Category: music

So the economy is forcing opera companies to cut back. So why not literally cut back? Small-scale operas have not had much play in the US, and there are some good ones…

“Music journalism still managed to find a way to sink itself even deeper into shit as it got sloppy and arrogant, bloated, full of bad ideas, and proved itself much better at sniping at itself than showing support among its ranks (resembling the GOP more and more nowadays). As always, there are some glimmers of hope and some promising ideas that the biz should pursue, but you still have to wade through the bloodbath of job and magazine losses just to get there.”

“Years of lax management, and not just the current economic meltdown, got the Pasadena Symphony and Pasadena Pops into their $3 million shortfall, says their new chief executive.”

“Plans were unveiled Wednesday for what will eventually be the new home of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Architectural firm HOK is redesigning the former firehouse at 299 Degraw St. in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill section to serve as the BP Music Center.”

Canadians downloaded 40 million tracks in 2008, a 58 per cent increase over the year before. “For the third straight year, Canada has outpaced the U.S. in digital music sales, which rose 27 per cent last year in the states.”

The satellite TV network Sky Arts will simulcast opening night of the new Jonathan Miller Bohème at English National Opera on two channels: one showing the staged performance and the second capturing the goings-on backstage. ENO artistic director John Berry says, “It’s about all of that furious paddling under the water that you don’t normally see.”

The 20-year-old Chinese-New Yorker has been making a splash in the past few years, including more than one high-profile last-minute substitution. Her First DG release “will feature sonatas by Chopin, Liszt and Scriabin, and two Etudes by Ligeti.”

An international jury has selected three CDs or DVDs in each of 15 categories; winners will be announced at the industry’s MIDEM fair in Cannes on Jan. 20. Four awardees have already been announced: Sony Masterworks as Label of the Year, a Lifetime Achievement Award to tenor Carlo Bergonzi, and two Artists of the Year, violinist Julia Fischer and countertenor Philippe Jaroussky.

“Austin arts patron James C. Armstrong is contributing $1 million to The Austin Symphony Orchestra to endow its education programs for children… [which include] Young People’s Concerts, High School Concerts and the orchestra’s Building Blocks program, among others.”

“For years, the Canadian dollar trailed behind the U.S. dollar, but U.S.-based booking agents and acts traditionally seek the same advance and payment guarantees in Canadian cities as they get in American cities. The problem for Canadian concert promoters is that while they collect gate receipts in Canadian money, they pay out fees for acts in U.S. funds.”