Category: music

“Last year, Nettwerk Management uploaded the official Girlfriend video to the popular video-sharing website. Twelve months later, thanks to a coordinated fan campaign, the video has clocked up almost 100m hits from around the world. And where there are page-views, there are ad-views. Even after YouTube takes its cut, “there’s about a $2m (£1m) cheque waiting for her for all her YouTube plays.”

The British government isputting forward “proposals that would enable millions of broadband users to pay an annual levy which would allow them to copy as much – previously illegal – music from the internet as they wanted. The money raised would be channelled back to the rights-holders, with artists responsible for the most popular songs receiving a bigger slice of the cash.”

“With developing artists, everyone always says that the key is touring. But now all the money from your shows is just going to fill the gas tank.”

Zubin Mehta has been associated with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since 1961. “He was appointed its music adviser in 1969, music director in 1977, and in 1981 Mehta accepted the title of music director for life. It is a unique position in a business where contracts rarely run for more than five years.” But for Mehta, such longevity and loyalty to a single ensemble is an ongoing theme.

Joseph Kluger stepped down as president of the Philadelphia Orchestra in late summer 2005, but tax records show that the orchestra continued to pay him for two more years, even after a new chief was in place. Kluger says the $313,000 he received was for “consulting.”

James Levine, who left his Tanglewood duties earlier this month to have emergency surgery, apparently had a cancerous growth on his kidney. “Fortunately, because of early detection, it had not spread to the surrounding tissues, blood vessels, or lymph nodes. Doctors reported the surgery was completely curative and no further treatment is necessary.”

The Minnesota Orchestra, citing future budget concerns, on Tuesday canceled its annual Lake Harriet bandshell concert, the finale for the venue’s music season.

Only readers of The Sun newspaper will be able to get tickets. “We have so many opportunities to open up our doors to more people and I’m thrilled that we’re able to invite those who have never been to the opera house before to experience a first night performance.”

Bad Day by Daniel Powter has been the most played song in the UK over the past five years. What is it about this track and others that keep popping up everywhere we go?

Geoff Edgers thinks not. Lloyd Schwartz, the Boston Phoenix music critic, was asked by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to have his poems set to music by the Tanglewood Music Center’s composition fellows. Not okay, writes Edgers. But Peter Kadzis, the Boston Phoenix executive editor, clearly thinks it’s okay. “In an e-mail response, he stated that Schwartz ‘works in the now waning tradition of artist/critic, not unlike Virgil Thomson. That the Tanglewood fellows would choose to set his poetry to music is a mark of distinction, not a compromise. Narrow minds, of course, might think otherwise’.”