More Good News for SLSO

It's a good time to be David Robertson right now.

Not only has the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra music director been nationally-lauded for his superior singing and kazoo-playing, he has his musicians for another four years, thanks to a remarkably-peaceful labor agreement earlier this week.

And now Robertson and the SLSO will be honored today at the League of American Orchestras convention in Chicago with an ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. The SLSO took the first-place award for Programming of Contemporary Music in the "Expenses More Than $14.1 Million" division (that's the largest division, by the way) and the $3,000 prize.

"Contemporary", according to the award guidelines, means anything composed after 1984. This past season, the SLSO performed works like John Adams' 2001 "Guide to Strange Places", Kaija Saariaho's 2007 "Mirage" and, perhaps most celebratedly, Howard Shore's "Lord of the Rings Symphony" with singing in Elvish.