Category: music

Conducting is frequently talked of as if it is a deeply inscrutable skill, mysterious and unquantifiable. But one Japanese scholar was convinced that a conductor’s motions could be understood and quantified, and more importantly, taught to other conductors. The result of his work is called The Saito Method, and it has devotees around the world.

A collection of letters in which a now-forgotten Scottish composer launches attack after attack on Edward Elgar has gone on display in Liverpool. Ernest Bryson called Elgar “stupid” and “impertinent” after the composer declined an invitation to become president of a local chamber music society.

Lost in all the hype over the New York Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea was the fact that the trip to Pyongyang marked the international debut of a new piece of music by a 12-year-old composer. Farah Taslima “had originally written it for the entire Philharmonic two years ago, and it was played at one of the orchestra’s Young People’s Concerts at Lincoln Center.”

The face of Johann Sebastian Bach has been recreated by experts at Dundee University more than 250 years after the German composer’s death.

Wolff, 53, is a former music director of the New Jersey Symphony and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and former principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. He is among the six candidates in the running to succeed Kent Nagano as music director of the Berkeley Symphony.

Apple iTunes is now the No. 2 music retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from researcher NPD Group — passing Best Buy Co. and Target Corp.

Last year Vienna’s heating utility company used one of violinist Owen Pallett’s songs for a video campaign. “They hadn’t received permission, but rather than throwing the book at them or claiming for damages or an Austrian CEO’s head, Pallett took a different route. He negotiated something called Maximum Black, a music festival to take place in London, Berlin and Vienna.”

Rumors have been flying for months within the music world that outgoing Philadelphia Orchestra music director Christoph Eschenbach is the frontrunner for the open top job at Washington’s National Symphony. Eschenbach showed up to conduct the NSO on short notice this week, fueling more public speculation…

The musicians of the North Korean State Symphony, who collaborated with members of the New York Philharmonic this week, have few of the opportunities afforded to musicians in the West, and are rarely even permitted to play what Western musicians would consider the standard repertoire. But the New Yorkers professed themselves impressed with their Pyongyang counterparts.

Forget whether the NY Philharmonic’s trip to Pyongyang was good for international relations. Was it good for the Phil? “At the very least, the trip has meant that the [Philharmonic] has made itself very much seen worldwide. This is certainly a publicity coup for an institution often perceived these days as dull and predictable and much in need of a lift.”