Upcoming Concert: Beethoven Nine!

This week I am playing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra. What an absolute treat!

It has been years since I last subbed in this orchestra, and they have a new music director - David Danzmayr - who is simply marvelous. In our first rehearsal Monday night, I was impressed with the improvements he was able to make in the group, the simplicity of his requests and the immediacy of our responses to them. He never raised his voice or got excited, but simply made corrections in a friendly, cheerful manner and expected them to happen - and they did! This very pleasant work environment is a delightful change from some other regional orchestra experiences I’ve had, and I’m looking forward to the next few rehearsals and the concert.

What is it about Beethoven Symphonies? I think I will never get tired of playing this music. You know that I am crazy about twentieth century repertoire, and even newer material - but all old music was new once. Beethoven just writes so beautifully and powerfully for the orchestra. Every articulation is meaningful, and the colors are just so rich, and the orchestration makes it easy to play. His technique is not always easy, I hasten to add, and the endurance issues are not insignificant - but when I’m playing a solo I can always be heard, and it also happens to be made up of the most perfect notes that could possibly be played at that moment. In a Beethoven symphony I am always trying to live up to the greatness of the music - and that is a wonderful challenge.

The Ninth is, of course, particularly monumental, and deservedly famous. This concert will be grand, exciting, deep - and beautiful. Please come. Details HERE.

Comments

Zoe's Musical Beginnings

I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies. Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked. I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel. If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance. Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street. She makes us sing along. She loves it when we clap at the end. When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later. Her immediate interest is in

Cleaning Your Reeds

Updated: I've posted a video of my plaque cleaning technique HERE ! Oboe reeds are made from organic material, and over time it is inevitable that they will age and change. The first few days of change are usually quite welcome, as you break the reed in by playing and the opening gradually settles down to something you can be comfortable with and the response becomes more and more predictable. You might even hit a plateau where it appears to be perfectly consistent and reliable for several days! But after that, the reed seems to be on a constant gradually accelerating downslope, until it eventually collapses into a sharp, non-responsive, mushy mess. We can rejuvenate the reed during this time by cleaning it, and can often extend its life as well! There are three good ways to do this. First, least invasively, you can just run some fresh water through and over the reed AFTER you play each time. Go ahead and rinse that reed in the sink, shake it as dry as possible, and tu

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate. You can find that HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts. And it's little wonder. Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home. The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose. More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull. A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inconsistent scraping, an

ProneOboe

Search This Blog