Everyone's a critic
To commemorate the anniversary year of Robert Schumann, the Boston Symphony Orchestra embarked on a three-week Schumann focus, part of which involved a competition for budding amateur music critics in five age divisions, from elementary school to adult. The winners (and their winning entries) are linked on the BSO website.
Any thoughts? Any Schumann submissions of your own? Are there elements that should be part of a review that you think the amateurs missed (or that professionals tend to miss)?
By
Anne Midgette
| November 15, 2010; 2:36 PM ET
Categories:
music on the Web, national
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What you and the other Post critics do is REALLY difficult to do well. Reading these contest winners reminds me of that. I found the ones I liked the best were the elementary-school children, whose writing was honest and un-selfconscious. The older students wrote very well, but I found their reviews hard to read. I thought they communicated more about the writers and the process of writing rather than the music. I can't fault them, it's hard to write so well that one doesn't notice the writing, just the meaning.
Posted by: c-clef | November 16, 2010 8:54 AM | Report abuse
How about a comparative review of some of the sets of Schumann symphonies on CD?
Posted by: clarino | November 16, 2010 9:07 AM | Report abuse
UM student Mark Miller reviewed the UM School of Music's presentation of "For Love of Clara" for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's student blogs. He compared the experience to the first time he tried wine.
http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/blog/miller/archives/000420.cfm
Posted by: azender | November 16, 2010 11:39 AM | Report abuse
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center employs a small staff of student bloggers/amateur art critics to write about performances on its student blog throughout the season.
UM student Mark Miller reviewed the UM School of Music's presentation of "For Love of Clara" during the Schumann Bicentennial Festival & Conference in October.
He compared the performance to the first time he tried wine: http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/blog/miller/archives/000420.cfm
More work from the young writers can be found here: http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/2010/c/engage09/student-blogs
Posted by: azender | November 16, 2010 11:41 AM | Report abuse
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