Category: music

Four years ago, Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts Festival decided that it needed more than just art to draw in the public, and launched a carefully tailored music component designed to dovetail with its existing visual art base. So far, it’s been a winning scenario for everyone involved: since the performances, which take place in the midst of the art fair, are free, crowds are far bigger than they would be at a stand-alone show with an admission charge; and the guest performers bring in people who otherwise might not think to attend an art fest.

The Philadelphia Orchestra has signed with the Finnish recording label Ondine, giving it a commercial recording agreement for the first time in nearly a decade, and making it the only ensemble in the so-called “Big Five” of American orchestras to have such a contract. In signing on to the deal, the orchestra’s musicians agreed to buck the national, union-negotiated recording agreements previously adhered to by all U.S. orchestras, and forego upfront payments in favor of a revenue sharing agreement, a provision of the deal which is already very controversial among other professional orchestras.

“Violence and vulgarity are hardly unique to rap. The mainstream is full of gore and borderline porn. But these tendencies are undiluted in rap, which is why many young African-Americans and Latinos who grew up embracing hip hop as a grassroots, multimedia art form now deplore rap as a cynical “neominstrelsy” being mass-marketed not just nationally but globally. This global twist is new.”

Major US recording companies lost an antitrust case and were told to give millions of CD’s to libraries as part of the $143 million settlement. But it appears that the CD’s being offered are overstocked recordings the companies couldn’t sell anyway. “The impression one gets from the list is that the record companies are just unloading overstock. It appears many libraries will receive too many copies of some titles and others they don’t want at all.”

“A mysterious epidemic of organ “leprosy” is sweeping Europe, corroding pipes and threatening to silence some of the continent’s most renowned instruments. The European Union has mounted a major effort to save them, even though it is not yet known whether modern central heating, air pollution or something else is causing the problem. Organs were the personal computers of their era, the most complicated devices made by humans.”

Two US music promoters are suing recording giant Universal for $100 million, claiming the company forced them to submit falsely inflated invoices. “Universal used these to make top names such as Nelly unwittingly pay for other artists’ promotion, the promoters say.”

A bidder paid a record $2 million for musical instrument Friday, buying the “Lady Tennant” Stradivarious. “Made when Antonio Stradivari was 55 years old, the violin earned its name from one of its former owners – the wife of Scottish industrialist Sir Charles Tennant, who was given the instrument by her husband in 1900. The earliest known owner of the violin was the French player Charles Philippe Lafont, a contemporary of Nicolo Paganini.”

Christopher Barron, chief executive of Scottish Opera, has become the third major executive to leave Scottish Opera. “Barron has been joint chief executive of both Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet since 2000. However, the two boards were split last year after the opera’s escalating debts forced a restructuring deal on the company, making Barron’s dual position untenable. His departure, which had been widely speculated for some time, follows that of chairman Duncan McGhie, who stepped down in July 2004, and music director Richard Armstrong, who announced in December that he would leave in the summer.”

Mauro Melli speaks out about his difficult tenure and departure as general manager of La Scala. “From the day I became general manager, the Scala unions quit speaking to me. They pushed against everything: against me, against Maestro Muti, against the world. I am very sad in this moment, because I came to La Scala with great passion and enthusiasm.”

A long-forgotten concert recording of a jazz concert provides some interesting historical insight. “The tapes come from a concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 29, 1957, a benefit for a community center. The concert was recorded by the Voice of America, the international broadcasting service, and the tapes also include sets by the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, Ray Charles with a backing sextet, the Zoot Sims Quartet with Chet Baker, and the Sonny Rollins Trio. But it is Monk with Coltrane that constitutes the real find. That band existed for only six months in 1957.”