Category: music

The San Antonio Symphony has decided not to renew music director Larry Rachleff’s contract. “Rachleff lives in Houston, where he teaches at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. He also is music director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and the Chicago Philharmonic. The San Antonio Symphony Players Association issued a statement saying the musicians ‘are deeply disappointed and disturbed’ by the decision.”

“Make no mistake: there is intelligent life in classical blogworld and it is getting smarter. It is also getting read. Classical blogs come in two streams, pro and am. One the pro side are newspaper critics who blog on their employers’ website; on the am, there are buffs and fans and wannabes.”

A new trustee of the Seattle Symphony has already implemented a program designed to raise significant cash: It’s “a $500,000 multiyear challenge grant that will bring donors in direct contact with visiting artists. The program, called the Guest Artists Circle, enables participants to have a one-on-one dinner with a guest artist, appearing during the symphony season, in concert or recital; an opportunity to sit in the middle of the orchestra during a rehearsal with the guest artist, and premium seats for the performance.” Dinner with Yo-Yo Ma, by the way, is still available for a mere $70,000….

Peter Gelb has been sending every possible signal that the Metropolitan Opera is a new place under his leadership — the kind of place where great art intersects with mainstream American life. And now this: “Opera buffs can get a sneak peak at the Met’s upcoming production of Rossini’s ‘Il Barbiere di Siviglia’ (that’s ‘The Barber of Seville’ for all of you barbarians) tomorrow on, of all places, ‘Late Show With David Letterman.’ It will be the first time Letterman, an opera fan, has had an opera production as his musical guest.”

Why does contemporary classical music have such a bad image? “Compare this to the pull of contemporary visual art – the Turner Prize, for example, or the equivalent award for modern fiction, the Man Booker Prize. Both events generate reams of newspaper copy and huge public interest, leading to vast increases in the commercial viability of the prizewinner.”

“So-called perfect pitch is supposedly innate and only achievable at the youngest stages of life. But while it is advantageous for someone to have developed his or her tonal ear as a child, it by no means precludes one from ever learning to hear music in such a way.”

A UK recording exec says CD sales will be half what they are now in three years. “We figure the value of CD sales will be 50% less in three years than it is now. We predict digital growth of 25% per year, but it is not enough to replace the loss from falling CD sales. By 2010 we will be 30% behind in terms of revenues. We have to reinvent.”

Britain’s Radio 3 denies it will be cutting classical music programming. “We’re doing full concerts. We are not going to do excerpts, we’re going to do concerts. The rumours come from a complete misunderstanding of what we do, leave alone what we are going to do.”

Three decades ago, New York’s leading institutions would have nothing to do with Steve Reich. Yet, writes Alex Ross, “Reich changed music, and he also changed how music relates to society. In the face of early incomprehension, he took a do-it-yourself approach to getting his work before the public.”

Getting that record contract with a big label is not so important as it once was. “The do-it-yourself circuit was once a patchwork of live shows and sporadic college-radio exposure, but the Internet has changed that. Now, the most obscure band can put up a page on myspace.com and have its music streamed on any Internet connection, any time.”