Category: music

“Three years ago it seemed that classical music producers did not care about digital downloading. Well, that impression was wrong. Classical music, as many have noted recently, is doing very well on the Internet: a bigger proportion of sales on iTunes than in conventional retail stores. The classical establishment is now moving with uncharacteristic speed to get onto this bandwagon.”

The producers of the new Da Vinci Code movie are suing Sony for putting out a CD of music “inspired” by Leonardo Da Vinci. “Universal has alleged that Sony is using imagery connected to the book and film to deceive buyers. Sony insists it has simply seized a marketing opportunity. It said Universal’s rights were limited to the film’s official soundtrack and do not extend to associated promotional material or general religious themes and imagery explored in the book.”

The musicians of the Charleston Symphony have a new one-year contract, and will see their salaries return to 2003 levels, when the orchestra accepted a 17% cut to prevent the orchestra from going bankrupt. “Under the proposed contract, an average section player would earn $20,903 and average principal player would earn $26,128 in the 2006-07 season, Girault said. The 46 core CSO musicians perform more than 100 concerts from mid-September to mid-June.”

As Joseph Volpe prepares to step down from the helm of the Metropolitan Opera, a glance at this weekend’s gala celebration of his tenure can tell a lot about the state of modern opera. “It’s interesting that Mr. Volpe’s gala, celebrating a nearly 16-year reign that is being bruited as one of the Met’s most illustrious, is focused so firmly on the present… Career development is not a high priority in today’s opera world. What is a priority is finding the latest stars and getting them up in front of the public, in as many places as possible, and in as many attractive roles as possible, regardless of how well suited they happen to be to a particular role.”

Earlier this month, Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz received a three-year contract extension, which will carry him through his 26th season with the orchestra. But when you talk to people inside the organization, it sounds as if the reasons for keeping Schwarz at the helm have very little to do with music. He has been sued by his own musicians, accused of having little to say musically, and while there can be no doubt that Schwarz has been a masterful raiser of money, one observer says that “The [symphony] board is already a laughingstock around the country for allowing itself to become hostage to the fund-raising abilities of its music director.”

“The nation’s second-oldest orchestra had been demoralized by contract talks and artistically adrift by the coming and going of dozens of guest conductors after illness forced Hans Vonk’s retirement in 2002, two years before he died. Robertson’s inaugural season, which wrapped up last weekend, featured eclectic, imaginative programs that juxtaposed classical and contemporary music by international and American composers.”

“Watching English National Opera calls for nothing less than a complete renunciation of the critical faculties if one is to imagine that the company has turned a corner since the past year’s upheavals that swept away two music directors, a chief executive and a chairman in less time than it takes to make an opera.”

Opera fans are a notoriously conservative crowd, and they tend to have very specific ideas concerning what voice is “right” for what role in the repertoire. But why does there have to be a right vocal type at all? Why shouldn’t a great singer be encouraged to sing any role within her/his range, and to be creative in the interpretation, rather than bowing and scraping at the altar of the past?

The recording industry is suing XM satellite radio over a device that allows customers to record music from the satellite radio service. “The recording industry said XM’s Inno device, which stores music and divides it into tracks, infringes copyright. The lawsuit seeks $150,000 in damages for every song copied by XM customers to an Inno gadget.”

“Lyric Opera of Chicago posted a surplus for its third consecutive season and for the 18th time in the last 19 campaigns. According to preliminary results announced at its annual meeting Monday, Lyric had a surplus of $140,000 on a budget of $49.2 million last season… Lyric officials also reported that more than 277,000 tickets were sold — or 95 percent of Civic Opera House capacity — in the 83-performance season of 2005-06, bringing in $27.2 million at the box office.”