Category: music

The Ambitious Orchestra (TAO) is the first and perhaps the only symphonic group in the world devoted exclusively to ‘bringing the virtuosity back to rock and roll’. Churning out original tunes covering the usual (and not-so-usual) hot topics of the genre, the 20-piece classically-trained ensemble – which includes string, wind, horn, and percussion sections – draws a mix of teen groupies, 20-something hipsters and their concerto-loving parents.”

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra is opening its own music station on theinternet. There will be continuous streaming of classical music, enabling listeners to hear its productions round the clock. “Subscribers pay £8.80 a month for unlimited streaming of music to their computers and eight free downloaded tracks. ‘We are using the RSNO site as a way to bring the whole concept of online music to our audiences,’ the orchestra’s chief executive, Simon Woods, said. ‘You can pretty much use it as internet radio’.”

Berlin’s Volksbühne is the city’s most controversial theatre. Now it is producing Wagner with an odd cast. “Cleaners, stagehands and ticket-punchers all appeared on stage last night in the German premiere of Wagner’s three-act comedy The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. Around 45 staff took part in the chorus. Before last night most had sung only the odd Christmas carol. The staff, who could not read music, wore jeans and T-shirts and appeared for free.”

Every three years the Canada Council holds a competition for string players to use rare instruments for three years. “For the second time, Yi-Jia Susanne Hou, a 28-year-old violinist raised in Mississauga, Ont., has won first prize in the violin competition. That gave her first pick of instruments, and for the second time she has chosen a 1729 ex-Heath Guarneri del Gesu violin.”

London’s Barbican Centre has been famously unpopular with critics and concertgoers ever since it opened, thanks to a monolithic concrete structure and legendarily bad acoustics. But in the last decade, the hall’s managing director has made the absolute best of a bad situation, says Norman Lebrecht. “Today, on the eve of the Barbican’s quarter-century and his own final year, [John] Tusa has completed a £34 million pound refit that has remedied the acoustic, simplified the geography and create physical and intellectual cohesion.”

It has long been an article of faith amongst American orchestra musicians that the European orchestra model, under which orchestras are funded primarily by the state, is preferable to the American model, under which most of the money comes from private donors who must be wooed and kept happy. But these days, Europe’s model is in trouble, and it is innovative orchestras with enterprising music directors and creative programming ideas that are raking in the cash.

“The sleek, unmistakable Philadelphia Orchestra logo makes its debut on tiny iPod screens today as the orchestra attempts to expand its audience by transmitting itself in miniature. Starting today, the orchestra will offer recordings of live performances unavailable anywhere else. Downloads… will be a third of the cost of a typical compact disc.”

Lyric Opera of Chicago has a new contract with its orchestra musicians, and like several other ensembles around the country, the new deal takes advantage of new union rules to cut labor costs for recording and online distribution. Lyric officials also hope that the new contract will mean a return to weekly radio broadcasts for the company, which has been off the air since 2002.

“Could it be that the Canadian Opera Company’s opera house-opening production of the 16-hour epic has its own curse — a medical one? A rising casualty count makes it easy to think so.”

The Metropolitan Opera has made a deal with Sirius satellite radio to program a new channel of opera.