Skip to main content

Upcoming Concerts and a Treat From My Archive

This Friday night the Northwest Indiana Symphony has a great concert. Our featured piece is the Dvorak Cello Concerto, which is one of my all-time favorites. In fact, after the first time I played it in the orchestra I went out and bought the solo cello part to transcribe for the oboe - I was that much in love. As it turned out, the outer movements were a little too unidiomatic for me to tackle that year, but I did wind up performing the slow movement several times. This is a live performance, warts and all. Don't judge me.



I'm really looking forward to playing it from within the orchestra again, and listening to our excellent soloist, Joshua Roman. I don't know where I went wrong in life that I don't play the cello.

As if that weren't enough excitement for one week, we also have a South Bend Symphony concert on Sunday afternoon. The theme is J.S.Bach and Sons, and we are featuring the very demanding Orchestral Suite number 3 and Brandenburg 5. My favorite part of this concert is getting to hear my colleagues play - the Brandenburg Concerto features our marvelous principal flutist and principal second violinist, and because there are no oboes in that work I will be free to listen and enjoy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Blog has MOVED

 Have you been waiting ... and waiting ... and WAITING for a new Prone Oboe post?  Don't wait here anymore!  The blog has moved to https://jennetingle.com/prone-oboe/  and will not be updated here on Blogger anymore.  Please come and check me out there!  I love you all - stay safe out there!  Jennet

Beauty of Sound

In our dress rehearsal Saturday afternoon, the conductor did exactly what I often do to my students - he asked the violins to play more beautifully, and they did.  He didn’t tell them how, or give them a flowery expressive speech, he just asked for more beauty of sound, and they immediately gave it to him.  To a great extent the sound we produce is set, based on our equipment and the shape of our mouths and our bodies - but it can be altered, too.  Adjustments in reeds and instruments can go a long way, but the key change we can make is in our own minds. I don’t know how to explain it physically, but if you determine the sound you want to make you can produce it.  Or at least you can lean in and approach it.  This is something I’ve been paying a lot of attention to lately in my own playing.  As I prepare the Saint-SaĆ«ns Sonata to perform on our Oboe Studio Recital (tonight at 7 - details HERE ), my approach is largely about beauty of sound and vibrato....

Breathing and the Brain

I’m working on the Bach E Major Partita, and it’s significantly difficult for me.  Not so much the notes, although E Major is not the most effortless key on the oboe.  Not so much the music-making, although I could work my whole life on solo Bach and never be perfectly satisfied with my choices, because it’s that complex and THAT good.  No, the problem is breathing, and breathing is always a challenging thing for a wind player. Oboists can play long, long phrases with ease. The opening in the reed is so tiny that it really rations the air, so we can play longer lines than any other orchestral wind instrument.  It’s also comparatively easy to circular breathe on the oboe, which means that we can actually take in new air while  playing and maintain an uninterrupted line.  The downside is that an oboist can never fully expel her air through that tiny opening.  We end up with excess carbon dioxide in our lungs, and as we breathe in again the new good air...