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Finland sounds like a musical Utopia. And certainly Finnish musicians are making their mark internationally. So what nurtures such a positive musical environment? The country has “30 state-funded orchestras in the country, with as much as 90% of their income coming from the public purse. This extraordinary provision is for a total population of five million, less than that of London.”

London’s Almeida Theatre is embarking on the Genesis Project, commissioning new operas with the hope of reinventing the form for the 21st Century. “Genesis is trying to kick opera into the 21st century and give it a wider appeal to people like director Jean-Frédéric Messier, founder of the Montreal theatre company Momentum, and a man who is more likely to be found listening to Frank Zappa than Puccini. ‘Maybe opera does have a future if it can become a free open space where people can try anything’.”

Charles Rosen explains: “For the modern sensibility, the public performance is the final realisation of the work of music. In spite of the rich tradition of private and semiprivate music making in the centuries before our own, it is with the presentation in public that the performance of a work comes completely into its own, attains its full existence. We must rephrase the question “for whom does one play in public?”: the odd aesthetic objectivity, real or mythical, demands the form “for what does one play?” One plays for the music.”

A new survey reports that music downloaders actually buy more music than non-downloaders… “A total of 91 per cent of file-sharers download individual tracks, but more than two-thirds go on to buy the album, with even the heaviest downloaders saying they like to own real CDs. Only half of people who download music illegally from the internet believe they are doing something morally wrong. Almost half of the people who responded to the survey were “heavy downloaders” who obtained more than 100 tracks. However, surprisingly, 34 per cent of them said they were buying more music than ever before.”

Is the accordion making a comeback after being left in the closet by rock ‘n roll? “There’s a new age of accordion players now. It used to be mainly traditional German and Polish stuff, but people have really started doing more rock ‘n’ roll and swing.”

Willy Pritts owns nearly 150 acres of open land in Pennsylvania, and thought he’d like to start holding concerts there. But his property isn’t zoned for such events, so local officials told him he’d have to scrap his plans. But Pritts is a resourceful fellow. He turned right around and incorporated as the Church of Universal Love and Music, which is – surprise! – “committed to spiritual growth through music.” County officials are not amused, nor are some of Pritts’s neighbors, who claim that the church’s “services” can be heard for miles around.