Category: music

“In his five years as the ASOL’s chief executive, Fogel stabilized the organization’s finances, raised its profile in the wider classical music community, launched a $25 million capital campaign, and oversaw the development of a strategic plan, finalized earlier this year, to revamp the way the League serves its member orchestras.”

The publisher of music critic Norman Lebrecht’s latest book has agreed to withdraw the book in the UK over a few pages discussing Naxos Records and its founder, Klaus Heymann. “The book, ‘Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry,’ was released in Britain in July. Mr. Heymann sued the publisher, Penguin Books, in the High Court of Justice, saying the book wrongly accused him of ‘serious business malpractices’ based on false statements. He cited at least 15 statements he called inaccurate.”

“As 2007 sashays to a close, pop has rarely been more female. A glance at the albums being released up until Christmas reveals a coven of pop high priestesses handbagging each other in pursuit of pop buyers’ cash.”

“Spurred in part by the crucial role that education played in the careers of its current music director and his designated successor, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is embarking on an ambitious multiyear mission to develop aspiring performers and composers.”

“Increasingly the back-to-basics movement that has characterized cutting-edge rock this century, from the blues-based hard rock of the White Stripes to the new wave-postpunk revivalism of Interpol, is giving way to music that looks further afield for its influences. And one result is a clutch of acts, many of them from New York, that are internationalizing rock’s Anglo-American vernacular.”

The Minnesota Orchestra has a history of brilliant high-profile music directors. In his fifth year leading the orchestra, Osmo Vänskä looks like he will add to the pedigree…

“When Osvaldo Golijov’s opera ”Ainadamar” premiered at Tanglewood in 2003, it met with general acclaim, though not the kind of instantaneous and unified praise other projects of his had engendered. The music was often beautiful, but to some listeners, there seemed a lack of dramatic tension, and some critics saw a misfit between the play and the score. Something just seemed off-kilter. One of the dissatisfied, it turns out, was the composer himself… With the help of director Peter Sellars, he and librettist David Henry Hwang undertook a substantial revision.”

Chris Walla, guitarist for the indie rock band Death Cab For Cutie expected to be mixing the band’s latest album in Seattle this month, but the hard drive containing the raw tracks never made it from Vancouver, after border agents seized the drive. “Walla said he believed the confiscation was random, but [the record label] and some music publications hinted that the seizure of such a politically charged album may have been more than a coincidence.”

The towns of Dawson and Fergus Falls, both in rural western Minnesota, have a combined population that would barely fill up a neighborhood in a big city, but they will each shortly be playing host to a recital by superstar violinist Midori. Students and music fans from across the sparsely populated region are already planning to drive hours in all directions to attend. So how did the tiny towns score such a high-profile soloist? They called her and asked.

A NASA astronaut will be taking some music with her into space next month. And no, it’s not on an iPod. Stephanie Wilson, a lifelong fan of the Boston Symphony, approached music director James Levine about the idea of taking something symbolic into orbit, and wound up the recipient of a page from the conducting score of Beethoven’s 9th, signed by Levine and the musicians of the BSO.