Richmond Philharmonic Members Area

String Section Seating for Fall

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:04:43 0000

String Seating for Fall

1^st Violins

William/Karen

Jennifer/Susan

Catlin/Scott

Lani/Bill

Melissa/John

Charles

2^nd Violins

Aaron/Abbie

Emily/Tom

Trish/Daniel

Herny/Tracey

Amanda/Jamie

Violas

Ben W/Heather

Brenda/Chrystal

Jillian/Ben

Ruth

Cellos (Please share stands from the start if possible.)

Beth LaMountain/ Christina Jennings

Michael Knowles/Beth Almore

Angela/Durwood Felton

David Raposo

Bass (Please start sharing stands.)

Damian/Jeff

Max/Bruce

Tempi for Fall

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:13:50 0000

Hi all,

Here are some tempos for fall. You'll note that there are no tempos for the Brahms. This is for two reasons. First, it's really hard to judge tempos for Brahms without hearing the depth of sound our orchestra manages to produce. (In short, the richer a string/wind/brass sound we manage to achieve the slower we can play it.) Second, and more importantly, any tempo marking I give you for pretty much all the movements, but especially the outer movements, wouldn't stay valid for long as the piece demands a lot of rubato in my view and we need to be sensitive to finding/changing tempos together, rather than as a matter of muscle memory, from the start. I refer you, instead, to the recordings by Kleiber I've posted in the "recordings" listings below as reference for both general tempo ideas and a good look into the general approach to rubato I'll be employing. He takes the third movement a bit faster than I'll demand in all likelyhood, but aside from that it's pretty close.

Enjoy practicing and listening to this fantastic music!

Bob

Mendelssohn, Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream

Half note=132

Ravel, Mother Goose Suite

1. Sleeping Beauty; Quarternote = 56

2. Little Tom Thumb; Quarternote = 60 (This is a bit faster than the Tebar recording I've pointed you to.)

3. Little empress of the pagodas; Quarternote = 114

4. Beauty and the Beast; Dotted-halfnote = 52

5. The Fairy Garden; Quarternote = 54

Preliminary Schedule for Fall Rehearsals AND ADDITIONAL WINTER DATE

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:23:14 0000

Hi everyone,

Here's the rehearsal schedule for fall. Please do what you can to be at all rehearsals you're called for, and to let Lani Wisner know dates you won't be able to attend as soon as you know about them.

PLEASE NOTE, there is an additional performance date for our winter cycle that you must reserve, in case we get an NEA grant to support our concert with Thomas Jostlein. MONDAY, MARCH 14, 7-9pm, ROBINSON COMMUNITY THEATER. If we get the grant this will be a runout for FRIENDS of Richmond with of a movement of Gliere, likely the first movement of the Sibelius, and probably a movement or two of Grieg, similar to what we did last year. It's especially important that we know about conflicts for this date ASAP so we can deal with any substitutions that need to be made. (Because this date is provisional, and has been presented to you after seatings were posted, I likely won't insist on changing the seatings or ask people to sit out the cycle if conflicts arise, but rather that we find and prepare qualified substitutes for the run-out.)

Finally, we've typically lost between 5 and 10 minutes of rehearsal EVERY WEEK to people walking into rehearsal just before 7pm, at 7pm or just after, and me foolishly holding William back from starting tuning so people can get settled. This has been very disrespectful of our colleagues' time and simply won't work with the amount of rehearsal and difficulty of repertoire we're working on this year. (I also apologize for the few times in the past three years where rehearsal has gone long, treading on break time, and for relying on the admittedly sluggish rehearsal room clock to determine our end time.) This won’t continue. REHEARSALS WILL BEGIN WITH OUR FIRST A AT 7:00:00PM VERIZON-WIRELESS TIME. PLEASE ARRIVE BY 6:50PM, OR TEN MINUTES BEFORE YOUR SCHEDULED REHEARSAL TIME AT THE VERY LATEST. If for some reason you can’t make it to rehearsals on time, please let Lani Wisner know ASAP. If there are enough people that it’s going to be a problem we can talk about moving our rehearsal time back a bit as an organization, but I can’t continue to arbitrarily and single-handedly allow rehearsals to start late. Everyone’s part and contribution is important to the orchestra, everyone needs to be present for rehearsal to be effective.

Best regards,

Bob Mirakian

Monday, Sept 13, GBC

7-7:20pm, Mendelssohn

7:20-7:45pm: Ravel, In Order

8:00-9:15pm: Brahms, Mov 4/3/1/2

Monday, Sept 20, Locations as Indicated (I’ll provide excerpts in advance.)

7-9:15pm: Individual String Sectionals on Brahms at GBC (classrooms)

7-9:15pm: Individual Wind/Brass Sectionals on Brahms at locations of their own choosing (Please try and settle on a non-GBC location.)

7-8pm: Individual percussion and celesta sectional on Ravel at GBC (main hall)

Monday, Sept 27, GBC (I’ll provide excerpts in advance.)

STRINGS

7-8pm: Individual String Sectionals on Mendelssohn/Ravel (The vast majority of this rehearsal will be on Mendelssohn.)

8:15-9:15pm: String sectional with Bob on Brahms

WINDS/BRASS

7-8pm: Wind/Brass Sectional with Bob on Brahms (We'll do movements in the order 4/2/1/3)

8:15-8:45pm: Collective Wind Sectional WITH HORNS on Mendelssohn under Mike G. (This will mostly be tuning the "big chords" at the beginning that return a few times in the piece.)

8:45-9:15pm: Individual wind sectionals on Ravel

Monday, Oct 4, GBC

7-7:35: Ravel (Mov. 5, 3, 4, 2, 1)

7:35-9:15: Brahms, Mov 3 and 1 (We'll take our break after the 3rd Mov.)

Monday, Oct 18, GBC

7-7:30: Mendelssohn

7:30-9:15: Brahms, Mov 4 and 2 (We'll take our break after the 4th Mov.)

Monday, Oct 25, GBC

7-7:20: Ravel (Mov, 5, 3, 4, 2, 1)

7:20-9:15: Brahms (Mov 4, 3, 1, 2) (We'll take our break after the 3rd Mov.)

Monday, Nov 1, GBC

7-7:20pm: Ravel (In Order)

7:20-7:40pm: Mendelssohn

7:55-9:15pm: Brahms (In Order)

Saturday, Nov 6 - Dress Rehearsal at Hermitage HS: 4-6:45pm

3:30pm: Call for Mendelssohn

3:45pm: Call for Ravel

4:15pm: Call for Brahms

Sunday, Nov 7, 4pm, Performance at Hermitage HS, 3:30pm call for Mendelssohn/Ravel, 3:50pm call for Brahms

Concert Order: Mendelssohn, Ravel, Intermission (10min), Brahms

Science Discovers What Orchestra Musicians Have Known for A Few Centuries

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:50:03 0000

It's all about the group. :)

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/do-re-mi-promotes-a-feeling-of-we-19058

A New Ambition for the RPO

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:57:53 0000

Dear friends and colleagues of the RPO,

I apologize for the length of this communication. I assure you, however, that every word is both deeply felt and important to me that you read, and I encourage you to do so.

First, it must be said that over the past three years, directing the RPO has been the formative experience of my professional life. In that time I’ve also directed college orchestras and conducted professional orchestras, and worked with a lot of high school and middle school students, but it’s from the RPO that I’ve learned the most. I’m very excited to continue learning with all of you how to be a better musician, a better conductor, and a better Music Director, and I thank you all for that opportunity.

The reason our work together has been so important to me is that our orchestra is a special blend of two massively positive qualities. First, we are a largely “professional” ensemble, in so far as more than two-thirds of our players (who I’m aware of, the number is likely more like three-quarters at minimum) derive some or all of their income from music performance or education, trained at a professional level as a musician, or some combination thereof. Of those of us who either didn’t complete a music degree or gig or teach extensively, everyone approaches music with the enthusiasm and effort required of a professional, and brings extensive ensemble experience to the table. This skill-level is exceptionally rare in volunteer orchestras in particular.

The fact that we are an orchestra of volunteers has always been of the foremost importance in my mind, but perhaps not in the way you might imagine. Rather than being some sort of hardship, it is our most important strength. Given our collective training and ability “volunteer,” for our ensemble, is miles away from “amateur.” It means that there is no one sitting in rehearsal each week who isn’t deeply motivated to be there for purely personal and musical reasons. There are no “burn outs” in our orchestra. There are no “casual” players. Rather, we are an assembly of well-trained and experienced musicians, serious enough to voluntarily dedicate something like double the rehearsal a professional ensemble would to a given performance. We are a group that prepares, not for a week, but for two months for each masterworks concert we give. In a world where professional ensembles are doing with less and less rehearsal and time between performances, and where exhaustion and negativity can become the status quo, working with such an ensemble is something akin to finding a pot of gold in your backyard, then discovering it stays full no matter how much you take out of it.

There are two factors limiting our potential currently, but they are both simply matters of attitude and discipline. First, and foremost, is my own approach to and expectations of the ensemble, and the level of preparation I bring to rehearsals. I have, admittedly, treated the RPO in the past more like a student ensemble than a collection of experienced and mature players, especially in my first year. This failing is entirely mine and a result of a failure of background, familiarity, and imagination. I am honestly embarrassed and ashamed to think of how I approached the ensemble our first year together, however well-intentioned I may have been. Our work together the past two years, however, has convinced me that my initial experiences and impressions of what the RPO was or could be were either entirely wrong or are no longer true. As a result I am raising the stakes on myself. Where I typically was able to dedicate 50 to 70 or so hours of study to a given performance, around half of that usually after we’ve started rehearsals my first year, I’m currently scheduling and dedicating myself 8 hours of study for every 5 minutes of music (or 112 hours for a 70 minute performance) to be completed before our first rehearsal. You will note, if you’re looking up, from the first downbeat of our first rehearsal that I am better prepared, more engaged, focused more on “musical” issues, and conducting from memory the majority of the time if not all the time. Admittedly, this is as much a result of this being the first year ever in my career that I’ve known, more or less, my repertoire and schedule for the year in advance, haven’t moved to a new state, or taken on a new job than some sort of change in attitude toward our ensemble, which I have always strived to be as well-prepared as possible for. But we’ll all reap the benefits regardless.

Obviously, I’m not about to suggest that everyone double their practice time as I’m doubling my score study. That would be both ridiculous and more than a little dismissive of our current level of preparation. I am, however, going to insist that we change the schedule on which we prepare. As we all know, the primary difference between the way we have treated our rehearsal cycles and the way a professional ensemble treats theirs is the level of preparation expected before the first rehearsal. Professional ensembles are expected to arrive at the first rehearsal more or less fully “practiced,” notes and rhythms learned up to tempo, dynamics approximated as closely as possible without the rest of the ensemble and conductor for guidance, repertoire made familiar through the use of recordings and scores, conductor settled in his or her interpretation, approach to beating, and knowledge of the score.

To facilitate this, professional orchestras employ teams of librarians and assistant librarians to copy bowings and distribute music in advance, engage principal players to prepare bowing changes and decisions in advance of rehearsals as far as possible, build libraries of CDs for their musicians’ use, etc. Although we have not been able to do these things in the past, despite the hard work of our very dedicated librarian, Susan Weis, electronic distribution and delivery of music has made this possible for our season this year. Everyone currently has access to our entire season’s music, scores to that music (just above parts after you follow the posted web links), and online recordings of the music that are largely in line with my interpretive approach, a full two months before our first rehearsal. Tempi for fall will be posted today and tomorrow. Strings will have parts with preliminary bowings this week and largely finalized bowings by August 1st for fall, more than a month before our first rehearsal, and everyone will receive notes on what to make absolutely sure has been addressed in practice before we meet by August 1^st as well.

There is no reason we can’t hold ourselves to being as fully-prepared individually as possible in this way by our first rehearsal on a given cycle this year, rather than our second, or fifth or last. I will be expecting everyone to do their absolute best to make this change in approach, and practice their parts to concert-readiness before we meet together for our first rehearsal in September, and for each first rehearsal throughout the year. (Our pops concerts will be easy to hold to this standard as well if we do so for the masterworks concerts, since that music is both much easier and much more familiar to us, but will still be distributed well in advance this year.)

This change doesn’t require any extra practice, and I know some of us already practice on this schedule or are begining to do so for the year ahead. It does require more discipline to practice absent rehearsals. It does require a little more time spent listening to recordings with parts to build familiarity with pieces before we begin rehearsing to answer questions not answered by the parts alone. But that’s all it takes.

What we’ll get for that extra discipline and effort on everyone’s part is a fully-transformed RPO experience. We won’t waste a minute of our rehearsals on issues that make rehearsals dull, exhausting, and tiresome, like wood-shedding parts collectively or identifying through failure parts that should have been practiced or studied at home more extensively before being brought to rehearsal for refinement and work as an ensemble. Rather they’ll be about finding collective excellence, working through big sections of score to ensure proper flow, and sinking into settled, inspired, inspiring performances, where we’re all focused on each other and the music as a whole, rather than on our own parts. In short, an entire year of rehearsals spent doing things that are fun, enriching, challenging, and that remind us why we bother showing up to rehearsal in the first place, rather than a single minute settling for an experience unworthy of both our collective ability and our months of work.

We’ll probably never sound as polished as the NY Phil, individually or collectively, no matter how hard we work or how far in advance we prepare. We’ll never catch up to the experience an orchestra like the Vienna Phil brings to its repertoire. I’ll probably never conduct as well as Simon Rattle, Daniel Gatti, or piles of lesser talents, despite my best efforts. But where it counts, in terms of performing at a level and in a way that gets us and our audiences outside ourselves, we can be every bit as excellent as the world’s best orchestras. Julie Andrews is often quoted as saying “Amateurs rehearse until it’s right. Professionals rehearse until it can’t go wrong.” There’s a lot of truth to that statement, as all of us know, but it fails to capture any of the joy that comes with being truly prepared to give an excellent performance. It’s the difference between spending a hard passage struggling to crank out your own part and spending it reveling in a collective rush of notes with your respected and trusted friends and colleagues. It’s the difference between spending a concert playing the cello or the oboe, or waving a baton, and spending it as a fully-engaged member of an ensemble. It’s the difference between being a player in a group, and a musician in an orchestra.

We are all capable of this change. We are all the kinds of musicians who will understand, recognize, and value the difference in musical experience this change will bring. Let’s all make it happen.

Yours sincerely,

Bob Mirakian

Link to Online Recordings and Recommendations for CDs for 2010-11 Masterworks

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:32:54 0000

Hi everyone,

Below are links to some reasonably good recordings available online for our repertoire this year. I’ve also included at least one commercially available CD recommendation for each. (Many of these are also available on iTunes in whole or in part.) Please listen to our season’s music with and without your part as much as possible to build familiarity with these pieces and styles.

Also, I’m not usually one for specific endorsements of products to orchestras, but the Berlin Philharmonic has an online streaming service available where you can watch every concert they perform and all their concerts since I think 2008 over the internet with high definition sound and video whenever you want. You can purchase individual works/concerts a la carte or subscribe for unlimited usage for a year for around $250. I strongly encourage you to explore this opportunity by visiting their website. (http://dch.berliner-philharmoniker.de/) The performances are absolutely first rate and very inspiring, the repertoire choices are fantastic and the archive of past performances has gotten to be vast and includes most of our repertoire for the year, and you simply can’t beat Berlin as an example of what a great orchestra can and should be.

Best,

Bob Mirakian

FALL

Mendelssohn, Overture to Midsummer Night’s Dream

-This online pair is decent, but the sound quality isn’t great.

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUm1HU29TfI

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-SLeBjvg8g&feature=related

-I’d highly recommend this recording by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on D.G.

http://www.amazon.com/Mendelssohn-Midsummer-complete-Symphony-Orchestra/dp/B000001GM6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278777847&sr=8-1

Ravel, Mother Goose Suite

-This online set with Ramon Tebar conducting one of Spain’s orchestras is pretty solid.

Mov 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zQ85ZcDz8Q

Mov. 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTXY8x-z730&feature=related

Mov. 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_bgsdOe9PE&feature=related

Mov. 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSjPDgSx6wM&feature=related

Mov. 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxs9dXqzzxA&feature=related

-This CD with Boulez and the Berlin PO is solid. It’s of the complete ballet, but the five movements we’re playing are there.

http://www.amazon.com/Ravel-complete-Rapsodie-espagnole-Philharmoniker/dp/B000001GLO/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1278780722&sr=1-3-fkmr0

Brahms, Symphony No. 4

-This online set with Carlos Kleiber and the Bavarian State Symphony is good.

Mov. 1, Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCaaPaQx5zg

Mov. 1, Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ9myj8a2QE&feature=related

Mov. 2, Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvsM_EMwj8M&feature=related

Mov. 2, Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYKvyXJ-cY4&feature=related

Mov. 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trr_9rXaI1U&feature=related

Mov. 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZGWB93-mmI&feature=related

-A better recording is Carlos Kleiber with the Vienna Philharmonic on D.G.

http://www.amazon.com/Johannes-Brahms-Symphony-Philharmonic-Orchestra/dp/B000006NXP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278780411&sr=8-1

WINTER

Greig, Peer Gynt Suite No. 1

-Not crazy about the sound quality on these, but they’re OK.

Morning Mood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIV5v1FaWwQ&feature=related

Aase’s Death

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei3zSSXKigc

Anitra’s Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc9IAE6EXZk&feature=related

In the Hall of the Mountain King

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWMJN3p-naI&feature=related

-Lots of good recordings out there of this one but I’d still shy away from Naxos. This one with Karajan and the Berlin PO is probably as good as any.

http://www.amazon.com/Grieg-Peer-Suites-Holberg-Suite/dp/B000001GJV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278781298&sr=1-1

Gliere, Horn Concerto

-Here’s a complete recording online that sounds pretty solid.

Mov 1, Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh-7A4kLon0

Mov 1, Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju-b-lSRaVU&feature=related

Mov 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJFGkG8v1uo&feature=related

Mov 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTsfF-WGl8&feature=related

-I have no idea what constitutes an excellent recording of this piece, but I’ll ask Thomas his preference and post.

Sibelius, Symphony No. 3

-This online posting of Simon Rattle with City of Birmingham SO is quite good. The recording available on the Berlin PO Digital Concert Hall is also amazing.

Mov. 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oan_TT5pEw&feature=related

Mov. 2

http://www.youtube.com/user/elcriticon84#p/a/1406A4E47495409F/1/LdmeStj1EC8

Mov. 3

http://www.youtube.com/user/elcriticon84#p/a/1406A4E47495409F/2/pI7a9kRj0UI

-I can’t really recommend any specific recording on CD other than to say that in addition to Rattle I generally like Sir Colin Davis’ choices in Sibelius so the recording below is probably decent. That said everyone MUST purchase some recording of this symphony and start listening to it as it’s likely the least familiar piece of the whole year. Please DO NOT listen to any performance conducted by Lorin Mazel. (Also, I’ve got the complete set from Phillips with the Berlin PO and Karajan conducting some but not all of the symphonies, but I’m not nuts about it.)

http://www.amazon.com/Symphonies-3-7-Jean-Sibelius/dp/B0001HK2AK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278960813&sr=8-1

SPRING

Mahler, Symphony No. 1 “Titan”

-This is, I think, Andrew Davis and Concergebouw performing somewhere in Asia. Only complete recording I could find online but a nice one.

Part I (Mov 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWASaebFhUA&feature=related

Part II (Mov 1, Continued)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Xq_jmSW1k&feature=related

Part III (Mov 2 and start of Mov 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTjkwZxP4Gw&feature=related

Part IV (Mov 3 conclusion)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLFPlai6jmM&feature=related

Part V (Mov 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKOcH_vOxfg&feature=related

Part VI (Mov 4, continued)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPs4QzDNk_Q&feature=related

-This recording with Bernstein and Concertgebouw has first rate playing, a solid set of tempo choices, and keeps closely to Mahler’s markings.

http://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-1-Gustav/dp/B000001GAC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278781189&sr=1-1-spell

Wind and Brass Seating for 2010-2011 Masterworks Performances

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:39:32 0000

Links to Music for 2010-2011

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 12:53:17 0000

Hi everyone,

Here are the links for the online editions of parts we will be using this year. PLEASE DO NOT USE OTHER ELECTRONIC EDITIONS BESIDES THESE. HAVING MULTIPLE EDITIONS IN REHEARSAL WILL PROVE EXTREMELY CONFUSING. Please take the time to print out your part and to bind it in a notebook of some kind with attention paid to making page-turns reasonable. The only piece that we will be performing that isn’t electronically available is the Gliere Horn Concerto, which is a rental. Please take advantage of this electronic distribution to begin practicing your parts as far in advance as possible. I will expect that no one be sight-reading in even our first rehearsals this year, and given the difficulty of repertoire this will be essential for our success. Electronic copies of bowed parts will be distributed for fall by August 15^th.

Best,

Bob Mirakian

FALL CONCERT

Mendelssohn, Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream

http://imslp.org/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night%27s_Dream,_Op.61_(Mendelssohn,_Felix)#Complete_Work_2

(This edition is actually the complete work, but just print out the overture.)

Ravel, Mother Goose Suite

http://imslp.org/wiki/Ma_m%C3%A8re_l%27oye_(suite)_(Ravel,_Maurice)#For_Orchestra_.28Ravel.29

Brahms, Symphony No. 4

http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.4,_Op.98_(Brahms,_Johannes)#Parts

WINTER CONCERT

Grieg, Peer Gynt Suite No. 1

http://imslp.org/wiki/Peer_Gynt_Suite_No.1,_Op.46_(Grieg,_Edvard)#Parts

Gliere, Horn Concerto (RENTAL)

Sibelius, Symphony No. 3

http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.3,_Op.52_(Sibelius,_Jean)#Parts

SPRING CONCERT

Mahler, Symphony No. 1 “Titan”

http://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.1_(Mahler,_Gustav)#Parts

2010-2011 Season Summary

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:38:07 0000

Richmond Philharmonic 2010/2011 Concert Season Summary

-Please send any/all seating requests to musicdirector@richmondphilharmonic.org before June 21.

-Please notify Lani Wisner by June 21 of any performances you know you can’t be a part of.

-Seatings for the year should be posted by July 15.

Fall Concert: “For Young and Old Alike”

Program:

Mendelssohn, Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” - 12min - 2222-2201-timp-strings

Ravel, “Mother Goose” Suite – 16min – 2[1.2/pic]2[1.2/Eh]22[1.2/Cbn]-2000-timp+4-harp-celesta-strings

Brahms, Symphony No. 4 – 39min – 2[1.2/pic]223[1.2.Cbn]-4230-timp+1-strings

Monday Night Rehearsals: Sept 13, 20, 27, Oct 4, 18, 25, Nov. 1 (No Rehearsal Oct. 11, for Columbus Day)

Nov 6, 2010, 4:00 - 6:45 pm - dress rehearsal, Hermitage High School

Nov 7, 2010, 4:00 pm - concert, Hermitage High School

Christmas

Program/seating to be announced by October 1

Monday Night Rehearsals: Nov 8, 15, 22, 29

Dec 6, 2010, 7:00 pm - concert at James Center

Dec 13, 2010, 7:30 pm - concert at Imperial Plaza

Winter: “Scandinavian Springtime”

Monday Night Rehearsals: Jan 10, 24, 31, Feb 7, 14, 21*, 28, March 7 (No rehearsal on Jan 17 for MLK Day. If we suffer no snow days and are "on schedule" artistically, we won't rehearse Feb 21 either, for President's Day.)

Program:

Greig, Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 – 15min – 3[1.2.pic]222-4231-timp+2-strings

Gliere, Concerto for Horn (Thomas Jostlein, horn) – 26min – 3222-3231-timp+4-harp-strings

Sibelius, Symphony No. 3 – 29min – 2222-4230-timp-strings

March 12, 2011, 4:00 - 6:30 pm - dress rehearsal at VCU

March 13, 2011, 4:00 pm - concert at VCU

Spring: “The Mahler Project”

Program:

Lecture on Mahler and his symphony with performed examples, etc ~15-20min

Mahler, Symphony No. 1 – 53min

4[1.2/pic2.3/pic1.4/pic3]4[1.2.3/Eh.4]4[1.2.3/Bcl/EbCl1.4/EbCl2]3[1.2.3/Cbn]-7431(5^th tpt and 4^th tbn may be added in last movement)-2timp+3-harp-strings

Monday Night Rehearsals: March 21, 28, April 4, 11, 18, 25, May 2

May 7, 2011, 4:00 - 6:30 pm - dress rehearsal at VCU

May 8, 2011, 4:00 pm - concert at VCU

Summer

Program/seating to be announced by March 1

Monday Night Rehearsals: May 16, 23, June 6, 13 (There will be no rehearsal May 30, for Memorial Day.)

June 19, 2011, 6:00 pm - concert at Brandermill

Attendance Policy and Procedures (Updated)

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:29:15 0000

Hi all,

After some questions and concerns regarding our attendance policy and procedures were raised this past fall the Board and I reviewed our previously stated policy and revised it to better reflect the process we use in making decisions. You can find the updated policy below. The biggest substantive change is that the consequence for failure to play a majority of performances in a season has been changed to being placed on a substitute list, instead of having to reaudition.

Best,

Bob

ATTENDANCE POLICY AND SEATING PROCESS
The schedule of rehearsals and performances for each program cycle in the RPO season will be posted well in advance on the RPO website by the Artistic Planning Committee and Music Director. Members should consult this calender and immediately report to the Personnel Manager any program cycles for
which they: 1. Will not be available for one or more performances, or 2. Will be forced to miss more than two rehearsals in a given cycle.

The Music Director will arrange seating for each cycle based upon available personnel under these guidelines, but may seat players unable to meet these guidelines due to artistic considerations.

Once seatings are posted or the program cycle has begun, unanticipated conflicts that put a member outside of the above guidelines (unavailability for one or more performances, absence from more than
two rehearsals) should be reported to the Personnel Manager immediately upon their discovery. The Music Director will then make a decision as to whether the member in question will perform in the
cycle, taking into account both artistic considerations and the member's previous attendance history.

Members who do not perform in a majority of program cycles in a given season (currently three) will be placed on a substitute list for their section.