Issue: July 2007
For the first time in 12 years, I had to miss the final day of the AFM Convention, when most of the real action occurs. This year, the Nashville Symphony hosted the American Symphony Orchestra League’s convention. It overlapped with the AFM Convention on Wednesday, so I was on the red-eye early Wednesday morning to play the final rehearsals for our concert at the League convention. Having attended … [Read more...]
Issue: Chairperson's Reports
My visits to Las Vegas never fail to leave me numbed by the 24-hour sensory overload that assaults you the instant you emerge from the Jetway. The din of bells and coins hitting metal trays mix in with the over-sized visual assaults, promoting magicians I’ve never heard of who are somehow famous enough to have enticed Pamela Anderson to be their assistant. In the midst of a beautiful desert, Las … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2007
Perspectives on the AFM Convention An AFM Convention typically packs a great deal of business and politics into a whirlwind three-day session. Committees made up of local delegates appointed by the AFM president listen to many hours of testimony given by proponents and opponents of the many resolutions and recommendations submitted prior to the Convention. The committees include: Measures and … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2007
Establishing economic stability and community relevance have proven to be constant challenges for American orchestras, and of course, musicians have paid the highest price throughout this battle for survival. Cuts in weeks and wages have become the traditional response to orchestras’ economic troubles but have never succeeded as a legitimate bridge to a long-term fix. So it’s not all that … [Read more...]
Issue: July 2007
A question occurred to me as soon as I arrived at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. It was reinforced at the Riviera Hotel (not Las Vegas’s finest, by a long shot). “Why Las Vegas?” Surely one could offer fifty other cities that would better dispose delegates and attendees to the business at hand. But as the days sped by, I understood that the city’s overall tackiness, its heightened … [Read more...]
