Category: music

“In the past, there were just a few gatekeepers to music, and you had a powerful network of labels, A&R men, radio and TV executives and magazines who decided what you should be listening to. Now, it’s so much easier to find out what your friends are listening to or what other people who like the same music on the other side of the world are recommending.”

While Mr. Slatkin signed on as the PSO’s principal guest conductor in September 2008, his tenure with the orchestra stretches back several decades.

“The transformation brought the Chicago Jazz Festival (belatedly) into modern times, reflecting the multi-venue format that has made the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the San Francisco Jazz Festival the leading events of their kind in North America.”

“Sales of rock singles have dropped by almost 18% in the first eight months of 2010, compared with last year. Urban single sales are up 33%, with pop rising 30% in the same period.”

“The 75-year-old Japanese conductor opened the Saito Kinen Festival in his homeland on Sunday. He is the festival’s founder and art [sic] director. Ozawa conducted the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, using a chair for support.”

The maligned old squeezebox and its nearest relatives are indispensable to countless types of music, from Mexico to Ireland to Argentina to Louisiana to France to South Africa – not to forget polka, of course. Why does the accordion get no respect? Pauline Oliveros, doyenne of experimental composers and possibly the world’s first avant-garde accordionist, has some ideas.

“For lots of musicians, synthesizers are so last decade. In their place, laptops — especially MacBooks, with their glowing white Apples — have displaced them as cornucopias of timbre and texture.”

“Google Inc., which is developing a digital music service, is finding a warm welcome at record companies that are hoping the technology company can loosen Apple Inc.’s grip on the digital music market with its iTunes music store.”

What is it about music that gets true believers so hot and bothered? “Music is almost as dangerous as gunpowder; and it may be requires looking after no less than the press, or the mint.”

“Does that etiquette have any purpose beyond crusty tradition? As far as classical music is concerned, the answer is yes. The need to sit still and pipe down is purely practical: to enable everyone to hear properly and to respect the performers, as well as fellow listeners. No one cares what you wear any more, and all that social nicety stuff is dead.”