Category: music

“Nothing could be more off-putting than the happy-crappy, watered-down dross that passes for music in these churches, where any sense of musical lineage has disappeared along with most of the congregation.” And now one of the better traditional hymns is being banned?

“If nineteenth-century German politics and philosophy and musical endeavour made classical music unprecedentedly momentous, its implication in the near-annihilation of European civilization by the mid-century robbed it of moral authority, a collapse with which classical music still lives, sixty years on.”

Making money from recording music is no longer a simple strategy. When and what to release is proving a complicated strategy as the recording industry tries to calculate how to make the most money out of its products.

“The 420-seat venue is part of Kings Place, the next stage of the transformation of King’s Cross after the reopening of St Pancras station.”

“Laptop performances have been around since the ’80s, when they became de rigueur in trend-setting clubs from L.A. to Berlin. But laptop orchestras are quite new. Wang co-founded the first one in 2005, at Princeton University, where he was a doctoral student in computer science. Stanford’s laptop orchestra was founded by Wang just last year.”

“The stadium classical music gig is coming to Britain. O2 , the concert venue in the former Millennium Dome, announced yesterday that it will stage a monumental production of Carmina Burana next January.”

“The CBC Radio Orchestra was founded by John Avison in 1938 and has had an illustrious history. It originally consisted of 25 musicians and was increased to 35 in 1952. Its conductors have included John Eliot Gardiner and Mario Bernardi.”

“Wolfgang Wagner, the 88-year-old director of the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth and grandson of the composer, announced he is stepping down from his post after 57 years. The leadership succession stalemate was unlocked when longtime rivals Katharina and 63-year-old Eva Wagner-Pasquier, Wolfgang’s daughter from his first marriage, set aside their differences to submit a joint leadership proposal to the foundation that runs the festival.”

Sony BMG has made its complete back catalogue of songs available free over the internet for the first time in a deal with the music website We7. “Users can listen to 250,000 songs for free but have to wait for a 10-second advert between each track.”

Kenya has only had a music licensing system in place for one year. At least now some musicians are being paid for their work. “The problem has been that music users have not been aware of their obligation to get the licence for the use of music. Many people were surprised, but are now more than willing to pay up.”