Homepage Update - May 2011
The weekend of March 26/27th 2011 was always going to be a difficult. I had hoped to be in Seattle at the University of Washington for the closing concerts of the CBDNA Conference on the Saturday, or in Bromley for the great one day Festival put on by BASBWE on the Sunday. I had also booked tickets for the Royal Northern College performance of Samuel Barber's Vanessa on the Sunday, but in the event I did none of the things and stayed at home for my 73rd birthday party with all of my grandchildren present.
What happened in Seattle? Well, I managed to download the programmes from the web, and I have been looking in vain for reviews. I thought I had tracked down an article about the performance of Chen Yi's Dragon Rhymes performed by Larry Gookin and Central Washington University Wind Symphony. However the webpage asked Who was there? No-one elected to attend this concert.
Another review page published by InstantEncore had a heading Reviews underneath which I read No reviews have been written for this concert. So that's that, then, another successful Conference.
I still find it hard to understand why there was nothing on the WASBE website about CBDNA Conference, nothing on the CBDNA website about the forthcoming WASBE Conference, and nothing on BASBWE or NBA about either, but at least WASBE now gets reviews of concerts and sessions and posts them up on the website.
For a time, there were tweets about the conference, and these included a great quotation from Gerard Schwarz, Conductor of the Seattle Symphony and Conference Keynote Speaker:
Greatness is hard. If you wanna be mediocre, that's easy
What happens between Conferences, that is the big question for WASBE and CBDNA. How do we disseminate good news about repertoire, and how do we lead the movement from mediocrity to greatness?
It is now thirty years since I discovered the potential of the wind ensemble and wind band, at that great Manchester Conference of 1981. Since then, dozens of works of real significance have been written, and a really great, vibrant repertoire created. So I find it extraordinary that CBDNA, WASBE, BASBWE, NBA, CBA, JBA, ABODA, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all do not want to share the joyous news about new repertoire at every level, especially in this era of the web. Let me know your views on this and all the music heard at CBDNA or BASBWE last month. WASBE will certainly tell you about Taiwan in July.
Have a great Spring or Autumn,
Tim