Happy Friday, music nerds! It’s been a big week at Music Nerd Central, and next week will be even bigger, as I head out to L.A. for my annual GRAMMY pilgrimage! This week’s music links take us from fashion to sports to historic firsts! Let’s get started!
Where in the world is Miss Music Nerd?
Last weekend, I got BMOP’ed, and I’m still recuperating… full story still to come!
Last night, I attended Project Debussy, the Boston Symphony’s annual celebration of music-inspired fashion design. Eleven young designers showed off their fabulous designs inspired by Debussy’s music. Here are the two winning designs: On the left, audience choice winner Teresa Calabro with, and on the right, judge’s choice Kowoon Jeong (I’m sorry I don’t have the models’ names — they did a great job!)
Photo: Stu Rosner
Coming up next week: Los Angeles and the GRAMMYs!!!
Speaking of which, I found a fantastic resource for exploring the GRAMMY nominees if you are a Spotify user: blogger ulyssestone has put together a Spotify playlist with many of the nominated recordings. One-stop shopping — it’s a beautiful thing!
Image by Ain't Baroque.
Here’s a very punny Viola Joke of the Week, brought to you by Jenn at Ain’t Baroque:
There was once a string quartet which played a piece where pizzicato was marked twice without an arco in between. The violist was looking for it and the cellist asked, “Are you playing arco polo?”
The Week in Funny Music Pictures! Here is some serious music nerd humor, since you really have to read music to get it. But if you don’t, here’s a hint: you heard the tune here last week!
Good job, Don’t Shoot the Pianist!
On the serious side: I’ve long known Marian Anderson as the first African American woman to achieve major success as a classical singer. But this week I heard of another pioneer: Camilla Williams, the first black woman to land a contract with a major United States opera company. In 1946, she debuted with New York City Opera as Cio-Cio-San in “Madama Butterfly.” Williams died this week at age 92.
In an interesting tidbit of historical context, as the New York Times notes, “the year after Miss Williams’s City Opera debut, Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball.”
Here is a short documentary video about her, including audio of her singing:
What’s new in your music nerdosphere this week?
