Category: music

It was only a few months ago that the Miami-based Concert Association of Florida announced that it was forming a new professional orchestra, and added a number of orchestra concerts to its schedule. “On Tuesday the Concert Association announced three concerts would be canceled due to a lack of ticket sales.”

St. Paul’s Ordway Center for the Performing Arts has announced plans for a major renovation, during which a 300-seat theater would be replaced by a 1000-seat hall which would serve as the dedicated home of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Opera North is to benefit from a £3.5 million grant of Lottery funding from Arts Council England, which will be put towards the running costs of its new centre in Leeds.

“A priest told Reuters that a Chinese diplomatic envoy approached a Vatican official outside Italy to broach the idea of a concert, and the offer was repeated several months ago.”

“A violin virtuoso plans to replace the airport cacophony of taxis and airplanes with the exquisite tones of a 285-year-old violin to give thanks to the cab driver who reunited him with the lost instrument.”

“In a classical music world of diminishing grandeur, the orchestra has hired one of the last lions of podium glamour, Riccardo Muti, as its music director and in so doing is lending a sheen to the city’s cultural profile. At the same time Mr. Muti’s embrace of a cold city on Lake Michigan — which he diplomatically likens to the Mediterranean waters off his native Italy — dampened spirits at the New York Philharmonic, which failed to lure him at least once and, by some accounts, including his own, possibly twice.”

“Landing him is a tremendous coup for Chicago, which has been without a music director since Daniel Barenboim’s departure in 2006–especially since Muti had already turned down an offer from the New York Philharmonic in 2000. He will become the orchestra’s 10th music director, effective with the 2010-11 season.”

“At this point in my life, I don’t have to make a career. I don’t have to prove to anyone ‘Who is Muti,'” the conductor, who twice turned down offers in the last decade to become music director of the New York Philharmonic, said. “But I want both to devote myself to making music with the Chicago Symphony and to bringing music to the many communities of Chicago and to new generations. This is our future.”

It’s Juilliard String Quartet first violinist Joel Smirnoff. In addition to the quartet, the 58-year-old Smirnoff is chair of the Juilliard School’s violin department.”

“So Herbert von Karajan glorified tradition with his Salzburg Festival, promoted favorite musicians (violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and clarinetist Sabine Meyer come to mind) and amassed extraordinary wealth (not just millions, but hundreds of millions of dollars). He had his flaws, plenty of them. Listen to either of those Bruckner Eighths, though, and you’ll forgive the shortcomings in favor of astonishing art, undiminished by time.”