Category: music

After video links break down between Cuba and London in the case of disputed copyrights of songs made famous by the Buena Vista Club, the English judge moves hearings to Cuba. “The hearing is likely to take place in September at the British embassy in Havana, with lawyers abandoning gowns and wigs, but not necessarily resorting to Bermuda (or Cuba) shorts – and possibly gaining first-hand experience of local music in bars.”

“Neeme Jarvi, who steps down from his post as music director next month after 15 seasons, has led the DSO through a golden age. The 68-year-old has raised the artistry and international standing of the orchestra to the highest points in its history. Jarvi’s tenure has not been without its missteps and missed opportunities, but after 15 years, he has earned a place in the pantheon of the most important musicians in Detroit history.”

A while back, UK record label Hyperion released a CD of music by a French composer whose work had long been in the public domain. But then, a musicologist contacted the label, claiming that he had assembled the works on the disc from original manuscripts over hundreds of hours, and asking for a few thousand pounds for his trouble. Rebuffed, the musicologist sued, and won. “Hyperion took the case to appeal but lost again last week, leaving them facing legal bills of up to £1 million – a crippling sum for a small independent label. At first sight, the result seems a tragedy for the classical music profession, as Hyperion has produced some of the finest – and certainly most interesting – recordings made in Britain over the past quarter century.”

Ivan Fischer is not a conductor who is content to do things by someone else’s rulebook. “In 1983, when he was in his early 30s, Fischer decided to found his own orchestra and run it on very different lines from anything that had gone before. More than two decades later, the Budapest Festival Orchestra has become one of the world’s great ensembles, playing to packed houses at home and astounding audiences abroad with its brilliance and intensity.” And yet, the organization and culture of the orchestra are like nothing most musicians ever experience, emphasizing individual accomplishment as much as teamwork.

Next month, Britain’s BBC Radio 3 will play Beethoven. For six days. Which seems like a long time – not that Ludwig van isn’t great and all, but, seriously? Six days? Long time. Still, Stephen Moss is up for the challenge, and just to prove that it’s not all a waste of time, he’s doing his own personal Beethoven marathon a week early…

Internal politics and bitter rivalries are roiling the Honolulu Symphony, which has seen its CEO, its president and several key board members resign in recent months. At the heart of the chaos appears to be a dispute over who should fill the post of president of the organization, and the infighting has spilled out into public, with the orchestra’s board chair now offering to be the next one to step down. The symphony has been plagued by budget problems in recent years, and its musicians reopened their contract and accepted major salary cuts last season. Meanwhile, former Pittsburgh Symphony CEO Gideon Toeplitz has agreed to become the HSO’s interim president, and will be in place within a few weeks.

The market for high-end string instruments has become so absurdly expensive in recent years that most soloists are dependant on the good will of wealthy benefactors to purchase and loan them a Strad or del Gesu. But for Min Lee, one benefactor just wouldn’t have fit the bill. The rising young violinist plays on a 1704 Guarnerius fiddle purchased for her at a cost of $500,000 after an extraordinary public/private fundraising campaign spearheaded by the government of her native Singapore.

AJ blogger Greg Sandow wades into Drew McManus’s Take A Friend To The Orchestra project, and isn’t entirely sure why anyone should be so enthusiastic about the form. “There’s a dead zone between orchestras and their audience. The audience doesn’t know what’s going on. They don’t know what really happens at the concerts they hear—what chances are taken, what musical problems are solved, what anyone is trying to express. And of course any smart person who comes in from the outside can sense this. It’s engraved, somehow, on the whole orchestra experience: the blank rituals, the empty formality, the distant, scholarly program notes, all the rules about when to applaud, the very look of the people in the audience, who for the most part, and through no fault of their own, are only passively engaged. Who can blame anyone for staying away?”

As Scottish Opera prepares to cease operations for a year as part of the government’s plan to “save” it, the company is mounting a touring production of Verdi’s Macbeth. But there may be no clearer indication of the fiscal and creative hole Scottish Opera faces than the cuts forced on this tour – only seven singers and a pianist are making the trip, and the entire chorus will be disbanded by summer’s end.

There may not be a more thankless job in an American symphony orchestra than that of staff conductor. These baton twirlers enjoy none of the accolades accorded to music directors and guest conductors, get paid a fraction of what every other musician in the organization gets, and are expected to be fluent not only in all the standard repertoire, but also in Broadway showtunes and pops material. Most of the concerts they conduct will be before audiences of restless schoolchildren, and their names will almost never appear in a serious newspaper review. All that having been said, the job may be the best sink-or-swim training any musician can get, and many staff conductors have gone on to big things of their own.