“The Longplayer is a 1,000-year-long composition by Jem Finer and is played out by computer at several public listening posts around the world. It began playing on 31 December 1999 and will continue – without repetition – until the last moment of 2999.”
Category: music
Proposed Harsh New File-sharing Penalties Divide Music Industry
“For the industry as a whole, the more people hear music the better. For a so-called creative industry we are being very uncreative in the way we approach this topic.”
NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge Comes Into The Classical Mainstream (Or Vice Versa)
When the little Greenwich Village nightclub opened just over one year ago with classical music among its offerings, it was seen as “a bold, plucky upstart.” Now it’s attracting the likes of Met Opera and Glyndebourne star Danielle de Niese, new-music eminences the Arditti Quartet, and the Carnegie Hall/Juilliard joint venture Ensemble ACJW.
USC’s Thornton School Of Music Gets Some Big 125th Birthday Gifts
The largest present is a $1.25 million donation to a scholarship fund for string students. There are also two gifts of $125,000, one of them to kick off Thornton’s 125th Anniversary Fund Campaign, as well as the donation of a Steinway piano once owned by Jascha Heifetz.
The Death And Resurrection Of The Record Industry
“Like some lumbering Frankenstein monster, the recording industry rose from the dead this summer, thanks to the very technology that’s credited with killing it. As so often before, the jolt came from Michael Jackson …”
Principal Flutist Mathieu Dufour Spreads His Love Between Chicago And L.A.
“The French musician, principal flute [of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra] since 1999, is taking up the same position with the Los Angeles Philharmonic next month while still keeping his CSO job – at least for now.”
Remixing Handel At The Barbican
On Sept. 19, star countertenor David Daniels and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the Fields take the London stage to perform re-imaginings of Handel works by Michael Nyman, Nico Muhly, John Tavener, Craig Armstrong and Jocelyn Pook. Says Muhly of his contribution, “What I always want is for [the original Handel aria] to last for ever. To live in the music. So that’s what I did.”
WQXR Sale Approved. Switch Of Frequencies To Be Made Live At Carnegie
“The classical radio station will move to a new spot on the dial, 105.9 FM, precisely at 8 pm on October 8. The switchover from Univision, which currently broadcasts at that frequency, will occur live on stage at Carnegie Hall and will be simulcast on WNYC 93.9 FM.”
Where’s The Diversity At the Top In American Orchestras?
The ranks of conductors at America’s top orchestras is getting more diverse… well, at least a little…
More Like A Jigsaw Puzzle Or A Rubik’s Cube? Substitute Casting At A Major Opera House
“[C]ast cancellations – and the search for replacements – are fixtures of the opera business. Tales abound of calamities, great saves and, as a silver lining, singers who got career boosts by answering last-minute calls.”