Category: music

“Never mind that this dermatalogical ailment seemed unlikely, given the posture of the average male cellist, the condition was named in the British Medical Journal, and thereafter in an array of reviews of musician’s aches and pains.”

The King’s Consort, whose 95 recordings for the Hyperion label have sold more than a million copies in total, is renaming itself the Retrospect Ensemble as of this May. (The change is likely a matter of branding: The group’s founding director, Robert King, was jailed in 2007 for “indecent assault.”)

As Sony Entertainment CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz announced the appointment of former Decca exec Bogdan Roscic, he said, “Classical music not only remains a vital part of our company’s DNA, but also this is a business we are determined to grow and promote again.”

“In another acceleration of leadership change at the Philadelphia Orchestra, Harold A. Sorgenti will step down as board chairman now. He had been scheduled to do so in September. … [N]o successor has been named.”

“The San Francisco Opera’s 2009-10 season will inaugurate the tenure of Music Director Nicola Luisotti just at the moment when financial pressures have prompted General Director David Gockley to cut back on the scope and variety of the company’s offerings. … ‘There’s no question that this season represents a huge belt-tightening for us,’ Gockley said.”

“A rival’s envy and the Nazis combined to turn Felix Mendelssohn from a hot 19th-century composer to a pariah and left hundreds of his scores unpublished. Real rescue operations began only a dozen years ago. Thanks largely to the Mendelssohn Project, which has been working since 1996 to redress decades of neglect, the composer’s works are being recovered and performed.”

“Inauguration organizers admitted on Friday that while Yo-Yo Ma and his fellow musicians were playing live onstage at the ceremony last week, they weren’t miked…. The musicians explained that the temperature conditions would have ruined the sound. What are the optimal climatic conditions for playing an instrument?”

The cliche, of course, is that classical music concerts are expensive and exclusive. In reality, “classical events aren’t nearly as expensive as most people assume, especially in comparison with the extravagant pricing schemes for élite pop acts.”

The company denies “that the 51-year-old company, which has an annual budget of $2.9 million and a $350,000 to $400,000 deficit, is in danger of closing its doors.”

“Technology saved the music industry in the ’80s. Technology also destroyed it less than 20 years later. The advent of file sharing programs like Napster, the industy’s refusal to adopt new distribution methods, free-spending executives, the shrinking of radio and the increasing power of big-box retailers over devoted record stores — all have led to the present situation, where many consumers would rather steal music than pay for it.”