Category: music

“Radiohead’s remix contest for its track ‘Nude’ was a big deal by any measure… Building on that experience, the band has decided to unbundle ‘Reckoner,’ another of its In Rainbows tracks into individual remix stems, once again for sale via the iTunes music store, but with a few twists.”

“Everything from the sound delay from the stadium speakers to any F-18s flying overhead conspire to derail the performance.”

“A federal judge granted a new trial to a Minnesota woman convicted of pirating music files in the nation’s first file-sharing trial, ruling Wednesday he made an error in the jury instructions that ‘substantially prejudiced’ her rights.”

The Chicago Symphony has found a successful formula for bringing audiences deeper into the music they hear in the concert hall. It bears a bland title (“Beyond the Score,”) but the series of performances, now available for download and DVD purchase, goes far beyond standard-issue pre-concert lectures to combine the performance with an innovative look at composers and their output.

Zachary Lewis files his first piece since taking over the Cleveland Orchestra beat from Don Rosenberg, and it’s (surprise!) a profile of music director Franz Welser-Möst. “While some critics question his artistry, by some financial measures Welser-Most has been an asset to the orchestra’s bottom line. Under his direction, demand for the ensemble, both domestically and internationally, has increased.”

A set of violins belonging to Holocaust survivors have been heard in concert in Jerusalem. The instruments, collected from across Europe and restored by an Israeli luthier, include one owned by a survivor who was forced to play it nightly for Nazi guards, and who later used his violin case to smuggle the explosives that destroyed the Nazi base.

“Groups representing songwriters, music publishers, record labels and digital music websites have ended a seven-year dispute over two types of music royalties. Unfortunately, neither of those is the controversial performance royalty for Internet radio.”

“The programme was just the sort that brings out the best in him: three early 20th-century pieces full of sharp orchestral colours, jagged rhythms and pulsating energy, with not a trace of Romantic ‘inwardness’.”

Betting that many listeners still want to buy music on some sort of physical medium, the four major labels and flash drive giant SanDisk have unveiled “slotMusic” – recordings on flash memory cards that can be slipped into MP3 players and mobile phones. (Except for Apple iPods and iPhones.)