Category: music

The rise of a new generation of prominent Finnish conductors has been well-documented in recent years, and with the international spotlight firmly focused on podium stars like Salonen, Oramo, and Vänskä, Finnish composers are starting to enjoy worldwide attention as well. “It would be difficult to characterise a Finnish school of composition, yet there are no shortage of Finnish composers of international standing.” Throw in a sizable smattering of top-flight instrumental and vocal soloists, and Finland, a nation of only 5 million, might be able to claim the greatest per capita level of success in the classical music world.

For the second time in three years, the Oregon Symphony is losing its president to another ensemble. William A. Ryberg, who is credited with reducing Oregon’s annual deficits and increasing donated income during his short time in Portland, will take over as head of Florida’s Palm Beach Opera this fall. It was three seasons ago that then-Oregon Symphony president Tony Woodcock resigned to accept the same position with the Minnesota Orchestra.

We tend to think of rock stars as having it made, rolling in dough, and assured of lifelong comfort and wealth. But the truth is that popular music is a fickle business, and even artists with long-standing track records can quickly fall out of favor. Chart-topping artists go broke every day, and why? Well, just try getting a 22-year-old phenom with a $10 million record deal interested in long-term financial planning.

Charlotte Higgins has had about enough of the hyperbole and exaggeration being employed by London’s opera companies in an effort to sell tickets. “It’s a sad sign of an artform that’s on its uppers when you have to resort to desperate measures to attract the crowds… [and] often enough promoters don’t even need to make absurd claims for shows, since they tend to have carefully filleted press quotes to do it for them.”

Two young Chinese pianists born in 1982 are locked in a rivalry. “The rivalry between two young pianists just out of protégé puberty has already gone too far. Nothing good — unless you think short-term record company profits are all that matter — can come from it.”

“Singer Bryn Terfel and composer Karl Jenkins have both been nominated for two Classical Brit Awards alongside Scottish teenager Nicola Benedetti… US soprano Renee Fleming and German counter-tenor Andreas Scholl are nominated alongside bass-baritone Terfel [for singer of the year.]” The Classical Brits are a major event in the UK, with listeners to the country’s popular ClassicFM service picking the winners.

The Edinburgh Festival broke a house record this week, selling £200,000 worth of tickets on the first day of sales, a jump of 25% from last year. Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, probably the most anticipated concert on the schedule, sold out almost immediately. The 2006 festival will be the final one coordinated by Brian McMaster, who has directed Ednburgh for 15 years.

The Seattle Symphony is approaching the two-year mark in its search for a new concertmaster, and orchestra higher-ups say they hope to have a new leader in place by the beginning of the 2006-07 season. For those who attend concerts at Benaroya Hall, the search process has been unusually easy to follow, with candidates regularly playing with the orchestra for a week or two, and a select few invited back for a second look. It’s all a far cry from the usual secretive audition process most orchestra musicians go through.

Those of us who get hooked on music can usually point to a peak experience or two that captured our affection and made us fans. So what was your “first” time? Sun-Times staff relate their defining concert experiences.

“We have the whole [phenomenon of] descriptive marketing in the United States, which is how to use music as description and how to market it that way. In other words, what they are saying to the public is that you don’t have to concentrate, you don’t have to listen, you don’t have to know anything about it, just come and you will find some association, and this way you will go into the music. Is that the answer to the so-called crisis in classical music? Accessibility does not come through populism, accessibility comes through more interest and more knowledge.”