Norman Pellegrini, long-time program director for WFMT radio, passed away early this morning.

Norm helped to launch the Chicago Chamber Musicians at the inception of the organization in the mid-1980s, recognizing immediately the quality of the founding artists, their unique vision and the potential for such an organization in Chicago.  He started by putting the artists on the air at WFMT on a monthly basis, and his fierce intelligence and keen passion were fodder for the seminal discussions and work that helped to build CCM in the early years.  Since that time, he has been an Honorary Director for CCM. 

After the performing musicians, the next most important person in a performance is...the pianist's page turner!  Who knew?!  Do you even notice the page turner at a concert?  (You shouldn't notice the good ones.)  Yet, the page turner is critical to a successful performance.  Practically every musician has page turner stories.  It most definitely takes a certain personality...see Tuesday's Wall Street Journal piece:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123905872759294777.html
 
For a different kind of page-turner drama, check out "La Tourneuse de Pages," http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/350358/The-Page-Turner/overview, which shows what a killer of a job page turning can be.
 

<!-- --> At the recent annual Chamber Music America conference, where musicians, composers, managers, presenters and others involved in the field gather each year, I had the opportunity to hear Oliver Sacks (author of, among other works, <

I recently attended the American Symphony Orchestra League conference in “Music City,” Nashville, Tennessee (where the League announced its new name: the League of American Orchestras). As with these conferences, a couple of performances were scheduled (we were all gathered together in the name of music, after all!), and I attended a wonderfully adventurous and invigorating concert given by the Nashville Chamber Orchestra in the 9-month-old Schermerhorn Symphony Center, home of the Nashville Symphony.

The Chicago Chamber Musicians received an unexpected gift yesterday afternoon, when we learned that our recently-released Mozart recording (on the Summit Records label) has been nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Chamber Music Performance! While we’re pulling for the win, we are thrilled to be one of just five finalists in the category – and honored to be the only classical artist from Chicago to be nominated this year.