Category: music

As the economics of publishing contemporary music have become tougher, more and more top composers are self-publishing. “The long-term viability of both self-published composers and publishers might be questioned from both sides of the fence. But in any event, the extraordinary advances in technology that have facilitated the trend towards self-publishing can only be a good thing.”

“In an ideal musical culture there would be no need for the American Composers Orchestra. Classical music programs in the United States would not be dominated, as they mostly are, by the works of dead European males.” But the ACO is turning 30 this week, and though new music is doing better in mainstream concert halls than it was when the orchestra was founded, Anthony Tommasini says that its mission remains critical.

A Canadian choir is updating Handel’s oratorio, Samson, in an effort to make it more relevant to modern audiences. But the new context may not be for everyone – the setting will be 1946 Jerusalem, and Samson, who pulled down the pillars of a Philistine temple, killing himself and everyone else inside, will be depicted as a suicide bomber.

So many requiems for the CD. Except the CD is still viable. “What we are witnessing is not so much the imminent death of CDs, but the death of the old methods of selling CDs. It’s still possible to make money in the CD business–any business with more than $7 billion in retail sales should allow someone, somewhere, to make a profit. The incumbents are getting killed, but upstarts are thriving, using different methods.”

Tickets for UK music festivals have been selling out in minutes after going on sale. “Festival-going has been growing sharply in recent years, but this year, say music industry insiders, the demand for tickets and new events is unprecedented. It is estimated that as many as 450 festivals, large and small, will be taking place around the country this summer.”

“The regime of Paul Kellogg, controversial general-director since 1996, lumbers to a somnolent close in June. His successor, who officially takes over in 2009, is none less than Gérard Mortier, the controversial iconoclast who has inspired blood, sweat and tears – also bravos – in Salzburg and Paris. Conservative New Yorkers may regard the Belgian impresario as a dangerous enfant terrible. Others may hail him as a deus ex machina.”

Even in the digital downloading world, “tape traders, self-described obsessive fans who record and trade copies of live performances from their favorite musicians, have operated since the late ’60s.”

To celebrate the cellist’s 80th birthday, EMI is releasing its entire cache of Rostropovich recordings on iTunes. “In addition to over 500 individual tracks, EMI is offering a discounted 80-track ‘Special Edition Bundle,’ a compilation that offers a musical snapshot of Rostropovich’s career. Fifty of the tracks are iTunes exclusives, taken from the 11 unavailable and unreleased albums.”

“The huge popularity of classical music in the Far East, and particularly in China, has created a talent pool a billion deep, from which a disarmingly varied group of musicians is emerging. The irony inherent in the old stereotype is that those fleet-fingered, impersonal performers (yes, there were some) replicated the values of a Western conservatory system that has long emphasized sheer technique at the expense of all else. The music world was, in effect, scapegoating Asians for its own defects.”