How Justice Department Shutdown Of MegaUpload Could Hurt Music "Despite the demise of Napster more than a decade ago, music fans continue to use file-sharing sites to discover and share music. In certain circles, especially more underground and fringe scenes, music blogs and sites are indispensible ways of discovering new artists, as they're mostly ignored by mainstream magazines and websites." East Bay Express 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/03/12@08:34AM

The Asianization Of Classical Music "Despite classical's deserved reputation as the whitest of genres, Asian attendance rates match or surpass the national average up through the 45- 54 age range. To put it one way, the younger the classical audience gets, the more Asian it becomes. To put it another, the only population that is disproportionately filling seats being vacated by old people dying off is Asians." Slate 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@09:24AM

Do We Still Need Major Record Labels? "It's true the internet has been brilliant for artists in many ways, giving them an alternative route to make contact with and sell directly to fans, but record labels do much more than distribute to retailers." The Guardian (UK) 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@09:19AM

How Classical Music Can Take Advantage In A New Surge In Interest Up until now the implications for former "niche" genres - classical, jazz, world - have been largely overlooked. In a world where listeners no longer define themselves along firm genre lines, music is increasingly just that - music. As a result, we are now witnessing a musician-led movement gleefully adopted by listeners, in which classical is being rebranded from the ground up. Even the term "classical" itself seems obsolete in the face of what's being produced and consumed. The Guardian (UK) 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@09:16AM

Reborn Orchestra In Honolulu Set For Debut Just over a year after the Honolulu Symphony's ignominious collapse, musicians and backers have created the Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra, which has announced a slate of eight classical programs to be performed in Honolulu from March through May of this year. Hawaii Reporter 01/30/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@12:09AM

Barcelona's Liceu, Short Of Cash, To Close For Eight Weeks With two successive years of major funding cuts and a deficit now estinated at €10 million, the Gran Teatre del Liceu will close down from March 20 to Apri 10 and again from June 5 to July 8. Seven programs have been cancelled, including two opera productions and a ballet. La Vanguardia (Barcelona) 02/01/12 (in Spanish)

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@12:02AM

Philadelphia Orchestra Expects Early Exit From Bankruptcy Despite a 90-day extension of bankruptcy protection, orchestra management "expects a plan of reorganization to be filed with the court in February, with an exit from bankruptcy in late April or early May." The Philadelphia Inquirer 02/01/12

email this story | Posted 02/01/12@11:56PM

Musicians Drop Unfair Claim Against Louisville Orchestra "The Louisville musicians union has withdrawn its charge of unfair labor practices against the Louisville Orchestra board and management, saying it wants to work on resolving the problems." Louisville Courier-Journal 01/31/12

email this story | Posted 02/01/12@12:04AM

Philadelphia Orchestra Makes Progress In Its Money Struggle "The Philadelphia Orchestra Association has made incremental but encouraging progress in the campaign to finance its reorganization and operations for several years beyond an expected exit from bankruptcy. But it still has a 'mountain of money' to raise." The Philadelphia Inquirer 01/31/12

email this story | Posted 01/31/12@11:58PM

New Appetite For Difficult New Music? When Swiss conductor Baldur Brönnimann was a student 25 years ago, "if you had more than 30 people at a concert it was a failure because it was populist crap". Today, there are growing signs that contemporary classical music is shrugging off its elitist reputation, with audiences flocking to work previously regarded as austere and impenetrable. The Guardian (UK) 01/31/12

email this story | Posted 01/31/12@05:16AM

New York Philharmonic Players Agree To New Contract "The New York Philharmonic and its musicians agreed a two-year contract, which leaves pay unchanged this season and raises it two percent for 2012 to 2013 ... Management 'dropped its plans for drastic cuts to health insurance and a radical reduction in pension benefits'." Bloomberg Business Week 01/30/12

email this story | Posted 01/31/12@12:04AM

Beverly Sills Artist Award Goes To Angela Meade "The soprano Angela Meade won the Beverly Sills Artist Award, a $50,000 prize for singers from ages 25 to 40 who have already appeared in featured roles at the Metropolitan Opera ... Previous winners include Nathan Gunn, Joyce DiDonato, Matthew Polenzani, John Relyea, Susanna Phillips and Isabel Leonard." The New York Times 01/30/12

email this story | Posted 01/30/12@11:59PM

Why Writing About Music Is So Tough "On top of the basic, if sometimes seemingly insurmountable, difficulty of crafting a good sentence, writing about music has a serious built-in problem, which is that the only thing worth doing is also nearly impossible: to convey something of what the emotional experience of listening is like." The Telegraph (UK) 01/30/12

email this story | Posted 01/30/12@06:40AM

Royalties Are Waiting For You! Just Email This Company - And No, It's No Scam "SoundExchange is a non-profit that's rapidly growing to become one of the most important organizations in the music industry. For many labels, it's the No. 2 source of digital revenue only behind iTunes." And it's a nonprofit - which is both its salvation and a possible source of problems. Fast Company 01/27/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:39PM

Oh, Those Violins Are Soooooo Valuable? Prove It, Say Skeptics "Broadly speaking, consider the divide in the string world to be between the True Believers and the Debunkers. On the true believer side are collectors, dealers and superstar players who perform on the valuable instruments," writes Daniel Wakin. "The debunkers include scientists, modern luthiers and some younger soloists who can't afford old master instruments and make a virtue of the new." The New York Times 01/28/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:30AM

What Can Music Learn From The Slow-Food Movement? "What would it be worth to provide a path to sustainable success in the music industry? I think that's worth a lot. Strip-mining the low end, selling less and less quality to more and more people -- there are limits to that model, and the music industry has done about as much of that as can be done. It's time to try something new." Salon 01/28/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:11AM

Is Joshua Bell - Is Any Classical Superstar - Worth It? "What a musician's stardom means for symphony orchestras is simple: it enables them to achieve their twin goals of making great music and selling tickets. It comes at a price." Oregon ArtsWatch 01/24/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:05AM

Compressing Your Audio Message Way, Way Down - To Four Notes "Joel Beckerman spent about 18 months developing a song that boils down to a melody just four notes long. He's one of a handful of composers who specialize in sonic logos, or the audio equivalents of the Nike 'swoosh' or John Deere's leaping deer. More concise than a theme song and subtler than a jingle, sonic logos are brief melodies or sound effects designed to cement a brand in the consumer's subconscious mind." The Wall Street Journal 01/28/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:02AM

Why Vinyl Record Sales Keep Growing "Vinyl record sales have reached a six-year high, according to the Official Charts Company." BBC 01/27/12

email this story | Posted 01/27/12@06:27AM

Dallas Opera Tries The Simulcast-In-Stadium Approach It's worked for San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera, so why not? The company will present, free of charge, a real-time transmission of its April production of Mozart's Magic Flute at Cowboy Stadium, on "the world's largest high-definition video board structure, comprised of four jaw-droppingly big viewing screens." TheaterJones (Dallas-Fort Worth) 01/26/12

email this story | Posted 01/26/12@11:52PM

Sydney Opera Chief Resigns "After four years, four state premiers and four different arts ministers, Sydney Opera House chief executive Richard Evans has called curtains and accepted a job on the other side of Sydney Harbour running Paul Cave's BridgeClimb." The Australian 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/26/12@09:34AM

Philadelphia Orchestra To Return To Major-Label Recording During Yannick Nézet-Séguin's announcement of the orchestra's 2012-13 season, his first as music director, he revealed that he would be making recordings with the Philadelphians (among other orchestras) as part of his contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The Philadelphia Inquirer 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@11:59PM

Oregon Symphony Players Accept Three-Year Contract "After playing without a contract since August, Oregon Symphony musicians agreed to a new three-year contract with management. ... The contract also loosens previous restrictions on broadcasting Oregon Symphony concerts." The Oregonian (Portland) 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@11:55PM

Another Conductor Stops Concert, This Time For Crying Baby At a Dayton Philharmonic concert earlier this month, during the long flute solo that opens Debussy's Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, an infant began to wail - and kept going. Once he saw that the musicians were getting distracted, conductor Neal Gittleman "stopped the music, turned to the audience, and asked that the child be removed. Some audience members applauded." Dayton Daily News (Ohio) 01/23/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@11:46PM

State Legislator Proposes Bill To Deny Unemployment To Orchestra Musicians House Bill 1254 would make symphony performers between orchestra seasons ineligible for unemployment between orchestra seasons if they performed during the last season and plan to perform in the upcoming season. Richmond Times-Dispatch 01/23/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@07:38AM

Summer Music Festivals On The Wane "For a while, there has been an increasing feeling that festivals have shifted too far from their original hippie-spirited ethos. The point was to offer an alternative reality. Now, it's a slick industry. The television rights have been sold, and with that have come price rises, mass audiences and corporate domination - the antithesis of everything they stood for." The Independent (UK) 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@06:32AM

Time For Yet Another Obit For Rock Music? "Rock music's death certificate is signed with startling frequency. A year ago, after three rock songs featured in the 100 bestselling singles of 2009, the DJ Paul Gambaccini announced: "Rock as a prevailing style is part of music history." This month, after rock's share of album sales fell to 29.4% - its lowest proportion since 2003 - the obituarists came out once more." The Guardian (UK) 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@06:25AM

Proposed Virginia Law Would Deny Orchestral Players Unemployment Benefits "House Bill 1254 would make symphony performers between orchestra seasons ineligible for unemployment between orchestra seasons if they performed during the last season and plan to perform in the upcoming season." Richmond Times-Dispatch 01/24/12

email this story | Posted 01/24/12@11:56PM

Boston Symphony Audience Evacuated From Hall "A Boston Symphony Orchestra audience had to evacuate Symphony Hall Tuesday night after a fire alarm went off inside ... about 10 minutes before the end of the concert." The Boston Globe 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/24/12@11:53PM

Horror Movie Auteur John Carpenter On Composing His Own Film Scores "I composed the score for my first film Dark Star because I was cheap and fast. I talked to a couple of other composers but they all seemed weird. ... For me scoring is all improvisational. After the movie is cut, I synch my synthesizer to the cut footage and just start playing." The Quietus 01/24/12

email this story | Posted 01/24/12@11:53PM

After Seven Balanced Budgets, La Scala Expects Deficit "La Scala general manager Stéphane Lissner's first goal when he arrived at the renowned opera house in 2005 was to balance the budget, which he did that year and every year since. This year could be different, he warned Tuesday." Yahoo (AP) 01/24/12

email this story | Posted 01/24/12@11:50PM

St. Louis Symphony To Return To Europe After 15 Years "The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra announced Monday it will go on its first European tour in 14 years, and the first under the leadership of music director David Robertson." St Louis Post-Dispatch 01/24/12

email this story | Posted 01/23/12@11:59PM

Milwaukee's Skylight Opera Theatre Drops 'Opera' From Name The small but well-regarded company will henceforth call itself Skylight Music Theatre. Administrators said in a statement, "Skylight's goal in the name change is to accurately capture the range of experiences patrons may have throughout each season and minimize the misconception that Skylight only produces opera." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 01/23/12

email this story | Posted 01/23/12@11:58PM

One Of The World's Greatest Cellos Goes To An 18-Year-Old - For $6 Million+ "The purchaser was a "patroness of the arts from Montreal," who declined to be identified further, Mr. Reuning said. He said she has decided to lend the cello, known as Countess of Stainlein, ex-Paganini of 1707, to Stéphane Tétreault, an 18-year-old player from Montreal with a budding career." The New York Times 01/22/12

email this story | Posted 01/23/12@09:00AM

Beloved Cello Sells For A Record Price (But The Buyer Loans Out The Instrument) "The purchaser was a 'patroness of the arts from Montreal,' who declined to be identified further, Mr. Reuning said. He said she has decided to lend the cello, known as Countess of Stainlein, ex-Paganini of 1707, to Stéphane Tétreault, an 18-year-old player from Montreal with a budding career." The New York Times 01/22/12

email this story | Posted 01/22/12@10:42PM

Music, The Wonder Drug (Music-Lovers Are Not Surprised) "The practical applications of music for healing are irresistible. Cutting-edge music therapy can help Parkinson's patients walk, enables the autistic to rehearse their emotions and provides opportunities for stroke victims to regain speech and motor movement. Music is usually the last thing Alzheimer's sufferers recognize. It is our final way to communicate with them, and now it seems music can play a significant role in forestalling Alzheimer's." Los Angeles Times 01/22/12

email this story | Posted 01/22/12@09:49AM

Using Classical Music To Drive People Away - That Is, "Undesirable" People Cities, bus stations and private businesses blast classical music in trouble spots. Does it calm troubled people, or does it simply drive people away - and is that what we want classical music to do? Washington Post 1/21/12

email this story | Posted 01/22/12@09:30AM

Young Singers, Young Musicians And Operas Recovered From The Nazis The L.A. Opera's James Conlon works with musicians from the Colburn School and singers from the opera's Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program on two operas suppressed by the Nazis. Conlon: The young musicians "are like sponges. And now every one of these young artists is going to know what it's like to be in one of these operas. They will know there's a lot of great music to be discovered." Los Angeles Times 01/22/12

email this story | Posted 01/22/12@09:25AM

That Radical Liszt - And His Path To Modern Fame The Sonata in B Minor "is music of drastic intellectuality, clothed in a Dantesque drama. Looking within the sonata's mighty inner conflicts, one finds the most daring structural innovation in large-form composition since Beethoven. Claudio Arrau called it Beethoven's 33rd sonata, probably meaning that had Beethoven lived, he would have eventually fused all elements of sonata form into a one-movement plan." Wall Street Journal 01/21/12

email this story | Posted 01/22/12@09:15AM

A Bee Gees Symphony Robin Gibb is writing it. "Composed with his son RJ, Titanic Requiem will be performed in London on 10 April by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - the anniversary of the doomed ship's departure from Southampton. The event will boast a hologram show depicting the sea, the ship, and - naturally - the iceberg." The Guardian (UK) 01/20/12

email this story | Posted 01/20/12@05:20AM