A few days ago I wrote a post about the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. John C. Dvorak just brought this article to my attention (see his post here). He writes about a recent article on the inept way in which emergency relief money was handled after Hurricane Katrina:

The donated cash met a different fate. By late October, the State Department had allocated $66 million of the $126 million in international assistance to FEMA, which then granted it to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), the nonprofit aid arm of the United Methodist Church. With the funds, UMCOR established Katrina Aid Today, a consortium of nine national aid agencies dedicated to case-management work for Katrina evacuees. But to date, only $13 million has actually been disbursed, and it has been allocated almost exclusively to salaries and training for case workers, not to evacuees.

As for the rest of the funds, some $60 million languished for more than six months in a non-interest-bearing account at the U.S. Treasury. Had the money been placed in Treasury securities, the GAO report notes, their value would have increased by nearly $1 million by the end of February. Instead, inflation meant the funds actually decreased in value as the government stalled.

Read the complete article here.

How could this have been handled so poorly?

technorati tags: hurricane, katrina, dvorak, state, department, funding, debacle, committee, united, methodist, FEMA

Last night the Ravinia Festival Orchestra played along with movie classics in Gotta Dance (At the Movies)! under the baton of Robert Moody. Maestro Moody has been the music director of the Pohenix Symphony for the past several seasons. He is an engaging and dynamic person to work with, and he made the production a success for both the musicians and the audience. Scenes from Brigadoon, Singin’ in the Rain, My Fair Lady, Madame Bovary, and An American in Paris received orchestral accompaniment. A particularly engaging excerpt from 2001: A Space Odyssey featured the famous opening of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss’ An der schönen blauen Donau (Blue Danube Waltz).

Except for the overture, the entire concert consisted of musical accompaniment to famous dance sequences from these great musicals of the past. Accompanying film sequences is a very difficult musical task. Accopanying a film is radically different than accompanying live dancers. The film will not adjust to the musicians. Also, many of the musical numbers in these films are incredibly fast. Oftentimes a click track is used for the orchestra in this sort of situation. Musicians wear a special headset covering only their right ear which provides a metronome track sequenced to the film. If a click track is not used the conductor must subtly speed up or slow down the orchestra to keep synchronized with the film. The orchestra must remain completely focused on the conductor and follow his beat completely to avoid a musical disaster. It is quite obvious to the audience when this sort of production gets out of sync. Changing the speed of an orchestra once it gets going can be like changing direction on an ocean liner. Fortunatey, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra was up to the task, and the film and music fit together quite well for the entire evening.

The orchestra played extremely well, especially considering the difficulty of accompanying movie clips without a click track on one rehearsal. Principal cellist Barbara Haffner and concertmaster Robert Hanford played exceptionally beautiful solos during the production. Ravinia is a beautiful setting for a concert. I haven’t been to the festival in quite some time, and I often forget how lucky Highland Park (and all of Chicagoand) is to have this treasure. The setting is great for both audience and orchestra. Looking out at the audience in the pavilion and beyond out on the lawn nestled under all the tall trees makes for a great playing experience.

technorati tags: ravinia, festival, orchestra, robert, moody, phoenix, symphony, gotta, dance, movies, review, summer, 2006

Anyone who is interested in how blogging evolved should check out a great summary available online from Rebecca Blood. I discovered this post from Darren Rowse of Problogger.net. Darren is a professional blogger and maintains a number of different blogs. His Problogger blog is a very interesting read–I check in daily. Here is a quote from Rebecca’s history of blogs post:

In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of “other sites like his” as he found them in his travels around the web. In November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse’s ‘page of only weblogs‘ lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning of 1999.

Suddenly a community sprang up. It was easy to read all of the weblogs on Cameron’s list, and most interested people did. Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it ‘wee-blog’ and inevitably this was shortened to ‘blog’ with the weblog editor referred to as a ‘blogger.’

Read her complete post here.

technorati tags: history, blog, blogging, darren, rowe, problogger, problogger.net, rebecca, blood, jorn, barger

I have mentioned this before on my blog, but double bassist Peter Tambroni’s excellent new work An Introduction to Double Bass playing is now available. I highly recommend this book. It is a well-crafted and intelligently conceived resource for beginners, experienced players, teachers, and parents.

Peter has been a clinician for many years at the Whitewater Winter Bassfest, which I coordinate. He is a truly outstanding teacher (see his recent teaching award here). I have some older posts about Peter. You can check them out here, here, or here.

This new book is available from Lulu.com, which is a really cool publishing site. The books from this company always look really good, and Peter’s new book is no exception. You can get it with color photos, black and white photos, or as a PDF e-version. All teachers who have any interaction with bass players at all should get this book–it will prove to be very useful.

Check out Peter’s excellent bass website Mostlybass.com for more information on this and his many other projects.

technorati tags: peter, tambroni, university, wisconsin, whitewater, UWW, double, bass, doublebass, string, strings, howto, education, chicagoland, chicago, illinois, lulu, lulu.com, book

Today (August 29) is the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and it is valuable to take time and reflect on the state of New Orleans one year later. Visit the Hurricane Katrina Pictures blog for more information on the state of affairs one year later. The Louisiana Philharmonic, which was not in fantastic financial shape before the hurricane, lost its home last year to the hurricane. Many arts organizations throughout the nation opened their arms to help the Louisiana Philharmonic, including the New York Philharmonic (see story). Several Louisiana Philharmonic musicians came to Chicago after the hurricane last year to find work.

This recent Polyphonic.org post is a recollection from LPO cellist Ann Cohen about what it was like for the musicians of this orchestra to struggle and come to terms with the aftermath of the hurricane:

August 29, 2005 Â? the newest of infamous days in US history. Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, leaving great destruction throughout the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coasts. We had been through hurricane evacuations before. No big deal; you pack for two days, you grab your instruments and head north, east or west to wait it out. Although we didn’t know it immediately, this time was different. It had started out the same; we seemed to have dodged another storm and we all prepared to return to New Orleans and the opening of our 15^th season. But then the levees failed and we watched in horror as the water rose, the holes widened, and the city of New Orleans went under water. For days we watched the pictures that showed the world the incredible destruction of one of AmericaÂ?s great cities, the awful personal toll on the people who had remained, and the images at the Super Dome and Convention Center. It was unimaginable.

Read her complete post here.

technorati tags: hurricane, katrina, louisiana, philharmonic, new, york, music, orchestra, crisis