Interchanging Idioms

TwtrSymphony wants to bring Classical Music back into the forefront of our musical experience. The other night I was at a hockey game. It was amazing how much a part of the whole experience of the game was the music that played during the breaks. The music was what got the crowd roaring and excited for the event, the music was what peaked emotions during the game and the music was what encouraged the chanting for the victory. Sometimes the music was hard pounding rock, sometimes it was elements of film scores with the sweeping strings driving people to a frenzy. The audience was experiencing music and responding to the music physically. Classical music has this power and (IMHO) more ability to achieve this than any other music form due to its rich complexities and possibilities. Disneyland has a show, "The World of Color" which features a light and water fountain show set to music from Disney movies. The most enthusiastic moment in the show is when the music of "Pirat...

Four programs cancelled and two are re-scheduled The Minnesota Orchestral Association announced today that it has cancelled further concert performances through Saturday, April 27, 2013, noting that nearly a year into contract negotiations its musicians have yet to put forward a counterproposal and no contract settlement has been reached. All ticketholders of affected concerts are being contacted and offered a variety of options including the opportunity to exchange tickets for a future concert or receive a full refund. A complete list of affected concerts is available below. “We will soon mark one full year since the start of our negotiations, and we renew our call to the musicians to issue a counterproposal that helps resolve the Orchestra’s financial challenges. It is confounding that over the last 11 months the Union has neither been willing to suggest a proposal of their own nor accept ours,” said Minnesota Orchestra Board Chair Jon Campbell. “In order to initiate progress ...

MONDAY 27 MAY 2013 AT 6.30 PM Following the outstandingly successful first open-air, free concert in May 2012, the London Symphony Orchestra in partnership with BMW and the Mayor of London is returning to Trafalgar Square this year. The next annual BMW LSO Open Air Classics concert, which last year attracted an audience estimated in the press to be up to 10,000 people, will take place in the square on Monday 27 May 2013, Spring Bank Holiday Monday, at 6.30 pm. Principal Conductor of the LSO, Valery Gergiev will conduct an all-Berlioz programme. The aim of BMW LSO Open Air Classics is to bring outstanding music performed in the open air – free for everyone in an informal atmosphere. Gergiev and the LSO will perform Berlioz’s Overture Le corsaire, and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. In a performance of a specially arranged version of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique by Gareth Glyn 80 young musicians including conservatoire students and LSO On Track young musicians from LSO Discovery,...

Hard decisions by both management and union organizers affecting classical music I'm going to make a lot of enemies with this post. I'll probably get told I'm unreasonable and it may even affect my future in terms of orchestra administration, but sometimes it's important to take a stand. THESE OPINIONS ARE MINE AND MINE ALONE Composing music is my real passion. So, I'm not sure I really fit with either the administrative camp or the musician camp. When I get paid by an orchestra (not including my day job) it's for a piece of music. It's a one time payment whether it's for a commission or performance rights to an existing work. However, the musicians are the core to the orchestra. As Music Director for TwtrSymphony, I am certain I spend more time worried about the details of orchestra operation than any of the musicians. I might even go so far as to say I worry about it more than all the musicians put together. But that doesn't change the fact, the...

What does it mean to invest yourself in music? What is a good investment? If you had $100 and wanted to invest it, you could put it in a savings account and earn 0.5% interest. You would have access to your money, but it wouldn't earn much interest. If you put your $100 into a certificate of deposit account you might earn 2 to 2.5% but you'd have to leave it there for the long haul. While you might make more money, you have no access to it. You might find a scheme somewhere that would pay 5-6% interest on your money, but there is a much greater risk that you'll lose it all. At the riskiest schemes it would take you twelve years to make $100 on your initial investment. But this isn't an blog post about money. If you wanted to earn $100 - in California minimum wage is $8/hr -- so it would take you 12.5 hours to make $100. Actually, it would take you a bit longer than that as you'd have taxes taken out. Let's say 15 hours. That's a lot quicker than twelve...

"For the first time in history, children are growing up whose earliest sexual imprinting derives not from a living human being, or fantasies of their own; since the 1960s pornographic upsurge, the sexuality of children has begun to be shaped in response to cues that are no longer human. Nothing comparable has ever happened in the history of our species; it dislodges Freud. Today's children and young men and women have sexual identities that spiral around paper and celluloid phantoms: from Playboy to music videos to the blank females torsos in women's magazines, features obscured and eyes extinguished, they are being imprinted with a sexuality that is mass-produced, deliberately dehumanizing and inhuman." — Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women) "Although the sexual sell, overt and subliminal, is at a fever pitch throughout all forms of the media, depictions of sex as an important and potentially profound human activity are no...

by Eddie Louise TwtrSymphony is breaking the paradigm of Classical Music as the art form that just IS - an always present rarely acknowledged facet of the cultural landscape. The symphony as an institution has its place, but new music is not the focus in that reality. TwtrSymphony believes in the power of music to inspire, to excite and to move people. We believe that there is a hunger for new orchestral music. We believe in the magic that is created when musicians devote themselves to the expression of the ideas and emotions which inhabit the music of our time. Social media is the perfect medium for the exploration of a new musical world. One where new music is embraced and celebrated. Where audiences are acknowledged and encouraged. Where dialogue between musicians, composers and audience create the sparks of new ideas and ignite new passions. In order to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in this landscape, we need to learn to share our passion, to share of ourselves. ...

There are SO many people who have helped us this first year. Here is a short list of those who have made it all possible TwtrSymphony Musicians Alexis Del Palazzo, Nikki Warrington, Catherine Coulter-Young, Bobbi Blood, Macy McClain, Lish Lindsey, Jonathan Hunt, Ronnal Ford, Peter Cigleris, Michael Ormond, Scott Harris, Adam Lusk, Garrett McQueen, Stephanie Unverricht, Keri Degg, Rachael Forsyth, William Bard, Tracy Bass, Robert Perlick-Molinari, Aileen Douthwaite, Laurel Roseborrough, Jessica Mullen, Ettore Rivarola, Timothy Breckon, Jeff Freeman, Paul Emmett, Blaine Cunningham, Dave Hutchings, Steve Flory, Shana Norton, Erica Sipes, Craig Stratton, Manoela Wunder, Zane Merritt, Susanne Hehenberger, Anna Rose, Bonnie Gartley, Sarah Richardson, Christian Chinchilla, Elyssa Gilmar, Alison Wrenn, Janet Horvath, Natalie Spehar, Matt Erion, Alvaro Rosso, Stephen Kreuger, Jodi Bortz, Janet Bordeaux, Joss Campbell, Kim Hickey, Andrea Myers, Car...