Category: music

Jonathan Dove has never had a flop, and Pinocchio is his 21st opera. So why has he never been commissioned for a main-house piece by the big London companies?

Leaving the stage at London’s Barbican, violinist David Garrett, 26, one of the UK’s foremost young concert performers, had an accident that every world-class musician must dread: he tripped and landed on his violin.

Perhaps the speculation is true that Amy Winehouse and Kanye West split the vote. And yes, it is very unusual to see a record of such modest sales win the big prize. But inasmuch as it is a jazz album, it is precisely the kind of jazz album that would win this award.

The conundrum of Carter’s career is that while he may be, as the pianist and scholar Charles Rosen recently called him in the Times, “the most respected and admired of American composers,” that glow of approval is limited to a small, gold-plated coterie of musicians, critics, students, and pedagogues.

In America, hip-hop began as the voice of disenfranchised urban black youth. In China, the government has to clear all album lyrics, and you get – well, compare What up Gangsta by 50 Cent and Welcome to Beijing by Yin Tsang.

“Out go the big budgets, lengthy run times and large venues. But in come the stars from the world of literature and music, who have been asked to produce 15-minute operas which will sit beside each other at sold-out shows in small theatres in Glasgow and Edinburgh early next month.”

ArtistShare is an apt name for a company that enabled the production and sale of recordings via a partnership between performing artists and their fans. “Our mission statement is very simple. It’s to develop relationships with fans, and make the biggest return we can for the artists. The fundamental premise is that music’s true values are based upon the individual creativity and the unique process that each artist brings to a recording.”

“Boeing — with little fanfare — has helped transform the way jazz is presented, funded and marketed in Chicago. And much of the credit goes to a self-effacing, loathes-the-spotlight Boeing executive who seduced his company — and several others — into funneling cash, marketing savvy and other sophisticated business resources into an art form desperately in need of them.”

Of course, there was a time when musicians believed it could. “I think that the time when music could change the world is past. I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age.”

“Musical acts, especially unsigned performers, are increasingly turning to dance routines to promote their songs. Those routines are taking off on the dance floor and in endless imitations online, and they’re helping to drive music sales.”