Am I hearing this right?

I'm too tired to write lengthy tomes tonight, so a handful of vignettes will have to do.

The so-called "Orchestra Iowa" (aka the Cedar Rapids Symphony) is holding a number of auditions for new personnel, including concertmaster, principal bass, and various substitute positions.  In order for an Iowan to audition for the bass position in Orchestra Iowa (am I being emphatic enough?), that Iowan must travel to Roosevelt University in Chicago.  For the uninitiated, that's in Illinois.  I almost which I was making this up.

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Gotta love this photo

This is very old news by now, but then-new Executive Director of our Dubuque Symphony (she's gone now, little more than a year after her arrival) stated that one of her goals was to increase the number of local musicians in the orchestra.  I guess she never heard about the massacre of 2002, during which most of the brass section was sacked and the principal strings departed in protest.  Of course the Board of Directors went along with the whole plan, which was intended to improve the symphony.  If you ask me, it sounds pretty much the same, although the budget has doubled, due to large increases in mileage paid to musicians trekking in from as far as Chicago.  

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According to the NY Times, the most adventuresome orchestra in the U.S. is the (drum roll please) Los Angeles Philharmonic.  Dude Fever is sweeping the continent and beyond.

Gotta love his hair.  Kind of resembles my ex-wife's coif.

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Norman Lebrecht at Slipped Disc reports that opera in cinemas does not draw audiences to live performance.  I could have told them that years ago.  Symphony concerts at fairgrounds or botanical gardens won't cause a spike at the box office either.

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For the umpteenth time, the lead paragraph in a review of the NY Phil free concert focuses on the less than ideal (to put it mildly) acoustical environment (a reported 8-second reverb) at New York's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.  To quote Anthony Tomassini:  "From a critical perspective, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine is no place to hear a full orchestra perform. For all its architectural splendor, this beloved cathedral has almost impossible acoustics for symphonic music, with an excess of reverberation and echo."

William Byrd--definitely.  Tchaikovsky, um...no.

There are a plethora of summer music festivals in places like California, Colorado, even Maine and Vermont.  Read about them here.  I think that we could support some kind of mini-festival of the "good stuff" here in Dubuque.  Anyone with me?