The Hawaii Opera Theater is now concluding it’s fourth annual summer ‘light opera’ production. (http://tinyurl.com/2nopp3) Following two Gilbert & Sullivan runs (‘Mikado’ & ‘Pirates’), we’ve switched to Broadway- last year it was ‘King and I’, this year it’s ‘South Pacific’. These pieces may be called ‘light’, but in my opinion they contain some great music, and even after repeated performances continue to seem fresh.

The conductor for the past four years has been Michael Ching, music director of the Memphis Opera. This year he’s blogging about his experiences- http://operaandbeyond.blogspot.com

Reading his blog and getting more exposure to other blogs, I realize that I need to be posting more, shorter, entries to this blog. For me, having a blog on myauditions.com isn’t the typical, more personal, blog format that one finds on such sites as blogspot. Rather, this blog is more professional than personal in nature. I represent my organization as well as myself, even more so since I’ve been serving on the orchestra committee so I need to carefully consider my commentary

For example, last spring I didn’t really want to comment on the audition process that my orchestra was going through, even though there were comments elsewhere on the myauditions.com site about some of the scheduling issues. What was really going on was simple- scheduling issues. Launching an audition tour for the Honolulu Symphony is an enormously complex affair, scheduling problems were compounded by the announcement in early spring of the appointment of a new music director (Andreas Delfs), and it just took a long time to get everything organized.

It’s clear that the Honolulu Symphony needs to take a look at it’s audition process, and indeed the review process is underway, but this case was mostly caused by logistical problems

To ‘outsiders’, the perception of the (collective) orchestra musician seems to be veiled in secrecy

For example, here’s an excerpt from Drew McManus’s blog Adaptistration, itself more of a professional than a personal forum- although Drew does a great job of finding a balance between the two types.

http://www.artsjournal.com/adaptistration/archives/2007/07/

July 17, 2007
Every Wonder What Goes On During Orchestra Meetings?

CSO bassist Michael Hovnanian gives you a look into the often closes door meetings between management and musicians when he presents his recollection of events from a recent meeting between CSO musicians and the management of the Ravina Music Festival. All in all, it is fascinating reading and gives you more useful insight into how the world of orchestra business interacts with the artists they present.

Read Michael Hovnanian's blog, No Such Thing

http://csobassblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/no-such-thing.html


So we see, often what from the ‘outside’ seems to be monolithic & authoritarian, on the inside is instead simply a case of human beings responding to situations as humans do everywhere. The Chicago musicians were surly due to the heat. I didn’t comment on the audition problems as I didn’t want to add to the stress level of the folks who were already overloaded with stress. Conspiracy theorists take note: sometimes there’s less than meets the eye.

I’ve got more to say on this line of thought, but this entry has gone on too long already, given my vow of shorter entries.

More coming up- sooner than later!