Category: music

“In San Jose, instead of hiring a big-name, resident conductor to build a brand — think Michael Tilson Thomas at the San Francisco Symphony — Symphony Silicon Valley employs guest conductors only. The players have a new musical boss for every program — at least seven new conductors at the podium each season. From a musician’s seat, not to mention a concertgoer’s, there is plenty of peril in the arrangement. … But in San Jose, it turns out, it’s working just fine, so far.”

“You have likely never heard of Tommy Johnson, but it turns out that Johnson was, and still is, according to everyone who would know, ‘the most heard tubist on the planet.’ A first-chair studio musician in Hollywood for 50 years, Johnson played on thousands of recordings”; his was the breath behind those ominous shark-attack notes in “Jaws.” After Johnson’s death in October, a memorial concert was in order, and so on Sunday in Los Angeles, 99 tubists took the stage. “They came to honor their fallen tuba king.”

The Paris Opera has named Nicolas Joël as its new General director, succeeding the controversial Gerard Mortier. “By contrast Joël, highly regarded for his oversight of the Toulouse opera, orchestra and ballet since 1990, is known for his elegant and conventional designs and choice of directors. He has staged five of his company’s nine productions this season and has not staged one at the Paris Opéra in recent memory.”

“Too many orchestras, intent on recruiting absolutely the best players (however such a subjective thing may be measured), have tended to undervalue a musician’s skills at outreach. With a new program announced on Tuesday, Clive Gillinson, the executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, and Joseph W. Polisi, the president of the Juilliard School, will try to alter that thinking.”

To the great relief of many, Antonio Pappano has re-upped as music director of Covent Garden. “With New York’s Metropolitan Opera allegedly grooming him for succession on the event of James Levine’s retirement, the rumour mill went into overdrive when Pappano’s contract came up for renewal. The consensus was that, stung by the constant criticism of his choice of directors and weary of being ‘dismissed in one sentence’ in reviews of Götterdämmerung, he would not be staying.”

With each passing year, the hand-wringing over the downturn in record sales becomes a little more desperate. But one genre continues to experience steady growth: gospel and Christian music.

“Vladimir Jurowski is one of the youngest and most successful maestros around: he’s been in charge of the opera house at Glyndebourne since 2001; next summer he takes up the reins of the London Philharmonic Orchestra as its principal conductor; and he’s principal guest conductor of the Russian National Orchestra. All this and he’s only 34.”

Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is five years old and still short on funds. The problem is that, while no expense was spared to build the center, organizers failed to see the need for a major endowment to keep it solvent. “The Kimmel and the Philadelphia Orchestra previously flirted with the idea of a merger, and have already combined some operations. A second study by Deloitte & Touche will look at various possible business models… The Kimmel would like to reach an endowment of $70 million and eliminate its $30 million debt, or have $100 million in endowment if retaining the debt.”

The Minnesota Orchestra finished the 2005-06 season nearly $600,000 in the red, but that deficit is less than half of last year’s number, and keeps the organization on track for a planned return to balance next year. “Despite the deficit, the orchestra and its board reported a year of considerable achievement. Highlights included a critically successful tour of European festivals in August, the release of two Beethoven symphonies on CDs that earned rave reviews in both the U.S. and England, and a 5-percent increase over last year in ticket sales.”