Martin Anderson, a violinist in the NJ Symphony, told me that his orchestra recently created a dress code committee to review their policies. One of their recent discussions focused on whether the men should wear tuxedos for afternoon concerts. It can be difficult to find consensus when so many people are involved, and Martin reported that three main objections were raised:. Not wearing a jacket at all is more comfortable; but one gets used to it. And yes, wearing wool jackets on a hot stage is no fun—but our main hall has good climate control.
Depending on the season, other halls we perform in can be either too hot or too cold. In the latter case, the wool is welcome! Robert Levine, principal violist of the Milwaukee Symphony and another Senior Editor at Polyphonic raised the issue of comfort while playing. Heat can become an issue. Over 17, runners finished the race in unseasonably warm temperatures.
Sporting apparel manufacturers have taken notice of the large numbers of amateur athletes and they have made fortunes designing special clothing for athletes. Fabrics have been designed to wick moisture away from the skin.
New techniques of construction eliminate seams and therefore bulkiness or friction. In fact, if you compete in those sports, you are able to buy clothing that improves your performance! Does anyone know when or why it became 'tradition' for Orchestras to wear black? I've researched this a little bit but haven't found a solid answer.
I don't, but someone in the Classical Music group might. It's so that the orchestra members appear visually uniform without much to distract the eye, because the focus is supposed to be on the instruments, on the conductor, and if applicable on the soloist s. The main focus is the loss of bright colours from the male wardrobe in the 19th century, but he goes into a lot of the different potential meanings of black in a wardrobe. It's self-effacing and restrained, but also associated with wealth and power; it states very strongly that it's a background colour and for that reason stands out.
But I suspect that the basic reason in this case is that orchestras traditionally wear formal dress - probably both for its formality and relative uniformity - and formal dress for men, at least, and orchestras have only recently begun to approach gender parity became exclusively black in the 19th century, for all the various reasons in Harvey's book.
Actually, black is the original bourgeois colour see the old paintings of the Dutch burghers in black with the stiff white collars. The industrial revolution coupled with the French revolution brought the bourgeois and their style to prominence, thus pants "sans culottes" and black, the bourgeois were the original men in black in the French National Assembly "hommes en noir".
So when the women later came in to join the professional orchestra which was during the midth century, they dressed up following the color of the suits that men wear.
They would also wear some white color on the upper or lower part. As you know, black and white dresses during the 18th century are considered classic and smart but might be a dull thing to wear during this present time especially on stage. But a critical effect of the black and white colored uniforms is that no unnecessary attentions can be drawn to musicians. The compelling argument on this is that audiences wanted to pay attention to music and not the musicians that is why they wear black and white colored dresses and suits.
It was believed by many musicians and music lovers that music should not be interrupted by any distraction, not even the performers themselves. Another stark reason for that is to pave the way to the limelight for soloists.
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