Category: music

“In recent weeks, the name of Peter Osin, a consultant at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital, has been popping up in newspapers and on arts-related websites because the doctor has a new theory: Chubby opera singers — ladies as well as gentlemen — may be the victims of their own art form.”

Turn “La Bohème” into a 1980s pop manifesto on AIDS and arty squatters? Scrub Verdi’s “Aida” Disney-clean with a pop score by Elton John? The very thought makes opera purists cringe … and reformers rejoice.

The orchestra mounted two large video screens in its hall for a performance. “The concert was the first in the ‘Classics Unmasked’ series that marks a departure from the DSO’s traditional format. The new style aims to attract a generation weaned on television and stimulated by music videos and the Internet. For the first time, audience members in the farthest seats could see the angle of a violin bow as it hit a string or even the veins of a musician’s hands.”

Large video screens at the Detroit Symphony this week were intended not to be distracting. “We’re not making a TV show. Our mission is to reveal things to the audience that they can’t see, not broadcast the music. This is the society we’ve become. We want to teach people that it’s OK to take the time to listen to music, but we have to be willing to meet people where they are.”

From Dublin to Dresden, Barcelona to Berlin, performances by Canadian singers can be almost daily occurrences in Europe — and anyone determined to hear them all would soon rack up a lot of air miles. The not-so-good news, however, is that Canada’s contribution to this most European of art forms tends to go pretty much unnoticed: Like Canadian movie stars in Hollywood, our finest opera singers are often assumed to be from somewhere else.

More and more patrons of bars are bringing their portable music players to play for the crowd. “People can bring their iPods and other portable music players and, for as long as the bartender allows, share their personal favorites with the crowd.

“Early 2005 digital download results were staggering. By May of this year, about 6.4 million digital downloads were selling per week, three times that of the same period in 2004. But momentum has since stumbled. Average weekly downloads for the third quarter were up only slightly from May, to 6.6 million.”

“The biggest mistake the labels are making is they’re letting their lawyers make technical decisions. Lawyers don’t have any better understanding of technology than a cow does algebra. They insist on chasing this white whale.”

Musicians of the New Cologne Philharmonic are freelancers and earn less than their European union colleagues. “While other major orchestras charge anything from $21 to $72 for a seat, the Cologne New Philharmonic has just one price — $24. It opts out of the familiar European formula of state support and job security, gets no state subsidies and relies on box-office receipts alone. The influential French and German musicians’ unions contend that his use of mostly Eastern Europeans at nonunion wages amounts to exploitation.”

“The musicians of New Orleans have been blown to the wind and the big question is whether they will ever return. The thing about musicians is that they play to make a living so they go where the work is – and that place now is New York or Houston or even London or Lyon in France.”