How Downloading Is Changing Music "Digital downloading and distribution, illegally or otherwise, has had a greater effect on the recording industry than anything in its history. As the legal variety grows rapidly, driven most significantly by iTunes, so those old-school players are having to adopt radical new business plans to compete in the brave new world of music." The Australian 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@08:08AM

Tchaikovsky's Operatic Counterpart To Nutcracker Director Francesca Zambello recounts the story (in both senses) of Cherevichki (a/k/a "The Tsarina's Slippers"), Tchaikovsky's only comic opera, which is based on a madcap Christmas Eve story by Nikolai Gogol. (Zambello is directing a new staging of the work at Covent Garden.) The Guardian (UK) 11/19/09

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The Composer Who Just Can't Write For Normal Ensembles That would be Bang on a Can's Julia Wolfe, whose latest album has works for four drum sets, six pianists, eight double basses, and nine bagpipers. She's written an accordion concerto and a piece for musicians in pedicabs. "The last time I did something practical … was [in graduate school] at Yale - I wrote a woodwind quintet." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@09:56PM

Edward Elgar Was A Terrible Trombone Player A newly rediscovered letter reveals the awful truth. "His skills were so poor that when the composer from Worcester started playing a specially inscribed trombone for a dear friend, she ran out of the room in a fit of hysterical laughter, leaving the composer swearing in frustration." The Independent (UK) 11/20/09

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What Community Orchestras Taught Joseph Schwantner "They are more limited in terms of their experience, and to engage a new work is a major challenge," the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer says. "I've learned that you have to be patient; you have to give them an opportunity to digest this music and make it their own. But ... I've seen them rise to the challenge." Detroit Free Press 11/19/09

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Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg As Music Director More than midway through her three-year contract as music director of the conductorless New Century Chamber Orchestra, "Salerno-Sonnenberg hinted strongly that she's inclined to stay a fourth year.... For now, New Century concerts have taken on the fascinating cast of a soloist meshing her distinctive traits with an integrated orchestral texture." San Francisco Chronicle 11/19/09

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Indianapolis SO Reports Largest Deficit Ever, $2.8M "The deficit is the result of shortages in ticket sales and annual fund donations, as well as declines in major one-time gifts and contributions from the ISO Foundation, whose board manages the orchestra's endowment." Musicians and staff took pay cuts earlier this year. Indianapolis Star 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@10:08PM

Colorado Public Radio To Raise Funds For Colorado Symphony "Colorado Public Radio (CPR) said Wednesday it will stage an unusual three-day on-air fundraising drive for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (CSO) that will include a live broadcast of a CSO performance featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma." Denver Business Journal 11/18/09

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New Horizons In Classical Music Outreach: Concert In A Brothel "Punters and employees at the Eros Centre in Leipzig [will] be treated on Friday to six musicians and a singer from the city's Forum for Contemporary Music (FZML) performing 'licentious and erotic' works." Agence France-Presse 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@09:38PM

In LA, The 110 Freeway Is Operatic Material "According to L.A. Opera, 'The 110 Project' tells the story of four central characters as it travels through 70 years of L.A. history" in communities along the freeway. "So what will the opera sound like? You guessed it: the music is said to be inspired by freeway sounds...." Los Angeles Times 11/17/09

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Hollywood's Composers And Lyricists To Join Teamsters? "Composers and lyricists are among the few Hollywood creatives without a collective bargaining agreement. Services like orchestration, conducting and music performance are covered by American Federation of Musicians (AFM) agreements, but not the act of writing music or lyrics." Variety 11/17/09

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Between Classical And Rock, Solo Percussion Finds Niche "Part of the appeal of percussion music is visual." Indeed, "the extramusical elements may be the reason percussion music is so popular with audiences, and often draws crowds that are substantially younger than average." Wall Street Journal 11/18/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@05:26AM

Anne Midgette Looks At The '00s In Classical Music The Washington Post's classical critic answers ten questions about the decade past, covering such issues as the decline of record labels, the rise of the Web, hits (in both senses) at the box office, and the trajectory of classical radio. And she predicts the future. ("Classical music will survive. I predict that.") NPR 11/17/09

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The History Of Opera, 140 Characters At A Time "How many tweets does it take to cover the entire span of opera history? The San Diego Opera wants to find out and has launched a Twitter project in which it will tweet about everything from Monteverdi to Mozart to Philip Glass on a daily basis. With more than 400 years to cover - and at a rate of two tweets per day - the project could take years to finish." Los Angeles Times 11/17/09

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Philly Chamber Orchestra Names Solzhenitsyn's Successor The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has tapped Belgian Dirk Brossé, 49, to succeed pianist/conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn, its music director for the past 16 years. Solzhenitsyn is departing "a year before the end of his current contract," becoming conductor laureate next season, when Brossé begins his four-year contract. Philadelphia Inquirer 11/17/09

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Michael Feinstein To Direct A Jazz At Lincoln Center Series The appointment "is the culmination of a three-year artistic courtship between Mr. Feinstein and Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center." The singer and pianist will direct a new popular music series as "part of a larger plan to broaden programming." The New York Times 11/16/09

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For US, NEA Opera Honors Were A Chance To Give Thanks "The event was called to order by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, banging a gavel to quell the applause that greeted her appearance, and then provoking laughter with her witty (and knowledgeable) observations about the links between opera and the legal profession, citing all the operas that have courtroom or jail scenes." Washington Post 11/16/09

email this story | Posted 11/16/09@07:14PM

Now European, Now American: Tracking LA Phil's Violins "Sometime after moving to Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003, Esa-Pekka Salonen decided to shake things up by placing the second violin section on the opposite side of the stage from the first violins, in what is known as European seating -- and it has stayed that way for the most part ever since." Then came Verdi's Requiem this month.... Los Angeles Times 11/16/09

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Songwriter Offers To Personalize His Music For Each Fan Ezra Furman is "writing a song for every fan who buys his latest album, Moon Face: Bootlegs and Road Recordings 2006-2009. More than 100 albums have been ordered since it became available a few weeks ago. Each consists of 10 tunes culled from Furman's voluminous archive plus a customized song written directly to and for each paying customer." Chicago Tribune 11/16/09

email this story | Posted 11/16/09@08:37AM

Growing Pains - Working To Keep Opera Relevant In UK "ITV1 is currently working on a new show following celebrities as they train to become opera singers. We'll find out who will be hitting (or not as the case may be) the high notes next year." BBC 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/16/09@08:33AM

In Concert, Bands Recreate Their CDs (Why?) "This trend isn't just exhausted, it feels like a cruel perversion of a concert's real-time magic. Live music might be the last bastion of unpredictability in today's hypercurated mediascape: a fleeting opportunity to experience something unfiltered, spontaneous and really real. Instead, we're paying to see our greatest living, breathing, sweating, bleeding rock stars behave like iPods. And with no "shuffle" function!" Washington Post 11/15/09

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Opera Australia's New Chief Wants To Make It Up To Melbourne Ever since 1996, when Sydney and Melbourne companies were merged to form the Sydney-based Opera Australia, Melburnian opera fans have complained that the national company gives their city too few performances of too few works with too few top-tier singers. New OA artistic director Lyndon Terracini plans to address their complaints, with more new productions, including a Ring cycle to start in 2012. The Age (Melbourne) 11/10/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@09:01AM

Melbourne Wonders If Its Orchestra Need A Chief Conductor In the wake of the firing of Oleg Caetani from the Melbourne Symphony, apparently for unsatisfactory performance, and a very successful guest engagement by 18th-century specialist Reinhard Goebel (whom the musicians cheered), the MSO's chairman and other managers are considering doing without a chief conductor altogether. The Age (Melbourne) 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@08:57AM

Beijing's Rock Revolution "The idea of underground rock in a communist capital might seem like a culture clash waiting to happen, but it hasn't played out that way. Even as new bands emerge and become more popular, it's still just a blip on the government's radar." Washington Post 11/13/09

email this story | Posted 11/13/09@05:34AM

Dudamel Mania - Marketing Of A Maestro "In a case of Hollywood-meets-Haydn, the star factory is busy at work on a rare subject: a 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor whose life revolves around scores, not scripts. With only a handful of concerts here behind him, Mr. Dudamel is more or less making this town swoon." The New York Times 11/13/09

email this story | Posted 11/13/09@05:15AM

Aspen Music Festival Chief Offered Job Back Alan Fletcher, who had been recently fired by the Festival's board, was offered reinstatement. Following a meeting of the festival's board of trustees last Wednesday, Fletcher "was offered a contract to continue as president and CEO through September 2010, which includes provisions governing any extension for future seasons." Aspen Times 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/13/09@03:46AM

New GM Is Proving City Opera Doomsayers Wrong "The rabbit-out-of-the-hat success" that was New York City Opera's season opener "was begun in late February, weeks after George Steel was appointed general manager and artistic director amid suspicions that he knew little about running an opera company." But "so far, his decisions aren't wrong." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/12/09@07:59AM

He Was Influential -- But His Students Were Stars Henry Cowell "was a prolific composer whose own music was eclipsed by the works of his students." The director of a San Francisco organization that's celebrating him this week "discovered Cowell through the pioneering percussion music of the composer's famous pupils John Cage and Lou Harrison." Wall Street Journal 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/12/09@06:12AM

Opera Drought In The O.C. Following Opera Pacific's Collapse There's been nary a note of professional opera in Orange County since Opera Pacific closed a year ago, and there's none on the horizon but a single performance of a single-soprano piece by the Long Beach Opera next May. But a group of boosters is working to end the drought, with imports first and maybe resident productions later. Los Angeles Times 11/11/09

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Marsalis Can't Seem To Finish His Blues Symphony The world premiere of the piece, by the Atlanta Symphony, was first planned for summer 2008 and has just been postponed for the third time. Marsalis "keeps missing his deadline. Two of the planned seven movements are completed and playable. Two more are in rough draft form. The rest is still in Marsalis' head." artscriticATL 11/10/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@09:49PM

Leonard Slatkin Off The Podium Through November "He's back in America with his doctors and they've said, 'Go rest and come back at the end of November and we'll do a check-up'," said the maestro's manager. Slatkin, music director of the Detroit Symphony, has been out of commission since suffering a heart attack on Nov. 1 after conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Detroit Free Press 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@09:39PM

How Teetering Orchestras Are Like Teetering Newspapers Anne Midgette: "The main problem is that both fields seem to be incapable of coming up with an actual new business model, in part because both fields are so deeply invested in their own traditions that they tend to confuse those traditions with their function." Washington Post 11/11/09

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Refunds Aren't Priority For Honolulu Symphony Patrons The Honolulu Symphony announced last week "that it will file for Chapter 11 reorganization and must cut its payroll by as much as half," but patrons aren't clamoring to get their money back for canceled November and December concerts, or for the uncertain remainder of the 2009-10 season. Honolulu Advertiser 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@06:20AM

Scots Widow Leaves $7.5M To Met Mona Webster, a retired civil servant from Edinburgh who died in August at age 96, has left nearly half of her wealth - £4.5 million - to the Metropolitan Opera. (Most of the rest went to the UK's Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.) New York Times 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@09:59PM

Musical America's 'Of TheYear' Awards For 2010: Muti, Garanca, Andriessen Incoming Chicago Symphony music director Riccardo Muti is named Musician of the Year, with mezzo Elina Garanca as Vocalist, Louis Andriessen as Composer, and Joshua Bell as Instrumentalist. A special award for Collaborative Pianist goes to vocal recital specialist Warren Jones. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 11/10/09

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Telegraph Names '100 Best Jazz Recordings' And what's No. 1? King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, for what it's worth, followed by the complete Bessie Smith, but the list is strictly chronological, not ranked. The dates range from 1923 to 2009; in a telling detail, fully one-third of the titles have been deleted from the catalogs. The Telegraph (UK) 11/10/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@09:42PM

The Castrati: The Beautiful, Sad Men 'The Little Knife' Made "If you were part of a poor family--mainly in Italy but here and there around Europe--and you had a son with a glimmer of musical talent, it was off to the chop shop. As a young chorister, Joseph Haydn narrowly escaped it. Barbers in Naples hung a sign: 'Boys castrated cheap here.'" Slate 11/09/09

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Why Dudamel Vs. Gilbert Is A Specious Smackdown Tempting though it is to pit them against each other, "the spiritual godfather of both new conductors may be Esa-Pekka Salonen, who has influenced and empowered Dudamel and Gilbert to follow the groundbreaking path he cut during his just-ended 17-year directorship of the L.A. Philharmonic." Los Angeles Times 11/09/09

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Is The Traditional Symphony Orchestra Model Doomed? Michael Kaiser: "Somehow the cost structure for American orchestras has risen to the point that every orchestra is likely to struggle to make ends meet. I do believe that a group of elite orchestras will survive, and even thrive. ... But the number of orchestras that will be able to achieve this status will be limited." Huffington Post 11/09/09

email this story | Posted 11/09/09@05:45PM

Russian Wins Honens Piano Competition Russian pianist Georgy Tchaidze has won top honours at the Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, which ended a gruelling two-week search for the world's most "complete" young pianist on Saturday. The Glovbe & Mail (Canada) 11/09/09

email this story | Posted 11/09/09@06:04AM