Category: music

The Aspen Music Festival is celebrating the connection between classical music and jazz this summer, which is admirable, of course, but how successful have the periodic marriages between the two styles really been over the decades? “Composers… tried to imitate the syncopa­tion and the chord structures [of jazz.] They used saxophones and drum kits. The novelty tickled some classical music listeners, but to ears familiar with real jazz a lot of it rang false.”

“When Johann Sebastian Bach grew up in late 17th century Germany, his obsession with keyboard instruments propelled him towards becoming a classical great. But if young Bach were around today, he’d probably be holed up in his bedroom with a laptop, composing avant-garde electro.”

The music video is making a comeback – this time online. “There are three distinct strands of hot new videos: catchy choreography with a punk-rock ‘I could do that’ charm; weird animation from the imagination’s outer limits; and a handmade aesthetic that replaces the slick gloss of commercial cliche with a patchwork, frayed-at-the-edges naivete.”

“Later this year, the Bayreuth Festival foundation is to decide who will follow the ailing 87-year-old Wolfgang Wagner, grandson of the composer, as festival director. His youngest daughter, Katharina, 29, has thrown her hat into the ring, and this ‘Meistersinger’ was widely seen as an audition for the job. No staging could ever have lived up to such expectations. Hers certainly didn’t. Bayreuth needs change, and in its convoluted way, this production was a plea for that.”

Reviews for Katharina Wagner’s Meistersinger were mixed at best. “It was definitely not the stuff embraced by traditional Wagnerites. But if Wagner was concerned, she did not show it Thursday. ‘They didn’t understand it,’ she told The Associated Press of the negative voices. She said she was relieved and insisted that — no matter what the final judgment of Wednesday’s premiere was — she was ready to take over from her father ‘if the conditions were right’.”

“Edna Landau, Senior VP and Managing Director of IMG Artists, among the Big Three arts management firms (with CAMI and ICM), is to leave her position in the fall after 23 years.”

The good news is that the Seattle Symphony overcame a $2.5 million deficit to balance its books this season. “The downside to the news is that the symphony has not made any payments this season to the musicians’ pension plan, said Timothy Hale, chairman of the Seattle Symphony and Opera Players’ Organization. Under terms of the symphony’s contract with its musicians, it owes the pension fund $1.154 million annually to be made in four quarterly payments. The first three have not been made, Hale said.”

What with the ever-expanding collectors’ obsession with violins, violas, and cellos made by old Italian masters like Stradivari and Guadagnini, it can be easy to overlook living luthiers and their work. But there are plenty of modern masters whose work is delighting players who know that the old classics are frequently overpriced. Those who play modern instruments frequently develop a bond not only with their makers, but with others who play the same “model,” much to the delight of their creators.

“The 29-year-old great-granddaughter of composer Richard Wagner was loudly booed following her directorial debut… Katharina Wagner’s interpretation of The Mastersingers of Nuremberg [amounted to a] seven-hour staging, which featured full frontal nudity and rewrote the plot. The reaction may come as a blow to the young director, who is competing for control of her great-grandfather’s legacy.”

Young conductors trying to get started in the business face a daunting set of obstacles, not least of which is the fact that conducting is a solitary affair, and there is frequently no one around to answer your questions about how to properly cue the second bassoon, or convince the strings not to drag in the slow movement. For the last ten years, David Zinman has been looking to change that, from his post as head of the Aspen Music Festival.