I am actually leaving the Boston area after 16 years to move down to
Baltimore to study at Peabody.  It's a wonderful musical environment,
especially for a student.  You have 4 schools entirely devoted to music in
the city alone, with many other strong programs in the area.  Boston has a
very reputable and venerable presence in every aspect/genre of music with
the unfortunate exception of opera.

Regarding the BSO, it's a little more complicated than what you've been
hearing.  The wind and brass are still exceptional-one of the best around,
and the strings still have their distinctive Boston sound, compact and
vibrant.  The problem is putting this together, so where does the blame go?
Naturally, the conductor.  Now, the impression is that we have a conductor
who is unworthy to conduct the BSO.  Nonsense.  Seiji is a wonderfully
gifted conductor and musician.  So where does the problem lie? It's in
Seiji's committment to the orchestra.  He always has too many other
committments:  Saito Kinen, BPO, VPO, etc.  Look at any given program and
you'll see his absence is quite conspicuous.  The asst conductors get a lot
of performance time in which is great for them, but not so good for the BSO
and its audience.  Also, there are terrible problems with the
administration.  Biggest example - the Tanglewood fiasco.

Proof of how good the BSO is:  Go listen to them when Haitink or Rattle's
conducting them.  They sound incredible-everything just comes together.
Guarenteed magic when these conductors get their hands on them.  They are
frequent guests because they see this potential in the orchestra.  They
both acknowledged that the orchestra has special attributes amongst the
orchestras of the world that keeps bringing them back.

There's one more problem with Boston that puts everything into perspective.
We suffer from what I call the "Boston mentality." This includes severe
neurosis, inferiority complexes(especially when New York is involved), a
twisted form of nepotism, all tempered by Boston's puritanical origins.
The most famous manifestation of this is "the Curse of the Bambino."

Yes, this curse is real in a psychosomatic sense.  You say and believe
something enough and people will believe you.  Then, at a certain point,
you start believing your own lie and thus, it becomes a self-fulfilling
prophesy.  This is exactly the case for the BSO along with the Red Sox.

Other symptoms of this affliction include preference for Pete Carroll
over Bill Parcells, the city of Boston's hypocritical stance on their
arts policy, the list goes on.  Now I may sound really cynical, but I look
at the city I'll be living in for the next few years.  Boston, musically,
is far superior than Baltimore, across the board-again with the exception
of opera.  Yet for instance, the people of Baltimore are much enthusiastic
and proud of "their BSO" than the Bostonians are about theirs.  I'm looking
forward to growing as a musician in this healthy environment.

When you get to NEC, try to enjoy everything as they are.  Don't let this
mentality get to you.  As amazing as NEC is, they also fall prey to this
affliction so beware!:-) Good luck!

Recovering Bostonian,

Bob Yoon
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