Beanz Meanz Heinz

and talking of radio...

... I got the chance to try my hand at a little broadcasting this week - albeit online (Podcast) and not on the airwaves, and for the Pittsburgh Symphony as opposed to NPR - but still, it was fun!

Take a listen:

Ubiquity!

Ubiquity! As provided by our wonderful PSO Public Affairs folks - PSO tattoos, as modelled here by my left hand :)

While the PSO's away the employees will play (music)

The orchestra is right in the middle of their tour now, which means a beautifully quiet office, and also a great chance to escape for fun weekends of dragonboating in Tampa (more on that tomorrow when I'll have some pictures).

They play at the Proms tomorrow night, and of course I'm horribly jealous not to be there, but thankfully we'll be having a 'Proms Tea Party' in our office, streaming the concert live off the BBC website. 

Also should plug our wonderful tour website here at the PSO, put together by the over-worked but hugely skilled IT manager here, Kevin DeLuca.  Great job, Kevin.  It's a great gateway for those of us left behind in Pittsburgh to keep up  with  the orchestra via photos, musician/staff journaling and media reports.  Go take a look :")

My Poor Stradivarius

It's not too often that you'll hear orchestras or classical musicians refered to on a comedy show.  But here it is, straight from one of my favo(u)rite comedians/singers: Mitch Benn.

http://media.odeo.com//files/6/0/3/738603.mp3

on the traumas and travails of trying to take ones instrument onto a plane since last week's terror alert.  In actual fact, a couple of soloists who've been through Pittsburgh in the last week have managed to get on international flights with their violins sans problem, but I think things may be a little less severe over here than in my homeland. 

Anyway, the Pittsburgh Symphony is about to embark upon a European tour - so best wishes to all the musicians with instruments small enough to carry on to planes! Am sure there'll be interesting stories on their return... (I'm being left behind, *sniffle*)

Oh, and the audio clip was lifted (not sure with what state of legality) from a great radio program(me) on the BBC: The Now Show which you can listen to for a week (until August 25) by clicking . . . . . . . .  .  .  .  .   .   .   .    .     .     here!

Connections

In my near-obsessive daily trawl of my favourite blogs yesterday I came across a link to a newbie - the very well reputed Steve Robinson from WFMT radio in Chicago (who has, it seems, since linked to me...very embarassing!) 

Steve is one of those people who I'm sure is a central hub in the 'six-degrees of separation' theory.  He has an impressive resume, and a lovely way of telling stories from his career, which happily fill a significant proportion of his early blog posts. 
So, kudos to Steve for joining the blogosphere and thus increasing the likelihood of the theory being renamed 'six degrees of Steve' (and yes, that's a reference to 'the six degrees of Kevin Bacon', which, if you haven't played it, you should), and a thank you to him also.
He's one of the movers and shakers I was lucky enough to meet and talk with when I was a lowly intern Chicago, and definitely played a part in me being where I am now...

Steel City

More  American Football based blogging I'm afraid, although this one with a slightly different ilk.  If you've got 10 minutes to kill, go and read the following newspaper articles.

The to and fro between the Rocky Mountain News (Denver) and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is a small-town rivalry to behold.  But more interestingly, these articles manage to give a better description of life in the 'Burgh than I've seen anywhere:

(Jan 18) Rocky Mountain News: "Shot and beer Pittsburgh froths at mouth"  A columnist from Denver gets the (dirty) inside scoop on Pittsburgh

(Jan 19) The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes offence at the above article: "Denver Columnist calls Pittsburgh "one butt-ugly town"
 

(Jan 19) Rocky Mountain News: "Yinz might like Steeler Nation after all"  in which the Denver guy tries to atone for his sins earlier in the week - some great descriptions of places I love to frequent :)

(Jan 20) And (we) Pittsburghers (am I becoming one of them?!) are forgiving types: "Readers react to Denver columnist..."  

(Jan 21) Finally, the trouble-making out-of-towner packs his bags: "Too bad these nice people will be sad, butt..."  .  Pittsburgh's proven to be a fiercely proud town.  And with good reason.  We're going to the Superbowl!  and just to show that everyone cares, even us here in the muso-world, take a read of this New York Times article, in which my lovely orchestra gets honourable mention... in the sports section :)

(Jan 24) "Party Hasn't Ended for Hoarse Steelers Fans"  

The good bit about working in an office at Christmas

mmmmmmmm...

A little Christmas spirit

In honour of the fact that we've now entered the season of interminable Messiah performances, I'm treating you all to a lovely rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus.  This did the rounds last year, but I'm guessing not everyone heard it...

I've quite honestly never heard my boss laugh quite so hard and long at anything.  Quite justifiably. 
Turn your speaker volume up and get ready to hum along :)

• Hallelujah Chorus - Organist on Crack

Look What I got to drive around yesterday...

It could be prompting me into a second career as an Austin-Powers-a-like. . .
Yeah baby, yeah!!

ASOL

(pronounced "Ay, Ss, Oh, El", not the other way...)

Were I writing a South Park-esque collection of comments for this blog, the above title might be considered ripe material for some crude comment or other ... [ASOL(e)... teehee] - hence the pronunciation guide *grin*

ASOL is not, alas, an acronym for a very rude word, but rather the cover-all name for the American Symphony Orchestra League - the umberella instution for (nearly) all of this fine nation's orchestras.  And ASOL is basically a big umberella under which all of us orchestra Arts Admin' types get to schmooze.

The 'Big Schmooze' comes once a year at The Conference,  a magical convening of the powers that be, where spells are cast and potions mixed (*ahem*, a little too excited about Harry Potter... just one week away!) opinions are traded and drinks are consumed at an alarming rate...

And guess who got to go to Conference this year???  Yours truly was sent off to Washington D.C. to hone his nacent (?!) schmoozing and flirting skills - which I hope I managed with aplomb... Though I was a little impeded by my lack of sight - I had a magically disappearing pair of glasses which are still happily enjoying themselves in the D.C. Hilton.  Meanwhile, I get to suffer on with contact lenses, which, by the end of the day, were performing remarkably convincing impressions of limpets, in their efforts to cling on to my eyes... owwwww!

Aaaaaaaanyway.  Having finally got home and 'taken my eyeballs out' (my favourite Sarah-saying), I took the opportunity to look up the meaning of what I'd actually been doing:

schmooze or schmoose (shmz) Slang
v. schmoozed, or schmoosed also shmoozed schmooz·ing, or schmoos·ing shmooz·ing schmooz·es or schmoos·es shmooz·es

To converse casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.

Social Connections? Me?  :)