BBC Music Live – Britain’s largest music festival ever – gets under way this week. The five-day event includes a 24-hour broadcast music marathon and a call for an “instrument amnesty” – an appeal for people to donate unused instruments to the UK school system’s many underfunded music programs. – BBC
Author: Douglas McLennan
REMEMBERING RAMPAL:
No other flutist did as much for the instrument as Jean-Pierre Rampal, who died earlier this week. – Boston Globe
THE NUMBERS ARE IN
College students are downloading music from the internet rather than buying it. A new study shows that “sales of recorded music near college campuses declined by 4 percent between the first three months of 1998 and the same period this year. Sales at all stores went up 12 percent during the same time. “This demonstrates the importance of protecting artists’ rights on the Internet.” – Washington Post (AP)
THE DEBATE RAGES ON
A four-line amendment to the copyright law inserted into a Congressional bill last year has incited a passionate debate between musicians and recording companies over ownership of recordings. The amendment added sound recordings as a category of copyrighted materials that can be considered “work made for hire,” a term usually reserved for collective works, like movies, that are commissioned by studios. “U.S. recording artists are the most unprotected segment of the entire world of copyright.” – New York Times
SHE’S A DIVA
Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu – who first made her name at Covent Garden in 1994 in La Traviata – has been winning over opera fans ever since. “At a time when opera houses are in thrall to cost-cutting initiatives, she offers a glimpse of a previous era when passion and glamour were written into a diva’s job description.” – The Telegraph (UK)
REMEMBERING RAMPAL
No other flutist did as much for the instrument as Jean-Pierre Rampal, who died earlier this week. – Boston Globe
BY THE SKIN OF HIS BOOK
A Canadian author has found a bizarre way to put his all into his latest book. Portions of Kenneth J. Harvey’s flesh, containing his DNA, will be embedded in small, pink swatches of paper stitched on to the cover of an abridged edition of his 11th book, “Skin Hound (There Are No Words)”, a book whose protagonist is a serial-killing English professor with a penchant for cutting away his victim’s skin. – National Post (Canada)
SHE’S A DIVA
Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu – who first made her name at Covent Garden in 1994 in La Traviata – has been winning over opera fans ever since. “At a time when opera houses are in thrall to cost-cutting initiatives, she offers a glimpse of a previous era when passion and glamour were written into a diva’s job description.” – The Telegraph (UK)
A MATTER OF ATTITUDE?
- “What has hurt Latino and black efforts to pressure the industry is that these minority organizations have lost credibility. We hear about [television viewer] boycotts, and these boycotts aren’t even conducted during [ratings] sweeps week. Or we hear about a press conference where Latinos are going to boycott a show, and the Nielsen ratings don’t reflect a drop in viewership.” – Los Angeles Times
MUSCLE BEHIND SAG
The AFL-CIO’s national leaders have publicly backed the month-long actors strike being waged in New York and Los Angeles against the commercial production industry. – Backstage