Category: music

The oldest music in Europe is being revived up in the Arctic circle. It is the “song of the Sami, the aboriginal people of arctic Scandinavia – and the oldest extant music tradition in Europe, dating back more than 2,000 years. The yoik has been alternately banned and suppressed for centuries. It is a sound now being revived by a group called Adjagas, itself a Sami word that denotes the mental state between sleeping and waking.”

“What does jazz mean in today’s America? While the scene may be vivid and exciting, it’s an artificial construct, sadly untethered to any specific time and place or anything actually going on in American society.”

A “police raid of the Aphilliates Music Group office in Atlanta that resulted in the arrest of DJ Drama and the confiscation of 81,000 mixtape CDs has ignited a firestorm in the hip-hop music industry.”

“The news last week that Leon Major will step down as artistic director of Opera Cleveland after the 2007 inaugural season sends what might be construed as distress signals. The new company, which merges Cleveland Opera and Lyric Opera Cleveland, has yet to raise a single curtain – its debut production is Richard Strauss’ Salome in April – and already we’re witness to a series of backstage minidramas. Are we really surprised?”

With Christoph Eschenbach preparing to depart the Philadelphia Orchestra in mid-2008, speculation is rife over who the orchestra will pick to replace him. “No name is likely to garner more speculation next season than Vladimir Jurowski,” but the most likely scenario is that the orchestra won’t have a new leader in place when its current one leaves.

Orchestras around the U.S. have been introducing new “hybrid” concert series in which the atmosphere is casual, the start time is early, and musicians and conductors spend part of the evening talking in a friendly manner about the music they’re about to play. “And for these concerts, orchestra members are encouraged to stick around afterward to meet and talk with the audience.”

Several European orchestras have abandoned American tours in recent years, after the U.S. government introduced aggressive screening and work visa procedures that made the movement of a large group of musicians expensive and logistically unfeasible. But the BBC Wales Orchestra is headed for American shores this week after agreeing to participate in a trial program that expedites the visa process with digital fingerprinting technology.

Kent Nagano has been a bona fide star conductor for a couple of decades now. And yet, even as his conducting gigs have grown in stature, Nagano has remained faithful to the Berkeley Symphony, the tiny California ensemble that gave him his start in the business. Now, after 31 years, he has finally announced that he will step down from the Berkeley podium.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s new annual residency in Miami kicked off this week, and the orchestra’s musicians have apparently thrown themselves into the educational aspect of the trip. “They’re performing educational and family programs, playing side-by-side rehearsals with the New World Symphony and – in an endeavor they’ve yet to undertake in Cleveland – reading new works by student composers.”

“Company General Manager Plácido Domingo said that the pavilion, the opera’s home, will be closed for a year for renovations. Music Center President Stephen Rountree said by phone that the renovation will happen no sooner than 2011 and will cost more than $100 million, which has yet to be raised. The pavilion will retain its historic 1960s look, but the interior will be ‘freshened up,’ and the acoustics and backstage facilities will be updated.”