Category: music

James Conlon’s contract as music director of the Ravinia Festival has been extended through 2011. “Conlon is scheduled to complete his multi-year Mahler symphony cycle with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia in 2011, the centennial of the composer’s death. His other ongoing projects at the festival include a complete Mozart piano concerto cycle and Breaking the Silence, a multi-year series of concerts dedicated to reviving music silenced by the Nazi regime.”

Julian Lloyd Webber warns that, if current trends continue in the UK, classical music will be driven out of schools and eventually abandoned altogether. “Already 2007 has convinced me that all of us who love and play classical music are far too nice and polite. For the art that we cherish is under attack, and unless we stand up to be counted it will shortly disappear.”

“An anonymous patron in Australia has purchased a rare 1743 violin by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù for long-term loan to the Australian Chamber Orchestra… The unnamed benefactor offered Tognetti a choice between the Carrodus and a 1733 Stradivarius.”

The Hungarian Symphony is on tour in Florida. But after a concert over the weekend, “conductor András Ligeti raised his hands to silence the applause and said that due to a loss of funding, the 100-year-old Budapest-based orchestra would be folding. He thanked the audience for their attention, asked them to retain the memory of this fine orchestra, then turned and led the ensemble in a final encore, the famous Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5.” Well, maybe not ‘folding’, but…

For damaging computers with its draconian anti-piracy software scheme last year. “The FTC said the software ‘exposed consumers to significant security risks and was unreasonably difficult to uninstall’. Under the settlement, Sony BMG must allow consumers to exchange affected CDs bought before 31 December 2006, and reimburse them up to $150 (£76) to repair damage to their computers.”

“In a bold move against iTunes’ Digital Rights Management, called Fairplay, the Norwegian Consumer Council has deemed it illegal in Norway, with France and Germany possibly following suit.”

“Jazz at Lincoln Center faces a major challenge as it turns 20 this year: how to lure deep-pocketed donors who don’t embrace an art rooted in the blues and folk music of African-American slaves. … Jazz, born in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century, hasn’t had a philanthropic base, jazz historians say.”

As the 70-year-old Israel Philharmonic Orchestra “prepares for a short American tour that begins on Tuesday at Carnegie Hall, the orchestra shows some of the same ills as traditional orchestras everywhere and special problems that stem from the special nature of Israel.”

“Is it possible that, in some way that has not yet been measured, jazz is richer than the data implies? More and more albums are self-produced, sold on the Internet or slip under the radar when they are sold in person at concerts and festivals. Then again, the same can be said about rock records.”

Juilliard is more than two-thirds of the way toward raising $300 million to expand. “The 101-year-old school wants to complete its largest fund- raising drive by the end of 2009, Juilliard President Joseph Polisi said in an interview. The money, in gifts and pledges, will endow educational programs and fund expansion of the school’s 39-year-old Lincoln Center building.”