Category: music

Charles Dutoit has signed a contract extension which will keep him in front of the Philadelphia Orchestra as summer music director through 2008. The orchestra spends most of its summer at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York, where Dutoit has led them since 1990.

Say what you will about Charlotte Church or Vanessa Mae and the crossover dreck they peddle, there can be no question that such artists are popular, largely because the full marketing strength of major record companies are four square behind them. The days when classical music was important enough to sell itself are long over, and after years of bemoaning that fact while doing nothing about it, “classical music is using the tools of the pop industry to raise its profile. The old criteria for judging music and interpreter, based on informed opinion and a gradual evolution of talent, have lost ground. What counts now is sales volume.”

“Hopes that a large-scale opera company will be established in Melbourne as the result of an inquiry ordered by Premier Steve Bracks appear to have been dashed… Government sources say there will be no return to the days of the Victoria State Opera, which disappeared after facing financial collapse in 1996. It is believed the costs involved would be too great.”

Andre Previn has won the $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize. “Awarded once every three years, the international prize is open to individuals from any country and in a range of fields, including musical creation or performance, film, radio, musical theatre and writing. Past recipients include Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, jazz icon Oscar Peterson, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violist Yehudi Menuhin and conductor Pierre Boulez.”

Julian Lloyd Webber takes exception to doom-and-gloom stories about the health of classical music. “The trouble with polemics on this scale is that they raise more questions than answers. But are things really that bad? The answer depends on your view of classical music. If you think it should remain a fossilised art that never changes its methods of dissemination or presentation, the answer is yes. If, on the other hand, you believe – as I do – that classical music is a living, vibrant art that evolves alongside society, the answer is no.”

Jiri Belohlavek on what he wants to accomplish as new director of the BBC Symphony Orchestra: “I came to the evaluation that I can offer a focus on the mainstream repertoire, the mastery of playing, sound quality and ensemble playing, qualities that I have focused on over a career of more than 25 years. And I will have a colleague who is focused on contemporary music. But we will not be putting up artificial borders, so that he does only Steve Reich and I do only Beethoven.”

“Glasgow City Council meets next week to consider a financial package to pass control of the Theatre Royal to the Ambassador Theatre Group, one of the UK’s largest stage entertainment companies. The complex deal is designed to rid Scottish Opera, which currently owns the building, of the heavy burden of maintaining it. But it also promises to bring high-profile touring works to Glasgow.”

The St. Louis Symphony strike/lockout (depending on whom you ask) is now a month old, and the odd civility that initially surrounded the situation appears to be all but gone. As the musicians crank up the PR machine, playing a free children’s concert at a local church, they are also taking shots at the SLSO management for refusing mediation and failing to make any counterproposal to what the musicians offered several weeks back. In return, the orchestra’s president is calling the musicians “really dumb” for not being willing to accept the management’s last contract offer, which would have dealt them a pay cut of more than $10,000.

Since the work stoppage in St. Louis began, musicians have been claiming that they’re locked out, while the orchestra management insists that the players are on strike. Four weeks in, the state of Missouri has weighed in, and the verdict is that the stoppage is a strike.

“Not quite. But judging from its performance on the charts – and compared to its biggest bands and trends from a few years ago – it’s wheezing. Cast your eye down 2004’s Top 10-selling album list and you won’t see a single new rock band.” Even as the popularity of country, hip-hop and R&B continues to soar, rock groups can’t seem to buy attention, and many blame the influx of crossover sugar-pop acts for diluting rock’s pool. “When rock was more muscular – during the eras of grunge (mid-’90s), punk-pop (late ’90s) and rap-metal (turn-of-the-century) – no such tepid pop crossover was even necessary.”