Today was a very busy and full day at Conference. I had a lovely luncheon with Dr. Brandfonbrener — we discussed all sorts of health issues plaguing musicians while I played with her little dog Rosina and looked out at Lake Michigan.
Back at the conference I attended a session hosted by Peter Pastreich, former CEO of the San Francisco Symphony, about the structure of orchestras. I took many notes and will turn this into an article for Polyphonic, so stay tuned. Peter has accepted a position with the Philharmonia Baroque San Francisco (visit this site for more information: http://www.philharmonia.org/). I saw Peter’s son Michael at the concert tonight and he said his father is very pleased at the prospect of settling down again, after many years of traveling and consulting.
The Toolbox sessions are always hard to choose, with 5 or 6 simultaneous events happening. I attended two: one on arts in education – lots of information about reports coming out soon, which I’ll add to this blog later, and one on musicians’ hearing issues presented by the Association of British Orchestras. The ABO PowerPoint presentation will be up on the League’s website soon, and I’m hoping to turn this into an article for Polyphonic as well.
The opening session featured remarks by Jesse Rosen, CEO of the League, a keynote address by Alberto Ibarguen, President and CEO of the Knight Foudnation, and a discussion by Deborah Rutter and other arts executives in Chicago about arts organizations that collaborate with the Chicago Symphony.
It’s late and I have an early breakfast meeting with Jeffrey Biegel, piano soloist, so I will write details about the opening session tomorrow. Many interesting thoughts were presented.
The CSO all-Dvorak concert was lovely: In Nature’s Realm, the Cello Concerto with Alisa Weilerstein, and the 9th symphony. I hadn’t been in Orchestra Hall in years — the string sound felt like it was being presented on a pillow – lush and yet so roundedly quiet. Alisa and the orchestra received standing ovations.
The Tune Up party was across the street in the Museum of Art. We went in the front door and walked all the way through the museum to the new addition for the reception. What an amazing place!
My friend David Gier, Music Director of the South Dakota Symphony, is receiving yet another ASCAP award tomorrow morning — his 4th in 4 years! He must be doing something right out there to have introduced so much contemporary music to Sioux Falls. He’s invited me to join him and Frank Oteri (founding editor of NewMusicBox) and others for a Chicago pub crawl tomorrow night – but that’s when the museum is open. What’s a girl to do?
As I was leaving, David and I came across Frank, who was trying to figure out when he could come back to visit more of the museum. When I told him about the Thursday late night hours, he solved my dilemma — pub crawl is delayed so everyone can go to the museum! (I’m not really a pub crawl kind of person, but hanging out with all these new music folks for a while should be most interesting!)
