Category: music

“Officials have pulled the plug on the remainder of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra’s 2008-2009 Willis Knighton Master Series, ‘Bringing Music to Life.’ The cancellation finishes a season of no shows as both the symphony board and its musicians continue to be gridlocked in contract negotiations.”

The perpetually strapped orchestra expects to reduce its budget by more than one-sixth next season, from $2.9M to $2.4M. “It’s too early to itemize the exact consequences – but it’s probably safe to say that we can expect a smaller core of musicians (currently around 46) and fewer concerts.”

The Maine orchestra “is cutting jobs, reducing salaries and artist fees, canceling performances and trimming educational programs in an attempt to fill a $220,000 budget deficit for the fiscal year that ends July 31.”

Over the last two years, North America’s largest free jazz festival “has showcased Detroit’s jazz tradition alongside those of Chicago and Philadelphia. But the 2009 festival – the 30th anniversary of the event – is all about the home team.”

Last week the orchestra declared a $3.8 million deficit. “In addition to the concessions in the union contract, the administrative staff has taken pay cuts, and music director Paavo Järvi, in his eighth season, has agreed to a salary reduction.”

Two centuries after Felix Mendelssohn’s birth, the exhumation of his work continues.

“Plans to stage a jazz festival in Brecon have been postponed for a year but it will return in 2010, according to a group overseeing its future. The Arts Council of Wales said to organise a successful event in just six months was ‘too big a hurdle to leap’. It was hoped the festival would go-ahead this August even though the firm behind it ceased trading in December.”

“At the moment, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s [music director] search is headed this way: Look for an announcement sometime this season that gives Charles Dutoit, 72, the full title of music director for a short and finite period.” The question then will be who might get a principal guest conductor slot, “with an implicit understanding that the job would most likely grow into that of music director several years later.”

“Reverberations from formidable fund-raising challenges, a steep rise in labor costs, and a depressed economy will rumble onto the Philadelphia Orchestra stage next season. Guest soloists and conductors are being asked to take lower fees, and programming is assuming more modest proportions.” And those aren’t the only adjustments coming.

“The struggle of top-heavy major labels to adapt their business models to a new reality, it turns out, is opening more doors than ever to idealistic independents. A growing number of labels, are swiftly moving to promote artists that the majors have ignored. Their strategies, born from necessity and a love for music rather than a devotion to profit margins, may in fact turn out to be commercially savvy.”