Category: music

David Pocock is leaving as artistic director of Seattle Northwest Chamber Orchestra. “Pocock, who has worked with the orchestra since 2003, came from the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles, where he served as the dean. Pocock has accepted the position of director of institutional sales with Sherman Clay Pianos.”

Traveling orchestras are ambassadors for their art. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic played Carnegie Hall this week, and this is what we learned: “First, Stockholm, not widely known as a music center, has a legitimate orchestra to serve its needs, and people should know more about it. Second, Sweden, and Scandinavia in general, produces composers the world should hear more of and doesn’t.”

Rafal Blechacz, 20, is the first Pole in 30 years to win the Chopin International Piano Competition. “The last time a Pole won the 78-year-old competition was 1975, when Krystian Zimerman captured first place and went on to a brilliant musical career.” Eighty pianists from 18 countries entered this year’s competition.

The online music business is booming. But there’s a fight between producers and musicians about how to divy up the new income. “Thanks to the success of iPod and iTunes, online music sales are growing at a healthy clip. But record labels complain they aren’t recouping expenses, while musicians say they’re being squeezed to take a pay cut.”

The Chicago Symphony has a $12.5 million accumulated deficit. “In the administrative offices of Symphony Center these days, the pressure to find a new music director to replace Daniel Barenboim, who leaves in June after 15 years, is certainly being felt. So is the need to erase the CSO’s string of annual deficits and to keep the orchestra moving forward artistically as well as financially. But with so much at stake, CSO Association President Deborah R. Card and Board Chairman William H. Strong are charting a course that values slow and steady over fast and furious.”

“The Opera parted with two tons of garments, from ankle armor to silk skirts to black-painted cowboy hats. It took several months to price all the items; some went for as little as $1, while others went for as much as $200. The goal was to raise enough money to buy a new dye vat for the costume shop. Staff members said the private sale for subscribers and donors on Friday had already raised about $10,000, enough money to replace the vat.”

Seems there’s new technology every day to change the way we get music. Historically, “Mark Katz argues convincingly that technology has been instrumental in determining the types of music and musicians that have achieved popularity. “

Players in the London Symphony have been testing out new concert clothes. “Marks & Spencer have been testing their special new high-tech dinner suit on players performing with Glyndebourne Festival Opera in Sussex over the summer. Made from Coolmax, a breathable fabric previously used only in high performance sportswear, the suits move moisture away from the body to the outside of the material in a process that is often described as wicking.”

Musicians are slowly returning to New Orleans. “Yet the birthplace of jazz remains a shadow of its once vibrant self — where music poured from block after block of the French Quarter and beyond late into the night. Since Hurricane Katrina, the crowds are smaller, the streets darker, the venues limited and pay for musicians often minimal.”

Departing San Francisco Opera director Pamela Rosenberg is feted for her accomplishments with the company as she departs. “At the end of evening, the departing general director had some understandable difficulty maintaining her composure while acknowledging the standing ovation she received and the city and opera community she is leaving.”