Category: music

San Diego’s Lyric Opera has seen donations drop 20% over the last quarter, and staffers are concerned that the company may not be able to meet its expenses if the trend continues. The general director “was unsure about the impact on future seasons… or the company’s 19 employees.”

The Pittsburgh Symphony has balanced its budget for the second year in a row, although it fell short of living up to a covenant which would allow it to “unlock” $17m of additional funds donated by a supporter. Annual fundraising was up $900,000 over the previous year, an $80m capital campaign is underway, and subscriptions rose as well.

Max Raabe and the Palast-Orchester “have been re-creating not only the music but the very sound of the 1930s. That is: They don’t just sing old hits… [they] actually get the hard-edged, metallic sound familiar from recordings of the period.”

“The new [€33 million] theatre may not be state-of-the-art in the way that recent new opera houses costing more than 10 times as much obviously are. But the new house has huge transformational potential. Even the apparently small matter of the greatly enlarged orchestra pit opens up tranches of repertoire that were previously no-go areas.”

Violin lessons too hard? Oboe not your thing? Well, why not become a Tenori-on virtuoso, or a master of the Boing Boing? Seriously, these are actual instruments, and while they may not have a place in the orchestra, their inventors hold out hope that these tech-geek music makers will someday have a following.

“Tensions continue to rise between the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra board and musicians as the musicians’ strike looms over the group’s 61st season.” The orchestra’s board insists that the strike is illegal, while the musicians say that the supposed “master agreement” under which the orchestra is operating was never agreed to by them.

“The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has announced an ambitious music-education initiative that aims to involve the orchestra in the musical life of Chicagoans from the kindergarten level through young adulthood. Under its new Institute for Learning, Access and Training, the CSO has bundled 19 separate programs — three of them newly established –to reach more than 200,000 young people, regardless of whether they have a special interest in music.”

“It is… easy to forget that [Valery] Gergiev is supposed to be principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. The LSO used to be London’s top draw. No longer… The orchestra’s brand is being damaged by attachment to Gergiev Global.”

“Tonight, Iván Fischer officially begins his two-year stint as principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra,” and Anne Midgette wonders what could have been had Fischer and the NSO reached an agreement to make him the orchestra’s music director. Instead, the orchestra will spend the next two years awaiting the arrival of Chrstoph Eschenbach, who “will be 70 when he takes over.”

Yes, that’s what it’s called. Five musicians and 100 instruments (including nail clippers and corn flakes) in music from Ennio Morricone’s scores to the likes of A Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in the West. The band plays Toronto this weekend and then begins a tour of the US.