Category: music

A private Italian orchestra dedicated to the ideals of Arturo Toscanini suggests a new model for orchestras. A “distinguishing aspect of the group is that unlike other Italian and European orchestras, whose members remain secure essentially for life, Symphonica Toscanini draws on a roster of 200 freelance musicians, which keeps them on their toes and dedicated to the job.”

“The NEA Awards have become jazz’s lifetime achievement awards, its equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize, and fill a muchneeded niche between posthumous honors — like the immortalizing of legend on a postage stamp — and the Grammies, which reward what’s hot right now rather than a long-term achievement.”

It’s the new way to hear new music you might be interested in. “Despite all the possible hitches of these new services, they remain a far more efficient (and enjoyable) way of expanding your taste than the old fashioned methods of enduring the whims of radio playlisting, noting what somebody who bought the same item as you on Amazon also bought (usually a Dan Brown book) or trawling music papers looking for positive reviews.”

“What is crucially missing at the Met, as in most opera houses around the world, is flexibility: a sensible small theatre where new work, together with old work designed for small houses, can be presented without the expenditure of millions of dollars.”

Music giant EMI dismissed two senior execs after disappointing holiday sales. “We have now had seven consecutive years of decline in the recorded music market. EMI shares, boosted throughout 2006 by regular takeover speculation, fell over 10 percent in early trading

Prized string instruments are so expensive that musicians are priced out of the market. An answer? Put together a consortium of investors. “In a market in which a top-class instrument will easily hit the price of Walton’s Guarneri, the basic premise of a syndicate isn’t new.”

“Music is just, well, too long. It takes too much time. And that time has to be focused and continuous. You can walk by a hundred paintings as fast as the crowds allow you to. You can read a book anywhere you want, put it down whenever you want, and pick it up again without losing the thread.”

“The Metropolitan Opera has to be discouraged by the mostly negative critical reactions to The First Emperor, Tan Dun’s ambitious opera, which had its world premiere at the house on Dec. 21.” But the very fact that the Met is embracing newly commissioned work at all, and the further fact that the entire run of Tan’s opera is sold out, shows that old notions of opera lovers’ conservative nature are overblown, says Anthony Tommasini.

For all too many symphony orchestras, forays into contemporary music are short-lived and occasional, reflecting programmers’ fears that the public just won’t buy into anything more daring than Mahler. But in Los Angeles, the L.A. Philharmonic’s “Green Umbrella” new music series is turning 20 and going strong.

This month, the Cleveland Orchestra will head to Miami for a two-week residency that the ensemble will repeat every season for the next decade. While in Florida, the musicians will work with young musicians at the New World Symphony and the University of Miami and work to build lasting ties with the city itself (which has had no professional orchestra of its own since the Florida Philharmonic was shut down by its board several years ago,) all while performing a full schedule of concerts.