Essentials of Orchestra Management has long been one of the League of American Orchestras’ signature professional-development courses: an immersive, intensive boot camp in how to succeed at running an orchestra. Now Essentials is getting an update, staying relevant to the present—and future—of orchestras.
Pianist Lang Lang is an international star—but he forged his career here in the U.S., where he moved as a teenager to study and then performed with American orchestras large and small. It was a formative experience that he still values, as he resumes touring, runs a foundation that connects young people around the world with classical music, and takes on new artistic challenges. League President and CEO Simon Woods interviews Lang Lang.
In this issue: Omicron Impact; · Symphony Magazine Article Wins Award; Messiah Reconsidered; Youth Orchestras Return
Read the whole Winter 2022 issue online via Issuu.
Byron Stripling makes concepts like crossover irrelevant. He attended Eastman School of Music to study classical trumpet—and became an in-demand master of jazz trumpet. He played with legendary jazz bands—and guested with scores of American orchestras. He led jazz bands, played with pops stars—and now he’s the principal pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
With the support of our valued donors, the League continues to have a positive impact on the future of orchestras in America by helping to develop the next generation of leaders, generating and disseminating critical knowledge and information, and advocating for the unique role of the orchestral experience in American life before an ever-widening group of stakeholders.
Last spring, as coronavirus positivity rates dipped in the U.S. and COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, orchestras’ fall season announcements included a hopeful sign: programs featuring orchestra and chorus. The sound of massed voices and orchestra has been sorely missed for more than a year, but with worries about the health risks of singing and uncertainty over Delta and other new variants, presenting Beethoven’s Ninth or Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony can be a tricky balancing act.
Your guide to the tops in pops.
Pops artists, like the orchestras they perform with, took a hit last season. Now they are beginning to return to orchestra stages across the country and hitting a note of realistic optimism. Ten pops artists reveal how they have fared, what they have missed, what they most look forward to, and what they have planned for the season ahead.
Musicians have been taking new roles at orchestras during the pandemic, commissioning and performing new music, stepping up as soloists, and curating and filming performances, often outdoors—even in an airplane hangar.