Category: music

San Francisco critics have been complaining about classical station KDFC. But the station seems to be a hit with listeners. “The station is advertised with such slogans as ‘Relax. You feel different here.’ KDFC has been the top-rated music station in the Bay Area several times in recent years, and the most successful classical station in the country. No other major-market classical station reaches even the Top 20. Listenership, has increased from about 300,000 a week in 1997 to almost double that number today. So, are the letter-writing critics just a snobbish, demanding minority?”

Even by today’s low standards, the Milwaukee Symphony is struggling mightily at the box office and on the ledger sheet. A new management team has garnered early praise, but the coming season will represent a watershed moment for the orchestra, as it attempts to recoup recent sales losses and reconnect with the city. The desperation for a quick turnaround has led the MSO to program a season made up almost entirely of guaranteed classical hits like Beethoven’s 9th and “Carmina Burana,” to introduce “subtle theatrical elements” to the concert experience, and even to experiment with a video component. On top of all that, the orchestra is cutting ticket prices on a wide variety of concerts.

George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess is arguably the greatest American opera ever composed. But despite its popularity, the opera is rarely staged, either in the US or in Europe. The sticking point is the Gershwin estate’s insistence that all the roles in any production of the work must be filled by black singers. “At a time of widespread discrimination, the socially conscious Gershwins had no intention of undermining Porgy’s credibility by parading before their audience a white cast crudely disguised in blackface. Admirable as their attitude may have been, it has necessarily slowed down the entry of Porgy and Bess into the standard repertory. Though the situation is changing for the better, most opera companies still have limited access to black singers. Producing Porgy effectively means hiring a second company.”

An opera scheduled to produced by the Bolshoi Theatre has caught the ire of “pro-Kremlin MPs”, who have branded the piece “vulgar and pornographic”. Scandal to follow. The opera is Rosenthal’s Children, which “features a godlike figure who creates clones of famous composers, and was to open later this month. The libretto was written by Vladimir Sorokin, a controversial postmodernist author.”

That line over there? Yes that one. What are they waiting for in the cold. At 6 AM? Hundreds of them? Tickets for Wagner. Think you’d see this in a US city? “I was there at 6am. The box office opened at 10. There were people queueing before me. I had no thermals, but cut a dash with pyjama bottoms under my jeans and a borrowed Cossack hat. I am no wimp, and have been called brave by dentists, but it really was stark-bollock freezing.”

As musicians and music execs gather in Gateshead for this year’s World Music Awards, one wonders: the “world” music celebrated in the West isn’t necissarily the music played in the countries of origin. So do the nominations “represent the cream of the world’s music or simply the tastes and interests of a group of self-appointed Western experts?” And does it matter?

Why is it that new music that gets to be popular with audiences is so seldom programmed in concert halls, asks Julian Lloyd-Webber. “Sadly, the impression persists that new compositions which have proved attractive to audiences are considered too populist by certain powerful figures in the classical music world.”

After considering 200 applicants over two years, the Annapolis Symphony has chosen Jose-Luis Novo as its new music director. Novo “currently serves as music director and conductor of the Binghamton (New York) Philharmonic. He’ll keep that post, along with the Annapolis job.”

Christian rock is hot these days, with touring bands strumming for Jesus at sold-out arenas and stadiums across the US. But in San Francisco, the country’s fourth-largest city, the audience for Christian rock is so small that the tours don’t even bother to stop there. This is a city that is not used to being ignored by any slice of the American culture pie, even if the values of said slice seem a bit at odds with San Francisco’s classically leftist vibe. The irony is that the Bay Area actually helped jumpstart the Christian music revolution a couple of decades back.

Movie music has long been featured in the concert hall, with the lush scores of John Williams and the jazzy instrumentals of Henry Mancini dovetailing nicely with much of the classical repertoire. But video game scores? Believe it or not, game companies are hiring composers to write serious music for their epic adventures, and orchestras are beginning to program them. Is it a gimmick designed to attract new audiences? Sure. Does the score to Final Fantasy VI stack up to Beethoven? No. But the concerts have been a hit, especially with young people, and no one needs to tell American orchestras how hard it is to snare that particular demographic…