Category: music

At this week’s July 4th celebrations, symphony orchestras will be out in force. But what’s up with the programs of cheesey repertoire? Okay, writes Tim Page, so maybe it isn’t really about the music. But really…

Nicholas Kenyon, director of the Proms argues that big music festivals such as the Proms and Aldeburgh are essential for the cultural health of the nation. “In the welter of unlimited choice, we need trusted guidance and a view of the ever-shifting musical world that makes real choices and declares its taste. The free availability to all of great music, thoughtfully presented, is something worth fighting to preserve.”

“The Sam the Record Man store on Toronto’s Yonge Street welcomed its final customers on Saturday before closing its doors for good after decades as the city’s prime destination for music buyers. The company’s founder, Sam Sniderman, began selling records in 1937 and the main store on Yonge Street had been in business since 1961.”

More jazz clubs close in Chicago. It’s not that jazz is disappearing. But the music is moving out of the clubs and onto concert stages. “Club shows and concert performances clearly can coexist, and they do in Chicago and other major jazz cities. But it’s concerts, not club dates, that are the growth industry, and have been for years.”

“Ornette Coleman and the late Andrew Hill were the two big winners of the 2007 Awards of the Jazz Journalists’ Association (JJA), an organization comprising 400 journalists, editors, broadcasters, and photographers working internationally.”

“The eagerly awaited new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD with a national Sunday newspaper in a move that has drawn widespread criticism from music retailers. … One music store executive described the plan as ‘madness’ while others said it was a huge insult to an industry battling fierce competition from supermarkets and online stores. Prince’s label has cut its ties with the album in the UK to try to appease music stores.”

“Gérard Mortier, the director of the Paris National Opera, was taking a risk when he invited the Serb film director Emir Kusturica to create a new work here. Put simply, Mr. Mortier, who will take over as general manager and artistic director of the New York City Opera in 2009, was also asking a traditionally conservative audience to embrace a so-called Gypsy punk opera…. Well, the gamble appears to have paid off….”

“The American Symphony Orchestra League has for years struggled with its unfortunate acronym. And while in recent times its administrators have valiantly tried have it be known as, simply, ‘the League,’ rather than ‘ASOL,’ the latter has never left parlance within the industry. Yesterday, a long overdue change was unveiled, effective in the fall, to the ‘League of American Orchestras….'”

Last week was the end of classical music on WFMR-FM, wich has switched over to a soft jazz format. “We gave it a 10-year run,” says Tom Joerres of the classical music format, a rarity for commercial stations. “The average audience on ‘FMR is 60-plus.”

“The work, assembled from nearly a dozen songs and recorded by the Russian National Orchestra, was released as a download in May and on CD on Tuesday. Although a basic five-chord rock ‘n’ roll band, the Grateful Dead’s multiple-time signatures, harmonies and rhythms have had its fans swearing for decades that they could hear the sounds of Beethoven and other classical composers echoing throughout the music.”