Category: music

“A Salem woman who drove her car with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit was convicted Tuesday on two counts of first-degree manslaughter, assault and drunken driving for a collision that killed two Eugene Symphony musicians and injured a third in February 2007.”

“At the Sydney Conservatorium of Music yesterday, the Music Council of Australia launched a scheme to help musicians” who cannot afford to purchase top-quality instruments, but need them to advance in their careers. “The National Instrument Bank will offer wealthy individuals and corporations the chance to buy instruments as investments, then loan them to musicians.”

The Toronto Symphony has received a CAN$3.5m gift to endow its concertmaster chair, shortly to be filled by a new violinist. It is hoped that the endowment, which will allow the concertmaster to be paid a higher salary than is currently offered, will help attract more top candidates for the job.

“When the Beijing Olympics open in August, to a heady mixture of sporting celebration and political controversy, music will play a huge part in reinforcing the image and message of the games.” In fact, a look all the way back to the original ancient Olympiad shows that “music has always played an important role in the event.”

“The digital theatrical transmissions have been hugely popular over the past two Met seasons. That’s good news for Hollywood studios and exhibs as they begin to look to alternative digital content to fill theater seats, particularly since they can charge more per ticket for special events.”

“Though Ms. Voigt’s position as one of today’s leading dramatic sopranos is as solid as ever, there have been varied reactions to her singing since her surgery, especially the colorings of her voice. Some opera buffs and critics detect a slight loss of warmth in her sound. Others counter that her voice has gained brightness and shimmer.”

“Who will fill the lecture theatres, staff the orchestras and fill the concert halls when so few Qatar residents turn out for a concert with the biggest name in the opera business? The LPO’s Tim Walker says that on the ground, classical music is thriving. In Dubai alone 25,000 people are learning musical instruments. There’s a private music school with 90 students, and there are excellent music stores. We will also be helping to train orchestral players. A viable musical life in the Gulf is possible.”

“I think my attitude is that I stand against a kind of pandering in the arts which I think is very destructive in the long run and has the characteristics of confusing high culture and popular culture and has the result of damaging both. Over the years I haven’t deviated much from my principal. I’ve been criticized for not going along with the flow, but I am not going to change my fundamental values because they have become less widely held than they used to be.”

“The deals highlight the changing dynamics of the music industry as once-powerful labels decline because of the migration to digital downloads. To fill the gap, musicians are scrambling to connect with fans, and Wal-Mart is using these exclusive deals to assume a new role: hit maker.”

Before he was an architect, Rafael Viñoly was a musician. “There is no piece of music that could relate to anything else but itself and its world. It is truly an independent. The one thing coplanar with music is the compositional aspect, the fact that you are composing something. Architecture is essentially a score, and what happens with it depends on the people who play it, enjoy it, use it, or hate it.”