Category: music

“Seeking to back its claims of a substantial economic impact on Boston and the Berkshires, the Boston Symphony Orchestra has released a study that found that the world’s largest symphony organization and its visitors generate more than $166 million in economic activity each year.”

“The Columbus Symphony has terminated its labor contract with musicians — a move intended to save the cash-strapped orchestra $800,000 in wages. [But] a musicians-union official said yesterday that the symphony’s board of trustees can’t cancel the agreement.”

So what really happened to the Columbus Symphony? Orchestras its size generally don’t just up and die, after all. One group working to save the CSO says that media coverage of the crisis was badly slanted and that the ensemble’s management seemed uninterested in building audience.

“The tune, which has opened the Canadian Broadcasting Corp’s Saturday night National Hockey League broadcasts since the late 1960s, will not be renewed as the broadcaster has chosen to move in a new direction.”

“It is about time television shone a light into the conductor’s rostrum. No musical function involves so much mystification. Why is it that two men, making the same gesture, obtain a completely different sound, and why do they almost always have to be men. Is it a suspension of disbelief on the part of musicians and listeners, or is there some inscrutable transmission between baton and orchestra that eludes neutral observation?”

“For the first time ever, a download-only release has topped the Billboard classical chart. The DG Concerts release of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic (where he will soon be musical director) features Berlioz’s Symphonie fantatastique. Billboard just changed its rules to allow downloads, so this is not only the first such recording to top the charts — it’s the first to appear at all.”

“The Augusta Symphony launched a fund nearly two weeks ago to memorialize slain cellist David Reader, who was killed in the early morning of May 11 on East Boundary Street. But the announcement of the fund… caused a bitter and mean-spirited debate on crime and punishment on one local message board.”

“The Century Orchestra Osaka has announced plans for a new supporters’ club to raise funds to help the ensemble survive a financial crisis brought on by the withdrawal of subsidies from the Osaka prefectural government. With an annual membership fee of just 1,000 yen… it is hoped the club will attract enough members to ease the financial strain threatening the orchestra’s existence.”

A trial has begun for the Oregon woman charged in the deaths of two members of the Eugene Symphony last year. “Fivea Sharipoff, 26, at left, is charged with manslaughter, assault and driving under the influence after a wrong-way crash on Interstate 5 last year.”

“The recent announcement from the New York City Opera about its plans for the next two seasons suggests that this essential 65-year-old company, called the People’s Opera by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, is poised for a near-complete makeover. Its very identity could change under its new leader, Gerard Mortier.”