Category: music

The breathless media coverage accorded Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel since he was announced as the next music director of the LA Philharmonic has been almost uncorrupted by naysayers – almost. “Dudamel’s hyperactive conducting style seemed, in Lucerne, like a smokescreen for a lack of real engagement with the core repertoire.”

“A tour of Britain by the North Korean state symphony orchestra has been postponed until next year… Although a bank has withdrawn its sponsorship for the tour because of the credit crunch, organiser Suzannah Clarke said the concerts could have gone ahead with another backer but concerns over the venue in London had forced a rethink.”

“The idea of presenting classical music in clubs has gained traction in recent years, particularly since cellist Matt Haimovitz played gigs at the now-defunct CBGB in New York. This fall a new club, Le Poisson Rouge, located on the site of the old Village Gate in Manhattan, becomes the principal location for ‘Wordless Music,’ a two-year-old series that puts rock and electronic players together with classical musicians and features the work of contemporary composers.”

“A new biography of Beecham, the first to obtain partial access to the family papers, reveals that many of the best-known stories are myth, born of wishful thinking and faulty memories.”

“A Muncie Symphony violinist was devastated when someone stole his rare 1948 Italian made violin from his car after a concert in 1984… A couple weeks ago the violinist, almost on a whim, was searching on eBay when he found the violin.”

How hard is it being a composer in an age when the majority of music consumers don’t even have classical music on their radar screens, and are increasingly used to paying next to nothing for the music they do listen to? Plenty hard, and the solution lies in developing a true mass audience for serious new music.

“Yesterday was called the official launch day of the new Radio 2,” under which pop music has largely replaced classical, “a genre of music supposed by our new, culture-free, diversity-hugging CBC executives to be of interest only to shut-ins. To judge by the inaugural show, the content is firmly grounded in the Three Bs: bland, bland and bland.”

Okay, so classical snobs are almost guaranteed to hate the new CBC Radio 2 lineup, where classical music is confined to a midday slot. But what about the broader audience that the CBC is supposedly hoping to attract, the folks who could care less about Beethoven but appreciate quality popular music? “It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not a knockout punch… either.”

“The once seemingly insatiable Russian appetite for Western music is showing signs of subsiding, with several big-name acts struggling to sell concert tickets in the region this summer.”