Classical world had plenty of weirdness in 2007

What a year it's been in classical music! Over the 12 months of 2007, we've gathered plenty of evidence to prove that whenever they aren't producing sublime music, the artists of the classical world can behave just as badly, and as oddly, as anyone else.

Here are just a few stories to prove it.

The oboist is a bookie: A federal judge sentenced Washington, D.C., classical oboist H. David Meyers last March to a year and a day in prison for money-laundering and running an illegal sports-betting operation. It was up to prison authorities to decide whether the 61-year-old can play and practice in the slammer.

French horn bearing arms: New Zealand French horn player Bernard Shapiro (not the Seattle Symphony's former principal oboist of the same name!) was charged last March with possessing a cache of "military-style" explosives. He is also a hunting guide and has been known for "solo tramps around the South Island dressed in 19th-century attire."

Pop goes the pops: Last May, a balcony brawl that stopped the show on opening night of the Boston Pops began with a tap on the shoulder. One of the combatants tapped a persistent talker on the shoulder a few times before turning to an usher for help. The talker stood up, punched the tapper, and pulled him to the ground by the hair.

Rudeness among the Really Terrible: The Edinburgh-based Really Terrible Orchestra (whose membership includes author Alexander McCall Smith) was shocked to learn that a church choirmaster down south planned to steal their name to set up another band of musical misfits. The first hint of disharmony came in an e-mail from Dave Phippen, a Cornish choirmaster: "We're going to do it no matter what you think. We presume there is no copyright to the Really Terrible Orchestra name. Should this not be the case, we don't give a !!!!" Tsk, tsk.

Really Terrible P.S.: The original Really Terrible Orchestra made its London debut in November at Cadogan Hall, normally the home of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with McCall Smith serving as host and "extremely incompetent" contrabassoonist. Naturally the concert sold out.

The bum-wiggling conductor: Edmonton Symphony Orchestra music director William Eddins attracted the ire of a patron who disliked his podium antics. In a letter to the Edmonton Journal, anti-wiggler Jeanie Campbell wrote, "He shakes his body, wiggles his bum, kicks his legs out, a chain hanging off his back pocket." The unrepentant Eddins replied that "my 'wiggling bum' was the first thing that my lovely wife claims she ever noticed about me, so I fear it shall remain."

Sex and violins: Muso Magazine, self-described is "the groundbreaking magazine for the younger, more open-minded generation of classical music fans," has released the results of a survey into the sex lives of musicians, with some startling results. Violists are "most likely to have sex on a first date," "most likely to have had sex three or more times in the last week" and "most likely to have had 10 or more sexual partners." Tuba players, on the other hand, not only played "the least sexy instrument" but were also "most likely to be single."

Dangerous times at the Dubrovnik Symphony: A member of the Dubrovnik city council broke into a concert by the city's symphony orchestra, threatened the guest conductor, and attacked the orchestra's manager, Pero Sisa, 51, when Sisa tried to stop the man and his two accomplices.

"I have a concussion, contusion of nose and gums, and I am as blue as the sea," Sisa told the press. "First he strangled me for a while, but since I am big, he was not successful, so he head-butted me and I passed out."

The Vegetable Orchestra: The 11-member First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, an ensemble that gets its instruments from farmers markets, returned to Great Britain last month, performing on instruments — carrot flute, pepper trumpet, leek violin, pumpkin drum, celery-root bongos — which they make anew before each concert. (Organic produce is preferred.)

Mozart makes you fatter? Well, it does if you're a pig. Vietnamese pig farmer Nguyen Chi Cong, 44, says he has boosted productivity by exposing his 3,000 hogs to the melodies of Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert while they have their snouts in the trough. He began playing recordings of classical symphonies and sonatas over loudspeakers six years ago for the benefit of his workers, only to find the music also had a soothing effect on the pigs.

"I saw that my pigs started eating more and that they were gaining weight faster than usual," said Cong, who told a reporter that he now serenades his animals with the tunes of the great European composers daily from 7 to 11 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m.

The wonderful world of opera: This was the year that brought a Genoa "Julius Caesar" production with an added role, a guy strolling around in a crocodile suit "representing the timeless spirit of Egypt," and a production we wish we'd seen: Wagner's "Die Meistersinger," staged by his great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner with (as described in the German press) "Richard Wagner dancing in his underwear and a bunch of master singers horsing around the stage with oversized penises." In Bayreuth, they have all the fun.

No panty-throwing for Dame Kiri: The celebrated operatic soprano Dame Kiri te Kanawa prevailed in a lawsuit against her by a concert promoter when she withdrew from shows with Australian pop-star singer John Farnham. After viewing videos of Farnham performances, the diva was alarmed: "I was concerned about the knickers or underpants and underwear apparel being thrown at him and him collecting it and obviously holding it in his hands as some sort of trophy," she told the court. "How could I, in my classical form, perform in this way?"

When in doubt, sue: It's been a litigious year, with a Canadian-based conductor (Douglas Sanford) suing his musicians (in the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra) for defamation, and a British composer (Keith Burstein) suing a critic (Veronica Lee in The London Evening Standard) over an unfavorable review of his opera, "Manifest Destiny." Also this year came news of a European Union directive on noise abatement, which might inspire lawsuits by limiting the "noise" produced by an orchestra to 85 decibels: "How could you apply it to Gustav Mahler, for instance, or Richard Strauss?" asked Libor Pesek, conductor of the Prague Symphony.

Truth really is stranger than fiction: The Kazakhstan Orchestra has invited "Borat" movie star Sacha Baron Cohen's composer brother, Erran Cohen, to compose a symphony. Despite the wildly unfavorable picture of Kazakhstan in the movie, and the resulting dismay among Kazakhs, it seems they really liked the movie's film score — which Erran Cohen composed. Watch for the new work, called "Zere" (in honor of sponsorship from Kazakhstan's Zere Corporation), to be recorded on the Sony BMG label.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com