Owner: G.P. URL:http://blog.sashamakila.com/ Join Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:26:57 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Life in music. An aspiring orchestra conductor writes about his travels to concerts, competitions and master classes. Site statistics:Click here
Mayday Mayday Mayday! 2008-05-01 13:59:00 Today I had a surprise "return to my roots" as a conductor - I conducted
"Korson Työväen
Soittokunta" wind band for the May Day festivities back here in Finland! I
used to play alto sax in this band as a hobby (you might be able to spot me in
the pic above), so it was fun to return to conduct them after a long while. And
I also... Read Mayday
Mayday Mayday!
One Year of Blogging - Happy Birthday! 2008-05-11 03:47:00 It has been exactly one year and one day of blogging today! Have I achieved
anything? According to the statistics collected by my gandi.net page I get approximately a
hundred hits per day - sometimes less, sometimes more - especially if I am
writing from some competition. I think for a photo journal made by a
non-photo-journalist (or a... Read One Year of Blogging
- HappyBirthday
! Read more:Happy Birthday
Beacon of Light comes to Los Angeles 2008-05-22 02:06:00 I heard wonderful news a couple of weeks ago: My friend and colleague Case
Scaglione was appointed the music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles
! He
will have an interesting three years to come, conducting five big programs a
season with this young orchestra.
Just take a look at their previous programs -... Read Beacon
of Light comes
to Los Angeles
Spring And Graduations 2008-05-21 11:24:00 Studying in three schools at the same time might not be the best strategy if
you plan to graduate soon. Especially if you work at the same time as I did!
That said, it is nevertheless fun to be able to celebrate your graduation
several times.
Yesterday was one of those fun days when I went to pick up my Musicology
paper at the Helsinki University.... Read Spring
And Graduations
My Teachers Part 1: Hannu Norjanen 2008-05-23 10:40:00 The whole conducting thing for me started kind of by accident. As I
mentioned earlier it all started on a band camp where we were
given a chance to take a conducting course for free. I was very lucky to have
Hannu
Norjanen as my first teacher. He laid very good foundations for me and
encouraged me to study further.
At that time Hannu was... Read My Teachers Part 1: Hannu Norjanen
My Teachers Part 3: Jorma Panula 2008-05-24 16:32:00 Very soon after taking serious interest in conducting I started to work with
Jorma Panula who has
been behind most Finnish conductors of today. I took several masterclasses
with him in addition to his regular classes as visiting professor at the
Sibelius Academy. I even played a couple of concerts under his direction as a
cellist! I admired him... Read My Teachers Part 3: Jorma Panula
My Teachers Part 2: Paul Niemistö 2008-05-24 03:24:00 My second Murikka band camp conducting course was led by the American brass
music enthusiast Paul Niemistö. I mostly remember his beautiful soprano voice when he
was singing some high woodwind parts, and the fact that he liked a beating
pattern system where all the beats occur at the same point - which I had to
unlearn later... It was... Read My Teachers Part 2: Paul Niemistö
My Teachers Part 6: Leonid Korchmar 2008-05-26 10:04:00 When I was about to finish my violoncello studies in Helsinki I made a trip
to St Petersburg, Russia, and met professor Leonid
Korchmar there. Our coincidental meeting resulted in nearly four incredible
years of intensive study of symphonic and operatic conducting at the St Petersburg "Rimsky-Korsakov"
State Conservatory. Before that... Read My Teachers Part 6: Leonid Korchmar
My Teachers Part 5: Pekka Helasvuo 2008-05-26 09:06:00 During my violoncello studies at the Helsinki Conservatory
I also took one term of "Ensemble and Orchestra Conducting" which was taught by
Pekka Helasvuo. He introduced all of his students to the
Saito
Conducting Method, which impressed me greatly at the time. It was the first
time I met a systematic approach to conducting technique!... Read My Teachers Part 5: Pekka Helasvuo
My Teachers Part 4: Atso Almila 2008-05-26 07:52:00 Composer-conductor Atso Almila was one of my early influences. He taught an open
conducting class at the Sibelius Academy called "Sandbox", which basically was
a playground for anyone interested in conducting. You just took your own
instrument with you or sat behind one of the pianos and participated in the
orchestra that way and you... Read My Teachers Part 4: Atso Almila
My Teachers Part 7: Piotr Gribanov 2008-05-27 14:41:00 Piotr Gribanov had a big influence on my conducting although I took just one
masterclass and a few private lessons with him. He also was the person to give
me my first concert with a professional orchestra - the St
Petersburg Congress Orchestra which he was heading at that time. My program
was huge and the main number was the symphonic poem... Read My Teachers Part 7: Piotr Gribanov
Riccardo Muti Live Streaming Today! 2008-05-28 17:24:00 This week I have been observing the famous Italian conductor Riccardo Muti in
rehearsal with the Orchestre National de France and the Radio Philharmonic
Choir. They prepared a program of Porpora, Cherubini and Schubert for the
Saint-Denis Festival here in Paris.
Muti's rehearsing gave me a lot to think about and for many different
reasons. He... Read Riccardo Muti Live StreamingToday
!
My Teachers Part 8: Yuri Simonov 2008-05-29 18:22:00 I finish my Russian "Troika" with Yuri Simonov, the formidable ex-chief of the Bolshoi theatre
in Moscow. I took part to his master class twice and saw him rehearse orchestra
many times. He has easily the best control over his baton I have seen anywhere
in the world! I also admire his skills of organization and his dutifulness in... Read My Teachers Part 8: Yuri Simonov
In Orleans with the Orchestre EDF 2008-05-31 09:27:00 While in Paris I have joined the ranks of the Orchestre EDF (Électricité
de France) as violoncellist. Their conductor Ludovic Perez whom I met in the
Matacic competition gave me this wonderful chance to get back to my
old main instrument. It has been a long time since I last played in an
orchestra and I almost forgot how much fun it can be!... Read In Orleans
with the Orchestre EDF
My Teachers Part 10: The Choral Experience 2008-06-02 11:03:00 I also wanted to take a choral conducting course while in the Sibelius
Academy, since in my opinion you really need to try your hand on this
instrument if you want to conduct opera. Choral singers have a totally
different mind-set than the orchestral players and thus you need a different
set of tools if you are to make the best out of them. In... Read My Teachers Part 10: The Choral Experience
My Teachers Part 9: The Band Experience 2008-06-02 10:33:00 At the Sibelius Academy I took a course of wind orchestra conducting, which
was led by the Finnish horn player and conductor Kalervo Kulmala. We were also taught by Elias
Seppälä, Kari
Tikka and Pertti Pekkanen, among others. Pekkanen left a particularly
good impression as a teacher, because he did not hesitate to show the students
a beautiful... Read My Teachers Part 9: The Band Experience
My Teachers Part 11: Exchange at the DKDM 2008-06-03 06:44:00 As a part of my Sibelius Academy studies I did a short student exchange in
Copenhagen in 2005, at the Royal
Danish Academy of Music (Det kongelige danske musikkonservatorium, DKDM for
short). My teacher there was Frans Rasmussen, seen conducting in the video clip above. He
is a great fellow and really an intelligent and supportive teacher, and I... Read My Teachers Part 11: Exchange
at the DKDM
June Update 2008-06-17 12:37:00 Conducting the Orchestre EDF at the Conservatoire du 19e
arrondissement
I couldn't update my blog for a week because of a classic hard disk failure
(with no back-ups of course!), but now I am briefly in Finland so I can sum up
my recent activities in a few words. Here I just had a meeting about an opera
production I will conduct in... Read June Update
Some Thoughts on Conducting Technique 2008-07-28 15:21:00 Recently I have started writing down my thoughts about conducting technique.
The reason is, that even though the profession of conducting has been evolving
for the past 150 years there still is much confusion among the music lovers and
even musicians as to what a conductor actually does. Rehearsal techniques,
podium charisma, and the actual... Read Some Thoughts on Conducting Technique
My Teachers Part 12: Leif Segerstam 2008-07-26 02:12:00 The finishing touches of my conducting education I received at the Sibelius
Academy with professor Leif Segerstam. I would say he was my last big influence
in conducting! He is a great artist with a mind flying sometimes so high it is
difficult to catch. Of the Finnish conductors around these days he has without
doubt the most perfect stick... Read My Teachers Part 12: Leif Segerstam
Orchestra Conductors in the Internet Age 2008-07-25 13:55:00 I got today a sudden inspiration from my colleague who lives in a different
country. We had email correspondence after a long break and because there was
actually more to say than was convenient to write on the email I asked if he
has a Skype account so we
could actually talk about these things. And *bang* - suddenly he was there,
smiling on my... Read Orchestra
Conductors in the Internet
Age
What Do Orchestra Conductors Do On Their Summer Holiday? 2008-08-09 01:32:00 Amateur archaeology, for example!
Archaeology has interested me enormously since I was a little boy, and after
all I would not be in bad company with Giuseppe
Sinopoli who was preparing a dissertation on archaeology, or Wilhelm
Furtwängler who grew up surrounded by ancient Greek pottery. So this
summer, after again spending one fun week teaching... Read What Do Orchestra
Conductors Do On Their Su Read more:Summer
, Holiday
Interpretation Through Conducting Technique 2008-08-01 13:21:00 To make people better understand what conducting technique really is, I
often give them the example of a situation, where someone has to replace an
ailing conductor at a moment's notice, just before the concert. Of course, in
the worst case the podium is taken by someone superficially familiar with the
repertoire in question, who merely starts... Read Interpretation Through Conducting Technique
Orchestra Humor 2008-07-30 16:50:00 A Player's Guide for Keeping Conductors in Line
by Donn Laurence Mills
If there were a basic training manual for orchestra players, it might
include ways to practice not only music, but one-upmanship. It seems as if many
young players take pride in getting the conductor's goat. The following rules
are intended as a guide to the development of... Read OrchestraHumor
Blogging from the pocket 2008-09-04 08:36:00 This time I am traveling without my laptop, but I took with me my trusted
Apple gadget. Of course writing on the touchscreen is a bit slow, but hopefully
that results in more concentrated and to-the-point entries!
The ONF has been rehearsing for three days now with maestro Masur, and on
Saturday we will travel to Bonn to perform all the symphonies... Read Blogging
from the pocket
Bravo, Maestro Dohnanyi! 2008-08-31 03:42:00 The
Opera Chick tipped me on this interview where the
favorite musical voyeurist of our times, Norman Lebrecht, interviews one of the
best conductors of our times, Christoph von Dohnanyi. Surely I am not the only
one who started to doubt Lebrecht's judgement after he wrote this
and
this! Ever since I was waiting for someone to straighten out the... Read Bravo
, Maestro
Dohnanyi!
FESNOJIV was in Finland 2008-08-27 15:07:00 La Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar rehearsing
with their chief conductor
Last week we had a rare guest in the Finland
ia Hall - "La Fundación del
Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de
Venezuela" had decided to make an invasion to my home country and it brought
here their flagship Simon Bolivar Youth... Read FESNOJIV was in Finland
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