Category: music

“The so-called rules about applauding at classical music concerts appear to be relaxing. Even in the bastions of classical music — New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s BBC Proms at Albert Hall, the Metropolitan Opera and more — you are likely to hear premature clapping. It appears the experience of an orchestra concert, opera or recital is becoming less restrictive — and that deserves a round of applause.”

“The album as a format is dead. It is so, so dead that its obituary has been written approximately 981 times in the past five years (that’s how many times the phrase ‘death of the album’ came up when I put the phrase into a Google search). How can the rock album survive? Look to these approaches.

The musicians of the Colorado Symphony have ratified a new 3-year contract, and all sides seem quite pleased with the deal. The contract “calls for pay increases of 6 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent respectively during the three-year period.” It’s Colorado’s first multi-year contract since 2003.

New England Conservatory has named Minnesota Orchestra CEO Tony Woodcock as the school’s new president. Woodcock was credited with reducing deficits in Minneapolis, but leaves after less than four years on the job, with the orchestra musicians’ contract scheduled to expire in the fall. Woodcock says that his top priority at Boston-based NEC will be increased fundraising.

Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra is launching a unique “orchestral academy” program for student musicians hoping to make a career in the orchestra world. “The Institute will see four Canadian students and one American sitting side by side with NACO musicians, who will act as mentors to the students, offering feedback and advice. The students will also have individual coaching sessions, orchestral repertoire study sessions and chamber music coaching with NAC musicians.”

The Pittsburgh Symphony, without a recording contract for the past decade, has signed a deal with PentaTone to record all four Brahms symphonies later this year. The deal was done under the new national agreement allowing orchestras to make live concert recordings without large upfront payments to the musicians.

The members of the Vermeer Quartet have decided to disband after nearly forty years as an ensemble. The group “was founded in 1969 at the Marlboro Festival and has since appeared at virtually all the prestigious music venues and music festivals. Its discography includes the complete quartets of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bartok and additional works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Verdi, Shostakovich, Haydn, Schnittke, and Brahms.”

’80s rock legends The Police are getting back together to perform at the Grammy Awards, and no one is more excited than the record companies that own their music. “The music industry is usually obsessed with looking for the next new thing, but this year it is throwing its weight behind the next old thing. In an increasingly fragmented market, executives are turning to the tried and trusted to bolster sales, with so many bands announcing reformations that the music scene in 2007 is starting to look a lot like it did 20 years ago.”

“Musicians of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra have agreed to a one-year extension of their contract, although with an asterisk: They’ll get a small raise, but generally sit tight while the board of the cash-strapped symphony tries to raise money.”

A faulty sprinkler system sent water shooting into a recital hall at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts late Tuesday night, forcing the center to cancel several performances. It was not the first time that the high-volume sprinklers caused trouble – the Philadelphia Orchestra was deluged while rehearsing in the center’s main hall in 2002.