Category: music

“Conductor Michael Stern will miss the opening concerts of his second season as the Kansas City Symphony’s music director. The orchestra announced yesterday afternoon that Stern has withdrawn from this weekend’s performances due to the expected birth of his first child… Filling in for Stern will be David Robertson, the widely-admired American conductor who begins his own second season at the helm of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra September 23-24.”

Lost amid all the armchair quarterbacking of Katie Couric’s debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News is the fact that a new orchestral theme for the program also made its debut this week. Such a detail may seem unimportant on its face, but “viewers have come to rely on music to explain what it is they are feeling — something CBS, like all contemporary broadcasters, is well aware of.”

The Metropolitan Opera’s wide-ranging new deal with its unions (the flashiest aspect of which will see the company simulcasting six performances in digitally equipped movie theaters across the country) will also allow for “the possibility of digital downloads, video-on-demand, digital radio, ring tones, CDs, DVDs and instant CDs available after certain performances. One hundred additional live performances will be broadcast either over the Internet or on digital radio, with another 1,500 broadcasts from the past 75 years — the Met’s entire recorded history — to be made available soon through an audio-on-demand service.”

Two months ago, Paul Meecham abuptly resigned as CEO of the Seattle Symphony amid a firestorm of controversy concerning the orchestra’s music director, Gerard Schwarz. He wasn’t out of work long: this week, the Baltimore Symphony tapped him to be their next top executive. The BSO has had a few controversies of his own over the past couple of seasons, and the hope is that Meecham can bring badly needed stability to an organization that has seen little of it recently.

Kent Nagano has taken his first bows as music director of the long-beleagured Montreal Symphony, and Arthur Kaptainis says that there’s no question that the new boss has brought some big new ideas with him. “Textures were clear and rhythms distinct. It was as if we were reading the score with our ears.” But the most striking aspect of Nagano’s musical style may just be how seldom you notice him. “His podium style is so fluid and so naturally integrated with the sounds he creates that he seems less a conductor than a vessel for the music.”

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra and its musicians have agreed to extend their current contract by a year, effectively giving the organization a 12-month wage freeze, and allowing both sides plenty of time to negotiate a new deal. DSO musicians agreed to hefty pay cuts in 2002 as part of a plan to revitalize the orchestra’s fiscal picture, but that contract came backloaded with large pay increases this past season.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra and its musicians have agreed to extend their current contract by a year, effectively giving the organization a 12-month wage freeze, and allowing both sides plenty of time to negotiate a new deal. DSO musicians agreed to hefty pay cuts in 2002 as part of a plan to revitalize the orchestra’s fiscal picture, but that contract came backloaded with large pay increases this past season.

Robert Shafer, who has led the Washington Chorus since 1971, is stepping down as music director. “I had requested a sabbatical. And then I was called in at the end of July and told that the sabbatical had been granted, but that they had also decided to begin searching for a new music director.”

Robert Shafer, who has led the Washington Chorus since 1971, is stepping down as music director. “I had requested a sabbatical. And then I was called in at the end of July and told that the sabbatical had been granted, but that they had also decided to begin searching for a new music director.”

“If approved by the EU competition authorities, the deal would make Universal, already the world’s largest record company, the industry’s biggest music publisher as well, ahead of EMI and Warner Music.”