It all started with Hector Berlioz and his Evenings with the Orchestra! A group of bored musicians is stuck in a small town playing overrated operas. With nothing else to do, they tell tales, read stories and exchange gossip about

It all started with Hector Berlioz and his Evenings with the Orchestra! A group of bored musicians is stuck in a small town playing overrated operas. With nothing else to do, they tell tales, read stories and exchange gossip about

Opera and ballet pit musicians are accustomed to being heard and not seen. They are nestled in the sometimes cramped space in front of and below the stage and produce the glorious sounds, which waft upwards and accompany the drama.

Orchestral musicians groom themselves to be heard and seen but sometimes composers ask musicians to perform from offstage. These composers want the effect of distance or an antiphonal effect in the music. Occasionally the backstage music might come from a

Competitions, a fact of life for musicians, can be the bane of our existence. They are demanding and arduous, taking months, or years, of disciplined preparation and nerves of steel. I was invited to serve on the jury of this

As if musicians don’t have enough problems—preparing for and taking auditions in other cities or countries, purchasing and insuring expensive instruments, practicing hours and hours, sustaining injuries from the repetitive motions or awkward postures necessary to play an instrument, and

Classical musicians feel misunderstood. Either we are judged as cranky, elitist or aloof or in another incomprehensible world. Innocently, non-musicians will make cracks—some inadvertent, some not. Periodically there have been many articles about what not to say to a classical

Smashed guitars, lost double basses, confiscated Stradivarius’, cancelled tickets and boarding refusals—what is a musician to do? Recently a guitarist had his custom-built instrument safely stowed in the overhead bin on a flight to Nice. The stewardesses approached him in