To be read

Feb 6, 2005

Don’t want to miss this article in the Feb 7, 2005 issue of the New Yorker (not online): “The Clevelanders: Can a world-class orchestra survive Ohio?” by Charles Michener.

UPDATE: Finished this article this morning, and found it a good read, especially this paragraph:

“To be inside an orchestra like the Cleveland is to feel your nerve endings exposed. You acquire a new set of ears. You’re sitting perfectly still, yet your heart is racing. You feel a hundred pairs of ears, eyes, arms, and hands working as one to give shape, direction, pulse, color, and meaning to the insubstantiality of sound. You feel the intensity of a hundred people listening to one another.”

Reading about the world-class orchestra made me regret that I didn’t take advantage of my proximity to Severance Hall when I was editor at Northern Ohio Live, which had its offices a couple of hundred yards from where the Cleveland Orchestra does its listening to one another. I made it to a few evening concerts there, and recall my own listening to the delightful sound that envelops the hall. But I don’t recall ever attending a Thursday morning concert; on those mornings, East Boulevard would be lined with yellow school buses, their students inside for a musical education.

My friend, Joe Cimperman, credits his dear mother for taking him to the orchestra often during his childhood, and I’m looking forward to taking Anna and Malia to concerts someday. Yesterday, I took the girls to UNC-CH to watch the Governor’s Cup gymnastics meet, and Anna has been running around since pretending to a mastery of the floor exercise.

Anton Zuiker ☄