Whipped Cream Difficulties

There’s just really not a whole lot going on. You good folks are probably as bored and fed up with Shade and Tovo as I am, and most of you probably don’t care that much about fireworks or plumbing.

The NYT does, however, have a short piece on a recent altercation at a chamber music concert in San Francisco.

The musician John Eichenseer, aka JHNO, was performing a piece for viola and electronics, called “Untitled”, when one of the audience members became disruptive. Eventually, JHNO “threw down his instrument and stormed off the stage”, cracking his viola in the process.

It turns out the audience member who disrupted the performance is also a viola player, Bernard M. Zaslav:

…at intermission, Mr. Zaslav remarked that the piece was “a desecration of the viola,” a quotation that was also captured on a video recording.

Later in the article, Mr. Zaslav is quoted as blaming his reaction on literal physical pain the performance caused him, and it is noted that he apologized to JHNO and the concert organizer.

Bonus: Joan Jeanrenaud, formerly of the Kronos Quartet, was there and is quoted relatively extensively.

(Subject line hattip: the old joke about the cello (4th one down) and one of the greatest book titles ever. Yes, I am aware of the differences between the viola and cello, believe it or not, but I wanted to give a shout-out to Keith Snyder, even if I had to stretch a bit.)