Category: music

After 33 years, Seattle’s Northwest Chamber Orchestra has declared bankruptcy and folded. The orchestra cited “incredible competition for ticket sales and contributions,” as well as “declining audiences and financial woes,” as the reasons for the orchestra’s demise.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic unveils plans to begin making digital downloads of its concerts available. “Ten years from today, they might not be making CDs. We really don’t know what the delivery system will be. The new technology takes investigation, investment and practice.”

The English National Opera has hastily assmbled a new season for next year. “Opera companies usually plan and book years in advance but so deep has the crisis been at ENO that in December there was not one confirmed production for the 2006-07 season.”

“It’s a truism in the classical music business that income from ticket sales rarely covers more than 50 percent of the cost of putting on a performance, and our look at some representative Bay Area groups supports that. Given this fact, every organization, regardless of its size or prestige, has to do a lot of fundraising just to break even. But how those prices are determined can still be a mystery to the concert-going public.”

Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music has a new board chair. H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, 75, will take over the leadership of the school’s board in June, just as Curtis is also welcoming new director Roberto Diaz. Lenfest, pne of the city’s most active arts supporters, donated $6 million to Curtis last year. He is also chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the American Revolution Center.

What’s all the fuss over new music premieres? New music these days usually only gets attention at its premiere. But just what is the definition of a premiere? And why do we care?

“Chamber music is not defined by individuals, it is defined by the collective zeitgeist, the pulse of the times. In these times there is an abundance of jazz that resembles modern classical music. It is valued in performances in small concert halls all over the world. To me, that answers the question. If we are talking about Chamber Music AMERICA (and not Asia or Europe) it defies logic to claim that it has no place at the funding table. Jazz IS America. Let’s also remember that jazz is not one thing.”

“The Takács Quartet won the disc of the year award at the inaugural BBC Music Awards, presented by the magazine yesterday in London. The Takács was honored for its three-disc recording of Beethoven’s late string quartets, the final installment in its complete Beethoven cycle. The set also won in the chamber music category… Conductor Paavo Järvi and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra won the orchestral award for a recording of Grieg’s Peer Gynt. A recording of Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso led by Jean-Christophe Spinosi won the opera award; soloists included soprano Jennifer Larmore.”

An orchestra playing instruments made out of ice has to stop their performance when one of the flutes melted. “Instrument maker Tim Linharts has been able to transform frozen water into functioning flutes, violins, and a double bass out of ice. The instruments were played for the first time at a concert in a gigantic igloo that was deemed a complete success aside from the early melting of the flute.”

If you’re an orchestra looking for a quick and easy way to incense your season ticketholders, the Pittsburgh Symphony has a surefire technique for you: make them switch seat locations. A new set of ticket packages are forcing the orchestra to relocate 772 of its 9,650 total subscribers, and some are objecting, loudly. “Complicating things further, the PSO asks its subscribers to give to its annual fund-raising campaigns shortly before asking for ticket renewals.”