The Philadelphia Orchestra has postponed the premiere of a new work by composer Bright Sheng, apparently at the request of music director Christoph Eschenbach, who announced after going over the score that “we all felt we weren’t ready to perform it in its current state.” Sheng and Eschenbach plan to work together on revisions to the Concerto for Orchestra: Zodiac Tales and the orchestra still plans eventually to give the premiere.
Category: music
Sydney Hops On The Online Bandwagon
The Sydney Symphony is going digital, striking a deal with Australia’s largest internet service provider to offer streaming audio and video of ten concerts in the 2006 season, beginning with opening night. The videocast, in particular, sounds as if it will beak some new ground, with five cameras in place to record the action. “With no record companies to take a cut… Sydney Symphony could be looking at a lucrative new model for generating revenue from digital recordings.”
Largest Mexican Music Festival Is A Free For All
“Once on the verge of extinction, the fast-paced and irresistibly rhythmic son jarocho (pronounced ha-RO-cho) is undergoing a revival. The genre is being fueled by a new generation of jaraneros, a name derived from the genre’s typically small guitar, or jarana. This evolution of son jarocho doesn’t have a new name yet, but it definitely has a new energy and fresh sound.”
Ottawa Orchestra Says Missing Zukerman Will Return
Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra announced its next season Monday, saying that wayward music director Pinchas Zukerman will return to lead the orchestra. Zukerman mysteriously bolted from the orchestra part way through this season, claiming need for a break. Orchestra manager Christopher Deacon said the NAC is working on a suggestion by Zukerman to bring in a facilitator to ‘improve communication and better the working atmosphere’.”
A Grand Unifying Theory Of Music History
Historian Richard Taruskin has grand ambitions for his 4000+ page history of music. “He maintains that this is the first history of music which not only relates what was done but how and why. He aims, he writes, to present a social history of music; that is, he attempts to place the development of music in the general culture of the place and time it was created, to describe it in its social setting, to explain its genesis and its significance for the composers’ contemporaries and at times for their posterity.”
The Man Who Saved The Audubon’s Instruments
The donor who stepped in to save two members of the Audubon String Quartet from having to surrender their instruments in a legal dispute has come forward. “Those instruments are part of their musical personality, their musical identity. I thought this was an opportunity to address this one aspect of the situation.”
Louisville Orchestra Musicians Make Concessions
Musicians of the Louisville Orchestra’s musicians say they’ll accept a two-year wage freeze and stop trying to get the orchestra to cover the cost of dependent health insurance. In return, the players want the orchestra to agree to mediation for their new contract.
Like The Concert, Go Home With The CD
John Eliot Gardiner is offering audiences for his new concert an instant recording. “As audiences leave Sir John Eliot’s concert at Cadogan Hall in London, they will be able to walk away with a live recording of the music played in the first half of the evening – Mozart’s Symphonies Nos 39 and 41 – produced by his own label, SDG.”
A London Renovation Forces Orchestras To Cope
London’s Royal Festival Hall is closed for extensive renovations. “The closing of the roughly 3,000-seat Festival Hall — a regular stopping point on the Famous Performer circuit (from Callas to Hendrix to Karajan) — was traumatic, said Michael Lynch, the chief executive of the South Bank Center. The center comprises Royal Festival Hall, the smaller Queen Elizabeth Hall, the even smaller Purcell Room, the Jubilee Gardens and the Hayward Gallery. The renovation, more than 20 years in the making, is part of a revitalization of the complex.”
English National Opera Wins Labor Peace With Contract
Staff of the English National Opera have agreed on a new contract after threatening to strike. “The deal includes a 3% pay rise, backdated to August 2005, as well as a slight increase in employer’s pension contributions.”