Category: music

“Conductors, star singers and the general manager occupy the limelight at the Met. But it is [the technical director] and his staff who translate the visions of designers and directors into sets, lighting and costumes. They are the ones who move giant sets on and off the stage and in the spaces above and below it, for rehearsals and performances, usually twice a day. It is like continuous puzzle solving.”

Late Thursday, musicians rejected an offer that, beginning in 2008-09, would have slashed both wages and the length of the season — a unanimous vote that left negotiations at an impasse.

The Berlin Philharmonic has decided to extend the contract of its chief conductor, 53-year-old Simon Rattle, beyond 2012, the orchestra said in a statement.

She is “going after the recording industry under conspiracy laws. She argues the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry’s trade group, and its affiliates worked together on a broad campaign to intimidate people into making financial payoffs. The defendants ‘secretly met and conspired’ to develop a ‘litigation enterprise’ with the ultimate goal of preserving the major record companies’ control over the music business.”

It’s 50 years since Van Cliburn won the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. “Part of the aura of legend surrounding the first Tchaikovsky Competition emanated from the personalities involved. Shostakovich was the chairman of the competition. Revered pianist Emil Gilels was president of the piano jury. Composers Dmitri Kabalevsky and Arthur Bliss and the equally celebrated pianist Sviatoslav Richter were jurors.”

Maybe. “Now, it is so not part of the practice that no singer could just decide spur of the moment to give an encore because the conductor would not know what [the singer] is doing. It would have to be discussed earlier. But back then, the conductor would whisper to the orchestra and make eye contact with the singer and do it again.”

“Rattle’s critics believe his programme has become too experimental and the orchestra, once known for its Brahms, has lost its talent for such work. A source at the BPO said a third of the orchestra were unconvinced by him, another third were said to be ‘floating voters’, and only a third were devoted to his methods.”

Why is it that musicians keep forgetting their instruments while they’re out in the world? It happens more than you think…

The company hands over management of its music division. “Starbucks’ influence as a music retail outlet has grown rapidly in recent years, posting perhaps its biggest hit with the Ray Charles album “Genius Loves Company,” which it co-produced with Concord Records.”

Pamela Rosenberg has decided she “no longer wants to be attached to an institution and wants to spend her time on individual projects. That means she won’t go to any other institution, like an opera house, either.”