If it ain't Baroque…
Composer Cagematch! Round 2: Saint-Saens vs. Grieg
Have you been paying attention? If you have, you know that I’m leaving for WALT DISNEY WORLD!!!!! tomorrow (the answer to your question is: this is my eleventh time). Two things can of course be taken for granted — I will a) be tweeting about my musical findings all throughout the trip (so follow me now!) and b) I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, which in this case will be on Tuesday, January 10.
But never you fear — I’m leaving you with a babysitter. Two, actually, because with the holidays out of the way [sad face goes here] we can return to our Composer Cagematches!
(Perhaps you are thinking, Jenn, whatever happened to the most recent match? To which I say: shhhhh. We don’t want to make Shostakovich feel worse than he already does and Bartok’s head is big enough. Okay? Okay.)
And so in this corner, he ain’t afraid of no Soviet Republic! It’s
CAAAAAAAMIIIIIIIIILLE SAAAAAAAAINT-SAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEENS
And in this corner, he’s so literal about Herzwunden! It’s
EEEEEEEEEEEDVAAAAAAAAAARD GRIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEG
So who would you like to see die — Ase or a swan?
The terrible twos
Today Ain’t Baroque is two years old, and with age comes wisdom, yes? So for the past couple of weeks I’ve been pondering my mission.
As you may have read, this blog was begun as the cornerstone of my thesis for my arts management masters; at the time I was interning for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and I centered a large chunk of my content around the BSO. When the project ended, I found that I enjoyed having this forum, and so I carried on.
Sadly my official association with the BSO came to an end last year, and as such the my direction has had to evolve. I still mention the BSO quite a bit, but I have — out of necessity and desire both — shifted the focus. And I have wondered — what is AB for? *
To educate? No; I like to think that I dispense interesting factoids here and there, but I am not a professional musician, musicologist, or otherwise qualified for such a goal. To promote? Kind of, but I have found that the posts that prove most popular are the ones where I ramble on about my own opinions.
That is my answer, I think — I am here to think about classical music and how it has shaped my life, and in so doing, ask you to do the same. And because my approach is whimsical by nature, well, irreverence it shall be!
I hope you like it. I hope you’ll stay on, and encourage others to join the party. I hope you’ll ponder my queries and add your own stories. Because I love doing this, and I’d love to do more of it — but I can’t without you. I seem to recall saying this before, but I still believe it to be true: a blog cannot exist within a vacuum.
So subscribe! Tweet! Like AB on Facebook! Because one day AB is going to rule the world, and you want to get in good with me while you can, don’t you? 
Bee tee dubs, do you like the new layout? Hang tight, because I’ll be posting a State of the Blog address later today.
* Did you know that there’s actually no grammar rule that forbids ending a sentence with a preposition? Thank God, because sometimes the “proper” way sounds twisted and weird.
Stop! Gala time!
Hold the phones! Stop the presses! This is no time for LOLs!
Ladies and gentlemen, I have done it — thanks to the sweet, sweet PR head over at everyone’s favorite Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, I have procured tickets not only to the BSO’s season-opening gala concert on Saturday, but I’m also getting into the following dessert reception. With the orchestra. And Hilary. Hahn. (She doesn’t quite warrant a mothereffin’ a la Itzhak but she definitely deserves double punctuation.)
How did I finagle this? Why, I promised that I’d live-tweet the whole reception, of course. Duh.
So you had best be glued to your Twitter feed come, oh, say, 10 pm? The concert’s at 8:30, so I’m going to guess 10 pm. I’ll tell you who I see, who I hear, and who I’m too scared to talk to who I squeaked out a “hello” to and then ran away from. That’s the kind of sparkling content you can expect.
#bsogala is your hashtag; I don’t know if I’ll be the only one using it but you’ll get more comprehensive coverage if I’m not, so win-win. DO NOT FORGET. Follow me on Twitter NOW.
Is anyone else going to be there?
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (with apologies to Cory Doctorow)
It’s time once again for the favorite of posts: my trip photo recap! Hotcha!
And this was a bit of a historic event, because it was my 10th lifetime trip to Walt Disney World (assuming you don’t count last January when I went to Downtown Disney for a few hours, which I don’t). Why Jenn, you say, aren’t you tired of it by now? To which I reply: WHY AM I NOT THERE RIGHT NOW?!?! I just collapsed over my keyboard sobbing. Way to go.
Let’s relive it through some of my musical WDW experiences while I attempt to stem this tide of bitter tears, shall we?
As always, I tweeted about the trip as I went along. The hashtag was #baroquewdw, but I won’t bother linking it because Twitter will deny you. I’m afraid you’ll have to dig back through my Twitter feed if you want to find them. Oh, and to see larger versions of the below photos and some bonus photos not included in this post, check out the latest AB Facebook album.
Lunch our first day was at the Biergarten in Epcot’s Germany pavilion. It is, as you might have guessed, an Oktoberfest-type joint, with a buffet that offers such Teutonic fare as schnitzel, spaetzel, Bavarian cheesecake, and ALL the sausage. And of course there’s beer.
Oops, that’s not musical; how did that get in there? (WHY AM I NOT IN EPCOT RIGHT NOW, DRINKING GERMAN BEER?!?!)
I’ll tell you what is musical: a traditional German oompah band! Yes!
Violas of Mass Destruction
Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter so you can experience my amazing Disney tweets! And vote in the Composer Cagematch! before midnight on June 8!
That takes care of business. Now for pleasure:
Q. What caused the U.S. Marines, looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction during the most recent Gulf War, to raid a rehearsal of Baghdad’s symphony orchestra?
A dream is a wish your heart makes
They say that home is where the heart is.* This Friday I’m heading home.
Home to Walt Disney World, light of my life, fire of my — no, never mind; not that. But light of my life, definitely. I’ll be basking in the glory from June 3 through 8, and I will as always be tweeting the whole vacation through. Follow the hashtag #baroquewdw to see what musical madness I’ve dug up in the World (and if you need proof there’s music to be had, I’ve already got you covered).
And there should be new and exciting stuff this time — we have reservations at ‘Ohana, a Polynesian luau of sorts, so I’d best be hearing some ukulele, and there’ll be a traditional German oompah band at the Biergarten. My traveling companion and brother in kitty-striping Scott is a percussionist, so we’ll try to catch the JAMMitors in Epcot’s Future World and the African drummers in the Animal Kingdom. The WDW Band is always wandering around the Magic Kingdom, indigenous music is everywhere in the World Showcase, of course so many Disney movies are musicals — there’s no end to it, really.
Warm up and get psyched for the sheer, unadulterated joy of it with my last WDW trip recap. And if that isn’t enough for you, revisit my trip to Universal from January — not remotely the same, but still a lot of fun, plus you can laugh at my karaoke attempt.
If you’re bored while I’m away, entertain yourself by voting in the current Composer Cagematch! You have until Wednesday, June 8 at midnight to vote.
So remember: follow me on Twitter, and starting June 3 be on the lookout for the hashtag #baroquewdw. Ah, there’s no place like home.
In case of emergency
Special thanks to Twitter follower ViolinStudent for providing me with the link to a page that has a ton of viola jokes I’ve never read before. It is truly amazing.
Q. Why should everyone keep a viola around the house?
Adventures in hashtaggery
Yesterday evening I made an amazing discovery by way of the lovely @NaxosUSA: the Twitter hashtag #budgetclassical. These tweets are all terrible puns and mockery of classical music titles as they might have been had they been composed on the cheap. Since I spent something like two hours addicted to making and reading these, I’m tossing out the usual LOL Friday image format to bring you all the ones I made up myself. The hashtag is still happening; read ‘em here and submit your own! (And when you do, make sure you add @aintbaroque so I can see.)
And now, in reverse posting order, one of my greatest strengths: horrible, horrible puns!
- Dies Felinae
- Flesh Wound on Tenth Avenue
- The Ambivalent Widow
- Transgendered Night
- Stars and Stripes for a Pretty Long Time
- Serenade for String
- Escape from the Questionable Massage Parlor
- The Wiccans’ Sabbath
- About Halfway Down the Steps of Central Asia
- March to the Lethal Injection from Symphonie Just Okay
- West Side Tweet
- Nopetha
- Music for the Sparklers in the Backyard
- Rhapsody in Teal
- What the Wildflowers Refuse to Tell Me
- Doctor Subatomic
- Saunter of the Valkyries
- The Beggar’s Opera (oh, wait…)
- Snapping Music
- Haydn’s Very Little Warning Symphony
- Three Little Swans and a Duck
- Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2: the “Embryonic Russian”
- Ives’ Chuck Rutlage
- Khachaturian’s Shuffle of the Rose Maidens
- Saint-Saen’s Petting Zoo of the Animals
- Mendelssohn’s Sicilian Symphony
- The Love for Three Clementines
- Polevtsian Marking the Steps
- Crash Landing of the Bumblebee
- Officer Cadet Kije
- Thus Whispered Zarathrustra
- Pete & Pete Grimes
- The Civil Ceremony of Figaro
- Pavane for a Princess Who’s Feeling Under the Weather
- Madama Caterpillar
- 4’33″ of White Noise
- Smetana’s The Loaned-Out Bride
- Mozart’s The Regular Old Flute
- Appalachian Puddle
- The Bach Single
- The Brandenburg Concerto
- Gilbert and Sullivan present Lady-in-Waiting Ida
- Die Maus
- Die Bieberflote
Wow, I had no idea I did so many. I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed.
CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
Oh, right! I was in Orlando two weeks ago! And I miss it every day.
As usual, I tweeted about my trip as I went along, adding the hashtag #aintbaroqueFL except for a couple times when I screwed it up because let’s face it, typing on a cellphone is hard and annoying work. If you missed it, you can read back over my tweets here (just keep clicking backwards till you hit ‘em; apparently the hashtag is too old to be searchable. Lame, Twitter!).
And again, as I have before, I took music-related pictures! Follow the cut or miss an embarrassing photo of me doing karaoke.
I solemnly swear I’ll be up to no good
And now for an exercise in sheer joy (but not sheer unadulterated joy because that doesn’t happen without Disney parks).
Loyal readers, this is your last blog post until February 1. Why? Because tomorrow morning I am heading to my heart’s homeland — Orlando, Florida. Not — and this is the one circumstance that, to paraphrase The Mikado, modifies my rapture — because I am going to Walt Disney World, but because this time I’m headed to Universal Studios Florida. (Please don’t disown me, Disney! I’m still going to visit Downtown Disney and have lunch on your property! I’ll be back for real soon! <3)
There are a couple reasons for this: 1. Universal is cheaper. 2. They have The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and my friend Elizabeth is a big fan. Myself, I am only a 50% fan (I really liked the first one, then liked each subsequent one less and less as the protagonists got more angsty and by the last book I was ready to bring in Bradbury and torch the thing), but it sounds like the theming is magnificently done and the premier ride, a tour of the school’s castle grounds, is supposed to be a tour de force. We’re even catching breakfast at the Three Broomsticks one morning. Lukewarm as I may be on Potter himself, I’m excited.
I’m not leaving you all alone, though: I invite you to follow me on Twitter, as I will be — as I did during my last Disney vacation — be tweeting away about my musical experiences all through the parks. I will try not to rag on John Williams too much. Look for the hashtag #aintbaroqueFL.
In the meantime, why not vote in the Composer Cagematch!? You have until February 1st to get all your votes in, and I’ve added a nice, comfy radio button poll for your voting pleasure. Right now Stravinsky is narrowly edging out Prokofiev, but not by much — don’t let them decide it without you!
Other alternative activities: browse the archives, or hey, why not see a BSO concert? Brahm’s violin concerto, people, January 27, 28, and 29!
Okay, good. So you’re all taken care of. Don’t forget to follow my escapades on Twitter — I’ll be at it starting at 5 am, and I think that sort of dedication deserves your attention, don’t you?
P.S. “And soon the world’s Muggles will be under my control! LUMOS!“
