Category: music

Frequent Bush Administration protestations to the contrary, things have been getting worse in Baghdad for some time, and many of the niceties of everyday life (electricity, safety, clean water) have become unimaginable luxuries for the city’s residents. And yet, somehow, the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, which became a symbol of the country’s resilience in the aftermath of the American invasion, has continued to play. “But orchestra members are finding that while art can sometimes provide a brief respite from grim reality, it cannot stand forever as a bulwark against the maelstrom of conflict.”

The Philadelphia Orchestra has balanced its budget for the second season in a row, and its ambitious $125 million endowment drive is more than 80% complete. The hall is full, and a new five-year plan promises to expand the orchestra’s community ties and promote ethnic diversity. Now if only something could be done about that lagging summer season…

How can a young, unknown composer catch the attention of a major soloist, a conductor, and critics around the world, and get a new work premiered seemingly out of nowhere? Apparently, it helps to get the soloist drunk while ferrying her around Manhattan. (Oh, and the piece should be really good, too.)

Classical music fans are apparently more than ready to join the digital revolution, with 57% having already converted some of their collection to digital format, according to a new UK study. “One in five download classical music legally from the internet – though there are no figures for how many illegally download – and the same number prefer listening on their MP3 player or iPod.”

Has Simon Rattle been good or bad for the Berlin Philharmonic? Is the world’s greatest orchestra (arguably) declining under his leadership, or is the problem that Germans “want something fresh and new, but once they get it, they’d rather revert back to the evergreens? … The fight over Rattle is really a fight between tradition and the new, many say.”

Houston Grand Opera has extended the contract of its music director, Patrick Summers, by five years, insuring that he will remain with the company through 2014. Summers made Opera News‘s list of the 25 most powerful people in U.S. opera this year, his eighth with the company.

Deutsche Oper’s decision to cancel a revival of a 2003 production of Mozart’s Idomeneo for fear that a scene depicting Mohammed would inflame Muslims is proving to be front page news in Germany. “Everywhere the charge Kniefall vor Terroristen – kneeling before terrorists – has cropped up,” and Deutsche Oper director Kirstin Harms has come in for some vicious criticism.

Classical music organizations have been looking for ways to broaden their audience for years, but opera companies have frequently been the most reluctant to introduce anything that might offend their notoriously tradition-bound audiences. So this definitely qualifies as news: Pittsburgh Opera has unveiled the Opera Lady, an expert in the form who makes herself available to audiences both at performances and over the internet, answering questions, explaining operatic oddities, and generally trying to make the whole experience more fun.

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned against ‘self-censorship out of fear’ on Wednesday, after a Berlin opera house cancelled a production of Mozart’s Idomeneo over security concerns.”

Roger Kimball is sure that Deutsche Oper’s “Idomeneo” is terrible. But it shouldn’t be banned for political reasons. “Today it was Mozart. Tomorrow perhaps it will be Shakespeare. Or Dante, who after all has a pretty hot place reserved for Muhammad in ‘The Divine Comedy.’ It is not – not yet – too late to put a stop to our habit of appeasing a murderous fanaticism that demands privileges and indulgences it refuses to grant to others.”