Category: music

Classical musicians are moving into clubs. “Purists may shudder at the thought of string quartets spliced with breakbeats and dance grooves, but none of these young musicians, composers and producers sees classical clubbing as a threat to traditional classical music. If anything, they hope that, by introducing classical sounds to a club-going audience who would never usually set foot inside a concert hall, they may breathe new life into the genre.”

How do you move a large symphony orchestra around Europe? It’s a ballet of trunks and containers. “The payload has its own itinerary, flying from Toronto to Rome to Athens to begin the tour, while the musicians flew through Frankfurt. The cargo has its own seating arrangement, with each case holding multiple instruments stacked like a Tetris game on pallets loaded into the plane. It also has its own strict program — an important customs document called the carnet that is as strictly adhered to as any concert personnel chart.”

“Universal Music Group announced Tuesday that it would license its digital catalog to a website offering free legal downloads. The two-year deal marks a significant shift in an industry long criticized for fighting, rather than harnessing, the Internet’s potential. The new website, backed by New York company SpiralFrog, hopes to make money selling advertisements that play while songs download.”

The new service SpiralFrog is offering with Universal to give away music is a marked change in the traditional music industry business model. “Instead of copying Apple’s iTunes store by charging customers to buy music, SpiralFrog says it will replace the traditional cost of downloading with money made from advertising. Audiences will have to sit through a short advertisement before downloading their track of choice, a tactic used by some other media websites but thought to be a first for music.”

The Boston Symphony has decided to change the work rules for its hall crew. “It is no secret that BSO management has wanted to cut overtime for the non-unionized crew for years. Cost is not the only issue, as the symphony will save no more than $250,000 by making the overtime cuts, according to a symphony official who did not want to be identified because BSO officials prefer not to speak on personnel matters. The move is also about modernizing an old-fashioned way of operating the department, the official said.”

The opera “Batavia”, with music by Richard Mills and libretto by Peter Goldsworthy has had its premiere in Sydney. But Peter McCallum, the Sydney Morning Herald’s critic described the opera as “the vilest thing I have experienced in the theatre … one felt raped by the volume, alienated by the lack of sensitivity or aptness in the musical symbols, and repelled by the unctuous sermonising.”

“The battle for the succession has been fierce in recent years, but the frontrunner is now Wolfgang Wagner’s chosen heir, his 28-year-old daughter Katharina — great-granddaughter of Hitler’s favorite composer. Yet it remains uncertain when or whether she will take over as director of the Bayreuth Festspiele, which closes on Monday night for the season. Her strong-willed father may not give up the post or another might still seize the crown.”

Major recording companies have been fighting sales declines. “But Warner Music’s sales of worldwide recorded music in its most recent quarter rose 15% from a year earlier to $678 million. In the first half of 2006, Warner Music was the only major music company to increase its U.S. market share. That’s a significant accomplishment for a company that, when it went public last year, the stock debut was criticized by at least one high-profile analyst as a dud.”

Who came out to San Francisco Opera’s first opera ever, back in 1923? There were 6000-7000 “opera addicts.” “By taking a poll of the addicts, it was easy to see their ranks included gentle blood and unlicked cubs, gentlemen and gaberlunzies, kitchen mechanics and knights of the kid glove, overlords and underlings, big bugs and plain bugs, rajahs from Russian Hill and garlicked gents from Broadway, the bosses and the bossed, the squirarchy from St. Francis Wood and the waldgraves from Westwood Park, the sahibs from Sea Cliff and the bluebloods from Burlingame, the bobbed-haired brigade from Telegraph Hill and…”

“If being an independent rocker conjures images of a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and easygoing contracts, think again. Whether it’s a major-label contract or one from an independent label, artists can find themselves lost in a legal web when dealing with their music’s availability and royalty payments.”