Category: music

One of the reasons that new works of classical music don’t turn up more often on the programs of smaller orchestras is that they’re damned expensive. Commissioning a new work from an established composer can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and few ensembles outside of the top orchestras have that kind of cash to kick around (and if they did, they’d likely have more important things to spend it on.) But this week, a new work by composer Joan Tower will get its premiere, courtesy of a first-of-its-kind commissioning program that brought together no fewer than 65 small orchestras from across the U.S. to fund the creation of the work. The composer will see an added benefit from the unusual process as well: when all is said and done, her new work will have been performed 80 times over the course of 18 months.

Sally Beamish is officially “Britain’s most prolific composer of concertos,” a distinction that frequently puts her in the position of composing especially for some of the world’s finest musicians. This fall, Scottish concertgoers will have a chance to hear what all the excitement is about, and then some. “What is about to happen is probably unprecedented in Scotland, outside of a festival context. Within a period of six weeks, five of Beamish’s concertos will be played, including one world premiere and one Scottish premiere.” And it’s not even her 50th birthday or anything! (That comes next summer, along with what will surely be an even larger wave of performances.)

The subtext of the debate surrounding Marin Alsop’s appointment to lead the Baltimore Symphony goes well beyond the orchestra’s internal politics. At the heart of the issue is the groundbreaking nature of the appointment, and the desperate hope on the part of many that Alsop will blaze a trail for future female conductors to follow. But Peter Dobrin suggests that such hopes may be unfair, both to Alsop and those who will come after her. If a new Brahms recording is any indication, the BSO “is getting neither a master nor an incompetent, neither a revelationist nor charlatan. What if Alsop turns out to be – dare we say it – merely a good conductor? Or a very good conductor?”

“Steven R. Brosvik, the former executive director of the San Antonio Symphony, has been appointed general manager of the Houston Symphony. Brosvik succeeds Matthew VanBesien, who was promoted to executive director and CEO in April after Ann Kennedy resigned from that post. The executive director of the San Antonio Symphony from 2001 through late 2003, Brosvik oversaw the orchestra through the financial struggles than eventually led it to declare bankruptcy.” The Houston Symphony has had myriad troubles of its own in the last few years, ranging from the catastrophic flooding of its concert hall and library in 2001 to a bitter musicians’ strike in 2003.

The Takacs Quartet, considered one of the world’s best chamber ensembles, has launched its first season without longtime violist Roger Tapping, who left the group this past summer. So how is the Takacs sound faring with new violist Geraldine Walther, late of the San Francisco Symphony? Very well, thank you. “With less than a month’s worth of performances under her belt, Walther — with her warm, honeyed tone, her clarity and confidence — is already a fit with the group, which sounded remarkably, delicately in balance… There was an incredible airiness to Sunday’s performance, with its refined, tremulous atmospherics: It evoked sunlight passing through fog. You could ‘see’ each refracted ray.”

When the London Symphony announced that the dynamic Russian conductor Valerie Gergiev had agreed to become its next music director, the reaction from around the music world was uniformly positive. “Snaring the world’s most charismatic conductor has made the LSO the envy of the orchestral world. But like most marriages the relationship is based on a shrewd calculation of mutual interests… What the orchestra needed was someone capable of matching and maintaining its marketprofile, not just at its Barbican base but through tours, recordings and media visibility… As for Gergiev, tying a knot with London’s best-connected orchestra represents a strategic west European foothold – a grade above his longstanding Rotterdam Philharmonic post but without making more demands on his time.”

Trumpeting the economic impact of the arts has become a tried-and-true promotional technique over the past several years, and this week, the Atlanta Symphony took its turn at self-congratulation, releasing a consultant’s report that predicts a $2 billion boost to the Georgia economy upon completion of the orchestra’s new $300 million concert hall. “[That] includes $537 million during construction and $1.45 billion during the first 10 years of operation. It should generate $116 million in tax revenues and 2,100 new jobs through 2020, says the report.”

So says a spokesman for Naxos. “This is all pure profit for us. There are no post-production costs – no booklet to print, no (disc) pressing costs, no jewel case costs. And really, it hasn’t hurt our CD sales. People out there look at the price of a download in a different way. This is disposable music. It’s a way for them to sample something without making a large investment. They’ll pay the 99 cents for one cut and either decide to try the whole album or not. If they like it, they’ll maybe go out and purchase the CD.”

The Milwaukee Symphony has signed a new contract with its musicians. It’s not good news for the players. The deal includes “a minimum salary of $53,625 (down from $59,125) for 39 weeks of work (down from 43). The four-year contract gives the orchestra ‘breathing room’ – time to improve marketing, reverse a long-term audience slide, balance the operating budget, establish fiscal transparency and restore donors’ faith in the institution.”

While Scottish Opera languishes, the Welsh National Opera thrives artistically. What’s the difference? “It is simply the fact that good-quality opera is not something that can be done cheaply and cannot be done with uncertainty over year-to-year financing, which is what we have had. In opera, we have to think at least three years ahead when we book people and organise our events. When we don’t know from year to year how much money we are going to have, we can’t plan properly. In Wales, they make it a priority.”