Category: music

“A new study shows the north of England’s love of the performing arts has surpassed that in the South. Those in the North-west are now three times more likely to attend an opera than those in the South-east, according to the figures. Nearly one in 10 in the North-west named opera as their favourite form of theatrical production, and those in the North-east joined the chorus of approval. Only 3 per cent of those in the South-east spoke of opera as their favoured form of entertainment, despite having two professional houses on their doorstep.”

This season three players in the Minnesota Orchestra are sharing assistant-conducting duties. “It’s tough because you’re up there for one week, then you’re right back where you were among your colleagues. So I think you just have to keep your eye on the prize, which is getting the program done.”

Conductor Paul Polivnick had a good run as music director of the Alabama Symphony in the late 1980s, and even appeared to be making a stab at raising the orchestra from a little-known regional band to a big-budget ensemble that could have broken into the second tier of American orchestras. But when the ASO went bankrupt in 1993, the dream of bigger things for Birmingham’s symphony died, and Polivnick moved on. Now, with the ASO back in business (it reincorporated in 1997) and in need of a new music director, Polivnick is back in town to guest conduct his old musicians, and there is much speculation that he and the orchestra would like very much to pick up where they left off more than a decade ago.

The Oregon Symphony is facing a serious ticket sales slump, as audiences who packed the hall for the first two seasons following music director Carlos Kalmar’s arrival have deserted the orchestra in droves this fall. “Kalmar’s agenda — his choice of music — isn’t resonating with ticket buyers. It’s quirky, bordering on — how shall we say — bizarre.” But the orchestra’s problems may run deeper than programming choices. “Classical musicians aren’t good at rousing the electorate. They don’t know how to create buzz. They either think buzz is beneath them or they believe people don’t care enough about them to justify buzz. And yet, in this digital age, it takes a rapid-response public-relations blitz to get anything done.”

Large-scale opera recordings appear to be rapidly becoming a relic of the past, as record companies continue to cut costs and ease classical music out of their catalog. “But before we all get out our handkerchiefs, what are we really losing? Is a studio recording, especially of a complete opera, so much better than a live performance captured on tape? Is an edited sequence of perfect takes worth all the losses in continuity and physical atmosphere? And is the studio recording really finished, or is its rumoured demise just clever promotion?”

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has finalized a new 5-year contract with its musicians which calls for a 14% raise over the life of the deal and makes changes to certain working conditions. There had been speculation that the musicians might refuse to ratify the contract, which was offered with only the faintest endorsement by the musicians’ negotiating team. But when the votes were counted, the orchestra, which has been performing under an extension of its previous contract since August, could breath a sigh of relief.

Symphony orchestras in North America are notoriously conservative in their programming choices, and if a glance at the history of American musical criticism is any indication, critics have been complaining about the lack of daring for as long as orchestras have lacked it. “Mainstream musical organizations in general and symphony orchestras in particular still prefer — allegedly for box office reasons — to comfort their listeners with the familiar rather than challenge them with the new… [But] repetition tends to stifle curiosity and it is curiosity that needs to be encouraged in the listening public if our concert halls are to be more than museums to past greatness.”

“Touring has become punishingly expensive for small orchestras, and the days of a concert or two each year in downtown Chicago are long gone for the Saint Paul musicians. But the ensemble, founded nearly 50 years ago, has always been eager to experiment. Tonight, with a concert at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall, they are trying something completely different, a three-year Chicago residency that will take them into South Side elementary schools and the university’s music classrooms as well as Mandel.”

The owners of Boston’s commercial classical radio station, WCRB, are putting the station up for sale, but say they will require any buyer to maintain the station’s classical format on at least a digital side-channel accessible to listeners with high-definition receivers. That isn’t terribly reassuring to some listeners, since HD radios are almost entirely unknown in the U.S., and some in the industry question whether the format requirement actually carries any legal weight. Boston has two other stations that broadcast classical music, but WCRB is the only full-time classical station.

The Yale University School of Music is poised to join Philadelphia’s famed Curtis Institute in offering tuition-free enrollment to its students, following the announcement of new gifts to the school totalling $100 million. “Yale said it would also put the money toward increasing faculty, student and ensemble exchanges with foreign conservatories and toward Internet broadcasts of its events. The free tuition begins next school year and includes current students.”