Category: music

The gift from an anonymous donor “comes just days after board members pledged $510,000 beyond their previous contributions to help the orchestra cure its financial troubles. Combined, the donations put the orchestra nearly two-thirds of the way toward the $1.77million goal of an emergency fund drive it launched in May.”

“The Malaysian government has barred Muslims” – mostly the ethnic Malays who make up a majority of the population – “from a Black Eyed Peas concert next month in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, because the event is sponsored by Irish beermaker Guinness.” Members of the ethnic Chinese, Indian and other minority communities may attend, as may tourists.

“With few exceptions, this year has been a dismal one for festival organizers. Many were forced to slash tickets costs. Edgefest, for example, cut prices in half. Others, like the recent inaugural 1000 Islands Music Festival, have seen fan turnout rates at about one-third of what was anticipated.”

It’s in Stirling Castle in Scotland. “A sequence of 0s, Is and IIs have been found on one of the Stirling Heads – wooden medallions which would have decorated the castle’s royal palace. It is believed the music could have been played on instruments such as harps, viols, fiddles and lutes.”

In the wake of soprano Ana María Martínez’s notorious fall into the orchestra pit during Rusalka at Glyndebourne last weekend, Charlotte Higgins observes that “life on the operatic stage is increasingly perilous. No longer required simply to stand in the centre of the stage and exercise their lungs, opera singers are now expected to be multitalented actors, dancers, even acrobats; and to negotiate more and more elaborate sets for the entertainment of the audience.”

When he was young, Frank J. Oteri was taught that, unlike Broadway tunesmiths, “classical composers did [their orchestration] themselves since timbre was as important a concern to them as pitch and rhythm. … [But I’ve] grown to realize that despite claims to the contrary, the sanctity of classical music’s timbres is not something that most performers or listeners place on the same level as the accuracy of pitch and rhythm. Otherwise why would so many concert pianists play the music of Johann Sebastian Bach or even Debussy, whose preferred Érard sounds noticeably different from the ubiquitous Steinways in today’s concert halls and recording studios?”

“Welz Kauffman, a classical and jazz pianist who also happens to be Ravinia’s unconventional 48-year-old president and CEO,” a position he’s held since 2000, “broke Ravinia’s attendance record” in his first year, “and he has continued to build on that almost every season–attendance for the past several summers has regularly exceeded the 600,000 mark.”

An October program featuring L.A. Opera music director James Conlon has been changed to an “Inside the Classics” concert led by staff conductor Sarah Hicks; February performances with conductor Robert Spano and violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg have been shelved in favor of an orchestral program led by a former student of MinnOrch music director Osmo Vänskä.

“Germany’s Bayreuth Festival has agreed to enter a deal with a production arm of Britain’s Royal Opera House to produce and sell DVD recordings of composer Richard Wagner’s operas recorded at the annual festival.” The first release, scheduled for this November, will be this summer’s Christoph Marthaler production of Tristan und Isolde.

“The Pittsburgh Opera on Monday said it has reduced its lowest ticket price 37.5 percent to $10 for the 2009-2010 season and is keeping other tickets at last season’s prices.”