Henry Fogel has been the president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for nearly two decades, so one might expect the orchestra to put together a good-sized celebration on the occasion of his departure. But John van Rhein thinks that the tribute was a bit much, especially given the CSO’s current fiscal state: “Fogel, lest we forget, is the orchestra’s president, not its music director. I don’t recall Georg Solti being crowned with half as many laurel wreaths when he stepped down in 1991. At last report, Fogel was leaving his successor a $4-$5 million deficit, accumulated under his watch. Good thing the champagne was in plastic glasses.”
Blog
Next Stop For Louisville May Be Bankruptcy
The musicians of the Louisville Orchestra have rejected a management proposal which included wage cuts and a shorter season, and the orchestra says it may file for bankruptcy as early as next week. “The orchestra has approximately $1.3 million in bank debt, with $800,000 of that past due and the balance due early next week,” according to its board chairman, who also points out that the ensemble’s staff and conductors have taken a 10% pay cut, which is larger than that being asked of the musicians. The musicians claim that they have made many concessions over the last decade in an effort to help the organization financially.
A Potential Windfall, But With A Catch
“The Fund for the Arts has committed $900,000 in special support to the financially strapped Louisville Orchestra over the next two years, but only if the orchestra produces a balanced budget for that period. The orchestra continues to say it can’t balance the budget without substantial concessions from its musicians.”
Salam Pax Gets A Print Gig
The blogger known as Salam Pax, who writes a wildly popular weblog from his home in a suburb of Baghdad, has been given a biweekly column by The Guardian, a London-based daily newspaper. “Salam Pax became a cyber celebrity after his pointed and often humorous accounts of everyday life in Baghdad began circulating on the Internet. His diary mocked both Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime — he called the Iraqi leaders ‘freaks’ — and the U.S. claims of ‘liberating’ Iraq.”
Body Of Work – Photographer Jailed For Pictures Of Dead People
In Ohio, Thomas Condon “photographed corpses juxtaposed with various objects signifying the cycle of life and death. Some of the confiscated negatives were mysteriously leaked to the local press, inciting a public furor as relatives of the deceased and local pundits denounced Mr. Condon’s project as ‘sick’ and ‘repulsive’. Despite support from civil libertarian groups like the National Coalition Against Censorship, Mr. Condon was convicted and imprisoned from April to August 2002, after which he was released pending appeal. Now a state appeals court has affirmed his conviction, meaning he may face another 13 months in jail.”
Florida Orchestra In The Red
The Florida Orchestra (Tampa) is projecting a $600,000 deficit when its books close later this month. “The orchestra, with a budget of $8.5-million, launched a campaign in April to raise $500,000 to match a grant of $500,000 from anonymous donors for a total of $1-million. The campaign has been a success.”
Last Vinyl: End Of An Era
Britain’s last chain of vinyl record shops has gone out of business. “The chain ran 40 shops in its 1980s heyday, mostly in the north-west and East Anglia but covering the whole country. In recent years it has been the only indy rival to the big multiples like Virgin and HMV.”
Contemporay Music Over The Net
Want to explore contemporary music, but don’t have the opportunity to catch it in a concert? The American Music Center has a service called NewMusicJukebox, and “this month it’s featuring an unusually intriguing webcast from Juilliard’s Focus 2003 Festival titled ‘Beyond the Rockies: A Tribute to Lou Harrison at 85’.”
Berio – Lyric Dissonance
Josh Kosman reflects on composer Luciano Berio: “The great Italian composer, who died Tuesday in Rome at 77, could be every bit as dissonant, structural and fiercely analytical as his comrades, including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgy Ligeti and Bruno Maderna. But Berio’s music was also infused with a robust vein of lyricism and beauty that drew directly on the Italian vocal tradition. And just about everything he wrote was shaped in part by a deep love for the masterpieces of the previous four centuries.”
Turner: Proposed Media Consolidation Rules Will Harm Diversity
CNN’s Ted Turner argues against media consolidation, as proposed by the FCC. “It’s hard to compete when your suppliers are owned by your competitors. We bought MGM, and we later sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner, because we had little choice. The big were getting bigger. The small were disappearing. We had to gain access to programming to survive. Many other independent media companies were swallowed up for the same reason – because they didn’t have everything they needed under their own roof, and their competitors did. The climate after Monday’s expected FCC decision will encourage even more consolidation and be even more inhospitable to smaller businesses.”