Category: music

“Fearing the loss of future audiences, the once-staid Berlin Philharmonic has constructed an elaborate education program, something still relatively rare on the Continent. Many orchestras in Britain and the United States have been making similar efforts to draw in youngsters and educate the public, but in catching up, the Berliners have created one of Europe’s most ambitious programs.”

Sometimes, the childhood compositions of great composers ought to be left hidden in peace. “One argument says that we need to know everything about great people and that every surviving scrap about them is fair game. For the scholar, yes. For the public reputation of the artist, I’m not so sure. Dead composers are defenseless. They aren’t around to censor what happened before the achievements that mattered.”

Starting next year, thanks to $100 million gift, tuition at the Yale Music School will be free. “Now as the school prepares for commencement on May 22 for the final graduating class to have paid the $23,750 annual tuition each year, many faculty members and students are wondering how the donation will affect Yale’s reputation. Will subsidized tuition affect the type and quality of new students? Will the school claim a place alongside conservatories like the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia?”

Andrey Boreyko concludes his short tenure as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. “Soon after taking the reins from former maestro Bramwell Tovey in 2002, he discovered WSO was in a “tragic” budget bind that threatened its existence. He and the musicians made financial sacrifices, the WSO rallied and Boreyko later extended his contract for an extra year to see the orchestra through its current season. But he bemoans the lack of public support for classical music in Canada.”

The Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards have been presented. “BBC Radio 3 listeners voted Marin Alsop, conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, their favourite figure in classical music.”

“A group of graduate art students whose thesis exhibition was shut down last week after a city official found it offensive have accepted an offer by their college to relocate the show to the Dumbo neighborhood in Brooklyn.”

“The retreat to the purely aesthetic in the past 30 years has led to a depressing lowering of the emotional and intellectual temperature of new music. We hear so many safe, high-gloss pieces that seem to have no urgent reason for existing. However, the good news is that the radical spirit hasn’t gone. It’s just that, as in pop music, you find it in people who might be old in years, but are marvellously young in spirit.”

Benjamin Britten had a thing for boys. It’s hampered his legacuy as a composer, writes Norman Lebrecht. “We’re in a new century and the linen that has been hung out to dry. We must accept Britten for what he was, a tormented innocent, and find the courage to stage his work coherently for the first time in a comprehensive cycle.”

Why did music director Pinchas Zukerman return early to Ottawa’s National Arts Center Orchestra? There’s plenty of speculation, but one’s thing is sure – his situation with the orchestra is far from resolved. “So we may be in for several more years of Zukerman at the NACO. It remains to be seen whether that turns out to be a good thing, or a new phase in a bad relationship.”

Have you ever called TicketMaster to buy tickets for a popular concert minutes after they’re released only to be told the show has sold out? “Can a show really sell out in a few minutes? Yes, thanks to the Internet. Ticketmaster, the ticket agent for pretty much every big concert in America, sells tickets on its Web site, over the phone (via 19 international call centers), at 6,500 domestic retail outlets, and through arena box offices. According to Ticketmaster, Internet orders now make up 60 percent of sales.”