Category: music

“Internet users in the U.S. downloaded 158 million individual songs from services like Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes during the first half of the year, compared with 55 million in the year-ago period, SoundScan said. U.S. album sales, including downloads, fell 2.5 percent to 301.2 million units in the first half from 309 million a year earlier. Those figures included downloaded tracks equivalent to about 17.6 million albums this year and 6 million last year. Sales of albums, excluding these new digital formats, fell 7 percent to 282.6 million units.”

The number of songs legally downloaded from the internet in the UK during 2005 has topped the 10 million mark. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said the figure was almost twice the level for the whole of 2004.” And another odd stat: sales of vinyl signles are up 87 percent over last year.

A few weeks ago the BBC made recordings of all the Beethoven symphonies available free for downloading. Hundreds of thousands of people downloaded them. “But the initiative has infuriated the bosses of leading classical record companies who argue the offer undermines the value of music and that any further offers would be unfair competition.”

Promoter Raymond Gubbay has made a fortune with his “Classical Spectacular” productions. Now his empire is spreaqding to Australia. “The formula is simple. Take the world’s most popular classical pieces – from Nessun Dorma to the Swan Lake Finale, Blue Danube Waltz and the Can Can theme. Engage a 90-piece symphony orchestra, 100-piece choir, military band and soloists to perform them. Package it with synchronised lasers, lights and fireworks. Put them on stage in an arena packed with 10,000 people, and your bank manager will be popping champagne and whistling the 1812 Overture.”

Was Lorin Maazel’s opera 1984 a failure because it was a vanity project? Or did paying for a production of it himself at Covent Garden give him the control and integrity of a project in a way he otherwise not have had? This is certainly true in other artforms…

Cell phone ring tones are getting more sophisticated. “When combined with technology that allows them to sound like music instead of its tinny shadow, and programs that allow anyone to make, mix or otherwise devise his or her own ringtones, the seven songs on the Timbaland album – among the first meant to be played on a phone, not a radio or CD player – suggest that ring tones are not merely a new money-maker; they are a new art form.”

Can the demise of a symphony orchestra actually be good for the affected city’s classical music scene? It seems counterintuitive, but Lawrence Johnson points out that, since the untimely end of the Florida Philharmonic, smaller chamber ensembles have begun to flourish in geographically disparate South Florida. “It’s not what former Philharmonic musicians want to hear, nor what those who prefer to experience the rich glory and volume of a large symphony orchestra desire. But the fact is that these smaller, less expensive orchestras and chamber ensembles may be more effectively serving the needs of local audiences than the Florida Philharmonic.”

Being a young conductor is no great shakes, what with everyone from critics to musicians to the public just waiting to pass judgment on your every move. So how do you manage to create great art, keep your orchestra happy, please the experts, and promote yourself all at the same time? Well, you could start by winning the Leeds Conductors Competition…

Orchestras across America are struggling to fill their concert halls, but in the indie-rock capital of Austin, Texas, residents are apparently devoted to music of all kinds, filling the local symphony’s concerts to such an impressive capacity that some concerts even attracted ticket scalpers. In fact, the Austin Symphony registered a 43% ticket sales increase in 2004-05 over the previous season, a dramatic rise the ensemble attributes to programming decisions and strong community support.

Orchestras aren’t the only ones with ticket woes: attendance at popular music performances in North America dropped 12% in the first half of 2005, despite lower average ticket prices. Revenue generated by the concerts – mainly touring rock, pop, and hip-hop shows – fell more than 17%.