Boston Classical Review is LIVE!

Check out the new online classical music entry Boston Classical Review. It's already helped readers keep up with the music scene's in Chicago and South Florida, now it's Beantown's turn:

Boston Classical Review

 

Aaron Copland on words and music

Well at least you and I both know that this quote doesn't apply to this blog ...

"'The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'"

- Aaron Copland

Which classical musicians are on Twitter/Facebook and what are they doing?

Amanda Ameer, via her ArtsJournal blog, Life's a Pitch, has taken a look at selected classical musician's approach - or perhaps their publicist's approach - to both Twitter and Facebook, with minor mentions of wikipedia. The list includes several people you may have seen on a Celebrity Series of Boston stage in the  past, such as Sarah Chang, Hilary Hahn, Renée Fleming, Lang Lang, Maya Beiser, and Yuja Wang. Lady Gaga is included on the list, I assume for the sake of comparison.

Check out the complete post, Doin' What Comes Naturally.

UPDATE:

Here, in no particular order and for no particular reason, is a short list of other classical musician types that Tweet. I am not endorsing these accounts, and I can't verify if they are who the names claim (hint: referring to themselves in the third person says publicist to me, not that there is anything wrong with that); I bring them to you in the name of science ...

@eighthblackbird
@evanziporyn
@SteveReich
@DawnUpshaw
@GustavoDudamel
@MaestroMaazel
@silkroadproject
@GilShaham
@DavidKrakauer
@thomas_hampson
@simonrattle

Aileycampboston.com launches

Part web site, part blog, Aileycampboston.com is officially underway.

The site will serve as the up-to-the-minute information source for campers, parents, staff and anyone who wants to know what's going on at AileyCamp Boston, the Celebrity Series of Boston's free, six-week, full-scholarship summer day camp
program for middle school students from Boston public schools.

Aileycampboston.com is organized using Google's Blogger service, so posts will be added over time (there will be plenty to read, we promise!) and the
site will function more or less like a blog. Here's wishing campers, staff, parents and everyone associated with the camp the very best of luck this year!

You can also find out more about AileyCamp Boston and all of the programs in our Arts, Education and Community Program here.

ArtsEmerson launches season

ArtsEmerson announced its inaugural season today, including two partner events with your friendly neighborhood Celebrity Series (Basil Twist's Petrushka and Compagnia TPO's Farfalle). Check out their web site here and Executive Director Robert J. Orchard's blog here. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Orchestra R/Evolution on the future of orchestras

Arturo Toscanini, orchestra guy

The League of American Orchestras has created a forum, chat room, salon, writer's colony and blog-o-rama called Orchestra R/Evolution to discuss the future of the orchestra in any and all its dimensions. Being League members who have presented orchestras since the Roosevelt administration (the NBC Orchestra, with Arturo Toscanini conducting, was our first, in 1938), we have more than a passing interest in this discussion and we suspect many of you will as well.

Check out Orchestra R/Evolution.

200K ... a little or a lot?

This blog has just hit 200,000 page views since its creation in mid-2005.

For me, it seems like both a colossal figure and, well, not very much for 4 and a half years of posting. Expressed in Uraguayan pesos it doesn't seem like much either; just ask Pedro Figari (the guy on the bill). And then when you consider how many of this blog's visitors were just trolling for free images ... um, hey, has anybody been to any good concerts lately?

Two views of Perlman's concert

The first hint of Spring is upon us and dissent is in the air. Two takes on Itzhak Perlman's Sunday afternoon recital have appeared online. Enjoy:

Jeremy Eichler for The Boston Globe

Thomas Garvey, The Hub Review

We welcome the conversation. And I would like an iced tea, please.

On the verge of 200,000 ...

I estimate Aisle Be Seeing You will reach 200,000 page views in about a week. Sobering stuff. Definitely more than just Mom checking in ...

Real pain for my SPAM friends #342

Did they really think I was going to post this as a comment?

"It is glad to see this blog, it is good and detailed post, fun to read
this..."

Thanks for playing, "Term paper."

Slipped disc, by Norman Lebrecht

Every once in a while, Aisle Be Seeing You takes turn about the blog gardens and discovers a new and engaging bloginator (I know, just what none of us needs in our busy lives, until we read one, of course). One such recent discovery is the Arts Journal blog of "author, novelist, broadcaster,cultural commentator," Norman Lebrecht, who some may know as the author of the 2007 book, The Life and Death of Classical Music. Mr. Lebrecht's entry into the blog derby is called Slipped disc, and subtitled Norman Lebrecht on shifting sound worlds. A few of my favorite posts are listed below:

What Lang Lang did next

What to do when a conductor throws up

More concert disturbances

Permission to listen? And to share what I feel?

Here's a bit of one of Lebrecht's posts (guess which one), and a good indication that he will share whatever needs to be shared to make good copy:

"I once heard Franz Welser-Möst heaving his guts out in the interval of
a Tokyo concert. He returned from the flush to give a Beethoven Fifth
of reckless intensity, so edgy that no-one's insides were safe. That's
music - you feel something, and you share it with others."

The Hub Review (Thomas Garvey) reviews Mozart Dances

Thomas Garvey rendered a typically evocative and detailed take on this past weekend's performance of Mozart dances by the Mark Morris Dance Group with Emmanuel Music, conductor Jane Glover, and pianists Russell Sherman and Minsoo Sohn on his blog, The Hub Review.

Here's a bit from his concluding paragraph:

"This was an extraordinary evening of dance and music, and an extraordinary moment in the city's cultural life."

Aw, shucks... Quotes like that should be on posters or at least on multiple blogs. But Mr. Garvey is not Rex Reed, there is observational meat on the bones in his review. Garvey does not miss the point (not to imply that anyone else in print did so), nor does he neglect the stellar musicians who spent the weekend largely out of site in the orchestra pit.

You can read Mark, Mozart and Mystery in full here.

ABSU is a "Favorite Place" on Google Maps - um, yay!?

According to the A) viral marketing materials designed by Google to get me to promote Google for Google, or B) nice letter from the good folks at Google, this blog is A) a Favorite Place on Google found by over 14,000 people between July 1 and September 30, with 1186 people requesting driving directions or other info about Aisle Be Seeing You, B) a small business, or C) a good target for Google marketers because, "this guy will post anything, including stickers."

Seriously, I would like to thank all 14,245 of you for checking in. And thanks for the sticker, Google!

Recent previews & reviews: Vega, Sondheim and the Berlin Phil

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic at Symphony Hall on Sunday (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Suzanne Vega (November 6, Sanders Theatre)

The Boston Phoenix (Carrie Battan)


An Evening With Stephen Sondheim (November 14, Sanders Theatre)

The Hub Review (Thomas Garvey)

Berlin Philharmonic, Sir Simon Rattle, conducting (November 15, Symphony Hall)

The Boston Globe (Jeremy Eichler)

The Hub Review (Thomas Garvey)

The Boston Phoenix (Lloyd Schwartz)

The Boston Herald (Ed Symkus)

Real pain for my SPAM friends #326

SPAM, while annoying, does have its pleasures. I love the ambiguity of today's spam comment:

"your blog too enjoyful."

Is it so enjoyful that they just can't stand it?

Is it "just too much, man?"

I don't really want to know the answer any more than I want to try the ant-herpes product they're hawking...

Pianist Ingrid Fliter's recital reviewed

Three reviews have appeared to date of Ingrid Fliter's Boston debut recital this past Sunday:

The Boston Globe (David Perkins)

The Arts Fuse (Caldwell Titcomb)

The Hub Review (Thomas Garvey)

Sir Simon signs on with Berlin Philharmonic until 2018

From the Los Angeles Times' Culture Monster blog:

"The classical music world is known for planning concerts and events
years in advance. But the Berlin Philharmonic takes the cake today with
its announcement that it has secured Simon Rattle's tenure as head of
the orchestra for another nine years."

Read the complete post.

Berlin Philharmonic comes to Boston November 15.

For Maestro Slatkin and the DSO, "Change is in the Air ;-)"

Leonard Slatkin

A humorous little post from the blog of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra - a pseudo-introduction of the coming season - has confused a number of otherwise worldly and alert adults into thinking the cracks therein are to be taken seriously. Here are some rather obvious samples of Slatkin's playfulness:

On distraction:
"To begin, the orchestra will be seated with their backs to the
audience. Music Director Leonard Slatkin said at a press conference
yesterday, 'I feel that the listeners are distracted by seeing the faces
of the musicians. By turning around, people will tire of looking at
backsides and focus purely on the music.'"

On Beethoven's 5th Symphony:
"So for these performances of the overly familiar Beethoven score, the
opening five bars will not be played, since everyone knows how they go.
It will be straight into the 6th measure. In fact, every time the
four-note motto comes in and is played loudly, the passage will either
disappear or be performed softly."

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring:
"Other emendations include orchestration changes. The opening of
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, played by the bassoon in a high register,
will now be intoned on the tuba, two octaves lower than printed."


On formal attire:
"Finally, in keeping with the new seating arrangement, the orchestra
will perform in street clothes, but the audience is requested to come
in formal attire.


'Let them learn how long it takes to put on white tie and tails.'"


And finally:
"Season tickets, subscription renewals and cancellations can be taken care of directly with the DSO box office."

If the Schikele-esque notions above were not adequate proof of mirth, the post even goes so far as to include the winking emoticon, ;-), in the headline, but still there were those who remained unsure if they were witnessing a joke or not. That tells this reader that the classical community in general could use a bit more of this sort of thing ...

DSO blog post, with comments

Leonard Slatkin's web site

Mind the Gap blog on Artsjournal.com

Daily Observations blog, with comment

Jonathan Biss gets back on his blog horse

He had not, as he acknowledges, posted anything on his blog since March, so Jonathan Biss decided to make use of his time on a trans-Pacific flight to get his readers up to speed ...

"The Semiotics of Classical LP Cover Art (ca. 1970), or, When Things Started to Get Fun"

The 1970s, it turns out, are almost always good for a chuckle. Here is a fun post from the AllMusic Blog entitled "The Semiotics of Classical LP Cover Art (ca. 1970), or, When Things Started to Get Fun." Fair warning, the post includes near nudity and full frontal kitsch.

A nod to The Well Tempered Blog for the road map.