Category: music

The Florida Symphony, which is hoping to add a full corporate headquarters to St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater, hit a roadblock this week when the initial construction estimate came in $1 million over what had been budgeted. “Under current plans, the 10,000-square-foot headquarters would be housed in a new wing at the northeast corner of the Mahaffey, which was recently renovated. It is to include offices, a music library and space to store instruments.”

Piano recitals used to be as common as coffee shops in cities around North America. But these days, opportunities for pianists (who often don’t have the diverse career options afforded to other instrumentalists) are dwindling on this side of the Atlantic, and many young soloists are choosing to focus their careers in Europe.

The Colorado Symphony announced plans last week for a $100 million expansion and renovation of its concert hall, a project which will see the venue converted to a single-use facility after years of sharing between the symphony, opera, and ballet. “The project would reconfigure the shape and size of the 28-year-old building and address three main deficiencies highlighted in recent studies: inadequate public spaces, inferior backstage amenities and troubled acoustics.”

The iPod revolution has changed the music industry, but five years after the personal jukebox was debuted, no one has yet figured out how to bring high-quality sound to the portable players. “Listeners demand portability and a la carte song purchases. But at least some also want ‘fidelity,’ to experience a sound that’s true to the full aural expression the artist poured out at the moment of a work’s creation. Technology, artist advocacy, and buyer behavior will determine the degree to which listeners can have both, experts say.”

The new managing director of the Berlin Philharmonic says that she wants to give the atmosphere surrounding the orchestra a new energy, and to broaden the Phil’s target audience. Pamela Rosenberg, who came to Berlin from the San Francisco Opera, says that it isn’t about selling tickets (the Phil sells out most of its concerts, anyway) but about using what many consider to be the greatest orchestra in the world to promote classical music to the wide swath of the public to which it has no meaning.

Glimmerglass Opera, the summer opera festival based in upstate New York, has removed the “interim” tag and officially named Don Marrazo as its new artistic director. Marrazo, who previously served as Glimmerglass’s PR chief, took over on a temporary basis last fall following the departure of Nicholas Russell.

Exactly what was Lorin Maazel thinking when he, apparently out of the blue, publicly nominated Daniel Barenboim to be his successor at the helm of the New York Philharmonic? It’s unlikely that Maazel will have any influence over the search process, and Barenboim was apparently shocked to be mentioned. “He might simply have highlighted the difficulty of finding conductors of the highest stature to lead such U.S. orchestras as those in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit, all of which are looking for new music directors.”

“After more than five years, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will return to the national radio airwaves early next year as part of a comprehensive new media agreement that includes the launch of a new in-house recording label for compact discs and digital downloads, it was announced Thursday… The series will comprise 39 weekly programs, with interviews and special features augmenting the taped performances.”

The Pittsburgh Symphony has announced an $80 million capital campaign, with the bulk of the money to go to its endowment. “The operating reserve would save the Symphony the interest payments it currently makes for a revolving line of credit that is spent and repaid each year.”

Things are looking up at the Milwaukee Symphony, which has struggled in recent years with budget deficits and declining ticket sales. New subscribers for the 2005-06 season rose a whopping 39%, and renewals jumped from 75% to 84%. “Fewer concerts and a big surge in single ticket sales led to several sellouts.” The MSO still ran a $671,000 deficit for the season, but that’s better than had been projected, and keeps the orchestra in line with its three-year plan to eliminate red ink.