Mar 24
Memories One of my operatic “heroes” so to speak has passed to the other side of the veil this past Sunday in Indianola, Iowa. Founder (with Douglas Duncan) of the Des Moines Metro Opera and its Artistic Director from 1973 until 2009, he influenced a generation of singers, music students, production designers and yes, orchestra …
Mar 18
1994 Part Two To Scotland and England with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra In August of 1994, prior to the start of the orchestra season, I took part in rehearsals and a tour to England and Scotland with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Dame Iona Brown (1941-2004). She was a famed violin soloist …
Mar 15
The Year 1994 As I begin this latest blog post, I am suddenly reminded by the fact that the year 1994 was actually quite eventful for the Oslo Philharmonic and myself. In fact, it was almost as good as 1993 now that I have had time to reflect back. There was much more going on …
Jan 28
The Year 1993 – Part Three The Strike In my last blog post, published recently after a long hiatus with writer’s block – or more accurately “blogger’s block”, I ended on a high note with the completion of our highly successful 1993 Festival tour – Parts A and B as it turned out. That was …
Jan 25
The Year 1993 – Part Two In my last blog post, I intended to discuss all of the year 1993, as that was one of the seminal years of my career with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. But, like many of my previous posts, so much happened during that year, that it was necessary to split …
Jul 16
The Year 1993 – Part One The year 1993 was another banner year for the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra as well as for me personally. The orchestra undertook two fantastic tours – we visited and toured Japan and Hong Kong in January and February, and undertook a Festival tour to the Salzburg Festival and BBC Proms …
Apr 09
The Year 1992 It has been a while since I last blogged about my musical career, what with “blogger’s block” and finishing up blogs about recording with the OPO and tributes to both Mariss Jansons and Anton Coppola. However, here I am, ready to resume where I left off. I now have the time, due …
Mar 11
Just last night, I got word that Maestro Anton Coppola passed away at the grand age of 102 years. He missed his 103rd birthday by eight days. Maestro Coppola was my orchestra conductor and conducting teacher at Manhattan School of Music during my five years there. He had served as head of the conducting staff …
Feb 12
1995 – 1997 The last three years of the Oslo Philharmonic/Mariss Jansons/EMI contract went very quickly. As a matter of fact, there really were only two years in which we recorded, as there were only two more recordings left in the contract. In 1995, we were scheduled to record the other two parts of Ottorino …
Feb 11
1993 – 1994 At the end of the last blog post in this series about the EMI recordings of the Oslo Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons, I noted that 1992 was the last of the “banner years” of recordings in which more than one or two recording was put on tape. Prior to and including 1992, …
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