Skip to main content

Upcoming Concert: Berlioz

I can hardly believe that we are starting the season up again!  I haven't played an indoor concert in months and hope I remember how.  We rehearse tonight for the first time and I am eager to see all of my South Bend Symphony friends again.

Annnnddddd... we're playing Symphonie Fantastique.  By Berlioz.  And I never get tired of that piece.



It's one of the first pieces that I "discovered" myself, as a high school student.  One of the first CDs I purchased for myself.  One of those that I would stay awake listening to in my room because it was just so thrilling.  And even if it's a little overly melodramatic for me now, my teenage heart still beats a little harder every time the English horn calls mournfully for her love and gets only the rumble of distant thunder in response...

I am a sucker for music that tells a story, particularly one of drug-addled hysteria and lost love and scaffolds and guillotines.

This will be a great concert.  Saturday night with the South Bend Symphony at the Morris.  Details HERE.

Comments

Post a Comment

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
Post a Comment
Read more

How Do You WISH You Could Describe Your Reeds?

In Reed Club last Monday, we took a moment before we started scraping to set some intentions.  We each said one word - an adjective to describe what we WANTED our reeds to be.  An aspirational adjective. Efficient was a word that came up, and Consistent . Dark and Mysterious . Mellow . Predictable .  Trustworthy .  Honest .  BIGGER . Reed affirmations actually felt helpful - both in the moment and in the results we found as we worked.  I don't know why that surprises me - I set intentions at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of a run, in the morning before I work.  I love a good affirmation.  I love WORDS.  But I'd sort of forgotten about the possibility of applying one to the mundane work of reed-making.   You don't have to know exactly how to GET to that result.  But having clarity in your mind about what that result is?  Helps you to stop going down unhelpful rabbit holes...
2 comments
Read more

Micro Rests

 For oboists, endurance is a huge problem.  We can play an endlessly long phrase, because of the way the instrument is constructed, but we can really only do that a few times in a row before our embouchure starts to get fatigued.  We develop a buildup of air that feels exhausting to hold onto, and the thought of sustaining that kind of energy over  an entire page of music, much less a 45 minute recital program, is intimidating.    There's almost always a lesson, a week or two before a jury or a recital, where my student comes in and says, "I just can't DO this! I can play every detail in my music, but I can't put the whole thing together!  My mouth comes right off the oboe when I try - I'm going to fall apart in front of the audience, and it's going to be terrible!"  Look, I'm putting this on my students now - but there's a moment a week or so before MY performances that feels exactly the same! I have not outgrown this moment of panic. And at that...
Post a Comment
Read more