Graeme Norris http://www.violinist.com/blog/graemenorris13/ Graeme Norris's weblog on Violinist.com. Graeme Norris's weblog on Violinist.com. en-us © Graeme Norris http://www.violinist.com/blog/graemenorris13/200811/9316/ I was one of many lucky people to have attended the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM). I can unreservedly say that I would not be the violinist I am now and not in the job I am not without the unique programs that this institution offers it's students. I had access to fantastic facilities, huge performance opportunities and some amazing Australian and international visiting artists. Before the days of ANAM, a student who was serious would have no option but to head overseas after their degree, but now, there's a place where the teachers come to us! That was, until last week. About a week ago, the Australian Government announced a complete withdrawal of funds from the Australian National Academy of Music. This amounts to about A$2.6 million per anum. Quite small when you consider that a recent calculation on sports funding told us that each olympic gold medal in the last 20 years cost tax payers $40 million. That's for ONE gold medal! The philosophy of funding at the Australian Institute of Sport is that if a sport performs well it gets more funding; if a sport performs badly then it gets less funding. ANAM in the last 4 years has improved its standard, the programs it offers and the its graduates are winning almost all of the orchestral jobs on offer in Australia. The ANAM staff, students and alumni are, as you can imagine extremely upset by the move, not only because of the here and now. We all fear for the future of music performance and training in Australia. If the Academy does get shut down, the best graduates from our universities and colleges will go straight overseas and probably stay there with their talent. All this will have a noticeable effect on our orchestras and education in years to come. For many of us, we feel this is the beginning of the end. Here are a few links on the news and also a petition set up by ANAM, to petition the Government to keep the school open. News story from The Age ANAM site, with an explanation and documentary about the group Sign the Save ANAM Petition! Any support including signing of the petition will be appreciated by the ANAM community and indeed, anyone concerned about the arts in Australia. The arts struggle everywhere, but this is ridiculous. Graeme Norris Associate Concertmaster Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:12:20 GMT http://www.violinist.com/blog/graemenorris13/200610/5961/ The program last week was Part's 3rd Symphony, Greig's Piano Concerto and RK's Sheherazade. Not for the first time this year, the program included large concertmaster solos. The ones of particular note this season have been Zarathustra, Glazunov's ballet Raymonda (hmm...who would have thought? a tricky CM solo in a ballet) and this one. As usual our CM did a marvelous job with the solos, tremendously musical with a beautiful silky sound. A real pleasure to listen to. We all know how hard these solos are, we spend hours with our exerpt books learning the standard ones for work, auditions or sometimes just for fun. One of the difficulties however that's underestimated, is actually placing the solos in context...especially with the Ballet where you really have very little control over how it's going to go. But spare a thought for the poor understudy. Why does the ACM know how much work goes into these solos? Because he or she also has to learn them to concert standard as well. He starts preparing a few weeks ahead and has to be ready to perform right until the last concert. The drawback? Very rarely does he ever perform the part. And if he has to? No rehearsal. Earlier this year, the CM was extremely sick for one concert and even though he came to the hall, he definately couldn't go on stage. We were already on stage and the manager came up to the front and told me that I was to lead the concert. The main work was Elgar's 2nd Symphony which only has a couple of tiny solos but it was my first time 'stepping up to the plate' and was a real shock to the system. I'd never realised how tricky playing the same part from a different angle (with new divisi's)could be if it was already the 2nd of 3 concerts. It certainly gave me a whole new perspective on the amount of preperation the ACM needs to put in. So with that experience relatively fresh in the mind I embarked on the Sheherazade solos. This time I was definately ready. I had even mentally prepared myself to move across in case of illness. As the final solo in the final concert sailed past (no pun intended), I had to remind myself that I had done my job well. I was prepared to perfrom those solos even though I hadn't had to. As I wistfully looked back on the week I reminded myself that it was fantastic experience to have kept the solos up at concert levels for a week. When I took the job, one of the other violinists told me that the most frustrating thing about the position was going to be all the wonderful CM solos that came by that I would always prepare but never have the opportunity to perform. At the time I thought 'well, it can't be that bad'. Now I understand how the opera understudy feels. I suppose sometimes it's a good thing though...as the last solo in the ballet season danced past I breathed a sigh of relief :) Mon, 30 Oct 2006 01:30:09 GMT http://www.violinist.com/blog/graemenorris13/200610/5876/ My wonderful fiance is a pianist so since we've been together I've been discovering heaps of new piano repertoire which has been wonderful. One of the wonderful things I've been rediscovering is the piano concertos of an old favourite...W.A. Mozart. They really are amazing! And of course there are many different ways of playing them...from Robert Levin on the fortepiano to a heavily romanticised version with a brick on the sustain pedal. So...in discovering them I've stumbled across a couple of names (well...I knew them before but they've stuck out for me in this genre) Murray Perahia and Mitsuko Uchida. Both of these players seem to have everything that makes me want to quit my job and just sit at home all day everyday with a cup of green tea and my cd player. Gorgeous sound, exquisite phrasing and timing to die for. It's been such a refreshing experience that I've been inspired to go back to the piano (I used to play for about 10 years) but I fear I'll always be dissapointed in that respect. As it turns out, these two performers seem to have recordings of Mozart that most pianists consider as benchmark performances and I can certainly see why. So I started to look through our CDs for the Mozart violin concertos which yeilded a rather disapointing result. We have a few recordings which are all good in their different ways but none of which made me feel the same way as the aforementioned piano clan. This got me thinking...which recordings are considered the benchmark recordings for the violin concertos? Of course there are many many styles in which violinists play mozart from the "historically informed" mob to those who feel mozart like Tchaikovsky. Having not listened to the vast majority of recordings of Mozart violin concertos it's difficult to pick which one to buy next (unfortunately my funds don't stretch to just buying them all). I figure that most people reading this would have opinions on the topic and I'd love to hear all of them! Thoughtfully, Graeme Thu, 12 Oct 2006 15:25:47 GMT