Category: music

The Metropolitan Opera has named Sony Classical president Peter Gelb to succeed Joseph Volpe as general manager. The appointment came more quickly than some observers were anticipating – Volpe won’t leave his post until 2006 – and Gelb could be seen as an unexpected GM, having had no direct experience in the performance world. “The Met has 850 full-time and 1,200 part-time employees and a budget of $204 million, and it mounts as many as 30 productions a year. The general manager has to deal with 18 unions, scores of instrumentalists and temperamental stars.”

Peter Gelb got his first job at the Met, as an usher, when he was still a teenager. Now he’ll be expected to continue Joe Volpe’s successful run, and to steer the massive company through an increasingly difficult time for classical music in general. Gelb’s years at Sony Classical made him a target for purists – he shut down several specialty sub-labels and made “crossover” music a priority – and some longtime Met observers wonder if he will take a similarly commercial approach in his new post.

The Adelaide Symphony lost its two top executives last week. With an accumulated deficit of about $2.5 million, and with an operating loss of a further $150,000 predicted for this year, the orchestra is looking ahead to more stability…

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians’ contract will expire at midnight tonight, and the players have already cleaned out their lockers at Symphony Hall in anticipation of a possible strike. “CSO contract negotiations are usually contentious, and settlements typically come at the last minute. Though there was no strike in 2000, the talks that led to the CSO’s current four-year contract were regarded as particularly acrimonious.”

The CSO contract has been extended again, this time for a single day, in the wake of last-minute talks that both sides have called productive. The musicians have scheduled an all-orchestra meeting for Tuesday morning, when they will either vote to ratify or a new contract or call a strike.

At the recent symposium on the future of classical music criticism, a familiar argument raged over the role of the critic in promoting the form. “The assumption seems to be that music journalists can help keep classical music alive by constantly writing how wonderful it is and how terrific all those folks are who play it.” But besides being an absurd line of reasoning, doesn’t cheerleading demean the whole idea of intelligent criticism? “Critics, in every field, are indeed advocates. But not only for performing artists. We also must consider the audience and defend them from mediocrity and worse. At the core of this job is an allegiance to great art, and to those who create it.”

Rebuffed in its attempts to move to lower Manhattan, New York City Opera is negotiating to build a new home near Lincoln Center.

With less than 72 hours before their contract runs out, it looks likely that musicians of the Chicago Symphony will be going out on strike. “During the last two weeks key issues such as salaries, health care and pension costs and work rules have not been broached even in conversations between the negotiating committee and management representatives, let alone as serious talking points, sources say.”

Clearly, the way of the future is getting music over the internet. And this will be good for the music business. “But the question facing the music industry is when that future will arrive. And the issue is most urgent for the four big companies that dominate the production and distribution of music—Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI.”

“Two violinists from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra have been reunited with their instruments after they were stolen seven months ago.” The instruments, both of which were valuable 19th-century specimens, were taken out of the back seat of a car, and were reportedly recovered by a branch of the Vancouver Police known as the Intelligence Unit for Eastern European Organized Crime.