NobleViola

portugal sets massed viola guinness record

Charles Noble — Sat, 25 May 2013 15:10:59 +0000

From the 2011 Portugal viola biennial. Hat tip to Evan, via Slipped Disc.

season eighteen

Charles Noble — Thu, 23 May 2013 05:57:22 +0000

Monday night marked the final concert of my eighteenth season with the Oregon Symphony. It’s been a year of marked contrasts for both myself and the orchestra. The orchestra is sounding very, very good. Make no mistake about that. We made a strong debut at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall. We are playing difficult and little-known works [...]

brahms tidbits

Charles Noble — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:27:05 +0000

Above: The alphorn melody heard by Brahms on a walk, written on a birthday greeting to Clara Schumann. Below: The autograph score of the First Symphony, with the horn solo that quotes the alphorn melody written above.

is orchestra fundraising in the stone age?

Charles Noble — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:39:26 +0000

From Ron Spiegelman at Sticks and Drones: One of our catch cries is “ticket sales only account for a 33% of our income”, we use that day in day out but what I learned at the conference is almost everyone else in the fundraising world has to raise 100% of their income. They only wish [...]

beethoven’s tenth

Charles Noble — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:28:54 +0000

“Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony” was the moniker assigned (by the noted conductor and pundit Hans von Bülow) to Johannes Brahms’ First Symphony, which was some twenty years in its gestation, such was both his own penchant for draconian self-criticism (it’s said that he destroyed at least six completed string quartets, allowing only the three extant works [...]

classical up close in lake oswego

Charles Noble — Sat, 11 May 2013 17:52:32 +0000

Friday night I got my first chance to play on the awesome Classical Up Close series presented by musicians of the Oregon Symphony. I had played a ‘blitz’ event at the OHSU Center for Health and Healing in the South Waterfront neighborhood a couple days earlier (also very fun!), but this was my first chance [...]

minnesota orchestra cancels rest of season, what’s next?

Charles Noble — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:47:57 +0000

The management of the Minnesota Orchestra announced today that the rest of the 2012-2013 season is officially cancelled. This is horrible, but not unexpected. So, what happens now? I don’t think there’s much to be optimistic about here. Both sides are about as entrenched as one can expect to see in a labor dispute. Even [...]

sage advice, and not just for minnesota

Charles Noble — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:08:24 +0000

I would think that the board and management would understand that you cannot cut your way to prosperity. When you have some of the world’s finest musicians and conductors making world-class music, it is not a lack of a quality product that is the problem. You need to look inward — it is management’s responsibility [...]

oregon symphony creates phenomenon in seattle

Charles Noble — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:41:55 +0000

This past Friday, the Oregon Symphony made its debut in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall (home of the Seattle Symphony, who presented the concert). As Carlos remarked from the podium, it only took us 117 years to get to Seattle. This is not such a stretch when you take the region’s lamentable traffic into consideration! This trip [...]

can someone find the oregon symphony board?

Charles Noble — Sat, 04 May 2013 22:31:33 +0000

Please help us! The Oregon Symphony’s board seems to be missing! The Oregon Symphony played in Benaroya Hall in Seattle for the first time in its history, and not a single current board member seems to have showed up. Clearly, something must have happened to the board members, they must be in terrible danger for [...]