Category: music

Pop artists sometimes insert little spoken interludes between track of an album. But does anybody really care about them? ‘Since fans who buy albums on CD still account for most music sales, fans are still buying a lot of interludes. But that may not mean they like them, if digital sales are any indication.”

It’s South Florida’s New World Symphony. “In the increasingly professionalized world of modern orchestras, where merely playing beautifully no longer guarantees musical greatness, ticket sales or successful capital campaigns, New World has set itself a distinctive mission: to mold graduates of elite conservatories and university music programs into the ultimate orchestra players while also trying to field a world-class performing ensemble.”

Ricardo Chailly surprised everyone when he quit the highly regarded Concertbegouw Orchestra to lead Leipzig’s Gewandhaus. Chailly is clearly happy in Leipzig, but might he be enticed to take over the vacnt directorship of the Chicago Symphony?

Why is the Chicago Symphony taking so much time to find a new music directoor? “The orchestra has taken on the much broader role of asking what a music director needs to be in the 21st century — a time of unforeseen technological advances, shifting musical tastes, tremendous choices in how people spend their leisure time and extra dollars, and a widespread abandonment of music education in the schools. On top of these philosophical questions, the committee is well aware that the availability of top-flight candidates is in itself subject to almost chance variables.”

Is it possible – the Baltimore Symphony has never performed anything by Philip Glass, A Baltimore native who’s now 70? Finally this week the orchestra takes the risk. “The neglect doesn’t seem to have bothered the composer. ‘Baltimore’ – he pronounces it, local style, without the ‘t’ – ‘wasn’t the kind of town that had a lot of new music. I didn’t take it personally,’ he says.”

About 120 composers have identified themselves as composers in the city and the city’s new music scene is growing. The Atlanta Score Study Group formed a year ago. Already, with monthly meetings and the occasional concert…

“By the time she died in June 2006, Joyce Hatto was not only a sudden widespread success, she was a cause célèbre. To love Hatto recordings was to be in the know, a true piano aficionado who didn’t need the hype of a major label’s marketing spend to recognise a good, a great, thing when they heard it. But at the same time as the cult of Hatto was burgeoning, there were persistent rumours on the internet as to the true origins of the recordings.”

Many of Joyce Hatto’s recordings were copied from other pianists’ discs. “As it happens, questions about the authenticity of Ms. Hatto’s recordings had for some time been aired in Web chat by music lovers who asked how it was possible for an aged and ailing woman to record so much. They also pointed out that most of Ms. Hatto’s more than 100 CDs were issued over the last 10 years and a number since her death.”

The Chicago Symphony played back-to-back concerts in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. “The Monday night program at the auditorium-like Broward Center for the Performing Arts was certainly an enjoyable evening, with a range of sound and contrasts in volume and tone audible at least from the first balcony. Tuesday night, however, it was as if the switch had been flipped from mono to stereo, starting with the way you could almost hear the silence that surrounded each work and movement.”

Berlin’s Komische Oper has announced that when Kirill Petrenko’s contract expires at the end of this season, Carl St. Clair will succeed him. For 17 seasons St. Clair has headed California’s Pacific Symphony, including a noteworthy European tour.