Category: music

Mezzo Anne-Sofie von Otter is an established star. And what is she recording next? And album of ABBA songs. Really? “Why apply a refined instrument that is trained to achieve a supernatural range on the works of a band that groomed itself for the most feeble-minded of musical conventions, the Eurovision Song Contest?”

The Hong Kong Philharmonic has had a tumultuous few years. Now Edo de Waart has taken over the orchestra. “Although de Waart’s primary appeal is to the government, his comments seem equally pitched to the business community, from which he hopes to generate more private support. ‘The challenge for a symphony orchestra in Asia is figuring out what and for whom we play. On one hand we’re an inventor, trying to perfect our product. But we’re also the shopkeeper, keeping track of who’s buying’.”

Rap is popular all over the world, where it has been adapted into local cultures. “The rap form allows a powerful voice for political invective, and is being used on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The appeal of hip-hop has found a voice in the alienated Arab-Israeli/Palestinian communities within Israel, dominated by the Jewish majority and identifying with the sentiments of US rappers in their struggle against discrimination.”

“The dance-hip-hop collective, Asian Dub Foundation, is planning a production of Gaddafi (working title), due for February 2006, with a rapper playing Gaddafi and a chorus comprised of his all-female cohort of bodyguards. Why is it that The Producers springs to mind with visions of Gaddafi’s bodyguards instead of Gestapo lovelies goosestepping à la Busby Berkeley?”

Tim Page has been to a lot of operas. So when he writes about the Washington National Opera’s production of Il Trovatore that: “the production is a thoroughgoing horror, and Saturday night in particular provided one of the worst performances of any opera I’ve ever seen. Graves aside, the singers strove mightily to pull themselves up onto the lowest rungs of mediocrity (were we really at the Kennedy Center?)” you might want to pay attention…

“Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Brazilian singer, guitarist, and composer Gilberto Gil are the winners of the 2005 Polar Music Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music announced today in Stockholm. The 14-year-old annual prize, which is usually awarded to a classical musician and a pop or jazz musician, is the world’s biggest music prize, at one million Swedish Kroners, or approximately $135,000.”

Jerry Springer – The Opera is a hit right? Well, it could close in London as early as today. “The award-winning musical has fallen prey to one of the worst years for ticket sales in West End history which, combined with the financial impact of a legal action against the Daily Mail, its producers say, has pushed the show into crisis.”

“Pop music has often been described as a disposable commodity, yet the music industry’s relentless repackaging of the past tends to ensure that pop songs are for life and not just for three minutes. But what happens when the artists themselves cannot but cringe at the enduring success of their more pathetic efforts?”

In the past year, the recording industry has sued thousands of music downloaders for copyright infringement. “Previous studies reported that music downloading dropped as much as 50 percent after the RIAA started suing individual file traders.” But a new study says that’s not true. Indeed, file-trading is flourishing…

Peter G. Davis marvels at the James Levine phenomenon: “Not since the days of Arturo Toscanini has a conductor been so extolled in the local press as a musician without flaw.” But Davis wonders why: “Despite his ubiquity, Levine’s musical personality remains, for some of us at least, just as mysterious as his private nature. I’ve read the raves over the years, but I can’t recall one that attempted to describe, let alone analyze, the specific nature of his interpretive aims and how they change our perception of the music.”