Thursday, November 29, 2007

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Top Ten Things To Do During the Writer's Guild Strike of 2007

10. Watch Baywatch reruns on TV Land. Long live the Hoff!
9. In keeping with the Star Trek-Boston Legal connection, try to convince Majel Barrett Roddenberry to create some new storylines to keep William Shatner's cash flow going.
8. Catch up on some Holiday Catalog reading.
7. Convince yourself that reality TV outside of anything starring Gordon Ramsey is really interesting.
6. Start laminating Houston Symphony trading cards to enhance their eBay value.
5. Have some fun with your friends' heads on JibJab.
4. Go through the HS Wavelength Blog Archives, and see how fun it is to read this blog, translated into pirate-speak. Arrr!
3. Fer Pete's sake, go outside and get some fresh air!! Run! Bike! Walk your dog!
2. Now that you're not sitting ON the couch, fish under the cushions and take all your newfound wealth to the Houston Symphony Store and buy Symphomaniac merchandise for all your loved ones for Christmas.


and the number one thing to do during the Writer's Guild Strike of 2007 is:

1. Get your sorry self to the Houston Symphony this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday to see how many percussion instruments Evelyn Glennie needs to drown out a symphony orchestra!!! Oh, and the Prokoviev is pretty good, too.

Friday, November 16, 2007

A rose by any other name.....

Tonight we are playing a concert with Kenny G. I don't know whether or not you'd call "G" his stage name, or just an abbreviation. Yesterday while rehearsing our Classical weekend concert with Emanuel Ax, we were informed that "Mr. G's" plane would be late, so rehearsal today would start late as well. "Mr. G?" Is that like "Mr. T?" As in "I pity the fool that don't think I am the best damn smooth jazz golfer in the WORLD!"

Let's be honest here, people. Stage names USUALLY, though not always, substitute for a very unfortunate real name. As in G for "Gorelick." Yikes. Last summer we played with Clayton Holmes Grissom (Clay Aiken). Actually, the Houston Symphony's Who's Who of unmanageable last names is quite the tongue twister: Anthony Dominick Benedetto (Tony Bennett), Florencia Bisenta de Casillas Martinez Cardona (Vicki Carr). Declan Patrick McManus (Elvis Costello), Vito Farinola (Vic Damone), Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. (John Denver), Christina Claire Ciminella (Wynonna Judd), Sidney Leibowitz (Steve Lawrence), Rosita Dolores Alverio (Rita Moreno), and Louis Weertz (Roger Williams)...to name a few of the ones that will 'fess up.

Then there are musicians that probably SHOULD take stage names. Check out this link to an album cover from a fairly famous jazz pianist/organist, (stop snickering, are we in Kindergarten?) Dick Hyman.
Reinhold Jockisch was a famous musician from the mid 19th century whose edited string parts are widely used today. On the other side of the coin, we have Arnold George Dorsey, who took a perfectly fine name and decided to mess up data entry workers everywhere by seeking fame as Englebert Humperdinck. Not to be confused with the COMPOSER Englebert Humperdinck, of "Hansel and Gretel" fame, who didn't change his name to Arnold Dorsey, or anything else.

Of course, this blog's descent into the banal would not be complete without the story of colleagues in university music departments that sign up fake students (in honor of one of the oldest running Simpsons gags) to take their yearly final jury exams--just for a little levity when the proctor calls out their names. Ben Dover, Mike Rochitches, and Oliver Klosoff were some of those gems. I'll stop while I'm ahead....or at least only a little behind... and leave you with a few outlets.

I need to get to Macy's anyway- I hear they're having a sale on my favorite bedsheets- from Polo by Ralph Lifchitz (Doesn't exactly conjure up images of genteel English countryside, does it?).