Meet Courtney

This past July, we were lucky to be joined by Courtney Stredder, who interned for us through Career Explorations. Soon to be a senior at Nampa High School in Idaho, Courtney helped us prepare for the upcoming 30th Anniversary Season. While with us, she wrote press releases, dove into the archives to research our history, helped with the season ticket mailing, and attended the Association of California Symphony Orchestra's Conference. Last year's #1 state finalist in the Keyboard Percussion category for marimba and also an alto saxophone player, Courtney is looking forward to her last year in high school and excited about pursuing music in college. Good luck Courtney and thank you for all of your hard work!

A needed change of perspective

Most of our staff will be attending the Association of California Symphony Orchestras 42nd Annual Conference this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Much like the League of American Orchestras earlier this summer, ACSO is sounding notes of a minor key: "Orchestras and choruses are struggling. Slashed funding, declining attendance, and increased costs are just a few of the problems we have to wrestle with as a community. Join your colleagues... to learn new techniques and acquire new tools that are necessary to remain competitive and viable in this ever-changing world."

We recently read two articles that suggest that we need to shift our perspective a bit to realize just how vital classical music is to our world today.

FREE-harmonia Baroque Orchestra...

Don't miss a FREE performance by a small ensemble of musicians from the orchestra. On Sunday, September 26,  at 5 p.m. the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Ensemble performs at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. Part of the Cal Performances Open House "Free For All," the ensemble performs Haydn's Quartet for Oboe and Strings in C major and String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 64, No. 6, as well as Mozart's Quintet for Oboe and Strings in C minor. The event is free and open to the public. This will be the perfect way to warm up for our all-Mozart concert with fortepianist Robert Levin later that evening.

TRIVIA: Austrian composers Haydn and Mozart were contemporaries – though there was a substantial age difference (Haydn being 24 years older than Mozart). Were the two friends? Find out here.

Hint: The above engraving is supposed to be a portrait of Mozart & Hadyn in Mozarteum, Salzburg.

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Meet Scott!

Scott broke the news last week and now it's our turn: We have engaged Scott Foglesong to write all of our program notes for our 30th Anniversary Season, as well as give three of the eight sets of pre-concert lectures. Chair of the Department of Musicianship and Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory and one of the San Francisco Symphony's program annotators and pre-concert lecturers, Scott will also serve as our Scholar in Residence, assisting in our artistic planning.

Why is this so exciting for us? Well, not only is Scott a respected musicologist and a great writer whose name many of our staff members look for in the concert hall and on the web, but his roots are entangled deeply with the orchestra's – Scott was a student of Laurette Goldberg, the founder of our orchestra!

An inspiring model?

Annalisa Pappano, a viol player in town for BFX10 from Cincinnati, wrote on her group's blog today:

What I find especially intriguing [in San Francisco] is the culture for early music here. This city boasts the [San Francisco Early Music Society] series, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, an astonishing number of professional viol players (last count was 16!), a full-time professional baroque orchestra (Philharmonia Baroque) with the superstar conductor Nicolas [sic] McGegan, and a whopping 43 early music organizations. This city is an inspiring model... What does it take for a city to become such an exciting center for early music?

So, we ask you the same question Annalisa asked: "What do you think?" Why and how did the Bay Area become a hub for early music? We'll be answering that all summer ourselves as we explore our own history as we approach our 30th Anniversary Season concerts.

Dudamel on education

It's been a week since he swept through town, but we have Dudamel fever too! We were truly inspired when we watched him talk about helping to bring Venezuela's El Sistema music education program to the United States in this 60 Minutes segment. Thank you Janos Gereben at SFCV for keeping us in the know.

Congratulations SFRV!

Have you picked up your issue SF Weekly's "Your San Francisco?" We just wanted to take a minute to congratulate our early music colleagues San Francisco Renaissance Voices for winning "Best Classical Music – 2010." A few of our Chorale singers sing with SFRV, including Jeff Fields, Raymond Martinez, Kathy McKee (who is also the Assistant Music Director of SFRV - pictured) and Helene Zindarsian.

Glorious sounds of centuries past

On June 10-12, come say hello to us at our table at "BFX TEN" – the 10th bi-annual early music festival, conference and exhibition in Berkeley.

Presented by San Francisco Early Music Society and Early Music America, there will be beautiful performances both as a part of the festival and on "The Fringe" in conjunction with the main stage events. Don't miss members of the orchestra perform in their smaller chamber groups – Magnificat, Music’s Re-creation, Voices of Music, New Esterhazy Quartet, Harmonia Felice, Ensemble Vermillian, Les Violettes, Galax Quartet, Barefoot Chamber Concerts and many more. Click here for the full schedule of events.

Decade in Review/Year in Review

And so ends the aughts with a year that few would like to remember... except maybe us. Our last year was critically acclaimed, artistically exciting and first one in some time that we have experienced growth in attendance (thank you!). Others noticed too and we were happy to see the orchestra and chorale appear on a few year end and decade end lists. There is so much to look forward to: we will announce our 2010-11 Season soon and hope you're as excited as we are for our 30th Anniversary!!!

What were your favorite Philharmonia Baroque moments of the year? The decade?

Libby visits the Fromm

Last Tuesday, period violinist Libby Wallfisch, who was in town to lead our October concerts, journeyed out into the rain to the Fromm Institute with David Wilson to speak at the weekly "Brown Bags" speaker series. Thank you Command Performances Representative Bob Morgan for having us! Here are a few photos from the day:

Libby talks about how her baroque violin is built differently than the modern ones that the "Frommies" are used to seeing played at the San Francisco Symphony.

Much like the wands of J.K. Rowling's imagining, rarely were two bows alike in the Baroque era, as every region had its preferred shape to fit the local playing styles and techniques, not to mention every bow craftsman had his own signature. Organizer Bob Morgan (left) looks on.

As you'll know from an earlier post, the baroque violin was played while held with the left hand and supported by the collarbone. This "chin-off" technique may seem odd to us now, but the violin began life as a street instrument. Libby demonstrates here how it was popular among Renaissance era fiddlers to hold the instrument at the "third rib" (she's miming an engraving that suggests that the fiddlers also found it fashionable to play with a pipe dangling between their lips, a tankard of ale on the table and a few buxom women on hand to... uh... woo).

PBO goes to boot camp

Last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Peter and Sasha attended the National Arts Marketing Project's Boot Camp at the offices of the San Francisco Foundation. The goal of the two summer sessions is to help 25 Bay Area arts groups develop strong marketing plans that may be eligible for multi-year grant financing. Julie Peeler (above right), Vice President of Arts and Business Programs with Americans for the Arts, led many of the lectures that focused on situational research and analysis and objective setting – in other words, forcing the participants to ask the hard questions of: where are we and where are we going? Sasha will return in August for the second half of the program with Board Member and Marketing Committee Chairman Brian Gould.

PBO applied to this training and grant program because, after two years of declining season and single ticket sales, the staff and board are becoming more thoughtful and proactive about promoting the artistic product of this wonderful orchestra and chorale. This means that we will be asking for more input from our audience than ever before. Please take the time to comment on our blog posts, post reviews on Yelp!, and fill out our audience surveys.

More importantly, however, is to share PBO with your friends and family – invite them to a concert, mention us in passing, forward them an enewsletter, social bookmark this blog, or even "tweet" about us. You will always be a better marketer than anyone on staff. Thank you for your continued support!

When was the last time that you acted as an evangelist for PBO?