Category: music

Carnegie Hall is, of course, one of the world’s great concert halls, just so long as you’re talking about symphonic music. But throw the best jazz band in the world on the Carnegie main stage, and you’ve got a major acoustical problem on your hands. The problem has to do with electronics – halls built to showcase the raw sound of an orchestra just aren’t built to deal with the high-octane amplification systems used by jazz and pop musicians. The problem can be overcome without too much trouble if the guy running the sound board knows how to do it, but a large percentage of board operators just aren’t used to working in such an environment.

It’s easy to pooh-pooh conservative summer orchestra concerts. But “what is it about these neighborhood concerts that makes them work so well? They come at a time when even the orchestra management is saying that supply outstrips demand for subscription concerts – you know, the ones whose ticket prices have escalated at three times the rate of inflation. Maybe the fact that the neighborhood concerts are free has something to do with it. But for these audiences, the act of the orchestra coming to them gratis eases more than just logistical and financial hurdles. The trek becomes a social gesture in which an important civic institution takes a little of its glamour and prestige to declare that a section of the city or suburbs matters.”

Montreal newspaper Le Devoir reports that the Montreal Symphony will finally get a new concert hall. “The MSO has been performing at the downtown Place des Arts complex, and efforts to move it into its own home have been underway since 1980. The new hall will be built on the Place des Arts site and is expected to have better acoustics and opportunities for the orchestra to expand its audience, with a seating capacity of between 1,800 to 2,200, the report says.”

Norway’s musicians’ union has called off a month-old strike that could have crippled the nation’s many state-supported symphony orchestras, after musicians accepted a draft settlement proposed by a mediator. “The strike began in Bergen in late May, disrupting the opening of the west coast city’s annual music festival. It later spread to the national Opera and the Oslo Philharmonic, which was forced to cancel its Asian tour. The musicians were protesting annual salaries that average NOK 350,000 ($58,300) and the fact that they have to pay for their own instruments and their own gala clothing that’s worn during performances.”

It was a good season – some concert highlights, some new players, some changes in management…

There’s no longer any doubt that the Metropolitan Opera will undergo a dramatic shift when Peter Gelb takes over this fall, and with all due respect to Joseph Volpe, Rupert Christian says it’s time for a change. “Artistically, [Volpe] has presided over a regime that has been cautious and conservative, excessively in thrall to the tastes of its elderly subscribers and sponsors. Despite its superb orchestra and roster of stars, the Met hasn’t had much luck with its half-hearted attempts to employ the more radical generation of directors, and its need to churn out seven shows a week often makes it seem more like a factory delivering the goods than a hub of creativity.”

“Keith Lockhart, conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra and music director of the Utah Symphony, has been named artistic advisor of Brevard Music Center [North Carolina] effective Oct. 1, 2007.”

The perenially strapped Honolulu Symphony has named a new executive director to replace Stephen Bloom, who resigned a year ago. Tom Gulick, a marketing expert who most recently served as director of Ballet Pacifica in suburban Los Angeles, “will have to immediately address lingering symphony concerns that include negotiating musician, management and staff pay raises — their first since taking a 20 percent pay cut and reduction in benefits in 2003 — and helping the orchestra’s search for a replacement for long-departed music director/ maestro Samuel Wong.”

“In a coup, the Morgan has lured away the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble from Zankel Hall by offering a bargain-basement price. The prestigious Boston Early Music Festival will present three concerts, a shot in the arm for New York’s relatively modest early-music scene. Glimmerglass Opera will bring previews of its offerings for next summer. And the library hopes to play host to a small contingent from the Vienna Philharmonic.”

When the UK’s Cheltenham Festival appointed conductor Martyn Brabbins to be its new director last year, all involved knew they were taking a chance. “Conductors lead busy, peripatetic lives; they are far from obvious candidates to run music festivals… A year on, the appointment seems an inspired choice. Not only had Brabbins made his home in Gloucestershire, but he had the reputation of being a conductor with an unusually wide range of musical sympathies.”