At Berklee, Prodigy With Autism Becomes Serious Musician "[A]fter years of specialized therapies and dietary changes, [Matt] Savage navigates a daily maze of classes, practice sessions, homework assignments, and dorm life at Berklee," and he fits in performances when he can. "[T]he Matt Savage story is rapidly evolving from youthful prodigy with a disability to seasoned performer with a bright future." Boston Globe 02/09/10

email this story | Posted 02/09/10@06:59AM

Long-Lost Prokofiev Music Gets New York Premiere "When it comes to the music of Prokofiev, pianist and Yale University professor Boris Berman is the go-to guy. He's recorded the composer's complete piano works, written a book about his sonatas and founded the Prokofiev Society of America. Still, until recently, Berman had never seen or heard Music for Athletic Exercises." NPR 02/09/10

email this story | Posted 02/09/10@05:47AM

Maestro Is Pittsburgh's Ambassador To Foreign Businesses "When Pittsburgh tries to lure a foreign company, it often turns to maestro Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to close the deal. ... For foreign executives, the orchestra adds a touch of sophistication to a city many still associate with smokestacks." Bloomberg 02/09/10

email this story | Posted 02/09/10@05:09AM

Scandal, Embezzlement, Attempted Suicide Mar Salzburg Festival "The week-long Easter festival has been shaken to the core after an apparent suicide attempt by its technical chief and the disappearance of the director amid allegations of a massive fraud totalling over €2m (£1.7m)." The Independent (UK) 02/06/10

email this story | Posted 02/08/10@08:51AM

Aspen Music Festival Cuts Season "This summer's season will run eight weeks instead of nine -- July 1 through Aug. 22 -- and that trim inevitably means a reduction in the overall number of concerts, master classes and other offerings." Denver Post 02/07/10

email this story | Posted 02/07/10@10:06PM

Is There Any Such Thing As The Definitive Performance? "Most experienced listeners know that thinking in terms of definitive performances is as meaningless for new music as it is for any other kind." The New York Times 02/07/10

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Metropolitan Opera Brings Back Its Former General Manager "New York's Metropolitan Opera is bringing back Joseph Volpe, who left three years ago after 16 years as the company's general manager, to lead contract talks with some of its major unions." The New York Times 02/06/10

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What's The Point Of Music? "Unwilling to believe that music was altogether useless, Darwin concluded that it may have made man's ancestors more successful at mating. Yet if that were so, you might expect one gender to be musically more gifted than the other, and there is no evidence of that. So what is the point of music?" The Economist 02/05/10

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The Graph That Should Alarm Orchestra Administrators "You can see clearly how various generations experienced a bump in participation as they got older. The so-called Generation X, however, has yet to exhibit an upward spike as it moves into middle age. Every classical organization in America should print out this graph, pin it on the bulletin board, and ponder what is to be done." Alex Ross, a Gen X-er himself, holds out some hope. The New Yorker 02/03/10

email this story | Posted 02/04/10@09:59PM

Fabio Luisi Storms Away From Dresden Music Director Post "In a story of opera house intrigue with nationalist overtones, the Italian general music director of the Saxon State Opera and its celebrated orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, has abruptly resigned, leaving the house without a conductor for this month's Wagner Ring cycle." New York Times 02/05/10

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Cue The Costumer: What Musicians Wear Onstage Matters "[I]deally how musicians are clothed should have no bearing on the sound they make. But the brute fact is that understated elegance inspires confidence in the performer, while ugly, ill-fitting and garish outfits (still the norm in our concert halls) make one sub-consciously doubt the wearer's competence." The Telegraph (UK) 02/04/10

email this story | Posted 02/04/10@07:21AM

Digital Tools Make Listening An Interactive Experience "[W]hile albums and singles remain the mainstay of the music industry, technologists, innovators and composers are coming up with new tools to help modern listeners engage with the songs they love." Among them are programs that let people "mix their favourite tracks in virtually any way they like," then "share their creations." The Telegraph (UK) 02/04/10

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How To Entice Audiences To Adventurous Fare? "[T]he 'butts in seats' mantra that has long been intoned by many marketing directors skirts the issue of what kind of audience you're getting. Yet the audience's tastes ... are key to the future of the field." Washington Post 02/04/10

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The Music Alan Lomax Found In Haiti "Lomax's microphones," being of 1930s vintage, "tended to emphasize the higher notes," but "some of the music is amazing. Lomax's Holy Grail was the search for musical traditions as close to Mother Africa as he could find." Wall Street Journal 02/04/10

email this story | Posted 02/04/10@05:27AM

When Marin Alsop Opened The Orchestra Up To Amateurs "Alsop's staff initially thought she was a little crazy. Major international orchestras work hard to be the best at what they do and be admired by their audiences, not mingle with them. Would amateurs be good enough to play with professionals? Would anybody be interested in such a scheme?" Washington Post 02/04/10

email this story | Posted 02/04/10@05:17AM

London Philharmonic Wins £2.3M Judgment Against Embezzler The verdict was entered against the orchestra's former financial director, 35-year-old Cameron Poole. "It is claimed Mr Poole used orchestra cheques and credit cards to pay for work on his house in Herne Hill, South London, and also to buy jewellery and artwork." The Times (UK) 02/04/10

email this story | Posted 02/03/10@09:54PM

Iran's Hapless Musical Diplomacy (If That's The Right Word) The Tehran Symphony Orchestra has just completed a five-city tour of Western Europe featuring Majid Entezami's Peace and Friendship Symphony, which Michael Kimmelman describes as "a four-movement jeremiad of martial bombast and almost unfathomable incompetence and silliness." The audiences were embarrassingly small; almost the only people to show up willingly were protesters. New York Times 02/04/10

email this story | Posted 02/03/10@09:42PM

Sony's Lang Lang Deal Bucks Deaccessioning Trend "Labels are signing artists all the time, of course, but usually, I believe, to much shorter, 'let's-see' contracts of a couple of recordings at a time. If you have a chance at Lang Lang, however, you grab him; and Sony in any case seems to be in collecting mode at the moment." Washington Post 02/03/10

email this story | Posted 02/03/10@06:34AM

When Prokofiev Held Back On Tunefulness Prokofiev's "The Gambler" is "buzzy and exciting, fiercely dramatic and modern, but where are the tunes? There aren't any. Prokofiev's own mother reprimanded him over this when she heard him working on the orchestration." The Times (UK) 02/02/10

email this story | Posted 02/03/10@06:19AM

Lulu In Geneva: No One Under 16 Admitted "Geneva's opera house has taken the unusual step of issuing a warning to audiences about its new production of Alban Berg's harrowing opera Lulu, saying it may be unsuitable for people aged less than 16." Reuters 02/02/10

email this story | Posted 02/02/10@09:56PM

Blue Whales' Songs Are Getting Lower "It's the same old tune, but the pitch of the blues is mysteriously lower - especially off the coast of California where, local researchers say, the whales' voices have dropped by more than half an octave since the 1960s. No one knows why. But one conjecture is that more baritone whales indicate healthier populations: The whales may be less shrill because they're less scarce and don't have to pipe up to be heard by neighbors." Los Angeles Times 02/01/10

email this story | Posted 02/02/10@09:38PM

An Opera House In Ouagadougou "A leading German operatic director, Christoph Schlingensief, 49, is to lay the foundation stone on February 8 in Burkina Faso for an 'African Opera Village,' a Berlin-funded aid project to encourage musical theatre." The project aims to establish an annual opera festival in the Burkinabe capital, one that will "will mobilize and support the indigenous cultural energies." Monsters and Critics (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) 01/31/10

email this story | Posted 02/02/10@09:23PM

Classical Music, Giving The People What They Don't Want There is a widespread "idea that audiences should be open to new things, and that they should be convinced to give them a try." And yet a person "who comes to the movie theater to see 'Avatar' is not necessarily going to be thrilled if I show him 'Pan's Labyrinth' instead, even if I'm convinced that he would really love it if only he would watch it." Washington Post 02/02/10

email this story | Posted 02/02/10@06:37AM

Lang Lang Signs $3M Deal With Sony Classical "The Chinese musician Lang Lang, 27, has signed for Sony Classical for $3 million, an executive familiar with the move at his old label Deutsche Grammophon told me. A Sony spokeswoman in London said that the company wouldn't comment," but it's an advantageous move for the label. Bloomberg 02/02/10

email this story | Posted 02/01/10@07:01PM

V&A Plan To Break Up Instrument Collection Draws Fire "More than 3,000 people have signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling on the Prime Minister 'to ensure that all members of the public have continued, free and open access to the complete historic and valuable musical instrument collection,'" which the museum is to break up to increase room for the fashion collection. The Times (UK) 02/01/10

email this story | Posted 02/01/10@06:25PM

The Musician's Path To Success? "The path used to be clear -- you got a major-label deal, they got you on the radio, you toured and recorded albums. Now all that has changed, really, and the new path is . . . well, what is it? And where does it go?" Los Angeles Times 01/31/10

email this story | Posted 02/01/10@06:46AM

MTT/SFS Mahler 8 Tops Classical Grammys; Other Awards To Higdon, Lang, Isbin Michael Tilson Thomas's recording of Mahler's 8th Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony won three trophies, including Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance. Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto was named best contemporary composition, while David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion took the small ensemble performance prize. James Levine and the Boston Symphony, guitarist Sharon Isbin, soprano Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet were also winners. Los Angeles Times 01/31/10

email this story | Posted 01/31/10@09:12PM

Head Of Troubled Melbourne Recital Centre Departs Hastily "The inaugural chief executive of the trouble-plagued Melbourne Recital Centre, Jacques de Vos Malan, has resigned only three months after his contract was extended for two years. The extension [had] surprised Melbourne's musical community because the [centre's] first year of operations … was marred by a $1.5 million {Aus] operating loss, the departure of its artistic administrator and a drastically reduced concert program." The Age (Melbourne) 01/29/10

email this story | Posted 01/31/10@02:30PM

How Low Are Classical Album Sales? This Low. "The dirty secret of the Billboard classical charts is that album sales figures are so low, the charts are almost meaningless. Sales of 200 or 300 units are enough to land an album in the top 10. [Hilary] Hahn's No. 1 recording, after the sales spike resulting from her appearance on Conan, bolstered by blogs and press, sold 1,000 copies." Washington Post 01/29/10

email this story | Posted 01/31/10@11:17AM

Vancouver Symphony Keeps MD Bramwell Tovey For Five More Years "After a decade of Tovey's directorship, the VSO is a confident, key player on the arts scene. This has happened at a time when things have never been worse for orchestras … By contrast, the once-troubled VSO is a well-run organization with a secure subscriber base and committed patrons." Vancouver Sun 01/28/10

email this story | Posted 01/31/10@09:21AM

The World's Most Depressing New Opera, Now Playing In Tel Aviv "Let's see, now: In the first part of the opera a blood-soaked violinist dies from gunshot wounds and a child's father is casually murdered by a self-centred, red-haired woman provocatively dressed in matching lingerie." And there are three parts left to go. This is The Child's Dream, which composer Gil Shohat insists is not a Holocaust story. Toronto Star 01/30/10

email this story | Posted 01/31/10@09:15AM

An Independent Music Store Tries To Compete "Amoeba Music will this year take its boldest stride yet into the online world, launching a digital download store this spring or summer. Amoeba will join the likes of Other Music in New York and ThinkIndie.com, a digital outlet that represents a consortium of the nation's top indie stores, including Fingerprints in Long Beach, as one of the few independent retail outlets trying to claim a slice of the digital marketplace." Los Angeles Times 01/28/10

email this story | Posted 01/29/10@05:56AM

Philadelphia Orchestra Signs With Digital Distributor "The orchestra will work with IODA, a San Francisco digital distribution firm, … to bring its live recordings to iTunes, Amazon.com, and other heavily visited retail sites for download." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/28/10

email this story | Posted 01/28/10@10:05PM

Gay Pianists: Can You Spot Them Just By Listening? Gay pianist Stephen Hough: "Horowitz once said that there were three types of pianist: Jewish, gay, and bad. Actually I've known some that were all three, and instantly a plethora of those who fulfill none of these categories springs to mind, but is there something which makes Horowitz, Richter and Cherkassky (to choose three completely contrasting artists) different from, say, Rubinstein, Gilels and Serkin?" The Telegraph (UK) 01/25/10

email this story | Posted 01/28/10@09:56PM

Cocktails And Couperin: An Orchestra Plays A Nightclub "The formal silence and respect associated with classical performances is being thrown out by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The 'Night Shift' performance held at the Roundhouse in London allows the audience to sit and chat, perhaps mingle a little, while Beethoven is played." Conductor Vladimir Jurowski and two OAE violinists talk about atmosphere, informality, noise levels and other aspects of this experiment. BBC 01/28/10 (audio)

email this story | Posted 01/28/10@09:47PM

Northern Ireland Creates A National Opera Company "The Arts Council has allocated £374,000 to fund the first year of the new company, whose brief will be to 'provide new ways for local people to engage with opera, raising the standards of local performances as well as providing a platform to showcase the very best international artists'." The Stage (UK) 01/28/10

email this story | Posted 01/28/10@05:51AM

After 57 Years On Met Stage, Tenor To Take His Final Bow "Now, at 80, [Charles] Anthony has become a Methuselah of the Met. It is tempting to say that he has appeared too many times to count, but the Met counts things. It says he has appeared in 2,927 performances, the most of any solo artist in its history." The New York Times 01/27/10

email this story | Posted 01/28/10@05:31AM

Seattle Symphony Musicians And Management Reach Tentative Agreement "The 23-month, three-season contract - which could be extended for an additional eight months - would immediately cut musicians' pay by 5 percent until the end of this season … Symphony management and players have been negotiating a new contract for nine months to replace the one that expired at the end of last year." Seattle Times 01/28/10

email this story | Posted 01/27/10@10:05PM

Star Tenor Smacks Down Telegraph Critic In Essay In response to Rupert Christiansen's savaging of the reality show Popstar to Opera Star, Rolando Villazón writes, "[Critics] claim they are merely defending the reality of opera, of which the programme is 'in no way representative'. Would they be as angry watching people play Monopoly because that's not how economics really work?" The Telegraph (UK) 01/26/10

email this story | Posted 01/27/10@09:57PM

L.A. Opera's 2010-11 Season Smaller, But Not More Timid Compared to "its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the company offered 75 performances of 10 productions, next season will see 42 performances of six productions." But the season will open with a world premiere, of Daniel Catán's Il Postino, and end with The Turn of the Screw, which will launch a four-year Britten celebration. Los Angeles Times 01/27/10

email this story | Posted 01/27/10@09:47PM