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SYMPHONY NOTES his fall three ICSOM orchestras were on strike, but thankfully all have settled.
While the Philadelphia Orchestra walked out during their gala celebration, the strike only lasted two days. The Fort Worth Symphony bargained for more than a year and went on strike at the beginning of September. They recently settled a new four-year agreement that includes a wage freeze — but no cuts — with the assistance of the director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services. Pittsburgh Symphony musicians called for an eight-week strike because management refused to improve their draconian proposal to cut salaries and the size of the orchestra. Their five-year agreement includes multi-year cuts but restores the salary to pre-cut levels in the final year of the contract; they also maintained the current orchestra size. It has been inspiring to see these three groups of musicians stand together. It has been equally impressive to see the ICSOM community rally to help orchestras that were forced into extended work stoppages. Since ICSOM’s Calls to Action began, nearly $2 million has been contributed by ICSOM orchestras, by individuals, and by members of ROPA, OCSM (Canadian Orchestras), RMA, TMA, and some AFM locals. The generosity extended to musicians by musicians has been nothing short of extraordinary.
It has been a busy fall
Since the Nashville Symphony returned to work on Sept. 6 we will have performed 23 different types of programs by the time Christmas vacation began December 19. Five of these 15 weeks included two differ-
ent performances per week and two weeks contain three different programs (both while the orchestra is split into two different orchestras to perform The Nutcracker while the other orchestra plays The Messiah and other holiday pops.) That translates into 58 concerts — plus two recording patch sessions — or, to take it even another step further: two ballets, eight classical (including Young Person Concerts), two mixed-genre, nine pops and two movies performed as concerts. And of course, that doesn’t include rehearsals and hours of practicing at home before and during scheduled rehearsals before these concerts. We’ve performed Mahler to Brahms to Prokofiev to rarely played works by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and we’ve woodshedded and recorded new works by Leshnoff and Kernis. We have worked with gifted classical soloists, and with royalty artists such as Mandy Barnett, Michael W. Smith, Jennifer Nettles, Peter Cetera, and the wonderful Ben Folds. The Nashville Symphony Chorus joined us for Mahler and The Messiah and provided a small chorus for one of the two movies we performed this fall — Home Alone.
About these movies…
I am a huge fan of movie soundtracks, and especially those by John Williams. However, knowing my career path was to be a symphony musician, I never expected to perform these wonderful scores except as a brief arrangement or suite. If I remember correctly, our first film concert was a pops concert replete with various movie scores. We were told that much of the music had been reconstructed because the original parts were “buried in a landfill in LA.”
Three months of movies to prepare (plus dozens of other NSO concerts): November Jurassic Park, December Home Alone and January Harry Potter
BY LAURA ROSS Around the same time we also performed Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky on a classical series. Then came Bugs Bunny, Looney Toons and other cartoons utilizing classical music followed by single exhibitions of The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca; and now we present a series of movies every summer. Orchestras around the country are now performing an expanding catalog of movies, but we are playing them under far different conditions than when they were initially recorded. It might take weeks or months to record a film soundtrack, while we perform them in the span of the movie itself, without retakes. And playing those soaring melodies and big action and battle scenes is extremely demanding on an orchestra. I don’t usually get to see what it’s like to experience watching a movie while the music is performed live, but years ago, I was in symphonic recording negotiations and observed a New York Philharmonic benefit concert rehearsal of Spielberg film clips conducted by John Williams. I sat in that balcony watching Indiana Jones outrun the giant boulder and heard concertmaster Glenn Dicterow perform a selection from Schindler’s List — it was magical. I never imagined experiencing the same wonder as Sam Neill and Laura Dern when they saw the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park, but there we were in November playing that majestic and glorious theme when I glanced up at the screen and felt I had joined them onscreen! That feeling of joy and wonder is a tiny piece of the gift we give — and receive — when we perform music. Sometimes, when playing seems more like work, this is what we need to remember: every day is a gift. And for me in 2017, I’ll be thrilling to every scene in Harry Potter (parts 1 & 2 this season) and E.T., and I’ll remember the John Williams soundtracks we performed in 2016 – Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park and TNM Home Alone. JANUARY–MARCH 2017 25