Category: music

The Pacific Symphony opened in its new concert hall last week. But why wasn’t the concert streamed on the web? Demanding web fans wanted to know…

Christoph Eschenbach has come in for no small amount of criticism since taking the reins of the Philadelphia Orchestra. But David Patrick Stearns says that there’s no question that the maestro has earned an extension of his tenure. “He has made Philadelphia an island of European musical life in the best possible way… On good nights, Eschenbach isn’t just exciting – he goes to the heart of every phrase with a conviction and specificity that few others match.”

Peter Dobrin respects Eschenbach’s musical skills, but says that the partnership with a notoriously difficult orchestra in Philadelphia just isn’t working out. “Eschenbach may have done wonders for the orchestra’s endowment, but he’s not creating a new sound for the ensemble, or even successfully layering his erratic interpretive thoughts on the orchestra’s vaunted plushness. No, what counts as success these days is Eschenbach and the orchestra reaching the last measure of a piece without getting lost along the way.”

Nashville is celebrating the opening of a new concert hall. Meanwhile, Richmond, Virginia is mired in failed attempts to build itself a new hall. How come the different results?

Now that Toronto finally has a proper opera house, William Littler says that it’s about time the city’s opera company expanded its repertoire to include American works. “Although Canada’s largest opera company already boasts the country’s broadest operatic repertoire, one important part of the literature remains almost completely ignored — that emanating from south of the border.”

“This month, [Paris’s] Salle Pleyel reopened after its most radical renovation to date, a $36 million makeover that involved gutting and redesigning its main auditorium. And along with the infamous echo, all traces of its past, except for its finely restored Art Deco foyer, have vanished. Put simply, 79 years after its inauguration, the Salle Pleyel is once again a new concert hall.”

New York’s Metropolitan Opera has a well-earned reputation as a tradition-bound, buttoned-up organization. So for the Met to throw open its doors to allow the public to spend an afternoon behind the scenes qualifies as legitimate news. “The event was part of a carefully calibrated buildup of publicity set in motion by Peter Gelb, the new general manager, in the days leading up to Monday’s opening night.”

For most orchestras, finding staff conductors who can both conduct at a high level and successfully engage a wide range of audiences, from children to the elderly, is a nearly impossible task. But the San Antonio Symphony thinks it has found one. “[David] Cho has made fans for his engaging, often boyish, interplay with audiences. He donned a red clown nose for a show last year, and often jokes with the crowd about his work and the music. It’s like VH1’s ‘Pop-Up Video’ for classical music. And Cho’s work with community and children’s groups has brought in new audiences.”

Sunday night, the musicians of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra will vote on a contract offer mere hours before their first scheduled rehearsal of the season, and no one seems to know what the outcome will be. “The current negotiations echo a last-minute crisis in 1998. That year, the musicians began a strike on the first day of rehearsal – four days before the first scheduled concert.”

Out of the mess that is the music industry’s battle against online piracy have emerged two basic legitimate business models for downloading music: the per-song or per-album charge, and the rent-a-music-library-by-the-month system. So which is better, and how do you get the best value for your music dollar? The answer may be surprising. “With a few well-placed strategies, you can leverage the subscription model to make your days and nights more musical — at home, at the office, or on the road.”