Category: music

Why Aren’t youg people going to the opera? “The truth is they are intimidated by the institution, by the ticket prices, by the posh frocks and bow ties, by the champagne intervals, the old operas sung in foreign languages that may have universal themes but by their very nature don’t address contemporary issues. Young people have little reason to make it to Glyndebourne, the ENO or London’s Covent Garden. Glyndebourne, which celebrated its 70th anniversary last year, sees opera in crisis and is trying to address the fact that, in order to survive, the genre has to progress.”

“Valencia’s new 4,000-seat opera house, which opens tonight after nine years in construction, is meant to be more than just another surrealist design by architect Santiago Calatrava. It is the centrepiece of what local politicians hope will be a cultural renaissance for this resort region, better known for its beaches than for its love of Verdi.”

The Cincinnati Symphony is trying to boost ticket sales with promotions meant to make the organization seem edgier and more in tune with today’s young adults (for instance, what 20-something wouldn’t love a temporary tattoo that says, ‘Get Your Beethoven On’?). This kind of thing rarely works, of course, but as long as the CSO is determined to try it, Chuck Martin has some additional suggestions for achieving hipsterdom. For one thing, concert halls need to be a far more nacho-intensive environment. For another, CSO music director Paavo Järvi is just crying out for a nickname, something like… ohhhh, how about P. Diddy?

A new generation of young pianists is coming of age in New York. But rather than pursuing traditional avenues of classical music achievement and finding fame on the orchestral stage, many are opting for the far more specialized world of contemporary music. The result has been a renewed energy in the city’s new music circles, and a fiercely loyal following for the performers who choose the road less traveled.

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has announced a balanced budget for the fiscal year just completed, and ticket sales for the fall season are well ahead of last year’s pace. But no one at the BPO is spending much time on self-congratulation: projections for the year ahead predict a $1.4 million deficit, and a large amount of government funding traditionally allocated to the orchestra is in jeopardy as a result of a statewide budget crunch.

There are plenty of new music ensembles wandering the classical music world, but few ever manage to achieve serious longevity or catch on with any measurable percentage of mainstream listeners. But after ten years of diligently honing their craft and cultivating audiences with a unique blend of high energy and disarming informality, the sextet of young musicians known as “eighth blackbird” are knocking on the door of new music success previously known only by the Kronos Quartet.

The UK’s Bournemouth Symphony has extended the contract of its principal conductor, Marin Alsop, through 2008. Alsop’s contract had been set to expire at the end of the current season, and her international profile was recently raised when she was named as the next music director of the Baltimore Symphony, beginning in 2007.

“When most stores are slashing CD prices, Starbucks is offering them for at least full price, and shifting millions. Traditional record retailers are both envious and nervous, major labels are rubbing their hands over the prospect of reaching 34 million new customers and industry analysts are wondering just how far Starbucks can go.”

Opera Australia is caught in the middle of a funding dispute between national and state governments. “The impasse means the company could not sign contracts with its performers for its 2007 season.”

“The time has come to impose a ceiling on concert fees of the kind that prevails in all the leading opera houses.” Outrageous soloist fees are killing the music business. “If the orchestras won’t ban greedy-guts soloists, the funding authorities should step in. Music is paid for in part by the taxpayer, who does not generally approve of subsidising rich foreigners unless they play football, and in part by private and corporate donors whose innocence of musical economics is cruelly abused by avaricious musicians. A principle needs to be re-established. Money that is given to the arts in a spirit of idealism should be put towards creative renewal. Any other purpose is bad for business and death for art.”