NobleViola

sixty years, seven days, seven concerts

Charles Noble — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:06:44 +0000

William Crane turns 60 this month, and to celebrate, he’s playing seven one-hour recitals with many friends-collaborators lending a hand. And no wonder. Bill is one of those people who is so excited about the prospect of making and sharing music, and once he sets his mind to doing a project, look out! He becomes [...]

quartet puzzles

Charles Noble — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:04:55 +0000

This is the first of an occasional series of posts that I’d like to write which concern the torture of playing the viola in a string quartet. Don’t get me wrong: playing the viola in a string quartet is just about the best thing a human being can do! But, because the viola is one [...]

music for living

Charles Noble — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:49:55 +0000

via Incidental Comics [available as a poster to purchase]

five years

Charles Noble — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:09:02 +0000

February 11, 2007

golijov flap in eugene

Charles Noble — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 01:03:38 +0000

Of course, no sooner do I declare a composer’s music as ‘original’, than does that same composer get accused of being a musical plagiarist. I claim no responsibility! I’m not sure how much validity there is to the assertions of two Eugene music authorities (writer and critic Tom Manoff and UO trumpet faculty Brian McWhorter) [...]

golijov’s tenebrae

Charles Noble — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 03:14:13 +0000

Osvaldo Golijov is writing some of the most original and strikingly beautiful music to be found on the concert stage these days. On the Arnica Quartet’s upcoming March 23 concert (click here for more info and tickets), we’re playing Golijov’s dark and evocative piece Tenebrae, in its version for string quartet, which was originally written [...]

renee fleming program set for portland

Charles Noble — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:45:10 +0000

Soprano Renee Fleming’s program for March 13, 2012 has finally been announced. The conductor is Ms. Fleming’s own, Sebastian Lang-Lessing. I’m most excited about two of the selections: Ravel’s Shéhérazade, and Korngold’s Marietta’s Lied from Die Tote Stadt, two of the most beautiful pieces ever written for voice and orchestra. Hector Berlioz Roman Carnival Overture [...]

wtf? david finckel to leave emerson quartet

Charles Noble — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:55:01 +0000

This is truly an end of an era. After 34 years (since 1979) with the Emerson Quartet, cellist David Finckel has announced that he is leaving the group at the close of the 2012-1013 season to pursue other artistic endeavors, reports the New York Times. His replacement has been named, British Welsh cellist/conductor Paul Watkins. UPDATE: [...]

goddesses, remixed

Charles Noble — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:42:58 +0000

I hate going to concerts. I love going to concerts. Perhaps I was required to read too much Kant and Hegel in my undergraduate senior thesis class. I’ve got a nice, ripe dualism in my psyche. It’s a common dilemma to most performing musicians. We have a night off, and the last thing we want [...]

there’s a new quartet in town

Charles Noble — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:00:24 +0000

There is indeed a new string quartet in town, one that is aiming to perform great classical music in a non-traditional space. That quartet is Mousai Remix, and it’s made up of four players from the Oregon Symphony (Shin-young Kwon and Emily Cole, violins; Jennifer Arnold, viola; and Marilyn de Oliveira). If you don’t think [...]

season announcements – soloists

Charles Noble — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:53:23 +0000

I’m revisiting my previous post, in which I somewhat lazily dissected the season announcements of three orchestras (Chicago, Seattle, and Nashville) for 2012-2013, to a look at the soloists that they’ve engaged for the season (plus those slated for the LA Philharmonic as well, to add some more (?) into the mix). Will there be [...]

2012-2013 season announcement roundup

Charles Noble — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:29:03 +0000

February is the month in which most orchestras start their new subscription campaigns with their next-season announcements. I haven’t really paid much attention to what’s being programmed outside of my own orchestra, but I thought that it would be interesting to take a look at the seasons and see if any trends are emerging. Chicago [...]

dark art of conducting?

Charles Noble — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:26:33 +0000

I’ve always wondered why conductors do (or don’t do) certain things that seem either idiotic or genius-y in the heat of the moment. Then I read this paragraph in Michael Hovnanian’s blog – I think he’s hit the nail on the head: The problem with making conductorial convulsions the source of all musical inspiration is [...]

writing about music

Charles Noble — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:22:15 +0000

As the old saw goes, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. [for info on the origination of this quote, click here] This is partly true, though I think writing about music, at its best, is often very revealing, and that dancing about architecture could be pretty illuminating, too. Perhaps one day PDX architecture [...]

another stellar violinist

Charles Noble — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:27:21 +0000

This weekend brings yet another stellar violinist to the Oregon Symphony, this time it’s returning soloist Stefan Jackiw (pronounced JACK-eev). He played some superb Mozart on his last visit, and this time he’s playing Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, a work that’s most often heard being butchered by young aspiring contestants at solo and ensemble competitions [...]

back from the beach

Charles Noble — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:20:00 +0000

at the beach

Charles Noble — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:04:55 +0000

Back February 1st – Aloha!

kalmar up for houston job?

Charles Noble — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:31:19 +0000

It is never a sure thing who an orchestra is really considering when they are looking for a new music director. Some conductors don’t want to be seen as ‘auditioning’ for the gig, and orchestras are often competing for the same scarce resource: a good conductor. So it pays to be cagey about just who [...]

don’t mess with a trumpeter

Charles Noble — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:38:34 +0000

It seems that a member of the San Francisco Symphony was doing some soft practicing in his apartment recently, and received for his troubles a very rude and irate phone message. Here’s what he did next…

bells and brass

Charles Noble — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:29:17 +0000

There were two major highlights to last weekend’s classical series concerts with the Oregon Symphony: Joshua Bell and our brass section. Due to changes in his calendar, Bell dropped the Shostakovich First Violin Concerto for the Brahms Violin Concerto. Basically, he was to perform the piece publicly for the first time this season, but several [...]