John Roscigno - Conductor

Hypersensitivity and Quest for Beauty

May 19, 2015

This will be a free writing blog for me.   What comes to mind is what will be saved here.   Sort of like Andre Breton and automatic writing.  The only difference is that I'm likely to stay on one topic.

I hear and feel music all the time.   If it is not going through my head it is somewhere in my body...foot tapping, finger movement, teeth clicking, baton waiting.   It's stuck in me.  I've learned to live with that.

What I haven't learned to live with is my increasing hypersensitivity to sound.   Every sound...all the time.   There are timbres I love...that I could listen to all the time.   There are timbres I need to get away from immediately.  There a combinations of sound I love....there are those I tolerate and there are others I now detest.

So here is where I stand...I stand on a podium quite frequently.  I'm aware of every sound and the quality of that sound...from the moment the sound begins to the moment it ends.   In nearly all cases I want everything about the sound to be beautiful - I want it to begin beautifully and end beautifully.  Yes, there have been times when the sound of a note must be filled with angst, violence, aggression.  However, there is no split second within a second itself where it's ok for a note to be treated as anything less than precious piece of an artistic puzzle.     

There is a reason why painters step back from their canvas quite frequently.  It means the world to them.  It is their world.   They want to see it not only as themselves but as others might see it.  They will then go back to the canvas and take great care in manipulating or fixing what does not please them.   

The conductor fulfills this same role but as the representative of the composer.  We have been handed the work of art and we must present it to others and they in turn produce the sound which in fact IS the work of art and that world is transferred to the listener. There is no room for any individual players not to perform up to the highest expectations of themselves, the conductor and most importantly the original artist, the composer.

So it can be torture for me from time to time. I don't mind saying that.  It's true.  I know I will never have enough time on the podium to get the work of art to sound how I truly feel it should but this is my profession and there are certain constraints I must learn to live with.   The problem is that it keeps getting more difficult.   But in those rare moments when I hear a sound or series of sounds that I believe encapsulate the deep inner emotion of another soul I cannot help but instantaneously smile.    It's a feeling that I hope someday will start with the first note and end with the last.
 

A review of David Denby's review of Les Miserable

January 5, 2013

This is a long one folks - it's a review of a review - that's right - Mr. David Denby of the "New Yorker" tore apart the movie "Les Miserables" and now I will take this opportunity to tear apart Mr. Denby's review, which, by the way, is actually quite a good read!  I apologize for typos - I was just so excited to write this I did it in one quick sitting.  Enjoy!!!

Ah David Denby – nicely done!  You have picked apart the movie Les Miserable, actor by actor, song by song and scene by scene i...


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Here comes 2013

December 31, 2012
This spring will be a busy one.  I have 8 performance to conduct in a 6 month span.   There will be between 42 and 46 pieces of music performed during that time.    Aging as a conductor is not always a bad thing because this usually means that one has previously conducted at least some of the repertoire that is coming up.   I'm lucky to have 3 fabulous graduate conducting students to take some of the load off me.  

I often consider what life would be like to not have this constant pressure of...
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All Sports...All The Time....or not

December 17, 2010
For those of you that know me, you know that I love sports.   I am enraptured in music
all day almost every day and when I get the chance I escape to my play world of
college and pro-sports.   I really can't get enough.  And so instead of boring you with
a music blog, I will usually rap about current news in sports but not without interjecting
some musical anecdotes or ramblings about current events here and there.

Well ok....I do go off on a tangent about music sometimes and so I'll do that...
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About Me


Professional and University Orchestral Conductor and actively performing percussionist, pianist and composer.

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