Category: music

“The former finance director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra admitted to stealing $160,000 from the group Monday, in exchange for a 10-year prison sentence and paying $24,000 in restitution… Lee, a 14-year symphony employee who had earned $42,500 a year, stole the money from July 2001 through September 2005.”

Orchestras in New York and L.A. may have made big splashes in recent weeks with music director announcements, but the Philadelphia Orchestra won’t be rushing to find a replacement for the soon-to-depart Christoph Eschenbach. “A search committee will be in place by the time of the orchestra’s annual meeting in September. The committee, whose work may take several years,” will canvas the entire orchestra as they work, and those in charge insist that the process will not be truncated to insure a quick succession.

You won’t often find musicians and management types on the same page at a major symphony orchestra, but Chicago Symphony CEO Deborah Card seems to be on quite a favorable roll, even as her orchestra struggles to find a new music director and adapt to a rapidly changing business model.

“A group of music publishing companies said yesterday it would join a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google’s video-sharing site YouTube. The group, the National Music Publishers’ Association, said it was joining the lawsuit out of concern that many songwriters were not receiving proper compensation when their music appeared on YouTube videos.”

“Wagner occupies music and opera lovers as no other composer does. Some unequivocally worship him, their trips to Bayreuth akin to pilgrimages. Others revile him. Many can do both at once, separating Wagner the composer from Wagner the self-obsessive…. Many meekly enter his world on his terms – and gasp in amazement.”

“It seems every new condominium these days has its own tune, meant to convey its soul to potential buyers. … Developers and marketers have no clearly defined rules about what music belongs with which building. In general, though, buildings that are downtown or have modern designs seem to be willing to try newer musical genres like electronica. Buildings with long histories or those that are not specifically aiming at young buyers often use classical. Jazz, with its myriad styles, tends to cross geographical and architectural boundaries.”

Marking the 150th anniversary of British composer Edward Elgar’s birth “are many broadcasts, celebrations, major publications. But exactly what Elgar stood for and what is unique about his music are more than ever being questioned. … Old assumptions are being challenged, clichés rejected. And in a welcome development, the major festival is in America, which Elgar visited several times to conduct his music.”

Tim Mangan takes a look at the offerings in Orange County’s upcoming season and notes that, “for the most part, the new music that is being played isn’t all that challenging (not that it has to be). But there is, and always has been, a huge lacuna in the modern repertoire that is performed here in O.C., and it makes it difficult for listeners to hear any new music with a perspective that will allow them to comprehend it or place it in some sort of historical continuum.”

“Songs by late reggae legends Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, both devout Rastafarians, will be included in a new collection of Anglican church hymnals in Jamaica. Marley’s ‘One Love’ and Tosh’s ‘Psalm 27’ will be the first reggae tunes to appear in songbooks alongside traditional worship music on the island that gave birth to reggae, said church leaders preparing a new collection of hymns.”

“Composers of any era can be immortalized through their scores, but posterity is not as kind to performers who lived before the advent of recordings. The Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim was arguably the most important fiddle player of the 19th century, and Aug. 15 will mark the 100th anniversary of his death. But don’t worry if you’ve made other plans and can’t attend the centenary tributes. There are virtually none, at least not in this country. Almost no one seems to have remembered.”