbors' children, buy tickets for children at your local school or church. Spread the love and joy that classical music from yesterday and today can bring to the lives of the upcoming generations.

Let's mourn and then let's renew our spirits and rekindle the fire lost; lest it die away and be lost forever.

Last Concerts of the Season

Just a few concerts left to finish this year's orchestra season for me. The first is this weekend. It's an amazing concert with Brahms Symphony No.4 and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto performed by Midori!

http://www.arkansassymphony.org/concerts/midori-tchaikovsky/



Come one, come all. If you ask me I can probably get you in for free. You definitely don't want to miss this one!!!

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The other concert coming up the weekend after this is in Bartlesville OK with the Bartlesville Symphony Orchestra. We'll be performing works by Beethoven, C.P.E. Bach, and more.

Come join us next weekend and support the classical arts!!

http://bartlesvillesymphony.org/2012/05/altaft/



SEE YOU THERE :-)

Movie Night!

Movie music is usually some of my favorite music to play. Lucky for me, the orchestra usually puts on a movie music night once per season. And this year I'm here for it!

Wish you all could join me at the Arkansas Symphony tonight and tomorrow for: A Night At The Movies :)

We'll be playing pieces from The Godfather, Chariots of Fire, Disney, James Bond, Harry Potter, and my favorite to play, Pirates of the Caribbean!

Everyone laughed when I made note that I'd had a hard time deciding which movies to watch for my research since I didn't have time for them all. And then I suggested we all should be able to come dressed as a character from one of the films, but that idea, although greeted with smiles and chuckles, was vetoed immediately :(

There will be a boy singer for Lord of the Rings, tango dancers for Por Una Cabeza (from Scent of a Woman and True Lies), background movie showings, guest conductors; it will really be a spectacle of a show!



YOU SHOULD COME JOIN US AT THE MOVIES!!!!!!!!!!

The music of my life

Since I'm a musician for my livelihood primarily, I figured that some of you out there would like an update as to the music status of my life.

Currently, since the cruise industry is petering out on the string group realm, I'm revamping my efforts and heading a different direction. No, I'm not quitting cruise ships. There will still be lots of stories, lots of pictures, and lots of exciting, fun, and entertaining adventures. But just not yet.

I'm currently making ends meet here on land performing with the Arkansas Symphony in Little Rock and staying with friends.

That is, except for this month. This month I'm working at a retail store in Texas that I have worked for in previous years during the holiday season. Turns out they really needed me this year so it's been nice to have been a blessing to them and to be able to help them out during their time of need.

However, despite all warm and fuzzy feelings, I'm working in the retail business hours a day and that leaves very little time to work on my new venture.

I'm really looking forward to the middle of January when I'll be back out on the road again, staying at hotels and performing with the symphony. It will give me the time I need to really buckle down and work on this new project.

This new project I keep mentioning is a new show. So if all works out for me, you'll see me on the main stage next cruise instead of in the show lounge. There is a lot to do and I'll keep you abreast of my progress as I move along toward that end.

Right now, I'm at the very beginning stages. The concept and vision is already clarified and initial research is nearly complete. I'm hoping by the end of January, I will have all the research done and be in the process of procuring all the necessary music that I don't already own. Then it will be practice time and continued research and tweaking time. During this process I plan to start a crowd funding site. So if you're interested in helping me reach my goals you can watch for updates as to when that site is officially started and donate to my project.

Until that time, I'm happily busying myself here in Texas, trying to keep warm :-)  Glad it's not a snowy, white, and wintery Christmas here. Looking forward to more performance, more music, and more stages. If you'd like to come hear a concert in Little Rock, please let me know ahead of time and I'll do my best to procure you a free ticket to the show.

Thanks to one and all for supporting the arts.

It's what makes my world go round.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Blizzard!

I won the jackpot today. Well, not literally. In some fashions it snowed hurt and pain all day long. From before I awoke till I sit here writing this entry. It's been one of those days where I just had to laugh all day to avoid crying, and I almost didn't manage that several times.

So the title of this post is ironic in multiple ways. One is the before mentioned, and the other is what happened at the performance tonight. This weekend I'm performing in the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra's Christmas Pops concerts. But tonight held an ill surprise for me.

Performing on stage brings me so much delight and joy that I had nearly been able to stuff today under the rug for a few hours and revel in the delights of bringing holiday music to the masses. That is, until the very last song. Unbeknownst to the orchestra there was scheduled to be paper snow drifting down during the last number. It started snowing on all of us to which the violinists were a bit turned off since we don't want shreds of paper in our instruments. But apparently, the amount of falling snow wasn't enough because someone in charge of the effects ordered 'more snow'. So instead of light falling snow, it literally dumped a big bucket of snow, on me, AND ONLY ME, I MIGHT ADD. Now yes, everyone got more snow, and other violinists were not so happy, but I had to stop playing entirely and shake all the snow out of my violin, go rummaging around to dig it out of my cleavage, and I still had a huge pile sitting on my lap as well as it covered the floor around me so deep you couldn't see the stage through all the paper snow flakes. To top it all off, I was so surprised when the giant snowball landed on my violin right in front of my nose that I shouted "SHIT" at the top of my lungs. Turns out my voice really carries. I was lucky the children's choir was on the other side of the stage.... But I did provide comic relief for the rest of the first and second violin section, as well as some of the vesper choir, and a few woodwinds, and unfortunately Santa Claus as well....

Not until I had cleaned out my instrument and dug my way out from under the snow mound and nicely chewed out the special effects guys did I wander downstairs to the dressing rooms where, of course, I was the topic of conversion. No one had ever heard anyone shout an obscenity on stage so loud before and it was apparently very amusing. And everyone made sure to remind me that Santa Claus had also heard, so I was, for sure, now moved to the naughty list, if I wasn't there already. In response to this comment I sardonically responded to everyone after a brief pause, "Damn it", which brought riotous laughter each and every time.

Looking forward to tomorrow...said with as much sarcasm as nervous anticipation. Let's just say I won't be looking at the music during the last song. No, I'll be staring at the sky, and any potential giant snow balls that might decide to streamline their way down right onto me.  Won't catch me off guard twice!

So, with all necessary precautions present and accounted for, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW AND REALLY LET IT SNOW!!!

P.S. I'm quite sad I don't have picture to prove the giant mess and severity of my own personal Arkansas Symphony Snow Ball. Though, hopefully I won't have a chance to take a picture again...

Continuing onward in no given direction

This is going to be a wandering post....as the title sort of implies.

The reason being is that I don't know exactly where I'm going, in life that is. Yes, tomorrow I'm driving to Little Rock to play in the Arkansas Symphony. Whenever I get washed up on shore from the cruise ship industry I try to land somewhat near Little Rock so I can at least gain the resemblance of an income. (Although the resemblance is looking mighty bleak as of late).

So there is 'direction' in my life. But what I mean by that statement in the title is that I'm not sure where my life is headed.

The last few weeks I've been working on research for my new show that I want to pull together. But I'm not sure if I'll be able to manage it since I'll have to get funding and/or a producer to back me. If those two things don't come together there is simply no way my show will be possible.

There is another avenue that I very recently remembered for a short life path trek. However, how much time should I take away from my show in order to follow it and see if it's possible? Is it a better line of work for me right now? Would it have more potential for success? Would it be easier to get backers for the idea and then run with it as opposed to hobbling along at the one I'm attempting now?

Then there are the other odd little jobs and leads that I'm trying to complete in order to survive!  Those damned pesky bills to pay off college and credit cards from college and loans for my instruments, and food and gas.

Now I turn to a small tangent that I often express in verbal form to those brave enough to listen.  And that is, I believe money should not be the main nor only medium for trade. Why can't I trade things I'm good at for things I need? This used to work so well and then we decided that having only one medium was much better and it divided the people even more into segments of hierarchy. I'm good at a few things and quite handy at many others. I've also spent my entire life in the pursuit of this one goal, to perfect my violin skills, all the while knowing (and accepting) that I would receive very little compensation for my efforts. And honestly, I'm still completely fine with all of that. What I'm not ok with is the direction that society is heading which is effectively eliminating my career from the country.

As I try to continue my pursuit of a performance career there become fewer and fewer openings. Even in the last 10 years jobs have dropped off the map forever. Symphonies are going bankrupt, cruise ships are hiring fewer musicians all around and cutting the classical music all together for the most part and other outlets for classical music, like weddings and funerals or parties and teas are turning to recorded music or DJ's.

This trend reminds me of the title of another one of my blog posts, "Lost in a generation". That entry has nothing to do with this one, but it's something else we've lost in the younger generations; the ability to appreciate and support the fine arts.

Now it sounds like I'm going to do the whole harp against sports thing in favor of music in schools. (maybe another time). But I played sports in school, and out of school and I still do. I watch sports programs on television. I also get that in many sports you can't play them your whole life like classical musicians can and so the pay scale should reflect that (BUT not to the degree it does right now). I listen to non classical music. I buy non classical cd's. I go to non classical performances and the movies as such. (BUT I don't think these artists/actors should be payed more than nearly everyone on the planet. REALLY?  If our country was in dire straights I guess we could all die happily listening to pop music and watching the latest pop star bounce around on stage). I enjoy the not so fine arts, really, and support them when I can, but not to the exclusion of the fine arts.

Ok, rant over.

Basically, it feels like for the years since college I've been mostly successfully trekking through the woods. Occasionally, there would be two trails and I've had to choose, but it wasn't like now. Now, I've made it through the woods. I've reached the open field on the other side. There are no trails, there are no paths, there are no boundaries, there is nothing except the woods behind, from which I just emerged. Part of me wants to run back into the woods and the safety of the paths I now know so well, but I know that I can not do that. I must face the open field and find my way. I hope to find friends in this field. I hope to find clues and signs. I hope to learn that I can do more than just follow the path in front of me. I hope that in the field does not lurk a menace so large that it can not be overcome. I hope that I don't become bogged down and lose sight of the horizon. I hope that I don't give up and turn back to the woods.



So here's to hope, to friends, to unforeseen futures, to laughter, to life and to love.
May all my dreams come true.

Reading while Driving

I hope that title certainly got your attention!  It's not entirely true, but as you might notice from the picture below, it's not entirely untrue either.

Currently in my life of non cruising, I'm performing for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and catching a few other smaller gigs around the area. I'm not staying in Little Rock so I drive or fly in from wherever I'm currently at for the gigs and yesterday I had the misfortune of driving from Nashville to Little Rock. I say misfortune not because a drive of that sort of length would be unfortunate for me normally, but this particular trip certainly was.The reason being that there was not only a significant portion of highway blocked due to construction, but there was an accident at the same place. So, after parking on the highway for an hour we were finally routed off to the state highway that runs alongside. Imagine mostly semi trucks driving 30 mph through tiny towns in the dark and stopping for every stop sign and stop light. It took an agonizing amount of time before we were rerouted back to the US highway. I did in fact make it just in time for a fast shower (much needed for everyone's sake) and fast drive to rehearsal.

I was very happy to have an inverter so I could plug in my computer. Also very glad that I have a twistable computer so that I could balance the computer pad on my steering column and turn the screen around to read. It wasn't my planned activity for that time, but hey, that's how I am, adaptable to any given changing situation. A must for an itinerant musician!

If any readers would like to come listen to the Arkansas Symphony, please let me know and I'll get you a free ticket to come hear us play! Next up is the Christmas Pops Concert!