Category: music

“Very few days went by while I was in Detroit when I did not speak with board members, urging them to help find a way out of this.… The indication was that when a settlement was reached, purse strings might open once again. And that is the crux of the issue. The players want a guarantee and the board cannot give it.”

“The Louisville Orchestra’s musicians want the orchestra’s bankruptcy filing thrown out, claiming the organization isn’t really broke and has nearly $9 million in assets.”

“Musicians demanding the immediate resignation of Charleston Symphony Orchestra board members and the right to nominate new members have received a quick response from symphony officials.”

John Morris Russell, an Ohio-born conductor who is currently leading the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Ontario, begins his term as the new conductor of the Cincinnati Pops.

“A Stradivarius violin worth more than £1million has been stolen from a classical musician after she stopped for a bite to eat at Euston station.”

“The idea is to make it easier for you to know what a jazz group sounds and looks like, so that you will go out and see it yourself, wherever it’s playing. To finance the four-nights-a-week shooting schedule, he’s attempting to raise $75,000 for the project on the online pledge-drive site kickstarter.com.”

“The New York freelance musician — a bright thread in the fabric of the city — is dying out. In an age of sampling, digitization and outsourcing, New York’s soundtrack and advertising-jingle recording industry has essentially collapsed. Broadway jobs are in decline. Dance companies rely increasingly on recorded music. And many freelance orchestras, among the last steady deals, are cutting back on their seasons, sometimes to nothingness.”

“This issue is coming to the fore now that a generation of performers is hitting old age, along with their baby-boomer fans. Not unlike their R&B predecessors, such as the still-touring Four Tops, most classic rock acts are delivering note-for-note nostalgia, but on a bigger scale.”

“Why are the Grammys so much more oriented toward the mainstream than the Oscars, whose voters regularly opt for cinematic snobbery over populist appeal? If anyone has a theory, I’d love to hear it.”

” I’d argue that the record industry is in trouble, and anything we can do to stay afloat should be condoned. If there are people out there willing to pay for the item, and there certainly are, then why not provide it to them directly and cut the “flipper” out of the picture? The artist and label put the work into the release, so they should profit from it.”