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The Forest presents Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, Part 2
The Forest at The Barbershop Theater, Nashville, October 31, 2018. (l to r) WB, Kate Atanian, Ryan Middagh, Eric Brewer, Andrew Guinn, Mario Galati, Michael McLemore, Alex Blizniak, Danesa Harper, Kari Leigh Ames, Brian Hull (click images to enlarge)
Continued from Part 1
Taking it apart in order to put it all together
Concurrent with all the logistics and planning for the show’s “big picture”, I spent time last summer trying to figure out exactly what keyboards I would need to be able to play the show and how they would be set up.
The Forest presents Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, Part 1
The Forest performs Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon at The Barbershop Theater, November 1, 2018 (l to r) Michael McLemore, Alex Blizniak, Eric Brewer, Andrew Guinn, Danesa Harper, Kate Atanian, Walter Bitner, Ryan Middagh (click images to enlarge)
In 2018, I found myself playing in a rock band for the first time in over thirty years. This is what happened!
17th Annual Mozart’s Birthday Concerts
This month, Roger Wiesmeyer’s Mozart in Nashville will present concert celebrations to honor the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 263rd birthday. This annual tradition features an ensemble of local musicians – often including members of the Nashville Symphony, free-lance professionals, and amateurs – who perform two benefit concerts for a local charity featuring music by Amadeus, who was born on January 27, 1756.
The 2019 concerts will take place:
Friday, January 18, noon, at St. George’s Episcopal Church, 4715 Harding Road, Nashville.
Saturday, January 19, 3 pm, at W.O. Smith Music School, 1125 8th Avenue South, Nashville
This year’s concerts feature:
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550
Françoise Pierredon & Roger Wiesmeyer, piano four-hands
Adagio in C, K. 356
Dennis James, glass armonica
Adagio and Rondo, K. 617
Dennis James, glass armonica
Jessica Dunnavant, flute
Roger Wiesmeyer, oboe
Kris Wilkinson, viola
Keith Nicholas, cello
These special events will benefit the The Little Pantry That Could, who provide produce and shelf stable items free of charge on a weekly basis to anyone in need.
Education & Community Engagement at the Nashville Symphony: 2018 Review
Nashville Symphony Brass Quintet Education Ensemble performs at Dan Mills Elementary School, September 26, 2018: (l to r) Alec Blazek, trumpet; Patrick Walle, horn; Neil Konouchi, tuba; Derek Hawkes, trombone; Patrick Kunkee, trumpet. (click photos to enlarge)
Happy New Year! 2018 was a whirlwind, packed with education and community engagement activities at the Nashville Symphony. This is a look back at some of the highlights of our department’s programming last year, before we take off full steam ahead into the new year!
My Secret Experiment in Music Education
Continued from: Is Music a Sport?
In June 2007, I founded Music City Youth Orchestra with Tracy Silverman and a group of ten students, and I served as MCYO’s music director and de facto executive director until I resigned in August 2012. For more than five years, MCYO occupied my attention nearly every day as I worked to grow and develop the ensemble artistically: I conducted all of the orchestra’s auditions, rehearsals, and performances, chose and arranged repertoire and prepared it for rehearsal, contracted venues, generated publicity, recruited students, soloists, and adult musicians and educators to assist us. I recruited board members and we established the organization as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit; I filed paperwork, conducted meetings, sought funding, and served as the organization’s sole administrator for the first four years of operation. During most of this time I was concurrently both a full-time high school teacher and attending graduate school. It was an exciting and exhausting time.
What many do not know – I never articulated this plainly to anyone while I was involved with MCYO, and only came clean about this in conversations with a few former MCYO students and friends in recent years – is that during those five years I pursued a secret educational agenda in my work with the students. Music City Youth Orchestra was the grand experiment of my teaching career in which I put to the test some of my most deeply held convictions about the value and promise of music education in the lives of children.
(more…)Nashville Symphony To Host 2019 League of American Orchestras Annual Conference
The Nashville Symphony will host the League of American Orchestras
74th National Conference
June 3 – 5, 2019.
The League of American Orchestras is the only national organization dedicated to orchestral music and the institutions and individuals who present, perform, and support it. The League is a leader and champion of America’s orchestras and the music they perform. The association’s diverse membership of more than 2,000 organizations and individuals represents a rich and broad array of interests within the orchestral field including symphony orchestras, community groups, summer festivals, youth orchestras, conservatories, libraries, and more.
Accelerando Begins Year Three
Nashville Symphony Accelerando 2018-2019 ~ photo by Sally Bebawy (click photos to enlarge)
Earlier this month we held a reception for returning students and families in the Nashville Symphony Accelerando program to welcome seven new students and families who join Accelerando this fall. It was an exciting occasion at which we celebrated these talented, motivated young musicians, and officially marked the beginning of new year of working together.
The reception brought to a close the long and thorough audition process that began with initial auditions on March 3, through semifinal auditions in April and May, and finalist trial lessons over the summer. We are thrilled to welcome these fine students into the program!
Blair School of Music: Adult Summer Chamber Music Institute 2018
Adult Chamber Music Institute 2017, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, Nashville
Following up on their success last summer, Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music will host the second Adult Summer Chamber Music Institute in July. This special four-day program is the only one of its kind in our area (as far as I know) – a unique opportunity for adult amateur string players to come together and make music in an intimate setting with the guidance of some of the finest string music educators in Nashville.
Side By Side 2018
Curb Youth Symphony musicians (Kaili Wang and Maggie Kasinger, concertmasters) begin rehearsal for the annual Side By Side Concert ~ May 14, 2018, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville (click photos to enlarge)
On May 15, Curb Youth Symphony and the Nashville Symphony combined forces on the stage of Laura Turner Hall for our annual Side By Side concert. Curb Youth Symphony is directed by Carol Nies, and this year’s Side By Side event was conducted for the second year in a row by Nashville Symphony Music Director & Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. On Monday and Tuesday last week, we enjoyed sharing our symphony home with many of Middle Tennessee’s most accomplished teenage musicians, as they rehearsed and performed alongside our own Nashville Symphony musicians as we prepared for and enjoyed this much anticipated annual event.
The Cards
Around the country, the school year is coming to a close. For high school students, spring break is fast becoming a distant memory as students complete projects and write papers, cram for End of Course tests, Advanced Placement exams, finals.
Performing arts programs, too, are in the last stages of preparation for the final performances of the year: in many cases, a Spring Concert is the traditional event for youth choir, orchestra, and band programs. These culminating events showcase student achievement over the course of the year, and provide an opportunity for students and parents to to come together and share what has been accomplished.
The Spring Concert can also be an emotional event, as students who have completed their time in the program prepare to move on to the next stage of their lives, and say goodbye to their friends and their teachers. In many cases, the relationships students make in their arts programs are the closest and most impactful relationships they make in high school, and these provide cherished memories that last a lifetime.
Like many music teachers, I used a simple ceremony at each Spring Concert to mark this passage to the next phase for my students: The Cards. (more…)
