Girl you know it's true

I've been wrapped up in all matter of political goings-on, as well as trying to learn a pile of music (yep, I'm conducting a Ben Folds show at the Mann) for the next few weeks.

But I came across some more scandalous Olympic news that has been making its rounds. (Of course the Olympic "miming" scandal began with the adorable girl who "sang" in the opening ceremonies - she was lip synching for a child who was deemed less telegenic.)

It's not so uncommon to have "canned" music - in fact, one comes to expect a certain amount of lip synching in any highly-produced TV broadcast (this from last year's MTV Video Music Awards, the disastrous comeback attempt of a pre-rehab Britney Spears). The pop world has certainly had its share of lip synching scandals. But it's far more unusual for an orchestra to be caught in this position.

It's an embarrassment for the Sydney Symphony, no doubt, and prerecorded music can be a sensitive sensitive topic. I am a strong advocate of live music - because, really, there's nothing like the excitement that it can generate - but I'm not so troubled by pre-recorded tracks for extraordinary circumstances (like an audience of billions, telecast in real time). That is, I wouldn't be so troubled if it were simply a matter of an orchestra pre-recording itself and then presenting that recording as part of a televised "performance". What distresses me is the fact that the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra recorded parts of the "performance" - and that the MSO's work was passed of as Sydney's, which just seems awfully shady. Any thoughts?

The surest form of flattery

All right, folks, I'm back, somewhat refreshed from vacation. (Although I always end up a bit stressed when I'm ostensibly relaxing, because I'm acutely aware of the work that's accumulating while I'm away - which was magnified a bit by extra concerts and guest conducting weeks that were added to my fall schedule very late in the summer...)

So, an interesting bit of news, as the Olympics were winding down in Beijing. I remember Breiner's arrangements from the Athens Games as well as the controversy surrounding his setting of the national anthem of the USA. I didn't mind the lack of bombast so much, although I confess I was a little confused by the serenity of the "rocket's red glare/bombs bursting in air" bit - I don't know if I exactly buy the notion of introspection at this point, although the harmonic progressions are a nice diversion. Here's a link to the "Breiner original" (press "play" to download the audio file - sorry for the awkward presentation...)

And for comparison, here's a link to the women's 4x400 medal ceremony from Beijing (it begins around 5:17 in the video - again, sorry for the inelegant linking, I could only find this on the NBC website). The crux of the controversy are the remarkable similarities in the Breiner (Athens) version and the arrangements played in Beijing, purportedly arranged by a Chinese composer specifically for the Beijing Games.

Breiner's version is not a conventional setting. In fact, I would say it's striking. I cannot fathom how a version so similar, both in unusual orchestration and altered harmonies, could have been written without prior knowledge of the original Breiner arrangements. The only question in my mind is, was this unconscious imitation or something a bit more nefarious?

And a final bit of music new from China.

Into the wild

Well, not really, I'm heading up to Maine and Vermont to festival hop with my husband (a rare pleasure, as we seldom get to travel together, and I've taken time off this summer to do just that). I'm not sure what internet connectivity will be like, so posting will be spotty for the next few weeks.

I leave you with this:



The opening ceremony of the Olympics was stunning, immensely impressive and cinematic in scope; but what really struck me was Lang Lang's presence in the middle of it all, a testament to the rise in popularity of Western classical music and to Lang Lang himself. A lot of food for thought there, that I'll hopefully get to before too long.

Hope everyone is enjoying some time off this summer!!

Decompression.

Well, Sarah has her definition of vacation, and I have mine. I've never been much for relaxing on a sunny beach, or for that matter, relaxing at all. Having a lot of free time tends to make me nervous, so when the orchestra takes a break, I tend to look around for something else to do. And the something else that I look forward to most is called Greenwood.

Now, I know how obnoxious it is when someone goes on and on about some summer camp you never went to, so I'll just say that I've been going to Greenwood every summer since I was ten years old. (Okay, I missed 2006, but that was the orchestra's fault - we were on a European festival tour.) It's a beautiful place, nestled on 75 wooded acres in the Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts, where the cell phone towers can't find you and the internet is a vague rumor.

yep, they're singing. spontaneously. for fun.

Like Apple Hill, my other New England summer haunt, Greenwood is not a place bent on turning out prodigies or drilling the fundamentals of instrumental music into a bunch of overstimulated 12-year-old heads. It's a place for kids to be themselves, to form lifelong bonds with other kids over a shared interest, and mostly, to be astounded by just how much they're capable of. When they come off stage to a roar of applause and shouting after performing at their first Saturday night concert, every kid has the same look. It's a look of surprise and exhilaration at what they've just done, of only-just-acknowledged exhaustion following a week of hard work, and mostly, of sheer pride that they are as good as they hoped they might be.

So this is where I'll be spending the next few weeks. Like I mentioned, the net hasn't exactly found Greenwood yet, and since the nearest town of any size is 40 minutes away, you probably won't be hearing from me more than once a week or so until the end of the month. But you can bet I'll have some excellent stories to tell when I get back...

How much for a dozen?

I know, I know, they're talking flowers, but it's such a nice visual viola joke...

Here's another one from a tremendous catalogue:

Why do violists stand for so long outside their houses?
They can't find the key and they don't know when to come in.

And, just to be fair, one more:

A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. which one do you run over first, and why?
The conductor. Business before pleasure.

Your own favorites welcome as comments.

Ohhhhhhhh, I Get It Now...

So, you may have seen the story in the local media a week or so ago announcing that the Minnesota Orchestra was canceling its annual season-opening concert at the Lake Harriet bandshell in south Minneapolis for lack of funds. In fact, if you live in Minnesota and read a paper, watch local TV news, listen to MPR, or read local news online, you pretty much couldn't have missed it. The story was quite literally everywhere, which surprised me, because honestly, it's one free outdoor concert out of about ten that we do every year, and it's not as if we've been doing it forever, either. (I believe the first time we played the bandshell during my time in Minneapolis was in 2003, Osmo's first season as music director.) Even granting that July is a slow news month, it seemed odd that the story was discovered and picked up by so many media outlets.

Until I realized that we'd sent out a press release about it. Which utterly baffled me. After all, this concert is a month and a half away, and we could easily have just quietly canceled it and let the city of Minneapolis take it off the calendar of events at Lake Harriet, taken it off our calendar, and it might never have hit the papers at all. And considering the way that journalists tend to jump all over any suggestion that an arts group might be in money trouble, wouldn't discretion be the better part of valor here?

It was my editor over at ArtsJournal, Doug McLennan, who pointed out one very good reason for making a big announcement of the cancellation when I asked him what he thought about it: "I know as a reporter that arts organizations that are really in trouble try as long as possible to deny problems, always spinning a rosy glow, often until it's too late to do much about it. The well-managed organization is as transparent as possible about things like this. It signals responsibility, and at the same time tells people 'don't take us for granted'. If I was a member of the community there and a supporter of the orchestra, I'd hear about this and I'd be inclined to pony up some money because I'd be glad the orchestra wasn't waiting until things got bad to take steps to deal with them. And I'd be reminded that running a good orchestra takes support and I'd want to help because I care."

Doug makes an awfully good point, and judging from the reaction of some of our past Lake Harriet audience members on MPR's NewsCut blog, the idea that people would be willing to chip in to help defray the cost of the concert didn't seem so far-fetched. (Speaking of NewsCut, one question that seemed to be coming up quite a bit was: how much can one concert cost, anyway? Especially one in the orchestra's home city! I don't know the exact amount, but it's a lot - we've got literal tons of cargo to haul down there in climate-controlled trucks, massive equipment costs, extra stage crew, ushers, crowd control, and other event staffers. The only thing that doesn't cost extra is the musicians - since we're all salaried employees, we're paid the same whether there's a concert at Lake Harriet or not.)

So anyway, Doug's theory was proven this week, when the folks over at Target (whose world HQ is located conveniently across the street from Orchestra Hall, and who do an awful lot of nice things for us) stepped up and announced that they'd cover the cost of the Lake Harriet concert. So it's back on, which is good news all around. (Although I notice that news isn't yet generating nearly the number of Google hits that the cancellation did.) And the moral of the story for me is: our PR office is probably a lot smarter (and sneakier) than most of us ever give them credit for...