Author's posts
Sep 13
Recording the Tchaikovsky Symphonies |Part One
Recording The Tchaikovsky Symphonies|Part One During my fifteen-season tenure as timpanist of the Oslo Philharmonic, I had the honor to participate in over forty recordings with the orchestra for the following recording labels: Chandos, EMI/Angel, Sony Classical, and the Aurora label as well as the Norwegian Cultural Council. Most of these were conducted by our …
Sep 12
My Musical Career|Part Twenty-Six
My Musical Career|Part Twenty-Six That First Season……. That first full season with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra was a very interesting one., musically and personally. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I began my tenure as principal timpanist with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (called solopaukist in Norwegian) on September 7, 1983. The program for that …
Aug 19
Blu -ray Player|The Saga Continues
Blu-ray player|The Saga Continues In my previous blogpost, entitled Blu-ray Player|My First Blu-Ray Experience, I described my very first experiences with blu-ray players, both in terms of hardware and software. As I was just getting to understand the technology, I had to use the KISS principle, which means to “keep it short and simple.” This …
Aug 19
Blu-ray Player |My First Blu-ray Experience
Blu-ray Player|My First Blu-Ray Experience I admit from the get-go that when it comes to Blu-Ray technology, I have been a bit of a Luddite. I don’t relish the idea of mu DVD collection, painstakingly built up over the years, being relegated to obsolescence. However, with the launching of Drewsim.com a couple of years ago, …
Aug 12
My Musical Career | Part Twenty-Five
My Musical Career | Part Twenty-Five Goodbye, Evansville, Hello, Oslo! In my previous post, I described my ten-week trial period with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, which took place between the end of November 1982 and the end of February 1983. It was an exciting experience and one that was very different from your usual audition, …
Jul 29
Replacing My Desktop with a Rebuild
Computers – Replacing My Desktop with a Rebuild In January 2010, I purchased an HP Compaq Presario FQ 5218 desktop computer –a mini-tower – to replace an older PC which literally gave up the ghost after a Windows 7 update. One night, I completed a lot of work on the computer, then downloaded and installed …
Jul 24
My Musical Career |Part Twenty-Four
My Musical Career | Part Twenty-Four Transitioning to Oslo Part II I move to Bygdøy Alle 39 In my previous post, I told of how I got to Oslo for the trial period, and described what it was like for me to go into a wholly new environment, one which, by the …
Jul 18
My Musical Career| Part Twenty-Three
My Musical Career | Part Twenty-Three Transitioning to Oslo In my previous post, I began to describe the process of transitioning from one part of my musical and personal life. From 1980 through 1983, I was happily ensconced in my consortium position with the University of Evansville, the Evansville Philharmonic, and the Owensboro Symphony. During …
Jun 19
My Musical Career | Part Twenty-Two
My Musical Career | Part Twenty-Two Evansville Years Concluded – Transitioning to Oslo Up until this point, the Evansville/Owensboro years were the happiest and most productive of both my musical and personal life. Musical because of the repertoire I was introduced to and the experience I gained both as a performer and teacher, …
Jun 10
Instruments| Ludwig Timpani
Instruments| Ludwig Timpani I have performed on many makes and models of timpani, but I started out as an eleven-year old aspiring musician on an old pair of Ludwig pedal-tuned timpani. These dated from about the late 1930s, and were the template model for what Ludwig later developed into their Universal model pedal timpani. …
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