Category: music

“On the eve of 2010, the orchestra’s administration announced that the musicians had terminated the month-to-month extension under which they’ve been playing since September, and that as of midnight, no plan would be in place to pay the artists for work scheduled to begin Tuesday.”

“After years of studies purporting to show the harmful effects of young people listening to songs with violent or misogynistic themes, a psychologist has concluded that music containing a positive message has a beneficial impact on listeners.”

“It isn’t often realized that the National Arts Centre Orchestra has premiered more than 90 pieces of Canadian music in its four-decade history, nor is it fully appreciated how extensively it has criss-crossed the country and, especially under Zukerman, championed music education.”

“U2 was the only act to cross the $100-million mark last year, and its nightly average at the box office pummeled the competition, at nearly $7.7 million per show. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which tallied nearly $95 million from 58 shows, follows U2 at No. 2 in Pollstar’s ranking.”

“Orchestras across the country have been looking for ways to deepen their relationships with top-tier musicians. Artist residencies, ranging from one week to two years, are now de rigueur.”

“Ten or 20 years ago it was relatively easy to define the term “indie-rock” as a handful of related styles and a collective audience slightly on the fringe of the mainstream. But by the end of the decade it has become an ever-expanding, incomprehensibly cluttered taxonomy of subgenres.”

“Maybe I am making too much of 9/11 as a prod to this self-examination and renewal. But what seems indisputable is that outreach and education programs have become central to the missions of many artists and institutions.”

That god-awful ringing in the ears is likely to be a growing problem for those of us who’ve lived through the transitions from boom box to Walkman to iPod. But researchers have found that “tinnitus loudness can be significantly diminished by an enjoyable, low-cost, custom-tailored notched music treatment.”

Ivan Hewett passes over Britten, Elgar and Vaughan Williams for “a workaholic Londoner born 350 years ago who had a talent as wondrous as Mozart’s and, like him, died at the cruelly young age of 36.” (Yet again, Handel is evidently disqualified for being an immigrant.)

FreeAllMusic.com “will allow users to download songs, which may be copied and shared — unencumbered, in other words, by digital rights management restrictions.” With two of the four major labels signed on, the site “hopes to draw ‘casual pirates who, for whatever reason, are not paying for music.'”