Category: music

“Earlier this week, the grants committee of the Greater Columbus Arts Council recommended no longer giving money to the symphony, which last year received $261,417. ‘We shouldn’t be giving operational support to an organization that’s not going to be here after June 1’.”

“The judge in Capitol v. Thomas — the first of the RIAA’s lawsuits against individual file-sharers to go to trial, it resulted in a $222,000 judgment against a single mother in Minnesota — threw the verdict into doubt today.”

“Following the introduction of blind auditions in the 1970s, which greatly reduce bias, women now make up about half of the string and woodwind players in American orchestras. Women occupy prominent administrative positions in major musical institutions. Women direct and design productions at important opera houses. Women also make up about 30 percent of composition students in American colleges and conservatories.” So where is their music on concert programs?

After months of not being paid, musicians and staffers at the Honolulu Symphony can finally breathe again, with the announcement of a $1.175m gift from an anonymous donor. Musicians were given 7 weeks of back pay, and the symphony is expected to raise more money at this weekend’s annual fundraising ball.

Efforts are underway both inside and outside the Columbus Symphony to keep the orchestra from folding in a few weeks. “Patrons, musicians and others have hosted or plan to host concerts and other events to help the orchestra.” But the CSO’s executive director says that the money being raised is nowhere near enough to solve the organization’s problems.

“Glyndebourne is awash with larger-than-life characters. Walking round the red-brick backstage corridors – “round” is the word, as the place is circular – you’ll meet nobody prouder of their lot than the volunteer ushers in their gold medallions, unless it’s Vince the resident fireman, who once took great delight in extinguishing a picnicker’s unauthorised barbecue. Or the polyglot Ingrid, who mans the stage door, translates Norwegian books (including The Bookseller of Kabul), and has been appointed MBE for services to skiing, having coached the British Olympic team.”

Twenty-five selections were added to the National Recording Registry on Wednesday, part of the library’s attempt to save America’s aural history by archiving recordings deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

Glyndebourne, which opens its 2008 season on Sunday, is “a fascinating case study. It’s an anomaly in recent operatic history, inasmuch as it both makes a profit and presents top-quality performances without state subsidy.”

“Yesterday the National Endowment for the Arts announced the four winners of the first annual NEA Opera Honors, the first new program of national arts awards since the Jazz Masters awards were established in 1982. The first opera honorees are the great soprano Leontyne Price, conductor James Levine… composer Carlisle Floyd and administrator Richard Gaddes.”

“Asimo, Honda’s humanoid robot, made its conducting debut Tuesday at Orchestra Hall, leading the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in “The Impossible Dream” of Broadway fame… An engineer cued Asimo wirelessly.” Incoming DSO music director Leonard Slatkin showed up for the event, and joked to Asimo, “I’ll believe it when you conduct Mahler 7.”