Category: music

It takes about two seconds. “For users who purchase the add-on technology, the guitar recognizes pitch. Then, its processor directs motors on its six tuning pegs to tighten or loosen the strings accordingly.”

The players quit the Prince William Symphony Orchestra in Virginia last week after months of disputes with the orchestra’s board and the new executive music director.

Last year Northwestern University music students protested the suspension of the school’s jazz program. Their protests worked. “Northwestern announced last week the hiring of one of the country’s most admired jazz musicians and accomplished educators as director of jazz studies and professor of music.”

“Chicago is where gospel music began and where it still has a strong footing. Though the music has flourished in other cities such as Detroit, Atlanta and Dallas, Chicago is still a center of creativity in this music.”

Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs have won the 2008 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award. “The work, a group of songs based on five love poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, was chosen for the $200,000 prize among 140 entries from around the world.”

“Under the current copyright system, songwriters and music publishers are compensated by radio stations through royalties when a song is played on the radio, but the people performing on the record — from superstars to session musicians — are not.”

“Some critics have called Netrebko the next Callas, which is both a high compliment and a bit of a stretch. Callas was more intense, more forceful and also more tortured. On the other hand, Callas never appeared on a music video.”

“By abandoning conventional norms defining music and space, modern artists created contemporary music. Although this class of music is considered by some to be an irreverent and unpleasant form of noise, the new rules of space are still worth investigating because they exist apart from the compositional creations that incorporate them.”

“Merchants reported a comparable-store music sales decline ranging from 15 percent to 25 percent for the weekend that begins with Black Friday, although they said robust movie and videogame sales helped soften the blow.”

The San Francisco Chronicle performs a Shostakovich Symphony while the cameras are running. It’s a distinctly different performance than one a few months ago when the cameras weren’t there…