My friend, Lauren DeRoller, recently wrote a post on her blog that hit a chord with a lot of people, including me. You can read the post here, but to sum up, she points out a lot of the problems with orchestral auditions, from a candidate’s perspective. I won’t rehash Lauren’s whole post, because it’s well...
Category: Music
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Satin Doll
It’s spring, 2007. I wander up St-Laurent looking for the bar I’ve been told is “really hard to find”, and stare intently at each shop face hoping the names will tell me something. It’s above Duluth, I know that much. I take out my cell phone for inspiration, when suddenly a band starts up and...
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The Last Times
When I was about 40 (the first “milestone” birthday that really hit me), I started taking medication daily for a minor condition. I suddenly became very aware that each pill signified one day in my life. Those pills were like the sand particles in an hour glass. As the month’s pills would start to run...
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Where I answer some comments
Despite not wanting to give my detractors much credibility, I’m tempted to answer a couple of the comments made after my original post about sexism in Vienna. I’m not going back to read them, because, ugh, but a few of them have stuck in my mind, so I thought I’d talk through them and hopefully...
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Welcome to The Vomitorium
That is, the internet. My friend wrote those words to me (with slightly different punctuation) after my last blog post which you can read here, if you didn’t catch it. It went viral… or the equivalent of viral in my tiny corner of the blogging world. I was surprised by both the positive and negative...
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Musings on sexism in the music scene of Vienna
Recently, I was on tour with the OSM (L’orchestre symphonique de Montréal) and we had a few days in Vienna. Vienna is a beautiful city with scads of musical and other cultural activities available any day of the week. I didn’t plan anything in advance, and I was not all that drawn to the idea...
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Season of Sacrifice
I’m not sure who coined the phrase, ” Season of Sacrifice” but I first heard it I believe, from Liz Craft on the podcast, Happier in Hollywood, to describe the period during which she and her partner, Sarah Fain, are writing screenplays. I loved the term because it applies so aptly to the period of...
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The Afterglow
I just returned from a great few days in Toronto at the first ever Canadian Women’s Brass Collective event, nicknamed, “That’s What she Said”. It was, especially for an inaugural effort, an incredible experience. It was well organized, well-run and it brought people from all over the country together to play and give lectures, workshops...
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I gotta practice, but first…
Right now I ought to be practicing. At least that’s what I’m thinking most of the time that I’m doing something else. That’s the life and curse of being a musician. Practicing is always hanging in the background, like that angel/devil hanging on your shoulders; only they’re both telling me to practice. Ever since I...