The Pittsburgh Symphony is having a busy audition season, and the trend of open positions is expected to continue in the coming year, thanks to a buyout offered to 15 senior musicians in the orchestra. Additionally, the PSO recently tweaked its hiring process when it decided against hiring a single conductor as music director. Whereas, in most major American orchestras, the music director has absolute power to hire whom he wishes (while a committee of musicians serves in an advisory capacity,) the rule at the PSO is now an ultra-democratic system of one man/one vote.
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Nashville Hall On Track
The Nashville Symphony has raised all but $6 million of the private funding it needs to fund construction of its $120 million new concert hall, and the Kresge Foundation is promising $1.5 million more if the orchestra finishes the fundraising process by next September. Meanwhile, construction of the new hall is in full swing, and the new pipe organ (to be installed one year after the hall opens) is being built in San Francisco.
Displaced NO Musicians To Get Their Own Village
“City officials and artists who call New Orleans home announced Tuesday that they would team with Habitat for Humanity to build a village for musicians chased from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. The alliance, which includes the Marsalis family and Harry Connick Jr., will use $1 million in seed money generated by two recent concerts in New York to launch the development. Plans call for as many as 200 homes surrounding a cultural center named for Ellis Marsalis — a patriarch of New Orleans jazz and the father of three accomplished musicians: saxophonist Branford, trumpeter Wynton and trombonist Delfeayo.”
The Christmas Conundrum
The Christmas season may be a boom time for retailers and a joyous occasion for families, but it’s become a giant headache for public schools. Vague court decisions and virulent disagreement over the extent to which religion must be kept out of schools have resulted in a patchwork of rules governing what is and is not allowed in a school’s “holiday” concert and celebratory display. “Schools often fall into two camps: They quietly avoid religious songs in favor of more generic tunes such as Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells. Or they offer a sprinkling of songs from different religions and fill much of the concert with secular holiday songs.”
Assessing SF Opera: The Rosenberg Years
Pamela Rosenberg, who will step down as general director of the San Francisco Opera this month to take a job with the Berlin Philharmonic, was as prominent a figure as an opera company can have at its head. A true music lover, Rosenberg nonetheless found herself battling financial troubles throughout her 5-year tenure in San Francisco. “Beset by a post-Sept.11 free fall in ticket revenues and contributed income, the sobering contraction of a local economy reeling from the dot-com collapse and a dangerously thin endowment fund, Rosenberg was forced to mandate one of the largest cutbacks in the company’s history… Embattled by financial woes and trying labor negotiations, Rosenberg was routinely blamed for problems that were largely beyond her control.”
Christmas Gifts For The Gullible Audiophile
Audiophiles are famous for their devotion to pure, undoctored sound, and for being willing to spend big money to hear it. But that devotion doesn’t mean that every overpriced piece of stereo equipment is worth its salt, and clearly, some companies are deliberately practicing upon the credulous simplicity of their audiophilic customers. How about $6,820 for a volume control? Or $2,100 for a power cable? $30,000 for speaker wire? Or for a real bargain, how about $200 for a CD mat that promises to “create a very specific energy spectra that mechanically dithers the laser”?
ABT Brings Nutcracker To White House
“The president and first lady sat on a love seat near the back of the room while performers playing the roles of little Clara, the Prince and dancers from around the world put on a 25-minute show. Three children climbed up to sit with them, but they did not seem distracted by the first couple after the music began and all eyes were on the dancers.”
Dumping More On Color Purple
“Sincerity isn’t skill, and it isn’t knowledge. The feelings that The Color Purple may arouse in you don’t disguise the fact that they’ve been gotten in a comparatively crude and unimaginative manner. The disheartening lack of quality in the material dilutes the quality of feeling with which it’s being put over and makes the meanings behind it look questionable as well.”
The Bystander Effect
People in a group are much less likely to help someone in need than if they’re by themselves. “Research at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich suggests even when accompanied by another person, individuals are more likely to intervene if the situation is dangerous or violent.”
A Story To Go With That Big Mac?
Disney and McDonald’s could be teaming up to offer digital entertainment with your Happy Meal. “Patents filed by Disney reveal plans to drip-feed entertainment into a portable player while the owner eats in a restaurant. You only get the full programme by coming back to the restaurant a number of times to collect all the instalments. McDonalds could use the system instead of giving out toys with Happy Meals, suggests Disney’s patent.”