New Posts Coming!

I promise to have something nice up for you tomorrow. I have been spending a lot of time on composition and score editing and proofing which has taken my attention away from blogging for a couple of days.

But in the meantime, here are a couple of items I noticed. The BBC has an educational project called Ten Pieces that will be trying to promote classical music in the schools. This is a good thing, of course, as you have to start somewhere! The only interesting musical experience I recall from my schooldays was when the teacher in Grade 9, I think, played us what I dimly recall must have been the Rite of Spring. That would have been, hmm harumph, around 1964?

Here is a funny post from Slipped Disc about song lyrics you misheard. The one I recall getting wrong was from a Christmas carol. I thought they were singing "and a part of a juniper tree" but it turned out that the line actually was "a partridge in a pear tree" which doesn't make much more sense! Then there were those long nights spent huddled over a hot 45 trying to figure out the lines to Stones songs. Jumping Jack Flash? Turns out the first line actually IS "I was born in a cross-fire hurricane."

I know you have been laying awake nights wondering what the top conductors in Russia are earning and Norman Lebrecht has the scoop here. Number one is Valery Gergiev, of course, at $6.9 million dollars.

That will have to do you as I need to save something for my Friday Miscellanea. Let's have a little Gergiev. Here he is conducting the Symphony No. 4 by Tchaikovsky:

Wow, what a great opening!