the good, the bad, and the ugly

It’s almost December, and the holiday season is on us like the Polar Express driven by a meth-crazed tweaker after a two week bender.  Yesterday, violist Sam Bergman wrote a very apt post about why the holiday season is difficult for orchestra members, I highly recommend it.

Here in Oregon, we haven’t run into that problem yet, mostly because we are doing two back to back non-holiday specials soon: Yo-Yo Ma and Bela Fleck.  Yes, the Most Famous Cellist in the World is coming back to Portland after a long absence, and to fill out the part of the program that he isn’t featured on, we’re doing a trio of tricky works that will keep our fingers very busy: first, an Oregon Symphony co-commission from 1995, John Adams’ Slonimsky’s Earbox, a cascading, shimmying, vibrating tour de force that challenges every section of the orchestra (and especially the principal violist, who has a very long and exposed solo).  Also on tap, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnole, which is another orchestral showpiece that features solo turns from the concertmaster, harpist, flautist, and clarinetist.  Finally comes Copland’s Appalachian Spring, which jumps the violas all around their considerable ranges, with angular rhythms thrown in for good measure – it’s great fun to play, but it always requires some dedicated wood-shedding to get it in shape for the fingers. Oh, and Yo-Yo will be playing Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto, which should be absolutely electrifying – but the concert has been sold out for months (good for us, bad for those of you without tickets already).  The Bela Fleck concert is on Monday, December 6, and it is one of those affairs where the first half of the show features the orchestra in a mix of holiday-themed classics, with the remainder of the show featuring Bela Fleck with the orchestra and in solo numbers.  There are still good seats available for the Fleck show.