Silliest ever ensemble names
OrchestrasA press release caught our eye this morning.
It’s for a tour by ‘Concertgebouw Young’ with conductor Gustavo Gimeno.
Something lost in translation? Unless they change that name, we’ll start referring to the parent organisation as Concertgebouw Old.
Elsewhere, German radio orchestras have snappy names like Südwestrundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, while Russia regales us with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia named after Evgeny Svetlanov. Put that on a postcard and there’s no room left for a stamp.
How about the Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra? It’s based in San Francisco.
Or the Arts Sphere Chamber Ensemble. Active in Singapore.
There used to be a quartet in Oklahoma called the Stringents.
San Francisco has a piano trio named Fog.
How very apt.
More, please.
pictured: Abbado, Rattle, Berlin Phil intendant Ohnesorg (which means no worries hah!)
Oh, there have been a bunch of early music ensembles in the States with silly names.
the Suspicious Cheese Lords
Louis Louis (specialists in French Baroque)
Guido’s Other Hand (which I actually found rather witty)
Louis Louis might someday get a booking at the Zellerbach Theater on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia – and then dine at Louie Louie, a restaurant on the next block.
While listening to Frank Zappa’s recording of the same name.
There is a German Ensemble Trial and Error.
Orchestra Révolutionaire et Romantique…pretentious of not actually silly.
BRSO – meaning Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.
Don’t you dare say “Bayrisches Rundfunksymphonieorchester”!
We used to hope for a piano trio with Josef Suk, Yo-Yo Ma and Felix Kok. But it never. happened.
you need a pianist not 2 violinists; the Kiss Ma Butt trio was once proposed but they (Classic Cd mag/rag) meant conductor Yondani Butt so that was silly also
Or with pianist James Dick.
The classic joke included Emanuel Ax…
There’s probably some unsavoury possibility that would involve James Ehnes.
Thanks, Microview, that made me laugh out loud! (And I’m still laughing!)
Honestly… : )
During my time in the record business attempts were made, jokingly, to find a musician called Sheikh to play with Rattle and Roll.
In the early 90s, we were spoiled with “Orchestre de l’Opéra Bastille”, “Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris-Bastille”, “Orchestre de la Bastille”…
Here in Boston we have the Society for Historically Informed Performance, or SoHIP.
https://www.sohipboston.org/
The Vaccine Ensemble – they only play bleeding chunks.
Well, there was a Südwestrundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg until SWR closed it down in 2016.
An ensemble called ‘[chosen name] Symphony Orchestra’ has always seemed a bit redundant.
Cleveland and Philadelphia seem to have the title down as well as the music making.
But then you have the “Count Basie Orchestra” or the “Duke Ellington Orchestra” — or for that matter the “NBC Orchestra” that played for the Tonight Show — not to mention some wind orchestras and chamber orchestras, and then “symphony orchestra” does not seem so redundant, or at the very least it becomes more helpfully descriptive.
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Based in London, not Paris.
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (WEDO)
Utopia.
There was a Czech group SEM Ensemble whose website was the unfortunate “Semen semble.com”
The Stamford (CT) Symphony now goes by the name Orchestra Lumos, “as part of a rebranding effort to expand the organization’s reach.”
HA! Some ad agency is laughing all the way to the bank.
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
The pick of the litter has to be ‘The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen.’
There’s only one thing worse than being talked about.
Les Cris de Paris.
Lizzie Borden Trio – Ax, Ma, Mutter…
Brilliant!
Credit where due…Emanuel Ax mentioned it in an interview.
Realest8maven: Top prize should go to you. Brilliant!
Anyone ever heard of the Really Ugly Sinfonia, based I think in London? Wonder if they’re still around : )
A baroque trio recently created in Montréal is named “Les Barocudas”.
http://www.lesbarocudas.com/
How about LPO, RPO, LSO, BBCSO, PO, RLPO, BBCSSO, BSO, BBCNOW, BBCCO, BBCPO?
Those sound like the acronyms for weapons being used in Putin’s war.
Classical Band
That’s right next to the Gastric Band.
Turtle Mountain Naval Base Tactical Wind Ensemble
“Put that on a postcard and there’s no room left for a stamp”. I know – have you seen the size of stamps recently…!?
in the states there is a very good chamber orchestra with the unfortunate name A Far Cry. (What?)
And I’ve always found the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra to be a terrible oxymoron since Mahler only wrote for massive symphony orchestra.
Oh, you really underestimate the power of Russian bureaucratic namings. For example, the official name of Saint Petersburg Philharmonia is ‘Federal State Budget Institute of Culture «The Saint Petersburg Academic Philharmonia named after D. D. Shostakovitch»’. The Tchaikovsky orchestra is actually ‘’Federal State Budget Institute of Culture «The State Academic Large Symphony Orchestra named after P. I. Tchaikovsky»’, and so on.
While we’re on the subject, the name of a very famous American quartet had to be changed for obvious reasons.
Read on:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_String_Quartet
We cannot overlook the early music trio calling itself The Rare Fruits Council
Van Diemen’s Band, a Tasmanian ensemble dedicated to period performance; a very clever name, I think.
Apartment House ensemble! Wigmore Hall’s associate ensemble
Always liked Playing with Fire (early music); Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio a bit unwieldy.
San Francisco has an outdoor horn club called Fog Horns.
Well-Strung, the Singing String Quartet
oh, yes!
The rare fruits council (early music ensemble).
Musica Aeterna….I mean, HONESTLY….
If only Joseph Suk, Yo Yo Ma, and Felix Kok had been able to create that dream team trio together….
Warmia and Mazury Philharmonic “Feliks Nowowiejski” in Olsztyn. Warmia and Mazury is a province in the north of Poland. Feliks Nowowiejski was a composer who was born there. Olsztyn, the capital of the province, is a historic city with a quite well preserved castle of the Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem aka Teutonic Knights.
Adding the word ‘ever’ in the heading is grammatically wrong. Only used by illiterate people.
And then there’s the Panocha Quartet from the Czech Republic… enough said…
Pamlico Music Society…..
https://www.pamlicomusic.org/
Then there is the wonderful group founded by my friend, Gordon Wright, late of the Fairbanks Symphony, The Arctic Chamber Orchestra, which has brought great music to the bush for over fifty years.