Musicology Duck

i'm also picturing the orchestra library being run out of like a storage unit in northern virginia lol

i'm sure you know that but i started making the spreadsheet that operations would need in my head and started crying a little lol

and if you have to do it all the time, it limits what repertoire you can play. If you go on one tour, you play the same show every night and take the same stuff (even if a lot). If you're playing a different show every week, the logistics of moving/tracking equipment and instruments becomes WILD

yeah my old employer was starting to gauge some new (much needed) hall renovations and it was o v e r w h e l m i n g

it's more like a major league baseball team not having a stadium than just trying to find a place to play

tl;dr, orchestras are big and complex beasts with unique and often expensive space/contractual/administrative needs

they've been great about taking some other things that got booted from KC, but yeah, they can't take on a full time orchestra with no notice

and just like...how long it even takes to properly set up 100 chairs/stands, so you have to add SO MUCH time on either end of having a non-resident orchestra

an off the cuff and very incomplete explainer on why it's so hard for the National Symphony Orchestra to part ways with the Kennedy Center

he would be the go-to, I would think, but he would rather keep his friends on the supreme court and all that

it's more possible for the National Opera because theatre of all types has a more established system for shows traveling between venues, it's somewhat easier to rehearse things off-site up to a certain point in the production schedule, etc. But still a huge gamble for them too, w big questions.

otherwise it honestly might have worked to some degree

honestly i think the biggest problem is that Trump doesn't show up himself unless he's on stage or it's a megamusical from the 80s....and the lackeys really only care about being seen by him and not so much by each other

i keep having random thoughts like WHERE DO YOU STORE ALL THE PERCUSSION

man even having worked for an orchestra that was doing well financially (though with a prior history of not!) it's stressful just thinking through any of it

and any billionaires who might in other circumstances be convinced to step in and lay the financial groundwork for an independent NSO may not in this case want to run afoul of the administration by doing so

I'm sure it's being explored as best as possible but it's really really hard

or basically create a new nonprofit AND a symphony hall from scratch without going dark for so long they lose all their talent

it's hard to describe how mind boggling the challenges are. To find enough spaces sufficiently big/near for both the orchestra and audiences, w acceptable acoustics and enough availability, get everything contracted, figure out ticketing, possibly venue rental fees with no prior budget for that

and if they do get their own venue, the set-up costs for becoming an entirely separate entity are not low. Ticketing software is a wildly, wildly expensive racket that takes forever to set up and usually requires dedicated employees--just for one example.

and changing venues a lot isn't very practical either (and has a high administrative cost), and if you start cutting performances, the musicians salary, contract, etc. starts getting messed up and all the math ALL goes wonky.

there are a lot of things that would make a divorce hard. One is, a top tier orchestra that performs as regularly as they do needs rehearsal/performance space nearly daily for hours, which a lot of other venues can't give on the regular.

logistically and financially it's MUCH harder for them than for the opera. Not impossible they would just go under rather than manage to get out

the NSO is between a rock and a hard place in a lot of ways on this, and there are folks trying to drum up enough local support so we don't lose them until something changes, but when you're getting cancellations from the big soloists that help make sales goals happen...whooooboy

ugh this one REALLY sucks for NSO, but this is what it's going to be as long as his name is on that building literally and metaphorically

i have been wondering a lot lately if some form of libertarianism is going to be the off-ramp for folks. It seems like that is what some republicans like Massie are trying to spin up

i started using it because my gen z coworkers told me to stop using 😂 and they seemed to be using that one instead? and then i was like but what does it even mean? and more importantly, why do i care what they think? I was around when we had to type out X-D

i still want to know more about the tow truck companies involved in all this too. People post completely fake ai stories about them towing ICE vehicles, but nothing about how they are profiting from kidnappings and crashes

Brewery snowball fight! Atlas near Anacostia Metro Sunday afternoon

i've been wanting to do one parodying the old desperate housewives TV commercials and call it "desperate house lies" but i have also not been wanting to do that much unpaid editing lol

for the uninitiated bsky.app/profile/musi...

maybe i need to update the supercut video during snowmageddon