Category: music

There’s a prevailing wisdom that “classical music is elitist, inaccessible, stuffy, boring and uncool. As a mass-market view, it would be wonderful to be able to turn it into something less dismissive, more embracing, more informed. The success of Classic FM, the affordable riches of the Proms, Radio 3’s tie-loosening and the vibrant marketing/education/ programming initiatives of my colleagues around the country can all counter the insidious tendency to use the C-word as a jeer word. Such leadership and advocacy can’t be done by the classical music fraternity alone. The broader constituency of intelligent, educated, culturally literate people (OK, you) needs to back classical music, too.”

A new music download service promises to revolutionize the download model. “Subscribers will be charged £26 a month for a high speed broadband internet connection, similar to the price charged by BT, with the added attraction of being able to share as much music as they want with other subscribers at no extra cost. Because there will be no restrictions on the format in which the traded music is encoded, users will be free to transfer songs to any type of digital music player, including the market leading Apple iPod, or burn them to CD.”

Symphony orchestras look desperate to pull in new audiences. “As audiences seem to grow older and the public turns its attention away from concertgoing, orchestras around the country are adopting a wide array of methods, from the trivial to the thoughtful, to bring more people into the concert hall. They are hunting for the neophytes, the dabblers and mainly the ungray. This fall, a slate of innovations will be on display for the first time…”

Last summer’s low concert attendance at American pop concerts caught the eyes of promoters. So ticket prices came down a bit this summer. “From May through July, the median ticket price at shows seating more than 5,000 was $25, according to an analysis of data from Billboard Boxscore. That price, based on the least expensive seats at each show, was $2.75 less than the same time last year. Prices for the most expensive tickets dropped by $3.50 (median $49.50).”

“The radical fringe of serious music isn’t on Manhattan’s Lower East Side or at George Crumb’s house in suburban Philadelphia. It’s among the mystical and the devout of Eastern Europe and Russia, collectively called “holy minimalists” – and they’re championed by some of the world’s best-known performers. Spare in the extreme, might the music be too much an afterthought of the composers’ inner experience? Or do we just need a few decades to figure it out?”

Who has time to read program notes at the concert? “Now the Los Angeles Philharmonic has come up with something it considers a solution to the problem: FastNotes, a brief set of program notes to be e-mailed free to interested parties a week or so before a concert. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, the notes will include links to iTunes and similar websites that will allow FastNotes subscribers to hear a brief passage of the music to be played.”

Which musicians are the best fodder for movie portrayal? Pianists, definitely. “For better or worse, it’s pianists, in particular, who seem the most narratively and pathologically appropriate musicians to be depicted on celluloid as twisted personalities.”

The Interlochen Center has made some big changes in the school in the past year. Interlochen president Jeffrey Kimpton has been reorganizing the venerable institution and the changes seem to be paying off. “The goal is to retain Interlochen’s historical mission while adjusting to a changing society and becoming more financially secure. The quality and competence of the staff is paramount. This summer, we’ve not had one complaint about a teacher. Last year we had complaints all the time.”

“In the virtual absence of classical radio in America, the Internet can provide what radio does for other musical genres, namely a “free” means of hearing new and unfamiliar music, which if you like, you’ll go out and buy. But with the element of radio removed from the market structure, there are almost no places to randomly hear Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony or Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” while driving home from school or work. The Net provides direct access. With the stuffiness removed from the classical experience, people can hear just how glorious Stravinsky really is.”

Okay, so Apple rules music downloads and players. “Today, Apple commands 80 percent of the MP3 player market and 75 percent of online music sales. But even as analysts predict another massive holiday sales season for the company this year, many believe Apple’s reign will last only another 12-18 months before the playing field levels out.”