The following is the text of a commencement address I gave to the 2013 graduating class of the St. Paul Conservatory for the Performing Arts:"Thank you, administration and faculty of the St. Paul Conservatory for the Performing Arts for inviting me to speak to the graduates of 2013. It is truly an honor to be …
Independence Day 2020 I love being an American. I love being an American as much as I love being human. That means that, as a human, I am God's creation. It means that for all the beauty that comes with being from God I am also deeply flawed. As a human, I am capable of …
Today I am featuring my first guest blogger: my wife, Claudette Laureano. She has been an educator for what seems all her life in some form or other. Whether a private teacher of violin, instructor of string orchestras at Breck School in Golden Valley, MN. or as co-artistic Director at MYS. This, which started as …
Biblical tradition teaches us that life is fleeting and we must appreciate the smallest of joys as well as the largest among them. This is why King Solomon sent his Captain of the Palace Guard on a seemingly impossible mission to find a ring with the power to make a happy man sad and a …
One of the many things I enjoy that are a part of my chosen career is talking to interested groups of music lovers. I also enjoy talking to people who have limited experience with music and sharing what little I know. A story that comes up very often is one that virtually all musicians share. …
A friend recently posted something on social media that got me thinking. While that endeavor is not always welcomed by anyone but myself it did accomplish my finding a link to the forgotten purpose of discord. Glancing through the news recently made me think of whether people complaining about whatever happens to be in fashion …
Continue reading Thoughts on the Uselessness of Self-Inflicted Division
The following is a story from the early 2000s where I revealed a prank I pulled on one of my favorite targets, our then-rookie member of the section, Charles (Chuck) Lazarus. I'm leaving the narrative in the same time I wrote it almost 14 years ago. Enjoy. ****************************************************** 12 Jan 2004 23:26 Okay, kids...grab …
Ty Cobb was known to my generation as a malicious, unnecessarily rough, racist who played the hell out of baseball. The reason we "knew" those things was because, well, we heard someone say it and we repeated it. We were social media without computers and slower yet wildly successful. Nevertheless, Ty Cobb's legacy became secure …
There are several components to being a youth symphony conductor whether you're the director or a staff conductor. When auditions are all done the jobs of teaching music and ministering an art form begin. Since the audition doesn't really give you much of a chance to see if a student (or professional, for that matter) …
Perhaps it's a newly-found dedication to investigating the legacy of musicians no longer discussed for the sake of the latest trend. Perhaps it's being involved a project at work to perform and record what seems like all the Mahler symphonies. Maybe it's the phenomenon of sentimentality brought on by knowing you have fewer years in …
Continue reading The Storytelling Talent of Willem Mengelberg
Manny Laureano 