Category: music

“You can learn technique, but a conductor is a leader, a person whom players will follow. You can be the best musician in the world, but the instinct to keep the attention of hundreds of people is impossible to learn. It’s something natural. I think this is the secret of a good conductor.”

“The question I ask of anyone who abuses copyright, steals tracks and samples or downloads music illegally is, ‘How rubbish do you want your music to be in future?’ Everyone will end up poorer if things carry on this way.”

“For all the images of rolling lawns and towering pines, Tanglewood’s relationship to the car is long-standing and deep.cars were crucial to Tanglewood from the beginning – a report puts 4,500 vehicles in the parking lot at one of the earliest concerts.”

Canadian broadcaster CBC has said it is cutting the Vancouver-based orchestra. “The idea is at least to provide the orchestra with the funds to keep going for an interim period. The longer-term goal. would be to reconstitute the orchestra as “some kind of a joint venture with the CBC, or a total spinoff that would be supported by private and public funds.”

After 23 years, Charles McKay is leaving the helm of Opera Theatre of St. Louis. “I set out to change a lot” in St. Louis, he says. He and his team did: improvements to the young-artist program, adding technical and administrative intern programs, building the endowment and Opera Center, adding surtitles and more.

“To understand what is happening in the industry you need to acknowledge the difference between the record industry (in decline) and the music industry (continually growing). In the 21st century, compact discs are much less in demand, but interest is growing in tickets for live music, merchandise, licensing in films and advertising and content provision in new media, alongside a technology-driven explosion in media.”

“Suddenly there’s something irresistible again about ukuleles. From wildly popular Web videos to car commercials and concert stages, the ukulele, born in Hawaii more than a century ago, is gently plunking heartstrings everywhere.”

“Music traditionally looms large at the Olympics, and the original Three Tenors lent their support to Beijing’s bid in 2001. Now, though, it seems that it doesn’t matter who the tenors are, as long as there are three of them.”

“Does anybody actually want to watch classical concerts on their computer screens? Evidently, yes. Last year, Medici.tv reached 150,000 unique viewers with its broadcasts from Verbier, according to Medici.tv’s founder and director, Herve Boissiere. This year, he says, the numbers are even better. The real question is whether anybody wants to pay for it.”

“The idea that music exists as a product — that you can download or purchase — is a recent phenomenon. A seismic shift occurred in musical culture when music could be listened to on the gramophone, a radio, stereo system or MP3 player without the need to have musicians present.
This constant presence of recorded music has heightened the brain’s shut-off valve: we have learned to ignore it. Although aural stimulus is still coming in, we may no longer be paying attention. Having the stimulus of music when we don’t want it has dulled people to the magic of what music can be.”