Category: music

Last week’s court ruling requiring artists to get licenses for clips they sample could have a big chilling effect on creativity. “In the long run, this will lead to mediocrity in the music. People may say, `Well, why is [Sean “P. Diddy” Combs] just sampling Rick James, that’s not very creative.’ But if you sit down and talk to him, he’ll break it down that he could have done more creative stuff — a Rick James riff, a James Brown beat — but it would have cost him an arm and a leg.”

Tom Strini enumerates the decline of the classical music business and wonders if classical music will “regain the standing it had in society in the first half of the 20th century?” He concludes: “No. Classical music and new music rising from that tradition will remain marginal. We can take comfort in the fact that almost every cultural commodity is marginal these days – marginality is a matter of degree.”

The Pittsburgh Symphony finished this past season with its budget balanced. But its ability to do that in the future will depend in part on new contracts negotiated this year at Big Five orchestras. As of next season, Pittsburgh musicians are guaranteed a contract tied to 95 percent of the average wage paid at Big Five orchestras.

The prestigious Curtis Institute is widening its search for a new director to include orchestra managers, arts presenters, and a wider swath of school administrators. “Previously, the elite music conservatory had been looking for a leader who was both a strong administrator and a musician with a major performing career – someone in the mold of current Curtis director-president Gary Graffman.”

What is to become of the classical operations of Bertelsman and Sony, which have announced they’re merging. “The vaults of each company hold a priceless trove of master tapes that document the work of many of the greatest musicians of the last century. More broadly, these recordings offer an overview of American musical life through the late 1970’s, when both companies began to lose interest in recording the top American orchestras, and European labels like Decca and Deutsche Grammophon moved in to take up the cause.”

Pianist Mitsuko Uchida doesn’t believe in competitions. But she has a foundation to help musicians. “I don’t teach because I hated being a student myself.” So how does she get involved in a practical way? “Well, I make music with them, of course! Isn’t that the only way to learn? When I really like a young player, I invite him or her to rehearse with me, and then maybe if things go well, we give a little concert somewhere not too important.”

Music has always played a role in church. But hip-hop hasn’t penetrated much. Still, “from the church side, a growing number of ministries are adopting both the rhythms and the bluntness of hip-hop culture.” In the New York area alone, at least 150 churches or ministries use hip-hop in some form. These include many storefront churches or campus ministries.”

The Pittsburgh Symphony is without a music director this season. “Most significant will be how the orchestra fares as it steps out on its own for the first time since Mariss Jansons arrived seven years ago. This is not the first time the PSO has been without an active music director. It happened from 1948 to 1952, when Fritz Reiner left for the Chicago Symphony, from 1984 to 1987 after Andre Previn departed and in the 1996-97 season before Jansons arrived. In each of these cases, the PSO survived, and even benefited from the exposure to new conductors.”

For the first time in its history, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has a home of its own. “The center is a symbol of transformation for an orchestra that, in a labor agreement last year, handed more power to its musicians and replaced the position of artistic director with a diverse field of artistic partners.”

It was only four years ago that the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra faced the very real prospect of bankruptcy, with the best-case scenario seeming to be a drastic cutback in the ensemble’s artistic quality and national profile. And yet, as the SLSO prepares for its 125th season this fall, it has raised $80 million for its endowment, appointed a new high-profile music director (David Robertson) to replace the late Hans Vonk, and generally sent out word that it is as viable an organization as any in the U.S.