I love Vietnamese food when it's cooked well and if I'm very hungry after a rehearsal I like to visit Pho 79, a popular place on what they call "Eat Street" in Minneapolis. Today I was famished on the heels of preparing the program for a kids show we'll play this week. You know how …
During an ugly time as a musician with the Minnesota Orchestra we were locked out. The predictable arm-chair quarterbacks weighed in speculating that they would be happy to earn the money we were being offered, regardless of the fact that it represented a huge cut. After all, they said.... how hard could it be? …
I'm a big fan of the show Jeopardy. So, for today's exercise I'll begin with the answer in the hopes that it will answer an age-old question. Answer: Well, you ask to take up an instrument and your folks shell out the bucks for it. Maybe you take private lessons, maybe you don't. Sometimes you …
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When we hear the military bugle call, we know today as Taps, we do more than hear it: we feel it. It has varied meaning for those who embrace the smooth intervals which start in the middle register and rise the cusp of a bugle's high register only to waft gently downward again. That call …
I had a friend who subbed with the MO for the last few years named Moishe. From his name you can infer correctly that he is Jewish. Well, was Jewish. For reasons that weren't completely clear to me he decided, after a lot of consideration, that he was converting... ... to Islam. I said to …
I was already gone and basically ran to the front of the stage and saw a bald man with greying hair standing with a group of folks. I literally jumped off the stage and hugged him, my eyes stinging, us asking each other how we were doing and him closing the brief chat telling me how proud he was of me and the work I had done since I last saw him when I was a boy.
Manny Laureano 