Category: music

“Tradition has it that the festival is always run by a Wagner, and this time round, the main candidates are again all in the family: Eva Wagner-Pasquier, 62, Wolfgang Wagner’s daughter from his first marriage; Katharina Wagner, 29, Wolfgang’s daughter from his second marriage; and Nike Wagner, 62, Wolfgang’s niece and Wieland’s daughter. At first glance, the choice appears to be between youth and experience.’

“A poll of 1,700 people, suggests illegal music buying is widespread, with 43% claiming that they are illegally downloading tracks, rising from 36% last year and 40% in 2005. This year only 33% cited the risk of being prosecuted as a deterrent against unauthorised downloading, compared with 42% in 2006.”

“Worldwide today, pernambuco is used in fewer than 20 percent of all bows, but in more than 90 percent among professionals. Originally used for timber and dyes, pernambuco today is mostly cut for violin bows, with the best heartwood coming from trees more than 80 years old. In 1992, it was added to Brazil’s endangered species list. So why is pernambuco still used?”

Auditions began in Qualcom Stadium in San Diego Monday. “A publicist for the show said 12,000 people showed up for their chance at stardom. Would-be contestants began lining up at 3 a.m. They had already spent hours in line over the weekend waiting to register for wristbands to get into the tryouts: neon yellow for singers, slate gray for supporters.”

Two new novels exploring the lives of classical musicians living under Nazi rule in WWII-era Germany are raising eyebrows in the dual worlds of music and literature. At the heart of both books is the chilling conflict of great art in the face of great evil, and the inescapably human decisions that must be made in such situations.

Your average 20-something may not be able to tell you who Sergei Prokofiev was, but if Gabriel Prokofiev, the grandson of the composer and the man behind a London label called Nonclassical, has anything to say about it, they’ll know soon enough. Prokofiev “is bucking the downward trend by returning classical music to its populist roots. Which means moody sleeve designs instead of laborious liner notes and live events where you can get pissed and talk over the crap bits, trading ideas – as Mozart once borrowed from folk – with dance music. From anyone else, this… might look contrived, but Prokofiev is a uniquely credible broker.”

When Atlanta critic Pierre Ruhe wrote last week that Atlanta Symphony music director Robert Spano seemed to have dropped off the list of up-and-coming conductors likely to land a very high-profile directorship, it stirred up plenty of opinions among his readers. Some called the piece “character assassination,” while others wondered why a conductor dedicating himself fully to a great orchestra in Atlanta instead of chasing an overrated gig in New York would not be celebrated for his dedication.

“The NEMO music festival — an annual conference that brings artists and industry types to Boston for three days of panel discussions, musical showcases, and a trade show — is taking the year off.” Organizers say that online communication has overtaken the live conference format, and no decision has been made on whether NEMO will be revived in 2008.

The craft of music composition has changed drastically in the last 100 years, and one of the most dramatic changes has been the rise of the computer as a compositional aid. “Personal computers were originally used primarily for musical notation, but as the technology has evolved, their ability to play back music has become more of a concern to the elder composers.”

Orchestras across North America have been mounting concerts featuring music from the Lord of the Rings movies, and others based on the scores composed for various fantasy-genre video games. Purists may hate such crossover dreck, but they don’t have to attend, and Andrew Adler says that there’s nothing inherently wrong with such middlebrow outreach, so long as orchestras aren’t fooling themselves into thinking that the sci-fi nerds and gaming geeks that turn out for such shows will be similarly tempted by a Mahler symphony.