Comments for John Potter - Musician and Writer - Blog

Comment on Swingle Singers: the seventies generation by John Potter

John Potter — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:50:36 +0000

Thanks Molly – I’d forgotten the contact lense episode. Berio gigs were rarely without incident. In The A-Ronne Italian premiere (the yellow flyer at the top of the blog) a fight broke out between those downstairs who had great fun hating it very noisily, and those upstairs who rained down programmes, ice creams etc in a bizarre (and fruitless) attempt to get them to shut up.

Comment on Swingle Singers: the seventies generation by Olive Simpson

Olive Simpson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:37:55 +0000

I thought our first Sinfonia in Paris had Luciano himself on the podium – may be wrong – but my most vivid memory of that evening was the time spent searching the stage after the gig for Amy’s contact lens which had made a successful bid for freedom during the second movement…

Comment on Messiah! by John Potter

John Potter — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:13:52 +0000

I’m surprised you managed to track this one down – and I guess it’ll be a while before you see this reply! I agree, Clare’s performance was a revelation – you don’t often hear singing that might have some link to the historical past (as opposed to the more recent early music movement…). It was a lovely occasion; maybe I will have another go one day – once every thirty years is probably about right. I was actually asked to direct an Austrian performance recently and was briefly tempted…

Comment on Messiah! by Clifford Bartlett

Clifford Bartlett — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:51:12 +0000

I don’t know how long this has been around — if I started chasing blogs I’d never get anything done. So I’ve missed something that I’d like to have circulated in print. But it’s not only topical in its content. I’ve been avoiding saying what luck that Michael CHance had double-booked, since hearing a marvellous lady alto was so refreshing — and Clare’s role seemed to be the dominating one in the work, which I had never felt before.

I didn’t include too much hypothetical underlay so that singers would use their own initiative.

Enormous thanks for your contribution.Perhaps in another 30 years you’ll manage a geriatric farewell performance!

Clifford

Comment on Vocal Authority lives! by John Potter

John Potter — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:50:24 +0000

Thanks Liz. Glad you like the Gramscian bits – pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will!

Comment on Vocal Authority lives! by liz garnett

liz garnett — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:10:07 +0000

Hello John,
Just wanted to pop in with a couple of encouraging words, as your post sounded a little down-hearted. For sure, Vocal Authority leaves itself open to critique in all kinds of ways, but those features are also the reason it stays on reading lists. It covers so wide a range of practices that it’s never going to be academically bullet-proof, but it’s that breadth that gives the reader room to theorise along with you. Which is where learning happens of course.

And I liked the Gramscian analysis; those are the bits I find myself citing the most

liz

Comment on Academia strikes again! by John Potter

John Potter — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:27:30 +0000

It would be great to have published proceedings – there’s a real need for serious tenor literature!

Comment on Academia strikes again! by Corinna Herr

Corinna Herr — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:56:10 +0000

Dear John,
just having ‘found’ this blog, let me say that it has been a real pleasure and important for our conference to have you with us!
We are still debating whether to publish the proceedings, and I hope, we will as there were many excellent papers, as yours e.g.!
All the best
Corinna (Herr)

Comment on PhDs: the case for the Defence by John Potter

John Potter — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:16:08 +0000

Agreed – I’m afraid I have very limited experience but friends talk with undisguised horror about their experiences in some countries (not the ones you mention!). ‘Composition as research’ is rather similar to the performance problem: governments and by extension universities can only think generically – so research is what universities do therefore if you want a PhD it has to be research of some sort, examined according to criteria that apply across the board from Biology to Beethoven. It would be mucn more straight forward if they recognised composition and performance as separate disciplines in their own right, rather than try to make musical activities answerable to generic criteria

Comment on PhDs: the case for the Defence by Ivan Moody

Ivan Moody — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 14:29:11 +0000

Just a note to say that “Europe” is not uniform… you won’t get the same experience in Spain, say, that you will in Sweden – and I’m also thinking here of your comments on defending a Ph,D.

There are certainly broader possibilities in Europe taken as a whole, however.

And, now that I’ve started, what about composition as research?