“ ‘If we do our job well, then you’ll never know we’re around.’ So says Sara Griffin, assistant principal librarian of the New York Philharmonic in a recent video interview on the Philharmonic’s website,” writes Peter Dobrin in Sunday’s (3/27) Philadelphia Inquirer. “In fact, this video series aims to cure classical anonymity by demystifying how an orchestra works in the orchestra’s own ‘On the Cover’ series of interviews with its musicians…. ‘On the Cover’ also brings listeners into the sometimes bafflingly inside-baseball rituals and practices of the orchestral world. Librarians, we learn, are not responsible only for making sure the right music … ends up on the right music stand…. They also do a lot of music preparation.” In other video interviews, “The timing and placement of what an orchestra’s timpanist does is so crucial the player is sometimes thought of as a ‘second conductor,’ says principal timpanist Markus Rhoten. Second clarinetist Pascual Martínez Forteza recalls a particularly emotional performance: Brahms’ A German Requiem with Kurt Masur shortly after Sept. 11, 2001—‘the whole orchestra was in tears.’ And he reveals that his clarinet is not made of the usual wood, but of ebony powder and synthetic materials.” The Philharmonic posts the videos at www.nyphil.org/whats-new.
Posted March 28, 2016
