So, everyone, we’re back! There have been some changes, as you can no doubt see, and things are still under construction.

Bede Hanley!

We had a masterclass with Bede Hanley the other day.  When Jim told us about it we were all like, “Who is Bede Hanley?”  It turns out he is principal oboist of the Auckland Symphony.  The one in New Zealand! (Where there are sheep! I wonder if he practices surrounded by sheep. This is what I picture when I picture  oboing in New Zealand.) He used to play in an orchestra in Spain, although he was originally from Saskatoon and studied in Cleveland with John Mack.
We got to ask him a bunch of questions about playing overseas, questions like, “How do you get a job?” (You send a tape, and they invite you and usually pay for your plane ticket.) “I thought European orchestras don’t like North American players?” (They don’t tend to hire North American players, but some do.  More and more orchestras are mixing sounds.  There is a very mixed section (North American, English, German) sound in the Auckland oboe section.) “How many auditions did you take before you got a job?” (He didn’t take too many  before getting the job in Spain, and then he auditioned several more places before getting the job in Auckland.  He said he learned more as a member of a panel than as an auditioner; he learned what makes a player stick out of the crowd: tone, control, and something individual.)

It was highly informative and interesting!

All the oboes in the studio who are auditioning for the National Youth Orchestra played for Bede, so I made a list of his comments for each excerpt.  Here they are:

Brahms Violin Concerto:

Danie made NYO last year. She was in her first year! We were all intimidated.

-Stay away from forcing your tone, especially on the high C, and during dramatic crescendos. (This I wasn’t so sure about. I mean, essentially true, but the way he demonstrated it sounded as though he was tapering every note, and I get yelled at when I do that. I’ve always thought that pushing through/spinning out the note was a better way to maintain motion. Obviously don’t force it, but don’t die away either.)
- Dynamics are not a button on an amplifier. “Opening your sound” is the way you treat the air, not the amount of air.
- Our oral cavity is our left hand.
- Play open and full, not hard.

Scheherezade:
- Playing the repetition as an echo is a good idea, but do not slow down on the echo.
- “Less pushing, more sound.”

Beethoven 3:
- Vibrato needs to be integral to the sound, not added to it.
- Long G should not be loud, but needs to be *alive*.

Aimee's Tombeau is fast fast fast.

Tombeau:
- This is a very reed-specific solo.
- Keep it contained, remember it is a piano piece. It should be fast, not frantic.
- The first half of the second part, embouchure should be shaped around high notes. The second half should be shaped around the low notes.
- Movement 2 is an excerpt about articulation and the low register.
- It should be light and delicate, short and clean.
- An accent =/= percussive tongue. It needs to be brought to life via vibrato and tone.
- Tombeau is mostly in soft dynamics, but consider them to be “chamber dynamics,” and that almost everything you play needs to be brought out and played soloistically, with a softer colour rather than dynamic.

In other news, I have nearly finished my piece for orchestra, “Analogue.”  It is somewhere between 6 and 8 minutes long, and I think/hope it is going to sound pretty okay.  It’s being read by the KWS on February 27th, sometime after 1:30 at Centre in the Square, so if you can come out, you *totally should.* Peter wants me to start something else while I tweak “Analogue,” so I think I’m going to write a short piece for all the double reeds at Laurier (14 of us), and then my aural comic! Are you excited? I am excited! I finally have a better, more workable idea which came to me while I was massacring Tombeau.  I hope I did not give too much away!

Speaking of composing, today in Comp Seminar we were looking at some clips of various kinds of opera and musical theatre from all over the world.  We watched a clip of “Rigoletto,” some Cantonese opera, Japanese Noh, “Einstein on the Beach,” and some of the quasi-operas that were the only entertainment in China during the reign of Mao. (Also some of Peter’s Guerilla Sound Events, which are fantastic and remind me of Posterchild who is also awesome!) Watching the foreign clips made me realize that I can’t focus on the music of opera-type-things if I don’t understand the words. All I got out of “Rigoletto” was that one of the guys had *giant* eyebrows which reminded me strongly of trees; all I got from the Cantonese opera was that there was a lot of sleeve action (they had really long “tiered sleeves” which they were constantly rolling up and hiding their hands in), and only the lead character’s pants in the Japanese Noh kept me interested (they were *boxes*, I swear!). Conclusion: I get distracted too easily. But that’s the story, morning glory!