Category: music

Audiologists have long expressed concern about hearing loss stemming from the use of headphones, but according to some, the new generation of digital music players pose a particular threat, allowing consumers to listen for long periods at high volume, and eliminating so much of the distortion and background noise common to, say, cassette players, that many listeners won’t even realize how much sound they’re pumping into their head. “Even with the sound piped directly into the ear canal, noise from the outside often competes with the music, and listeners turn it up louder. People listening to music while riding [commuter] trains, for example, frequently increase the volume levels to drown out the sound of the commute.”

That the gulf between rock and country music has narrowed in recent years is old news, and to a large extent, the sub-genre known as “arena rock” (hard-driving bands capable of filling arenas that seat tens of thousands – think Bon Jovi) has been replaced by ultra-popular country acts like Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith. But as country rises and rock continues to morph horribly into candy-coated pop, marketers are seeing serious potential in a crossover approach to selling old-fashioned arena rock. “There’s no reason, after all, why a pop song can’t crunch and twang at the same time.”

Washington, D.C.’s annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz Guitar Competition might be the genre’s most prestigious contest, and this week, the 2005 edition was won by a Norwegian-born strummer now living in New York. Unlike many classical competitions, the students hoping for first prize weren’t the only ones to take the stage – all the judges, whose names read like a roster of America’s finest living jazz musicians – performed in addition to their jury duty.

Musicians of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band have reunited in New York. “Preservation Hall itself dates back to a private residence built in 1750, when New Orleans was still a French colony. Like most of the French Quarter, the building suffered only minimal damage from Katrina, its stone walls and thick wooden shutters holding firm against yet another hurricane. The band last performed at Preservation Hall on Aug. 27, a Saturday night, one day before Katrina hit. They played for about 20 people, one of the smallest crowds since the hall was founded by Jaffe’s parents in 1961 in a former art gallery. The performance ended early so the musicians could get out of town.”

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has extended the contracts of music director Robert Spano and principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles through the 2008-09 season. The move to lock up a popular music director for an additional two years will likely be seen as a signal to larger U.S. orchestras with music director vacancies that the 44-year-old Spano, a rising star among American conductors, is not available to them in the near term.

With Hurricane Rita churning across the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas Coast, the Houston Symphony Orchestra has canceled all of its scheduled concerts for the upcoming weekend. Houston sits approximately 50 miles inland from where Rita, now a Category 5 storm, is expected to make landfall, but officials are warning of the possibility of severe flooding in the city nonetheless. The orchestra’s concert hall and library were badly damaged by storm-induced flooding in 2001.

Apple chief Steve Jobs says recording companies are getting greedy and want to raise the price of online music. “We’re trying to compete with piracy, we’re trying to pull people away from piracy and say ‘you can buy these songs legally for a fair price’. But if the price goes up a lot, they’ll go back to piracy. Then everybody loses.”

Jerry Springer, The Opera, will make its UK tour after all. “The show seemed doomed when 30% of theatres pulled out after Christian Voice said it would picket venues. The Arts Council of Britain then refused a request to fund the tour. But the theatres have agreed to pool marketing costs and producers Avalon will put £650,000 into the tour.”

Chris Wilkins has been named music director of the Orlando Philharmonic. “For 10 seasons, Wilkins served as music director of the San Antonio Symphony. For the past five years, he has guest-conducted orchestras around the country — including two stints at the Orlando Philharmonic. Wilkins, 48, will replace much-lauded maestro Hal France, who is leaving the orchestra after this season to pursue other interests.”

“The indie-rock surge has been ushered in by an Internet community of music connoisseurs who trade MP3 files and gather to talk music and champion favored bands on blogs and Web sites such as Myspace.com, and write for e-zines such as Pitchforkmedia.com. ‘The Internet’s role is important because there aren’t as many gatekeepers. You can put the music on a Web Site, or on Myspace or the blogosphere and let the fans find it, talk about it and analyze it before radio or MTV even knows it exists. The fans get it first, and that gives them a sense of ownership’.”