Category: music

Following up on last fall’s much-argued-over roster of the planet’s 20 best symphonic ensembles, the magazine’s editors have made a list which “specifically focus[es] on the inspiring social role that orchestras can play.” The ten bands honored include, of course, Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Dudamel’s Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, but also the Berlin and New York Philharmonics, the Buskaid Ensemble and the YouTube Symphony.

“Two years after the repeal of New York State’s decades-old anti-scalping laws, the ticket marketplace has become a fiercely competitive game in which major corporations compete over resale prices with the fan next door, scalpers have a Washington lobbyist and thousands of tickets disappear in a fraction of a second. … And the churning secondary market has muddied long-held beliefs in the concert industry about what constitutes fair trade.”

“András Schiff’s cycle of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas at Walt Disney Concert Hall, a two-year project, ends Wednesday night [April 1].” The program of “three astonishing final sonatas – best known through their Opus numbers 109, 110 and 111”, will be streamed live on NPR’s website beginning at 8 pm (Pacific time).

Melissa Smey, who had been general manager at what may be American classical music’s hippest venue, has been appointed Miller Theatre’s director. She had been filling the job on an acting basis ever since George Steel departed for his famously brief stint at The Dallas Opera and his new job running the troubled New York City Opera.

“Luminato, Toronto’s annual arts festival, is going where the Metropolitan Opera does not dare to tread. Upshot: in June 2010, Toronto will scoop New York with the North American premiere of Prima Donna, a much-anticipated first opera by singer/songwriter and cult favourite Rufus Wainwright.”

“Opera Company of Philadelphia is closing a five-year void left by the late Jack Mulroney, who died in the fall of 2004, with the appointment of David B. Devan to fill Mulroney’s post as executive director of the company. Since 2004, the executive director title has been held by Robert B. Driver, who was artistic director before Mulroney’s death, and who will reassume that position now.”

British classical music label New Music Cassettes marks its 20th anniversary “with 96 new commissions, performed in London over four days,” each piece written for only a bottle of wine as payment. And why would composers agree to that? “Because, in the cutthroat record industry, there’s nothing quite like NMC. In the course of 20 years and 150 releases, NMC has recorded the sort of stuff that commercial labels recoil from in terror.”

Nonclassical says it speaks for “a new generation of performers/composers [who] are starting to emerge from the world of contemporary classical music/They are keen to redefine the rules and are determined to break out of the constraints of the concert hall/Classical music can be part of everyone’s life.”

“The Reno Philharmonic has hired Laura Jackson as its new music director and conductor. In 2007, she completed a three-year appointment as assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.”

“The Phoenix Symphony is facing serious legal challenges arising from its alleged mistreatment of many of its most talented musicians. These legal challenges involve lawsuits, complaints to federal agencies, charges of wrongful termination, allegations of retaliation, and the charge that the symphony’s top, veteran players are being forced to take demotions or leave the symphony so they can be replaced with younger, more compliant players.”