Vídeo alumnos de Trompa Jaén ESPAÑA
Hola soy Juan Antonio Cano Cano profesor en el Conservatorio profesional de música de Jaén, España. En estos días no podemos tocar juntos y he realizado este vídeo para subís el ánimo de mis alumnos. Un cordial saludo.
空疎な首都で吹く讃歌（ラウダティオ）
（日本語圏の皆様には、耳新しい話でもないかもしれませんが、併記します。先に英語で書いた内容を日本語でなぞっています。）
空疎な首都で吹く讃歌（ラウダティオ）
日本でのコロナウィルス対応状況は、2月下旬に激変しました。私は2月20日にリサイタルを開催しましたが（そこで、他の作品に加え、ローレンス・ロウのアースソングズを日本初演しました。その録音も私のYouTubeチャンネルにあります）、その週は、主に演奏家来日困難のための多少の演奏会中止はあったものの、それほど深刻な状況とは捉えていませんでした。首相が大規模なイベントの自粛を要請した26日が大きな転換点で、3月第2週までには殆どの演奏会が中止となりました。びわ湖ホールの記念碑的「神々の黄昏」のプロダクションを含め、いくつかの無観客ライブ配信コンサートは行われていましたが、演奏者の密集自体が問題視され、それすら先細っていきました。
舞台芸術公演が迅速に、かつ従順に休止に向かった一方で、政府はその他の経済活動に制限を課すことには消極的でした。オフィス勤務者の大半は、悪名高い満員の（かつ時間通りの）電車に乗って通勤を続けていたし、4月中旬の今も続けています。ついでに言えば、私が応募していたふたつのオーケストラ・オーディション（東京ではありませんが）も、予定通り開催されました、適正な「社会的距離」とアルコール消毒液の配慮とともに…
オリンピック・パラリンピックの延期が正式に発表された3月24日まで、首相も都知事も、外出自粛を明確に呼びかけてはいなかったと言えます（この話はまだありますが、あまり政治的になるのでここでは）。
このクロル「ラウダティオ」の動画を撮ったのは、4月7日、首相が大都市に緊急事態を宣言した日で、前日に予告がありました。この日の合わせ予定が中止になったので、この時間を活用して、この曲の動画を撮ろうと思ったのです（IHS52のソロコンクール課題のこの曲を持ってきた生徒のレッスンのため、3月半ばに自分でもこの曲をさらいなおしていました）。渋谷は、決して無人ではありませんでしたが、どこか違ってはいました。普段より少ないものの、仕事に来る人は大勢。本当に緊急事態？どうでしょう。確かなのは、この内閣は、感染に正面から対応するより、ウィルスを、そして五輪延期すらをも利用して、無数のスキャンダルや経済失策、感染初動対応のお粗末さを有耶無耶にするのに忙しそうだ、ということでした（結局政治の話に…）。
ともかく、この荘厳で感動的な音楽が、この日の非現実感とよく合っている気がしました。
みなさん、おうちで安全に、そしてホルンの音で隣人を悩ませましょう！
笠原 慶昌
Utilizing online teaching resources for a university studio
by Dr. Monica Martinez
At the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), the transition to online instruction has been successful but challenging. The support and effort provided to faculty, staff, and students by UTRGV was swift and reliable. The initial shock from having to transition so quickly to distance learning was stressful for all of us, especially those of us who are accustomed to the one-on-one studio teaching and ensemble settings that we are used to attending in person. As any educator and musician does in the moment, we roll with the punches and stay flexible, patient, and understanding. Not all performances go as planned, and this performance is unlike any we will face again.
Keeping students motivated can be challenging, especially when one’s own motivation comes into question. Finding ways to remain active, engaged, collaborative, and mindful of our education, even at this moment, is still part of the greater journey in our careers. It is not easy, but it is part of our journey nevertheless towards something much larger.
We are fortunate that UTRGV has had distance and online learning tools available as part of other course curricula and that it offered multiple tools to engage students and continue the learning. I took advantage of the online trainings for Blackboard, Zoom, Panopto, Respondus, and took a deep dive into learning about other platforms that could help to enhance my studio such as Flipgrid, SmartMusic, and Adobe Creative Cloud. So many products, so little time to digest it all. It was quite overwhelming, but I took it as a challenge knowing that down the line, we will all benefit from this as technology becomes even more present within the performing arts academic curriculum.I am grateful to have so many tools made available to me and for my students. Many of these platforms realized that there was an immediate need for access, and several provided them to educators and students at no cost. I use Zoom, Flipgrid, and SmartMusic at the core of my online instruction. Zoom is used for weekly lessons and studio class. Recognizing that my students’ at-home technological resources are different, I took what was available and adapted to it. They use Flipgrid and YouTube to submit recorded assignments. Zoom allows me to share my screen, and we are both able to play back video recordings while following along with a PDF of the music on the screen simultaneously. I also use SmartMusic for assessing my students’ fundamental proficiencies such as sight-reading.
Laudatio in a hollow metropolis
by Yoshimasa Kasahara
日本語でThe COVID-19 situation in Japan drastically started to change in late February. I gave a recital on 20 Feb. (there, among other pieces, I performed the Japanese premiere of Laurence Lowe's Earthsongs, the recording of which is also on my YouTube channel). In that week, a small number of concert cancellations already occurred. However, they were mostly because of some performers from abroad who couldn't make the trip, so we weren't that upset. Things suddenly changed on the 26th, when the prime minister called on citizens to avoid events with large number of people. Almost all concerts were cancelled by second week of March. Until the middle of the month, some concerts took place as livestreams without audience (including a monumental production of “Götterdämmerung” in Biwako Hall), but soon faded away when crowded orchestral seating itself became an issue.
While performing arts events shut down quickly and obediently, the government was slow to restrict other economic activities. A large percentage of office workers continued (and, yes, still continue) to commute in notoriously packed (and punctual) trains, at least in mid-April. I might add that two orchestral auditions (not in Tokyo) for which I was applying, took place as scheduled, with much care placed on appropriate social distancing and hand sanitizer...
It was not until the Olympic/Paralympic games were officially postponed (24 Mar.) that both the PM and Governor of Tokyo started to persuade people to stay home (there's more to talk about on this topic, but it gets too political for this forum).
The Laudatio video was shot on April 7th, the day a state of emergency was declared by the PM for large cities, with an advance notice the day before. A scheduled rehearsal was cancelled, so I took advantage of the free time to make a video recording of this piece (in mid March I had relearned the piece for a lesson to a student who was preparing it for the IHS52 solo competition). Shibuya was definitely not uninhabited, but looked somewhat different. Less than usual, but still many people continue to come to work. Is this really an emergency? Who knows? Anyway, this solemn and heartfelt music seemed to fit the unreal mood of the day.
Stay safe, and keep on annoying your neighbors with the sound of your horn!
2020 International Horn Society Composition Contest
en español
en françaisPrizes: $1250 for Each Division
- The Featured Composition Division: Compositions in this division are works of moderate difficulty. “In the featured DIVISION, the horn part should be playable by the entire spectrum of Hornists within the International Horn Society: Students, Amateurs, and Professionals. It should have musical content that would have the integrity to honor the professional hornists—yet within the pitch and technical range of the panorama of student and amateur players.
- The Virtuoso Composition Division: Compositions in this division have no difficulty limitation and are from one of the following instrumentation categories.
INSTRUMENTATION
FEATURED DIVISION:
- Compositions for Horn Ensemble (two or more players, all horns)
VIRTUOSO DIVISION:
- Solo Horn featured with large ensemble. (The large ensemble may include any group of electronic, acoustic instruments and/or voices.)
- Horn with chamber ensemble of three or more performers (one horn part only) (The chamber ensemble may include any combination of electronic instruments, acoustic instruments and/or voices.)
- Compositions for solo horn and keyboard instrument. (Keyboard instruments may include piano, harpsichord, organ, electronic keyboard, or mallet percussion.
- Compositions for Solo Horn (alone/unaccompanied)
- Compositions for Solo Horn with Vocal Ensemble
For more information, rules, and electronic submission see the Composition Contest Portal at The International Horn Society website.
ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED by DECEMBER 1, 2020
If you have any questions about any of the rules, write for clarification: re-faust@wiu.edu.
Randall E. Faust, COORDINATOR, COMPOSITION CONTEST
Recondita Armonia
Corno, not Corona
by Anneke Scott
The beginning of the Coronavirus coincided with the tail end of a long Beethoven Symphonies tour with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Whilst the orchestra is officially based in London, the musicians are a very international bunch. We find ourselves getting together for very intense projects and then going our separate ways. When you’re on tour, it’s easy to become slightly distanced from what is happening in the news. We were all hearing various things from our home countries and also picking up snippets of news from the countries in which we toured, but I think we were all aware that something was coming. We had about two months off between the end of this part of the tour (Chicago) and the beginning of the next part (London). Very sadly everything has now been cancelled, leaving a feeling of a gaping lacuna for us all.
The musicians from the ensemble continue to be in touch with one another - our principal trombone Adam Woolf immediately sprang into action with a rather nice idea, a project he called “Bach Together”. All the IHS readers are more than welcome to contribute to it! The idea is that we can all remotely add our voice a virtual choir and orchestra performing one of Bach’s chorale settings “Ich will hier bei dir stehen” from the St Matthew Passion. You can find the project here: http://adamwoolf.com/bach/
Adam knew I’d recently been given a beautiful two-valved piston horn and wrote asking whether I wanted to use my “new toy” for the project. The problem is that this instrument is nowhere near A440. However, I had just the thing for Bach chorales - my Corno da Tirarsi. This is an incredible instrument with quite an extraordinary story.
