Category: music

Dorian Recordings, one of the last record labels truly devoted to classical music, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month, and things may be even worse than that bit of news would make it seem. “Typically, companies that file under the code plan to negotiate a settlement with their creditors, and continue to operate. But language in court documents suggests the classical recording label might be planning a liquidation, a move seen more frequently under a Chapter 7 filing.”

Why did John Eliot Gardiner set up his recording label? “The catalyst came five years ago, when Deutsche Grammophon pulled out of a project to record all the 198 sacred cantatas that he, together with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, were performing on his millennial Bach Pilgrimage. The CDs were supposed to be, in every sense, a record of this historic tour, which began in the Bach heartland of Weimar and then criss-crossed Europe presenting the church cantatas on the feast days for which they were composed. In the event, DG issued only a handful of CDs from a potential 50 or more.”

“Thanks to broadband technology, the internet has created thousands of new radio stations that, generated simply by the home PCs of amateur DJs, cater to every music taste, no matter how obscure. These days, anyone can be a radio star. You don’t have to be a technical whiz to join this radio revolution – all you need is a PC and a subscription to a radio website, such as Shoutcast or Live365.”

English conductor John Nott has a dream job. In his five years as head of the Bamberg Symphony, he’s remade the orchestra. “The Bamberg musicians play with a dark, rich sound, but also a sense of fantasy and adventure. But it’s no surprise the players should seem so content: they are the only big cultural show in town, revelling in the astonishing statistic that 10% of the entire population – more than 7,000 Bambergers – are subscribers to the symphony orchestra.”

“The growing popularity of satellite and Internet radio is creating a new source of royalties for performing artists… Under traditional copyright law, royalties have gone only to composers and music publishers. The new royalities, from airplay on the fast-growing XM and Sirius satellite services, are being paid to performers and the copyright holder of the recording — generally a record label or, in some cases, the people who lease the master recording.”

The last few years haven’t been the best of times for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Low pay, budget problems, and a lingering resentment from some musicians over the way the ESO dismissed former music director Grzegorz Nowak had some observers wondering if the orchestra could ever right itself. But the palpable enthusiasm emanating from all sides of the organization this week after the announcement that Bill Eddins would become the ESO’s new music director seems to be having a restorative effect on a troubled institution. The musicians were so sure he was their man that they asked the orchestra board to suspend the search process after Eddins’ last visit.

The pact reached this week between the San Diego Symphony and San Diego Opera to share a common orchestra is significant for both organizations, and the deal appears to have been reached without much acrimony, an accomplishment for two groups which have not always played well together. Part of the success of the deal was getting away from traditional notions of a merger, which usually imply pending unemployment for some musicians and staffers. Instead, orchestra and opera officials are taking pains not to use the m-word, and are instead calling the pact a “contract for services.”

The Salzburg Festival will produce all 22 of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s operas and musical theatre works next year in a marathon 250th birthday present to the Austrian musical genius…

Attempting to make a list of American musical geniuses is an exercise doomed to fail, writes Joe Nickell. First there’s the problem of how you define genius. And it gets even more difficult from there. “Why attempt to narrow the field of geniuses when so many have clearly existed, in many different cultures and traditions and disciplines, throughout history?”

So some rail stations in England are playing classical music to scare away hoodlums. Bust doesn’t music have a more profound effect? “Which country achieved the best Year 10 results in science and mathematics last year? Finland is the answer. Yes, Finland, with a population the size of Scotland’s and an impenetrable language. What are the Finns doing right? Every child in Finland is given an instrument to play from the first day at school. They learn to read notes on stave before letters on page. They spend hours at drawing and drama. The result is a society of with few tensions and profound culture. Finnish Radio broadcasts in Latin once a week. Finnish railways do not need to play Sibelius, except for pleasure.”