Even though the orchestra doesn’t start up again until Friday (rehearsing for the Joan Rivers special on Saturday), I’ve got another orchestra (quasi) gig going on this week. It’s a recording project with Ken Selden, conductor of the Portland State University Orchestra, and it’s pretty unusual. We’re working on Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, but a version that was arranged for chamber ensemble in 1921 by Erwin Stein, and Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, arranged by Benno Sachs, both of whom were members of Arnold Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances, which took large scale compositions of modern music, and distilling them into chamber-sized orchestrations that could be appreciated in small, private house concerts. Should be a very interesting week of playing two very familiar pieces in very unfamiliar versions.
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