Category: music

“It is a common thing to find some Zimbabweans selling some pirated CDs in parking lots in major centres in Botswana. But while many local musicians are complaining about the Chinese and Zimbabweans pirating their music, there are reports that Batswana artistes are also “pirating” their own music.”

“What if an improvised performance is more than an improvised performance? Does improvised music open a door to possibilities for social change? And if that’s the case, shouldn’t more people be paying attention?”

The city will levy fines on bars and clubs any time they play music that is audible to “a person of normal hearing” inside a nearby residence after 10:00 p.m.”

“Maybe people behave the way they do at concerts not because it’s an artificial standard imposed by ironclad tradition but because the music sounds better that way. Maybe listeners feel classical music most deeply when they pay quiet attention to it.”

“In the past six months or so, there has been a tidal wave of top appointments to music organisations – a surge that has provoked more than one commentator to raise the question: is this a new era? It’s far too early to dare guess at that one, but the volume of change is itself quite striking.”

“The San Francisco house said it would broadcast six operas a year, starting in March, and reach 200 screens, about the same number as the Met began with last season. The much larger and busier Met now appears on about 600 screens and transmits eight productions a year.”

“What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad news for music, and it’s certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.”

“Rappers in Marseille, some of the most original and distinctive ones anyway, compose sad odes to their local neighborhoods and hymns to the whole melting-pot city. Here the basic interconnectedness of all modern music expresses a local truth about the city’s cultural identity. An ancient, gritty seaport, Marseille flaunts its history as an immigrant magnet.”

“The first transmission, on Saturday, December 15 — Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, starring Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna, conducted by Plácido Domingo — drew a worldwide audience of 97,000. 435 venues (477 screens) in the United States and Canada sold approximately 77,000 tickets; 100 international venues (100 screens) sold an additional 20,000 tickets.”

The company’s got a site of Facebook and offers podcasts. “This week, the ROH will announce that after 18 months of negotiations, it has struck a deal with the Musician’s Union that allows it to record 14 productions a year for commercial exploitation, 12 of which can be shown in cinemas.”