Now, before you jump to the conclusion that this post is about some classical music blog that will be zapped by your safe-surf software, be assured, The Classical Beaver is quite simply a highly-entertaining and informative blog written by a very enthusiastic Oregon Symphony audience member. It’s well worth adding to your blogging routine – here’s a sample from the Beaver’s latest posting:
last weekend’s schubert/rossini concert line-up was notable for something it was missing – a modern piece of music. in fact, after some very simplistic investigative journalism, i discovered it was the only program this classical subscription season not to contain a 20th or 21st century work. to be very clear, allow me to specifically state that out of the 16 regularly scheduled classical concerts this season, remarkably 15 of them contained at least one 20th or 21st century work. 15 out of 16! or, since baseball season is thankfully nipping at our heels, that’s a percentage of .937! one might wonder why i am becoming belligerent about this. well, let me tell you, when i began regularly attending oregon symphony concerts a few years ago, i just assumed that i’d be constantly listening to the music of mozart, bach, and Beethoven (which ain’t so bad, btw). i was stoked to discover that the os actually plays a shit-ton of modern music… you know, chock-full of dissonant, politically charged, jazz-infected, pared-down, minimalistic, atonal musings… stuff that was written when jackson pollack was dripping, when martin luther king jr. was preaching, when john coltrane was blowing, and when raymond carver was writing. if you care about these people and their creations, get your ass to an oregon symphony concert.
[link] – the classical beaver