Category: music

“Pay cuts for staff, expense reductions and donation increases to $10,000 each from all 40 members of the Utah Symphony & Opera Board of Trustees are part of a three-year financial recovery plan approved Thursday by the board… At stake are ‘structural’ deficits in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 of $1.7 million and $3.3 million and a forecast structural deficit for fiscal year 2005 of at least $3.2 million.” The board also voted to release details of an independent audit which had previously been kept from all but a handful of top executives and board members. The study cites anger and disillusionment over the recent merger of the symphony and opera as a major reason for a precipitous drop in donations.

“Next month sees the release of one of the most eagerly awaited classical recordings of modern times. Simon Rattle’s interpretation of Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ rounds off his EMI cycle of all nine Mahler symphonies, an achievement matched only by a handful of conductors. The CD will be marketed as ‘live’. What no one will mention is that two long patching sessions, under studio conditions, were needed to complete it. Patching has become standard practice with so-called “live” recordings. Consumers are promised a listening experience that replicates that of the concert hall. The reality is a collection of edited highlights from different performances and back-up sessions, with all the flaws airbrushed out.”

One of the finest Stradivarius violins ever made is the subject of a furious bidding war in the UK, as the Royal Academy of Music struggles to raise the £1 million necessary to keep it in Britain. The violin, known as the “Viotti” Strad, was recently played in public for the first time in 200 years, and is on display six days a week. “The Viotti is on a par with the ‘Messiah’, or Le Messie, Stradivarius in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which, the conditions of its bequest state, must never be played.”

Attracting competent managers to the comparatively low-paying orchestra industry is one of the biggest challenges an ensemble can face, and AJ Blogger Drew McManus sees some exceedingly dangerous and short-sighted philosophies among not only the current executives at American symphonies, but the rising young crop of new managers as well. Particularly at risk from bad management are smaller regional orchestras, where a “part-time” mentality can hamstring an ensemble and keep it in the very back of the symphonic pack for years.

“Milan’s La Scala fired its top executive on Thursday as the world-famous opera house battles to plug a growing budget hole. … The theater’s board sacked superintendent Carlo Fontana, citing ‘differences’ with temperamental conductor Riccardo Muti.”

“When Lorin Maazel bounds onto the podium at Avery Fisher Hall on Tuesday, he will be wearing formal concert dress. But in a certain way, this jet-setting superstar conductor and, to put it mildly, highly self-assured musician will be standing there naked. In a rare event, the New York Philharmonic program will consist entirely of music composed by Mr. Maazel himself.” The all-Mazel program celebrates the Philharmonic music director’s 75th birthday.

“There are occasional years when the Oscars intersect with popular music culture. Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen have both been past winners. Eminem picked up an Oscar in 2003 with ‘Lose Yourself’, his compelling theme from 8 Mile. It was the first rap song to win, brushing off stiff competition from U2 singing the ‘The Hands That Built America’ from (perpetually neglected director) Martin Scorcese’s Gangs of New York and, er, Paul Simon performing the theme from The Wild Thornberrys Movie. But that is the exception.” Why is the Oscar for Best Song in such a sorry state?

Following the collapse of mediated negotiations to end an 8-week-old work stoppage by its musicians, the St. Louis Symphony has obtained a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board declaring that the musicians are engaged in an illegal strike. The charge stems from the failure of the musicians’ attorney to file the correct paperwork with the NLRB before the expiration of their last contract. The musicians, for their part, admit that they never filed the necessary papers (the attorney claims that he did it on purpose,) but have held fast to the view that they are not on strike at all, and that the SLSO management has locked them out.

The Buffalo Philharmonic is consolidating several 2005 performances to balance its budget after losing more than $700,000 in anticipated public funding. The money was to have come from New York’s Erie County, which includes Buffalo, but a budget crunch forced the county to trim its own expenses, leaving the Philharmonic several hundred thousand dollars short of a balanced season.

It was nearly three years ago that the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera merged their operations, supposedly in order to pool their resources and make both groups more financially secure. But last summer, during contract negotiations, the merged organization’s musicians became suspicious about ballooning deficits, and requested an independent audit of the Symphony/Opera’s finances. The results of that audit are now in, but the company is refusing to share the information with its full board, despite indications that the audit placed the organization near bankruptcy.