Category: music

The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama’s festival of new music was created only last year, but Michael Tumelty says that its growth from year one to year two has been stunning. “Whereas the bulk of performances last year were small group chamber-type performances, such was the clear success of the venture that the academy has placed its symphony orchestra, chorus, and the RSAMD Big Band at the disposal of the festival… In all, there will be around 35 premieres in the five-day fest, featuring the work of about 24 composers.”

A group of British cellists traveling home from a performance on a nearly empty train this week took advantage of the abundant space by placing their instruments in empty seats. But “they were left astonished after being ordered by a ticket inspector to buy additional tickets” for the cellos. When the musicians refused, the inspector called police.

“What’s the difference between a wannabe diva pretending to be Sheryl Crow in a karaoke bar and someone who simply copies and sells the music without permission? For Tracy Ann Brock, 43, of Burnsville, the answer could be 18 to 24 months in federal prison.” Hers is the “first ever criminal conviction related to infringement of copyrighted karaoke music.”

“This past weekend, the chief executive officer of Alberta energy company Centurion Energy International, who immigrated to Canada with his parents in 1965 after Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalized his father’s bank, gave Calgary Opera the biggest single gift in its 35-year history.” How much, then, did Said Arrata give? Well, the opera’s not saying, but the Calgary Opera Centre is now the Arrata Opera Centre….

Norman Lebrecht laments: “Something goes out of a town when its classical outlets close down: First Sam Goody’s, then Tower Records, then one by one the backstreet stores. Where does a guy have to go these days to get his Hammerklavier fix? … The loss of a place where people go after work to muse upon music, emerging with anything from a baroque obscurity to an armful of Mozart concertos, leaves a hole in city life.”

“Yahoo Inc. is expanding its online music section to include the lyrics of 400,000 songs, hoping to strike a chord with Web surfers looking for a more reliable alternative to Internet sites that publish the words without the permission of the copyright owners. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is touting the free service to be unveiled Tuesday as the Web’s largest legally licensed database of lyrics.”

He dismisses talk of the so-called “death of classical music” as pretty meaningless. “The world is full of people with creative ideas,” says Adams. “We could, to make things simpler, just forget about the term ‘classical.’ That might make things easier. But I still like to use it, because it reminds me that what I do aims at having a very long shelf-life.”

“The taste for classical music in the big cities is genuine and intense, but the enthusiasts and activists that I met were wary of western exploitation and the gifts of foreign governments, chiefly the French and the Russians. There is a grass-roots musical revolution afoot and the Chinese are cautiously inviting foreign aid and advice.”

“In his first interview since the announcement of his appointment to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the world-renowned conductor told The Australian his plans for the orchestra included major tours of Europe and Asia and one of the most extensive recording programs of any orchestra in the world over the next five years.”

“As should hardly need to be said, excluding jazz from consideration as serious American music is indefensible. And this year, as the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer since the prize expanded its criteria, Coleman is an unassailable choice. More than this recent album per se, his seminal role in the birth of free jazz and his decades of restless creativity make him majestically over-qualified in the way that those who break barriers of this nature typically are. Still, his selection prompts a simple yet important question of how to compare music across genres.”