Category: music

Norway is in the grip of a nationwide flu epidemic, and this week, one of the country’s orchestras actually had to cancel a concert because of it. It’s not that the Trondheim Symphony was afraid of catching the bug from the audience – 30 of the ensemble’s 78 musicians were too sick to come to work themselves.

Symphony Silicon Valley, which rose from the ashes of the bankrupt San Jose Symphony five years ago, has announced the second expansion of its schedule in as many seasons. “Bouncing off a $118,000 operating surplus last year, the orchestra has announced that its 2007-08 season will be larger than any of its first five, with eight programs stretching over 20 concerts.”

The president of the St. Louis Symphony has announced that he will step down at the end of the current season. In his time with the SLSO, Randy Adams has been credited with turning around the orchestra’s financial fortunes, but he also presided over a long musicians’ strike in 2005. “Adams said he decided to leave now because he wants his successor in place before the orchestra deals with a number of tough challenges.”

“The festival said on Tuesday that Osvaldo Golijov would be its first composer in residence, although he will not be writing much music for it. Instead, Mr. Golijov, one of the most sought-after composers around, will be something of a programming guru for the 2007 version of the summer festival.”

About 60,000 people a year attend the annual concerts at London’s Kenwood House, which have featured classical music and performances from pop artists. But neighbors complained about the noise, and Englis Heritage decided to cancel.

“Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore, Placido Domingo and director David Cronenberg are forming an unlikely trio to create an unlikely opera — The Fly.”

David Patrick Stearns ponders the puzzling musical-recording plagiarism case of the late British pianist Joyce Hatto. “Ultimately, one asks not just how this happened, but why. There’s no mercantile motivation: Self-published and available mostly through British Web sites … the recordings can’t have sold more than a thousand copies of each title. The amount of money involved is hardly worth a trip to small claims court.”

“The revival of Halevy’s ‘La Juive’ at the Paris Opera, after an absence of 73 years, started with a bewildering opening night. The stage was shrouded in various degrees of darkness. At the end, director Pierre Audi and his team didn’t appear at the curtain calls. This was not an artistic choice. … We were witnessing a strike of the lighting technicians.”

The company is tgrying to avoid a takeover. “Shares in EMI, home to acts such as Norah Jones, Robbie Williams and Coldplay, plunged last week after the company admitted that sales in the US had been disappointing. Retailers have also been returning more unwanted CDs than the company had expected.”

It’s lack of money, of course. The organization might have to reduce its schedule next season. Director Eve Queler said “the board was trying to cover a gap of about $250,000 on a budget of $1.4 million. ” ‘Our ticket sales have slipped. I am very, very concerned about this.’ Ms. Queler said her audience was aging, with younger potential operagoers more captivated by visual and dramatic elements, things that are hard to come by in her unstaged versions.”